by Lee Taylor
“Let’s skip the grand tour and get straight to business,” I said; my curt tone took the older man by surprise. He paused for a moment, his long, dark robe unfurled around his feet. A breeze picked up, and the air around prickled the hairs up on the back of my neck. Slowly he pivoted on his heels to face me. His eyes narrowed, they were filled with a cold, blue glare that was so chilling that it was searing. His lips were stretched into a thin line and curled up at the edges; a dark brow that was hooded over his cold and vacant glare pinched together forming an abundance of wrinkles. He didn’t look like he had slept or eaten for a long time. Part of me wanted to back step rapidly and apologize, but despite how I may have felt a few moments before, my back bone wasn’t made up of Marshmallow.
“Come on, you know you can’t stand me so cut the-” I began to say when I was stopped mid-sentence.
The man flashed and simply disappeared like Tessa had been able to, but different. It was like he was never by the doorway to begin with. It was like the light couldn’t register his movement, and the next thing I knew I was on my butt, scrambling to my feet with my face stinging and my pride bruised. He was standing at the doorway again, and I blinked furiously. My headache had grown to epic proportions when it dawned on me. He had just slapped me!?
It was a full-palmed slap. I don’t quite know how to say it, but the fact that a fully grown man seemed to be a bit condescending. Don’t get me wrong if he would have punched me he could have probably taken my head clean off, but the fact that he slapped me... it was incomprehensible. I lunged forward, swinging my arm out in a wide-arc to try and limit his movement in the narrow confines we were in, but he vanished before my fist could connect.
“You, stupid child. You do not get the gravity of the situation. I have your friends, and if I give the order with a click of my fingers, they will all become scraps to feed the Summers.” The man spat the words at me. If he was attempting to calm me he was failing horribly. My dark compadre growled with me in unison, and I felt a spark of energy from within me ignite, like I have said before, I really don’t respond well to threats.
The energy was drawing in my chest. My heart-rate climbed to new heights, and I could feel my skin begin to hum and harden into its disposable state. The man scoffed and reappeared in front of me a few steps down the hallway. He tilted his head to side and smiled, his eyes gleaming with malevolent intent. Slowly he drew a dagger from a thong inside his robe; I wasn’t too, bothered. I was confident that if I could survive a four-foot rod skewer through the heart, then the small blade of the dagger should be child’s play.
The dagger wasn’t for me though.
In a flurry of movement he sliced at his hand, reached forward, clearing the space between us in less time than it took me to blink, and smacked me in the chest with his flat palm. At first I thought I would laugh as the blow itself had no force to it, but he had done something else entirely. And for the first time in what felt like forever, my head was quiet. Whatever he had just done had muted me from my dark passenger, and I felt completely alone and powerless. With a gasp of shock, I looked down at his hand that was glowing in a dark red thrall.
Slowly he drew back his hand, muttering words that I didn’t understand. I peered down at my now stained-top and tried to rub off the bloody palm print, but it was no good. With a flash of light, my hands were knocked back, burned by the force of the energy. I looked up in a stunned awe, and the man hit me again, knocking me backwards into the wall, taking the wind right out of me.
With that he laughed maniacally, all the while maintaining eye-contact.
Bony, dark grey arms cupped around under my shoulders, holding me in place. I wriggled and strained to see what was restraining me. The putrid smell that it gave off was revolting. I finally twisted enough to get a look at it, and it turned my stomach. I know my mom and dad always used to say never judge a book by its cover, and that is true enough, but honestly the thing reeked of death before I saw its dishevelled form.
It had a wiry dark face; its lips were thin and drawn back over its yellow, rotten crusted teeth. There was a crater in its face where its nose had been, possibly decades or centuries ago. It was a burned-out shell of a person, and where its eyes were meant to be, there were only pits, sunken into the depths of its sockets with a tiny foreboding gleam. It didn’t seem to have a centilitre of moisture in its body, giving it a charcoal skin that was stretched over bones that seemed out of place. Like a skeleton that had jerky hanging from different joints, as if it were some kind of morbid display of contemporary art. A symbol had been engraved into its crusty forehead, inlaid with gold which went hand-in-hand with its gold studs and hooped earrings dangling from its narrow, pointed ears.
“What the hell? Get off of me, chuckles, before I knock your teeth straight.” I jeered, trying to pull myself free, but it was no use. I was still struggling to breathe.
“This is my good friend Arkham.” Arkham twitched and nodded toward the gentleman in the corridor. Its jewellery clinked. I tried shoving Arkham backwards, but its strength was beyond that for something of its size.
“Okay awesome, can you tell your stunning friend to get the hell off of me?” Arkham’s stale, stagnant breath washed over the back of my neck, and it forced me forward. I tried resisting, but was too weak and was still frigging wheezing where the air had got knocked out of me... Whatever the prick in front of me had done, he had not only made the voice in my head go quiet, but apparently he had also stopped the benefit of my hasty recovery... Man that guy sucked.
The older man never replied to me, simply straitening his robe before turning and pretty much taking me on a damned tour of his house. I tried my best to bide my time, recouping what I had of my strength to lash out and run.
“Have the others arrived yet?” The man asked.
“Why the fu-” I was stopped midsentence... with a blow to the ribs that had me cry out in pain.
“The Venetiansss have brought hisss mother asss inssstructed; she isss more or lesssss in one piece...gay-or-gee,” Arkham’s voice was serpentine; I don’t think it was because he was part snake or anything, but either he had a speech impediment during his natural life, or it was from his dried out organs that made his already-croaky-voice hiss. Either way he had accomplished getting my attention.
“And Drogan?” The man barked like Arkham had been deliberately holding onto information. I didn’t care about anything other than my friends and my family, but when I tried to call on my dark passenger, I was greeted with only a cold emptiness that curled my stomach into a knot.
“Drogan wishesss to honour your agreement,” Arkham said.
Arkham’s “hissing” responses were beginning to grate on me.
We entered the grand hall of the mansion; it was decorated with various ornate carvings, made in stone and wood, some appeared to be humanoid, beautiful women all reaching toward a single feather. It was really odd, but then again I never really understood art. What was beside it I found easier to look at; It was some carvings of huge wolves baying at the moon, and on the adjacent side of the hall it was almost identical, apart from a few details, where the moon had lay there was a blazing sun instead, and the wolves were crowding over bodies piled up on the ground. It was the kind of pictures that if you drew them at my school and you were caught, you would book yourself a ticket to Mrs. Steady’s office: my school’s guidance councillor.
“What of his partner?”
“She isss no longer hisss as she isss bound by blood and matrimony to another.” Arkham sneered the last words in disgust. I was starting to appreciate his lack of body moisture. Because if he was like me, and I spoke like Arkham, dragging out emphasis on all the “S’s” then I would be drenched by now in spittle. Refusing to stay quiet any longer, I spoke out;
“You guys do know that I am standing right here, yeah? And that I can hear every word that you are saying?” My question hung in the air for a moment before the man in the robe finally answered.
“Natu
rally, but it matters little. You are nothing more than an insect.” I really did not appreciate the jauntiness of his tone. It felt like the man was parading me around his lavish castle, or fortress, or whatever the hell the place was to add to my humiliation. It was old and that was all I could determine. Decked out with cobbled flooring, tapestries draped from various points throughout, and the colours matched the robes that he wore. He also had grand oil paintings, which had him situated in the centre. Surrounded by men and women who looked on at him adoringly, every one of them was buck-bare and all bowed and crawling toward him. Like a dog seeking affection from its master.
“So, what’s the deal? Are you going to tell me your name or what? You act all suave and you haven’t even given me a name... well unless your name is beard, like a skunk’s ass or what was it Chuckle’s said? Gay orgy? I have to admit some names can say a lot about people.” I was done with being polite.
“How rude of me.” The man turned and held out his hand.
“You can call me George.’“ He bowed slightly with his introduction.
“George!?” I shouted, shaking with laughter
“I was expecting lord, duke or messiah, but George... wow that is a fear-inspiring name!” George didn’t seem to care for my outburst.
Arkham hit me again; several times in fact, and I was unable to stop him. I still laughed through the pain though. We pressed on through the building, passing suits of armour, and coats of arms suspended from the walls or on pedestals in places. We walked past a grand red-wood staircase. Many more portraits and pictures that decorated the walls and various chambers donned the walls. The centre of the mahogany staircase was covered with a long stretch, of red carpet, clinging to each step and climbing the staircase up and out of view. The staircase itself split in to two directions. I could tell when we were finally approaching our destination as the air around took on very different feel. George had gone back to commentating, something about wings and branches. At first I thought he had an interest in a certain ornithological variety, but I was mistaken as it was all shortly followed by the word manor, but between you and me, we all know that the bird is the word… Right?
We stopped outside an old, battered chamber door. Opening it with a wave of his hand, George and Arkham continued forward propelling me along with them. The door groaned in loud protest, creaking as part of the warped door skipped along the floor, taking gouges out of the tarnished floor beneath.
We then headed down a cold, dank slate-tile staircase. I tried to lean back so not to lose balance and fall forwards. I knew Arkham had a strong grip of me, but I wouldn’t have put it past him to throw me down the staircase head over tail. When we got to the bottom I let out a sigh of relief and was pushed forward. The bag of bones was going to have his teeth knocked down his throat as soon as I was free.
I was pushed into the dungeon. It stank of blood, and it was complete with various implements of torture. They were all stained with dried, flaking rust and bodily fluids. Seriously, there was enough sadistic equipment in that room that it would have been enough to make a seasoned serial killer blush.
“Release me, George, I am neutral to this, you know that.” I recognized the man’s voice immediately, although he sounded brittle and coarse. God only knows what George and jerky boy had done to him.
“Come now, Ivan, you expect me to believe you? And on what grounds? You were aiding and abetting a wanted man by demons, lycans and humans alike.” George pointed over to me with his bony fingers. Ivan’s eyes widened as he saw me, and suddenly his gaze dropped to the floor. Kitty was shackled and gagged hanging from the wall. Her eyes tearing up as she saw me. I struggled in Arkham’s grip, furiously jerking about trying to break free. It was still no good Arkham let out a withered cackle that sounded more like a dying man’s last breaths. George drifted across the room, humming as he grabbed three pairs of shackles and proceeded to cuff my arms with two pairs and my ankles with the other. I kicked out once and received a punch to the gut that made my legs limp. Arkham dragged me over by one of the links, and lifted me up onto the wall. Perching me on hooks that held the chain, the weight of me hanging from there on my joints was excruciating, but I didn’t want to give the satisfaction of knowing my discomfort.
“You know what, this is ten times better than that tour you took me on. God I was so bored I thought I was going to die,” I said with a smile on my face, tears welled and I swallowed them back down.
“If you don’t stop, I will sever your spinal column and paralyse you for life,” George said with a light and cheerful tone. I stopped squirming and snorted at him, looking over to Kitty who was in a caged-off area separate to Ivan’s but pinned to the wall. Her eyebrows knitted in surprise, what was she hearing that I couldn’t? George faced her, a devious smile spreading across his narrow face.
“Arkham, keep Ivan company, won’t you? I will go and wait for the rest of our guests to arrive.” George practically skipped out of the room, fondly stroking some instruments of torture on his way out. Arkham nodded ominously and passed through the bars of the cage, simply fading through them.
“You’re pathetic,” Arkham chided. Ivan lifted his hands in defence, moving his hands around erratically. His chains jingled and clinked. Arkham swiped the air in front without touching him, and Ivan fell to his knees, a slash shredding his top and causing him to bleed out. Ivan lay on the floor, his legs twitching and the whole while I was unable to lift a damn finger.
Chapter 20
Arkham swiped down at Ivan, and he let out short, gasping whimpers with each movement, laying helpless and weak, pulling his legs into a foetal position. I was unable to do anything, with each movement I made my arms strained, and I got closer to having both my arms pop out of their sockets. Searching the room for a solution didn’t show me anything helpful, and so I called Arkham as many profanities as I could muster, in the hopes that it would draw his attention away from my friend.
“Leave him alone you, beaten sack of shit!” Please note that if my mom heard me using curse words like this, I would be in deeper shit than I had been in the last few months. Even with all the supernatural stuff going on, she was by far the scariest.
“Oi, I am talking to you! Ya eunuch! What are you deaf as well as fuck ugly? Wow some people get all the luck, don’t they? Don’t get me wrong, I am kind of glad that your beating on him, after all he was acting like a pussy. Plus I suppose now I don’t have to see your dog ugly face close up or smell your breath, which is on bar with a pigs butthole.” Arkham’s delightful face inclined toward me, his yellow teeth ground together as he glared at me before he returned his attention to Ivan.
“You know I saw a monkey that was unfortunate enough to have a face like you on the discovery channel. It was so ugly that the vet had to shave its butt and teach it to walk backwards.” I spat and managed to get some of it to land on Arkham’s back. He froze where he was with his arm raised and turned to face me; his black eyes glinted in the dungeon’s glow at the recess of his sockets. I could feel that I was finally getting to him; Ivan coughed and spluttered with the moments reprieve.
“So what does Arkham mean, anyway? Is it an old word for a person who scratches like a toddler?” Arkham let out a guttural dry hiss of anger.
“You, sssstupid boy, I am over twelve hundred yearssss old. You think trash like you can even begin to comprehend my abilities?” Arkham had taken his eyes off of Ivan who had dragged himself from under him, coddling his legs.
Mission accomplished, Ursine, you just pissed off an old ball bag. Good job! I thought quietly to myself.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” I mused. Arkham’s stick-like body glided toward me. Seeing his form fully really wasn’t as intimidating as I thought it would be, given my current situation. His height would be no more than five-feet if he had been standing on the ground. He generally looked like a floating mummy. As far as monsters go, he looked about as intimidating as Mayor Mc’cheese.
I wriggled against the sto
ne wall as he approached, getting ready to receive my $5000 prize for being an idiot. I could hear Kitty trying to say something to me. She was also being restrained with silver shackles way nicer than my own. Her shackles were gleaming, engraved with intricate designs, and mine... well it was good, old rusty iron. I know it seemed like a real petty thing to get upset over, given my situation, but what can I say I was suffering from a chemical imbalance.
Arkham beamed me a smile that made my intestines feel like they were filled with ice water. Lifting his dried and bony hand to caress my face, I leant forward quickly trying to head butt him and his brow furrowed. Little points of light in the bottom of his sockets glinted magenta, and he sent a pulsating current through me that left my ears bleeding. The exploding convergence of pain had me feeling like every cell in my body was going to burst with pressure. It was as if my blood-count had quadrupled, and my veins and arteries could no longer take it. The pain felt like it had lasted for hours when I knew it had only been seconds, if that. When all of a sudden with a grunt, Arkham sighed. His rancid breath brought me around from the apparent seizure I was having, and turned, drifting hastily toward the chamber door. The heavy door screeched on its dull hinges as a behemoth of a man, wearing a grey suit and black shirt and tie with a blood-smeared apron pinned to his chest barged in. He was carrying two limp forms with him, one on either shoulder. It was Lycaon and Mike. My eyes widened, and I found the spools of saliva from my slack mouth sober me to the concept of my friends still being alive. The hulk-like butler shackled Lycaon and strapped him down to a table in the centre of the chamber. Shackling Mike too, he put him in Kitty’s cell, leaving his lifeless form at her feet. Kitty was mumbling something else, and slowly the butler looked up at her and huffed trudging back toward the chambers entrance.