The Jake Helman Files Personal Demons (39 page)
Read The Jake Helman Files Personal Demons Online
Authors: Gregory Lamberson
Kira pulled him toward her, and she kissed him on the mouth, jamming her tongue into it. He clamped his teeth shut, denying her entry. She laughed at him, but with her jaw hanging at an askew angle, she sounded more like a fighting alley cat. Rotating his body, she turned him upside down. Her mouth nipped at his crotch, making him grateful that he wore denim. Two of her hands gripped his throat and she forced his head into the toilet bowl. Realizing that she intended to drown him, he seized the bowl’s rim with both hands and held his head above water. His vision blurred and he started to lose consciousness. He squeezed the toilet bowl hard, sending a shock wave of pain through his left hand that revived him. Kira came into focus again, sneering at him. Out of the corner of his right eye, he glimpsed the drawn shower curtain behind her. Bringing his right knee to his chest, he set his foot on what remained of Kira’s abdomen and kicked out with all of his remaining strength. Kira cried out, her fingernails raking his neck as she flew backward. Her calves struck the edge of the tub, and she fell back into the vinyl curtain. Three of her arms flailed for the curtain rod but fell short. Her head smashed against the tiled wall behind the curtain, and she dropped ass-first into the water that Jake had run before her arrival. Her legs dangled over the tub’s metal rim, and for a moment she looked confused. Then her eyes went wild and she sucked in her breath.
Jake stood up, massaging his neck.
The bathwater fizzed.
Kira looked down at the bubbling water, her face filled with fear as she clawed at the tub’s edge. The water churned, foamed, and turned pink. Jake watched the remainder of Kira’s midsection dissolve.
“Help me!” she said in a strangled voice, her jaw moving in an unnatural manner.
He kicked over the wastebasket and empty liquor bottles clattered on the tiled floor. Jim Beam, Johnny Walker, Smirnoff’s, and Black Velvet—all of his old favorites. Seeing the bottles, Kira’s eyes bulged in their sockets.
“Tower told me he’d built an Achilles’ heel into all of his Biogens. With those snake things, it was salt, to prevent them from escaping the Philippines by sea. I knew that wasn’t practical for a corporate biped like you, but I remembered you telling me that you don’t drink because you’re allergic to alcohol, so I made you a special cocktail.”
Kira clung to the tub’s edge with four hands, the remaining two pressed against the back wall for support as she tried to lift herself out of the water. Discarding the empty wastebasket, Jake raised his right foot and stomped on each of the hands before him. Kira held fast as pustules appeared on her flesh, pus erupting from them. She screamed as her torso separated from her hips. She resembled an insect as her upper body came free of the water.
She had a desperate yet determined expression on her face, as if she believed she could survive without the lower half of her body, which had almost completely dissolved. Jake grabbed the curtain rod with both hands and kicked her face, hard. What remained of Kira splashed into the bath, submerged in pink, foamy liquid. The curtain fell back into place and Jake jerked it open. When Kira rose to the surface, her eyelids, nose, lips, and nipples had dissolved, revealing cartilage, muscles, and bones. Her hair had become a sheen of dark slime clinging to her head and neck, and she stared at Jake with pleading eyes.
“Help meeeeee …”
Her hands clawed at the air until her elbows dissolved, and then her forearms toppled into the water, where her fingers trembled.
“I’ll help you,” Jake said. “Just like you helped Sheryl.”
Kira read the look in his eyes. Her body convulsed, and she opened her mouth wider than Jake had thought possible. He expected a forked tongue to dart out at him. Instead, a dark gray substance shot past his head, striking the mirror of the medicine cabinet behind him. The substance stank like vomit and congealed into a thick, gooey line extending from Kira’s mouth to the mirror.
A spiderweb!
The mirror snapped open and slammed against the tiled wall, and Kira’s upper body rose from the water as she sucked the web back into her mouth. Jake retrieved the toilet plunger handle and swung it at her as if she were a piñata. The web snapped and she splashed back into the tub. He climbed in after her, straddling her, and drove the handle between her dissolving breasts, forcing her trunk to the tub’s bottom. The churning water splashed his face. Kira’s eyes exploded in their sockets and her jaw separated, her tongue disappearing in a burst of bubbles.
Jake reached over the side of the tub, grabbed her dangling legs, and pulled them in. Feeling no sympathy for her, he only wished that he had more booze and a larger tub. Within minutes, nothing remained of Nicholas Tower’s progeny. Jake sat on the tub’s edge, his jeans soaked to his thighs. Blood soaked his bandage, but he did not care. Opening the drain, he watched the slimy water recede.
J
ake laid Sheryl to rest five days later, after the autopsy on her had been performed. Her funeral took place in a cemetery located off the Long Island Expressway in Queens. Cops called that stretch of the LIE the Cemetery Expressway because so many boneyards occupied the land around it. The Manhattan skyline overlooked the gravestones, and the sun broke through the clouds, golden rays splitting the sky. Jake thought it a glorious sight, more impressive than anything Nicholas Tower could have concocted in the Tower.
Detectives from Special Homicide attended the service, as well as members of the Street Narcotics Apprehension Program. The priest who had married Jake and Sheryl performed this ceremony as well, and Jake’s former colleagues served as pallbearers. None of the mourners seemed to notice the man with the mirrored sunglasses and long blond ponytail standing at the back of the crowd.
After the casket had been lowered into the ground, Jake tossed one dozen dead roses down onto it. If anyone found that peculiar, they kept it to themselves. As the mourners dispersed, Edgar and Vasquez joined Jake, and Edgar handed him a thick envelope.
“We took up a collection at the station. I hope this helps with the expenses.”
Jake felt too touched to refuse the donation. “Thanks. Tell everyone I appreciate it.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll get through this somehow. It may sound corny, but at least I know she’s in a better place.”
“Good for you,” Vasquez said.
Jake smiled. “Thanks for coming.”
“No problem.” She looked at Edgar.
“Well, I guess we’d better get back to the shop,” Edgar said. “The Cipher may be dead, but we’ve still got plenty of customers to catch, including one very popular vigilante.” He held out his hand. “See you around?”
“Count on it.” Jake shook his hand. “I’ve decided to get my PI license.”
Edgar laughed. “Oh, boy. Jake Helman, Private Investigator. I guess we will be bumping into each other.”
Vasquez smiled. “Take care of yourself, Jake.”
The Homicide detectives crossed the manicured lawn to their unmarked police car.
“They make a good team.”
Jake looked at Abel. “Yeah, I guess they do. You look well.”
Abel shrugged. “It helps when you can control your appearance.”
“When you two go at it, you go all-out.”
“It’s always been that way.”
“How goes the war?”
Abel gazed at the sun. “We won a major battle, thanks to those liberated souls.”
Jake’s voice turned somber. “How is she?”
“I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I guess we owe you that much. She’s looking over your shoulder right now.”
Turning around, Jake only saw gravestones gleaming in the sunlight.
“You can’t see her. But if you do ascend to the Realm of Light, you’ll be closer to her than you ever were here on Earth.”
Jake raised his eyebrows. “‘If’—?”
“You might have a long life ahead of you. Are you sure you can walk the straight and narrow?”
Jake grunted. “Maybe I’m too down-to-earth for heaven.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You did well. Sheryl and the others are free because of you.”
Jake squinted as wind blew in his face. “Will I see you again?”
Abel shrugged. ‘“Where’s Old Nick?’“
Jake stared at his companion for a moment, debating whether or not the superior being had made a joke. Then he laughed and Abel joined him.
They both knew where Old Nick was.
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