Chapter 2

I don't know why Alberto picked this building to duck into, unless it was simply because he knew that it was empty. I searched it from top to bottom, and the only residents I found were spiders and a few mice. I decided to hang around to find out how the EMTs dealt with those nails through Alberto's balls and cock. I was looking for a few laughs.

Well, the EMTs arrived and acted with their usual aplomb. They were momentarily taken aback by the nails, but they used a hacksaw gadget they had to cut them flush with the floor so that Alberto was transported to the hospital with the nails still in place. Well, that was not as funny as I had hoped for, but it was still worth watching as Alberto struggled not to jump at every pass of the hacksaw.

The cop showed up eventually because this was an assault in a normally empty building. He couldn't get much coherent information from Alberto because of the pains in his leg and his genitalia. I could tell the cop had a hard time not laughing at the idea of the nails. Every time he asked Alberto who did this to him, Alberto's answer was that some chick named Nyx did it, and he had no idea why.

It was obvious how much the cop believed that, but he did put it in his report. The cop followed the EMTs to the ER, so that was the last I saw of any of them. I picked up my disguise and went home. I was hungry, and I knew that Martha would have a good supper ready by the time I got there.

I related to Martha the story of my adventure that day, and she agreed with my treatment of Alberto. Martha was a bit concerned that I planned to invade that meeting room, but she was glad when I said that I would wait until tomorrow night. I needed some rest after the excitement today.

For the fun of it, I decided to use my ink jet printer to make up some Nyx business cards. There's only going to be two lines, the first line will just have "Nyx." The second line will be "Beware the Night." I'll leave a few of these lying around and see what happens.

I waited until about 9:30 PM to get to the building where the meeting room was located. I really had no idea what to expect, but I wanted to gather the information I needed to find the headquarters building. I realized that I had goofed by not getting more detailed information about the building in general and the meeting room in particular.

OK, I was going to have to do this the hard way. First, I scouted the building from the outside. I figured that I was virtually invisible as long as I didn't let myself get silhouetted, but I realized that I was still a novice at the game, so I didn't want to get overconfident.

The building, itself, was in keeping with the other buildings along the street. It had originally been a factory building, but now was a series of stores along the street, with warehouse space behind. Upstairs were apartments and offices of one sort or another. There were windows spaced to suggest that the second floor matched the first floor with six separate apartments and offices. I guessed that the room Alberto had mentioned was part of one of the offices, but that was not certain.

Further examination of the building made it look like there was a corridor along the back wall, and each upstairs office or apartment was entered from that corridor. Therefore, the thing for me to do was to gain entrance to the corridor and to go from there.

I made use of my wrist and toe spikes to climb to a window that was partly open on the back side of the building. I entered the hallway and looked up and down the hall to see if I was alone. I moved over next to the interior wall so that I would not be silhouetted against the windows. The hall was very poorly lit, so I had no trouble staying in the shadows. I made my way up and down the hall, but I found no suggestion of there being any unusual activity behind any door. I began to think that I'd been had by a scared, but smart, Alberto.

I was about ready to leave when a door opened and a man stepped out. He was holding a beer in one hand and a Mary Jane butt in the other. He was so stoned that he had no idea that I was anywhere about. He finished the can of beer and threw the empty out of the open window. He put the butt between his lips and pulled out his penis to relieve himself against the wall. I guess that he didn't think of using the open window, but now I recognized the rancid smell in the hallway.

He finished and fastened his fly before returning to the room he had recently left. He was still puffing on the butt between his lips, and I would bet almost anything they he would not have seen an elephant if it had been standing beside the door he went through.

Damn! If that guy was an example of what I was going to face when I went into the room, I had better have my stick in my hand. There would be people in there who had long since lost all sense of judgment. I went up to the door and eased it open enough to stick through the crack a simple child's toy, a periscope made of a mirror and some cardboard. I saw five young men in the room watching a Red Sox game on TV. The room reeked of marijuana smoke and spilled beer.

None of the men were facing the door, so I chanced opening it far enough to slip through. One of the men shouted, "CLOSE THE FUCKING DOOR!" but he never turned to see who had opened it or closed it at his command. This was going to be easy, I thought. All I had to do was to tap each man in the right place with my baton, and he would be out until I chose to waken him. I closed and bolted the door before sneaking up behind each man and knocking him out. I really did not care how bad a concussion I gave him as long as one of them could be questioned when I was ready.

The last man was knocked unconscious very quickly. Fortunately, Big Papi was up to bat, and they were all concentrating on him and cheering for him to hit a home run. Each man was slumped in his chair or on the sofa, so I just pushed a man to the floor as I came to him and strapped his hands together with the plastic tie. I did make a point of crushing each of the butts, since I did not want to be interrupted by a fire.

I suspected that the man closest to the beer cooler was the leader, so I chose to question him first. I had him lying on his back on the floor. I opened a cold beer and poured it on his face, hoping that the shock of the cold liquid would bring him around. The second application of cold beer did the job. I had slipped a second hood over my head, and this one had a skull painted on it in white paint. Martha was quite an artist, and she had done an outstanding job.

The man woke up, saw my mask, and screamed. My intention had been to look like a skull floating in the air, but there was enough light from the TV to make me barely visible, and I think that actually heightened the effect. He kept mumbling to himself, "Madre Deus!" It took me a moment to tumble to the fact that he was trying to pray. My mask really was a success.

I said, "Answer my questions or I will send you to hell." I was lucky that it did not register with him that I was speaking English, but he knew what I had said.

"No. No. I can't talk or they will kill me!"

"If you don't talk, I will make you wish you were dead!" That's when I stamped my right foot to release the spike that I had retracted when I got through the window. "Here, let me show you what I have in store for you." That's when I kicked him in the meaty part of his thigh. He was awake enough and sober enough to feel that, and I got a satisfactory scream of pain from him.

He tried to escape by scooting across the floor, but he soon struck the wall, so I caught up to him and kicked him in the knee with my spike. This really produced a yowl of pain. I had not driven the spike in as far as I could, because I wanted to have something in reserve if he remained stubborn. I showed him the bloody spike and said, "You see that the spike only went in about an inch. If you keep refusing to answer my questions, I'll drive the spike in the full three inches and you will never walk again."