Page 48 of As Angels Sin

“Wake up now.” I tap the ends of my fingers against his cheek in four gentle slaps. Gentle for now, anyway. I’m on a time crunch. The sun’s going to break over the horizon in a little over an hour. Tomas needs to be dealt with by then, because the hounds will be on the hunt from first light.

I wonder what they’ll do when they find him.

Tomas shakes his head as he starts coming to. His eyes travel from one corner of my room to the other, before his heavy head sinks to my shoes.

“Where am I?” He tries to move his arms, but they don’t budge from the position my chains hold him in. A second attempt results in the same dismal failure, so he gives up.

“I’ve given this place many names over the years. My killing floor. Kill chamber. Kill room.” I take a step back and look around my concrete cell. It’s buried far beneath the earth, in a hole Mark and I dug years ago, and I do believe it’s the only place I’ve ever felt joy.

True joy. Not the kind I plaster on my face when I feel a little stirring of something inside. Everyone who has come down here is immortalized within these walls. Names and faces long ago forgotten, but the red ooze...

If you took a bottle of Luminol to this place, you’d see gallons of red clinging to the walls. My life’s work, my inner artists tapestry, a culmination of my inner self — a hollow, empty box — and the creature I become when it’s time to feed my shadow. Those who have passed through these walls, the bravest of the lot anyway, will stay with me forever. They were able to see beyond their impending death, while I rambled on like a lunatic, and gave me insights into everything and nothing.

Which will you be, Tomas?

If not insightful, Tomas will, at the very least, be a good source of nutrition for my shadow. A cure for the sickness that plagues it. But not for me. My sickness is baked in. My urges, wants and needs, are always a dire necessity. Killing Tomas won’t end it. Nor Mark or Matteo.

Not even Fiametta, my Little Flame, stands a chance against it. Her bright flame may lead me down many new avenues, but it will never be toward the light.

“As you can see there’s a particular point to the naming scheme. I’m sure you can puzzle out what happens in here.” I took Tomas’s shirt off before, but left him with pants on. Sometimes, when my mood is darker than usual, humiliation and torture can be a fun blend.

Today, I have no interest in snipping off his cock and shoving it down his throat. He deserves it, of course, after what he tried to force Fiametta into. Not once, not twice, but three times over. However, it’s imperative to remember that Tomas is here to serve a greater purpose. One that’s far more important than the joy I’d get out of watching him suffer.

“Alright, you sick fuck,” Tomas sputters, then coughs from the dryness in his mouth, before he tries to continue. “You’ve had your fun. Now, let me go. Who put you up to this?”

I sit on the floor, cross-legged with my palms resting on my knees. Mediation pose, they call it. It’s about finding serenity in the mundane, I think’s that the point anyway. I was at it for hours before Tomas woke, and all I managed to find is the answer to what I’m going to have for dinner when I’m done here: cheeseburger, fries and large soda. No, let’s be adventurous and make it a chocolate milkshake.

“Come again?” I frown at him, but Tomas doesn’t lift his head to meet my gaze.

“Mark? Matteo? Which one made you do it?” Another coughing fit follows, before wheezy laughter I can’t wrap my head around. “The hazing?” he adds when I don’t answer

“Hazing? Right.” Somehow, me, the guy who hears voices in his head, urging him to bring about a mass slaughter is less insane than the one who’s hanging from my wall.

“Well, Tomas, we don’t have much time so I can’t indulge whatever’s going on in your head. This isn’t a hazing. You are not a prank victim. I’m going to kill you in here and leave your body for the Napoli crew to discover. Though, given how patheticsecurity has been lately, it’s probably Mark who will walk down those stairs and find your swollen corpse.”

“What the fuck did you just say to me, you little shit?” His throat tenses and his tone stiffens.

There we go. Much better.

“I’m not repeating myself, so I hope for your sake that was rhetorical.”

“You’re going to uncuff my hands and get the hell out of my way.” He finally lifts his head to show me those big, blue eyes, lined with red and yellow, where the white should be.

“You see, Tomas, I like this. It’s become a part of my ritual. I have this place so that I drag men like you here, have a little chin wag and then dispose of whatever’s left of your bodies.” I sigh, shaking my head disappointedly. “Ireallyfucking like this place, and I’m going to miss it more than you’d think.” I feel a smile creep across my lips. “Imagine that. Me, of all people, missing something.”

“They’re gonna find you. They’re gonna fuck you up. And then, they’re going to kill you.” Tomas spits, and the globule misses me by less than a foot.

“You know what else Ireallylike, Tomas?”

“Being a dead cunt walking?” he asks. I’m surprised at how fearless he is. After his timid display in front of Matteo, I thought he’d be begging for his life from the instant he woke.

It wouldn’t have changed anything, but I’m impressed.

“Fiametta Napoli.” I stand effortlessly, using only my legs and my feet to lift me off the ground. “She’s the complete opposite to me. Gentle, kind, and caring. But the trait I find most precious in her is her innocence. Not in the bedroom, I’ll have you know. She enjoys fucking. She just hatedyou.”

He spits again, and this time it hits my shoe.

“Do you know what, she’s carrying my child?”

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