Seven, eight ... Gonna stay up late (Rebekka Franck #4) (19 page)

Allan left the
basement, went into the kitchen and began washing his hands. He rubbed them
with soap and found a sponge to scrub all the blood off. The water in the sink
soon turned red. Allan wiped his fingers in a towel, then looked at the clock
on the oven. It was almost noon. Sebastian probably had invited the guests to
come around seven, so he still had a lot of time. With one more body to get rid
of, he had a lot of work to do. But with Sebastian out of the way he was less
likely to be interrupted again.

Allan walked towards the barrel when suddenly
his iPad on the table lit up. Allan looked at it. There was a new message in
the chat. It was probably just from Cogliantry, Allan thought. He probably
wanted to see more pictures. The man was always hungry for more. Allan didn't
have time for this. But he still checked.

It wasn't Cogliantry this time, he was surprised
to discover. It was
him
. The
master himself. The man who called himself Thomas De Quincey. Allan read what
it said a couple of times. It wasn't a pleasant message. He wasn't writing
Allan to congratulate him on his great achievements. No he was angry. Allan
could tell by the tone of his message. It simply said:

Where is my package?

Allan sat down on the chaise lounge with the
iPad on his lap. He had to answer this right away. This wasn't just anybody who
was writing him these words. He thought about what to write before he answered:

In my basement. I'm preparing
it for you.

A minute went by before the answer came. Allan
tapped nervously with his fingers on his thighs.

You have two things now that
belong to me. I want them, tonight.

Allan took in a deep breath to calm his growing
anger. He had other plans for those packages. He was sick and tired of this man
telling him what to do and when to do it. This was his mission, his masterpiece
and no one was going to destroy it.

I'll bring them both to you
tomorrow. Wrapped and everything.

A few minutes went by without an answer. As he
waited Allan feared he would incur the Master's wrath. No one messed with
Thomas De Quincey. He was after all the one who had started it all, he was the
one who had brought them all together. But Allan didn't answer to anyone. Those
were his killings, Thomas De Quincey could get the leftovers.
Yes
, Allan thought to himself.
Leftovers had to be good enough
. If he
wanted to kill them so badly himself then he should have captured them. Why
didn't he just do it himself? Allan had been the one offering one of the
packages to him. As a gift, a contribution if you like. Why was he now acting
like he was entitled to it? What if Allan had changed his mind? What if Allan
didn't care about all of that anymore and just wanted out? Wanted to go back to
kill for his own sake? For his own pleasure and not to satisfy the Master?
Allan could be his own Master. He was after all the best at what they did. He
had killed many more than any of them. Why should he answer to any of them?
They should be the ones worshipping him. No, he definitely wanted out. He wanted
to be on his own.

Allan had already planned it all. After this, he
would be gone. He would be out of here and the Master wouldn't know where to
look for him. He had a private jet ready in the airport that was ready to take
him to Monaco where he had secretly bought a house. Allan had made a lot of
money the last years mostly buying stocks on insider knowledge and he would be
able to live of it for the rest of his life. Plus the prince still paid him a
huge amount every year to keep quiet about his existence. He was unstoppable
and even Thomas De Quincey was about to discover that. Hell, if he came to
punish him Allan would just have to kill him as well.

I want them tonight,
Thomas
de Quincey wrote.
Alive.

I'll deliver them tomorrow.
Dead. Take it or leave it.

Then I'll just have to come
and get them myself,
Thomas De Quincey wrote.

Allan froze when he saw that the Master had left
the chat room. There was no way back now, he thought. The Master was coming, so
he'd better be prepared.

I was still
staring at the lifeless body of Sebastian Devalnier hanging from the ceiling of
the basement. I couldn't take my eyes off it; I couldn't get the pictures out
of my head of how cold-bloodedly Allan Witt had murdered this man without so
much as blinking. It actually seemed like he enjoyed stabbing the knife into
his chest and took pleasure in watching him die. It scared me like nothing had
ever frightened me before. It seemed he took delight in killing.

I knew I had to think fast. This was a man who
wouldn't think twice before slaughtering all of us. He hadn't been joking or
just trying to scare us by showing us those pictures and letting us know what
he was intending to do with us. If I didn't do something soon, we were all
going to end up like Sebastian Devalnier. But what? How?

For some strange reason I suddenly felt an urge
to have a cigarette. I almost craved it. But I always did in stressful
situations, I thought. This just wasn't the time to be thinking about that.
That was when it hit me. Maybe it was the right time? I recalled having smoked
with Peter in my father's backyard before we ...
oh my god, before we did the unforgivable
. It was
immediately after that I spotted the man behind the hedge. Did I still have my
pack of cigarettes in the pocket of my sweater? I put my hand in and felt it.
Yes. It was still there. I pulled the pack out and to my great joy I saw that
the lighter was still in it. I pulled it out and lit it. Yep, it worked. I
almost cried as I held it tight in my clenched fist. In some way this was going
to help me.

I jumped as I heard steps on the stairs and the
lighter went back in my pocket while I wondered how come Allan Witt hadn't
found the package in my pocket? He was too dumb to not have searched me for my
phone or a pocketknife. Could it be that he just hadn't found it? The pocket
was kind of deep, the package almost empty and I hadn't thought about it myself
or felt it was there until now. Had he just made a slip-up? Had he made a
mistake?

I watched Allan Witt as he walked slowly down
the stairs carrying a big barrel in his arms and a hose over his shoulders
while imagining what I could do with the lighter. There weren't many options
that didn't include hurting myself somehow.

Allan Witt put the barrel down next to Camilla's
box, then unscrewed the lid to the tube leading into her. I watched as she
crumbled and shockingly stared at the hose coming down in her box. Her body was
trembling while she pleaded for him to not do this.

"Please, Mr. Please, don't do this. Not
again. I beg you."

Allan Witt put the hose in the tube, then a
funnel at the end of the hose. He lifted the barrel on his shoulders and began
pouring. It was heavy, too heavy and suddenly it slipped from his hands and it
spilled on the floor and on his apron and pants. As the barrel hit the stone
floor it spurted out on the floor almost to where I was. Allan cursed, then
picked the barrel up again and continued pouring. The brown liquid ran across
the floor towards the dip in the floor next to my box where it blended with the
blood from Sebastian's dead body.

My heart stopped as I watched Camilla panic when
the brown liquid hit her from the hose. She lifted her hand and tried to stop
it from flowing, tried to block the hole, but soon it spurted out anyway and
hit her in the face. "Stop, please, stop," she hollered.

I started banging on the sides of my box in
anger and frustration. "Stop it!" I yelled. "Why are you doing
this to her?"

But Allan Witt kept his calm and never took any
notice of me screaming at him or Camilla's crying and begging him to stop. It
didn't take him very long to fill up most of the box with the Armagnac. Its
sharp smell soon permeated the basement. Camilla was lifting her head trying to
avoid getting it in her face, spitting, gurgling and crying at the same time. I
felt so helpless, so frustrated for not being able to do anything. I growled
and groaned and kicked the box in anger and desperation, but no matter what I
did, I couldn't prevent Camilla's box from being filled. Soon she had only her
face barely above the surface. More was pouring down through the hose, hitting
her directly in her face, making it hard for her to breathe, when suddenly it
stopped. Camilla gasped for air. She was holding her head above the surface of
the liquid by lifting her torso a few inches with her arms. If she let go, her
face would be covered.

I heard Allan curse and swear. "What the
hell ...?" He was staring inside the box, then examining the funnel. Then
he was cursing again. He tried to look through the hole in the barrel, then he
cursed once again right before he stormed up the stairs.

He had run out of Armagnac.

Allan ran
around
in the kitchen while messing up his hair with
his hands, opening cabinets, going through his collection of liqueurs.

"Just one more bottle," he mumbled
frantically going through all of them, reading the labels, then putting them
back. He found all kinds of very expensive alcohol, but no Armagnac. He
speculated like crazy if it was possible to use something else. He pulled out a
six-year old Calvados Pays D'Auge. Could this be used?
No
, he thought.
No, no, no
. The recipe explicitly said Armagnac. There was a
difference. You couldn't just deviate from the recipe, could you? No, it had to
be right. The bird was supposed to drown in the Armagnac so that its lungs and
innards were filled with the tasty liquid. That was the way it was supposed to
be, you couldn't just make up your own recipe. That wouldn't work. It had to be
done right. It just had to. It had to.

Allan was circling himself in the kitchen,
mumbling and rubbing his fingers against each other. His eye had an annoying
tic that wouldn't go away.  What now? he thought. What do I do? He looked
at the watch. Still three hours left till the guests arrived. He still had
time, didn't he? Could he drive to the store? Was there enough time to make it
there and back and then prepare the rest? He shook his head. No, it was too
late. The rest of the preparations took time. What else did he have to do? Oh
yes, the woman. She needed to be cut open while still alive. Like the fish,
like the Japanese fish, yes. He would serve that as an appetizer? But what
about Sebastian? What was he going to do with him? Allan's fingers were hurting
from tapping against each other while he was speculating. It was like he
couldn't stop his mind, like his thoughts wouldn’t stay calm.

Don't lose it now. Don't lose
it.

The voices in his head were screaming at him,
making it even harder to hear his own thoughts. Plus he had begun to hear a
weird drumming sound inside his head that he couldn't escape. It sounded like a
pulse, a heartbeat. He tried to shake his head, to get rid of it, he tried to
tap the side of his forehead nervously to get it to stop. But nothing helped.

I'm not losing it. I'm keeping
calm. I'm not going insane.

Then he looked at the clock again. Half an hour
had gone by like this? How could it? He walked to the clock and looked at it.
It shifted again. The numbers were shifting all the time! It was as if the
minutes were running from him. He held his head between his hands while staring
at it closely. Was this some cruel joke? Then he tapped at the glass. Was the
clock broken? He turned and looked at another clock above the door. It said the
same time. It wasn't the clock.

It was him. He was losing valuable time by
speculating like this. This wasn't a time to be thinking, this was a time for
action. He picked up the phone and called the store. He offered them a thousand
dollars if they delivered three bottles of their finest Armagnac within an
hour. He gave his address, then hung up without saying goodbye to the woman in
the other end. He turned around a few times, trying to force the kitchen to
stand still. Trying to make his mind stop spinning.

Everything is okay now.
Disaster averted. The Armagnac will be here soon, and then you can move on.

Allan took in a deep breath to calm himself
down. He held on to the kitchen table while forcing himself to breathe
steadily. It was going to be alright. Everything was going to be fine. He
couldn't let these little things get to him. With a project as big as this,
some things were bound to go wrong; he couldn't expect everything to be
perfect.

But that's what you do, isn't
it? You demand perfection. It has to be impeccable or it isn't done right.

Allan clenched his fist and hit the kitchen
table so hard he was certain he heard the bone crush inside of it. But he
didn't mind. Just like he enjoyed the pain of others he also took pleasure in
his own pain. He stared at the hand that was still clenched. The pain spread from
his fist to the arm and into his entire body. He closed his eyes and enjoyed
the waves of pleasure and pain going through him. When it was gone he opened
his eyes, reached over and picked up his butcher's knife. He walked towards the
door, then put his hand on the handle. Behind it he heard the girls crying. He
paused and enjoyed the sound. Just before he turned the handle, he quoted
another of his favorite horror movies,
The
Fly
:

"Be afraid... Be very afraid."