Airel - Aaron Patterson [102]
Kreios felt Yamanu, wherever he was, would die soon if something didn’t happen. He felt him fading from his grasp. He decided to address the evil presence in front of him. He raised his face from the dirt and said, “Why me?”
The Seer laughed once more, wheezing and rattling. “You think I want you? I thought you a worthy foe… but you are a dumb sheep playing with wolves.” The laughter continued, more intense and disturbing. At last, the Seer regained a trifle of self control. “Are you growing weak, slave? Yes… yes, you are. Perhaps amendments can be made to prolong your stay with the sentient—though you’re quite pitiful, aren’t you? Yes, you are.”
Kreios was sucking air and filthy dirt into his lungs when a thought came to him, light and terrible. He tried to put it from his mind. It has to be a lie! This was a sick game the beast wanted to play; and if Kreios was to survive, he knew that he had to begin playing it.
The Seer began speaking unclean incantations in one of the lost tongues, binding and loosing. The end result, though his ears burned for hearing such unspeakable atrocities, was that the drain on the strength of Kreios was stopped. The Seer knelt to the ground and brought his face near. Kreios nearly vomited from the stench of it, thinking perhaps the Seer would try to speak a curse over him. Instead, he spit on him as he stood and took his leave, hissing, disappearing through the folds of the tent. Kreios sighed with relief and began to pray.
Chapter VII
Boise Idaho, Present day
Stan the man giggled like a little girl, cleared his throat, and adjusted his sunglasses. “I am a fan of your little plan, Stan the man,” he said cheerily. He repeated it again and again. It was a stupid little rhyme, but he needed it. He wanted it. He was the man, especially with his latest prize knocking around in the trunk. He had the world by the tail.
It had been enjoyable, his time with Lopez. The detective had been so very trusting, after all; it made the irony so very delicious. He had actually thought that I would let him go after he told me what I wanted to know. That boggled what was left of his mind.
“Let me out, you pervert!” The voice in the trunk was angry, sure. But there was fear there… and innocence, too. Stan loved innocence, loved to misuse it, turn it back on itself.
The detective had been last—the super-enjoyment of that moment would live on in infamy with Stan. He had become engorged, not just from bloodlust, but from his poetic desire to manipulate and target the innocent. He preferred to kill first those who did not deserve to die, preferably with someone watching—someone whose pain would drive them mad before he finally showed them to the edge of the grave and turned them loose within it.
Stan giggled again. That’s just what happened to Lopez! He had been so very helpful. And Stan the man was sated now. His mind was at peace, and all was right with the world. And all was going right as well. The address that he had taken from the detective, the Mexican bandito, was just as good as gold. He had made his score all right.
The voice came from the trunk again. “You know what I am going to do when I get out of here…!” It thrashed in the trunk like a drowning kitten; all screeches and howls, nothing more. The louder she screamed the better he felt. “I’ll tell everyone; the police, my school, the news, my parents—they’ll be very interested in a middle-aged pervert that kidnapped a high school student!”
Silence. She was thinking it over. Stan drove on.
“You think you’re going to get away with this?! You’re a fool!”
Stan was smug, and he smirked. He spoke calmly, soothingly. “Yell all you want, Kim. Where you’re going no one will ever hear you.” He spoke in a sing-song. “Screaming will only get you a slower and much more painful death!” That shut her up.