One balmy Poison Bay night, the 20 year-old home of the Pritchard family had been burnt down to embers. A gas leak of some sort. The enormous explosion had killed everybody. Jeremy Pritchard, his wife Michelle, the seven year old twins Jamie and Jane, and even baby Faye, three months old that day.
By strange coincidence, the family minivan had been stolen at the same time.
But the police got the facts a little wrong. The woman’s body they had recovered was not Michelle Pritchard. It was Lillian Choo - an illegal Asian immigrant who had started work as Baby Faye’s nanny that very day. Michelle had stepped out in a hurry to buy some tomato paste, for the Spaghetti Bolognaise she had planned for dinner. But she had returned in time to see a strange van marked “Handyman Clay” driving off in a hurry from her doorstep. It had struck her as odd but not odd enough. While she was trying to gather the stubborn cans into the weak plastic bags, it had happened. She had seen it. The entire left side of the house it exploded into one giant ball of fire.
She knew it was no gas leak. She had been expecting it all these years. But when it finally happened, it was unexpected. She had just stood there. Part of her had wanted to jump into the flames. Try to save someone. But all those months of conditioning had held her back. It wasn’t her time.
Michelle Pritchard was dead. Xi was reborn.
Clay, part time handyman, part time hitman and explosives expert, was paid a visit by Xi the week after while he was in his workshop. She had started with his fingers, crushing them in a vice, tearing them off with wire strippers. Unhappy with the results she had moved on to the mallet smashing in both his shins. After she had pulverized Clay's left knee he had become willing to talk. Once she knew all about Big Eddie, she had tied him to a chair in the kitchen. A gas leak. She would show him a gas leak. From Clay's stash, she had found a small charge of C4. She had then rigged it to 15 minute timer, taped it to his face and left.
The last room Handyman Clay ever painted, was a bright red.
Eddie knew most of that story. The crucial bits he didn’t know, Xi explained.
“Clay held out pretty long you know. He’s a tough guy. Was. Now you could try and beat him. But I wouldn’t recommend it”, Xi said and smiled.
“Now I just have two questions. Easy ones”, she reached behind Eddie’s head and undid something. Eddie felt the piece of rubber pop out of his mouth.
“Who and why?” said Xi.
Eddie tried to scream at first. But he couldn’t. The noose was too tight. The only thing that came out was whisper. He had had enough of this.
“Rot in hell bitch” he spat out.
Xi shook her head in dismay. Then with one swift motion she pulled out the needles holding her hair together. Her beautiful black locks cascaded down her shoulders. Eddie saw that the needles weren’t needles at all. They were tiny curly daggers.
The next moment Xi plunged them deep into his bowels.
Big Eddie gasped in pain and shock. But his windpipe was closed shut by the rope and he almost choked.
Xi just stood there smiling.
At the moment it hit him. He was going to die. One way or another. The only question was how soon and how painfully.
So he talked.
“I’ll tell you. I don’t know why”
The daggers twisted just a little. Big Eddie gasped again.
“I don’t. I really don’t. I just got Clay coz I don’t do kids. But I know who hired. It was Brother Morris.”
The grip on the daggers loosened.
“Who’s that?” Xi asked.
“Brother Morris. He’s a Habit. Up at Blackwood Abbey.” Big Eddie wheezed.
He saw it in her eyes. That look. Even in his pain he could recognize that look. It was fear. The Habits scared her, despite the monster she was. Big Eddie found that hilarious somehow. And he started laughing. A dry hyena laugh.
Xi smiled back and walked away. Big Eddie heard clicking sounds and then that whir of the winch motor. And he started rising above the ground. The noose tightened the nylon cutting his flesh drawing blood. He could see the little woman in red looking up at him. Like a toddler. And then she sprung up, unnaturally high and with one swift motion plucked the little daggers out of Eddie’s guts. Blood gushed out in a thick stream. The whirring stopped. There were more clicks and thuds. And then the sound of a car engine fading in the night.
She was gone. Leaving Big Eddie hanging 4 feet above the ground from a lamp post in the alley behind Philli’s Bar. The enormous man swung gently in the night as the blood and urine dripping down his trouser legs painted abstract stars on the asphalt.