This was too much for me to deal with right now and I could tell by Dion’s expression he’d pieced a few things together from this entire exchange. I wasn’t ready for all his questions either.
“Let’s just do whatever it is we came here for,” I commanded.
“Where do we start?” Grace asked. “You wanted to look through those mailboxes, right? They take a key and there’s at least a hundred or so.”
“They’re numbered,” I replied, walking over to the brick wall that housed the glossy white boxes.
“Okay, and?” Mel replied.
“We don’t need to search all of them we just need to find the right one.”
“If it’s number based then it’s probably six-one-six again,” she summarized.
“What do you mean again?” Grace asked.
“It’s been a common denominator around the city,” Dion explained to her.
She mumbled something to herself that we couldn’t hear. I was going to leave her in her own world for now. My eyes swept over all the mailboxes and I shook my head.
“There is no six-one…,” I trailed off and looked back at Dion.
“Earlier, when we saw that woman, you mentioned she was in the sixth row or something. Do you remember?”
“Yeah! Six down and six over.”
I counted from the top and then went over six to the right. The box I ended up on was locked tight and labeled with a name I couldn’t pronounce.
“It’s not opening.”
“Try down six, sixth row, first box,” Dion said.
I began again and did as he said. This time the box I stopped at had a name I recognized from the maps.
Azrael.
Not thinking too deeply about it, I popped the mailbox open and retrieved a key that was inside. A small paper tag was attached to it with the number sixteen.
“What’s that?” Grace asked, peering around me.
“A key. Where do ya’ll think apartment sixteen is?”
“On the sixth floor,” the tagalong replied from his corner.
Well, that made sense.
“Let’s get up there then.”
I stepped away from the mailboxes and made my way towards the rear of the lobby where an access door sat.
“You don’t want to take the elevators?” Mel asked, gesturing in the direction of the shiny metal doors.
“And alert anyone who might be in here what floor we’re going to?”
“Good point.”
“Are you coming…?” Dion called back to the guy in the corner, hinting for his name.
I’d planned on leaving him right where he was. He wasn’t going to be much help to us hiding with his balls tucked up inside his stomach. I pushed open the access door, stepping into a stairwell almost as nice as the building’s lobby. Looking up, I counted how many sets were between us and floor six.
“You want me to go first?” Grace asked.
“No.” Mel and I said in unison.
Before any of them could take it upon themselves to move ahead of me, I hurried up the stairs. The building was completely silent apart from the noises we were making.
I held onto the rail and hoisted myself along. I swear the higher we got the more my bodies soreness set in. By the time we got to level six I was ready to drop down and army crawl the rest of the way to the apartment.
“Are you okay?” Mel asked softly, placing a hand on my back.
“Yeah, just sore.”
I pulled open the door leading to the hallway we needed to be in, making sure there weren’t any more machete’s flying my way before I went through. Seeing all those closed doors apartment was daunting. At any second, they could start opening. In a complex this high up and only two ways back down, we would be shit out of luck.
Hurrying through the hall, I silently counted off the door numbers as we went. Apartment sixteen was exactly where it should’ve been. The sixth door on the left. I inserted the key and let us inside, cautiously entering a foyer of sorts.
The overall theme matched the rest of the buildings, emanating luxury and elegance. Marble flooring continued throughout. An open concept floorplan gave full view of the black and white kitchen and leather furniture in the living area.
“You said someone died in here?” Grace asked, stepping around me so that she could see better.
“I’m pretty sure.” I walked deeper into the apartment, passing by a half-bathroom.
I looked around but saw no sign that would confirm what Dion and I saw. The blood that had been on the window was now gone and there wasn’t a body in sight.
As the last person entered behind us, the door shut, setting off a chain reaction.
A thick, black curtain slid across a track, and covered the main windows of the apartment. Simultaneously, a television clicked on the word LIVE blinking in the upper corner of the screen.
“Fun houses. Brazen Bulls. Crazy Clowns! Carnival Diablos has something to satisfy everyone inside the Devil’s Playground. Place a wager or come for the show alone, no matter what you decide it’s guaranteed you’ll have the best night of your life.