Here Be Monsters

Here Be Monsters - By M T Murphy



Blackmail



M.T. Murphy

©2011

All rights reserved.

Edited by Erin Stropes

It wasn’t every day that Tim knocked a beautiful woman flat on her back. He stared at her from atop his clumsy six-foot, three-inch frame, wishing he could turn back time.

“Oh my god. I am so sorry.” He knew the words couldn’t possibly convey his horror.

The young woman sat up and crossed her feet as elegantly as one could do in such a situation. She had long black hair and the greenest eyes he had ever seen. He expected her to be hurt, furious, or both.

Instead, she laughed. It was a warm and carefree sound, one that made him feel far more comfortable than it should have. After all, he had bowled her over like a stampeding ox as soon as the elevator doors opened. It didn’t get any more ungentlemanly than that.

She stood before he had a chance to offer to help her up.

“It is all right. The hour is late and you wish to go home,” she said. “I should have known better than to wait directly in front of the elevator.”

“No, I’m an oaf. It’s totally my fault.” He shoved his hand out at her with a weak smile. “I’m Tim from accounting.”

She shook his hand. Her grip was stronger than that of most of his male colleagues. It was the kind of grip that demanded one’s full attention.

“Hello, Tim from accounting,” she said with a warm smile of her own. “I am Lucy. It is nice to meet you.”

He liked the way she said his name. Her barely perceptible accent made it sound like the letter “t” was just a little heavier than the rest.

He tried to think of something witty to say. Nothing came to mind.

“You are here late, Tim. Are you working on anything exciting?”

He glanced down at his leather satchel, suddenly remembering why he had been in such a hurry. “Not really. Just a special project for my boss.”

“Something that will benefit all of us in the Romana family of companies, I hope?”

Tim frowned. “We’ll see.” He shook off the gloom and jumped as the elevator buzzed at him for blocking the doors open too long. He moved out of the way and stuck his hand in front of the impatient doors, holding them open for her. “I’m really sorry about, you know, acting like a human bowling ball. Could I buy you a cup of coffee sometime?” Inwardly, he cringed. Knock her down, then hit on her. Subtle as a caveman.

“I am not much of a coffee drinker,” she said, stepping into the elevator.

“Ah,” Tim said, and released the doors. He knew a polite rejection when he heard one. He couldn’t blame her.

“But”—she held out a business card which he snapped up greedily—“I would love for you to stop by my office sometime so we can chat.”

He nodded like a confused puppy. She smiled again. The doors closed and he took a step back, watching the floor numbers change on the digital display. Lucy’s suit had been crisp and elegant, much like the rest of her. She was probably a personal assistant for one of the reclusive executives. It would figure that one of those dirty old men would hire himself a woman like that to ogle.

The lobby of the Romana Industries tower was empty save for the spiky-haired blonde woman stalking around the front doors. The woman worked as bodyguard and additional security for the executives. She made no effort to hide the fact that she was staring at Tim. He nodded politely but she did not return the gesture.

He glanced back at the elevator. The display indicated that it had stopped on the thirteenth floor—the ultra-private executive floor, only accessible by a numeric code held by a handful of people.

“Figures,” Tim said to himself. Then he looked at the business card.

Lucille Romana

President and Chief Executive Officer

A chill ran down Tim’s spine. He had a crush on the very person his boss was planning to blackmail.

He rushed out the front door, pretending to ignore the menacing glare of the spiky-haired blonde woman.

*****

An hour later, he recounted the tale on the old couch in Barry’s apartment.

“You actually met her?” Barry asked. “I’ve been working there for four years and never saw her once. You’ve been there three months and you’re practically dating?”

“It’s not like that. I was getting off the elevator. She was getting on. She was really nice considering I nearly killed her.” Tim paused, replaying the scene in his mind. “And…”

“And what?”

“She’s pretty.”

Barry thumped him on the head. “Get your noggin in the game. She’s the enemy.”

“I told you I don’t want any part of this.”

“Tim”—Barry tapped his chin and wrinkled his brow as if deep in thought—“I’m drawing a blank here. Who was it that loaned you the money for that last year of grad school when they cut your scholarship?”

Tim grimaced. He knew where the question was heading and he didn’t like it. “You did, but—”

“Who made the other seniors stop beating you up every day in high school when he was a senior and you were a freshman?”

“You did.”

“And whose family took yours in when your good-for-nothing father left?”

“Yours,” Tim replied.

“And who helped you get a dream accounting job right out of college when you had no other job prospects?”

“You did.” He wanted to point out that he had paid back the loan and his mother had paid more than their share of the rent and other expenses for the month they stayed with Barry’s family all those years ago. That didn’t change the fact that Barry had helped him again and again. Reminding him of that seemed to be one of Barry’s favorite pastimes.

“You’re like a brother to me, Tim—albeit a younger, stupider brother. I’ve always looked out for you and I need you to back me up on this.”

“Barry, how much money do you make?”

Barry waved away the implications of the statement. “I make low six figures, but you don’t understand. I have some…vices.”

After resisting Barry’s invitations to go with him to the casinos every weekend for the past two years, Tim was actually very aware of the man’s dirty little “secrets.” If gambling debts, drugs, and prostitutes were riches, Barry would have been King Midas.

“Look,” Barry said. “I got invited to a celebrity poker game after hours last month, but I was already out of cash. To make a long story short: I owe some guy named Vince seventy-five thousand dollars by the end of the week.”

“Have you thought about talking to human resources at the office? They always talk about us being a part of the Romana ‘family.’ Maybe they could…”

“They could what?” Barry yelled. “Fire me on the spot?” He took a deep breath and regained his cool. “I’m sorry. Did you bring the package I left?”

“Yes.” Tim removed the brown pack from this bag. “I don’t see why you couldn’t bring it.”

“It would have been too suspicious if I did it.” Barry opened the box and shuffled through the contents. “Did you look at what’s in here?”

“No,” Tim said.

“Good. Plausible deniability for you.” Barry flipped through the documents, stopping at one very old photograph.

Tim couldn’t see the image, but the corners of the photo were rounded and the back had yellowed with age. It had to be at least fifty years old, if not older.

“Our CEO has a secret,” Barry said, “and I think the price tag for keeping that secret is a cool 1.5 million dollars.”

“Let’s set aside the fact that you are obviously bat-shit crazy for a minute. How did you arrive at that number?”

“Don’t you pay attention, rookie? This company makes so much dough that anything less than two million is not even a blip on the radar. It’s a rounding error. I’ll pay back what I owe to the sharks and take a million for myself. I know a guy in Costa Rica who needs a financial director for his new resort. I’ll take that job and retire in style at the ripe old age of thirty-four.”

“And the rest?” Tim asked, already afraid of the answer.

“That is your cut just for helping me with a few simple, untraceable tasks. You deserve it. I won’t take no for an answer.” Barry reached into his work bag next to the couch. “Check this out.” He tossed a dark object toward Tim’s face.

Tim caught the thing in self defense. He turned it over in his hands, and it took him almost a full second to realize what it was. “A gun? Why do you have a gun?”

Barry shrugged. “Hey, man. These are some rough characters I owe. It’s just for protection.”

Tim moved slowly, placing the gun on the table as though it were a bomb that was ready to explode. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Barry. This is getting crazy.”

He wanted stay and argue with his old friend, but the thought of what Barry wanted him to do made him nauseous. Instead, he went home and dreamed of guns, loan sharks, jail cells, and the CEO’s gorgeous green eyes.

*****

When Tim arrived at the office the next morning, Barry was sitting at Tim’s desk, using his computer. “What are you doing?” he asked.

Barry jumped, obviously startled. “Sorry. System update was taking forever on my machine, so I was just surfing on yours. Had to check my messages.” He took his time, finally getting out of Tim’s chair after making several more precise clicks of the mouse. “I’m sending the CEO an email today to request a meeting tonight.”

They were the only two people in that corner of the building, but Tim still glanced around nervously. “Why are you talking about it out loud like that? Are you nuts?”

“Relax. I made friends with one of the security guys who works in the main control room. He said that only the entrances and exits are monitored. They don’t even log what websites we visit. Thank God for that, otherwise they’d have fired me years ago.” Barry laughed and punched Tim in the arm.

“Barry, we have to talk about this. There’s no way you’ll get away with it.”

“It’s fool-proof,” Barry said. “I’ll send Miss Romana a taste of the incriminating documents via a totally untraceable email account and tell her where to wire the cash. Once the transfer is made, the receiving account will split it up and send it to forty-three separate accounts in fifteen different countries. By the time they track them down, I’ll have run that money through several legit businesses and made it so squeaky clean you could eat off it.”

He reached into his pocket and produced a piece of paper with two series of numbers scrawled on it. “Before I forget, here is the account number and phone number for the bank with your cut.” He folded the paper and placed it in Tim’s shirt pocket, not giving him a chance to protest. “Don’t worry, I made sure yours goes through twelve different banks on its own. It is completely untraceable.”

“What makes you think she’ll go for this instead of calling the police?”

“It really is an offer she can’t refuse. Her choices are to call the cops and lose everything or pay the measly million and a half bucks. She’ll pay.” Barry’s confidence spilled out in the form of a smug grin.

Tim couldn’t help but see the specter of prison bars in their future.

“Look, Barry. I told you I don’t want any part of this. I’ve already done more than I wanted to. Just do me one favor. Don’t set this in motion today. Sleep on it. We’ll put our heads together and figure something out so you don’t have to do this.”

Barry scowled. Tim knew he was nearly impossible to dissuade once he’d set his mind to something, no matter how crazy it was. But, surprisingly, after a moment the scowl softened and Barry smiled. “Fine. Waiting one day won’t kill me, I guess. Let’s meet in your office tonight at eight. I have some month-end stuff to finish so I’ll be working late anyway. Go grab a bite to eat when you’re done with work and come back. I don’t know how the hell you think we can figure out a way to make enough cash to pay off my debt, but we can talk about it.”

They parted with a nod. Tim was surprised at how quickly Barry had caved, but he felt a little better. After Barry left, he looked at the computer and found that the last thing he had done was clear the internet history.

Tim shook his head. “Barry and his porn. I don’t even want to know.” He spent the rest of the day working and trying to figure out how to raise the money without breaking the law.

He finished up his work well after sunset and walked by Barry’s office door on his way to the elevator. It was closed, as it was every month when crunch time rolled around. He could hear fingers furiously banging on keys as Barry drafted the monthly summary for the executives to let them know the state of financial affairs. He had his issues, but Barry was a wizard when it came to numbers.

Tim rode the elevator down to the third floor. The bell rang and he reminded himself to look before rushing through the doors. They opened and he jumped.

“Hi, Tim.” Lucille Romana smiled and stood patiently outside the elevator.

He stood with his mouth agape for several seconds before rational thought returned. “Hi…uh…Lucy. I didn’t knock you down this time.” Smooth.

“I appreciate that,” she said.

A moment of awkward silence passed. Lucifera glanced into the elevator behind him. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Great. Never better. You?”

“I am well.” She was still smiling, but a look of concern had crept into her eyes. “Are you sure you’re all right? Is there something you wanted to tell me?”

My friend is a psychopathic dope fiend and gambling addict who is planning to blackmail you. Also, he’s armed and I’m pretty sure he downloaded a gigabyte of x-rated videos on my company computer.

“Uh…no.” He realized he had been blocking her path to the elevator and she was waiting on him to move, so he quickly stepped out of the way and held the door for her. “Sorry.”

“No apology needed,” she said. The doors started to close, but this time, she stopped them. “Tim, if you ever want to talk, feel free to stop by my office on the thirteenth floor. The code is six, six, six. I know it is rather silly. Security is somewhat lax here on the inside, but that is why we only hire people we know we can trust.”

“Yeah, trust,” he said, twisting his face into an approximation of a smile. “See you later.”

“Goodbye,” she said.

Tim took a deep breath to keep from trembling and made his way to the company café. Thankfully, it stayed open twenty-four hours a day to accommodate the company’s sometimes grueling work schedule. Grabbing a sandwich from the cooler, he took a seat two tables away from a man and woman he vaguely recognized from the logistics department. They were in their early thirties and were part of the lucky group that was able to get away with wearing polo shirts while everyone else was stuck in business suits. From their posture, it was fairly obvious that the man was very attracted to his khaki-skirt-wearing coworker while she barely knew he existed. Tim knew the scene well. He had played the part of the harmless, sexless guy-friend more than once.

Tim wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but the woman was speaking loud enough that he didn’t have much choice. She was relating the story of her sick mother who had been on the verge of losing their family home just weeks earlier. The poor job market and mounting medical bills had drained their finances to the point where foreclosure was imminent. Tim strongly suspected the woman’s coworker was feigning interest in her family while biding his time to change the subject to a sexier topic.

The ending of the story caught Tim’s attention. The woman had related her mother’s plight to someone in the human resources department. Within a week, the company had purchased the house from the bank and worked out a modified payment plan that would allow her and her mother to buy the home at a fraction of the cost. Earlier in the day, the woman had received a personal note from the CEO thanking her for her loyal service and wishing her mother well. It was almost too good to be true.

Tim wondered if that might work for Barry. He was a damn good accountant, after all. They had no idea that he was anything other than a loyal employee at the moment. The thought of betraying his friend’s trust sickened Tim, but the thought of getting dragged into a blackmail plot and going to prison sickened him more.

He threw away the rest of his sandwich and headed to the elevator. He stepped inside and pressed the button for the thirteenth floor. The digital readout requested a password. He pressed six, six, six. The floor number display went black and the elevator shot up to the executive floor.

Tim stepped through the open doors and looked around. The floor was black marble and the walls were dark brown mahogany. The tables in the vacant hall were adorned by vases of roses so deeply red that they almost looked black.

Tim glanced down the empty passages. The air was cold and the place was completely silent. It almost felt like a tomb. He immediately regretted his decision to come. He turned around and pressed the elevator button furiously, but nothing happened.

The barely audible sound of a foot tapping against the floor caught his attention. Turning back around, he jumped, finding that he was no longer alone.

The surly blonde executive bodyguard was standing directly in front of him with her arms crossed. He was suddenly aware of just how similar her shimmering eyes looked to Lucy’s.

“Hi,” he said.

Her only response was a slightly raised eyebrow and a deeper frown.

“I’m here to see Lucy. She said I could stop by?” It wasn’t really a question, but Tim’s apprehension made it sound like one.

“Of course she did. This way.”

She walked over to an enormous oak door directly across from the elevator. Tim wondered how he had failed to notice it before.

The door must have weighed at least a hundred pounds, but the woman pushed it open like it was nothing. “You have a visitor,” she said.

Tim stepped into the office and the woman left, closing the door behind her. Lucy sat at a stylish black desk that was empty save for a phone and a small day planner. Behind her, the Los Angeles nighttime skyline poured in through the floor to ceiling window, a sea of glass towers, lights, and life.

“Hello again,” she said. “Have a seat.”

“Hi.” Tim sat in the amazingly comfortable leather chair directly in front of her desk. Immediately an object on the shelf next to the window caught his eye. “Is that a samurai sword?” he asked.

She glanced back at the shelf. “Yes. They tell me it is a very old wakizashi, the shorter sister of a katana. Would you like to see it?”

“Uh…no. I just didn’t know you’d be armed.”

“Should I be?”

They laughed, and Tim realized that his hands were trembling again.

“There is something I need to talk to you about, Lucy.” Sitting in her office and calling her that just felt wrong. “I mean, Miss Romana.”

“Lucy is fine,” she said. “You can talk to me, Tim. What is going on?”

“I have a friend who is in trouble. He made some mistakes and borrowed a lot of money from the wrong people. Now I think his life may be in danger.” He didn’t realize just how weak the story sounded until he said it aloud.

“Your friend is an employee of Romana Industries?”

“Yes.”

“I can do nothing for him unless he requests help of his own free will.”

Tim nodded. The trembling was getting worse. He forced back tears as the weight of the situation hit him. If they didn’t do something Barry might end up dead.

Suddenly, Lucy was sitting in the chair next to his. He hadn’t seen her move, but it must have been the stress. He wasn’t paying attention.

“It is all right, Tim. You did the right thing in coming to me. This company is run like a family and a family takes care of its own. Tell your friend he can come to me and he will have nothing to fear. Loyalty is a quality I value above all others.”

“Thank you.” Tim felt a little better. Lucy had to be close to his age, but her confidence and manner made her seem so much older.

“You are welcome. And now, there is something you can help me with if you have time.”

“Anything,” he said.

She led him to the private elevator in the back of her office, offering no further explanation. They entered the elevator and descended into the lower levels of the forty-story tower.

“Will you give me your completely honest opinion?” she asked.

“What if it isn’t what you want to hear?”

“Then perhaps it is even more important that you tell me.”

The elevator stopped three levels below the lobby. She led him down a dusty hallway that ended at a metal door. There was no lock or security keypad on the door, which was quite unusual.

She stopped with her hand on the doorknob.

“Can I ask you something of a personal nature?”

“Sure,” he replied, a little too enthusiastically.

“What do you value most in a friend?”

It wasn’t the kind of question he was expecting.

“I guess I value loyalty and trustworthiness above most things.” He thought about Barry. “A friend you can trust and who is loyal to you is worth his weight in gold.”

Lucy smiled. “I could not agree more.” Her green eyes seemed to twinkle even more than they usually did.

She opened the door and ushered Tim inside. He squinted in the glare of the single naked light bulb that hung from a wire in the center of the large, bare room. Lucy closed the door behind her and the sound echoed in the emptiness. The walls were unpainted cinderblock and the floor a concrete slab. Five rectangular columns made of red brick stretched from the floor to the ceiling against the left wall. The columns were about four feet wide and four feet deep. It seemed unlikely that they were meant to support the weight of the upper floors.

An extremely tall man in an obscenely expensive business suit was working on a sixth column. He had completed the two side walls and bricked up about three feet of the front portion. He placed the final brick of a row, then set his trowel next to the mortar and pile of unused bricks and faced them.

Tim was finding it very difficult to breathe. The relief he had felt after his conversation with Lucy was being replaced by a growing sense of dread.

“From the quality of his work,” Lucy said into the silence, “one would never guess that Mr. Nash is not a mason by trade.”

The man towered over Tim by nearly a foot. A quick glance at his menacing stare and Tim recognized him as one of the executive security goons.

“What exactly did you want me to do?” Tim asked. He wanted nothing more than to get out of the room as quickly as he could.

“Of course,” she said. “Please examine the contents of the column Nash has been so diligently constructing.”

Tim nodded and walked toward the incomplete column. He took his time, not because he wanted to move slowly, but because it was as fast as he could force himself to go while fighting his mounting terror.

Before he was close enough to look inside, a sound escaped the brick enclosure. Something moved. The ring of metal brushing against metal grew louder as he approached.

A standing figure stirred in the darkness.

“Tim? Is that you?”

It was Barry.

Lucy appeared at Tim’s side. “Your friend Mr. Barrington has been quite insistent that he talk to you before Nash’s job is finished.”

Chains rattled as Barry moved as far forward as he could. His hands and feet were tethered to the cinderblock wall with about two and a half feet of heavy chains. “Tim, you’ve got to help me. Tell them. Tell them the truth.”

“Barry? What is going on?” Tim looked to Lucy for an explanation, but she stood silently, an enigmatic grin her only response.

“Tell them,” Barry pleaded. “It was your idea. I didn’t want to blackmail anybody.” He turned to Lucy. “You have to believe me. Tim said he’d kill me if I didn’t go along with it.”

Tim was too shocked to reply. He looked at Lucy again.

“It is true,” she said. “All evidence does indicate that you were planning to blackmail me. Nash, show Tim what you discovered in the bottom drawer of his desk.”

The giant reached into his hip pocket and produced the pistol Barry had shown him the night before.

“Our science department checked and the only prints on the gun match what we have on file for you at human resources, Tim,” she said. “A quick check on the gun’s serial number confirms that it was purchased with your credit card and registered in your name.”

Tim recalled Barry asking to borrow his only credit card to purchase a microwave at a local pawn shop a few weeks back. He hadn’t wanted to let the card out of his sight, but his friend had always been very persuasive.

“Lucy.” Tim wanted to explain. He had to.

“No,” she said. “I will ask you a question in a moment, but for now I want you both to listen very carefully.”

Tim silently locked eyes with Barry.

“As I am sure you are coming to realize, I am the type of employer who prefers to settle matters internally rather than involving outside authorities. We are a family. You are both a part of this family. A family handles its own matters, including discipline and punishment.”

Tim glanced at the other five brick columns.

“It is true,” Lucy went on, “that I value loyalty and integrity. I also value strength of character in those I allow into my trust. Someone has shamed this family. One of you must die.”

Tim thought about running.

Lucifera casually placed a hand on his shoulder. Her grip was like a steel vice. He winced in pain and let out a yelp.

She nodded to Nash. “As I was saying, one of you must die. I do not care which of you it is.”

Nash handed the pistol to a very shocked Barry.

Lucy continued. “My only question is—”

Barry cut her off with a primal scream and pointed the gun at Tim’s head. Tim stared directly down the barrel and heard the distinctive click of an empty chamber.

Barry pulled the trigger five more times. The gun clicked harmlessly each time. After the last click, he threw the gun down and buried his face in his hands.

“How rude,” Lucy said finally, releasing Tim from her grasp. She held out her hand, revealing the six bullets that formerly occupied the pistol. “I had planned to allow you to decide between yourselves who lived and who died. The battle between a man of virtue and a cowardly scoundrel is always entertaining.” She placed the bullets in Tim’s hand.

The metal door swung open behind them.

Tim and Barry both looked to the door, hoping for a savior.

The blonde executive bodyguard stepped inside, dragging a young security guard behind her by his throat. The man was struggling, but she held him effortlessly.

“Ah, Sylvan,” Lucifera said. “There you are.”

The woman smiled and nodded. “I figured out how the gun made it inside. Barney has been a bad boy.” She hurled the man like a bowling ball, sending him sliding across the floor on his back.

Lucy halted the man’s progress by stomping on his throat. He grasped her foot and tried to pry it free, but he couldn’t budge her. “I know Mr. Barrington is the culprit,” Lucy said, ignoring the squirming man under the sharp heel of her Salvatore Ferragamo boot. “His bad intentions follow him like a poisonous cloud. There is no place in this building where I cannot hear his convoluted, scheming thoughts.”

“You can read minds?” Tim asked.

“Yes,” she said with a wink. “Now, Tim, would you like to see what the fuss is all about?”

Nash retrieved an old photograph from a package on the floor and presented it to him.

He cautiously took the picture and held it up so he could see it better in the weak lighting. It showed the lobby of what appeared to be an old movie theatre. From the way people were dressed, the photo was probably taken some time in the 1930s. Most of the crowd was walking to the right, but four individuals were walking to the left: an extraordinarily tall man, a blonde woman with spiked hair, a feral-looking, shaggy-haired man, and a beautiful dark-haired woman in an evening gown. They all appeared to have glowing eyes and fangs. Tim wanted to believe the eyes and fangs were the result of some sort of a problem with the development of the image, but it was amazingly crisp and clear otherwise.

He was also painfully aware that three of the individuals in the picture were standing in the room at that very moment.

“Photographs do not lie,” Lucy said. “It is simple to trick the human mind and make it fail to notice our eyes and fangs. To our great annoyance, we have discovered that electronic equipment is not so easily fooled.”

Tim looked up from the photograph to find that Lucy’s eyes were burning with green fire and her smile was now punctuated by two very sharp fangs. He took a trembling step backward.

She pointed to the picture. “That was taken in New York on February 12, 1931, after the premiere of the film Dracula. We were heading to the rear exit to avoid the crowd. Nash and Sylvan went out to feed, and Mickey—he is the dashing though somewhat shaggy one—took me dancing. I have so few pictures of us all together. I would have gladly paid a million dollars for this if Mr. Barrington had chosen to come to me directly.”

“I’m sorry,” Barry said, “I…”

Lucy ignored him and lifted the security guard off the floor. With a hiss, she tore into his throat with her fangs, forcing him back to the edge of the incomplete wall of Barry’s tomb. Blood poured from his ripped neck and she gulped it down.

When she’d had her fill, she hoisted the man up and over the bricks, dropping him at Barry’s chained feet.

“For the love of God,” Barry gasped. “He’s still alive.”

Tim could hear the man wheezing and gurgling as Barry stomped on him and kicked him in the darkness.

Lucy licked the blood from her fingers. “Fear not, Mr. Barrington. He shall likely perish before you do.” She pointed a still-bloody finger toward the pile of bricks on the floor. “Mr. Nash, if you would be so kind,” she said.

Nash picked up the trowel and spread a layer of mortar on the top of the unfinished wall in front of Barry. Working quickly, he stacked the bricks on that level and spread another layer of mortar on top of them.

“Miss Romana, you can’t just leave me here,” Barry screamed.

“Actually, I prefer Lucifera.” She produced a handkerchief and daintily wiped the excess blood from her hands and face. “Five other individuals have attempted to betray me as you have, Mr. Barrington. There are five brick columns in this room identical to yours. I trust someone as gifted with numbers as yourself can figure out what that means.”

Nash was spreading the mortar and stacking the bricks with superhuman speed. In less than a minute, only a small opening remained at the very top of the brick tomb.

Barry cried and begged the woman for mercy. When she did not answer, he called out to his friend. “Please, Tim. Don’t let them do this to me.”

Lucifera frowned. “The true tragedy in this is that he was a very good accountant.”

Nash handed the final brick to Lucifera. She, in turn, held it out for Tim.

“Life is full of choices, Tim. Here is yours. You can take the elevator to the lobby, then walk out of this office and never return…”

Tim’s eyes settled on the brick and did not move.

“Or, you can place this brick and accept your promotion. It seems we need a new senior accountant.”

“I…I can just leave? You won’t kill me?” he asked.

“That is correct,” she said. “But the instant you even think of betraying me, I will ensure that something unpleasant happens to you, your friends, your family, and everyone you have ever known.”

Tim took a step backward.

“Consider this,” Lucifera said. “Mr. Barrington’s death would have occurred either by my hand or by the hand of those to whom he is indebted. Your conscience is and will be clear. Had he the means, it seems Mr. Barrington would have killed you without hesitation. Such treachery hardly seems like the actions of a friend, but, then I am not telling you anything you do not already know, am I?”

Tim stared at the last unfilled hole at the top of the wall.

“And there is still the matter of that picture you are holding.”

He looked down, finding the photograph still in his hand.

Lucifera extended her empty hand, beckoning for the photograph. “I believe that one million dollars is a fair price. Do you not agree, Tim? We can consider it a signing bonus.”

Barry’s muted screams drifted out of the unfinished tomb. Tim tried to ignore them as he stared at the picture. His mother had sacrificed many things for his sake—her pride being one of them. A million dollars would go a long way toward healing the wounds she took for him.

But that didn’t make it feel any less wrong.

He placed the photograph in Lucifera’s hand. Then, he took a deep breath and grabbed the brick. Without stopping, he shoved it into the final opening, locking Barry in the dark with his screams.

He stared at his trembling hands. “Now I’m a monster, too.”

Lucifera appeared in front of him and touched the side of his face. “No, Tim. As I said, your conscience is clear. Now let me remove the burden of this unpleasant memory so you can focus on your new job.”

Before he could protest, she bit into his neck. Her presence invaded his mind, erasing and twisting his memories. Pain and fear were the last things he felt before everything went black.

*****

Tim awoke in his apartment with a throbbing headache. He removed an empty liquor bottle from the night stand and stared at his alarm clock until it came into focus.

Saturday? The last day he could remember was a Monday.

Slowly, things crept back to him. Barry had wanted him to do something.

No. That wasn’t right. Barry had quit with no notice and moved down to Costa Rica to work for some acquaintance of his. It all seemed so vague and fuzzy, but that was what he remembered.

The idea of never seeing or hearing from Barry again didn’t bother him as much as he thought it would. Then he felt a tinge of guilt, but another dreamlike memory drove it away. He had been chosen to take over Barry’s old position and given one hell of a promotion bonus.

He picked up a black envelope from his nightstand. It was a very nice letter from the CEO, Lucille Romana, thanking him for his loyal service and congratulating him on the new position.

“Lucille Romana,” Tim said. “I hope I get to meet her one day so I can thank her in person.”

Tim put the letter aside and forced himself to get out of bed. His headache was getting worse. He knew he had to get some coffee—otherwise the lack of caffeine would make him a real monster.