Stalking Tender Prey

by Constantine, Storm

  To Barbara, it was like entering an enchanted garden. Moonlight illumined the overgrown terraces, the weed-thick lake, with its ivy-bound summer house, the strangled follies, where carved faces peered through the foliage. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she murmured. Beyond the jungled garden, the house was black and massive.

  ‘Seems rather a waste, doesn’t it?’ Othman said.

  Amber and Lester were racing off across the ruined lawns. One of them barked, and the sound echoed, far.

  ‘It makes me feel sad,’ Barbara said. They found their way onto a gravel pathway, obscured by brambles. ‘But it’s so romantic, too.’ She let the remark hang. Othman had made no move towards her, offered no sign of interest. Perhaps she was being too forward, but the remark could be interpreted as innocent, or simply artistic, if she should receive a rebuke of some kind.

  ‘It’s very romantic,’ Othman replied, but he did not look at her, and he had released her arm.

  The main lawn felt endless as they stood in its centre, knee high in dying grasses, staring up at the frontage of Long Eden. Barbara felt particularly sensitive, as if she was hearing, or feeling, echoes of things that had happened here in the garden. She thought of croquet, parties, women in white dresses, laughter, and strangely, music from the ‘Twenties playing on an old gramophone. ‘Why did they go?’ she murmured, thinking aloud.

  ‘The windows are all boarded up,’ Othman said. ‘That’s why there’s no reflection from them. That’s why it’s so dark and eerie.’

  ‘Well, they’d have to secure the place, wouldn’t they. I’d love to look inside!’ She laughed. ‘But by day, I think. This place must be over-run with ghosts! Out here, I like them, but I think I’d be frightened of them inside the house.’

  ‘Barbara, would you mind if I just.. soaked up the atmosphere for a moment or two?’ Othman asked. ‘I’d like to sit quietly here. It won’t take long.’

  He sat down in the long grass, and assumed a meditative posture. Barbara was surprised, but then told herself she shouldn’t be surprised by anything Othman did. She hardly knew him. Obviously, he was a bit of a New-Age type person, but then she had dabbled a little with alternative therapies and such like herself.

  ‘Of course!’ she said and sat down cross-legged in front of him. ‘Carry on. I’ll just sit here a while, too. I hope the dogs aren’t getting into mischief!’

  Othman smiled at her, then closed his eyes. Barbara studied his face in repose. He really was astoundingly beautiful. She admired his high cheekbones, his long precise jaw, the brush-stroke sweep of his brows, his dusty fair hair escaping in curving tendrils from his pony-tail. It made her ache to look at him. He was beyond her, she knew. If anything could happen between them, it would be brief. Then he would move on, to affect other people, elsewhere, in the same way. At that moment, Barbara decided she wanted a piece of Peverel Othman, however small, and however short a time she could hold onto it. Her looks hadn’t deserted her completely, and she had the benefit of experience. If anything, working in The White House had toned up her ability to flirt. Never before had she considered being unfaithful to Barney, but this was too unique an opportunity to miss.

  Othman was aware of Barbara’s scrutiny and could catch the stream of her thoughts, pouring like a mist from her aura. He was flattered she appreciated his difference, and how special it was. He didn’t blame her that she wanted a piece of it. They all felt that way. Still, he must put that to the back of his mind, and open up to whatever resonances remained here in this place.

  At first, there was nothing but the buzz and hum of distant, human echoes. He rose above himself, and scanned the landscape. If anything, it was too regular. Cloaked, perhaps. He sensed a smothered pulse of energy coming from the High Place in the woods, but the house itself seemed wrapped in velvet. It was aware of him, and knew he was aware of it, but he was unsure whether there was a sense of recognition, or not. ‘I am looking for my people,’ he offered it, in simple geometric forms. ‘Have they been here?’

  There was a sense of quickening, of condensed alertness, almost of wariness. It was possible for buildings to acquire a certain limited sentience from generations of human occupants, but he was looking for the singular genius loci, its guardian spirit, which would signal the presence, past or present, of his kin. Houses, to his people, were not just shelters, but protectors too. If this place had been closed up, it was possible a guardian form had been created there, who was enjoined to silence, to keep the secrets. He would have to win its confidence before it would reveal anything to him. The spirit of a place would have only limited intelligence. Perhaps he would have to give it a sign.

  ‘Barbara,’ he said, and opened his eyes. She was still staring at him.

  ‘Yes?’ She was waiting to hear what he’d picked up, waiting for ghost stories. He looked ethereal in the moonlight, his skin so pellucid, it seemed it glowed with light from within. He made no move towards her, yet it seemed they were touching. The contact of eyes was more physical than she could ever have believed possible. Barbara’s vision blurred as her eyes filled with water, yet she refused to blink and break the contact. Othman was shining now, brilliant through her tears. Her body tingled with energy. She could not breathe, did not want to. Holding the stare for as long as she could, Barbara eventually had to give in, throw back her head, suck in breath. As her head cracked back, sound was squeezed from her chest. For a moment, she felt dizzy and blind, then a sudden, unexpected and powerful orgasm pulsed up through her belly. It was like being electrocuted, as if a conducting metal rod had been plunged through the top of her head, down her spine, into the earth. She juddered uncontrollably around this conductor, weak and helpless in its pulsing waves. Then, as abruptly as it had come, the sensation fled. She fell backwards onto the grass, feeling sick and faint. The sky spun overhead, the moon circling crazily above her. Pain filled her head. Othman leaned over her, put his cool fingers against her temples, and the pain diminished, as if it was being sucked back into a black hole deep within her. She heard the echoes of lamenting cries inside her mind.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Othman said. ‘I hope you weren’t hurt.’

  Barbara had begun to cry, and was powerless to stop herself. ‘What happened? What happened?’

  ‘The atmosphere here, it’s very powerful. I didn’t mean to do that.’ He helped Barbara sit up. ‘Come on. We should go now.’

  Barbara pulled a handkerchief from her jacket pocket, wiped her eyes and blew her nose. She managed a shaky laugh. ‘I don’t know why I’m crying. That was... unbelievable. How did it happen?’ She didn’t know whether Othman was aware of how his stare had actually affected her. Maybe he thought she’d just got a headache from it.

  ‘Just echoes,’ he answered. ‘You must be quite psychic.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’ Barbara tried to inject some normality back into her voice. ‘Where are the dogs? Amber! Lester!’ She heard barking from some distance away.

  ‘They’re back in the field,’ Othman said. He offered his arm, which Barbara took, and they began to walk back towards the garden boundary.

  Barbara still felt dazed. She was wondering whether she’d just been unfaithful to Barney or not. Nothing like that had ever happened to her before. Her underwear felt uncomfortably wet. How long had it been since she’d felt pleasure like that? God, did this man realise what he’d done to her? She risked a sneaky glance. Othman was tall and silent at her side. She hadn’t really thought about how tall he was before. In fact, it seemed he was taller now than he had been. She must be going mad. This was all too bizarre.

  ‘Did you pick up much about the place?’ Barbara asked.

  Othman shrugged. ‘A little.’ He patted her hand where it was hooked through his elbow. ‘Thanks for helping me.’

  ‘I feel I should be thanking you,’ she ventured, boldly.

  Othman smiled at her. He knew she was waiting for him to say something about what had happened, was looking for some sign he returned her interest. He
couldn’t be bothered to deal with that now. All he was concerned about was that the house had witnessed what he’d done, watched his transformation and the transfer of power. In return, he had caught a glimpse of the guardian, an immense bird-like creature, essentially Grigori in origin.

  When Grigori felt the need to emplace guardians, they generally employed two: one physical, one spiritual. Othman had picked up no sense of a physical guardian, but he’d seen the shadow of a spiritual presence. These psychically conjured creatures were always birdlike, reflecting the ancient myths of the simurgh, the anzu bird and the roc. The simurgh was an ancient Persian king of the birds, a giver of prophecies to mankind and reputedly possessed of the knowledge of all the ages. The roc, another Persian mythical creature, was the fabulous bird of the sun, of enormous size and strength, and the anzu bird-demon of the Sumerians was remembered for stealing the Tablets of Destiny from the god Ellil. All of these mythical birds had their roots in symbols of death and transformation, as well as flight into the realms of Heaven. Thousands of years ago, the early shamans had entered a state known as the death trance and, like the enormous birds of their folk tales, had soared along the Milky Way, the river of the stars.

  Because of their ancient affinity with bird shamanism, the Grigori often worked with bird-like symbols: the peacock, the vulture, and more mythical avian creatures. Often, the guardians drawn from these symbols were aggressive, but then they had to be, in order to defend effectively whatever property or site they had been created to protect.

  Othman had certainly not been offered an invitation to enter the house, but the manifestation of the guardian could be interpreted as an acknowledgement. He felt highly excited, but the pleasure of this sensation was to prolong the moment before he allowed himself release. As for Barbara, he knew he’d awoken something within her, of which she was not yet fully aware. He would enjoy watching her discover this thing.

  Chapter Nine

  Tuesday 20th — Friday 23rd October: High Crag House, Cornwall

  High Crag seemed so empty. Aninka wondered how many people were living there. It was so different from how she remembered it as a place of bustle and activity. She’d been an insider, then, of course. Perhaps its inner workings were concealed from her now, and children played in rooms away from earshot, and women-folk laughed together, sampling the gin bottle in the afternoons.

  Enniel had been out all day Monday, which had given Aninka time alone. This was a welcome break, during which she could gather her thoughts. Although she was eager to finish telling the depressing tale of her last couple of months in Cresterfield, she was also dreading reaching its climax. It was not the kind of experience a person wanted to live through twice. Since coming to Cornwall, she had started dreaming about some of her old friends. The dream was recurring and always began the same way, with herself getting out of her car outside Wendy Marks’ house on a summer evening. Above her the sky was a deep, livid purple, and the air thick with sweet, floral scent. She paused for a moment before walking up the driveway and, every time, she experienced the most poignant stab of joy, melancholy, serenity and sadness: an impossible melange of feeling. Then, she’d gone into the house, and they were all there in the drawing room, waiting for her, dressed in their ceremonial robes. They seemed friendly, pleased to see her, yet she’d sensed an undercurrent of wistful disappointment, as if they suspected she could have warned them of what would happen. She tried to explain to them, but they couldn’t understand her words. She was speaking in a tongue they could not possibly know; it had not been used for thousands of years.

  On Tuesday, Enniel returned, and sent a dependant to look for Aninka after lunch.

  ‘How much do you want to know?’ Aninka asked him, settling onto the sofa in Enniel’s office. ‘All the little details, or just the main events?’

  Enniel turned on the tape recorder. ‘Everything. Everything you can remember.’

  ‘What are you going to do with those tapes?’ Aninka said. ‘Who’s going to listen to them?’

  Enniel inspected her gravely. ‘You need not fear about your private business being made public within the family. Any information you give us will be treated with the utmost discretion.’

  ‘Something’s going on,’ Aninka said, ‘Isn’t it?’

  Enniel steepled his fingers against his lips, smiled. ‘Please, I’d like you to begin. Omit no detail.’

  Aninka’s Story: Cresterfield July — September

  After the initial meetings with Othman and his group of friends, it now seemed to Aninka as if a year’s worth of living had been crammed into a mere couple of months. After the night when Peverel Othman had introduced her to the Marks’ and their friends, Aninka had begun to see him on a regular basis, at least two nights a week, often as many as four. Still, despite this frequent interaction, she spent the entire time aching with longing to see him, touch him. Minutes spent apart were an eternity. She squandered hours gazing out of the window in her studio, blindly staring at the city-scape below, thinking only of him. In a box in her desk drawer, she kept the strands of pale hair her lover had left in her hair-brush one morning. Sometimes, she would open the drawer, take out the box and remove its lid to smell the contents, breathing deeply to conjure a ghost of his presence in the room. She dared not tell him about this, for she guessed he wouldn’t appreciate her hanging onto bits of him, in which a shred of influence and power might remain. He was a mystery to her. She loved him.

  Othman never invited Aninka to where he was living. Repeated questioning elicited the vague information that he was staying in a boarding house on the outskirts of the city. Eventually he gave her a phone number where he could be contacted, but on the occasions she tried to contact him, the phone was always answered by a machine with a robotic voice. Othman was maddeningly opaque about what he did when he wasn’t in Aninka’s company. Occasionally, Aninka became overwhelmed with jealousy and paranoia: there must be another woman, perhaps several. He might even be living with someone, or married. Once she asked him coolly about this. She didn’t want to make a scene, but explained she needed to know.

  ‘There is no-one else,’ he answered simply, his expression slightly surprised, as if he couldn’t imagine why she’d suspect such a thing. ‘I live alone.’

  ‘Who was your last lover?’ she asked, pushing and prodding to scrape out the information she hungered to examine.

  He looked her directly in the eye. ‘A Grigori,’ he answered. ‘It was abroad, in Europe.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  Othman smiled. ‘His name, my Ninka, not her.’

  That made Aninka feel better. She was more inclined to be jealous of her own sex. But Othman wouldn’t tell her the name.

  ‘He was a musician. You might have heard of him. So I’m not going to tell you.’

  How could he want to keep such secrets from her? ‘I want to know all about you. Is that so bad?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t suppose so, but I’m not curious like that myself, so it’s hard to empathise.’ He kissed her. ‘I live for the moment, Ninka. This is what is real.’ He learned quickly how he could silence her questions with sex.

  As a lover, he was accomplished and skilled, yet often Aninka was made uneasy by the suspicion that he was somehow removed from their love-making, content to bring her pleasure and observe her response, rather than satisfy himself. A couple of times, when he stayed the night, Aninka woke up to find him sitting in the darkness on the other side of the room. He said he found it hard to sleep. Sometimes she dreamed of him watching her as she dreamed of him. Often she asked him, ‘What do you want from me?’ And he would smile, touch her face tenderly, and say, ‘Just this.’ Although she could not persuade him to confirm it, she gathered he was a lot older than herself, but certainly not as old as her guardian, Enniel, and other elders of her immediate family.

  Often she would lie awake to watch him sleeping beside her. She hungered to prise his secrets from him, exorcise the sadness she fe
lt he concealed. What was his tragedy? Why wouldn’t he confide in her? Was it to do with the past lover in Europe? When she dared to ask him about his past, suggesting there might be things he’d like to share with her, he would only smile, and perhaps stroke a long finger across her jaw. ‘Ah, my Ninka, you think there’s more to me than there is.’ She did not believe that for a minute.

  On the only other occasion she mentioned his past affair, Othman had almost lost his temper. The quick flash of anger in his eyes had shocked her. ‘Don’t ask me about it!’ he’d shouted. ‘It’s none of your business, and I want to forget it. Can’t you get that into your head?’

  ‘I think you were hurt — badly — and that hurts me!’ Aninka responded. ‘Don’t shout at me because I care about you. Doesn’t it occur to you I ask you these questions because I’m concerned, not because I’m just curious?’

  He extinguished his anger immediately, and took her in his arms. ‘Forgive me. There’s no need to be concerned. It’s over. I just don’t want to talk about it.’ He kissed her. ‘Perhaps, one day, but not yet.’

  She allowed herself to be mollified by that.

  Othman liked to go to night-clubs and pubs devoted to loud music, where members of alternative sub-cultures gathered. No smart boys or girls with perms in these establishments, but the reek of patchouli oil and bursts of brightly coloured hair. Aninka was happy to dress for the part and accompany Othman to these places. She felt they must appear predatory and sensual: secretive creatures of the night. Othman talked to many people, they were drawn to him. Aninka preferred to distance herself from these conversations, a silent presence in the background. She took pleasure, however, in watching the girls feast their eyes upon Othman. It amused her that many of the boys did the same, boys who would sigh and crumple beneath Othman’s touch, should he deign to reach out for them, after which they’d swear vehemently to themselves they weren’t ‘queer’, as they would term it.