Part Four
(Part One is HERE)
(Part Two is HERE)
(Part Three is HERE)
Twenty minutes later I was scrunched between Sailor and another thin, pale duke in the backseat of a mid-sized sedan. Carissa sat shotgun next to a guy I didn’t recognize. Stocky and middle-aged, I could feel the sour disposition emanating from him as he drove. I didn’t ask for his name or inquire as to his; I figured what was the point.
My spine itched so bad it had started to hurt. I couldn’t maneuver myself into a position to scratch it, but when I thought of the Black Stone painting, I realized that might be for the best. The last thing I needed was the emergence of whatever this thing was growing inside me.
“We’re old, Renn. Really old.”
“Certainly don’t look it. How old were you in that picture Gradanko showed me? How old are you now?”
“Old enough. It’s not like those stupid movies. I didn’t come over from Europe on a steamboat or anything. But let’s just say I was old enough to buy beers at Altamont.”
By my estimate, I’d been fucking a chick old enough to be my mother.
“I don’t get it. What the hell is all of this posturing for? What’s the ‘end result’ of this shit that’s happened to me over the last two weeks? Beyond sadism, I mean.”
“Our only goal is simple: keep the Deschidere growing. It’s not from here - this planet, I mean - and without our help, it would die out within a year or two. Everything on this planet is poisonous to it except our bodies. So we help it reproduce and, in return, it gives us an extended lifespan.”
“Its Soil Be Murder…”
Carissa nodded.
“Portlock’s aesthetic has always been a bit too on the nose for me, but whatever. He gets the job done and people like his style, so what the fuck do I know?”
“That how you feel about me?”
Carissa turned in her seat and held my eyes in hers.
“Renn, I think you’re a bloody genius. That’s why I did this to you. With you, we can separate the local region - Portlock can have Hollywood, you and I will be king and queen of Silverlake.”
I remembered an old IDW comic based on Buffy the Vampire Killer. In it, Los Angeles merged with Hell, and many of the cast had been given positions of infernal government over their area. I think that green demon guy was Duke of Silverlake or something like that. What a lineage to be a part of.
“Don’t you want to live as long as you can, Renn?”
I did, of course, but that wasn’t the issue. Murdering people was. I shared this with Carissa in no uncertain terms.
“There’s a hierarchy. You only do the leg work when you first come in. Pretty soon, you’ll have others below you to do all that.”’
“I’d be happy to kill for you, Renn,” Sailor breathed into my ear, his breath so hot and bothered it made all the hair on my body stand at attention.
“No need, kid. But I’ll keep your offer in mind.”
I hadn’t been paying attention to where we were going, but outside I watched the Children’s Hospital come into view on our left. Because of this, when we hooked a right I knew it was onto Hillhurst. Los Feliz? I laughed when I remembered Glenn Danzig lived there; maybe he was a fungus vampire, too.
There was virtually nobody on the road, so after about another six minutes and a quick succession of turns, the famous Frank Lloyd Wright “Ennis House” rose in the distance.
“You’re kidding me,” I said, realizing our destination. Mr. Happy emitted an unexpected chortle as he stopped on the side of Glendower Place.
“It explains more than its share of mysteries,” Carissa said, turning around in her seat.
The large, Spanish-Style Mansion with a red tile roof at 2475 Glendower Place was one of the first landmarks my morbid curiosity led me to back when I first moved to Los Angeles. Colloquially known as the “Los Feliz Murder Mansion,” this was the site of multiple murders over the previous century. The most famous of these incidents occurred when Dr. Harold Perelson killed his wife Lillian with a ball-peen hammer. The good doctor then attempted to kill his oldest daughter in the same manner. He failed and subsequently offed himself with a mouthful of poison. Visiting this place was a sort of ‘rite of passage’ in Los Angeles, so much so that the first person I befriended in town took me the night after we met.
The house had been empty since the night of the murder in December of 1959, and even still had the Perelson’s furniture and possessions inside, complete with wrapped Christmas presents no one ever got to open. Back when I went nearly ten years ago now, the place was more of a ‘locals only’ legend. Over the last few years, however, a podcast and a bunch of youtube videos had given the house national exposure in the ever-burgeoning ‘internet sleuthing’ community. I remembered hearing something about the current owner not living there but keeping the house exactly as it was.
The house sat on a hill, a large, oddly placed window near the center of its facade revealing the staircase that led to the second floor for all the neighborhood to see. When I visited way back when, there was a path around the back of the house that we used to get inside a broken window. With Carissa leading the way, we walked directly up the driveway and through the front door.
“The current owner receives a monthly stipend. In return, he doesn’t come here, doesn’t ask any questions, and swats down any police or press inquiries.”
“What, this like your guys’ version of an Elk’s Lodge?”
“I guess you could say that. Come on, follow me. Marcus, you stay here and make sure no one followed us.”
Mr. Happy nodded in response and stopped in his tracks. Meanwhile, Carissa led me, Sailor, and Bowie through the kitchen and into a small room near the rear of the house. There she opened the door to a pantry and, ducking past the shelves, into a secret passage I would never have known was there until I was already inside it.
We walked forward at a slight downward grade for at least ten minutes, which suggested we had entered the hillside the house sat upon. The way was dark, lit only by a light in the distance. When we reached it, I saw the bulb was one of those mechanic lights hung from a hook in the ceiling. Just below it was an old, beat-up wood door.
“Welcome home, Renn,” Carissa said as we stepped into a cavernous open space. I immediately saw the four walls were made of stone and lined along the bottom with chest freezers positioned one after the other. In the center was a high-topped table, kinda swanky, like something you’d see in a Silverlake Gastropub. Three men sat at the stools surrounding it; two I didn’t recognize. The third was Benjamin, the Producer.
“Ah, there he is!”
Benjy stood and crossed to give me a hug.
“Haha. You look good, Renn. I suspected you would be upset with us. I sincerely apologize for our rouse. Please believe me when I tell you there simply was no other way to bring you on board. But Renn… you want this, yes? To live longer than the fucking sheep who run and shit all over the world?”
What the hell do you say to someone legitimately offering you the closest thing to immortality you’re likely to ever find?
I felt Carissa’s hands land on my shoulders. They ran down my back, all the way, until she caressed my ass through my jeans. It felt good, doubly so when I heard her voice in my ear.
“Renn, this isn’t that hard.”
“Yeah, it is,” I pulled myself away from her and turned to face all six people now staring at me. The two guys who had been sitting with Benjy looked suspiciously like my old friend from the coffee shop now that they stood and I saw their tracksuits and combat boots. Their proximity to the exit telegraphed that I wouldn’t be getting out of here unless I agreed to their conditions.
“Can I think about it at least?”
“Jesus! This fucking guy! What the fuck is there to think about?” One of the two Track Suits exclaimed, waving his hands around above his head in exaggerated outrage.
“Leave him,” Carissa said, shooting him a look that made him shrivel where he stood. It made me think maybe she really did have my best interests at heart.
“Look, go back upstairs. Marcus isn’t going to let you out but walk around, clear your head. You ever been here before?”
I nodded yes while inadvertently shivering. The bugs beneath my skin continued to march up and down my spine. It felt like my flesh was curling away from that vital meridian, a pathway to something just below this thing I classify as ‘me.’
“It’s a trip. There are rooms hidden all over the place. Explore. But Renn,” Carissa’s regard sharpened, “You have one hour. After that, you’re either leaving here as one of us, or you aren’t leaving. And that would be a waste of a seriously epic talent.”
I nodded and excused myself past Frick and Frack, walked back through the dark passage and exited the pantry. When I emerged into the foyer, Marcus nodded politely in my direction. I knew if I made any attempt for the door, it would be a painful mistake. With no further recourse, I wandered the Mansion.
And that brings us back to where we began. The idea of living longer than the standard human lifespan was, of course, appealing. But I could feel how I had changed, and was afraid of how that might continue. The Deschidere controlled me now, was changing me into someone who enjoyed the act of taking lives. Of course, that’s how the Process live with themselves. That’s what I was saying before, about the appetites we develop despite who we think we are.
So what do I do? I’m standing on this iconic Los Feliz staircase, staring out the window at the ghoul in the sky, and I don’t know. My phone doesn’t have service, but it shows me forty-two minutes have passed since Carissa’s warning. The scar on my back continues to throb, and I’m pretty sure I can feel the skin around it flaking. I pictured my entire back splitting down the middle, like a seam. Part of me wants to pull off my shirt and just reach around and give it a good yank, see if my skin does come off and reveal something underneath, like the eyeball I’d painted inside my palm. Or, I could run out the clock, then try to take out as many of my new friends as possible. Another part - the part that picked a rusty old screwdriver up off the floor of one of the rooms - thinks I should puncture my windpipe or jam it through my eye hard enough to try and hit my brain. None of those sound like particularly nice ways to go, but I don’t really have a choice, do I?
Shit. What would you do?