the girl who was blue

Evangeline part II

Godfrey tucks his switchblade under Evangeline’s pillow like a mint, reasoning she will need a weapon for a run through the dark side of the eighth. He expects the old man will give her a head start then trip the alarm and send Fink or Balthazar to hunt her down. Or the Horseman, god help her. Then again. Evangeline is no ordinary prey. She would give any of the assassins in the Nine all they bargained for and more. Godfrey kicks himself for neglecting to bring a sidearm. He will be unarmed for the trek back to the service elevator and the return trip is a buddhist river crossing. Never the same twice. The switchback turns are like reading messages from your former self composed in a funhouse mirror. Godfrey pops his knuckles and flexes his hands. He holds them both out flat for a long beat and is pleased to see neither of them trembling. Now he gets to work picking apart the knots still binding the girl who was blue.

Godfrey first deconstructs the Hojojutsu capture that has Evangeline’s left leg folded and her foot pinned to her buttocks, then the right. He straightens her legs as gently as he can then massages her calf muscles and her long grasshopper thighs to restore the flow of blood. He places a wood stool beneath her so she can stand on tiptoes while he works on the dragonfly harness. Evangeline gasps at the sudden tingle of nerve endings waking up under her skin and Godfrey notices again how pale and chapped her lips are. He fetches a bottle of water from the mini fridge behind a green and gold Turkish tapestry in the corner that serves as the bathroom area. Toilet sink and clawfoot tub. He drips water into her mouth as if feeding a baby bird. Evangeline flexes her feet and her calf muscles tremble.

He’s getting worse, she whispers.

Godfrey glances over his shoulder involuntarily. If there were a camera back there the Proprietor might see her lips moving and he might read her lips. If not he would become curious. Godfrey decides he doesn’t care. He doesn’t bother asking himself if she has planted this in his mind.

She’d not do that, he mutters inside his head. Evangeline trusts you.

How do you mean, he says finally.

I don’t think. I don’t think he’d mind if he kills me by mistake.

Godfrey shakes his head. Not gonna kill you. He’s obsessed with you.

Evangeline lowers her head and remains silent breathing rhythmically for so long he wonders if she’s drifted to sleep. Godfrey resumes pulling apart the coiled knots of the harness. Now she lifts her head.

That’s why it’s so unbearable for him.

Why.

The proprietor is a spider, the red widow. The male who climbs voluntarily into the female’s jaws. He wants me to eat him, he’s afraid he won’t stop me. He won’t be able to.

She keeps her voice low and ethereal. Godfrey grunts, not in dispute. He’s aware that he is becoming dizzy and he shakes his head violently.

Easy, he says.

Evangeline wets her lips with a flash of pink tongue. He can see shadows darting about beneath the blindfold. Her eyes are a pale purple in sunlight. Godfrey has looked directly into her eyes only once and wouldn’t care to hazard peering into them again. He wonders how long it’s been since she’s seen the sun. How long till she sees it again.

Did you know Moxie was in this cage before me?

Godfrey freezes. What did you. No she never. When.

Before you arrived at the Nine. Moxie slept in that bed for at least a year.

No.

Maybe two.

Godfrey runs numbers in his head. It was eight years ago he took up residency at the Nine. If Evangeline is not mistaken nor delusional Moxie would have been seventeen or eighteen when she was in the glass box. Evangeline’s voice shimmers in his head.

How else do you reckon she learned to so nimbly navigate the eighth.

He grunts.

Moxie fetched that sapphire necklace from 818 with her eyes closed. Like a rat in a maze chasing a cube of cheese. Godfrey resumes picking apart the harness knots. He stares numb and mute over Evangeline’s shoulder at the bed where Moxie once suffered to sleep and dream. He watches helpless as she tosses and turns and struggles in his mind’s eye. She is strapped down in five point restraints. That accounts for the wide pale scars on her wrists and ankles, the only scars she never wants to talk about. He wonders if she ever dangled in the same crucified angel position as Evangeline.

No, she says. I don’t think so. He was still obsessed with the thumbscrews back then.

Godfrey flinches and breathes fuck me. The tiny dimple scars on Moxie’s skull, hundreds of them. Moxie told him she had been born with those and he never questioned it.

Stay out of my head love.

I’m trying.

Godfrey’s eyes settle on the stainless steel box in the corner. Again he perceives movement from inside.

What’s in the box?

A cat, she says.

What?

As I understand it, there’s a cat in that box. Along with a sealed glass mason’s jar of cyanide, a brick of uranium, a Geiger counter, and a hammer.

Schrodinger’s cat, you mean. Alive and dead at once.

Evangeline nods. As am I.

Godfrey regards the box, noting the vents along either side.

The proprietor is fucking with you.

No, she says. He doesn’t play at death.

The dumbwaiter buzzes from across the room. Godfrey nods as if he has just made a decision to cut above or below the wound. He reaches into his medical case for a set of stainless steel forceps. He crosses the room as the metal door slides open. Godfrey removes the tray of food and drink and slips the forceps into the corner of the dumbwaiter door, wedging it open. He carries the tray across the room and presents it to Evangeline. Her hands now unbound she quickly frees herself from the last of the shibari ropes. The longest of them is perhaps ninety feet long. She coils it like a cowgirl and sets it aside. She takes a bite of grilled cheese and chases it with root beer float. She licks foam from her upper lip. Evangeline is perfectly naked. Long muscled limbs. Small breasts with brown nipples. Tiny triangle of black pubic hair like a baby crow’s wing. Every inch of her is bruised with ligature marks on top of ligature marks. She removes the blindfold but takes care not to meet his eyes. She folds her arms over her breasts.

Time for you to fuck with him, says Godfrey.

Evangeline nods, somber. I would love that.

Listen to me, he says softly. Don’t react.

I’m always listening, Godfrey.

He shivers. That’s right.

Tell me.

The proprietor intends to test you today. He wants me to release you on the dark side of the eighth and leave you to be hunted by his soldiers. He wants to see what you’re capable of.

Terrible things, she says. I’m capable of dreadful things.

I know. Time to show him personally.

Or kill myself trying, she mutters.

Godfrey downs the shot of tequila, groans and shivers and wishes he had ordered the whole bottle. He tells Evangeline about the forceps in the dumbwaiter door. The switchblade under her pillow. He tells her to take the longest of the binding ropes and ascend the dumbwaiter shaft. He shrugs and confesses he doesn’t know what manner of hell she will find up there but it’s surely better than dodging Balthazar in the tesseract of suicide rooms on the eighth. Evangeline doesn’t say a word but her eyes throw velvet shadows and realizes the hairs are standing up on the back of his neck. He watches as she disappears behind the Turkish tapestry then turns his attention to the odd metal box, the quantum fuck you gift from the Proprietor. He pokes it with his foot and now hears a low growl from inside. Godfrey resists the urge to put on his gas mask. He can’t wait to be out of this box and away from the theater and back in bed with Moxie.

If she’s even in his bed tonight.

Moxie is no assassin but she is proper dangerous and she knows the eighth better than anyone. She will likely be one of the hunters dispatched to track Evangeline along the dark side. Godfrey howls inside his skull, raging against the light under his skin. He must think of a way to warn her to be elsewhere. He eyes the telephone and thinks better of it. He doesn’t trust Bishop. The dwarf bartender would sell out his mother, his unborn twin, his own shadow. He might be able to get a message to Malick but feels certain that Arthur has the line tapped. Godfrey feels a chill run through him and again peers uneasy left and right for cameras he knows are not there just as Evangeline reappears from back of the tapestry. She wears pale gray yoga pants and wife beater tank, no shoes. Her hair is tucked under a gray skullcap. He watches as she straps the switchblade to her left forearm with duct tape, slings the coil of hemp rope over her shoulder.

The man in the front row, she says. The one who gouged out his own eyes.

Godfrey nods. I saw him. Didn’t recognize him.

The heir to a sugar empire of sorts. He has a derringer in his vest pocket.

Does he.

Two shots. Use them wisely.

Godfrey growls, taking her meaning and measure. He reaches for the phone and presses the button for the penthouse. The line rings once twice and the Proprietor picks up without a word. Godfrey tells him the job is done and watches as Evangeline crosses to the dumbwaiter and without hesitating vanishes up the narrow shaft like a black cat disappearing into a shadow. He appreciates her not wasting her breath wishing him luck. He will need to save at least one of those bullets should he come unmoored from his senses and find himself lost in one of the suicide rooms. Better to top himself with a shot of lead to the ear than taking his ragged fingernails to his jugular.

_

*part III coming soon, pass it on.