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CHAPTER 31

Davidoff and his friends were about halfway down the block by the time Ariel was out of the club. It surprised him a little to realize that the other two men were actually taller than Davidoff, if perhaps not as broad. They were yelling back and forth to each other, although there was enough noise from the club behind them and the cars passing on the streets that even with his vampiric hearing he couldn’t understand much of what they were saying, at least partly because they were using what Ariel guessed was Russian mixed in with their Hebrew. Davidoff was unhappy, and appeared to be blaming something on one of the others was all he could tell at the moment. The other man pulled a mobile out of his pocket and started a call.

Ariel hung back while he pulled the leather gloves from his pocket. He didn’t want to leave fingerprints or traces of blood or skin cells around for a forensics person to find. He tapped his gun, the knife, and the burner mobile to make sure they were all still in place. Then he sped up his pace a bit to move closer to the trio.

It amazed Ariel a bit that none of them had looked back yet. That was fine with him. It gave him just that much more time to get closer.

He trailed them as they reached the end of the block and turned the corner. Once they were out of sight, he sprinted forward until he reached the corner. He peered around the edge of the building and saw them not too far down the block. “Turning onto Joshua Place,” he murmured. “I think I can take them here.”

“Got it,” Mordechai replied.

This block was less well-lit than the one the club was on. The street was all small businesses that were closed for the night. The street lights were dimmer, and the shops had few lights on, external or internal. He checked his watch—it was only 4:00 a.m., so the chances of anyone being in the shops yet was small. Ariel was fine with that. It would be more to his advantage than theirs.

Ariel looked around. They were the only ones visible on the block. He smiled in anticipation.

By now Ariel was close enough that he could hear one of the friends talking. “I’m telling you, Gersh, you need to talk to Levchin about this. He can find out if this guy is police.”

“I’m not bothering Arkadi with this,” snarled a bass voice that had to be Davidoff. His Hebrew was rather accented. “I never saw the guy before tonight. He could be Baba Yaga’s son, for all I know.”

Arkadi Levchin—Ariel made note of that name. It sounded Russian, which made sense if it was connected to Davidoff. But more importantly, it sounded like it might be someone important to Davidoff, and anyone that was important to someone like him might be important to know about. Mordechai, for example, might be interested in that name.

“He sure seemed to know you, though, Gersh.”

“Shut up, Abragam,” Davidoff muttered. “If I don’t know him, he can’t know me.”

Ariel nodded at that name. That almost had to be Yakov Abragam, the bartender Nick had fired. If he was one of Davidoff’s friends, that would probably explain where the missing keys to the interior doors at Shaka’s went to.

The third guy in the trio, the one Ariel didn’t have a name for yet, turned his head to look behind them. Ariel didn’t try to duck and hide, just kept walking after them.

The third guy froze. “Uh…”

Davidoff and Abragam walked a couple of steps farther on, then stopped and turned when they realized the third guy had stopped. “What are you doing, Fridman…” Davidoff began, only to trail off when he saw Ariel walking toward them. “You! What are you doing here?”

“Hunting you, Gersh Davidoff.” Ariel’s voice was as cold as he could make it, for all that he was smiling.

“Why? I don’t know you. I haven’t hurt you, although that may change here in a minute.”

“That’s right, you don’t know me, and I never saw you before tonight.” Ariel’s rage was no longer surging—it was slowly building, rising, coalescing into an icy tor that he could almost see before him. “But night before last you raped a friend of mine. You beat her nearly to death, and left her broken and half blind in a back room at Shaka’s. She gave me your name.”

“She lied! I wasn’t at Shaka’s that night. Yakov and Leon will swear to that.” Davidoff flung a hand out in a hard gesture.

“I’m sure your friends will perjure themselves for you,” Ariel said as he took a step forward. “But unfortunately for them, I smelled you on her. I smell you now, so you can all save your lies. I know it was you.” He shook his head, still smiling. “Besides, Yakov Abragam has his own problems to deal with, since he gave you the key to the storeroom.” The man to Davidoff’s left stiffened and his eyes widened. “Oh, yes,” Ariel almost crooned, “the police have your name, Mr. Abragam. They will catch up to you soon. I suggest you tell them the truth. It will be easier for you.”

“Dog-raping chazzer!” Davidoff cursed, using a vulgarity for a policeman.

“Oh, I’m not police.” Ariel’s smile broadened. “But you’re going to wish I was. I’m not bound by their rules in this. I’m very old school, I am.” He felt his fangs extending and dropping down, and the coldness of his rage seemed to expand.

“Not very smart, either,” Davidoff snorted. “One little man like you against the three of us?”

“As the Americans say, ‘It’s not the size of the man in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the man.’” Ariel shrugged. “One of me against the three of you? I’d say the odds are about even.” He leaned forward a bit, flexing his hands. “Enough talk. Time to end this.”

Davidoff looked surprised as Ariel took another step forward. “Yakov! Leon! Get him!”

The three men spread out a little and started to encircle Ariel, Davidoff in the center. Ariel let them get set, waiting until they had almost settled into their stances before bursting into motion. No restraint. No mercy. Those thoughts ran through Ariel’s mind. Full speed, full force. His mouth moved to a snarl the last split second before he moved.

In the first breath of the attack, Ariel leapt to Fridman, slapped his hands aside, and hammered a blow to his solar plexus.

Before the second breath began, he was standing before Abragam, delivering the first of three fast jabs to the face before demolishing his right knee with a side kick.

Davidoff’s eyes had widened at the sight of his friends suddenly lying on the pavement, and his hands started rising from his chest to his face. Ariel slapped his hands a couple of times, then delivered a moderately heavy punch to his abdomen. Then he stepped back a step and stood flat-footed, hands moving in midair, practically begging Davidoff to throw a punch at him.

The big man made a couple of feints, which Ariel evaded, before finally throwing a left-leg front kick for real followed up with a roundhouse right, which was what Ariel was waiting for. He grabbed Davidoff’s wrist and did an arm-wrap takedown just like he’d done to Gabe that evening in Chattanooga.

Ariel let Davidoff hit the concrete and start rolling before he came behind him and applied a rear naked choke hold. He could feel Davidoff start to panic as the strength of his vampire muscles sank his arms deeply into the tissues of Davidoff’s neck.

Davidoff tore at Ariel’s arms, but was unable to get any kind of grip or leverage. In just a few more seconds, the pressure on his carotid arteries blocked enough of the blood flow to the big man’s brain that he was unconscious. Not letting up on the pressure yet, Ariel dragged the big man back up to a cul-de-sac in the row of shops with several trash dumpsters in it. Even for his strength, it wasn’t easy, but it was only a few seconds before he had the big man where he wanted him. He looked at the front of the nearest dumpster to verify there was a large metal ring on each top corner. Dropping Davidoff, Ariel quickly stripped off the leather gloves, turning them inside out as he did so and shoving them back into their pockets. A moment later he had the nitrile gloves on. He smiled to himself as he finished double-gloving, finding it both ironic and humorous that one of the skills he’d picked up at the Urgent Care was coming into play. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and brought out two of the long zip ties.

It didn’t take long for Davidoff to rouse back to full consciousness, but by the time he arrived there Ariel had zip ties around his wrists and through the rings such that his arms were outstretched. In fact, he was applying a piece of wide black tape across Davidoff’s mouth when his eyes fluttered open.

“Ah, there you are,” Ariel said, a cruel smile on his face. “I’ll be back in a moment. Don’t go away.”

He turned his back on Davidoff and trotted over to Fridman, who was staggering to his feet after recovering somewhat from the solar plexus punch. “Sorry, man, but this won’t do.” Before the groggy Fridman could grasp what was happening, he was dragged into the cul-de-sac and his right wrist was zip-tied to a utility conduit and Ariel was using multiple zip ties to tie his left wrist to his left ankle.

“Hey! What…” Fridman’s objections were interrupted by a slap that rocked his head.

“Shut up,” Ariel said calmly as he ripped a length of tape off the roll and covered the other man’s mouth with it. He then held Fridman’s head motionless and stared him in the eyes. “I’m tying you up to keep you out of trouble. You’ll probably come out of this okay, because I don’t have anything against you except your deplorable choice in friends. You really need to do better than this bunch. I mean, really. Hanging out with Davidoff is going to get you killed. Seriously. Do better than that. Got it?”

Fridman nodded his head frantically.

Ariel ripped another length of tape off the roll. “Close your eyes. You really don’t want to see what’s going to happen next, for more than one reason.” Fridman’s eyes almost bugged out. “I mean it. Close your eyes, or you won’t like what this tape will do to you.”

Fridman slammed his eyelids shut and squinched his eyes. Ariel snorted, and ran the tape from Fridman’s right temple across his eyes to the left temple. “You’re good,” he said, with a pat to the other man’s shoulder.

A moment later Ariel was standing looking down at where Abragam was lying curled holding his knee, moaning. He shook his head. “Now you I don’t feel sorry for. You helped him.”

Abragam looked up, tears running down his face from the pain. “I didn’t do anything to her. I just let Gersh take the keys. I didn’t even give them to him.”

“Sins of omission are as bad as sins of commission. A court would call that aiding and abetting, and would rule you just as guilty as he is. I suggest you spend the next little while thinking about that, and deciding what you’re going to tell the police when they find you. Meanwhile, let’s get you fastened up as well.”

Two minutes later Abragam was in the cul-de-sac as well, right wrist zip tied to a signpost at the other end from Davidoff and left wrist and left ankle tied together. Ariel pulled Abragam’s shirt up and wiped tears and snot and drool off before applying tape to his mouth and eyes as well.

Ariel stood and put the tape back in his pocket. He took a deep breath, taking the leash off his anger. His face grew harder; he could feel it.

His pace back to where Davidoff was standing was slow, almost languid, but it wasn’t long before he stood before Davidoff, smiling, arms crossed.

Davidoff was grunting and trying to scream behind the tape. Ariel just let it happen, until the big man ran out of oxygen and sagged against the dumpster, head hanging, inhaling and exhaling rapidly, large breaths, with his nostrils flared and distended with each breath in.

Once Davidoff’s breathing had slowed some and he looked up again, Ariel smiled and said in a quiet tone, “Oh, if looks could kill. But then, your looks aren’t any more effective than your hands against someone who can stand up to you. Big tough man, drugging a girl, raping her, and then beating her with those big strong hands. Didn’t do so well against me, did you?”

Ariel stepped closer. “I lied. It wasn’t even odds, you three against me. Even if the three of you knew what you were doing, you couldn’t have begun to match me. But after what you did, it was fair.”

Another step closer. Davidoff tried to kick Ariel, but he caught the leg. “Uh-uh,” he said, and delivered three deep knuckle punches to the thigh. Davidoff screamed again behind the tape as Ariel dropped the leg. Davidoff sagged as that leg folded under him.

Ariel slapped Davidoff lightly—at least, lightly for him. It still rocked Davidoff’s head to one side. “Pay attention, stud. You think you’re big and tough. You think you can beat up on women without it catching up to you. Well, maybe you can.” He stepped closer and reached up with his right hand to clasp Davidoff’s right hand. There was enough space in the zip tie holding it that Davidoff had some room to move his arm within the circle of the zip tie. “If you can hurt my hand—I mean, really hurt it—I’ll cut you free and you can walk. Seriously. You hurt me, you’re free. Go for it. What have you got to lose?”

Ariel had let his hand just rest in a loose clasp around Davidoff’s. After a moment, Davidoff’s hand suddenly clamped hard on his. Ariel could feel the tension that Davidoff was applying, and could see the muscles in his arm and shoulder shift under his shirt as he squeezed as hard as he could trying to crush Ariel’s hand in his own.

It wasn’t enough. Ariel tensed his hand enough to resist Davidoff’s pressure, but did nothing more for a long moment. When Davidoff’s breath broke and he grunted behind the tape, Ariel smiled at him, and began increasing his own hand’s pressure slowly, bit by bit, finger by finger, until he felt Davidoff’s clench fail and his knuckles and metacarpal bones begin to grind against each other.

Davidoff began to grunt and moan. Ariel’s smile grew, and he suddenly increased the clench of his own hand to the point where the bones began to crack and splinter. Tears flowed from Davidoff’s eyes, and mucus flooded from his nostrils as he tried to scream. Ariel held his grip for a long moment, then released it.

“Not so tough as you thought you were, are you?” he whispered in Davidoff’s ear. “The hands that you beat her with, that you broke her with…” He stepped to Davidoff’s left, took Davidoff’s left hand in his, and crushed it in one sharp motion.

Davidoff did scream this time, but the tape muffled most of it. He sagged against the restraints, and more mucus carried clots of snot out of his nose to run across his taped mouth and drip from his chin onto his shaking chest.

Ariel leaned in to whisper in his left ear, “The hands that you broke her with are now broken. And me—I’m not Baba Yaga’s son—I’m her brother.”

He stepped back, and let Davidoff suffer for a couple of minutes. When his breathing began to slow down a little, Ariel stepped back in, grabbed Davidoff’s right leg, pulled it up, grabbed the top of his cowboy boot with both hands, and pulled so hard it ripped the stitching apart and the pieces of the boot fell on the pavement. He then repeated the process with the left leg and the left boot.

“Eww. No socks?” Ariel wiped his gloved hands on his pants. “I mean, I can see that with loafers or athletic shoes, but boots? Nasty.”

He said nothing more, just stepped close and turned before delivering five precise heel kicks with his boots to each foot: two kicks to crush the toes and three to crush the metatarsal bones.

More tape-muffled screaming. Ariel was surprised at how much mucus a human head could apparently hold.

Ariel moved back, and let more time pass. This time it was over five minutes before he stepped in again to whisper in Davidoff’s right ear. “The feet that you used to kick her and nearly kill her are now broken.”

Davidoff’s beanie had left his head sometime during the brief fight. Ariel pulled the knife from his pocket and drew it from its sheath, then grabbed Davidoff’s hair and pulled his head back to hold the knife up in front of his eyes. “You raped her. I should castrate you.” He lowered the blade and brought it up under Davidoff’s crotch, turning the blade so that the flat of it made contact. The big man shook his head violently and moaned.

Ariel stepped back one step, then delivered three full force kicks to Davidoff’s groin. With vampire muscles in play, he might have broken his pelvic bone. That thought didn’t bother him. “You raped her.” He laid the flat of the blade against Davidoff’s neck. “You should thank haShem that I don’t kill you.” He wasn’t sure Davidoff heard him.

He re-sheathed the knife, put it away, and watched as Davidoff shook and cried. His shirt was sodden with mucus and now blood was flowing from his nostrils. His bladder had released, and another odor was on the air indicating that he’d shit himself as well. Ariel waited.

It was some little time before Davidoff raised his head again. Ariel grabbed Davidoff’s hair and pulled his head back.

“You hear me, Davidoff? Can you hear me?” He stared directly into Davidoff’s eyes.

A weak grunt sounded.

“If I hear of you doing anything like this again, I’ll hunt you down and finish you.” He bent forward and looked into Davidoff’s eyes, shining his flashlight on his face, where his fangs were still prominent. “I found you now, I can always find you. If I come after you again, you’ll never know it. You’ll never see me coming. You’ll just disappear, and no one will know why, or where you are, or what happened. You’ll just be gone. Painfully. Understand?”

Davidoff made another grunt and tried to wave his hands.

Ariel turned the light off. “Good. I always like it when we can have a meeting of the minds. Just remember, I know everything, and I can always find you. I suggest you turn to righteousness. You’ll live longer.”

He stared at Davidoff for a moment longer, then turned and walked away.

After he turned back onto the street that ran by the Palmyra Club, Ariel pulled out his burner mobile and dialed the police number. “State your emergency,” the operator said.

“If you want the guy who assaulted and raped Yael Malka,” Ariel said in a really high-pitched falsetto, “he’s tied to a dumpster by Trochta’s Flowers. If you hurry, he might still be alive when you get there.”

He terminated the call, and immediately took the mobile apart, dropping the battery in the first trash can he walked by and pulling the SIM card and putting it in his pocket. He stopped by the third trash can he walked by, broke the mobile case and circuit board into pieces and dropped them there.

When he got back to Palmyra, the gloves went back in his jacket pockets. He took a deep breath and muttered “Done” to his earpiece.

“Where are you?”

“By Palmyra again. West side.”

“Stay there.”

A couple of minutes later Mordechai pulled up across the street. Ariel walked over and got in the car.

Mordechai looked at him. Ariel looked back at him and shook his head. “It’s done, and I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

Mordechai nodded. “You need to come down from that mountain first. We’ll talk later. Where do you want to go?”

“The hospital.”

Ariel got to the hospital a little before 0500. He walked in the front door, had a brief discussion with security where he had to show them his Yamam card, and rode the elevator to the second floor.

The visitor’s area was empty, which wasn’t too surprising, given that it was just now dawn outside. He walked past it, and was stopped by a male nurse.

“Can I help you?”

“If it’s possible, I’d like to see Yael Malka.”

“Are you a relation?”

“Not by blood, but I’m a friend. I’m the friend who found her.”

The nurse nodded, and said, “She’s probably asleep, but come this way.”

He led Ariel down the hall several meters and pointed to a room. “She’s in there. She hasn’t been sleeping well, so don’t wake her up if she’s asleep.”

“Thanks.”

The nurse headed back up the hall, and Ariel slipped into the room. The lights were dialed down to very dim, but with his vision that wasn’t a problem. He stepped to the side of the bed and rested his hands on the railing, looking down at her.

Yael’s face was very bruised, and she had an IV in her right elbow. He couldn’t see her body, but that was probably a good thing.

Ariel wanted to touch her, but was afraid to, for more than one reason, so he just stood there looking at her. Something reached her, nonetheless, because her eyes opened and she looked over at him. She frowned.

“It’s me—Ariel,” he whispered, glad that he was on her right side.

“Ariel?” she whispered back. “You came.”

“Yeah.”

Yael reached her hand up, and he gently took it in his. She smiled, and closed her eyes again, but didn’t let go.

Ariel stood there for a long time. Even though there was a visitation time limit for ICU patients, the male nurse who came in from time to time didn’t ask him to leave. It may have had something to do with Yael sleeping soundly while he was there. He didn’t care. He was there. That was enough.


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Framed