by Chris Dolley
“Why do you want me to lie on the table?”
“Move!” He lifted her off the ground, swinging her by the shoulders up and onto the table. She slid on the highly polished surface.
‘Brian! How much longer do you need? This is looking bad.’ More than bad. What was he going to do? Why the table?
‘Delay him,’ said Brian. ‘Play along, get him talking, be nice, anything!’
Anything? Be nice? Did that include taking one for the team? She was either going to be eaten or ravished. She’d seen Rosemary’s Baby. She hated raw liver.
Daddy reached down into the black bag and brought out four webbing straps. He was going to tie her up!
“Stay still and I no hurt you.”
‘Ask questions,’ shouted Brian.
Ask questions! Like what? Like how come Brian gets a leech and I get... She didn’t want to put into words what she might get, in case it encouraged Fate to make it happen.
‘Calm down. We need to know more about him.’
Daddy grabbed her right wrist and began to wrap one end of the webbing around it. Her body wouldn’t stop shaking.
“How did you find us?” she asked, her voice quivering. “We thought we’d lost you.”
“I have his eyes. I find him any time I want.”
‘Good,’ said Brian. ‘Keep probing. Ask him about the drugs we found in his cellar.’
‘I already know that. He uses two of them to stop the heart and Trimazepine to restart it.’
Daddy left the other end of the webbing strap dangling free before asking for her other hand.
‘Ask him how he feeds.’
He tied the second strap around her left wrist.
She swallowed. “How do you feed?” she asked.
“Feed on humans you mean?”
“Yes.”
He took the two remaining webbing straps and tied them to her ankles.
“I smell life essence moment it start leave body. It come from here.” He tapped her on the nose. “Then I breathe in.” He demonstrated that too, pushing his arms back and swelling his chest. “Trick is to take only what you need. Take too much, girl die.”
“Doesn’t it harm the girl? Cause her to age?”
He shook his head. “Not if girl young and strong. Sacrifice feed me twelve time per year. You,” he looked at her disparagingly, “maybe four. Trick is to leave just enough for girl recover. Like your blood donors.”
Brenda watched him return to his black bag. What was it going to be now? A syringe and two bottles of drugs?
It wasn’t. He brought out a mallet.
Aaaarrrgghh! I’m not just going to be eaten. I’m going to be tenderized first!
He reached into the bag again and brought out four pieces of metal that looked like gothic tent pegs. Large, substantial tent pegs with serrated shafts.
“What are you doing?” she asked, starting to rise from the table.
“Down!” He threatened her with the mallet. “Lie still and you no get hurt. Move and I smash you.”
She lay back down, firing a thought at Brian. ‘Are you ready yet. Do you have a plan?’
‘I do, but .. you won’t like it.’
She didn’t. It was the worst plan he’d ever had. It was the worst plan anyone had ever had!
And, while she argued, Daddy walked around the table hammering tent pegs into her oak floorboards, pulling each strap tight, tying them off and stretching her limbs to the limit.
‘Ok, Brian, you want a running commentary? Well, I’m spread-eagled on the table and my oak floor’s ruined!’
And now she could hear Daddy rummaging in the black bag again. She lifted her head to look. He took out a syringe and two bottles of drugs.
She was breathing hard, her mouth dry. “Why are you doing this? You said I was too old.”
“I have do this. You loose end. You know too much.”
What? This didn’t sound like a feeding any more. “You are going to revive me, aren’t you?”
“Risk too big. You will feel no pain.”
She struggled against the ties, but they were so tight and the more she struggled, the deeper they cut into her wrists.
‘Brian, forget the plan. Do something now!’
Brian spoke. “Does the Synod know about Lauren Stone and Ashley Peterson?”
Daddy held the syringe up to the light and pushed the needle onto the end. “Who?”
“The two girls you murdered thirteen years ago.”
Daddy swung round to face Brian. “I pay for that! I do everything Inquisitor say. He show me how follow rules.”
“Isn’t killing me against the rules?” said Brenda.
“I have blood right. You take my Sacrifice, I take you.”
Now he was opening one of the boxes, pulling out the bottle.
“Who are the Inquisitors?” asked Brian. “I’ve never heard of them.”
“You will soon.”
“Will they kill me?”
“Maybe. They hurt you for sure. But if you tell truth, they can help you, too. They show me how to manage my dzindi. ‘Never draw attention to yourself,’ they say. ‘Be smart. You batter girl, she taste bad and humans make big fuss. Even bigger fuss if you kill new girl every month. But if you take one girl, keep her and brainwash her – everybody happy.’“
He inverted the bottle and held it up to the light, pushing in the syringe needle and slowly pulling the plunger back.
“They even help me brainwash girl. ‘First give her faith,’ they say. ‘Plenty books, plenty TV evangelist person. Then show her how bad world is, and how only she can save it. Then after she sacrificed, news all good. Many happy stories. That way she believe. Same happen next month. You make good news tape, bad news tape. Girl get brainwashed, and don’t bruise when you kill her.’ Clever, no?”
He tapped at the syringe with his finger to remove any air bubbles.
“They’ll make a big fuss when they find me,” said Brenda.
“No. You die heart failure. Humans die heart failure every day. No investigation. No fuss. And no repercussion for Andrius. Which is good, no?”
No. And what was that smell? A musty...
Ghosts. Two of them – an overweight middle-aged man in a badly fitting suit, and an emaciated skeleton of a woman in what looked like a Victorian night dress. They were over by the kitchen door watching.
And there was another – over by the front door. And – she craned her neck to be certain – another two by the TV.
What was this? Her home had been a virtual ghost-free zone for the past two weeks. And why the silence? They were all watching her, but no one was saying a word. Were they here to save her? It was about time someone was. Or were they here to take her to the other side? Were these the five people she was supposed to meet when she died? All of them strangers! All of them in need of a good deodorant!
Ask them for help. That was the inner Brenda, who’d at last deigned to put in an appearance, with the least likely suggestion she’d ever made. We’ve never been strapped to the dining room table before! Well, only the once. And he wasn’t standing over us with a syringe full of poison!
Maybe she could ask them for help. It made more sense than Brian’s plan. His plan was to attack Daddy when he was feeding. A blind hope that he’d be more vulnerable, and have to lower his magical shields. How Brian would know the exact moment when Daddy was feeding was glossed over. He might make a noise. What kind of noise? A deep breathing, sucking noise.
Very convincing. Any plan that began – first, stop Brenda’s heart – could not be considered a plan. And one that regarded, as a good thing, the possibility that Brenda might still be conscious and watching while her life essence was sucked out through her nose – and therefore able to give Brian the all-important, ‘go ahead, he’s eating my brain’ signal – was so far removed from being a plan that it was a veritable anti-plan.
‘It might work,’ said Brian.
And a passing pig might crash through the window, s
ing Blue Moon, and knock Daddy over with a feather.
She felt Daddy take her arm and roll up her sleeve. It was now or never. She started to summon, imagining her living room riddled with rents and rips through to the astral plane.
‘Lauren Stone and Ashley Peterson, I summon thee! Take revenge. The man who killed you is here. Together we can kill him.’
She yelled her summoning into the ether, felt the prick as the needle entered her body, the burn as the contents were pushed inside.
‘Mary Alice Cassini. I summon thee. Daddy’s here. We can fight him together.’
The burning sensation spread up her arm. She used it to redouble her efforts, taking the fear and panic and using it to fuel her desperate calls.
‘I summon you all. Any victim, any spirit who’s ever been murdered, heed my voice and come. All of you! Any angry son-of-a-bitch spirit looking for vengeance. I summon you in spades.’
She was feeling light-headed. Maybe it was the drugs, maybe the exhilaration.
‘I have a raping, murdering kiddie killer here. Let’s give him a taste of something he’ll never forget.’
She opened her eyes. She had to look. The room was darker than before and distorted. But she was sure she saw something. They must have come. They had to have!
Chapter Thirty-Three
Brenda looked down at the body lying spread-eagled on the table. It didn’t look like her. The broken nose, the swollen face. But it was.
“Whoa,” said the ghost next to her. “What you been doin’, girl. That looks nasty.”
Stop looking at yourself and do what we’re supposed to do!
Ghost Brenda blinked. She had an inner Ghost Brenda? Damn right! said the inner Ghost Brenda. Now get that son-of-a-bitch.
All the ghosts were looking at her. Dozens of them. Mary Alice, Ashley, Gabriella Czerna, Angela Trafford. Most of them women, most blood spattered or bruised, their clothes ripped or stained.
And there was Daddy. His nose twitching as he sniffed at the air above dead Brenda’s body. And there was her life essence! A sparkly stream rising up from her nose. Daddy must have smelled it. He puffed out his chest, closed his eyes and began to straighten up, throwing back his shoulders as he inhaled.
“Now!” cried Ghost Brenda, stabbing an ethereal finger towards Daddy’s face. “That’s him! He’s a raping, murdering kiddie killer. Follow me! Aim for his nose and fly inside. We’re going to possess his ass!”
o0o
Brian lay there, listening and waiting. He hadn’t felt this powerless since the day he’d lost his wife and child. He’d been unable to move that day, too – lying on the ground, racked with pain, his vision a bloody blur. Angela screaming. Julie screaming. The gunshots. The looks on their faces, the shock, the despair.
That wasn’t happening again. Not today.
As long as he could get his timing right. Why hadn’t he asked Daddy how long it took him to feed? He might have seconds. He might have fractions of a second.
He didn’t even know if he had enough magic. But he did know one thing. He wasn’t just a shapeshifter; he was a shapeshifter who could detach his head. And if he could detach his head, why not the tissue the leech had fastened itself onto?
The only problem was when to slough off the leech. Too soon and Daddy might notice. Too late and Daddy might have stopped feeding.
He couldn’t wait any longer. He felt with his mind, sensing the area around the leech. In places, its jaws had fused with his skin. And there was something else. Filaments of foreign matter spreading out from its mouth. He drew back from them, mapping out an area, separating the untouched part of him from the compromised. It was a sizeable chunk – about five inches in diameter and, in places, approaching an inch in depth. He isolated the area, grew fresh skin around the boundary and ... pushed with his mind, turning his head as he did so, sloughing the lump of flesh from his face and letting it slip noiselessly onto the carpet.
More waiting, unable to see, barely daring to move. He’d never faced a situation remotely like this. He’d always been the one with the power – ever since the gene therapy – the invulnerable Brian Trafford, Vigilante Demon, who could walk into any room, face any number of foes, confident in the knowledge he could magic his way out of anything.
Until this case. What the hell was Daddy? If he started feeding off Mary Alice thirteen years ago, that pre-dated gene therapy. And what was the Synod? The Inquisitors? Were there real demons out there?
Time crawled. The silence was unbearable. He’d hoped he’d be able to sense Brenda’s thoughts right up to the second Daddy began to feed, but she’d been silent for close on a minute, and her thoughts before that had been all over the place. He hadn’t had the heart to tell her that summoning an army of ghosts was a waste of a time. The dead can’t attack the living.
There was a clunk from over by the table. Brian couldn’t work out what it was. Then there was another. He focussed every sense he had on that area of the room.
Then something strange happened. Daddy’s mind was no longer blank. There was something there. Brian zeroed in on it. Did Daddy’s mind open up when he started to feed? And was that a voice? A thought? He concentrated harder, sucking the sound closer and closer, louder and louder until...
It was Brenda. ‘Get your ass over here and blow this bastard up!’
He teleported immediately, spread-eagling his body and stretching. He had no margin for error and no magic for a second attempt. He had to materialize with one part of his body inside Daddy’s.
He materialized, spread-eagled horizontally maybe a few feet off the ground. His left arm was inside something warm, wet and flesh-like. Daddy or Brenda? He twisted his body, reaching up blind with his right hand as he fell, grabbing and feeling for a face.
It was Daddy.
Daddy swung violently around. Brian was sent crashing into the table, but he held on, pushing all his magic into his left hand. Shapeshift! Shapeshift him to dust!
Daddy disintegrated. No explosion. No screams. Just a fine mist spreading out in all directions.
A fine mist that Brian could see.
He had his eyes back! Daddy’s death had restored his sight. Now he had to bring Brenda back before her life essence drained away.
Where was the Trimazepine?
Flash! There was the first of his magic-fatigue migraine explosions. Followed by the nausea, the brain-splitting pain.
He staggered to his feet, the room spinning, stopping, spinning, stopping. He searched Daddy’s black bag in between the spins. Nothing. Just more of the other two drugs. Daddy’d never intended to bring Brenda back to life.
He searched Brenda pockets. Nothing. Where had she put the drugs she’d taken? He circled the room. The room circled him. He fell down, got up. Keep going! He checked surfaces, shelves – feeling, patting his way when he couldn’t see. Then ran upstairs, pumping rubber legs, staggering against the banisters, grabbing hold, hauling himself up and onto the landing. The drugs had to be in her bedroom. She’d have been in there doing a computer search.
He found them. Wrong bottle, wrong bottle, right!
He descended the stairs, grabbing for the banisters, missing, tumbling from halfway down.
He crawled across the living room floor. Where was Daddy’s syringe? He looked for it, he felt for it, he found it. No time to worry about shared needles or the exact dose. He half-filled the syringe, staggered to his feet, leant heavily against the table and searched for an arm, a vein, feeling with his fingers when he couldn’t see, using his internal powers of visualization, in and push!
And wait ... and hope.
Should he give her another dose? Administer CPR? Call for an ambulance?
He checked for a pulse. There it was! She was alive!
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Are you always going to have that lump of flesh missing?” asked Brenda.
He looked like an extra from a CSI post mortem scene, lying on the sofa, eyes closed, a raw gash the size of a large c
ookie spreading up from the bridge of his nose.
“Only until I work out how to remove the leech.”
Seeing as Brenda was the official custodian of the leech – Brian being too wary to risk handling it – that moment could not come quick enough. She’d had to pick it up with a pair of tongs and put both leech and icky flesh into a plastic container – thank God for Tupperware – and stored it in her fridge.
“When I’m strong enough, I’ll shapeshift the gash to somewhere it can’t be seen.”
Brenda slumped further back in her armchair. She still felt exhausted. Three hours had passed since she’d come round. God knows how much life energy she’d lost. And how much of it was currently stuck to her wallpaper.
“I’ll have to have this room professionally cleaned,” she said. “The furniture too. I might be sitting on bits of him now.”
She was too tired to check, and too tired to sit anywhere else. Stairs were something she’d contemplate tomorrow. Tonight she’d sleep where she was.
Tomorrow. So much they’d have to do tomorrow.
“Is it always like this?” she asked.
“Like what?”
“That you end up spending more time sorting out loose ends after the case than you did during the initial investigation.”
“Depends. I’ve never had a partner who went shopping for Jaguars before.”
“Hah. Talking of partners, isn’t it time you told me what happened to your last one?”
“If I told you, I’d have to eat you. We have strict secrecy rules in Hell.”
“Come on, Brian. I really need to know.”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
“Why not now?”
He opened his eyes for the first time and glanced her way. “You’re not going to give up on this, are you?”
“No.”
“Okay, let’s just say Tonya was a mistake. Excellent medium, but ... unbalanced. She was becoming difficult to work with, so I started looking for a replacement. Tonya took exception, and ... branched out on her own. It didn’t end well.”
“She died?”
“You know she died. I’ve read your thoughts, Brenda. She blames me for what happened to her, and she probably has a point. But I wasn’t there when she died. I didn’t even know she was carrying out her own investigations. I hadn’t seen her for weeks.”