Page 55 of Horror and Chill
20
Garron
We layeverything out on the dining table. The Kagekao mask gleams white in the overhead light, its painted grin wider than anything human. Corwin’s skull sits beside it, high cheeks, jagged teeth, and eye sockets that look hungry even when no one is wearing it. Mine goes in the middle. Matte black with a hard mouth plate, a shape that landed somewhere between aPurgemask and the Punisher logo.
Corwin paces while I check the edges on our knives. Hopefully, there’s no need for them, but with Agatha, who knows. He always paces when he is trying to talk himself into patience. He says he is calculating angles. I know he is just fighting the urge to go over there, kick through the nearest door, and take what he wants. Evander sits at the end of the table, a notebook open, drawing lines over a rough map of her place that he sketched from memory and photos.
I look through the pictures Corwin and Evander took yesterday when they let themselves in while she was at work. Her window plants. Her altar in the spare bedroom with incenseash like gray snow under a small statue. The way she leaves a book face down on the couch when she gets up. The way the rug by the door has a corner that never lays flat.
“You documented everything,” I grin.
Evander grins. “We left everything where we found it.”
“We go tomorrow night,” I say, and I hear how steady I sound. “Not tonight. I want one more pass on the plan.”
Corwin stops, looks at me like I just told him to stop breathing. “We’ve gone over it five times.”
“Then we do it a sixth,” I state. “We show up. We let her see our faces. We give her the truth. If she runs, we take her. If she says no, we take her. If she thinks this is a vote, she learns otherwise. She is ours, and she will rule what we are, or she will end up our next victim.”
Evander’s pencil does not stop moving. “You keep saying ‘rule’.”
“Call it what you like,” I answer. “But she has the darkness inside of her to slash beside us; she just hasn't been given the knife to do so yet. She will, though. We're going to show her how easy it is to take a life. Especially when they've wronged you.”
He lifts his hands in a show of peace. “Then we give her one…or three. Just don't ask me to take it slow.”
“Tomorrow,” I repeat.
Evander taps the map. “Her bedroom window stays cracked, which is reckless, and she should get a spanking for. The kitchen window is dead-bolted with an old, wood bar. Front door lock is new, but not fancy.”
“We hide here,” I say, pointing at his sketch. “Inside her bedroom closet. In the linen closet down the hall, she has nothing in there but towels and sheets. She likes scares that play fair, so we play fair. Nothing cheap. No jumps that read as lazy. The moment she thinks we are clowns, we lose her.”
Corwin points at the bed. “And when she wakes. When she turns on her light like a moth to its own fire, I want to be in the room already. She lives for the reveal. Let’s give her a taste of her own medicine.”
I nod. “Evander takes the hall closet. Corwin, I’m trusting you with the bedroom. I’ll show up later and slip in behind the bedroom door.”
Evander flips to another page where he’s written a list in his careful hand. “No leaving marks until we get her to our destination. No cameras. Gloves on. No names until we choose them or she realizes she knows us. Bring the aftercare for her piercings. Clean them if they look angry. Bring the salve. I don't want infection touching what we do.”
Corwin laughs under his breath. “Gentle.”
“Practical,” Evander remarks.
I pull a small box toward me and lift the lid. Inside sit a pair of latex gloves, a folded cloth, a narrow-bladed knife, a little glass vial with a pig’s-heart sliver floating in glycerin, and a short paring knife with the edge dulled on purpose. I hold up the paring knife so they can see it.
“For her hand,” I say. “I'm not asking her to cut anyone right away. I'm asking her to hold something that could cut and feel what it does to her pulse. She keeps it if she doesn’t drop it.”
Corwin’s mouth tilts. “You’re giving her a child’s toy.”
“I'm putting weight in her palm,” I growl. “When she feels the weight of the blade, she’ll realize what she’s really capable of. If she throws it at me, I’ll like her more.”
Evander closes the notebook and sets his pencil on top of it. “We are clear on exits. Backyard fence route. Front door, obviously, if no one is around. SUV is fueled. Plates are clean. The phone we cloned is still mirroring. Her calendar is open through next week. We saw the cemetery appointment. That is a later game. We don't step on that yet.”
“Later,” I murmur. “We give her the courtesy of keeping a promise she made to fans. Then we make new ones she didn’t know she wanted.”
Corwin spins his skull mask on the table with two fingers, watches it wobble to a stop. “What if she screams the second the lights go out? What if she runs to a neighbor? What if she calls the cops before she even hits the kitchen?”
“Then we move faster,” I say. “We know the end game is to have her with us. She comes willingly or by force, there is no middle ground. This is not a negotiation for her. This is a stage. We own the stage.”
He leans across the table until we are almost nose to nose. “And we’re still positive that she's the one?”
