Part Seven: Propositioning Evil, First Steps On the Road to Damnation
Acid and fire ants crawling through my veins; I scream and lurch upwards back in my body, and my body hurts. Grey Crow grabs me and flings me over his shoulder like a roll of carpet and then I'm dumped in the bath tub and the shower is turned on full blast.
The icy water hits my glowing skin and spits like hot oil in a white hot skillet. I can't see through the solid curtain of sopping hair that falls in front of my eyes. It gets easier to breathe and slowly I start to be able to feel the water. It's cool and soothing against my over-sensitized skin. The glow starts to leave my flesh as my powers sink back under control. I feel - better?
'…Grey?' Scrapping hair from my face I blink at him. I haven't seen him in three months. Ever since we ended our partnership with me blowing up most of the restaurant he and Essex were in. What's he doing here?
Grey Crow just looks at me. He keeps looking at the marks on my neck, my body. He looks pissed – but also – worried? Something weak and needy rises up inside me and I throttle the pathetically grateful feeling that comes to me at the thought that Grey Crow might be worried about me.
Without a word he offers me a bottle of blue Gatoraid. I blink at him, confused, but accept the bottle. Uncapping it and guzzling on the Glucose rich artificial drink while the water pounds out the aches and pains in my body. I really am starting to feel better.
'What happened?' Grey Crow finally asks me as I get out of the bath tub shivering and wrap my straggling hair in a towel turban.
'What happened wit' what?' I turn to him slowly, not moving too fast or turning my neck too far as I sore and still got a bottle and half of whiskey swimming around inside me.
'With the Seattle Guild,' Grey Crow elaborates flatly. 'Word on the street is you blew up eleven of Seattle's best thieves - in some sort of abandoned theatre.'
'Oh - dat.' Darkness and pain threaten to suck me down, but I feel better now. Stronger, like a swimmer trapped in a rip-tide who's just found solid ground. I look at Grey Crow and paste a smile onto my face.
'You shouldn' believe everyt'ing you hear, mon ami.'
'Didn't think your power could ignite living tissue.'
I can't help it, I flinch. The mild question sparks a deluge of memories I desperately don't want to think about. Bleeding from the neck and unable to free my hands with fingers broken and feet bound; the blunt impact of fist and boot into my ribs. Then the blind fold blows away from my face and disintegrates into ash as I charge it in panic.
I see the face of the man who attacked me back in Flagstaff Arizona almost two years ago, the guy from the Florida Guild. I know his name now: Lydon. His dark face twisted in fury and triumph, Hands and clothes red with my blood.
Rage and fear combine like fuse and dynamite in my brain and before I know it the world goes white behind my eyes. Lydon's head explodes like the pumpkin had all those years ago. Just like the pumpkin, chunks of flesh and viscera fountain into the air and then all the others get blown to pieces with him.
Back in the hell of the present I catch my balance against the wall of the hotel bedroom. 'I had no choice. Dey were gon kill me. I din't mean to kill dem. Mon dieu I jus' wanted to live.'
Grey Crow nods his head like he knows what I'm talking about. Maybe he does. It can't be an accident that he tracked me down to this flea-pit hotel.
All twelve of them Seattle thieves, their bodies going pop like firecrackers. It like something out of a horror movie, rib cages bursting, arms flying from shoulder joints. I blew them to pieces just by looking at them; the whole world transforming into waves of light and friction. Seeing the microscopic particles that made the world go round, reaching out with a thought and watching them tear apart, ignite; explode.
Moving towards the bed in a tres unsteady line I slump down on the edge and drop my head into my hands. 'It was jus' a job, de Nao Ling t'ing in Miami.'
I look up at Grey briefly, hoping that he understand, that someone understand, that none of this should have happened. It was just one stupid job; nobody should've died for it.
'It was jus' a job. I been doin' shit like dat wit' de Guild since I was T'irteen. I din't know dat de Yakuza woul' blame de Florida Guild an' start a gang war!'
'Nao Ling? You mean what happened in Seattle was because of that job? But that was almost two years ago.' Grey looks surprised.
I snort back a bitter laugh, 'Dey din't dare touch me while I was wit' you, mon ami. Din't want to kill de great Scalphunter's partner.'
'I see.' Is all Grey Crow says, maybe he's trying to spare my feelings, but it still sounds like 'I told you so' to me. I should have never left Grey Crow; so what that Essex scares the hell out of me? That the man don't even seem human. I blow people to pieces just by looking at them – how much worse can Essex be?
'And the powers?' Grey crow snaps my thoughts back to him. 'The booze?' He adds pointedly looking at the discarded bottles dotting the hotel room floor.
For a moment I want to deny everything I can see he already knows, want to save my pride. But I'm scared, really scared.
'I can' eat, can' sleep. Have to wear gloves or I start chargin' what I'm touching wit'out meaning to. I can' stop it, mon ami.'
'This has been going on for months, hasn't it? You've been fighting your powers since the job in Detroit.'
I don't meet his eyes. I don't have the energy. 'I had it under control before, had to wear gloves most o' de time, oui, but I had it under control.'
'Until now.' It's not a question.
'Until now,' I agree.
'I came to get you Remy. Essex knew this would happen. He sent me to get you.'
I look at him sharply. 'What?'
Grey Crow shrugs, 'Essex knows mutants, he saw your power going hay wire the moment he met you, when you blew up that restaurant. He's been –,' Grey Crow hesitates then forges on. My blood runs cold. 'keeping taps on you these months. He lost you in Seattle until your power went crazy.'
'Mon Dieu,' I whisper seeing the waxy, mask like face; the utter reptilian stillness of the man Essex. The eyes that dissected everything they looked on. He had been watching me? And Grey Crow had been helping him? Why?
'He can fix you, Remy.' Grey Crow's words drop into the silence. They feel like ice, slippery and persuasive. 'Fix your powers so that you never lose control again.'
I look up at Grey Crow, growing angry. 'Let me guess, mon ami, dis magic cure, all its gon cost me is my soul, right?'
This man is the closest thing to a friend and a mentor that I have in the world now my pere and my frere abandon me. Yet he betrayed and lied to me once already. What's to say he won't do it again?
Grey Crow frowns at me, 'It's good work, Remy. Essex is well connected. You've been doing bank heists and jewel thefts for months. Under Essex you could go corporate again, military. You're too good for commercial theft or the scraps from the mafia's plate. Essex knows that.'
I stare down at my hands, loosely clasped in my lap. Hadn't I just been thinking about going corporate again? Getting into the serious high-stakes thefts? And if Essex could fix me – make it so I never hurt anyone like those men ever again –wasn't that worth the price of being on Essex's payroll?
'Get out.' I get to my feet anger giving me strength, straightening my spine, even though my head reeling. 'Get de fuck out an' don come back!'
'Remy – '
'NO!' My fist lashes out in a blur and I catch Grey Crow by surprise sending him sprawling to the floor. 'I don need you an' I don need Essex, hear? I will never work for him; never.'
Grey Crow moves with the reflexes of a snake. He kicks my legs out from under me and reaches out to grab my hair pulling me down to the floor. I twist and squirm but unless I'm prepared to let him scalp me I'm not going anywhere with him gripping my hair. The feeling of clear headed calm that takes away the pain in my body also slows me down, makes me clumsy. What was in that syringe? Or am I just drunk?
Grey Crow grabs my throat, big hand squeezing down on the bruises and breaking open the cuts. His boot comes down on my hand, my fingers still healing from the breaks. I choke on a scream of pain.
I try to activate my powers and nothing happens. For a moment I'm confused then I remember the syringe he injected me with before and my eyes widen in understanding. Memory descends again.
After Grey Crow left with Essex I stayed on in Seattle – had nowhere else to go. Not like I could go back to Clair and the bar. So I started to pick up some casual work, low level mafia bank jobs stuff like that. There was absolutely no way Lydon could have known I was in Seattle, let alone tip off the Seattle Guild that I was working on their turf, unless someone else told him first; someone like Grey Crow.
'You set me up. You set this whole t'ing up.' God but what I wouldn't do for a bottle of Johnny Walker right now. Or maybe just a snub nose Colt to the brain.
'Why?' It's the only question I have left. The only answer I don't want.
'Essex's orders,' He doesn't deny it. A snarl of frustration distorts his next words.
'Arrogant punk, if you'd just said yes to the deal none of this would have happened.' He's tying me up with some kind of hi-tech rope. It moulds to my skin like liquid rubber, with every movement it tightens.
I don't fight anymore. What's the point? I just have one other question. 'How long; how long have you really been workin' wit' Essex?'
I knew he'd been secretly working an exclusive contract with the man for the last six months of our partnership, but now I'm beginning to think it went back far longer than that.
Grey Crow's hands on me still and he sighs. 'You were a good partner, Remy, but Essex has had his eye on you from the moment you left the Guild.'
Sick, cold pain of betrayal; I've been played, played all along but why? What makes me so special?
'So where do you fit in, den? Why'd you ask me to join you?' I ask fiercely glad my voice is steady, might as well know just how badly I'd been played.
'I was supposed to train you. You needed some instruction before you'd be ready for Essex. He has a purpose for you.'
He pulls me upright and I turn to face him. I have this weird desire to laugh. I feel like I've been here before. With a man in a brown trench coat whose fob watch I stole on the Rue Royale. The last man to tell me he had a purpose for me.
'Got to warn you, homme, de last bunch of bodies dat tried to train me for dere own uses din't like de result.'
Grey Crow snorts a laugh. 'Essex is different from the Guild, Remy. You will do what he wants eventually, just like I do.' Something dark and bitter fills his eyes and then vanishes.
I've been here before, Déjà vu all over again. Someone I trusted has screwed me over, betrayed me, and I'm left bleeding and in chains. Almost expect the Tithe Collector to pop out of thin air and pass judgement.
'So what's de deal, huh?' I ask blandly. I give up. Concede to a twisted fate that likes to kick me down and spit on me. 'Essex gon give me de same rate as befor' or has dat offer been taken off de table?'
Grey Crow shakes his head, 'You should have agreed to the deal, Remy, Essex is not a man to take rejection well.'
I turn my head as much as I can to look at him. Something in Grey Crow's attitude is bugging me. The way he's holding my arms even though the restraints hold my hands and arms immobile just don't seem right.
'You coulda told me dat befor' mon ami. Coulda jus' told me you were groomin' me for somebody else.'
It's not the act that bothers me. It's not the fact that Grey Crow manipulated me, made me think we were equal partners and let me believe he had chosen me for his own reasons - hell I've been down that road before, right? It's the fact that I just didn't see the signs; that I got taken for the same ride again.
'Would it have made a difference?' Grey Crow asks me actually sounding like he's interested in the answer.
I snort back a laugh, 'Mon Dieu, Grey Crow, if I'd known my choices were takin' an exclusive contract wit' Essex or bein' brought to de man in chains I'd have taken de deal. I'm not completely stupid.'
A wry smile slicks across my face as I work to maintain eye contact with Grey Crow, 'Though got t'admit dat it might look dat way right now.'
'Essex didn't want you to know about him until he was ready for you. He had other interests to pursue.' Grey Crow admits. His hands rest lightly on my bare shoulders. Grey Crow is not a man who likes casual touching so him holding me is strange. But maybe I can use it?
'Tell me 'bout him,' I say as I lean back into Grey Crow just a little. I wait for him to stop me, to move, but he doesn't and I end up leaning my bare back against his chest.
Looking into Grey's hard, flat dark eyes from only inches away I can't afford to break eye contact, I don't really understand how it is that I can talk some folks into anything but if I can get it to work now maybe I can get free, non? I keep my tone of voice conversational. 'Tell me 'bout Essex. What's de man's game? He don seem like mos' de criminals we tangle wit'.'
Grey Crow barks a laugh, 'Give it up, Remy. I'm not some chick you can bat your eyelashes at and I'll roll over and bark. You'll know all about Essex soon enough.'
I smile at him slow and lazy, refusing to lose the tenuous thread of sexual tension I can feel building, a thread I intend to use to get out of these restraints, even if the thought make me sick. 'D'accord, Grey Crow, can't blame a boy for tryin' no?'
Grey Crow doesn't say anything to that and for a moment I let the stillness linger, him supporting all my weight as I lean against him; those large, calloused powerful hands gripping my shoulders. If Grey Crow was as immune to my 'charms' as he claims he wouldn't just be sitting here.
'Mon ami, de least you could do is let me put a shirt on, no? For old times sake?' All I'm wearing is an old, worn pair of jeans – and they soaked from the shower. If I'm going to be dragged in front of Essex bound and helpless I want to at least be dressed. When he hesitates I lay on the words a little thicker.
'You were right, Grey, shoulda listened to you. Never shoulda run from you in dat restaurant. But den nobody ever accuse me of bein' all dat bright, neh?'
The strange fluidic ropes react to body heat, slicking like oil and liquid rubber over my hands and wrists, breaking out of them would be like trying to peel out of my own skin. But now I'm not fighting to be free they loosen a little, giving me just a little give. Not enough to free my hands, but even a little wriggle room is better than none.
'Shoulda heard you out at least. Don know what was wrong wit' me back at dat restaurant, mon ami, why I din't trust you, why I ran. Sometimes my powers, dey hurt my head, make me crazy.'
Grey crow doesn't say anything and the blank look on his face is real gratifying. He's mine. I have him but what am I going to do with him? Can I take this the whole way?
'Grey Crow, mon ami, dere's a shirt in dat drawer dere, a black one - least let me go meet de man wit' some dignity, eh?' I jerk my head to point in the direction of the battered chest of drawers but I don't break the eye contact.
Grey Crow's hands tighten on my bare shoulders and he looks at me. I'm not a pretty picture right now, but that don't seem to bother him. Fine, I'm out of options; let's play the full gambit.
'Grey Crow what's de problem; dere somet'ing wrong, mon ami?'
I'm just talking for the sake of talking now, keeping the connection alive. Forcing myself to relax against him completely, moulding myself against him. He's falling. Something dark and angry in his eyes, but I see desire there too. I know how to play this game though I never thought I'd ever have to again.
I close my eyes and let out a soft sigh, deliberately turn my face so my cheek brushes his neck and my breath tickles his skin. Time to take the plunge, one way or the other I've got to make the play. Either the connection will snap or - or it won't.
Don't think about it Remy, don't choke on what you gotta do 'cause you just gotta do it, boy, there no other way of getting free. Just like back on the streets when turning tricks on your knees in back alleys all the options left open to you.
'Grey Crow?' I open my eyes and look up at him, the angle of my head, hunkered down in his arms, mean he can look down on me like a bebe in his arms. I concentrate on projecting the kind of vibes men like him get off on; I'm at his mercy. I need him. I'm helpless.
'It don have to be like dis, mon ami. We can go back to de way it was. Jus' de two of us, free as birds, livin' like kings. We don need nobody.'
Grey Crow's breathing has sped up, pupils dilating. Good, good, got to take it slow and steady, like finessing a wallet from a tight pocket.
'I was t'inkin' 'bout Europe, got to be all kinds of marks in Europe ripe for de pickin'. Essex can' be dat powerful. We leave for Europe he'll jus' find somebody else, right? Always wanted to steal de Mona Lisa. Dat would be fun, no? Paris, you ever been dere mon ami? Dat's a real beautiful city is Pa –'
Snap! The connection goes into overdrive and suddenly I'm choking on a mouthful of Grey Crow's tongue. Hate this. Hate this. How the fuck did my life come to this? I trusted this homme. But I can't show any of it. I got to stop thinking of Grey Crow like a friend. He was never my friend. Know that now. This is a mark, just another mark that I have to manoeuvre to do what I want him to do.
I break the kiss, swallowing bile. 'Mon ami, de restraints….' I flex my arms, caught painfully behind my back, as much as I'm able. 'Dis gon be much better wit'out dem, no?'
I'm breathing hard trying to keep from throwing up, Grey is breathing hard for totally different reasons. I let my eyes travel down his body, make my gaze as heavy as hands would be sliding under his shirt. Let him know just how much better things would be if I had my hands free, my tres talented hands.
Grey Crow shudders and reaches around me for the restraints. I hold my breath, viciously holding myself limp and pliant in his arms but ready to explode into motion the moment I'm free.
Grey Crow does something to the restraints and they leech off my arms, slithering away in a cold wave. The moment I can feel my fingers I buck my body off the floor and head butt Grey. Star bursts of pain ignite behind my eyes but I can't let it slow me down.
The hotel room door explodes as I look at it. Whatever was in that syringe stopping my powers has run its course. I hit the emergency exit doors in the hallway and leap over the stair railing to the second flight, then down past two more until I've reached the ground floor of the hotel. The exit to freedom is right in front of me.
Sunlight dazzles me as I stagger outside and the sound of slow hand clapping freezes me in place.
'Bravo, Mr Lebeau. A very ingenious escape plan and expertly executed.'
Squinting into the sun light I see a tall shadow, black as pitch leeching forward under the sun. Essex stands before me, dressed in a conservative business suit his skin even whiter than the last time I saw him. His eyes seem to glow like my own. A red diamond light ignites in the centre of that china white forehead and his whole body seems to ripple, like a mirage.
'Mon dieu.' I sink to my knees, exhaustion, fear and the constant pain in my head takes me down as Essex stops being a man and becomes - something else. A tall, powerful spectre with bloodless skin and solid red eyes, streamer like tassels flair out from his shoulders and a high, arched collar rises up from a dark, black blue bodysuit he wears like a second skin. He smiles and his teeth are razors.
'What - what are you?'
'Allow me to introduce myself, Mr Lebeau. I am Mr Sinister. And you are now mine.'
Behind me Grey Crow crashes through the fire escape door, gun drawn and furious. He grabs a fistful of my hair and rams the barrel of his gun into the back of my head.
Essex – no - Sinister, that's what this thing called itself, raises his hand and flexes his fingers. A beam of red light flares to life and blinds me before it hits me with the force of a hundred red hot pokers driving into my skull. The lights go out in my head.
