Chapter 2

Carl had never been a brave man.  Nor was he one to stand up to bullies—or anyone, for that matter.  Carl made himself valuable by being completely and utterly spineless—a jellyfish in the ocean of organized crime.  So it really came as no surprise to Jayden when the man immediately turned and bolted back into the dark alleyway.  In fact, Jayden had expected this and even prepared for it.  As the little invertebrate ran into the darkness, he was confronted by a tall, lean man with hair the color of coal and too-wide eyes that seemed almost hollow.  Small lips combined with his sloping jaw to reveal that his heritage had at least a little of the orient, though his eyes clearly spoke otherwise.  He wore all black and glowered at Carl.

“Carl.  I told you not to run!” the man said through gritted teeth.

“Wha?  How?  But…” Carl answered.  Behind him, an exact replica of the man appeared.

“C’mon, Carl.  You had to know I’d have someone waiting for you at the end of the alleyway.  Your reputation precedes you.”  Jayden quipped.

“Coward.  I should tear your throat out just for that.”  The other one added, his face a mirror of Jayden’s, twisted with rage.

Carl glanced back and forth, seeming to settle as he caught on.  “Twins?  What kind of nutcase twins dress exactly alike?”

“The kind who like to paint alleyways with the blood of little Mexican lapdogs.” The angry version of Jayden growled, fists tight and knuckles pale as he clenched them.

Carl’s eyes enveloped his face.  “L…listen, man.  You don’t want this cash.  I..I can get you someone else’s money…but you don’t want to mess with this guy…he ain’t right in the head.”

Jayden crouched, getting close enough to be heard over the Vegas traffic as it sped by on the freeway a hundred yards away.  “Neither is my…brother, Carl.  He hasn’t gotten to kill anyone in days.”  He looked up at his twin and leaned in, as if conspiring with Carl, “He’s pretty stubborn, too.  I might have a hard time stopping him even if you give us the money.  If not, well…” he shrugged.

Carl followed Jayden’s gaze up to his mirror image—who was suddenly holding a long, thin knife—and swallowed.  “I…I ain’t playin’ man.  Do you know what this guy does when people don’t deliver?  They say…they say he e…”

“Oh we know, Carl.  We’ve heard the stories.  Here’s the thing: we’re not supposed to deliver the money, so if he never gets it and decides to take his aggression out on someone, that’s not our problem.  You know whose problem it is?”  Jayden asked almost innocently.

“It’s yours, amigo.” The angry twin said, kicking Carl’s shoulder.

“Thank you, brother.  See Carl?  He has the right idea.”

“Uh-uh.  I ain’t no one’s lunch.”

Jayden’s face twisted in mock confusion, “I don’t think you understand, Carl.  See, if you don’t give us the money, we will kill you.  At least if you give it to us now, you have a chance to run, and then he might not find you.  Either way, we’re taking that money.”

Carl hesitated a moment, then closed his eyes and handed the bag to Jayden.  Jayden smiled and stood, “See?  Now you’ll live to see tomorrow…probably.”  He opened the case and peeked inside.  It was almost to dark to see, but the ambient light from the Vegas strip gave Jayden just enough to see the contents of the case.  He smiled.  “Run along, Carl.  I’m done with you.”

Carl stood without missing a beat and put his back to the wall, sliding past the angry twin nervously before darting off into the dark recesses of the alleyway.

“You should’ve let me gut him.”

“Come now, you wear my face, don’t forget.”  Jayden replied to his twin without looking up from the inside of the cash-filled case.

“Exactly my point, idiot.  Dead men don’t talk to their insane employers.”

Jayden did look up this time, “Hmm…I hadn’t thought of that.  Of course it’s not like he doesn’t know what I look like.  He’s been hunting me for weeks and still hasn’t found me.”

“…yet.  Idiot.”

Jayden sighed.  The man was right, of course.  Even if his conversation etiquette was lacking, his raging twin had a point.  It might well be time to leave Sin City before he was found.  One can only go on so long stealing from a crime boss before it catches up with him.

“Dear brother, I think you may have a point.  We can catch a plane to L.A. tonight and then we won’t have to worry about the boogeyman finding us in our sleep.”

“Leave?  I was talking about killing the b*****d.”

Jayden rolled his eyes, but what did he expect?  This one was full of rage, after all.  He turned and began moving back towards the mouth of the alleyway, “Not everything is solved by violence, brother.”

“Prove it.”

Jayden just shook his head at the futility of the discussion.  He was about to respond, anyways, when something bounced off of his shoulder, landing in a small pile of old cardboard against the alley wall.  He spun, ready to berate his brother but stopped, mouth open, when he saw him turned backwards, searching the darkness.  His copy hadn’t thrown whatever it was, someone else had; someone farther back in the alleyway.

“Seems you may get to sate your appetite for murder tonight, after all.  Carl would never have the spine to come back.  So we have another witness—and a bold one at that.”

A voice spoke from the black mouth of the alleyway.  “Killing me might be a little harder than you think, Jayden.”  The voice was dry and brittle; hollow and full all at once.  It spoke with a harsh German accent. 

“Seems your warnings were prophetic, brother.”  Jayden said as he glanced down to whatever had hit his shoulder and shrugged, not surprised to see Carl’s face staring up at him.  He idly wondered if his head had been torn or cut from his body.  That invariably brought rather uncomfortable images of his own head and body ending their long-standing bond so he shook the image away.

“Well I’d love to stay and chat, but I have a long-overdue appointment with an entirely different city.  Enjoy your conversation, gentlemen.”  Jayden said, bowing low.

Then he turned and ran for the street.

 

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Three hours and $300 later, Caleb half-walked, half-stumbled onto the strip.  He blinked blurry eyes at the lights and sounds of the Vegas Strip.  He wasn’t drunk, but he knew he was far from sober.  He took a deep breath, sighing deeply as the alcohol played tricks on his mind, yanking it back and forth between thoughts of Tiffany and general angst against the world.  He was fairly sure the machines were rigged—how else could he lose so much so fast?—but decided tonight wasn’t the night to raise a ruckus over it.  The judges were probably all bought off, anyways.  Then again maybe he shouldn’t have had that last rum.

Shrugging because he didn’t care either way, he looked left and right and decided left was his best bet, since he was pretty sure home was that way.  He couldn’t remember where he had parked, but he figured driving wouldn’t have been the smartest choice in the world in his current state.  Walking past the myriad of vague tourist faces, he couldn’t help but grimace.  Every person he passed seemed to have someone on their arm.  Was there some sort of couples’ convention in Vegas this weekend?  And none of them had the decency to not be smiling and kissing and holding hands.  He reconsidered the wisdom of coming down to the strip to take his mind off of Tiffany. 

Waving off the seeming endless stream of people trying to peddle ‘free’ wares or sell him something, he continued pushing down the street, eventually passing from the brighter and more visited parts of the town to the less glamorous areas where locals came just as often as tourists.  Rather than passing a sea of oblivious tourists, he found himself amongst seasoned gambling veterans, local and visiting.  And while one might expect that someone with a decade of serious gaming under their belt to be better at avoiding losses, the truth was that most people who had this much experience in casinos had the debt to show it.  Caleb hated this part of town; it revealed all that was wrong and vampiric about the Vegas culture.  But tonight he felt at home here.  A loser amongst losers.

He found himself nearing the freeway, delving into a small mini-mall of bars, strip clubs and the inevitable prostitutes one would find in this part of town.  He ignored them all and continued, determined to find somewhere he could sit and finish getting drunk; or maybe just find a cab to take him home.  It still made no sense and all the sense in the world to him.  Why would she do that?  He realized he wasn’t the greatest catch in the world and couldn’t honestly blame her for not wanting to be with him considering the rock star life she lived, but why pretend?  Why not just come out and say it?  And why had he been too blind to even begin to catch on?

He stopped somewhere near the freeway and sighed as he watched the cars speed by on their way too or from losing money.  Somewhere it dawned on him that this wasn’t at all what he needed.  Home.  That was where he needed to be.  Stopping to get his bearing, he trotted across the street and began walking in that direction.  A good night’s rest and maybe a trip to the lake was what he needed.  Not sulking and wallowing in self pity over another Vegas girl sucked in by the glitz and glamour. 

Lost in his thoughts, it took him a moment before he realized that he had wandered into a part of Vegas he didn’t ever remember seeing.  The streets were almost too dark; where were the street lights?  Why were so few cars here?  He glanced up at the building he was walking past as a sort of nervous itch set in.  “Glasgow Rest-uraunt Su-plies” hung in worn out lettering the color of old rust overhead.  The windows in the dingy brick building were black with filth in the few panes left unbroken.  It didn’t improve Caleb’s concerns about the safety of this part of town.

Coming up on the corner of the building, Caleb slowed as he heard voices.  He stood there, half-frozen with fear for a moment before coming to his senses.  He was scared of voices now?  Chances were, he could stroll on by and be on his way.  If anything, standing here like this would make any shady characters even more suspicious.  Shaking his head at his paranoia, he pressed on past the alley’s mouth.

Or almost past it.

A flash of light exploded in front of him.  As if he was disembodied, he saw himself walking towards the alleyway from a vantage point across the street.  He peered, confused, into the alley’s mouth.  In it stood some sort of monster; a strange creature from some sort of horror flick.  Long, sharp teeth filled it’s wickedly grinning mouth and it held something in its muscled arms.  A person?  No.  A corpse.  Blood was suddenly on the thing’s mouth as it dropped the body—which melted like smoke into the night air.  He tried to scream a warning to himself, but could find no voice.  Another sharp movement caught his eyes and they swung back to the alley to see a lithe—perhaps oriental?—man dart from the alley way and down the street.  It took him a moment to realize that the oriental man was the same man the monster had been holding; eating.  The oriental man bolted across the street, pursued by the monster, who came on feverish and fast.  Caleb felt fear roll towards him like a cold gust, knotting his stomach.

Light filled his vision again and then darkness.  Caleb found himself standing in the same spot he had been before.  What was happening to him?  That was two strange blackouts in one night.  Was he losing his mind?

He shook his head.  Maybe the lake was the wrong place tomorrow.  Maybe he should go see a shrink or a doctor or something.  He decided that the sooner he got home, the better, and started to take a step in that direction again but came up short as a shape flashed from the alley in front of him.

It was the oriental man.