“Did you read the assigned pages?”
“Not really.”
“Not really. Okay. Would you like me to answer the question for you?”
“Sure, that’d be great.”
A ripple of laughter spread through the classroom. Had he caused that? He wasn’t trying to be funny. In fact, he was fairly certain he’d never made anyone laugh in their entire life. Just wanted this moment to be over.
He didn’t like the way Parker was watching him across the room. Luther had disappointed all of his professors during his underwhelming two-month tenure at Woodside College. He knew they hated him, wanted him out of their classes, but none of them had stared at him quite like this. Maybe he was imagining things, but it was almost like Parker wanted to hurt him.
“The objective of the Inquisition, Mr. Kite,” Parker said, returning to the lectern and adjusting his gold, wire-rim glasses, “was to combat heresy, and in this regard, the Inquisition only had jurisdiction over baptized members of the Church. Maybe I’ll throw Mr. Kite a softball now. Mr. Kite?”
“Yes?”
“By what means did the Inquisition examine, interrogate, and punish heretics?”
“Um…torture?”
“Very good, Mr. Kite. Excellent. Yes, the Inquisition is perhaps best known for its sadism and unrelenting cruelty. After all, it gave us the Pear, the Garotte, the Wheel, the Spike, Punishing Shoes, Heretic’s Fork, the Boots, the Hanging Cage, Head Crusher, Judas Cradle, Iron Maiden, and that most brilliant method of inflicting revelatory, false-confession-inducing pain, the Rack.”
Luther sat just a bit straighter at his desk.
One of the jocks a few rows down raised his beefy arm.
Parker called on him.
“Is the Rack that thing where they string you up outside and leave you for the crows?”
“No, not even close.”
Parker removed his glasses and smiled at the class.
“The Rack…” He stopped himself. “Do any of you scare easily?”
Luther glanced around. No one raised their hands, but he thought he noticed a few of his female classmates shifting uncomfortably in their seats.
“No one?” Parker said. “Great. Okay, the Rack…it was a wooden frame, with rollers at both ends, one bar to which the legs were fastened, and another bar for the wrists. The heretic’s limbs were gradually pulled as tension was added to the chains connecting the bars to the rollers. This brought upon excruciating pain as the joints became dislocated. Eventually, separation occurred. Cartilage ripping. Complete muscle fiber failure. The noise of snapping bones and ligaments was often used as an intimidation device for onlooking heretics, waiting their turn on the Rack.”
Luther had been watching the horrified and sickened expressions of his classmates, loving it, but as he turned to look back toward the lectern, he saw something even better.
Parker.
My God.
He was really enjoying this.
Relishing it even.
Soaking in his students’ disgust and horror like a cool breeze.
He hated each and every one of them, and as Luther realized this, he couldn’t stop the smile that was slowly spreading across his face.
He’d misread this man completely.
He was one of the bad guys.
A Glaring of Owls
The North Carolina Outer Banks, 1993
Orson
It was early summer on the island, and the place was crawling with tourists. He hadn’t reserved a room, and since everything was booked to capacity, he’d taken to camping out on the beach out of the back of the van he’d rented two weeks ago in Rock Springs, Wyoming.
It had taken him a day to find the stone house on the sound, tucked back a few quiet streets away from the village.
The first time he’d laid eyes on it, the dark, penetrating sadness of the place had overwhelmed him.
Three stories of scarred stone.
Dark windows.
An overgrown lawn that hadn’t seen care in years.
He’d had to wait all day, hiding out in the bushes, to see the person he’d come for—that tall, pale kid with long, black hair who’d flunked out of Woodside College last fall—and it was after ten o’clock at night when Luther finally emerged.
Orson had followed him from forty yards back as his former student strolled the live oak-lined streets into the village.
Luther took a walk around the harbor, stopping once at a public dock to people-watch, before heading home again.
Hopefully this is a nightly habit, Orson thought as he headed back to his van on the beach.
Because if it was, tomorrow night, he’d take Luther.
Luther
The next evening, Luther stepped outside into the muggy night, cicadas filling the air with their incessant clicking.
He pulled his hair back into a long ponytail and started down the drive.
His father had sent him out again to try and pick up a tourist.
Last night, he’d struck out. Sure, he could’ve taken some chances, gone out on a limb, but their first rule on the rare occasions when they hunted on their own, small island, was to Take No Risks.
The downside was that visitors predominately kept to the touristy parts of the island and rarely ventured into the quieter—
He abruptly stopped walking, and a smile crept across his lips.
There was someone moving toward him thirty yards ahead. Of course it was still too dark to see, but he could bump into them, strike up a conversation, find out if they were visiting, maybe where they were staying. It was always important to check dead guests out of their motels and get their cars off the island, make sure they didn’t have any family who would stick around and ask troublesome questions.
The person was approaching, now only twenty feet away.
Tall, broad-shouldered. Definitely a man.
Not ideal, but workable.
If he didn’t bring someone home tonight, Rufus was going to yell at him again.
Or worse.
“Hello,” Luther said as the stranger approached.
The two men stopped in the middle of the street, in a dark spot out of reach of the surrounding streetlamps.
“Nice night,” the stranger said.
“Yeah, definitely. Out for a stroll?”
“Not exactly.”
Luther was about to step a little closer, see if he could tease out some info about where the man was heading, but half a breath later he was on his back, the world spinning, a bee sting pinch in the side of his neck.
“Don’t fight it, Luther,” the man said, his voice strikingly familiar as he held a hand on his chest and put his weight on it.
Luther did fight it, thrashing out his arms and legs, but a languid blackness began to seep into his peripheral vision, eventually blurring out his focus and forcing him into unconsciousness.
Orson
“I…I know you.” Luther was still doped up, his head lolling on his neck, a line of drool escaping his pale lips.
“You should,” Orson said. “You flunked out of my class.”
Luther was sitting up against a metal pole, to which he was attached by a bright and shiny length of chain. His hands were free, and he was in some sort of a shed. “You do this to all the students who flunk your class?”
Orson laughed, giving Luther a slap on the shoulder. He felt good about this one.
“Lemme ask you something. When you were approaching me on the sidewalk. Were you actually shopping?”
“Shopping?”
“I got the feeling you were sizing me up.”
Luther stayed quiet.
“You hard up for money, Luther? What were you going to do? Try and take my wallet?”
“Something like that,” Luther grunted.
“Most people I bring here look scared. Are you scared, Luther?” Orson asked.
“Of what? You? You gonna give me another of your boring lectures?”