They sit at the table with no liquor left to drink. Xenia can’t stop moving. Foot tapping under the table and an “am I seeing things” cocaine blink. She sniffles like a metronome and keeps accidentally biting her tongue, just now so hard that it starts to bleed. No feeling though. “Do you like my robe?” She throws an arm out, turns it over palm facing the ceiling, and arches it over her head.
“It’s a very nice robe Misses Popova,” Balthazar nods. She keeps blinking her eyes like she’s waking up. ”Well, now that you’ve turned a good bunch of the hotel staff security into corpses, what’s next on the agenda?” He’s genuinely curious and she’s genuinely still admiring how the robe falls off of her arm from above her head.
“I am going, to go and find, little Arthur Pinch, and I’m going to pinch, his little head, until it pops,” she sings.
“Good luck, Pinch may take himself a little too seriously, but he takes things seriously like an arch sadist that’s jerked off while reading Macchiavelli too many times if you ask me.” There’s a dusty tint of the last drink at the bottom of Rufus’ glass. Wanted for the liquor, swirling because the short smart smart-mouthed bartender disappeared down some rat hole.
“I know,” Xenia’s arm falls to the table, fingers tapping when it lands. “He talks to spirits.” Rufus asks ‘zat so? “Oh yes, he does, he sent a little mourning soul, trapped here since the place opened, before the proprietor, before all this, he sent her to drive us mad.” Balthazar is thinking she looks pretty mad covered in blood and high as giraffe pussy. Knocked one off the bucket list though, saw a woman beat one of the sisters’ faces into a was-that-ever human mess with the blunt bottom of an empty vodka bottle. “But Mr. Balthazar. I like that name. You know Balthazar was one of the three wise men who visited the baby Jesus? But Jesus never existed. But.” lost the plot. “But I talked with the little Madam and we made a deal.”
Xenia holds up her left hand, the deep carved X from corner to corner across her palm, not tendon deep, but deep enough Rufus can see meat he knows he shouldn’t in the wound, pink ringed with the seeping blood and growing stain. “Sealed the deal in blood.”
“If that’s true,” the Prospector points with the hand holding his near-empty glass at her palm. She’s grinning like she’s winning. “You should know that it’s a juke move, and you should probably disinfect and wrap that before it falls the fuck off.”
She turns her palm over, inspects it snorts, sniffles, blinks, and shrugs. “It will be fine. It feels well, does not hurt.”
“I told her to let me wrap it,” Vlad is the side piece to their conversation and goes ignored.
“With as much coke as you sucked up, you couldn’t feel anything, and you probably wiped up what was left on whatever you snorted all the coke off of with that palm. Got maybe an hour, that hand be useless.” Xenia shrugs. “And Arthur IS The 9 now. You’re talking having beef with the man behind the curtain.”
“Vlad is good at chess,” she smirks.
“Arthur Pinch, just below the fuckin’ owner, isn’t even playing chess, he’s playing god,” Rufus says and before the last word is out of his mouth Xenia reiterates her earlier howl but in a low smoke tone, I kill gods. “Vlad, can you talk any sense into her?” Balthazar looks at Vlad, his eyes saying I like your wife but she’s out to get herself killed and Vlad sees it.
“I keep her safe.” All Vlad can say.
“Behind us, in his little birdcage, there is a sign that says he’s coming back, what are the odds of it?” Xenia thumbs over her shoulder at the window, the brass bars, the please call back or leave a voicemail with your name, number, and I’ll get back to you sign hanging in full view. Rufus shrugs. Maybe an hour, maybe ten, maybe he’s hiding, maybe he’s working. Arthur says this isn’t something that’s not normal, and who knows how long he’s ever gone, but it’s always long enough to forget how annoying he is.
Xenia rolls her neck in a circle and stares at the ceiling. “Alright,” she slaps the table. “There is no door to the lobby from that office, so I’m going to go find him, wherever he is, and I’m going to cut his throat out.” And she’s already up and walking to the stairs up to the counter, the window, again, the brass bars, stolen robe swishing behind her.
“I’m out,” Balthazar says and takes that last pale drink down his throat from his glass. Xenia shouts over her shoulder is he scared of Arthur? “Not scared but know better than to want to do the fucking around and finding out unless someone’s pushed a bunch of chips to me across the table.”
“It has been good sharing your time again Balthazar. Sometime soon we must play chess again,” Vlad says and follows Xenia.
She’s braced feet up and pulling on the bars, if she had something to wrap her hand with she could punch through the window, glass or plastic, doesn’t matter. She gives up, takes a step back, pulls out her Glock, and puts three perfect circles through the glass. AP rounds, no spider cracks, something close enough to bulletproof that even high test her hand loads can’t get through it. Darling, “What?!” she snaps at Vladimir, lets out a sigh like sorry, and turns to him.
He’s holding a Stanley 30-inch Fubar demolition tool for her. “This will probably help you.” She snatches it and goes to work.
The bars are hollow brass and pry open, pry off, pry apart, one by one, jagged hollow square tubes. Vlad lets her work. Likes to watch when she’s doing something with intent. Sweat and blood masked by the color of her stolen robe stain the garment as she pries and smashes at the bars and window. Twisted brass bits fall to the carpet as she works. She nearly squeals when she gets the pry edge of the claw hammer back of the FuBar under the frame of the whole window just enough, smacking the handle, wiggling the whole tool, cocaine focused, every muscle fiber on fire under the euphoria and her numb shiny smiling face.
The whole window creaks, she rocks the tool back and forth, getting more leverage saying come on baby, come on baby, yes, yes, and after Vlad’s smoked three quick cigarettes the window makes a cartoon sound effect pop noise, the whole thing coming out. She bashes it, yes, yes, yes, and smashes at it until it’s cranked through the shredded bars and falls thump on the floor.
She squeals. Vlad claps. “Wait,” he says because without a breath’s pause, she’s crawling up through the hole she just made, barely able to fit through it, and then might scratch the shit out of her besides. Sure enough, trying her hardest to be careful she drags a shallow bloody trench from jagged brass down her right flank, and the robe tears. Vladimir rushes to the window and says he can’t follow her. “I will never fit.”
“Have we ever not found each other before darling?” She asks, demo tool dangling at her side. And he shakes his head. “Then we will find each other this time too.”
They’re having this pre-diabetic moment of departure and kissy face at the window and the only one left to see who’s coming back down the stairs is Arthur, half drunk, not about to shoot straight, let alone shoot straight at them for various reasons both professional, sensual, and moral; the sisters are descending the south wing stairs so quiet Balthazar only saw because movement catches attention, with matching pistol grip pumps, generic body armor, and pink ski masks that say “Baby” across the forehead stitched in Old English.
“Kiss Kiss my love”, Xenia says, and turns to walk deeper into the dim lit office.
“VLAD! YOUR 2 O'CLOCK, SHOOTERS COMING DOWN THE STAIRS!” Balthazar yells and both the sisters blow shot at him. Short barrel black Mossbergs, 4 round tubes with one in the boot, buckshot splays around him, Arthur is nicked and it wakes a drunk devil. Shouts, you cunts, and pulls his wheel gun. Empties the cylinder wild at the steps, maybe trying to hit one of them, maybe not, but less whiskey and they’d both be dead for the insult of grazing him.
He tosses the revolver and pulls a PPK from under his jacket. Near double vision and even the best assassin or soldier in the world doesn’t shoot half for shit, double if he’s not trying to hit them, like, not really really. He empties the magazine, no hits.
Vlad waves a kiss at Xenia’s back, she’s ignoring the firefight starting. Lifts the AK to his shoulder and goes to round the corner to the stairs. Both sisters racking the pumps, the sound sends him behind what hard cover he has at his angle. “Balthazar,” he yells, “You go!” But Rufus has already turned smoke, Vladimir just won’t look over his shoulder to see no one there. Farther down the stairs the twins blast at the corner he’s just covering behind and it ruins the original plaster and woodwork, buckshot tearing through Teak and shredding the carpet, wood and white chalk dust flies everywhere. Slow the breathing. step back, farther around the desk.
They rack the pumps again, feet on the floor, round on him fast.
Behind her, Xenia notices that two more shotgun blasts mix with two rounds from Vlad’s AK. He’s fine. He’s always fine. She’s more interested in the office, the backrooms, mystery, and adventure, and she’s going to kill that little skinny Arthur Pinch. She runs her hands across the pegboard holding the room keys, tinkling them like chimes. Calls are flashing from rooms calling the front desk about the guerrilla warfare moving through the hotel. Blinking red, she thinks of them as frantic cries. A table, framed pictures, a pinboard that looks like a conspiracy nut put it together. Cheap truck stop folding knife on a ledge in smoky branch camo. Headache green walls and Ikea shelving and cabinetry a decade old. Buzzing lights. Drop ceiling. The cheapest rattiest parts of anywhere are places that only staff see. Arthur’s bag lunch is still on the little ratty round imitation wood formica top table, twin to the one in her room. They have to buy those in bulk. A wall of mailboxes for every room in the hotel like endless safety deposit boxes lined in a side room at an old bank takes up space like a monument to the gilded age, dusty and gold. She takes her time wandering from one side of the hallway-long room to the other and opens an Ikea cabinet hung crooked on the north wall. Red velvet lined inside, hacksaw, antique bone saw, rusted handheld bandsaw, pliers, needlenose, ice pick, bone-handled knife with a hook-ended blade, maybe Turkish, the handle inlaid with lapis lazuli. She finds three gas masks on hooks behind another cabinet door, including one she’s always thought looked like it belonged in dungeon porn. the Soviets stopped using that model in the eighties because the filters had asbestos in them and their seals leaked. The red velvet carefully installed and laid is pristine, contrasting the housing of it, the dilapidation of Ikea furni threatening to fall apart. And she asks the room, the quiet, the velvet, the well-kept sadist’s toolbox, what the fuck is this?
She turns around from the cabinets and sees something glint back up near the pegboard for the keys. she missed it hanging higher on the wall. An antique, round, shining blind gold serving tray of she believes some European provenance, something nobility would pass down. Her cocaine brain is trying to decide if it’s French or Italian, why it’s nailed up to the wall so oddly when she sees the words scratched in it. Carved in cursive, dug deep enough she can tell if there’s metal in the serving tray that’s not gold, it’s not much.
She reads along out loud under her breath.
“everyone at the 9 gets what they need.
some get what they want.
some what they deserve.
some leave in a box.
some disappear down drain in boiler room.
some never leave at all.”
Unsigned, just a dash and an X carved under the list. What the fuck?
“Wonderful to see you,” Arthur says from over by the table, “I was just about to have lunch.” And Xenia rolls her eyes, says ghost, I’m not fooled, and you said you’d leave us alone. The image of Arthur melts wet candlewax off of Mademoiselle, and the spirit’s shark tooth smile is too much the picture of self-satisfaction. “Wonderful to see you Witch,” she course corrects. “And see that wasn’t much blood, and I think you were supposed to feel the wound you dug into your palm, and I said it was for one deal. Contract fulfilled, you are where you want to be.”
“For someone with no fucking eyes, they sure are expressive,” Xenia says, flat, and unamused.
Mademoiselle starts to sing like a nursery rhyme, her voice cooing a baby, “Everyone at the nine gets what they need.” Outside The sisters lie on their backs, shotguns dropped. “Some get what they want” Vlad is rolled on his side making no noise. “Some get what they deserve” He’s breathing shallow. “Some leave in a box.” The body armor and the plate carrier are shredded, and the actual plate is shattered. “Some disappear down drain in boiler room” The twins both have holes in their vests, 5.45x39 slugs embedded a tumble sideways but not all the way through, and they’re breathing, and they’re bruised center mass, but not bleeding a bit “And some. And some. And some. And some never leave at all.” Vlad though, Vlad is bleeding, he’s leaking pretty bad.