“In my Range Rover. Outside in the guest parking. Locked in.” He emphasized the last part.
“Thanks.”
“Not a worry, man. Now about this—”
“Keys to the Rover?”
He grinned, patted his pocket. “Look, I’ll give you it gratis, just talk to me. Okay?”
“Sure. I can do that.” Silently, I mouthed drown him and toss up the keys to the girls.
My face was turned away from weasel-man and in shadow. He never knew until they wrapped their girly hands about his ankles and dragged at him. Three buxom girls can drown a man… if they don’t mind using every bit of muscle and every bit of breath to accomplish the task. Sacrifice works wonders.
I backed away so as not to get wet.
His cellphone spilled from his hand and swooped to the bottom of the pool. I hadn’t noticed it, but the thing was best drowned. He was stupid enough to have been recording us.
For a sliver of time, I considered making Red join in, to help hold him underwater. She was ex-CIA and could out-fight this giggling trio. But if she did this she might drown, and so…
I would be rid of her.
My eyes seemed filled with swarming black, my stance cold and monolithic.
I couldn’t. I couldn’t.
Could I?
The keys landed on the paving beside my shoes, clinking, splattering water.
I wasn’t touching the scene. This was an ongoing crime but watching was free. The man flapped at the water. His head lay beneath the surface, but an arm wrenched free. He connected a punch before the weight of the three women pulled him down. One of them screwed a fist into his mouth. The hair over his face swished as he struggled to shake her loose. Blood twirled outward.
Down, down he went, and I hadn’t even needed to use Red.
The water made this killing as silent as a distant ballet. Arms were knotted in, tucked in, their legs wrapping over the bucking man. Bubbles trailed upward, dwindling to nothing. The girls smothered him, and by now his lungs must be full of water. His jacket edge flapped lazily, spreading out.
The reflection of the underwater lights created wriggly patterns of light across the pool walls and the water surface. This knot of humans became a multi-colored spider lazing about near the bottom. Beneath, where their flesh blocked the light, a clot of snaking shadows lurked.
Snakes and spiders? I smiled. How apt.
I waited until nothing moved except for the water, their hair, and the clothes. When a slow unraveling of limbs began, I studied them again to make sure they were dead.
They were.
Then I stooped and picked up the keys. I gestured to Red. Wordless, and with her own eyes gleaming a strange darkness as if I’d infected her with my vileness, she trailed after me. It was just the nighttime shadows, although the idea of her joining me in my murderous, lecherous world was intriguing.
As far as I knew, I had never infected anyone with my mesmer abilities. Though Wolfe said it was an infection, he’d also said it was terribly selective and we were always male.
I threw the keys into the air, caught them. Wet. They would function as a key to unlock the doors manually, if not electronically. The vehicle might not start, but of course I only wanted my case.
Just the case and my Red.
I passed the office and made sure the manager would not check the pool for ages, and that she would forget we had even been at the resort. Our room, she would clean that personally.
No records.
Only the man and his vehicle would still remain. He’d walked in through the alley that led between the resort units. After retrieving our minimal luggage and getting Red to change into a flowing blue dress, I found the man’s Range Rover.
I took out the large case that was big enough to squeeze a bound girl into, then I flagged down a woman on the street and had her drive us away. Red and I sat in the back.
“Pull up your dress and play with yourself. Amuse me. Don’t come.”
I yawned as she did so. I grew a hard-on seeing her hand shove beneath her panties and her thighs part as she worked at herself, as she moaned loudly, but somehow it was boring. What could I do to her I had not already done? Why the fuck did I not get rid of her?
I should have drowned her.
I lay back in the seat, keeping an eye on the panting Red and that hand delving between her legs, smelling her copious arousal, hearing the occasional wet noise as she bent forward and shoved her fingers deep.
The streetlights grew sparser and the outside grew darker.
This woman driving us would be left wondering why she obeyed me.
None of them would be able to tell anyone else about me or about Red. Not the resort manager, not this driver, and certainly not the dead ones.
Ninety-nine percent of females could be made to do anything for me. Anything.
It had almost become too easy.
* * * * *
That itchy buzz that grabbed me more and more had done this. It made me want to feel more, to do something somehow different. I couldn’t decide what it was I wanted, so I usually did something else until it faded.
Three AM and I was playing with risk like I rarely did.
The latest SUV was parked at the end of this alley. Garbage bins and exit doors were the main decorations here. The club playing the music currently booming out and filling every bit of space in my ears had a fire exit door next to my shoulder. Bricks dug into my shoulder blades through the light shirt I wore, and someone had thrown up nearby. The smell was
