And then he saw another figure appear at the top of the staircase: the tall figure of a dark-haired woman in a long black cloak. A full hood concealed most of her face but, as she glided down the stairs towards him, she looked up at him, revealing features which were familiar, yet somehow strangely altered.
‘Mara!’ whispered Hunt. He tried to step forward, tried to touch her, but it was as though a glass wall separated him from his lover. She stood amidst the writhing bodies, part of the scene and yet set apart from it; and she stared straight into Hunt’s eyes. He felt as if an electric shock had passed through him as she threw off her cloak and stood naked before him.
He gasped with desire and then honor as he saw her nakedness. For, where the crystal had hung between her breasts, he now saw the silver hilt of a dagger whose clear crystal blade vanished into her heart. Was his beloved Mara dead? Yet there was no blood, no agony, no look of death upon her face, and the most bizarre, cruel smile distorted her beautiful features so that he scarcely recognised her. Her long brown nipples were puckered and erect, and once again Hunt could smell her heady cunt. She was mocking him with her unearthly sexuality, and he longed for the touch of her slender fingers upon his manhood, which strained for release.
She was wearing a crystal coronet which sparkled like diamonds against her long dark hair. Its effect was as magical as the effect of Mara’s luscious body was on Hunt. A sudden flash of light struck sparks from its thousand facets and the Dionysian revels came to an abrupt end. Each man and woman froze exactly where he or she was lying or standing, faces contorted as they were struck down in the midst of orgasm. And as they sank slowly to the ground, they turned their faces towards Hunt. Their dying eyes were full of an infinite ecstasy and an exquisite fear.
And, still smiling, Mara watched them die.
Lightning flashed across Hunt’s brain, dazzling him for a moment. And when at last his eyes saw clearly, the visions had gone. He looked in vain for any sign of Mara’s presence: it was as if she had never been there.
It must have been the drink. An attack of the DTs.
And then Hunt felt a sharp, burning sensation in his fingertips. Looking down, he saw that he was still clutching the threatening note, and inexplicably it was smouldering in his hand. As he looked at it, the note burst violently into flames. With a cry of pain he dropped it, and watched it reduced in seconds to a few charred fragments on the hall carpet.
Hunt spent what remained of the morning searching systematically through Mara’s address-book and ringing up her friends. None of them admitted to knowing anything about her disappearance. In fact, none of them claimed to have seen her for at least a fortnight. Apparently she had been very preoccupied with the publishing project, but she had said nothing to anyone about any new fascination or sinister involvement.
Surely Hunt would have known if she was involved in anything dangerous? Surely she would have told him? He began to wonder if she had been seeing another man. Or maybe her friends were trying to put him off the scent? Many of them shared her involvement in the mysterious and the supernatural.
Hunt had never had much time for the occult until he met Mara, whose gentle insistence had forced the suspension of his disbelief. He was naturally suspicious of anything secret, anything vaguely forbidden. The mysterious note had only added to his suspicions. What if Mara was being held somewhere against her will by some group of New Age weirdos?
He made up his mind. He was going to see Eleanora. Eleanora was one of Mara’s closest friends, and a fellow witch. Hunt had not been able to contact her by telephone and he reckoned she just might be hiding something. The only problem was, Eleanora lived in a remote cottage in some God-forsaken corner of rural Cumbria. No matter, he would drive through the night if need be.
Hunt was beginning to wish he had taken the M6 after all. It was one hell of a long way to Cumbria, especially when you went the pretty way. The trouble was, Hunt had a thing about motorways. Years ago, when he was a child, he had been involved in a terrible accident. The school minibus had been caught in the middle of a motorway pile-up, and his best friend had died before the ambulance got to them. You don’t really ever get over something like that. Even though he was an experienced driver, Hunt still steered clear of motorways.
At least the B-roads were less crowded. He put a cassette in the tape deck and the insistent 4/4 beat of a rock anthem helped ease his troubled mind. It was getting dark and he realised that he hadn’t eaten anything for almost twenty-four hours, so he stopped at a transport café for a burger.
The café was crowded with truckers, travelling salesmen and a party of schoolchildren on their way to an outward-bound course in the Lake District. Wandering round aimlessly with his tray of food, Hunt finally found a seat at a corner table, next to a very exotic, very desirable girl with the fullest red lips he had ever seen.
‘Mind if I sit here?’
‘Not at all. I’d be delighted.’ The girl flashed him a smile which woke Hunt out of his depression and set something stirring in his loins.
She was delicious, and very vulnerable. Hunt found himself irresistibly attracted to her lithe body, those firm young buttocks and tanned thighs clad in flimsy shorts; that pert, eager bosom swelling stiff-nippled under her sleeveless T-shirt; those unbelievably full red lips and that great tumbling mass of dark hair. Feeling disgustingly disloyal to Mara, he realised that he longed to rip off her T-shirt and shorts, fling her down on the stained Formica table and ram his engorged prick into her like a stallion mounting a prize filly.
Hunt felt vaguely alarmed at the forcefulness of his response to the girl. He wasn’t normally as oversexed as this. Since meeting Mara, his sexuality had scaled new heights; and ever since Mara had made violent love to him that night he had begun to feel as though some unseen force were constantly caressing him, maintaining him in a continual state of unbearable arousal. His unruly prick just refused to lie down and play dead. He took a couple of deep breaths, as though the oxygen might just help rid his body of such unclean thoughts.
The girl was toying with a sandwich and a cup of coffee but she didn’t seem interested in it. Unless Hunt’s instincts were letting him down, she had more of an appetite for him than for the food. Her T-shirt was cut very low at the neck and she kept leaning forward, to make sure he got a really good look at her deep, perfumed valley. He found himself thinking: ‘I bet you’re dynamite in bed, young lady. And you know I’d just love to stick my cock in between those gorgeous tits, you little prick-teaser.’ And his cock twitched convulsively, wholly in sympathy with the thought.
‘My name is Katya,’ explained the girl, making endless circles in her coffee-cup with a plastic spoon. She was clearly foreign but her English was excellent, with just a hint of a sexy middle-European accent.
‘Where do you come from? Are you on holiday over here?’
‘I am a student in Romania. I come to England to . . . complete my education.’ The luscious Katya was evidently a keen student, eager to perfect her technique, as Hunt felt a naked foot sliding up his leg, his thigh, caressing the aching hardness of his crotch. He was burning for her, and she knew it. And he saw that she was not indifferent to his charms, either: as he gazed at her, he saw her nipples stiffen visibly beneath the skin-tight T-shirt. God, he wanted her.
‘I wonder, could I ask a very great favour?’ She turned her enormous dark eyes on him, and it felt deliciously dangerous, as though some powerful cosmic force were threatening to rape his very soul.
He gave a little nervous cough: ‘Ask away. But I warn you, I’m no good at robbing banks and I haven’t slayed a dragon in months.’
She laughed. ‘Nothing so exciting, I’m afraid. Tell me, are you travelling up to Cumbria tonight, Mr . . .?’
‘Call me Hunt. Yes, that’s my plan.’
‘I was wondering – would it be possible for you to give me a lift as far as Lancaster? I don’t normally hitch-hike, but you know what it’s like, Mr Hunt . . . we students have so littl
e money.’
‘Yes, well, I don’t normally give lifts to hitchhikers, either,’ replied Hunt, trying not to betray the emotion he felt as her toes gently but expertly massaged his erect penis. ‘But it’s getting late, you’re on your own and you look bloody freezing in that little T-shirt. OK – it’s a deal.’
She smiled delightedly. ‘I am so grateful. You are very kind, Mr Hunt.’
‘We’d better get on the road, then. Finished your meal?’
‘Yes, thanks. I wasn’t very hungry.’ Her food looked untouched.
Hunt groaned with desire as Katya got up from her seat, revealing the full beauty of her well-muscled thighs, the poetry of her slender but powerful young body.
‘By the way,’ grinned Hunt, ‘didn’t your mother ever warn you about men like me?’
Katya nodded and gave a wry little smile. ‘Of course – my mother was a very wise woman. But you see, I never was a good girl.’
Hunt swallowed heavily at this provocative remark, and sighed with inner agony as she opened the rear door of his car and bent down to push her rucksack on to the back seat. As she did so, her succulent arse thrust backwards and Hunt felt a sudden longing to wrench down her shorts and panties, unbutton his flies, take out his throbbing cock and wank himself to orgasm over her golden buttocks. He groaned as he got into the front seat beside Katya and turned on the ignition. He just couldn’t get rid of the delicious mental image of his semen spurting out in great gobbets, splashing the amber flesh of Katya’s backside.
They turned off the main road and set off along winding country lanes barely wide enough for one car to pass, let alone two. Katya babbled on in her excellent English about her home village in Romania, which was the sort of inoffensive chatter Hunt could cope with; but then she started talking about sexy underwear, which led her on to the subject of women’s bodies.
‘You like women’s breasts, Mr Hunt?’
‘Well, yes, of course . . . all men do, I suppose.’ The discomfort in his trousers was now extreme.
‘Then I am sure you will like these,’ and without further ado, the dark-haired temptress stripped off her T-shirt, revealing the flimsiest of cotton bras which was quite inadequate to restrain her lively breasts. The fabric was so thin that Hunt could clearly see she had pierced nipples, and wore a tiny gold ring threaded through each. In the midst of his sexual confusion, Hunt noticed with vague surprise that she was also wearing a crystal on a chain round her neck. It hung, long and almost obscenely phallic, between her breasts – a potent symbol of the young woman’s unfettered sexuality.
A car was approaching from the opposite direction and Hunt had to turn the wheel sharply to avoid a collision.
‘For God’s sake, Katya!’ he gasped. ‘This is neither the time nor the place . . . do you want to cause an accident or something?’
Katya’s only reply was a little laugh which made her lovely breasts quiver and set Hunt’s poor penis bucking and rearing within his underpants, especially when she peeled off her bra and flung it on to the back seat. His distress must have betrayed itself on his face for, the next thing he knew, slender tanned fingers were skilfully unbuttoning his flies and reaching inside for his pulsating member.
‘No . . .’
But inside he was rejoicing, exulting, greedy for the glorious release which he had been longing for, and which he knew Katya would give him. Never before had he felt such an all-consuming need for sex: he could scarcely recognise himself. He groaned again, but this time with extreme pleasure, for the Romanian girl lowered herself over his penis and took it between her breasts, massaging it skilfully and sensually as she squeezed them together, and it was all he could do to keep the car moving along the dark, winding lane.
Katya could not have been older than seventeen, yet she had the skill of centuries in her fingers; all the mysteries of the ancients were contained in that knowing touch. Suddenly she was no longer a teenage strumpet amusing herself with an older man in the front seat of his car: she was a regal courtesan, a high-priestess of the arts of love.
Hunt’s head was swimming. With one hand to guide the steering wheel, he used the other to caress Katya’s firm breasts, revelling in the toughness of her erect pink nipples with their little golden rings. Her skin was strangely cool to the touch, more like a porcelain doll than a real live human being, thought Hunt, just as he poured forth his tribute on to her breasts – and moments before the Land Rover shot towards them round a blind bend.
Hunt’s reflexes were good. Even in his post-orgasmic confusion he could have avoided the Land Rover if the girl Katya had not suddenly reached across and wrenched the steering wheel out of his grasp. If it hadn’t seemed such a crazy thing to say, he would have sworn that she was actually forcing his car into the path of the Land Rover, willing the two vehicles to collide. And all the time she was smiling that secret smile.
The last thing he saw, before the cars collided and he lost consciousness, was an empty seat beside him. It was quite impossible, of course, but the mysterious Katya had vanished into thin air.
Hunt awoke in an unfamiliar bed, staring up at a clinical white ceiling. His head hurt, and when he reached up to touch it his fingers encountered a thick wad of lint and a crepe bandage. He tried to sit up but the room started to spin and he fell back, defeated. It wasn’t until the nurse came along and propped him up on some more pillows that he fully realised where he was.
‘You’re in the Royal Infirmary, Mr Hunt.’ explained the nurse, adjusting his backrest. ‘And if I may say so, you’re very lucky to be alive.’
‘What happened . . .?’
‘You were driving along a country lane and you had a head-on collision with a Land Rover. It’s a miracle nobody was seriously hurt.’
‘What about the other driver? And what about me . . .?’
‘The other driver’s fine – got away with a few minor cuts and bruises. And you’ve just had a bump on the head. You’ll be fine in a day or two.’
Hunt’s fuddled brain suddenly focused with razor-sharp clarity: ‘What about Katya? How is she?’
‘Katya?’
‘You know, the girl in my car. Is she . . .?’
‘I don’t understand, Mr Hunt. There was no girl in your car. I assure you, you were quite alone.’
‘But . . .!’
‘Don’t worry. It’s probably just a spot of concussion.’
The police came and interviewed him twice, evidently not at all happy with his story about the accident – especially the bit about Katya, the vanishing backpacker. Although they had been on the scene within a couple of minutes, and had interviewed dozens of people, no-one remotely answering Katya’s description had been seen anywhere near the area. The driver of the Land-Rover swore that Hunt had been alone in the car. The owner of the transport café remembered Hunt quite clearly, but was adamant that he had eaten alone. There had been no dark-haired girl, no Romanian hitch-hiker. And besides, how could a girl suddenly vanish from a moving car – by magic?
They tried pinning a drink-driving charge on him but he was lucky. The alcohol had worked its way out of his system and the police had to accept the official diagnosis of ‘concussion’. That let Hunt off the hook, and yet it didn’t make him feel any better. Was he mad? Had he been hallucinating? Was there some conspiracy against him? He was beginning to feel increasingly uneasy, incapable of trusting anyone.
Later that afternoon, they allowed him to telephone Eleanora. Although she clearly despised Hunt’s professional scepticism, she grudgingly agreed to speak to him because of her close friendship with Mara. But as the details of his story unfolded, she became genuinely interested, concerned – almost agitated.
‘Listen to me, Mr Hunt. You must not, I repeat, must not ignore these omens, these portents of evil. There are many, many things in this world of which you can have no comprehension. Only the sincere seeker after truth can hope to attain understanding. For a man like you, Mr Hunt, the quest for knowledge can be a mortally dangerous one.
Give up your search. There are things which are better left untouched, unexplored.’
‘I have no intention of ignoring these so-called “portents” – but surely you can’t expect me to sit idly by whilst mysterious things happen to me and to people I care about? Look: Mara has disappeared, God knows where she’s gone to – she could be in deep trouble. In fact, the more bad things happen to me, the more I’m convinced that she needs help and I’m the only one who can give it to her.’
‘I see. So you are determined to proceed?’
‘Of course I am. And any clues which you can give me – any information, no matter how insignificant it seems to you . . . well, surely you can see that it could mean the difference between life and death.’
‘Indeed, Mr Hunt, but exactly whose life and death are we discussing? Mine, Mara’s . . . yours?’ For an instant, Hunt thought he caught just a hint of menace in that stern but sensible middle-aged voice. ‘Listen to me, Mr Hunt. If you are determined to continue this foolhardy quest, I cannot stop you. But neither can I help you. I shall give you the little information I have, and then you must proceed alone.
‘I can assure you that I do not, at this moment in time, know where Mara is. All I know is that she was very excited about an occult publishing house which was interested in signing her up. I think they were located in Chester. I personally had never heard of them, and warned her against becoming too involved. But apparently, she felt from the letters and telephone calls she had received that the publisher himself was a man of immense occult and spiritual significance. That is all I can tell you.’
Kiss of Death (Modern Erotic Classics) Page 26