Page 47 of The Holy Ghost
Phoenix~
“Youboys look refreshed,” I remarked, asthe door to Ciro’s funhouse shut behind me. It was on an automaticlock with the same palm access as our apartments.
“I got somesleep while Luca was up to bat first,” Ciro happilyexplained.
“Then I got somesleep once it was Ciro’s turn,” Luca added, an honest to goodnessgrin on his face. The man rarely smiled that I almost forgot heknew how.
“Let’s see what you guysleft for me,” I said as I made my way to the middle of the room.“Christ, Ciro, this place stinks like shit.”
“Well, what doyou expect when someone shits themselves,” he retorted. He wassitting in one of the chairs outside the wet zone, while Luca was sitting on one of the stepsthat led up to the ceiling beams. “I tried to Febreze the fucker,but it didn’t help.”
“We should probablyget the ventilation system looked at,” Luca casually remarked.“This building is kind of old.”
Istopped in front of what wasleft of Randy Masterson, and it was a grisly sight. Luca and Cirohad left his eyes unharmed, but that was mostly because, if theywere swollen shut, you couldn’t see the life leave their eyes, andwhere was the fun in that?
However, the rest of himwasn’t fairing so well. His mouth had been sliced open to make himlook like The Joker. I knew his tongue was no more just becausethat was one of Luca’s favorite things to do. He didn’t havepatience for begging. I could see every finger he had-all ten ofthem-were broken at odd angles, some were even dangling off to theside. He’d been stripped naked and I could see the hundreds ofprecision stab wounds dotted all over his body.
See, what veryfew people knew was that Ciro didn’t spend all his time beating, killing, or screwing. CiroMancini was extremely intelligent, and he wasn’t lazy. That levelof brain power drove Ciro to have a passion for learning. In thesix years since we’ve been doing this, Ciro had learned damn neareverything there is to know about the human anatomy. It’s how heknew how to inflict the greatest pain possible, yet, still keep hisvictims alive. He knew just how far to push before sending someoneinto cardiac arrest, and he knew how to cauterize and sew upmotherfuckers. And it’s how he knew where to stab Randy and stillkeep him alive.
Ciro was agoddamnartist if you askedme.
I reached upand slapped Randy awake. “Hey, Randolph? You remember me?” Hiseyes fluttered open, and theywere glazed over in pain and helplessness. “I’m back,” I announced.His head dropped, his body begging for it to be over.
I walked overto Ciro’s tray of goodies and Ciro said, “We left most of himintact for you. We know howyou like to flay them alive.”
“I pulled thechainsaw out from the storageroom,” Luca added. “I figured the occasion called forit.”
I put on thegloves and raingear Ciro hadlaid out for me. I wouldn’t need the goggles until I used thechainsaw, so for now I was set. I grabbed a scalpel and turned backtowards Randy. “How long has it been?”
“About two hours,” Ciroanswered. There would have been no point in picking up where Ciroleft off because Randy’s mind would have been so consumed by pain,nothing I did to him would have fazed him. His body needed time tocome down off the momentary madness and begin to acheagain.
“Well,Randolph,” I started with a smile in my voice, “since youfelt it necessary to degrademy wife by forcing her to endure sitting before you stupid fucks inher bra, how about we go straight to the sexual connotations ofyour crime, shall we?” He let out a low moan, but it was lifeless.It held no real power or emotion.
I gave Luca aquick nod and watched as he stood up and hit the button on theoperation panel, lowering the chains. Randolph Masterson’stied feet touch the floor, buthe didn’t have the strength to stand on his own. I imagine the ropearound his ankles had probably cut off circulation to his feetalready. They were looking a little discolored.
Cirohada table fashioned withlimb fastenings on the legs. It forced someone’s body to be bentover at an unnatural angle. Ciro and Luca hung back as I removedRandy from the hooks that had imprisoned him to the chains. He wasso lifeless, there was literally no struggle as I draped him overthe table and fastened his wrists to the table legs and then untiedthe ropes around his ankles to fasten them to the opposing legs onthe table.
“Remember, whateveryou shove up there, if you push too far his insides will rupture,”Ciro commented helpfully.
“Willit kill him?” Iasked.
“Well, Imean…eventually, yeah.”
“I personallythink you should just cut off his balls and stuff them down his throat,” Luca chimed in.“Without a tongue to get in the way, you can probably shove themdown far enough to make him choke on the sonsofbitches.”
“There’s anidea,” Ciroremarked, soundingchipper about the whole thing.
Iturned back to face the twopeople in the world who have stood by me through thick and thin.“You know, no matter what I choose, it’s not going to be enough,” Itold them honestly. Nothing was going to rid me of the rage at himdaring to touch my wife. No matter what I did to this man, noimage, no memory would be greater that the moment I walked intothat basement in Cedar Creek and saw Frankie tie to that chair.That image was going to haunt me the rest of my life.
“I know,” Lucaagreed.
“Finish thefuckeroff, Ghost,” Ciroencouraged. “Every breath he takes is an insult toFrankie.”
I walked overto the tray of instruments and grabbed one of the flangedmaces. Not sure where Ciro gothis toys, but he had the strangest variety of torture accessoriesI’ve ever seen.
I grabbed thesmallest flanged mace, which wasn’t really that small at all, but Ifigured it’d do the damage I needed it to while still keepinghim alive.
“Nice,” Luca observed.“Simple and to the point.”
