The Spaces in Between (9 page)

“I am Teftin of the Chayoth ha-Qadesh. This is Fae past the spaces in-between worlds, but in the Underworld where I felt it would be easier to talk to you. You are in grave danger. The equivalent of a hit has been placed on you, because of someone you met while you were in that coma. You have been marked by magic, and every supernatural being in the area wants to get their hands on you.”

“Was I just hit by a car?” Warren said.

“I assure you that you are perfectly safe, but only at this exact moment. If you say yes to my terms I will give you a means to defend yourself. I will grant you dominion over technology, because we take care of our own.”

“Like hell I am doing anything or agreeing to any terms in any another delusional dream. What is it going to cost me this time? A leg? My dick? Just because you hallucinations can make this so god damn believable!”

“So what if you have to sell your soul to technology,” Teftin said, “You practically already have! Why not reap the benefits?”

“Piss off,” Warren said and stormed away from them.

4

In a seedy pub across town and two days ago sat Michael Stewart on his usual stool. It was past last call, but whenever the bartender would muster the courage to announce it Michael would shoot him a glance that would make his heart stop. Mickey the Irishman as he was called, or just the Irishman, since that was all people were able to gasp before they got on the wrong side of him, was not someone to be trifled with. He stood at six foot three, broad shouldered, and his muscles could be seen through his turtleneck sweater.

He didn’t really mean the bartender harm just wanted to finish his pints in peace, but like hell he would let him know that. Trade secret you know. Mickey the Irishman was a thug for hire, and it would be bad business to find out he wouldn’t dare hurt someone without payment. He was a professional. Would a blacksmith shoe a horse for free? No, and Mickey wouldn’t be a criminal for free. He had no qualms about doing good deeds, but there was absolutely no market for anonymous good deeds so he never bothered.

A man in a white suit, long black hair, and red sunglasses entered the bar and placed his hat beside the Irishman. “This seat taken?”

“For a pretty man like you – never.”

“I have a job for you,” the man in white said. He was indeed quite gorgeous, but none of his features really stood out. The Irishman thought this guy could never get ID’ed in a line-up and was envious. The Man in White pulled a manila folder him his overcoat and slid it to the Irishman. “I want this man brought to me tomorrow morning at the enclosed address four am on the nose. One million now, another at drop off. Do not harm a hair on his head. I’ll cover any expenses.”

“Four in the morning?” the Irishman replied, “What are ya? A tuppin’ vampire?”

“Not anymore than you’re a faery,” the Man in White said. He was referring to the Irishman’s auburn hair and beard.

“Aye, but I am, in the modern sense if you catch my drift.” The Irishman thumbed through the manila folder. A picture of Warren Elliot was paperclipped on the first page. Inside were Elliot’s address, fiancée’s work place, and even his medical records. “Normally I don’t care, but what the hell did this gimp computer programmer do to you that’s worth two million? Did he hack your bank accounts or something?” Only it came out as ‘sumtin’.

“It’s not any of your business, but if you’re asking if I have the money I certainly do.” The man in white placed an attaché on the bar and opened it. There was certainly a lot of Benjamins in there, but to count it would be bad form. The Irishman had a feeling even if they made this transaction in a police station no one would notice. “Are we in agreement?”

“Mostly.” The Irishman took a drink. “Can’t do it tomorrow night. I’ll be at mass.”

“Are you serious?” The Man in White said. “This is two million dollars! What the hell can be more important than that?”

“The Lord,” the Irishman replied, “I’m a devout Catholic.” The Man in White was flabbergasted. “What? Don’t give me that look; if the Priests can be gay I can too. I never done anything so bad as a little boy. In my line of work, I need to look out for my spiritual health and get to confession often. I do regret the things I do, but Jesus just keeps introducing me to hotter and hotter guys and more lucrative crimes. You are the peak of both, my friend.”

The Man in White was now very uncomfortable. “Fine. I’ll meet you Monday night instead.” The Irishman really didn’t notice the Man in White leave, but the attaché was still on the bar.

5

Warren found himself standing on the bus. There was not man in a black suit in sight.

He reassured himself if those were rowdy white men in the back of the bus he wouldn’t be sitting with them either. Then he took his seat. As the bus pulled away with a dull vibration and a squeak Warren pondered the reason he was running late to keep his mind off of the man in the black suit.

Out of curiosity he wanted to see what he had written and if it even made a coherent story. Janet could have simply been humoring him. After reading through the first few paragraphs he became enthralled with finding out what would happen next. It was like reading something written by a completely different voice. He was amazed. Anytime he had tried to write his own Cameron story the characters were dull and listless. Nothing they said or did seemed natural. But this short story seemed right.

“Hey, how did that happen?” the elderly fellow sitting across from him stared at Warren’s arm in its sling.

“Car accident,” Warren replied. Three months ago I was t-boned by a Hummer and had a comatose dream where I lost my arm that now no longer moves is what Warren wanted to say. He hated wearing that sling because people would always ask about his arm.

“Well you got lucky, sonny.” Not really old man, not really.

The interview that Janet was so insistent that he got there on time was for a business firm down by the Harbor. One of her ex’s worked there in human resources and owed her a favor. If Warren ever had doubts about why his relationship with Janet was working out – he just had to look at her string of ex’s who got exponentially worse the farther back. Most likely the guy will have him doing IT like troubleshooting computer and networking of which Warren has very little knowledge. He’s a security programmer; software is his business not hardware.

The Motorola cell phone in his pocket vibrated for an instant. He pulled it about and saw there was a voice mail message. Janet was just making sure that he had gotten on the bus in time no doubt. The voicemail reported in a voice he had never heard before. There was no such voice like it. It sounded mechanical and forced like the person on the other end had to struggle to voice its words. It said:

“Get you again later.”

His train of thought suddenly derailed after a black Cadillac crashed into the bus.

6

Janet Rockbell was at the front desk of Sanford and Son Law Offices where she worked as a paralegal when a car was hitting Warren again. Her job here was to occasionally write a memo or answer the phone then forward it to someone else. The rest of the eight hours she spent writing e-mail, watching YouTube, Twittering, and surfing Facebook in an innocuous manner that looked like work. Warren showed her how to shuffle through windows with ALT-TAB, and she hadn’t looked back ever since.

A man in a black suit suddenly morphed into her peripheral vision.

“Is Miss Elliot in the office today?” the MiBS said. He was so nondescript it was startling. There was an air to him that made her feel incredibly uncomfortable. He examined a pen on her desk as if he had never seen it before.

“No, she’s not in the office today,” Janet lied. She was sure the man in the black suit meant her, “I’ll take a message if you want.” She did not want him to find her, and she did not like this man one bit. Whoever he was knew she was due to become Mrs. Elliot, but not enough to know she was still Miss Rockbell. His presence struck her as that of an invader…but from where? Why such as violent gut-response.

She wanted him gone, not just from this office or even this town. Janet was not sure if she would feel right until this man was not on the same fucking planet as her. She thought if this man would stay in her office for any longer she’d have to fight every fiber of her being to stop herself from trying to kill this man.

Then the man was gone. He left as suddenly and undetected as he had arrived. The pressure on her gut released and she let out a great sigh, but an almost OCD nagging sensation lingered in the back of her mind.
I can’t be safe until this man no longer exists.

The phone on her desk rang.

“Sanford and Son – Attorneys at Law. What’s your party’s extension?”

“I need to speak with Miss Janet Rockbell. This is St. Brendan’s.” Janet’s heart stopped.
Not again. Oh, God sweet Jesus not again.

“This is she.”

“We found this number in your fiancé’s wallet. We need you to come over he’s been in a car accident.” The man’s voice had an unmistakable Irish accident, but a soothing quality to it. This man knew her and was her friend. “His condition has been stabilized, but you still need to hurry. We have some questions we need to ask you.”

“I’m on my way.” Janet grabbed her things and made a beeline for the parking garage. A block away the Irishman put a payphone back on the hook.

7

Warren brushed glass shards off his coat and pulled himself out of his seat. He was fine aside from a cut on his cheek and his left arm was not moving – but that was normal. He threw his laptop bag over his shoulder and looked out the window to survey the damage. The black Cadillac had knocked the bus askew, but there was no major damage on board. Warren immediately recognized the man in the black suit as the one behind the wheel. The man shifted the car into reverse.

A hit and run?
The Cadillac slammed into the bus again this time knocking it on its side.
No, he wants to finish the job.
Warren knew that by staying on this bus he’d endanger all these people. The man in the black suit was definitely not law enforcement. He crawled over the panicked black men in the back and hopped out the emergency door.

As he ran down Baltimore Street, Warren waved his hands in the air, and he didn’t get back to running until the man in the black suit had finally recognized him. The man in the black suit went into reverse and followed. The black Cadillac drove parallel to Warren on the sidewalk regardless of being on the wrong side of the road to do so. Warren knew once he ran out of parked cars to use as cover it would be over.

He pulled the cell phone from his pocket and flipped it open. In the moment that Warren had opened the phone to call 911, Janet had called him.

“Hello?” Warren answered, “Janet!”

“Not so Warren,” said an unfamiliar voice over the phone. Not the same as the one that left the message, but it was a new one nonetheless. The voice had a strange Irish twang to it, he said Warrang instead of Warren. “I’ve got yir lass, and I’d advise you to meet me on the third floor of the old hospital on West Lafayette. Now if you show up late or call the cops – you’ll see her again, but she won’t be the woman you know anymore. She’ll wish I had killed her and you’ll feel awfully drawn to oblige her.” The call disconnected.

8

Moments before in the parking garage of Sanford and Son, Janet rushed to her car. She didn’t bother to tell anyone upstairs where she was going. It was an emergency and far easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. Once a tendon is stretched it is far easier to do the exercise the next time. The same would apply to convincing someone that their loved one was in a car accident again. It removed the fact-checking step that would have been very troublesome.

In her hurry to extract her keys from her purse she barely took notice of the man walking over to the car. He was a man that was hard to miss with his ginger hair and beard. The bill of his leather newsboy’s cap obscured his eyes. She certainly didn’t notice the Smith and Wesson .38 special he pulled from his denim jacket.

She did notice the thunderclap and corsage of flame erupt from its barrel and the two more that followed. Holes of twisted steel erupted from the hood of her Subaru and a third spider-webbed her windshield. The keys fell from Janet’s hand, and she went under the dashboard after them. She pressed the lock button on the car and it made a soft click to let her now that the car was already locked.

As Janet groped around in the dark the Irishman calmly walked over to the car. No need to hurry he had plenty of time, and the parking garage was under the city so no one was going to hear those gunshots. Janet pulled her cell phone from her purse and dialed ‘911’. Her Motorola reported no bars. Her fingers never touched the plastic base of the keys even though they were only millimeters away before he got her driver’s side door.

Her phone reported a bar and she hit ‘redial’. There were two rings before the bar faded again. Her peripheral vision was filled with a flash of light, a bang, and a shower of square shaped glass that at one time was her driver side window. The world had slowed down so much that she didn’t even notice that this was two shots. Both pulls of the trigger blended into one event.

She made a mad crawl over the seats. In one fluid movement the Irishman grabbed her by the hair and pulled her kicking and screaming from the car. She tumbled to the hard concrete. She could barely make out his features from the large purple light that obscured her vision, and she could barely hear him over the ringing in her ears. Yet she knew exactly how much danger she was in when he pressed that revolver, fully cocked, below her chin.

She didn’t know that a Smith and Wesson .38 special could only fit five bullets into the cylinder. She knew revolvers held six bullets, and he surely had a bullet left in the chamber. The Irishman was thankful for this and didn’t want an easy way out for him. While he preferred the larger guns like his .50 caliber Desert Eagle,
damn those Jews knew how to make a gun
, or his Colt Anaconda, but this was not a killing job. All he would need is a gun that was loud enough to frighten and light enough to wave in someone’s face. This way he would leave no shell casings at the scene and wouldn’t be that tore up if he had to ditch the gun.