The Two

by Will Carver

  Mabon marks the year’s sunset and foreshadows darker times that lie ahead. This Sabbat foresees the future for both myself and V. Life throws many decisions at people, but none as tough as this Mabon, 21 September. The only choice is whether I die or whether V dies. Until this moment arrives nothing that either of us do or say or believe is of any significance.

  Only one of us can survive Mabon, and it has to be me.

  For I am the light and he is the darkness.

  I am right and he is wrong.

  He is blindness and I am sight.

  And he will kill again at Lughnasadh.

  V

  I SUMMON HIM.

  ‘… be thou a window of comfort unto me. Move therefore and appear. Open the mysteries of your creation.’

  This is the same plea I utter after each sacrifice, once I have buried the box that bears my image. This is the same invocation I use to receive my next objective, to check on my progress.

  ‘… Zodoreje, lape zodiredo Noco Mada, hoathahe Saitan.’

  And I wait for him to appear.

  Just as I have with every person whose suffering I have extinguished.

  Just as I did for the very first time the night before Samhain, when he appeared to me and listened, telling me that there is always a way to get what you want in life, that there is always some price to pay, but that I could one day be part of a family again.

  I never actually see him, much as I never hear his voice; he does not materialise in front of my eyes in any guise, neither as monster nor as beautiful woman, as some legends would have it. It is a sense. The awareness that somebody or something is there with you, that they are on your side and that they hear you and act.

  I feel the pain in my knees crunching into the hard wooden floor as I perch outside Celeste’s cell. There is no sound coming from inside. My eyes are closed yet still I sense the changing colours on the back wall with every rotation of the traffic lights below. While I wait I allow myself a moment to drift into my possible future.

  Am I finished?

  The atmosphere in the room changes. It smells the same and the temperature is constant; it’s more like the air is thicker or the walls are closer together.

  He is here.

  And he is pleased.

  We talk, not with words or signs, but we converse. I convey my thoughts over the five people who have perished; the one that lies in hospital and the real villain that is shackled in the room to my left. He pacifies me with words of encouragement, that all has gone according to plan, that Celeste has made no difference to the outcome of any of the chosen ones.

  Time appears to stop in his presence; the pain in my knees is eradicated; no sound but his voice can be heard. Once I register the changing lights, the muffled sound of a car stereo and the arthritic sensation in my kneecaps, I know that I am once again alone.

  My bones crack as I push myself back to my feet. Still, Celeste respects the quiet. I drop down onto the sofa with my glass of red wine and allow myself a moment of relaxation. To my left is an empty, clean tumbler. Between my legs, the bottle of whisky I bought as a reward after sending Annabel Wakeman into the next life. I knock back the wine and swap glasses.

  As I split the seal on the whisky bottle, Celeste jumps full force into another bout of blasphemous bellowing and her futile struggle to escape the confines of her circular trap. I don’t even flinch; this is my moment, my latest reward for completing the Lord’s work. One step closer to my goal.

  I pause for a moment of reflection then, in my mental calendar, I write a reminder.

  ‘August first, take another. September twenty-first, Mabon, reunite.’

  I sip at the warming liquid, close my eyes in satisfaction, allow the final remnants of tension to release themselves from my shoulders, down the remainder of the glass, fill it again and slouch back into the comfort of my chair.

  This is my routine until I pass out.

  I will miss my regular run tomorrow.

  Brooke

  THE CRASH OF the flimsy door to my hospital suite startles me from sleep. My first thought should be that my attempted murderer has come back to finish the job. Instead, the tall, ragged, tireless figure of January David bounds towards the foot of my bed. Detective Sergeant Murphy swiftly folds the sheet of paper showing Celeste’s sharp features into his inside jacket pocket, hiding his second act of treachery on this case, and stands up almost to attention.

  ‘Do you know her?’ The rumpled detective grips the bar near my feet and his eyes pierce mine.

  ‘What?’ I look to the side at the nervous Murphy for support.

  ‘Come on, Jan …’ he tries to come to my aid but a single finger is held up in his direction, instructing him to stay out of it.

  ‘Do you know her?’ He repeats the question slowly, wrapping his mouth around each word, pausing as though placing a comma between every remark.

  ‘Who?’ I project a confident confusion, suppressing my anxiety at his line of questioning.

  ‘Don’t give me that. You know who.’ He lowers his finger and I suddenly feel ganged up on. Even Detective Sergeant Murphy seems to be waiting for my answer.

  ‘What? The woman—’

  He doesn’t allow me to finish my question. ‘The woman you described to our artist. Do you know her?’

  I find enough strength after a decent period of recuperation to force myself forwards supporting my own back, leaving the crumpled pillows behind me.

  ‘Of course not. She tried to fucking kill me.’ I screw my eyes up in apparent disbelief at his ludicrousness. How far will this go before he leaves?

  ‘Are you religious in any way? Do you have a faith?’

  ‘How is that even relevant to this or the last question you asked me?’ I move my focus towards Detective Sergeant Murphy, trying to bring him back onside.

  I watch Detective Inspector David noticeably withdraw, take a calming breath and redress the situation. DS Murphy fidgets next me, tugging at his jacket as if straightening himself out from a long car journey; he is trying to disguise the object in his pocket.

  ‘You’ve been under some stress.’ He tries a soothing tone, which comes over as patronising. I humph. ‘I understand that. But if you have anything you want to say to us, maybe something you had previously forgotten, now is the time to say it.’

  I don’t even give his words a chance to hang in the air as though I have anything to consider.

  ‘Get out of my room. That’s the only thing I want to say to you. Get out.’ And I lower myself back into the pillows and turn my face away from him.

  He calls for his partner to come outside with him. I don’t turn my head until I hear the door close again. I watch them outside through the window. January David looks calmer as he speaks with DS Murphy, he seems to be reasoning with him. No doubt asking him to come in here and see whether I know the woman from the picture he has folded in his pocket. Because I trust him more. He is my confidant.

  I don’t know Celeste Varrick.

  That much is true.

  They both look at me through the window of the door leading into my alleged place of safety like I am an attraction at an aquarium. Only DS Murphy comes back into the room, shutting the door behind him.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry about that, he’s very passionate about—’

  ‘Is this some kind of good cop bad cop thing?’ I ask, dismissing him.

  ‘That’s not a real thing, this isn’t a film.’ He comes across as genuine so I let him back in a little. ‘Look, he goes about things the wrong way sometimes. I believe you. But if there is anything else that you think you remember that you may have left out of your statement to Detective Inspector David earlier, then now really is the best time to say something.’

  A silence creeps over the room for a beat.

  To avoid any misunderstanding.

  ‘There’s nothing else,’ I admit. ‘I don’t know who she is.

  ‘That’s good enough for me.’

  He stands in the s
pot his boss stood only moments ago and tells me that all he wants is to catch the woman who did this to me. He wants justice for the things she has done to the other five people who were not as fortunate as I was. Then he apologises and asks me one more time whether there is anything I may have forgotten. For Detective Inspector David, he says, palming off the blame.

  I give him a look that says I won’t answer that question again.

  ‘Then all that is left to do is give you more time to rest while I get this picture to the press. We want everybody to know what she looks like. The people have a right to know who this monster is.’

  ‘Won’t that scare her into hiding?’ I ask innocently, displaying fear that she will know it is me who has identified her.

  ‘This kind of person cannot stop what they are doing by themselves. They need to kill. The only way to prevent any more deaths is for the police to apprehend her.’

  His logic makes sense. I’m not an expert on the psychology of a killer but it sounds right. I tell him not to be long, I don’t want to be left on my own. And I agree for him to contact the newspapers with the image I described.

  Making my input on the case even less valid than before.

  Making myself useless.

  Safe, yet without purpose.

  Though I was taken off the wheel, I am still the one to be sacrificed.

  Lughnasadh

  August 2009

  Aldous

  I’M NOT UNHAPPY. I don’t want to die. I don’t leave the consultation in the hospital thinking that I would be better off in the ground. I don’t want to get followed along the Embankment, stabbed and set on fire, just because I am dying anyway. Just because there is no hope.

  I want to live the last moments of my life, no matter how long that is, to the fullest. Isn’t that what anyone in this position wishes for? There’s nothing I can do about it now but enjoy myself.

  I wait until I am out of sight of the hospital; it feels confrontational to light up a cigarette after receiving the news about my lungs. V is watching me. He sees this act of defiance as a reason to take my life from me. He thinks I don’t want to be here.

  That’s his consolation, his justification.

  He lies to himself to excuse his behaviour.

  This is not the work of the Lord. It is the obsession of a desperate, selfish individual.

  I suck down the toxic, nicotine-drenched smoke and close my eyes with delight as I blow it back out through pursed, smiling lips. I swallow another mouthful of the fumes that are killing me and set on my way.

  There is a brief moment, before I disappear from the world beneath an underpass, when I have the opportunity to contemplate my family for the last time. Before he takes them away from me in a bid to get his own back.

  I care for them. I love them all. My parents. My son. My two younger brothers. At least I don’t have to break the news to them about my illness, I’ve avoided that pity party. Although, I’m not sure I was going to tell them anyway. I’ve refused treatment. I don’t want to be a drain on the system when there are youngsters who deserve the medical resources far more than I do. I want to be able to smoke and drink and eat the food I want without judgement, without people thinking I shouldn’t because it will mean I can live three weeks longer.

  Three more miserable weeks.

  But none of this matters. I pass into the shadow of the overhanging bridge, away from the bright grey sky which shouldn’t be here at this time of year, away from any cameras that may be able to record this event, and I start down a much shorter road to my death.

  The blade pierces me deep. At first it feels like an inconvenient insect bite, but that melts away when the knife is pulled out. The man behind me is strong, he holds my body tightly into his and whispers into my ear not to fight. That I should just go with it.

  I don’t know what choice I have. I had already made the decision to go with death, but not this way. This is not on my terms. This is not happening as a consequence of something I have done to myself.

  So I drop to my knees.

  Air is sparse and my lungs must be filling with blood because it feels like drowning. V still holds me close from behind as though he is caring for me, like we are friends, comrades on the same battlefield. I lift the cigarette back to my mouth but I cannot inhale, I can’t taste the blood. I am numb both physically and emotionally. I don’t even feel him dig the knife in and retract it another six times.

  I don’t know that he throws some kind of homemade doll at my knees, that he scatters a handful of candles on the floor before setting fire to the doll and then myself. I’m dead. He has not performed a ritual of healing, he is not trying to save my soul from eternal damnation. He is a fake. A fraud.

  I do not hear the detectives arguing when they finally reach me because Celeste’s ritual was not performed correctly. It was not performed at all. There was no candle left for January David to extinguish. When he blames one of his colleagues for my death, I do not hear this because all is black and silent. I can’t hear them fighting or pushing one another up against the wall because it is not important. Nothing is now.

  I see no heaven nor hell nor purgatory.

  V does this for nothing.

  Celeste saves no one.

  Or maybe it only exists if you have faith.

  And I have none.

  Mabon

  September 2009

  V

  THE DOOR IS open to the spare room now, so anybody could hear her scream.

  But they will hear me first.

  That’s when Gail is supposed to come across the landing and bang at my door asking if everything is all right, just as she did on the night before May. She will hear a woman howling; that’s when she will confirm my story.

  She is not allowed to die.

  All of the lights in the flat are out; the back wall of the living area changes from green to red. I move across the room, grab the holy book in my right hand and move over to the window. People slither by on the streets below: couples, groups of young men jostling and teasing each other; a girl trying to look older than she is stands outside a shop-front with a cigarette waiting for whoever.

  The wall changes from red to orange.

  And back to green.

  I walk over to the kitchen and take a sip of red wine. A scream startles me.

  Celeste is awake.

  Her cell door is open.

  I snatch at the phone, dropping it in my haste, it rotates in the air, in slow-motion, but I catch it, upside down, before it hits the floor. Before it disturbs her.

  With my index finger trembling, I tap the ‘9’ button three times.

  A woman asks me what the emergency is.

  I whisper into the mouthpiece. ‘She’s here, in my flat.’

  ‘Sorry, sir, can you speak up?’ she asks, annoyingly.

  ‘The woman from the front of the paper. The woman that killed all those people …’

  ‘Sir?’ She prompts me for more information.

  ‘She’s in my flat. She’s here now.’

  ‘Can you tell me your address, sir? What is your name?’

  ‘She’s here now and she wants to kill me.’

  And I leave the phone on the floor. The voice at the other end calling ‘Sir’ over and over and over again.

  Celeste

  THREE MONTHS TODAY. That’s how long I’ve been here. At first I couldn’t keep track of the time, he kept the door closed, kept me in the dark. It wasn’t until he showed me the newspaper that I was sure.

  I started counting on the second of August.

  The day after Lughnasadh. After he killed Aldous Harman and made it look like a cut-price Pagan ritual.

  The day he told me why he still needs me.

  I awake from a deep sleep to a triangle of slow-flashing light in my room, and the scent of wet paint. I bring my hands up to my face and rub the sleep from my eyes. It takes a few moments to realise that I am no longer bound. That I am sitting up.

  Before the awa
reness sets in, I notice that the walls are now blank. The biblical references have been erased, the writing has been hidden.

  I can’t hear him.

  What has changed?

  Am I free?

  I shake my legs. My ankles are not shackled to the bed frame either. I bring my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them, forming a ball. I rock back and forth for a short while. It feels so liberating to be small, to not be stretched out and straight.

  This is a small gratification. My solitary moment of pleasure for the last thirteen weeks.

  A floorboard creaks.

  He’s out there.

  I stop rocking. I stop breathing. The bedsprings cease squeaking.

  All is quiet again.

  Cautiously, I rotate myself back to a kneeling position, moving through the ruffles of the quilting as silently as possible. The light flashes back to red and the point of the blood triangle lands at my bedside. I peer down at the lit floor, examining everything in the light, making sure this is not a trap, prudently edging sideways one inch at a time.

  Until I hit a wall.

  An unseen barrier.

  There was never any need for the satin knots around my ankles and wrists. There was no benefit to having me bound in that position other than discomfort and torment. I’ve been trapped the entire time.

  The triangle changes to an orange colour and I look up at the ceiling. Not everything has been painted over.

  I temporarily lose control and the only thing I can think to do is scream in frustration.

  Of course I am not free: he still needs me.

  Within a second he is standing in my doorway, his shadow elongated, surrounded by green and then a more terrifying red.

  He smiles at me and looks to the ceiling.

  I stand on the bed and start chanting. Spitting as I do so. Forcing every ounce of venom and malice towards my captor.