Phantom (Tattered Curtain Series)

Sol

Scarlett’s deep, restful breaths arrive in minutes, no doubt contributed to by medication, the excitement of the night, and the orgasm I gave her. A sense of pride swells in me that I’ve sated her and that she feels safe with me despite my having kidnapped her.

My watch lights up on my wrist where I’m holding Scarlett to me. A lone glance at the screen tells me Sabine’s contact has finally gotten back to her with answers. If they’re ready to meet then I must go, no matter how much I loathe leaving her.

I pull my arm out from underneath her and roll her so she’s comfortably on her back before I slide out of bed. The Edison lamps beam a warm glow over her curly raven strands fanning around her head like a halo and her angelic face is still rosy from her orgasm.

Normally my curtains would block the light out, but my little muse is a fucking vixen in bed and tore them down. Despite the fact that the railing had fallen on my back at the time, I’d still wanted to shove my cock in her right then and there. The way her tight cunt sucked my fingers was so enticing, I would’ve given almost anything to feel the pleasure on my shaft instead.

But she’s a virgin, and no matter how fucked up I am in every other situation, I know Scarlett deserves more for her first time than a quick fuck, and that’s all I would’ve been capable of after her stunning performance. I hadn’t known that her heart wasn’t in theater, but I would have if I’d ever heard her when she puts her whole fucking being into the song, like she did tonight.

I check my phone to make sure there’s another delivery ready for her in the morning while padding across the carpet to the bathroom, grabbing my clothes along the way. I change out of my sleep pants and into my boxer briefs, but before I put on my dark jeans, I fist my stiff cock through my boxers, to the point that a jolt of pleasure and pain zaps down my spine.

Part of me wants to relieve the pressure, but the part of me that lives for delayed gratification has me squeezing tighter and tighter until I finally let go. The blood pulses throughout my shaft and I hiss a breath, reminding myself how much more rewarding it will be to wait until I can come inside Scarlett instead. I inhale a fortifying breath before jerking my jeans up my legs and tucking my still-hard cock inside.

After donning socks and shoes, I take a swig of mouthwash. I hate removing her taste, but it has to be done if I’m to keep a level head for what’s next. There’s no way I’ll be able to concentrate with her scent right underneath my nose.

I exit the bathroom and make the few strides to take one last look at Scarlett. I’m tempted to linger, but my watch lights up, reminding me that I have other matters, matters that involve her, that need my attention. I brush a soft curl off of her face and leave a featherlight kiss over her forehead.

“I’ll be back soon,” I murmur, silently hoping she’ll wake up and catch me so I’ll get to crawl back into bed.

Her breaths remain slow and consistent, though, like a melody in larghissimo. Scarlett needs her sleep more than most and I sure as fuck am not going to be the one who sends her headfirst into an episode by destroying her sleep patterns.

With that in mind, I leave the bedroom and grab my gun from the entryway table to holster it before leaving home. I activate the security feed inside through my phone, so I can monitor my sleeping beauty while I’m gone. In nearly a year, there hasn’t been an hour that’s gone by that I don’t know what she is up to and I won’t stop now, even though she’s in my own bed.

Obsession.

That’s what my brother calls it.

But the ache I feel when I’m away from her is much more than any obsessed revenge I’ve embarked on. It’s the feeling you get when you find the perfect song, the one you could play for eternity, never getting tired of a single note, and still not want to get to the final measure.

I’m still refusing to believe our song will end. I can’t kill the hope that my muse will write our lyrics someday.

While I walk a city block underground through my great-grandfather’s tunnels, I use the security app on my phone to turn off the Edison bulbs lining the stone walls until I’m closer to my destination. My awareness is at its peak in the dark. When I reach one of the tunnels I took with Scarlett earlier, I bear right.

Even though I know I’m the most formidable thing in my pitch-black tunnel, I never go the same route twice in a row. It’s why I’m traveling above ground for most of my journey tonight. That, and it’s good for my people to know I’m not actually a phantom.

When I get topside and wind through the hidden Prohibition route with bars on either side, the aboveground hallway that lines the restaurant comes to a stop in front of a heavy wooden door. I open it and immediately pass into a different world.

The brick alleyway is packed with people enjoying the outdoor bar of one of the most popular restaurants in New Orleans. Fleur-de-lis spikes line the back wall, and a green trellis with vines and plants threaded through the lattice work mostly blocks the bar patrons from this particular entrance to the passageways. The lights strung up on the brick provide shadows and darkness for me to disappear in. Music blares from speakers in the back corner, but they’re no match for the crowd as they boo at whatever sports game is playing on the big-screen TVs set up throughout the restaurant.

“Hey man! Mask dude!”

I bristle at the attention in the small alcove, but I turn around slowly to see a middle-aged man dressed like a frat boy facing the far corner of the small vestibule to my hidden halls.

“Yes?” I ask, an edge to my voice.

Normally plants and other shrubbery growing over the trellis are enough to deter people from exploring back here. Not for this asshole apparently. And as the alcohol reeks from his pores, I can smell why.

The man has piles of Mardi Gras beads around his neck and he sways so precariously as he urinates against the painted brick that it’s a wonder he’s even hitting it at all.

He hiccups as he points to his dick. “I’m pissing here, dude. Fuck off.”

I glance to the left, through the shrubbery, where a clearly marked restroom is two doors down.

“This is not your property to piss on, dude,” I answer.

“I can piss wherever I want, motherfucker.” He zips up and tries to glare at me through unfocused eyes.

No doubt his confidence is sky high thanks to the hurricane drink he’s almost finished. I’ve easily got half a foot and fifty pounds on the guy and from the beer belly he’s showing off through his sweaty, half-open pastel button-down, there’s no way he trains like I do.

But there are other things on my agenda tonight besides putting a drunken fool in his place, so I roll my eyes and turn around.

“It’s your lucky day, asshole. I’ve got shit to do.”

But the imbecile has a death wish.

“Fuck you, dude. You don’t own this shithole. I can piss wherever I want. You can’t tell me what to do.” His words warn me half a beat before he grabs my shoulder with all his drunken strength.

I don’t budge.

He tries to tug me back, but I dig my heel into the ground and scout my surroundings. The garbage human and I are secluded, but for the camera at the top corner of the wall.

Unfortunately for him, that’s my security feed.

I pivot on the balls of my feet and shove him into the corner. The tall hurricane glass in his hand spills all over his shirt and falls into a potted plant.

“You, fucker! You made me spill my drink. Fuckin’ ass—”

He takes a wild swing midcurse, missing me by a mile. When he pulls back to try again, I kick him straight in his knee. He doubles over with a groan and I yank him up by his beads. No doubt he had big plans to throw them and yell obscenities at passersby, but they’re not going to be used by anyone but me tonight.

I pull them taut, choking him, before grabbing his sweaty half-buttoned shirt with my other hand and slamming the man against the wall. His eyes bug out and he grabs in vain at the necklaces with his alcohol-soaked hands. His bum leg tries to kick, but he can’t control it, and he can’t scream out because my grip on the Mardi Gras beads is cutting off his windpipe.

He’s too easy.

The thought annoys me, and I almost ignore it as I watch his pale face turn crimson. I could just choke the life out of my prey with all of this stupid fucking plastic and be done with it. Then I could end his miserable existence right here. But my own moral code makes that impossible.

I’ll never take down the defenseless. And as drunk as this guy has gotten, that’s exactly what he is. Defenseless.

If he were in my dungeon, I’d let him make his choice, trial by water or combat, but he hasn’t done anything to warrant that kind of discipline. My gaze darts around, looking for a suitable punishment to fit the crime, and my eye catches on the wrought iron fleur-de-lis spike above the wall.

Perfect.

I meet my prey’s terrified red eyes. Snot and tears flow from his nose and eyes. I want to kill him just for his weakness. When his eyes start to glaze over, I know it’s time to finish it.

“Never. Put. Your. Hands. On. Anyone. Again. Do you understand?”

He tries to nod but my grip on the beads is too tight and my hold on his lapels too lax.

“Good. Now… fight for your innocence.”

I drop him and catch the thick cord of beads with both hands before he falls completely to the ground. Pushing up with my legs, I reach the top of the fleur-de-lis with my stretched arms and hook the necklaces around the spike.

Once I’ve hung him by the plastic, I let go and watch with satisfaction at the sounds of him struggling for breath and the sight of his body jerking in the Mardi Gras bead noose.

My punishment is just, in my opinion. He used his hands on me, and all he has to do to get free is use those same hands to extricate himself from his necklace.

But he doesn’t. Instead, I study my prey as he dangles, slowly losing oxygen while his feet kick feebly. His face turns that pretty shade of strangled purple I so love to see. Since the bastard won’t help himself, I have to do the work.

I sigh before yanking him down by his shoulders as hard as I can, popping beads left and right from his neck. He lands hard on his ass, and takes a lifesaving gulp of air. I kneel down in his face, careful not to touch any part of him again.

“Do you know who I am?”

He shakes his head, clutching his convulsing neck, now with bright-red bead-shaped bruises already cropping up.

“I’m going to give you my calling card,” I say, twisting my ring on my finger. “When you come to, I want you to ask around about what the symbol on your face means, got it?”

“The… the what—”

I rear back and slam my fist into his forehead, knocking him out flat and leaving a detailed print of a skull on his pale skin. The hit wasn’t as hard as possible, but the indent from my ring might leave a scar. If it does, hopefully he’ll see it every day in the mirror, and remember his lesson. If nothing else, he’ll attribute his wound to the night the Phantom of the French Quarter spared his life.

Before I leave, the light glints on his necklaces and an idea for later sparks in my mind. I remove several of the strands that don’t touch his sweaty neck and are less gaudy. The sparkling black ones and the ones with the skulls particularly catch my eye.

As I stand from my kneeling position, I wipe my bloody ring on the guy’s shirt. I’ll have to wash my hands and beads as soon as possible to cleanse my body of his reeking oils. Using the hand that never touched his skin directly, I check my mask to make sure it’s intact. The skin underneath itches from having to wear the prosthetic earlier, but the adhesive is still in place, so I pocket my new trinkets and continue my journey above ground to my meeting.

I weave through the greenery that usually hides the doorway from patrons and emerge into the restaurant’s open-air bar. The sports fans are newly disappointed, groaning as I pass by them and the brightly colored water fountain. I slip through unnoticed around tables and waitstaff as I navigate my way to St. Peter Street.

The quicker I move, the less likely I’ll be seen. Granted, once my little friend wakes up, the rumors and tall tales will spark up again. Just how I like it.

Once I get out of the busy alleyway, I pivot quickly to Bourbon Street. Almost immediately, all kinds of smoke, alcohol vapors, and body odors burn my nose. The crowds are in full force tonight and any concern that I might be noticed evaporates with the clean air I once breathed. Revelers are dressed to impress or practically not dressed at all. Everyone on Bourbon tonight is here for, and part of, the spectacle and my plain bone-white mask is child’s play when people are literally in costume.

My skin crawls as the bodies and fluids around me brush against me, and I barely hold back my revulsion. I want to turn back, but I’m on a mission and I must complete it before Scarlett wakes up. It’s one thing for her to joke that I’ve kidnapped her and hold her against her will. It’s quite another to wake up, locked in a dark underground room by yourself. I would die before Scarlett ever felt an ounce of the misery I did.

When I arrive at one of the oldest jazz clubs in the Quarter, I fade into the poorly lit, tightly packed room. The air is sticky with humidity and thick with the music bouncing off the walls. The band on stage in the back is one of the best in New Orleans, and I can’t help but imagine Scarlett up there tearing the house down with her soulful voice, just like she did at Masque earlier tonight.

My gaze flicks to one of the cellists and he nods to me before stomping his booted foot in rhythm next to where the large instrument rests, showing off the rubber skull design underneath the end pin. I nod back before pushing open the wooden doors to the bar’s back alley.

A short line of patrons grumbles in front of a man wearing sunglasses, despite it being the middle of the night. He’s lazily sitting outside a large green slatted door, perfectly acting like he’s not guarding it. But this shadow is one of my best. I’ve never seen him off his game. Raising my hand, I pass by the complainers and show him my ring. His chin barely lifts in acknowledgment and he opens the door behind him.

“Hey, he didn’t have to have a password!” One of the women I passed sneers at my shadow as I round the entry.

“The Phantom doesn’t need one,” he responds simply before closing the door.

I push against a door that is camouflaged to look like the plastered brick wall around it, revealing a hidden open-air staircase. I take the winding red stairs two at a time until I come to the landing that overlooks the courtyard below. The private, password-only lounge is to my right, through the tall white door, but I go left instead onto the skinny balcony outlining the garden square below. I stick to the shadows and when I get to the opposite wall, a woman sidles out from behind a small alcove.

“You’re late.”

With her revealing herself in the faint city light, I can see her eyes flash as they narrow at me, but I doubt she can see much of me beyond my white mask. Her hair is shaved on the sides and the gel on top gleams in the moonlight, as does the government-issued firearm she’s trying to hide underneath her black dress shirt and slacks.

We don’t exchange names. We don’t need to. As a Sixth District officer from the New Orleans Police Department, she covers the Garden District and knows all about who I am. The Chatelains have made sure of it. Technically, she should be on their payroll, but she’s made it very clear to her precinct that she wishes to remain unaffiliated. She’s taking a big risk meeting me, but so am I.

The case I’m interested in happened in the Garden District, and as a Bordeaux, anything that happens on the Chatelains’ side is strictly off-limits. If she were to go back and tell her captain, Rand would have grounds for retaliation or questioning as he sees fit. I’m potentially betting my life on this stranger’s silence.

“Why were you late? Is there something I should know?”

“I had business,” I reply, though I don’t need to.

I need this woman’s information more than she needs me right now. Not to mention that she’s sleeping with my second-in-command, Sabine, so I treat her with a little more cordiality than normal. Sabine’s as loyal as they come but she’s fucking lethal every time she finds out I’ve been “rude” to people she cares about.

“You have them?” I ask.

“Yup, it’s all here for both cases.” She hands me a flash drive and I pull out the USB connector for my phone, plugging both in.

Once the options come up, I thumb through the files. Like Sabine said, there are hundreds of videos from a decade ago. But when I get to the single file about a different incident, I frown.

“This is it?” I ask, pointing at the screen.

“Not much to go off of,” she explains. “That’s why it’s a cold case.”

I scowl and glance at the file briefly, just to verify it’s the correct one. It only takes a few seconds to check the contents and I download them to my phone’s storage service before handing back the thumb drive. I swallow my frustration and focus on asking the right questions, just in case there’s something missing.

“Since you were on the scene that night, is there anything else you remember that might not be in the case file?”

She sucks her teeth while she thinks and ultimately shakes her head. “Not really. Witnesses heard a girl’s scream and several gunshots. Someone from the restaurant nearby called 9-1-1. Vic had two GSWs, one gunshot to the chest and the other in the head.”

“Two shots,” I murmur and she nods.

“Naturally, he was DOA. Shooter was long gone, though. No idea what direction he went because the restaurant’s cameras weren’t working.”

Of course they weren’t. I’d made sure of it.

“And the girl?”

“By the time we arrived, she still had tears on her face, but she wasn’t crying anymore. She seemed… pissed. Which, I guess I don’t blame her. All she kept saying was that the other guy shouldn’t have gotten away. And that he couldn’t have been too far.”

I pause. “Did she say why?”

The officer shakes her head. “Nope. When we tried to interview her, she clammed up. We never did find the murderer, but with her father’s criminal history, we figured it was rivalry based.” She gives me a pointed look. “The vic was in a lot of gambling debt. He owed someone money and that’s how he paid for it… We thought it was the Phantom of the French Quarter at first.”

Gambling debt? Was all this just over money?

I keep my face blank as I point out what should be obvious. “Out in the open isn’t the Phantom’s style.”

The officer shrugs. “That’s also why it’s a cold case. It was just speculation around the precinct, but believe me, if my guys could’ve pinned it on him, they would’ve.”

And that’s why I don’t go into the Garden District anymore. Fucking Chatelains…

“The whole thing was messy with a lot of weird missing pieces,” she continues. “The vic had gunshot residue on his hands, but the weapon was nowhere to be found. The suspect dropped his gun before fleeing, but there were no fingerprints.”

There wouldn’t be. He’d burned them off.

“Did the girl ever ask you for updates?”

“She did for a while, but I think she gave up. Due to her father’s debts, she was kicked out of rental housing. I heard she got a scholarship to attend her senior year of school since her father wasn’t paying for it anymore. Last I heard, the poor thing went crazy over all of it.”

My fists clench. “She’s not crazy.”

She holds up her hands in innocence. “Whatever you want to call it. Not many people are hospitalized for being sane. Is she what this is all about? Do you know her or something?”

“That’s enough,” I answer. “As always, discretion is paramount.”

She straightens at my dismissal. “Of course. If you, uh, need anything else about the case, let Sabine know.”

I nod, but don’t reply further, leaving her on the balcony. Instead of going back into the street, I take the stairwell all the way down to a trapdoor at the base of the stairs.

Going above ground occasionally is vital so that my shadows can see me out and about. It’s easier to trust their boss is watching over them and has their back if they physically see him every now and then. But I’ve done my duty for the night and I don’t need to stay topside on the way back. Without the Bourbon Street traffic, I cover the two blocks quickly and return to my home faster than it took to leave.

When I quietly open the door, slip inside, and lock it behind me, I’m met with complete silence. I gingerly unholster my gun and hide it in the entryway table’s drawer. My heart races faster and faster as I tiptoe to my bedroom, but it calms completely when I see Scarlett sleeping peacefully. Before I sink into bed beside her, I go to the hallway bathroom and hop in to take another shower.

I spot clean around my mask the best I can so I don’t have to reapply the adhesive. But I thoroughly scrub off the outside world everywhere else on my body.

Once I dry off, I put on a different black, long-sleeve T-shirt and the same silk pants I wore earlier and exchange my painted eye prosthetic for a clear one. The navy color is the most realistic one I have, but it’s also my oldest so when I wear it for too long it makes my eye socket ache, and I haven’t switched it out since I retrieved Scarlett from her dorm. I’ll have to wake up early to swap it out again so Scarlett won’t be subjected to it, but I don’t mind. I’ll do anything to make sure she’s never horrified by me.

I’m about to go to bed when my eyes catch on the Mardi beads on the bathroom floor. With a mischievous smirk quirking the left side of my mouth, I wipe them down in the sink, too.

I go to my living room, closing all the doors behind me so I can do some “home improvements” that I can’t wait to try out with Scarlett. Once I’ve finished, I call it a night and head to my room.

The brisk chill of my apartment filters through my long sleeves, hitting my still-damp scars on my back and arm. I quickly slide underneath the covers behind Scarlett to get warm. Her soft disgruntled groan makes me have to hide my chuckle, but the relieved sigh that escapes her once she’s nestled in my arms has my chest tightening to the point of pain.

As long as she sleeps, I’ll be happy, but I probably won’t get a wink.

My mind is humming with theories. I’m dying to read and watch those files immediately, to learn the truth of what happened the night that changed Scarlett’s life and destined her to be in mine. But the truth will have to wait while I savor this fantasy, one where I have Scarlett safe and sound, protected in my arms, just like this, forever. It’s a dream I wouldn’t mind never waking from.