44. Mina

FORTY-FOUR

mina

Christmas Eve, 6 pm.

I’m dressed in my normal black murder wear and strapped down with weapons. I’ve successfully fit my Krampus costume into a large black duffle bag, except for the mask, of course. It’s too large and ornate to stuff into a bag. I’ll have to carry it separately.

Also inside the bag are two whips. One is meant for the actual Krampus run—a flogger that can easily be used on people at the event without inflicting real damage.

We got Benjamin to put us on the official Krampus run list under false names along with photos of the costumes and masks we’ll be wearing so we can get in to the staging area of the event.

The family-friendly Krampus parade is going on right now, but by the time we get there, it’ll be the after-hours adult version where everyone in our path is fair game for chasing and whipping.

The rules of the run have been formally announced everywhere so that all attendees know if they don’t want to get hit, they’d better be off the street by nine o’clock. When the downtown countdown clock hits zero and the heavier industrial music starts playing, no one is safe.

These terms have been clearly stated everywhere: In the newspaper, on the website, on the local television news, and on large white signs with red letters clearly posted around the event. This is to protect the city from lawsuits, so no one can come out later and say they didn’t know what was going to happen, claim abuse, and sue the city. I’m not entirely confident it will matter if some Puritan gets a bug up their ass, though. I’m feeling definite Purge Vibes around this event—or maybe it’s just because that’s what Brian and I are using it for… to purge Dante Valentino from this earth before he decides he wants to do the same to us.

The other whip in my bag is a short single-tailed whip with heavy pieces of metal and glass embedded into it. Brian has one as well. We’ll pull these out once we’ve cornered Dante. I’ve still got to grab some dinner upstairs in the cafeteria. I carefully close the door to our dungeon room.

I’m only halfway down the hall when Brian comes down the stairs, and I nearly jump out of my skin. He wears what looks like layers and layers of rags and fur. He has an incredibly intricate demon mask with fur-hair in the back that matches the fur on the rest of the costume. The mask also features huge curled horns and glowing red eyes.

It would be scary enough all by itself, but Brian’s cold dark energy spills out of it, rolling like a rushing wave toward me as he advances.

I take several involuntary steps backward, until my back is pressed flat against the door I just shut. He continues to quietly advance, making a big show of looking me up and down like I’m a meal he’s ready to devour.

I’m trying so hard not to have a flashback to Halloween night. I thought I was over that—not what happened in the pumpkin patch, but the running, thinking I was about to be the next thing he cut up with that chainsaw.

I’m not really sure what it is with Brian and scary costumes, but I’m not sure he can handle them. It’s like the power to hide behind a mask is just too much for him to switch off. Even though he has no conscience with most people, masks seem to take it to another level as he fully commits to the role of psycho killer or demon.

“Brian…” I say. I don’t know if it’s a warning or pleading.

He doesn’t answer me. Instead he moves closer into my space, his hands on the door, framing either side of my body. He leans in close and sniffs me, even though I know he probably can’t smell my perfume through his mask.

Except for sleep, we haven’t been this physically close since Halloween.

“Run,” he snarls next to my ear.

I know what he’s doing. He’s recreating the night we met and my foolish trip downstairs to the dungeons. But why?

When I hesitate, unsure if I should say no or play along, he drops one hand from the door and uses it to stroke the side of my face. It takes everything inside me not to start crying at the relief of his hand on me again. It’s been so long, I’d forgotten what it felt like to enjoy the benefit of his full focused intensity.

He is so gentle right now, and I let out a shuddering sigh at the feather light touch. His caress drifts down my throat, his fingers pausing to feel my fluttering pulse as though he needs to catalog the evidence of what he’s doing to my heart right now.

Then he strokes my breast, moving with aching slowness down my body as I arch into his touch begging for just a little more contact. I let out a strangled moan when he frees the button of my leather pants and slips his hand inside my panties, finding the damning evidence of my arousal coating his fingers.

“Run,” he says again, his voice going even lower.

I swallow hard and take a deep breath. I’d be running up to the safety of the well-lit cafeteria. And I have to remind myself he isn’t high from a fresh kill or in some heightened crazy state after finding me kissing someone else, however innocently.

He steps aside and even though I can’t see his eyes behind the glowing red lights, I feel him watching me... and waiting. My hands shake as I button up my pants, and then I run down the hallway and up the stairs.

Adrenaline and arousal war within me. The first time we danced this dance he didn’t chase me, but I know he will this time. It’s the entire point of his demand.

I hear the cowbells jingling as he pursues me. When I reach the cafeteria, I keep running until I get to the buffet line. The girls look up from their meals, surprised to see me running, and then the bells announce Brian’s arrival, and they understand why.

He’s got his whip out—the safe one, not the murder one. And an electric thrill goes through me as I wonder if he’s going to whip me right here in front of everyone. I feel my wetness increasing at that thought. I am a sick sick puppy. But it has been far too long since I enjoyed the decadent pleasures of his barely restrained darkness.

“Finally, someone’s in trouble,” I hear one of the girl’s say, not bothering to hide her contempt for me. And I know Brian heard it too. His head jerks sharply in the direction of the woman who spoke. She’s smart enough to get up from her chair but dumb enough to run from him.

It only excites him.

He chases her out of the cafeteria, the flogger snapping at her legs. I’m pretty certain this was not how anyone thought Christmas Eve dinner would go down at the house. And I know he’s hitting her hard—much harder than a normal Krampus interaction. But then, he’s Brian. And even though this is the “safe whip” is any implement truly safe in his hands?

She’s shrieking and crying as she runs. I hear her echoing screams down the hallway, but I can’t see what’s going on or if Brian has pursued her and locked her in one of the main level rooms. Judging from the direction they went, I’d bet he’d choose the game room. He’s tied me down to that pool table more than once in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep. My thighs clench at the memory of how he’d take one of the balls from the table and massage my drenched pussy with it until I begged him to fuck me.

But if Brian ties this girl down, it won’t be to tease orgasms from her.

Before I can wonder if I should go after him to try to calm him down and refocus him back on our larger mission, he returns. By this point all Christmas Eve ham has been abandoned, and everyone is standing, in case they need to flee the scene.

Good instincts. Or maybe just garden variety common sense. They scatter like bowling pins as Brian barrels toward them, snapping the flogger at anyone he can get close enough to.

He chases them all out until it’s just me and him remaining in the cafeteria. He picks up a piece of ham off one of the abandoned plates and it disappears under the mask. And then his attention turns sharply back to me, the glowing red eyes seeming to burn into me like embers straight from hell.

My heart beats wildly in my chest, but I don’t run. A flogger isn’t a chainsaw, after all. And unlike Halloween night I have enough presence of mind to understand the foolishness of running from this man. Instead I remain where I am, my hands gripping the metal bars behind me on the counter that the girls slide their trays across while getting their meals.

It’s a really sturdy structure with an angled glass divider to shield the food. Obviously nobody official comes in to inspect this place for food safety standards, but everything is still industrial grade and up to code.

“Take your pants off.”

Brian’s voice is little more than a growl. He has fully committed to this role. I’m not sure my desire for him has ever been higher than in this moment. And I don’t care what he does to me as long as his hands are on me.

I take my boots off first—it’s the only way the pants can come off. Then I unbutton and slide out of the leather.

“Panties,” he growls as he stalks closer.

I dutifully remove the scrap of red silk. He picks me up and sits me on the metal counter. It’s sturdy enough to easily take a person’s weight.

“Spread your legs.”

“Brian, we’re on a schedule. This may be our only shot at Dante.” Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. What are you doing, Mina? Just let this man do anything he wants.

“I’m well aware of what time it is.”

I take a deep breath and spread my legs giving him a full lewd view of my bare pussy.

“Lean back and get comfortable.”

I do as he says, my back pressed against the glass, warm from the steam rising up off the food in the food warmers.

“Good girl.”

It’s been a long time since he’s said these words to me, and I’d be lying if I said they didn’t still have the power to affect me.

My breath stutters out as he fondles me now without any obstructions. I moan when his fingers dip inside me to feel how shamefully wet I am. What part of this gets me going? The danger? The terrifying demon costume? The openness of the space? The women of the house who I notice have snuck back to the fringes of the room and are now watching us from the shadows? The display of clearing the cafeteria to do whatever this is?

All of it? Maybe it’s the kernel of my Brian returning to me—that dark dangerous edge he thinks I just tolerate instead of actually love. He thinks I love him in spite of his darkness—like I just make allowances for who he is, instead of embracing all of him.

He doesn’t trust my declarations of love.

He flips the flogger around, and I gasp at the unexpected intrusion of the smooth polished walnut handle pushing inside me. My hips arch up to meet his endless punishing thrusts.

“You like being penetrated by a demon, don’t you?” His voice is harsh and guttural.

“Y-yes,” I gasp as my hips rise again to meet the friction of the flogger handle.

“Yes. What ?” he demands.

“Yes, Master.”

“Exactly. You’re going to come hard for me and our audience like a good girl, aren’t you?”

“Y-yes, Master.”

So he does know they’re watching. Maybe he heard them. Maybe he saw flashes of scurried movement. They are like animals waiting for a predator to leave so they can eat the scavenged remains. And all their dinners are getting cold as they wait and voyeuristically consume this spectacle instead.

He pumps faster and harder as the movements of my hips become more erratic and my vocalizations louder, wilder, more uninhibited. I don’t know if I’m letting go or performing for our audience—or if I’m performing for Brian. I feel his satisfied smile behind the mask, even if I can’t see it. So loud and intense is his energy projected at me.

I finally shudder as I come against the handle of the flogger. He allows me to convulse around it… waits for every flutter of my pleasure to play out like the long haunting strains of a violin. Then he removes it and holds it up to me, and I lick it clean like the good girl I am.

“You filthy, filthy girl,” he says. “I’m going to be beating people with this tonight. What would the good people of our small metropolis have to say about that do you think?”

I start to get up, but he holds me in place. “Stay. Don’t close your legs. I want to look at you like that.”

I nod, and when he’s sure I won’t move, he goes around the counter to fix a plate of food and a glass of iced tea. Brian returns to me with a tray and places it on the counter.

He proceeds to take his time feeding me, all while I know the girls of the house are too afraid to come in here and disturb him in order to finish their own dinners.

His message is very clear. The alpha wolf eats first. I may be his, but I am not theirs. I’m not “just some slut” at the house. He cares for me, and they’d better put away their drama, fall in line, and accept it. Because as far as the women of this house are concerned, I am the alpha wolf.

“What about you?” I say after the plate is clean. And I don’t know if I mean what about his sexual needs or needs for food.

“I ate before I put the costume on. I’m going to go downstairs and get cleaned up. Be ready to go in twenty.”

He leaves me and descends back down the stairs to the dungeons. Once he’s gone, the other girls timidly return to the room and their food. They can’t even look at me. They’re jealous, angry, embarrassed, but I’d lay good odds this weird power struggle between me and them that has been bubbling up since my return from Japan has finally come to its conclusion.

Both Brian and I are dressed normally as he drives us to the venue. He hasn’t said a word about what happened in the cafeteria, and I don’t think he’s going to. I don’t know if this is an indication of the shift back to normalcy for us or if he was only able to do all that because he could hide from me inside a character.

I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I know right now we have to be focused on the kill. Whatever our remaining interpersonal hiccups, they’ll have to be dealt with at another time.

He parks the car at the back of a large gravel lot not that far away from where we parked on the Fourth of July. We put our Krampus costumes on over our clothes and hide our more deadly whips under the thick layers of fabric and fur.

And of course we have other weapons… knives and guns, just in case. I don’t think we can use the guns, but we have them. This event is sponsored by the city and is crawling with police which is part of why it makes it so insane for us to take out Dante here. In public. But it also makes it unexpected.

Valentino is unlikely to have heavy guard around him in this environment when he thinks his identity is shielded so fully from his enemies.

It’s cold outside, but the heavy layers make the ambient air feel comfortable. Brian got a peek at the Krampus list when he picked up our costumes and took a photo on his phone of what Dante’s costume looks like. I studied it for most of the drive to lock specific details into my memory. We’ve got about an hour before the run starts, and I hope it’s enough time to find our target.

It’s a four block walk to the staging area from the car. Brian gives our fake names, and a member of the security team scans the list and checks our costumes against the photos, then he nods and waves us in.

There’s no sign of Dante in the staging area. I knew there probably wouldn’t be. After all, most of the Krampus demons are out in the parade working the crowd. We follow a roped off area until we’re on the main road that’s supposed to be reserved for the participants in the parade.

A live band on a nearby stage plays holiday classics with an uptempo rock twist as kids get their pictures taken with one of many Krampus demons as they parade down main street, ringing bells and waving to the assembled crowd.

Some of the children cry and hide behind their parents at the scary demon masks. It’s especially endearing when a little girl being held by a Krampus seems to realize the terrifying thing holding her and starts sobbing. He bounces her on his hip to calm her down.

Most of the kids seem to be more fascinated than scared of the Krampus demons. Given my short experience as a Christmas elf, I’d say shockingly Santa gets more tears—or maybe that’s just Brian.

But no, a small boy runs up to us and hugs Brian around the legs, causing him to leap back in surprise.

“This one! I want to get my picture made with this one!” he shouts. He can’t be more than four.

“I’m sorry,” the mother says, juggling a bag and her phone.

Brian just nods and stands still for the photo.

“Thank you,” the woman says after snapping the picture and grabbing her little boy’s hand to take him back to the parade line.

A giant clock over the stage counts down with a red LED display and a loud ticking sound that can be heard faintly even over the live music, reminding everyone that the family friendly part of the event is about to wind down.

“Is Dante in the parade?” I ask, leaning close so Brian can hear me above the crowd.

“I don’t know. Come on.” He grabs my hand and we wind through the people and demons until we finally spot our target. Valentino wears an especially elaborate mask, and I can tell Benjamin had the time to carve more intricate horns. He waves and tosses candy into the crowd. We fall in line just behind him, shadowing his movements.

The procession goes down three blocks, then circles back around to where it started. We stay close to Valentino the entire time. I feel the adrenaline buzzing through me, excited over the fact that Dante has no fucking clue his killers are marching next to him in a parade, and that this is the last thing he will ever do in life.

I hope he enjoys himself, this last fleeting feeling of freedom—this one night without bodyguards that proves to be his fatal mistake. Brian confirmed that Dante is without an entourage tonight when he checked the list. Every single Krampus is accounted for on that list, and none of them are Dante’s men. He foolishly came alone.

His alias, Frederick Valentine is known to Brian. Maybe Dante thinks he’s slicker than he really is. Or he didn’t expect anyone to find out he was skipping out on his family’s traditional Christmas Eve gathering—something so out of character for him.

The band stops playing, and the clock gets louder. I glance up to find only a minute left before the event switches tracks entirely. I’ve been so focused on us not losing sight of our target that I didn’t notice the energetic shift in the air.

I look around to find no children left. Police are moving through the crowds, ID’ing anyone who looks suspiciously underage.

I lean in closer to Brian. “Are you sure we can pull this off?”

I’m nervous about the police presence here. This is so unbelievably risky.

He squeezes my hand in response and reassurance. I take a deep breath as a buzzer sounds. The new band starts playing hard industrial rock. And then the running and screaming begins.

Brian and I both pull out our “safe” whips and shadow Valentino as we chase people in the close-by vicinity of those he’s chasing. Our whips crack at people’s legs. Shrieks, screams, and giggles fill the space, nearly drowned out by the music.

Brian is staying more aware of Dante, while I keep my focus on the cops. We have to wait until they’re distracted, until they’ve moved to another area of the event. It’s all rather predictable. The running, the chasing, most of the people moving in a pattern very similar to the three-block parade track we just walked.

The police keep pace with the bulk of the crowd where they think the danger of real violence breaking out is. And yet, we are the true danger here.

Finally, we have our moment. Brian signals to me, and I nod. We both switch from the safe whips to our kill whips. We bump and herd Dante away from the crowd, back toward the noise of the stage.

“Hey! What the fuck!” Valentino shouts, but it sounds like a whispered growl underneath the music—as though it could be just a growling backup vocal to the band on stage.

We work as a unit to rip at his costume, so we can get to vulnerable unprotected skin. He didn’t wear an entire separate set of clothes under his heavy costume, and because it is a costume, buttons and zippers pop free much more easily than they should.

He struggles and runs from us, but he only ends up getting entangled in cords and stage equipment. He trips and falls in a tangle, and then in concert with Brian, I allow that terrifying part of me to come out—my own monster that mirrors his—and we beat Dante to death while his screams blend into the music and the screams of the other event participants.

It’s only after it’s done that Brian removes his mask to confirm for sure that it’s him. There’s something unsatisfying in our victim not knowing it was us—or why. But I feel Brian’s buzzy adrenaline—the same frenetic energy from Halloween. Only this time when he turns toward me, I don’t run from him.

But I sense the shift, like maybe this is the moment he’ll come fully back to me. Even behind the costume… maybe we’ll have a repeat of the pumpkin patch—a night I have shamefully fantasized about on an obsessive loop for weeks now. I’ve brought myself to orgasm under the spray of the shower more times than I can count, thinking about that night.

And the most shameful part is that my fantasy never starts with the fucking. It starts with the chase. Brian is right… I don’t have a death wish but I do flirt with death. How could I not, when I sleep with the reaper every night?

We’re about to make our exit when two new Krampus demons pop out from around the side of the stage. Their gazes shift to Dante’s fallen body then slide slowly back to us. They’re too close to allow us to run.

Everything is so loud, and with the masks I can’t communicate effectively with Brian to know what to do. Who are these people? Are they just curious participants who stumbled upon a murder scene? Are they undercover cops? Are they men with Dante that we simply missed because they weren’t the usual suspects?

I drop my whip and grab one of my knives. I keep it concealed under the layers of my costume, finally jabbing it in and upward under the ribs of the Krampus demon who rushes me. He doesn’t see the glint of metal until it’s too late. I can’t tell what Brian is doing from this angle, but he seems to be scuffling with the other guy.

He’s got the guy’s mask off now and is interrogating him—demanding information now that he’s got the upper hand in the fight. I scan the area, looking for cops or witnesses to our crimes. Was Dante worth it? Are we going to get out of this? My hands drip with the blood of the man I just killed, his body sprawled at my feet, while Brian continues to yell at the other one.

The run is circling back around as the Krampus demons herd their prey back toward the stage. We’re too exposed here. Too visible. Somehow we’ve managed to move closer to the side of the stage, closer to the visibility of the crowd that doesn’t realize what’s happening around them. They’re too taken with the event. They’re too concerned with taunting or fleeing pretend demons with whips to notice the real monsters of the night.

The screams of the crowd mix in and cover up the scream of Brian’s victim as he hits the ground. The cops are still at the back of the crowd, but they’re making their way closer. They’ll see us soon enough if we don’t get the fuck out of here.

Just as I’m about to run for Brian and grab his hand, I feel a hard grip on each of my arms, and for a moment my heart drops in my stomach, and I think it’s cops, and we’re about to be arrested and lose everything. We’re about to be separated forever.

“Brian! Run!” I scream. If I’m about to be taken in, at least he can save himself.

He turns glowing red eyes back toward me, and suddenly he’s not fucking around. He rushes us, pulls out a gun from under his costume and puts two bullets first in one man and then in the other.

They release me and are on the ground before I even realize they weren’t cops at all, but other Krampus demons. The gun fire draws attention as people scream and scatter and the band stops playing. Brian grabs my hand and we run in concert with the fleeing crowd, blending into their panic to escape into the night.