CHAPTER TWO

 

 

Trixie was a frail, terrified glacier. She clamped her eyes shut for two seconds, then unglued them again, hoping the illusion would fade. It didn’t. The stranger still sat on her couch, his back to her. There was an odd, hunched shape about him. Presumably the figure was a man, but she of all people knew better than to make these sorts of judgments. Gender coding without damned good proof tended to be problematic.

The intruder didn’t move.

Trixie was so gripped with fear that she dared not utter a peep, even though she felt like she could be a major candidate for Scream Queen of the Year if she were allowed to give the audition right this second.

Maybe he was asleep. Maybe he hadn’t noticed the light. Maybe she could creep by him unseen.

She decided these were birdbrained assumptions, as what sort of an intruder worth his salt would take the initiative to break into someone’s apartment only to take a nap? She could see the headline now: Napping Burglar Strikes Downtown Sweetville. Lock Up your Pillows and Blankies. She supposed it was possible. She’d certainly encountered stranger things in Sweetville.

However, the man hadn’t moved, so maybe the odds were still on her side. Time for Trixie to tiptoe to the kitchen, grab the biggest, sharpest, scariest knife. Maybe even dash back to the bedroom to dial 911, lock her door and prepare for the worst. Her building lacked a properly working fire escape, so it would not be in the best interest of her bones to attempt to flee via the window. The front door was still padlocked as she had left it, but that also wasn’t an option because she would have to pass right in front of the intruder. It was clear she didn’t have many options. The knife idea seemed most useful. She took a deep breath and made two cautious steps toward the kitchen.

“I'd rather you not attempt anything rash, sweetness,” the man said, his back still turned to her.

Trixie released the scream that had been tickling at her throat.

Tears formed at the corners of her eyes and her body quivered. Her bare toes dug into the shag carpet and brushed against long-lost crumbs and fingernail clippings. She nibbled at the corner of her lip, trying to maintain her composure.

“Let’s sit and have a little chat,” he said, patting the open seat next to him. “Do you have any Chardonnay, perchance? I’m parched beyond belief. I’ll certainly accept some Sauvignon Blanc if that’s all you have, but really I’m hoping for something more, er, voluptuous.”

Trixie couldn’t trace the accent in his voice. It was generically Eastern European, if Poland was south of Hades. Gruff and deep. There was a rasp to his words that chilled her far more than the wind that still crept through the window. It was a sound somewhere between a whistle and a gargle.

“Uh…I don’t have any…”

He turned and cocked his head. His profile was a Picasso.

Trixie’s body shook, her eyes darting, legs scooting. She inched toward the kitchen, wishing she had the telekinetic abilities of a tragic prom queen so she could send a knife flying from the kitchen into her hand.

“Please don’t move. I'm not planning to harm you. I absolutely loathe unnecessary violence.” He paused as if he had forgotten a crucial sequence in the middle of a public speech. “Conversely, I do have an affinity for violence that is necessary. Though, realistically, I have enough people in my employ to take care of that for me. Why exert such effort when it’s not required?”

He finally got up from his stolen seat, revealing he was barely taller than the back of the second-hand sofa. Not much more than a menacing midget, really. Half a threat.

Trixie involuntarily let loose an inappropriate laugh that had been welling up inside her.

His body was too wide for such a small frame—like a low-rent Augustus Gloop who had never grown out of his awkward phase. He wore a thick, olive pea coat and a dusty pork pie hat that kept his facial features somewhat hidden, as well as a pair of leather elevator shoes that offered him an extra inch or two. After a momentary stare-off, he waddled around the arm of the couch to stand in front of her, his face now visible beneath the remaining dim bulb and the patches of neon light floating into the apartment.

His eyes glowed with a purple hue, and his face was marred by symmetrical scarification that looked like it might have been professionally done. An epidermal road map? But to where? The flickering light from the ceiling highlighted the wicked pockmarks that were as grotesque as they were fascinating.

He extended a gnarled, bloated hand. The tips of his never-groomed nails glistened at the end of each scaly, bulbous finger. His hand was bejeweled with a copper bracelet containing comically large turquoise stones, a watch with a face the size of a small planet, and rings containing sparkling sapphires and spikes.

“Pardon my manners. You can call me Kast,” he said. “That’s with a K, mind you. I don’t want you thinking you can sign ‘Get Well Soon’ on my forehead.” He chortled at his own funny.

Trixie was silent. Her brain screamed, but her voice was dry and refused to cooperate.

“Well, I saw your foul feline on the way in. I’m confident that it hasn’t done anything with your tongue. Detestable creature. You’ll be better off if it never returns. I truly hope you had him fixed. Too many feral beasts in this city. Poison them all and let an Egyptian god sort them out, if you want my honest opinion.”

She stared at Kast in shock, unable to believe any of this was real.

“Please,” Kast said, extending his hand to invite her to her own couch, “come sit with me. Let us chat.”

“What the hell do you want? Why are you in my apartment? How did you—” Trixie balled her fists, struggling to appear tough. “I don’t have anything worth any money here. Go rob someone up in the Sweethills.”

“Don’t fret, pet. I know who you are. I’m relatively aware of your finances. You didn’t choose this apartment for its amenities and fabulous view. Audrey’s a nice old gal, and she makes a superb rhubarb pie, but I know she can’t afford to pay her employees the big bucks.”

Trixie gulped, realizing she had been watched, but for how long? And why?

“And I’m surely polite enough to ask before I take anyone’s property, always promptly returned,” he said. “Try not to take this personally, but I consider my tastes to be a smidge more highbrow. I doubt you’d have anything I’d be interested in. I’m merely here for a proposition.”

Trixie felt like she had taken a sip from milk that was a week past its due date.

“I don’t… I’m not sure who you’ve been talking to, but I don’t do that anymore,” she said. “It’s been well over a year since… I’m a totally different girl now. God, I bet Greyson and Orin put you up to this. They did, didn’t they? Don’t believe anything the Zane brothers have been—”

The dwarf squealed and held one deformed finger to his weather-beaten lips.

“—telling you.” Her voice dropped to a murmur.

“Oh, dear. Nonononono. You misunderstand me. Pardon my ambiguity. I did not intend for that sort of interpretation. Plus, as it stands, you are not my, ahem, type.”

She swallowed what little saliva remained in her throat. She could have sworn Kast had nodded his head in the direction of her crotch. He knew. Somehow he knew. That pesky penis, always getting in the damned way of nearly every moment of her life. Constantly haunting her. A daily reminder that she was still in her pupal stage.

Trixie felt she deserved to have the facts about her birth remain unknown unless the words came from her very own lips. Even then, she preferred The Truth remain locked away. The combination misplaced, buried in a long-forgotten time capsule. It was her right as a woman, even if it had taken her an enormous amount of work to get to this point—or, perhaps, because of this very fact. She wondered who could have—who would have—violated her secret. She was now certain that the Zane brothers were behind this invasion of her privacy. They had been disappointed when she ended their little agreement. Even though this part of her past was more recent than she cared to admit, after Ms. Jessica had helped her get that first real, respectable job at MOXY, Trixie felt her old, less desirable ways of moneymaking had become obsolete. Her old life was a first draft that had been so revised and fine-tuned that the memories may as well have belonged to someone else.

“I don’t under—”

“Oh, and by the way, I apologize for polishing off your spaghetti leftovers,” Kast said. “But I was positively famished. I hope you don’t mind. I guess that’s the exception that proves my ask-before-borrow rule. However, I do still need something dry to wash out my gullet if you wouldn’t mind. Quite good pasta, I must say, even straight from the refrigerator. Was that from Mad Mario’s? What an exquisite little Italian deli.”

Trixie ignored his question and suppressed a contemptuous frown. She had been saving the spaghetti for tomorrow’s lunch.

“Well, wherever it was from,” Kast continued, “I could have easily consumed twice as much. Of course, they wouldn’t even have a taste.”

Trixie’s face twisted into a scowl. She was through being scared. Now she was just plain pissed.

“Diets. My, oh my,” Kast said, tapping at his belly. “Not for me at all. I’m a man who loves a hearty meal. But, I digress. I come to represent some business partners from Lower Sweetville. We are at liberty to offer you something you so desperately want.”

Kast’s use of “they” and “we” was causing Trixie a great deal of confusion, and he noticed the befuddlement on her face.

“Oh, my etiquette is all out of sync tonight. Allow me to introduce you to my associates. Security!” Kast made a quick golf clap and, before Trixie had time to respond, two thin forms slithered from the shadows. Chimerical camouflage that had kept them hidden among the curtains no longer applied.

At first, Trixie thought her mind was playing tricks. But she remembered she had not dropped any Sweet Candy that evening, so there was nothing preventing the apparitions from being real. She figured out quickly, though, who the freakish beings were.

The Withering Wyldes.

Or, at least, a couple of them.

Not that anyone could tell one from the other. Not that they were even considered individuals anymore. Not that there was really a convenient singular form for referencing them.

Trixie wondered what they could possibly want with her. She had never signed one of their many petitions. She had never even made eye contact with them on the street, much less given them any donations for their cause.

They whispered and hissed syllables in a tongue she didn’t recognize. The sounds that passed through their pale, chapped lips made her giddy. And she was unable to resist the caress of their clammy, vampirish fingers as they formed gentle cuffs around her wrists.

Like the others of their kind, these Withering Wyldes were six feet tall and some change, one hundred pounds, give or take. Their emaciated frames gave them the appearance of phasmids with delusions of humanity. Flesh a near translucent blue, highlighting their skeletal forms. Black, beady button eyes glimmered on their faces, just above barely-existent noses. Impossibly wide clownish grins revealed teeth caked with plaque. Long, patchy tufts of matted hair adorned a few spots on their long, thin heads and other random body parts. They were vivid, phantasmic dreams that could be touched. Anti-Adonises, yet somehow still attractive.

Of course, that may have been one of their many little tricks.

Trixie turned away from the Withering Wyldes. Though she could no longer see their bastardized bodies, she could still smell them. A distinct cinnamon-meets-vanilla aroma floated through the apartment.

Not at all unpleasant.

Soothing.

Drugging.

Lovely.

Almost euphoric, it was the safest Trixie had ever felt. Like Sweet Candy laced with dopamine. She tried to shake off these thoughts but then released her inhibitions and welcomed the loss of control. She felt the tips of dreams slowly forming.

The Withering Wyldes removed their sinewy hands, leaving faint marks around her wrists like dollar-store friendship bracelets. Trixie returned to reality but with less resistance to her predicament.

“There now,” Kast said. “All nice and calm. Nothing like a little pick-me-up, especially when it’s all-natural. I may not be Monty Hall, but let’s make a deal, shall we?” More impish laughter. Again, he seemed to find himself far more entertaining than Trixie did. But the way Trixie was feeling, how relaxed she had become as a result of being touched by the Withering Wyldes, she almost wanted to humor him.

Almost, but not quite.

She tried to regain control of her senses. Her rational mind begged for her to fight the high and she kicked awkwardly in Kast’s general direction.

“Don’t force me to get saucy with you, now, love,” he said. I may be small and portly, but I still have ways to cause you grief, if need be. Or to pay someone else to do my dirty work for me.” As much as he attempted the contrary, his voice became more nefarious with every word.

Trixie took a deep, meditative breath and locked eyes with Kast. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

“Well, now, of course you do. Don’t be silly. I think you’ll be pleased with what we have to offer.” He fiddled around with the pockets in the inner lining of his pea coat. “Now where did I put that godforsaken note?”

One of the Withering Wyldes whispered in his ear. Trixie tried to decipher the gibberish. No luck. No English subtitles available. Kast nodded and grumbled back to his lackey.

“Ah, yes, of course. Thank you.” Kast removed his hat, revealing a lumpy, balding head topped with protrusions that resembled a miniature Stonehenge. Liver spots dotted his scalp. A folded piece of paper fell from his hat and floated to the floor. He picked it up, unfolded it and squinted with irritated eyes. He pulled a pair of reading glasses from another of the seemingly endless pockets in his coat, put them on and read the paper again with considerably less frustration. Finally turning the paper right-side up, he smiled and held it out to Trixie, whose hands stayed glued to her sides.

“Really, dear Trixie. Don’t you trust me?”