Free The Light is the Darkness by Laird Barron Page A

Not too far, man. Gotta do it soon; the dude won’t hang around forever. He’s got itchy feet on account of the pigs, you know. I get the idea we can’t really hold him. He’s got this sort of…presence. A real heavy presence.”
    “Tonight?”
    “Yeah, man. Why, you scared or somethin’?”
    “Oh, not really. I’m wondering why you’re grinning. What’s so funny.”
    “It’s a veterinarian clinic, man. Like for dogs and shit. But it got shut down a while ago. Still got the notice on the door.” Kite laughed and stomped his foot on the rickety planking. “You goin’ to the vet. I hope he don’t neuter you on accident, man!”
    “Hell, K, I hope he doesn’t neuter me on purpose. Let’s roll over to the motel and see the man. We’ll take my ride.”
    Kite made some calls. His people had lodged the Brazilian at a no star motel in Rattlesnake; left him with a quart of tequila, a couple of strippers from the casino and an Shoshone strong arm with a twelve gauge dozing outside the door. Eagle and some of his homeys from the reservation would swing by and have the doc at the clinic in time for the main event.
    Kite stuffed a cheap automatic pistol in his waistband, covered it with his shirt. Then he rolled a joint and smoked it. Conrad didn’t join him; he was worried dope might contaminate the procedure.
    They ventured into the congealing gloom. Kite padlocked the stand as Conrad warily approached his car. He didn’t quite trust it in the creepy, blustery light, its passenger door hanging ajar, creaking with each buffet. The familiar metal gleamed dull and somehow alien, suggestive of passive complicity in this sinister turn of events. Already, dust gathered on the seats.
    The girl was long gone, as usual.
    IX
     
     
    Kite dropped him at the motel, said he’d be back in a few minutes. Conrad got the idea that his friend not only disliked the Brazilian, but was frightened of him as well. He thought it a reasonable reaction.
    Conrad told the man guarding the door to take a walk. He sent the whores away too, the older of the pair comforting her sobbing comrade. Their faces were gray with revulsion and shock, although both were thankfully unmarked—Conrad was familiar with the Brazilian’s tastes. Now it was only him and the old chemist. He placed the cloth wrapped manuscript on the table, straddled a creaky chair and folded his arms across the backrest and studied Souza.
    Souza resembled a petrified corpse that had been stripped of its cerements; Tutankhamen’s vile grandfather, the high priest of a blood-black god. He was entirely naked. Brown as rotted vellum and desiccated and short of breath, he stood near the window, basking in the sunset. His tiny eyes shone in the gloom. “My boy! So good to see you again!” He spoke with the perfect enunciation of an educated foreigner. “When was the last time...you were very small. But my, goodness aren’t you a behemoth. Destroying God’s creatures to amuse the idle rich, I hear. A drink?”
    Conrad shook his head. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Souza.”
    “What else could I do? Perhaps I should not have, I think. This thing you do for your sister—it is unwise. Very, very unwise. Are you certain you don’t want a drink? Have a drink or I’ll be nervous.” Souza went to a cabinet. He was extremely limber and graceful for a man who appeared a millennia dead. He handed Conrad a paper cup of vodka. “I should not have come. No, I see that now. You are mad, my boy. Utterly mad. The scent of madness oozes from your pores. And your eyes are like flames.” He repaired to the bed where he sat cross-legged amid a wallow of sheets and thin, stained hotel pillows. “If Imogene is dead, God rest her, there is nothing to be gained.”
    “Vengeance.”
    “Perhaps you are a fool then.”
    “Genie left a trail. All I can do is follow it. Go to the places she did. Collect the things she did. Speak with the people she did.” Conrad met the old man’s gaze at this