Julio didn’t mind the duty. When Irma had first asked him about playing night watchman, he had made out like it was pure garbage detail. As in, I came six thousand miles for this? But the truth was, he was kind of pleased. Not a lot. But some.
The night was raw for May. The wind blew straight off the huge mountains Julio had only seen once since their arrival. But he could smell them, which was a real kick. He stuck his head out the gatehouse door, the rain falling in a solid sheet off the eaves, and took a big breath. The fragrance of glacier ice as old as history was unmistakable.
The manor gates were rusted open. Which really didn’t matter since the wall was no great shakes, maybe fifteen feet high and so crumbly Julio could have scaled it in about three heartbeats. He had pointed that out to Irma on day one. But she had shrugged and said if he didn’t want the job she’d go find somebody else. Just Irma giving him cop-speak, on account of how there wasn’t anybody else, and they both knew it.
It was his third night on duty, each one colder than the last. The villa’s little stone gatehouse was down by the road. There was no heater and the door wouldn’t shut properly. The wind howled through a crack in the side window. As usual, Irma had sent him off with a thermos of hot coffee and some serious cookies in a box advertising a Como pastry shop.
Truth was, Julio was totally cool with the whole gig. Midnight to seven, he was on duty. After Irma relieved him, he went up the hill and entered a kitchen that smelled like the Italian corner of heaven—fresh-ground coffee and newly baked bread and those little chickadees from all over the globe sitting there in their sleepy-time outfits and singing his name. Good morning, Julio. Are you tired, Julio? Here, take the first cup of coffee, you need it more than me, Julio. He just loved being the center of attention.
But the biggest surprise of all was how much Julio actually enjoyed taking orders from Charlie and Irma both. Before this gig, the one refrain he’d heard from every coach or teacher he’d ever had was, Julio has trouble with authority. But here he was, third man on the totem pole, just digging the scene.
Until this week, he had never been farther from Satellite Beach than the regional surf-offs at North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The other kids called him an animal in the water, fighting for blood and every point and every scrap of wave. He’d always figured surfing was his one and only ticket out of town.
Back when he was little, his dad had started him out on a little thruster, small as a boogie board, the two of them laughing and screaming and sharing waves. Sharing life. Then his dad got sent up and his mom got sick, and by the time Julio turned thirteen, surfing was the only thing that cleared his head of the pain and rage and bone-deep loneliness. The only thing that kept him clean. The only thing he was good at. From starting horn to final buzzer, every heat, Julio was exactly what they all said.
An animal.
Only now, standing here at the edge of night, Julio could see just how much he’d lost in the process. Watching the rain fall in a sheet solid as a midnight wave, he confessed what his heart had known for a long time already. He’d lost hold of the fun.
Talk about ready to leave that world behind, man, he would have paid for this gig. In blood.
That was as far as Julio got on that internal ride. Because right then a human bear stepped out of the rain and shoved him back through the open gatehouse door.
Julio flew through the air, his outstretched arms tearing everything off the side counter. His heart rate zinged from a midnight shuffle to Ferrari redline as he flew. He bounced off the rear wall and fell in a heap on the floor.
The guy wore a black overcoat that turned his massive frame into a square. He growled something that might have been Italian.
Julio had years of experience dealing with hard men. He smiled politely. Kept his hands visible. Stayed planted on the stone floor. Very still. “Sorry, dog. No hablas Eye-taliano.”
The man stepped into the gatehouse, compressing the air. The wind moaned about the open doorway. The man said in English, “You scream. Make noise. I help.” The bear reached into his pocket and came out with a Taser. “Dog.”
“Hey, you want me to sing, no problem.”
The man took aim. “Too late, dog.”
At that moment a phantom menace appeared in the doorway behind the man. Julio assumed it was a phantom because it moved too fast to be human.
The bear of a man had just enough time for his eyes to widen as the phantom took hold of his neck. Then he went over backward. Hard.
As in, this phantom tossed a guy weighing maybe three hundred pounds so high over his head that the guy crashed into the top of the gatehouse door frame.
The bear landed facedown, half in and half out of the gatehouse. His arms and legs twitched and he gave off a soft ack. The phantom shifted over to stand on top of him. He cocked his free arm up high, like a bird’s wing. The hand drifted down and back, striking the guy’s neck and then returning to the same bird-wing position, faster than Julio could blink. The man gave a final choking groan and went still.
Start to finish, it all took less than about one second.
Julio scrambled to his feet and realized he still needed to breathe.
The phantom was black on black—jeans, knit top, gloves, black stripes on his rain-slicked face. He watched Julio claw for breath. “You gonna croak on me?”
Julio shook his head and kept wheezing.
The phantom grinned. “That was pretty cool, you giving the guy lip. I liked that.”
That was enough to steady him. “Who are you?”
“Later.” He held up the bear’s Taser. “You know how to use this?”
“Point and shoot, right?”
“Pretty much. The wires don’t reach more than about ten feet and the aim is no better than a derringer. You need to use it, you get real close.”
“Wait. There’s more of them?”
“Nine minus this guy.” He set the Taser on the counter by the door. “You use it, pop the probes loose with a flick of your wrist. Give it ninety seconds to fully recharge.”
“What about you?”
The phantom grinned. “Do I look like I need that thing? Give me a hand, let’s move this guy indoors.”
Julio helped drag the man fully inside the gatehouse and flip him over so he lay on his back. The phantom slipped a metal tube from his pocket. “Use this to fasten his hands and his ankles. He starts moving around, seal his lips. Warn him you’ll do the same to the nostrils if he lets out a peep. He’ll behave. Believe me.”
Julio inspected the tube. He was expecting some high-tech military secret weapon. Instead he read, “Super Glue?”
“You use what you got, bro.”
Then the phantom stepped through the door, into the rain. And was gone.
No sound. No real movement like any human would make. The phantom just flowed out and joined the night.
Julio got to work. Or tried to. His hands were dancing to the same tune as his heart, quick little shudders that wracked him so hard he basically risked supergluing himself to the dude. He wound up putting so much of the stuff on the guy’s hands they looked like they were coated in Pancake House syrup. Julio slapped the palms together, held them a second, then dropped them and decided, this dude was never gonna get free.
“You’re not done yet?”
Julio’s feet actually left the earth. Just levitated up about six feet.
If the phantom noticed he gave no sign. He just dumped another inert body on the stone floor and said, “You better speed things up. Otherwise our assembly line’ll get all out of whack.”
“How am I supposed to glue his legs?”
“You look like a smart kid. You figure it out.”
The phantom vanished again. Julio was watching closely this time. The rain seemed to split like a curtain, then shut again.
The phantom was back while Julio worked on the second guy’s hands. He deposited yet another body down beside the last one. “There’s still more out there.”
Julio said, “In that case, we need more glue.”
“You serious?” He bent over for a closer look. Julio caught a whiff of the guy. If danger had a scent, it smelled like him. The phantom said, “These dudes won’t be scratching themselves for about a year.”
“Too much?”
He slapped two more tubes down on the counter. “Ain’t my way to criticize a recruit, not when he’s getting the job done.”
Then the night was punctured by the coughs of silenced weapons. Hard slaps of sound, quick flashes of close-quarters lightning. A shout. Another. The phantom was already moving before Julio sorted out the noise. “Somebody’s started singing my tune.”