‘I might wonder.’ I smiled, rubbing my arms.
He nodded his head casually. ‘Understandable.’
‘Where is your place?’ I asked.
‘Not far. You’re more than welcome to wait there for your friends. You’ll be quite safe. It’s a very respectable building. And you can always message your friends the address, before you come inside.’
I feigned temptation. ‘Well, that’s really nice of you, but…’
‘It’s your call.’ He paused. ‘So, what do you say?’
‘I say–’ I smiled and nodded. ‘Okay. And thank you.’
I followed him out the park, then along the streets, during which time we exchanged fake names. I hadn’t realised how many blocks I’d walked. We arrived at his apartment building and took the stairs. Johan made small talk and I listened for those parts to respond to. Meanwhile, I bent my ear to listen for Thom in pursuit of us. I knew I should hear nothing. But the fact I heard nothing terrified me. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t be there. I knew he would. Death though wouldn’t be. He wouldn’t give Thom any warning.
When we reached the second floor, Johan stopped and I almost carried on up the next flight. He watched me and I wondered if he was trying to catch me out. Perhaps I carried Thom’s scent, or even Seth’s, beneath the grime.
‘This is me, Jane,’ he said, taking out a key and heading for an apartment, which – far as I knew – was not his. His apartment was on the floor above. Unless he owned more than one! Or even this entire building!
He grated the key in the lock.
I kept very still as he opened the door, which was numbered 2b.
He looked round with eyes blacker and fiercer than before, but his other features remained calm. I froze, waiting for Thom to appear like a tempest and take him by surprise.
He didn’t.
Thom wasn’t nearby.
Something was wrong. Hadn’t Seth told him? Couldn’t Thom find us? Impossible! But Thom would never allow me this close, let alone inside his apartment. Now I had no escape. To run would only mean cutting shorter my last moments with a bloodthirsty killer. I needed to prolong this time and endeavour to send that text.
‘What’s the address here?’ I said, casually as I could, taking out my phone.
‘Ah! So you can message your friends!’ He laughed sharply. ‘What, these friends?’ He gestured a hand towards the darkened apartment, intimating they were inside.
He’d captured Thom! But how? When did he have time to get Seth?
It might be a trick. Though the fact remained, Thom hadn’t appeared to stop him. Besides, I could not escape now.
I entered the apartment holding my breath.
‘Thom!’ I yelled. It was pitch-black and silent.
The door slammed behind me. Johan laughed like a hyena, flicking a light switch.
‘That was easy!’ he crowed.
The walls glowed a dirty amber colour. Fire had blackened them. I saw from here into the living room. Charred wallpaper peeled from every corner. The air was dank and the place squalid. A tattie couch and small table furnished it.
Thom wasn’t here, neither was Seth.
‘So this Thom is your boyfriend?’ he asked, swiping my phone from me in a blink.
I realised then, Johan didn’t know him as Thom, but only by his real name, the one I didn’t even know. Thomas Rues was an identity he’d stolen in recent years.
‘He’ll send out a search party,’ I replied, ‘if I don’t message him soon.’
Johan slowly shook his head.
My phone then rang in his hand! I could see it said ‘Thom calling…’
My heart leapt up in my throat. If Johan answered – if he heard Thom’s voice!
‘They’ll trace that call to this apartment!’ I said shakily. ‘So you’d better let me answer it. I’ll say I’m somewhere else if you promise not to hurt me!’
‘You tell your boyfriend you’re heading back to the park,’ Johan threatened, handing it over. ‘If you don’t, you’ll never utter another word. Understand?’
I nodded and put the phone to my ear.
‘Thom, just listen!’ I snapped, before he spoke. ‘I’m heading to be near that place you took me before. Meet me, but first sum up the question of whether it’s nobler in the mind to suffer.’
I ended the call.
Johan crumpled his brow and I hoped he didn’t work out the vague reference to Hamlet. I trusted however that Thom would. He knew the speech by heart, so surely…
Johan narrowed his eyes. ‘Hamlet?’ he queried.
My blood ran cold.
‘What?’ I shrugged, nervously. ‘He’s gay for Shakespeare. We always quote in riddles. – So you promise not to hurt me?’
He held out his hand for my phone.
I dropped it on the floor and stamped on it, smashing it to pieces. I didn’t want to risk him calling Thom back, or messaging to trick him into a snare.
‘Aren’t you a lively one!’ Johan sneered. ‘My partner in crime is going to like you. – Please?’ He motioned for me to enter a different room, as if we were old friends. ‘Do excuse the mess. I entertained some guests recently, and one liked so much to play with her lighter. And I’m not much of a decorator.’
He ushered me inside. It was just as burnt, and looked like a nursery. Badly stained toys lined the edges in piles. Most were broken and filthy. I could smell burnt plastic amidst the clinical odour of Johan. A paint-covered rocking horse sat in one corner, a wooden chair in another. But everywhere else were toys. The dolls all had something missing, like an eye or an arm. Clowns with maniacal expressions, and marionettes with bloodstained faces watched me. It was not a happy place, but the stuff of Stephen King’s dreams.
Upon crossing the threshold, Johan spoke suddenly in a serious and sinister tone.
‘I’ll leave you to play,’ he said, bizarrely, ‘while I fix your dinner. My associate will be arriving soon.’
I looked at him convinced he spoke under some trance by the way he said it, as if he really believed I was a little girl. But he sneered in such a triumphant and calculating way, I knew he was roleplaying and letting me know it.
‘You go ahead and play with your dollies.’ He pointed to the floor. I automatically sat on the scorched carpet as he edged towards me.
He went across to the living room and brought his violin case into the nursery. He sat in the chair near a sheet-covered window and pulled out the violin. Then its bow and a long thick rope.
I stared, unsure what he was doing, or what I should do now. Where the hell was Thom? I could only try to play this calm, because the more anxious or pleading I grew, the sooner he couldn’t resist killing me. But Johan was too quick at catching the look of dread in my eyes.
‘Perhaps you’d like to call for mommy?’
‘I’d prefer to call the police,’ I said, playing a role myself. ‘But I don’t suppose that’s going to happen.’
He breezed past me to some built-in wardrobes and slid open a door. I heard muffled high-pitched noises. A young woman, possibly my own age, tied and gagged, sat on the floor dressed in a jogging outfit. She looked at Johan in sheer terror and struggled under the knots. Soon her reddened eyes pleaded with mine for help. Johan dragged her out and placed her before me. He went to the other side of the wardrobe and opened that too. An older woman, perhaps in her fifties, sat in the same predicament.
‘Here’s mommy for you, Liliana.’ He propped her up in front of the closet, leaving them both bound. Then walking back to the door, he closed it and locked us in with him.
‘Play nice, Liliana!’ He returned to his chair, wagging a finger at me. ‘No untying mommy!’
He watched, and I couldn’t imagine whom he said he waited for. He’d locked the door. And from what Thom had said, he didn’t kill with others. He wouldn’t share this with anyone.
Presently he tied himself down to the chair, roping his lap to the seat. He left his arms free, where he plucked up the violin.
>
‘If you don’t play,’ he said, ‘I’ll put you to bed now.’
By that I knew what he meant. So I picked up the nearest dolly. She was missing an arm and both legs. Her eyes blinked, one slower than the other. I rocked her back and forth. It was all I could do.
Johan began to play the instrument, but far from well, it was a torturous sound. He moved in strange ways as he played. A dull ache pulsed at my temples and I felt disorientated watching him. His face began to change as he scratched out the cacophony of noise. The cheekbones and chin lengthened, the eyes became gaunter, sallower. His hair lightened before my eyes.
‘He’s almost here! Shall we all play together?’
I knew then what he was doing – what he’d done. He’d been starving himself. It made sense now why the expert killer took his time. He looked for a type, and then kept them until his demon exchanged places with him. Getting some additional kick out of it.
He laughed suddenly, psychotically, and threw down the instrument. He couldn’t speak. His demon began switching places with him. My heart thumped hard, as I prepared to see the Thing I most feared and abhorred – not in the mirror, but in the flesh!
Johan no longer resembled a man, but that gaunt white sabre-toothed monster. Its black fiery eyes drilled into mine. The Thing gave off its unhuman cry. I clamped my hands over my ears. It was somehow uglier than Thom’s demon. Cowering at the sight of it, I edged my way back. Johan’s rope wouldn’t hold the beast. He simply wished to tease the fiend with fresh blood. He tormented it. I imagined that would make the attack more brutal.
The two women uttered muffled squeals and writhed uncontrollably nearby. The bloodlust in its eyes, I saw it wanted me first. The rope gave way. The demon plunged towards me with its eyeteeth bared. Its long grey tongue licking the air.
I looked to the door hoping to hear Thom.
Nobody.
I shut my eyes and froze. The Thing fiercely grasped my shoulders. I had no time to whisper or think, or do anything but whimper and cringe.
Thirty-four
ASHES TO ASHES
‘O Death, rock me asleep, bring me to quiet rest, let pass my weary guiltless ghost out of my careful breast.’
– Anne Boleyn
I felt its long, bony, spider-leg fingers tightening on my shoulders. As yet, nothing happened. Did it wait for me to look upon it? I opened one eye, and flinched at the close-up I got. It had frozen. Though not completely still, it wavered slightly. Its jaws were open impossibly wide, the huge mouth ready to feast. The stench from its gullet resembled rotten meat.
I looked to the women. They’d both fainted.
I tried to wriggle free, but the demon gripped me harder. Its eyes reddened and– I heard the apartment door burst open!
‘Alex! Alex?’
‘Thom! In here!’
The door flew off its hinges. Thom was at my side.
‘What the hell?’
‘Don’t touch me!’ I yelled.
He looked crushed. ‘Alex, I–’
‘No! – It’s the dirt! Don’t touch me! The soil on me. I think it’s still blessed… even offsite?’
Thom looked me over, and then Johan.
‘It must be because you dug down a few feet. It must be the original soil that was blessed.’
‘Look at him, Thom. He’s in purgatory.’
‘I want him off you, now!’
‘No! Get the blood down his throat first!’
Thom glanced at the unconscious women bound and gagged. He took out a bag of blood and bit into the top corner, tearing along in a strip. He pulled it away from his own face fast as if the foulest smell stirred under his nostrils. It was dead as dust to them both, and poisonous into the bargain.
Grasping at the demon’s neck, he poured the thick liquid back into its mouth as the creature yet clung to me.
‘Drink of this potion!’ whispered Thom. The blood slid down its throat and dripped around its stretched jaws, some spilling into my lap. Still clamping my shoulders, the demons face began to exchange back with the human host.
‘Thom?’ I called out.
He was at the light switch flicking it in vain. He shot out the room. The bathroom light came on – bright white, and Thom was back at my side.
‘I’m going to prise his hands off you. Pull yourself back and move away quickly when I say.’
I nodded. Thom grasped his fingers and yanked at them.
‘Go!’
I pulled back and shuffled that way, fast. Until I hit a pile of worn-out clowns and puppets.
Johan became mobile again and snapped his jaws at the air in front of him, as if I was still there. Thom seized his neck one-handed and launched him out of the room. He then caught him in the entrance hall, and hurled him into the bathroom. I heard the crack of ceramics.
I sprang to my feet and followed.
The bright light cast Thom’s shadow opaque against the dirty white tiles. I looked round him to see that Johan had hit the toilet. The back of his head smashed part of the cistern cover. He grinned at me. I tried to hide my fear. By his expression he thought he drank from me!
‘What is she?’ he asked.
‘Don’t look at her!’ Thom growled.
‘Clever girl!’ He licked his grey lips.
Thom stood over him and prepared another bag of blood. The fiend on the floor was laughing. His face contorted and that viciousness I saw moments ago washed over it. His eyes full and black grew larger before he repressed a snarl. Brushing powder and debris from his head, Johan rose slowly to his feet, holding up a hand as if to surrender.
‘So we meet again,’ he said. ‘You always were too set in your ways. I thought giving you the gift might free you of those restraints. But I see’ – he pointed to the bagged blood – ‘you’re feeding in other ways.’
Thom said nothing, but rested the bagged blood above the washbasin. Johan caught a whiff of it and grimaced.
‘Have you come to teach me abstinence?’ He ground his ugly teeth. ‘I’m not like you. I can’t get by on such garbage as that. I get more out of the kill besides!’ He snarled at me.
Thom reacted, shoving him against the tiles. They cracked behind his head on impact. Thom pushed his forearm against Johan’s throat, lodging it beneath his jaw. Johan laughed and spluttered –
‘How thrilling to lose control. I did once on my adventures upstate in mid-winter. I soon felt the switch to demon. Have you felt it? Exhilarating isn’t it! Both killer and spectator at once. What sheer brutality in which it delights!’
His nose twitched; he sniffed the air. ‘That doesn’t smell right!’ His tone grew fierce. ‘I wouldn’t drink that! It’s not fresh!’
‘You’ll drink it!’ swore Thom, backing off to grab the bag. ‘Then you’ll feel your demon overcoming your flesh in that exhilarating fashion you love so much!’
Johan spat on the floor and exclaimed something heatedly in what sounded like his native tongue.
Thom responded in that same language, which surprised me.
‘Where’s that traitor, Seth?’ hissed Johan. ‘I’ll eat him alive!’
‘Seth’s dead!’ Thom retorted. ‘I caught up with him tonight!’
‘Liar!’ snarled Johan.
Thom moved in on him.
Johan faked a move to his right, then dashed to his left. Thom outsmarted him, catching him by the throat.
With the outstretched arms of his shadow, Thom locked onto Johan’s ankles and dragged him to the floor. Johan had no shadow to work with, but looked shocked to see how Thom used his. I realised Thom’s practice with juggling the ball and pen were to train his shadow for a moment like this. He’d been preparing for this fight a long time, exercising that disturbing shadow of his. Building the ability to control it, so that when up against Johan, he was like Vishnu, with two sets of arms. I saw how ordinarily he could use his shadow haphazardly. To knock over an object or close a door. But Thom had practised to give his strength and precision: to grip, attach, to
prise, – to rescue a hot cup of tea before it scalded my hand.
Nevertheless, Johan fought like a wild animal. Thom being larger and stronger, Johan had little chance to escape. Goodness knows how Thom would have subdued this monster if Johan had been feeding regularly. Surely the poison would take a more potent effect because he was in need of fresh blood.
Very suddenly Thom broke his neck in one swift move. I’d held myself together well until that point. The bones cracking made me flinch. He then did something to his jaw, maybe dislocated it. None of this meant much to Johan, who wrestled in the same way. He spat and raved like a psychopath. Still, Thom managed to force the blood down his throat. Johan’s eyes reacted as they filled with poison. Soon the bag was empty. The effect of this second bag was different. I knew it by the look in his eyes. He knew it. His demon knew it.
He was up, flying in a frenzy at Thom, who readily nailed him back to the tiles, applying force of every kind. Johan stared only at me, hoping to dilute the poisoned blood with mine. The Thing became that desperate frantic ghoul for survival, clawing its way onto this plane once more, to take full charge of the flesh they shared. Its cheekbones so sharp they began slicing through its skin, as it struggled, snarled, and bit its own tongue repeatedly. It slurred threats and gibberish. Its strength for once near-matched Thom’s.
‘Get out of here!’ Thom yelled at me. ‘Go!’
I backed away slowly when I should have hurried. But I couldn’t leave those women. I looked round. They sat huddled on the scorched nursery carpet. Both awake, they watched me with wide petrified eyes.
Johan’s demon fought hard for its survival. But Thom had him well-restrained in his God-like arms, pinning him down until the poison took a hold. His frenzy, it seemed, was over.
After what felt like ten minutes, Thom poured the third bag of blood down Johan’s throat. The demon began to withdraw enough so that a mixture of both creatures lay on the broken blood-spattered tiles. Johan and his demon semi-merged. The slight body was not as gaunt as the demon’s, nor quite so clear white skinned. But its sharp eyeteeth yet intruded on the lipless mouth of Johan.
Halton Cray (Shadows of the World Book 1) Page 38