Chapter 18
Dexter
T oby hadn’t seemed to mind when I’d said I’d stay with him, which was good. I didn’t think I would be able to stay away. I walked him back to his house and he called Amy, but there hadn’t been any more messages from the guy. When he talked about calling the police, I let him know it was already handled.
I knew Jude would be calling Liam, and I’d call him myself to check in. At this point, we didn’t need the human authorities involved. We would take care of things.
I got Toby settled in with snacks and his computer, and he talked about his book and where he was in it. Apparently he was coming up to the end, and he needed his hero to be in a dire situation followed by a suitable punishment for the evil vampire villain after all that had been done to the witch character.
“It can’t be a quick death, you know?” Toby was saying.
“There’s torture, dismemberment, starvation…” I rattled off, thinking of different ways he could drag out this evil vampire’s death.
“I mean, torture, obviously, but I feel like I’m running out of ideas,” Toby said thoughtfully. “Dismemberment, fingernail removal, and getting shot in the kneecap gets old after a while, you know?” he added.
I grunted. Fingernail removal wasn’t as truly horrific as the movies made it out to be. There were really much better method of torture.
“There’s always going old school,” I threw in.
Toby cocked his head curiously. “Old school?”
“You know, like medieval torture devices. They came up with some truly horrifying stuff. You could have your witch guy thrown in an oubliette to suffer a slow and horrifying death, only of course he gets saved. Then you could have some of the more graphic torture devices used on the evil vampire,” I said.
I heard the clacking of Toby’s computer. “Oh man,” he said, and it sounded equal parts fascinated and freaked out. “Oh, gross, rats,” he muttered. I knew I had lost him to research, as he started muttering about iron maidens and pears of anguish.
Ah, the good old days. Although really most of those devices had been used on innocents, but the evil humans who had delighted in their use had a special place in hell reserved just for them.
As Toby got absorbed in his work, I figured he wanted some privacy—that was totally a human thing that they apparently liked—plus, I had a flower shop owner to go torture. I wasn’t going to wait until nightfall. I’d rather be back with Toby by then.
“Are you ok here alone? Do you want Corbin or Jude to come over? I have to run some errands,” I said.
He paused to look up at me, obviously weighing his decision.
“Unless you’d rather I stay here,” I added. Jude or Corbin were perfectly capable of handling the flower shop owner, even if I really did want to do it myself.
“No, I’m ok. Maybe they could just, I don’t know, hang out on your front porch and keep an eye out? And let me know if they leave or anything?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said. “Someone will always be here.” I walked over and kissed him on the head. “I’ll think of some torture methods for the bad guy, ok?” I said.
He smiled up at me sweetly. “Thank you,” he said, then he was back to his computer, scrolling through a site that had pictures of medieval devices and mumbling to himself.
He was so cute.
With that thought, I let myself out, being sure to lock the door behind me, and headed over to fill Jude and Corbin in and to give Liam a call. There was work to be done, including some fun torture methods to figure out for Toby’s book.
It wasn’t difficult to track down Kurt, the owner of the flower shop. Finding his address had taken Liam about three seconds. He’d looked into the shop and Kurt’s funds, as well, and had noted some abnormally large cash transactions for a flower shop (everyone used credit cards these days). Unfortunately, Toby’s stalker hadn’t used a credit card, and any records kept online were sketchy at best.
Liam had mentioned coming to the area “to check things out,” and as annoying as he could be, I wouldn’t mind the extra eyes to watch over Toby.
By the time I got to Kurt’s house, it was late afternoon. He lived in a slightly more urban area about twenty minutes from his shop, and his house was large but certainly not a mansion. Luckily, it also had lots of property, so neighbors calling the cops about screaming was not going to be a problem.
Hopefully he didn’t have anyone locked up in the basement. I didn’t think the oracle would want to adopt another stray human. There were a few other afterlifers in town… But I was getting ahead of myself. No strays would be much better.
As I got out of the car, I took a deep breath in. The stench of a rotten soul was unmistakable.
Unfortunately, so was the smell of smoke and brimstone.
Motherfucker.
I didn’t bother with being quiet as I stalked up to the house and in the front door, following my nose to a door that led down steps. Of course they were in the basement, and above the smell of fresh blood, I could smell the coppery undertones of old blood.
I reached the bottom of the stairs and heard whimpering, looking over to see a big guy with short brown hair dangling from a hook in the ceiling. He was naked with a few cuts and bruises, but nothing major. His eyes were pleading with me, but he could only get out muffled whimpers since he was gagged. He got more insistent, shooting his eyes behind me, and I turned around.
“Atlas,” I mumbled, folding my arms across my chest. “This was supposed to be my job.”
The guy behind me screeched behind the gag, and I heard him thrashing about. I ignored it, staring at Atlas.
He was sitting on a stool against the back wall, wearing jeans and no shirt. He wore a cap over his dark hair and had a scraggly beard, and I wondered how long he had even been in his human form. Atlas preferred his hellhound form. He was… a wee bit feral.
He gestured toward the guy. “I didn’t kill him. I just subdued and tenderized him a bit for you.”
I sighed, looking back over at the guy. He was in good shape, just a wee bit bruised. I could smell the rot and decay on his soul, a stench he couldn’t hide.
“What are you doing here?” I asked without looking away from the human.
“Jude told me about Paradise Falls. I made my way to this part of the country, and when I called earlier, he filled me in,” Atlas answered.
Of course he had. Jude was probably the one who kept in touch with Atlas the most, and he wouldn’t have known whether Atlas would actually show up, so he wouldn’t have thought to tell me.
Ah, well. At least I still got to torture and interrogate the guy. I supposed Atlas had done the messy part of sneaking in and restraining him. I looked around then and noticed that the basement was secure and pretty soundproof.
“Always helps when they have their own torture rooms for us to use,” I mused.
The guy whimpered again, and I just rolled my eyes. Evil humans were so badass until they were tied up and bleeding.
I walked over and took the gag out of his mouth, and the guy started blabbering as soon as I did.
“I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not anyone. I haven’t done anything, I swear. Please don’t hurt me. I don’t know what he told you, but I’m not who you think I am,” he whined.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Kurt. I just own a flower shop. I swear. That’s all. I’m not involved in drugs or anything,” he whimpered.
Ah, so he was involved in drugs too. Made sense. Flowers would be a good way to transport small quantities.
“I’m not here about drugs,” I said calmly. “You just need to tell me what I want to know,” I said.
Atlas hmph’d behind me. Yeah, yeah, I had implied he’d be ok if he talked. But I hadn’t actually said it. It wasn’t my fault if the guy was a moron.
“Sure, of course, anything,” he whined.
Atlas sighed. “It’s so much more fun when you have to break them,” he muttered.
“No breaking! I don’t need breaking!” the guy shrieked.
I kind of wondered if Atlas had let his hellhound out. The guy was a little too terrified for having a few little cuts and bruises.
“You sent a flower arrangement to Paradise Falls,” I said, running my hand gently along his cheek, up to his eye. He closed his eyes as I gently pressed against his eyelid with my thumb.
“Yes! Yes! I did!” he cried out.
“It had listening devices and cameras,” I murmured, applying a bit more pressure. Eye gouging was painful, but really it was the psychological aspect that made it most terrifying to humans.
“Yes!” he cried out, then he started blabbering, and I could barely make out what he was saying.
I sighed and took my thumb off his eye, and he blinked rapidly, tears streaming down his cheeks.
“This is boring,” Atlas muttered behind me.
I had to agree. Still, I needed information. “Tell me everything,” I growled, letting a little hellfire into my eyes.
And he did. It was so easy that it was actually sort of a let down. Apparently he ran drugs, just like I knew from his lie, but mainly in small quantities. His more lucrative side business was catering to stalkers and other creeps. He would send arrangements and gifts with cameras, listening devices, and trackers. He was apparently quite good at his work and very sought after, and he charged top dollar.
As for Toby’s stalker—he knew disappointingly little. Yes, he had worked with the guy before. No, he had never met the guy in person. Everything had been done over the phone and through cash deliveries. The guy had watched someone else before this, but the owner couldn’t remember his name. He gave me a rough time frame and said it would be in his computer system under deliveries, so I texted the info to Liam to look into. Everything for the listening devices and cameras was online, so he simply gave the guy access to it. I got a password to his computer, and I figured I’d grab that for Liam as well.
“Are you done yet? Is it time for fun?” Atlas asked after it seemed like the guy had spilled all his secrets.
“Doesn’t seem like enough for a rotten soul,” I murmured.
“Oh, he’s done some of his own stalking. You can smell the old blood. I bet he kept someone down here. Probably killed them,” Atlas remarked nonchalantly.
“No! I didn’t kill her! And it wasn’t stalking! We were dating!” he cried out.
I tilted my head. I wasn’t so sure about that, despite my actions with watching Toby. Huh. Maybe I shouldn’t have placed cameras outside his house? I hadn’t microchipped him, though, no matter how tempted I was. Surely that counted for something. And I had told him about the cameras this morning.
“Did she know you were dating?” Atlas asked.
Ah, there we go. That made more sense. This guy was just delusional. Nothing like me and Toby. Toby liked me.
“The bitch thought she could make a fool of me and cheat on me,” he spat out.
There it was—the evil creeping out. He ranted a bit more about how he’d been wronged, and women were awful, and they deserved what they got, and blah blah blah.
“Maybe you’re actually the problem,” I finally commented, then I slipped the gag back up and into his mouth.
“Oh goody, is it time for fun?” Atlas asked.
“Toby needs some ideas for a torture scene he’s writing in his book. Something new and interesting. I put him onto medieval torture devices, but none of those are available, sadly. Any suggestions aside from the usual fingernails and cutting and beating?” I said to Atlas.
Atlas hummed as he thought. “There’s tooth extraction. Quite painful but not even remotely fatal. We could cut off his dick and shove it down his throat. He seems to have a problem with keeping himself in check when it comes to women. There’s flaying—that’s pretty old school, and really, it’s an art.”
The man started crying and screaming behind his gag, but I felt no sympathy. He had tortured women in this very basement. I looked over at Atlas, who pulled a pair of pliers and a knife out of the bag next to him that I hadn’t even noticed until now.
“Do I get to help?” he asked.
Brothers. They always wanted to be involved in everything you were doing. I rolled my eyes but motioned him forward. It was nice to see Atlas, after all, and I wouldn’t turn down some bonding time.