His Touch of Ice Read online

  I prepared a slight breakfast of ham and cheese stacked between toasted bread and heated up a pair of hashbrowns before seating myself at the bar and reaching for the kitchen remote.

  I regretted hitting the ON button almost immediately.

  “Initial reports are saying that the body of a young man was discovered on the shores of Lady Bird Lake early this morning in the hours just before dawn. Though authorities are not releasing many details, the jogger who discovered the young man described him as appearing ‘frozen,’ giving rise to the question as to whether or not this young man was the latest victim in what police are calling The Lady Bird Killer, who’s suspected of storing their victims in extreme temperatures before dumping the bodies. I’m Taylor Armson, and this has been your morning news.”

  “Shit,” I whispered, clicking the TV off with a resounding sigh.

  I’d thought this was over—that the man, or woman, who did this had simply packed house and moved on to some other unfortunate end of Texas—but it appeared that was anything but the case. That trail had been abandoned for a reason. It’d been stalking grounds. But when the last victim was found six months ago in a city where crime was as scattered as it was varied, it didn’t take much to forget the idea of a killer being on the loose.

  I glanced out of the living room window at the upper end of Sixth Street.

  Thank God I’d gotten out of my jogging habit, otherwise I’d be dead.

  My appetite soured but unwilling to waste perfectly good food, I forced myself through the sandwich even though each bite felt like a tender knife within the corpse of an attractive young man until I was finished. One hash brown I ate half of. The remaining bits I ground up in the garbage disposal without much thought.

  I stood there for a few minutes, glaring down at the sink as if it would answer the questions to all of life’s problems.

  Soda in the fridge, a post-it said near the counter.

  While I could’ve sworn Guy had leaned in sometime that morning to tell me such a thing, I opened the fridge to discover that there was, in a fact, a twelve-pack waiting for me—resting perfectly where a soda rack would’ve normally been placed.

  After retrieving one from the pack, I walked to the sofa and cracked it open.

  Bliss.

  I spent most of the morning on the phone, arranging forbearance details with the government and straightening out my living situation with my former landlord. His thick accent and his frothy foam-at-the-mouth attitude made it almost impossible to discern what he was saying.

  “You left?” he asked, nearly barking the words into the phone.

  “Everything I own is gone,” I replied. “The furniture was left on the curb. The apartment’s as spotless as I could make it.”

  “You wish to terminate your lease?”

  “Yes sir. I do.”

  The man on the other end paused. What sounded like a series of shifting papers, followed by a low string of curses in Spanish echoed into the receiver before the resounding shift of his mouth entered my ear.

  “Look,” he said. “You’re past due on last month’s rent. I can cut you a deal, seeing as how you haven’t given me any problems. But I’ll still ask for last month and what you’ve stayed for this month’s.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Total comes out to $952. Pay by Thursday or I retract my offer.”

  “I will, sir. I’ll drop the check off in your box soon.”

  The call ended without a goodbye.

  “Well,” I mumbled, looking down at my phone. “At least I have two days to worry about that.”

  The doorknob clicked once, then twice to release the deadbolt before it opened to reveal Guy, dressed immaculately in a finely-tailored gray suit and a pair of black dress pants. “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” I replied.

  “Didn’t expect you to be up.”

  “Lunch break?”

  Guy nodded. He slipped into the kitchen and began scrounging through the fridge before he pulled out a carton of what looked like hummus and pita bread, as well as a soda. “Care if I have one of these?”

  “You bought ‘em.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Guy laughed. He dipped the bread into the mixture and sluiced it about. “You ate?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Cool.” He tore a chunk out of the bread. “So,” he continued, “what’ve you been up to?”

  “Student loans. Landlord.”

  “You get the total we need to pay him?”

  “About a thousand dollars.” I grimaced even though Guy made no visible reaction. “Sorry.”

  “For what? I said I’d help you out.”

  “I didn’t think it would be that much.”

  “Compared to this place?” he laughed. “Trust me—I pay about that and more a month for this place.”

  “You mind if I ask where you work?”

  “Advertising—business, mostly, but I do independent work on the side. Guess I have a way with people.”

  No kidding, I thought.

  I smiled nonetheless and made my way to the window. Parting the curtain, I looked out at the street and surveyed the steady but not overly-coagulated stream of traffic below.

  “Hope the sound doesn’t bother you,” Guy said, catching me off-guard. “I got the place for the view, but… well… it’s still downtown.”

  “The sound’s fine,” I said. “I used to live near all the city services—police departments, ambulance depots, fire departments.”

  “So you’re used to it.”

  “Yeah.”

  The sound of a trash bin flipping open, then closing radiated throughout the apartment before a set of jingling keys entered my ears.

  “What time do you normally get home?” I asked, turning to face him.

  “Uh… four, usually. Unless there’s meetings. Then six, seven at the latest.”

  “Ok.”

  “If you need anything, I keep spare change in the urn there.” He nodded toward the black-and-gold fixture seated at the edge of the bar. “You know your way around.” Guy opened the door. “See ya,” he said.

  “See ya,” I replied.

  He closed the door and locked it without another word.

  The jittering doorknob stirred me from sleep.

  Splayed out along the couch with my head on a pillow and a thick wool blanket over me, I opened my eyes to find it was almost dark and the rain had once again started up. My first inclination was that Guy was having trouble with his keys and had mistaken one for the other in the pale and somber light. Because of that, I rose and started crossing the distance between the door, head still fogged by sleep and legs struggling to maintain their balance.

  “Guy?” I asked.

  The doorknob stopped jittering.

  I froze.

  Something was wrong—very, very wrong.

  The lock clicked out of place.

  I lifted my head just in time to realize the bolt wasn’t done.

  I slammed into the doorway the minute the door open, but I was instantaneously tossed away by the intruder’s brute strength. My back collided with the corner of the bar and I let out a stifled cry of pain as the shadowed figure entered the apartment.

  His gun was drawn, pointed right at me.

  “Not much you can do about a burglar when he’s got a master set,” the man said, clicking his tongue to the sound of the keys swaying in his hand. “Is there?”

  I didn’t say anything. I was still struggling to take hold of my senses and block out the spiraling pain in the middle of my spine as he closed the door behind him, blocking out the sound of the traffic and rain.

  “Now, listen here, rich boy,” the man said. “I want you to tell me where you keep your money—your cards, your cash, anything. And I want you to do it quickly, now, because I’m not stupid. I shoot, I don’t have time to look. So let’s make this easy… take me to the cash, or I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

  “I…” I managed. “I…” />
  The man flung himself toward me and shoved the gun under my chin. “I said—”

  “Can’t… walk.”

  “Well, then. Guess that sucks to be you.”

  He yanked me to my feet and spun me around until the gun was pressed against the back of my neck, a cold hard cylinder through which one pull of the trigger could end my life. He didn’t need to repeat himself to let me know what he wanted. The problem was, I had no idea where Guy kept his money, if he kept it anywhere at all. His cards would be on him, his wallet and personal identification in his pocket, every internet account accessed through his phone and the keys to any safe on his keyring. Truth of the matter was: I was fucked. I just had to figure out how to bide my time to get the hell out of the situation.

  “Well?” the man asked.

  “Give me a minute,” I said.

  He clocked me upside the head with the butt of his pistol and nearly sent me to my knees again. “You had a minute. Go. Now.”

  I started toward the hallway that would lead to Guy’s room.

  I closed my eyes, counting the seconds until he’d realize it was all just a big fucking joke.

  Behind us, the door opened.

  “Jason?” Guy asked.

  “Look out!” I cried.

  I hit the floor as the man spun to fire at Guy and rolled onto my back just in time to see Guy lunge. One arm flying up to deflect the gun, the other to smash the fat ring on his index finger into the burglar’s face, he slapped the weapon from the man’s hand before he could raise it to shoot again and lashed out with his one free hand.

  His fingers snared around his throat.

  The man’s eyes widened. “Wuh-wait,” he gasped. “I’m just getting paid to—”

  A chill washed over the air.

  The tiny globules of water dripping from the man’s raincoat crystalized before my eyes and shattered the moment they hit the carpet. His frantic legs kicking, his arms struggling to reach out and take hold of Guy, I watched in near-awe and horror as the skin upon his hands paled to a sheer gray, then as the tips of his fingers began to turn blue. Our breaths were but white shadows in the air and the man’s gurgling gasps were reduced to slight chortles as his body convulsed, then twice, before going still entirely.

  In but a minute, it was over.

  Guy dropped the assailant.

  His head lolled about to face me.

  His neck was a mass of swollen black tissue and his lips and skin the color of ice.

  Trembling, the air about us returning to normal, Guy panted and took a deep breath before turning to look at me. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “You… you’re—”

  “I don’t have time to explain,” Guy said, looking from me, to the corpse, then back again. “Oh God. Gawwdddddd.”

  “You… you’re the one who—”

  “We have to leave. Now.”

  “Wha-Why—”

  Guy hoisted me to my feet and began dragging me down the hall to his room. When he realized I’d been injured, he set me on the bed and began cycling through drawers, pulling from hidden compartments bundles of cash that numbered in the hundreds, possibly-thousands of bills, not to mention coins which appeared to have been smelted from real gold.

  “We have to leave,” Guy said as he turned to face me, “because once they come in and find the body, they’re gonna think I’m the one who killed all those people.”

  “What… what are you?” I managed.

  “There’s no time, Jason. Please.”

  I kept silent.

  “Do you trust me?” he asked, falling to his knees before me. “Do you trust me, Jason?”

  I looked out the open doorway, at the body of the man who no more than ten minutes ago had been completely intent on killing me.

  I tilted my head down to stare at Guy’s face.

  The rings around his eyes glowed with an illumination told only in legend.

  “Yes,” I said, after a moment of startling realization. “I do.”

  Truth was, I had no other option.

  Without him, I was fucked.

  PART 2

  We drove away from the scene of the crime just in time to avoid the onslaught of police cruisers responding to reports of gunfire. Tucked safely away in Guy's sprawling blue Lexus, we made our way through the streets of Austin in silence, save for only the sound that of our breathing. I’d been quick to try and stem the bleeding from my head wound, if only to keep from ruining the interior of Guy’s car, but found it was almost impossible to do so.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said after I fussed with yet another series of napkins. “They’re covers. Besides—the car’s the least of my concerns right now.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Hill country, even if it’s the last place I want to go.”

  I cradled the back of my head with one hand and fought to control a rolling wave of nausea that threatened to send the contents of my stomach onto the floor of Guy’s nice car. Breathing, carefully, as to not overstimulate myself, I rolled the window down just a crack and leaned my head against it—immediately prompting a look from Guy, but not the question I’d expected.

  The silence was bliss after all I’d went through.

  I kept hearing the same sound in my head.

  Bam, the gun went. Bam bam bam.

  During the chaos of it all, there’d been little time to think of anything. We’d packed two bags, carried them out to the car, Guy said we’d pick up food once we got out of Austin and we were free of the burden of the police department—I’d noted, upon our departure, a tear in his suit where the bullet had grazed and cut straight through, but he’d been quick to rebut my offers of help.

  You’re hurt worse than I am, he’d finally said.

  He was right. I’d been slammed into the corner of a counter and been cold-clocked with a pistol. How I was even awake, much less lucid, was beyond me, but so far I was faring well. The sharp pain in my back had since dulled to a low throb—which, I hoped, meant it wasn’t too serious.

  So early in the evening, the traffic through west Austin was a nightmare. He immediately bypassed I-35 and instead took Congress all the way down to William Cannon—which, eventually, would lead us out of Austin and into Hill Country.

  Sometime during our merge onto William Cannon, I nodded off and fell into a deep sleep.

  When I woke later to a throbbing head and a back with what felt like a needle lodged into my spine, I lifted my head away from the window to look out at the world before us.

  Hill country.

  Even so late at night, it was stunning in its beauty. Flanked by blue bonnets on both sides, bordered by tall grasses in various colors further out, and sprinkled with wildflower in every shade and hue imaginable. With the headlights striking their surfaces, they resembled the mystical Wonderland Alice had so unfortunately fallen into, albeit with a sinister shade that reminded me of the Cheshire Cat and all its creepy riddles.

  “Guy?” I asked, turning to face him. “Are you all right?”

  The sweat beading down his forehead gave no indication that he was. The heater was cranked full blast and both windows were rolled up to trap the near-suffocating air that permeated the inside of the vehicle. I almost told him to turn the air down and roll down the windows, but when I reached out and found his skin to be cold as ice, I jerked my hand away, trembling at the shock in temperature difference.

  “Guy?” I asked. “What—”

  “Good,” he said, not taking his eyes off the road. “You’re awake.”

  “What’s going on? Why are you sweating?”

  “I’m cold, Jason. I’m really, really fucking cold.”

  “But you’re sweating—”

  “I’m not like most normal guys, babe, but I think you already figured that out already.”

  I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure what to say.

  Guy returned his attention to the road and focused on a slight dirt runoff that likely led
to an old farm trail. “I’m pulling over,” he said.

  “Guy, what’re you—”

  “Just trust me! Ok?”

  I flinched at the bark in his tone, but nodded as he pulled over and killed the ignition.

  One moment, the lights were on, illuminating the rolling fields of flowers before us. The next, it was dark and I could only see by the light of the moon.

  Guy took my hand. “You said you trusted me,” he said, stroking my knuckles, a faint echo of discomfort pulsing from his glacial fingertips. “Right?”

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “I trust you.”

  “I can’t explain right now. I’m… starting to fade. I need you to do something for me. It won’t hurt, but… it’s not going to be pleasant either.”

  “Guy,” I said, quickly losing my cool as he began to shiver violently. “What’s—”

  “Please, Jason. Help me.”

  The rings around his eyes glowed brighter than ever.

  I swallowed a lump in my throat. “What do you need me to do?” I asked.

  “Kiss me,” he said.

  Leaning over, he took both sides of my face in his hands, tilted my head to the side, then captured my upper lip between his.

  A spark ignited between us.

  The immediate sensation of standing in the middle of the freezing-cold rain consumed my body like a voracious predator. Shocked, initially, by the contrast in our persons, I almost recoiled, but I held myself steady as he grounded me with his hands. His fingertips slid down my face, tracing one cheek, then my jawline—his tongue slid into my mouth and a spark of pleasure unlike anything I’d felt before shocked my senses and nearly made me blow in my pants. It was then and there I submitted to his needs, harder and hornier than ever, and reached up to take hold of the back of his neck and skull.

  His tongue slid across my lips.

  I groaned as he pressed his mouth against mine.

  The pressure of his hand against the swollen spot of my spine instantly imparted comfort that no medication could’ve offered.

  Just as quickly as it begun, it was over. Guy pulled his hands away from my face, then withdrew mine from the back of his head. “We’re done,” he said.