“We need a plan.”
“That’s the umpteenth time you’ve said that,” I groused. “We’ll make one, after we decide who we’re dealing with.”
Axel had been staying at the house since he first revealed himself over three weeks previously. I had no problem with that. I also understood—on the day we went to his place to get some of his clothes—why he seemed reluctant to go home. He had been living in a studio apartment on the third floor of an older building that didn’t have an elevator.
“Why the hell…?” I’d muttered moments after entering. It was nice enough, I supposed, for what it was, with white walls, a carpeted floor, the requisite furniture, two closets, and a tiny bathroom and kitchen.
He’d shrugged. “I only use it for sleeping so size didn’t matter. And it’s cheap.”
Cheap did matter to him. He’d been in Denver a month longer than I, and still hadn’t found a job.
“Yeah, I’m picky,” he’d admitted when I’d asked. “The thing is, the security companies I checked out all said they had enough nighttime security guards on their payroll which sucked because that’s what I’m good at. I’ve done it several times, starting back before I was turned as a matter of fact, if you call being a municipal police officer one. I’ll be damned if I’m going to be a maintenance man or clerk at a sleazy hotel, and the good hotels aren’t looking for anyone. Before you say it, restaurants want waiters who can work over dinnertime, which obviously isn’t happening.”
With no money coming in, he was living on his savings from jobs he’d had over the past hundred years or more. A sizable sum, according to him, but it wouldn’t last forever.
At that point, I told him to pack up everything he wanted to bring with him because he was moving in with me on a permanent basis. He’d protested, but it was only for show, or to salve his conscience, I thought, because he quickly did as I’d said and we took his stuff back to the house in his car. It was an old one, and looked its age and then some, but it ran like a top thanks to his auto repair skills.
“Learned them from a man who owned a garage, hell, fifty years ago. Crusty old codger, but damned good at what he did. I told him I was in school so I’d only be available nights and he bought it. When I left, because I wasn’t aging and couldn’t stick around until he realized it, I knew enough to keep any car I own in top shape, as long as it’s not a newer one with all the electronics they put in them these days.”
Anyway, long story a bit shorter, he moved in. Now, we were thinking about what rich son of a bitch we should go after first.
Axel had the society pages from the local papers spread out on the dining table. I was checking online for the shakers-and-movers who might be ripe for elimination.
“Look up this guy,” Axel said, handing me the newspaper folded to the page with a picture on several men and their wives at some sort of charity gig.
“Be more specific,” I replied. “Which one?”
“Him.” He tapped the face of the man he was interested in. The peoples’ names were listed under the photo. He was, and so help this is the truth, Percival Hathaway the Fourth. I snorted when I saw that. “I wonder if he’s called Percy by his nearest and dearest.”
Axel burst out laughing. “I know. If I had a name like that I’d have changed it the minute I legally could. And he’s a ‘fourth’? Damn. I feel sorry for his forbearers. Well, not really. I wonder what his middle name is.”
I checked and shook my head. “Wainwright.”
“Too much. So tell me about him. All it says in the story is that he’s a renowned local tycoon.”
It took some searching, but I eventually found what I was looking for—a reason for us to deal with him. “He’s definitely well-known in some circles, and not in a good way. He owns a manufacturing company which, it says here, has rejected any efforts to unionize its workers, who are primarily immigrants from Mexico and South America. He pays substandard wages and doesn’t provide healthcare.”
“In other words, it a damned sweatshop,” Axel said angrily.
“So it seems, although when this story came out, Hathaway claimed it was a hatchet job by the newspaper’s editor who has it in for him because he’s, and I quote, “Doing my best to help people from impoverished nations and the paper’s labor editor is anti-immigration.”
“Any truth to that?”
I did another search and came up with nothing that said Hathaway had a leg to stand on in that respect. “The editor is definitely pro-union, if that tells you anything,” I told him.
“Before we go off half-cocked, who takes over his company when he dies?”
“You’re going to make me work for this, aren’t you,” I grumbled, getting a raised finger in reply. A few minutes later I had the answer. “His stepson from his wife’s first marriage. Apparently he can’t have kids, which is probably a good thing. How would you like to be a ‘Fifth’?”
“With that name, I think I’d kill myself first.”
“No shit. There’s very little that I can find out about the stepson, but even if his business practices turn out to be as bad as his father’s, at least we’ll be getting rid of one bastard. That is if you think we should go after him.”
“You better believe I do!”
I had a feeling part of his reason had to do with is being an immigrant himself which to some extent had led to his being here now, almost a hundred and seventy-five years later.
“Then he’s it. Next, we have to learn all we can about his daily, well, nightly habits so we can figure out how the kill the bastard without it’s coming back to haunt us in a bad way.”
Axel spent the next few nights, because I was at work, either watching Hathaway’s house or following him when he left, which was most nights as it turned out. He had an active social life, whether accompanied by his wife or on his own.
“Following him is boring,” Axel said at one point. “It makes me want to drag him into some dark corner to destroy him the way you did with your first two victims. But we can’t, so I think we should check out his company. I mean the building.” When I asked why, he explained his reasoning. “There might be something there we could use to explain his death, if we can get him there. I mean, it’s a manufacturing plant. There have to be machines, right?”
“True,” I replied, getting his drift.
We did as he suggested, and left with Axel grumbling, “OSHA sucks.”
For our purposes, I agreed, but as I pointed out, “If it wasn’t for all their rules and regulations his workers would have even worse problems, like losing a hand or an arm.”
“I know you’re right, but damn.”
He didn’t say anything else on our drive home, but it was apparent he was thinking about ways to kill Hathaway from his nods and brief smiles, which unfortunately were quickly followed by scowls as he shook his head, muttering “Nope”, or “Get real, damn it,” under his breath. Then he snapped his fingers. “Why not?” Glancing at me he said, “Don’t ask. I’ll tell you if I decide it could work.”
“Yeah, leave me in suspense. What happened to two heads are better than one?”
“Wait ‘til we get home. Okay?”
In my frustration, I tried one last thing, probing his thoughts. Not happening. He was shielding. He did pick up on my attempt, though, and laughed. “You have no patience.”
I shrugged. “Comes from being so young.”
“Had to go there, didn’t you?”
“Well…yeah.”
He finally revealed all but not until after I’d plopped down on the sofa and picked up the book I’d been reading, patently ignoring the fact he was watching me as he began to pace. So he stopped and took the book from my hands.
“What if there were things that terrified you?” he asked. “More to the point, what if your fear manifested without warning while you were at work, or out for the evening with friends, or home in bed trying to have sex with your wife.”
I almost said I don’t have a wife but didn’t because I knew he wasn’t talking about me personally. “Fear of something physical, like, I don’t know, bats, or dogs, or lightening?”
“Yes. What about bugs? No one likes them unless they’re entomologists, especially if they find them in their food, or crawling on them, right?”
“Big time.” I shuddered. “What’s that got with Hathaway?”
“Okay, suppose instead of killing him, which would definitely send up red flags no matter how we did it, we drove him crazy? It might not be as physically satisfying but watching him deteriorate might be more fun in the long run.”
I thought about what he was suggesting. “Mind control?”
“You bet. We’d have to get him away from everyone long enough to take over, but it’s possible. When he’s out to dinner he generally goes to the restroom. That could be the perfect spot.”
“To plant the idea he hated bugs with a passion, because he might not. But we’d have to reinforce it every once in a while. No, we’d have be around so we could suggest that there were insects crawling over his meal, or on his chest, or in his hair. That could be tricky.”
“Invisibility, Lucas. We could be standing across from him at dinner, or sitting next to him at a meeting, or…well, you get the picture.”
I nodded. “It would have to be you. My mind control isn’t that strong, yet. I can deal with someone to feed from them, but that’s a case of making them forget what happened. I don’t think I could make them do something.”
“You must have controlled Dex to get him to drive into the mountains.”
“True, I guess, but he knew me and trusted me. Make sense?”
“It does. So we could take turns.” He sat next to me, taking my hands. “I’ll do it most of the time, but not always. If you do it, too, it’ll strengthen your ability to control someone you don’t know.” He grinned. “If it works with Hathaway, we can do it to other sons of bitches.”
“And fill the mental hospitals.” I found that idea amusing.
“Unless they killed themselves to escape their terrors. Hell, all we’d have to do is send bugs crawling over Hathaway while he’s driving and he’d probably run off the road trying to escape them. Plan it right and he’d hit an abutment at ninety miles-per-hour, or go straight off a steep embankment.”
“That last could work if we ‘suggested’ he take a drive into the mountains. Yeah, I like that idea. I like the whole thing. This could be fun.”
“Could, couldn’t it?” Axel agreed.
* * * *
We high-fived each other Thursday night when we saw Hathaway excuse himself from the table and head toward the restroom. I glanced at his wife, not at all surprised to see a momentary flash of relief cross her face before she turned to say something to the woman sitting cattycorner from her. Then, Axel and I followed the man into the restroom. He was already unzipping when Axel moved to the urinal next to him, while I leaned against the door to keep anyone from entering.
“Do you have the time?” Axel asked Hathaway, getting a ‘you’re kidding, you’re asking now while I’m pissing’ look in return. At least that’s what I thought it was. Anyway, Axel caught his eyes and our plan was set into motion. “Remember,” Axel said after implanting the thoughts of what would happen into Hathaway’s mind, “When you hear the word ‘Alcazar’ you will do whatever you’re told next.” Then he released his hold.
For a second, Hathaway had a glazed look and shivered. Then he finished his business, zipped up, and I stepped aside to let him leave. We went invisible before going back into the dining room, and found a good place along the wall where we could watch what happened next.
::Alcazar?:: I said.
::I figured it’s not something that comes up in normal conversation.:: Axel chuckled.
::Probably not.:: I turned my attention to Hathaway.
He was commenting on the fact he needed another drink as he picked up his fork and knife to cut into his steak. His eyes widened in shock as he dropped the utensils, pushing the plate away. Then he hollered, “Waiter!”
The waiter hurried over while Hathaway’s startled companions asked what was wrong.
“What do you think is wrong,” he exclaimed, pointing at his plate. “It’s covered with flies.” He waved his hand, trying to shoo them away. Of course no one else saw them, because they weren’t there. “I want to speak to your manager,” he practically screamed at the waiter.
“Sir, what’s wrong?” the waiter asked tremulously. “Is it too rare?”
“Too rare, you stupid fool? It’s covered with goddamned flies.”
“Sir, there’s nothing there,” the manager said, having joined them. He turned to Hathaway’s wife, asking softly “How much has he had to drink?”
She was about to reply when Hathaway sprang to his feet and raced out of the restaurant. She and the other woman immediately followed while the woman’s husband asked for the check as he apologized profusely for Hathaway’s actions.
“I don’t know what got into him,” he said, handing the waiter his card. “I’ve never seen him act like this.” He sighed, turning to the manager. “I’ll admit, he did have a bit over his limit, but…” Shaking his head, he followed the waiter to the cashier’s desk and after paying, he left.
By then, of course, many of the restaurant’s patrons were talking about what had happened. From what I overheard, several of them recognized Hathaway.
::We did it!:: I said elatedly, remembering at the last second not to talk out loud since we were still invisible.
::You bet we did. This will be the talk of the town come morning, and we’ve barely started. Shall we go home and celebrate?::
I was all for that, so we did. The sex was spectacular, but then it always was. We meshed perfectly that way—and in all the other ways that counted, including coming up with the perfect plan to deal with the human scum that thought they were the be-all and end-all of existence.
Wednesday night, a week after we started tormenting Hathaway, we watched from the back seat of his Mercedes as he got in, shouting to his wife who tried to stop him, “Get your fat ass back inside. I’m fine, whether you believe it or not. I just need to get away from here for a while.”
He wasn’t fine, of course. We, or rather Axel, had seen to that. This time, as we peeked, invisible, through the front window of his house, Hathaway opened the wine cabinet in his fancy living room and screamed in terror, “Spiders. Get them off me.”
“Percy,” his wife had responded, shaking her head as she hurried over to him. “It’s your imagination, again. You have to make an appointment with your psychiatrist first thing in the morning. Please…” She rested her hand on his arm.
He shoved her away hard enough that she stumbled back and fell onto the sofa. Then he stormed out. By then we were in his car, still invisible.
Axel leaned forward, murmuring into Hathaway’s ear, “Alcazar,” followed by, “Go to Golden and drive up the Lariat Loop to Lookout Mountain.”
Normally, it would have taken about half an hour to get there. The way Hathaway was driving, he made it in twenty minutes. When we were halfway up the winding road, Axel whispered, “Beetles.” The effect was instantaneous. Hathaway screamed in horror, trying to brush them off his hands, arms, and the steering wheel.
::Our cue to leave,:: Axel said, and we did, hovering high above the trail as we watched the car swerve left and right and then veer straight off the edge of the road, through some low brush, and over the cliff. It hit the roadway fifty feet below with a resounding crash, hard enough to turn even a car as well-built as a Mercedes into an accordion.
“Think we should check on him?” Axel asked as we dropped to the ground and became visible again.
“Why bother? If he’s not dead, he’ll probably end up a vegetable which—” I grinned gleefully, “—would serve him right.”
“You’re evil,” Axel replied, giving me a kiss. “And I mean that in the best way possible. After all, it’s all in the eye of the beholder and as a vampire not a human, your kind of ‘evil’—” he made finger quotes, “—suits me just fine, so let’s go home.”
We did, flying down to the start of the Trail and then calling Lyft for a ride as long-distance flight was not within my capabilities yet. While Axel was a lot better at it, he admitted that going thirty miles wasn’t about to happen, especially lugging me, as he put it. I bristled at that, but it was pretty much feigned indignation. I knew he would have, if he’d been able to, and I’d do the same for him—when we were, say, a thousand years old and had the ability to do long distances while carrying something heavier than a feather.