by Anton Marks
Fatherless, Spokes thought. You care about deh youths. So you’re not completely heartless after all.
And then as if to reaffirm to him his anger was brutal and remorseless he casually swung a spectral severed head dripping blood and gore in his right hand. His movements were reminiscent of an old reel projection from the nineteen-twenties accompanied by ethereal scenes of a distant sitting room that had been reduced to a slaughter-house. You almost felt like it was an image of something taking place somewhere else. It was like a glimpse of a place where the corporeal body of Enoch Lacombe resided, all safe and sound.
“Kiss mi muma,” Spokes said under his breath watching the hell things fall away from his torso and arms leaving a ghostly silhouette of the real man behind. The ghostly Darkman stared at them for a long while, watching what was being done with interest.
Spokes lowered the stone from above his head and gently placed it at his feet, never taking his eyes off the phantom shape of Darkman in the distance.
“I’m a man of my word.” Spokes said unapologetically ripping off Scarface’s classic line. “My word, an’ my balls, is all mi have.”
The Obeah man nodded and Spokes could have sworn he saw a red gash across his lower face, a gruesome parody of a smile, maybe? Darkman made a sudden sweeping gesture with his shadowy right arm flinging the head away and hefting the child further up his shoulder with his right. He started walking away from them again but this time the host of burning crimson eyes that had surrounded them extinguished, he was now nothing but a blur smudged into the grey tableau of rock and there was a whoosh of movement as a scurry of thousands of claw tipped appendages followed him out to the passage like a dark tidal wave controlled by a hellish Pied Piper.
Spoke collapsed to his knees, a physical and mental wreck.
It felt like many years before they took a breath in the dimness of the cave. A silence descended as if it had been waiting for the situation to disappear so it could resume its morbid fascination with quiet. Their minds were trying to make sense of the insanity. Patra’s eyes were fixed into the middle distance, shaking her head still in disbelief, her chest shivering in spasms, coming to terms with a kind of fear she was acutely unfamiliar with. Y and Suzy were on the ground hugging each other, while Spokes was on his knees still trying to control his panicked breathing, unable to believe he had convinced the Obeah man. A cold bone-numbing aura hung in the air and so did the more real stench of sulphur and excrement. Patra looked over to where Deacon had lain groveling.
He was nowhere to be seen but he left a trail of scuff marks and finger scratches of a desperate kind in his wake. Those were the signs of a terror filled man who did not want to go where he was being taken.
Patra patted herself down for damage.
“Better that motherfucker than any one of us,” she said looking down at the marks.
“What if Darkman never took deh deal?” Suzy asked grimacing. “What if him wanted to play rough?”
“Rougher than dis?” Spokes asked pushing his hard hat up on his forehead, a shock-generated smile appeared on his face, taking even him by surprise.
“Yuh tink mi born yesterday? If we were to die and that was a distinct possibility that I meditated on long and hard, then Darkman would get nothing, leaving wid him two long hand, an hurting to rass. I’ve been brewin’ a special spell that would mash up everyting, including the stone.”
“Nice.” Y said sarcastically.
“I don’t know ‘bout you ladies but right about now I need a neat shot of J Wray and Son, to calm my nerves,” he held out his hand and it was shaking.
“You mean Nephew,” Y corrected impulsively across from them.
“For an occasion such as dis sister J Wray’s nephew just can’t fit deh bill.”
He didn’t smoke but Shaft thought this was as good a time as any to start. He stood at one of the five emergency exits at the Crypt surveying the damage done. A fine mist hung at ankle height. Mobile phones, shoes, handbags and even some soiled underwear – what the hell happened there? - were strewn over the floor from the stampede that had ensued. By rights this situation should have resulted in major casualties but miraculously the mortality rate was in the single figures. Two fatalities inflicted by these creatures was unbelievable. It could have so easily been a blood bath.
We were lucky bastards.
And how the fuck would he have explained that anyway? He wasn’t concerned about the otherworldly events themselves, after all that was the remit of Black Book, where reports were expected to be strange. But actual corroborated proof that demons, duppies and voodoo actually existed was something else completely. The question he had to ask himself was what else was out there?
Shaft watched the vermin control guys looking around puzzled and the forensic team sifting through the mess, the bodies covered but unmoved. As an eyewitness to what had gone down, he could put his spin on the chain of events, namely sticking with the man-eating rats theory. Nothing else remotely resembling the truth would do, even for his department of weirdness.
This time he was afraid the truth would not set you free but could possibly land you in the asylum.
Absently, his view caught a young lady sitting on the steps leading up to the surface wrapped in aluminum heat retardant material and talking animatedly to a fellow officer. Right about now Shaft wished he could take over proceedings and finding Y and the girls would be priority but he had to adhere to police protocol and allow the investigating officer to do his thing unless he was invited. And he had to remember his story of being a bystander who happened to be a detective with no clue at all of how this happened. His impassive demeanor and his concerned nods to his colleagues as they passed about their business hid his frustration. He was counting down in his head the moment he would suggest helping and as he departmentalized his thinking worked out how he would commence the search for the girls.
“You looked worried.”
Why the voice chilled him to the core, he didn’t know.
“Y…?” he said turning around slowly to see the delectable bodies of Bad II the Bone approaching uncharacteristically worse for wear. Y and Patra were helping Suzy along, a makeshift tourniquet lightly strapped to a wounded leg. They were all splashed in green muck and splattering of blood. Y, who had to go a step beyond, looked as if she had immersed herself that much more into the gore for a greater sense of relish. They were battered, bitten and bruised and what was left of the designer gear was hanging off them from the violence of the encounter but with enough material left to protect their modesty. The girls still radiated this inner strength that magnified when they were together.
And suddenly he realised he was looking at the future, his future. The traditional roles of the male hero had been reversed and shattered. From now on he felt they would be saving the day and he’d be the dude in distress. Shaft wasn’t sure if he should laugh or cry.
He resisted the urge to run over to them. The man code prohibited that and it wouldn’t be cool, anyway.
“Why would I worry?” he said smiling. “You’re a big girl who can look after herself, right? I‘m more worried about the damn fool that gets in your way.”
Shaft called over a two man paramedic crew who immediately took over the task of carrying Suzy. Only then did he hug all three together before allowing medical aid to do their jobs.
“What the hell happened?” Shaft asked.
“Hell happened,” Suzy said still including herself in the conversation, grimacing as the paramedics removed blood soaked cloth from her wound.
“I think I get that part.”
“I’m not sure if you do, I’m not sure,” Y said.
“Well shit I’m sure as hell,” Patra added sitting on the floor beside a concrete column. “And I’ve got a partially chewed ass to prove it.”
His voice lowered he asked, looking away from Patra to Y.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m not sure if I’ll ever be ok again,” Y leaned on him and S
haft circled his arm around her waist, taking her weight. She stank of sulphur and the vile green gunk that they all had smeared on them.
“The one thing I do know is that I’ve found my calling. This, whatever this is, just feels as if it was meant to be.”
“I got to say, you don’t look…” he grinned sheepishly, “or smell like someone who has found their calling. But you got this shine in your eyes. Maybe I missed you or it’s the Courvoisier talking but something is humming underneath all that shit you‘re covered in.”
“A melody,” Y said.
“So Bad II the Bone is a reality?”
“As far as following our mission goes yeah.”
“Mission?”
“We were told a few things to look out for,” Patra added.
“Some crystal ball shit.”
“Interesting. And Spokes?”
“He’ll be on his way to a new life by now,” Y said. “Can you believe he left it all behind for us to manage? Lock, stock and barrel.”
“Just like that?” Shaft asked.
“Just like that,” Y sighed wearily.
“Call me paranoid but how safe is that place?”
“I’m not sure but you can help us with that, I’m guessing?”
Shaft nodded thinking through his next question and not believing he was going to ask it.
“Are you secure…mystically?”
“That,” Y said confidently. “I’m more sure of.”
Shaft’s eyebrows rose, enquiringly.
Y continued.
“I’m starting to realize how smart the old guy was. He explained to me that the mansion has one of these blue plaques at the gate. The ones the heritage society awards to residences of historical importance. Well it seems this place was one of the summer homes of a Rosicrucian in Sir Isaac Newton’s cabal. He was a distinguished inventor and alchemist, code for sorcerer, he told me.”
Shaft laughed nervously.
“Sir Isaac Newton was a magician?”
Y shrugged weakly.
“Spokes said the place came with mystical protection, that’s why he bought it and all it needed was a top up once every fifty years. We got forty five years left on the clock.”
“Ok,” was all Shaft could muster.
“I hope he got a contingency plan for cleaning that crib,” Patra blurted out. “Cos if Slick thinks we gonna do it he got another thing coming.”
“Relax,” Y said. “Your nails are safe. Spokes thought of that too and a lady is coming over in a weeks time, her name is Nanny. Other than that he was a bit mysterious.”
Patra sighed relieved.
“What else is new?” Slapping her back to a wall and lowering herself to the floor.
“I’ll explain later P, right now I’m exhausted and worried about Suzy.”
“Well don’t be,” Shaft added. “I’ll find out which hospital they’re taking her to and I’ll take you ladies there. You may want to have a checkup yourselves while we’re at it.
“If you leave with us who is going to help explain all this?”
Shaft shrugged then laughed.
“A hundred eye witnesses, who won’t be able to explain head nor tails of what happened. I’m an innocent bystander remember. Why complicate issues anyway? Once the nature of this is recognized, it’ll be on my desk in no time.”
Patra stretched out her legs on the floor, her head propped back on the wall and her arms to her side, breathing heavily. Suddenly the muffled ring of a mobile phone startled them, piercing a brief moment of contemplative silence. Patra jumped to her feet suddenly enervated and starts patting herself down for the offending sounds. She dug into her jump suit’s utility pocket and pulled out a dented, shattered Smartphone, which had no right being in one piece much less ringing loud and clear.
“I see your other ear is still in good nick then?” Shaft teased.
Her middle finger went up and without the slightest show of apprehension or surprise Patra answered, pressing the speakerphone icon on the ruined screen.
“I take it your assignment went well. Is everyone okay?” The cool Bombay accented tones of Mr. Patel added the final surreal element to this night. One more miracle added to a night filled with the incredible and the impossible.
How did he know? Y mouthed over to her but Patra was already over the shock.
“Great timing Mr. P but we a bit fucked up right now. Don´t worry though, we gonna live, we made to last, remember?”
“It seems,” Mr. Patel’s voice smiled at them.
“Y, I have a feeling your destiny was made clearer tonight.”
It was now Patra´s turn to mouth, What the fuck! He knows?
“Look after Suzy for me and call me when you recuperate. I worry.”
“We will Mr. Patel,” Y called over. “I promise.”
Patra cut the call and looked at the phone quizzically.
A tall dark skinned paramedic rushed over to her as she leaned back on the wall. Suzy by this time was on the collapsible stretcher being pushed out to an awaiting ambulance, explaining on the way out that her injuries were not as bad as they seemed.
Y pressed her head into the crux of Shaft’s neck.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Anything.”
“Can you play the guitar?”
Shaft looked at her strangely.
“If you want me to rid your neighborhood of all cats and rodents in a ten mile radius then I’m your man. If not then I suggest I stay away from stringed instruments.”
Y sighed noticeably and smiled.
“That’s good,” she said, the final mental remnants of Tyrone disappearing.“That’s really good.”
“Do you know what I could kill for now?” Y asked.
“No, what?” Shaft inquired.
“A rum and raisin ice cream!”
“Near death experiences give you the munchies then?”
“I wouldn’t know. This is my first real brush with death. I feel strangely sexy though. Weird, right?”
Shaft gulped.
“Let’s see what happens next time.” Y ruminated.
“Next time?” Shaft asked. “That sounds ominous. Is there going to be a next time?”
“I’ve just got a feeling we’re not done yet.”
“So about feeling sexy and the ice-cream?” Shaft asked sheepishly. “On our way back from the hospital, we can attempt the impossible.”
Y nodded.
“Let’s make it interesting. If you can find rum and raisin ice cream, you can tuck me in tonight.”
Without thinking further Shaft blurted out.
“So this night has not completely gone to hell in a handcart, after all. You have a deal.”
Y grinned.
With a new found spurt of energy, Shaft helped Patra to her feet. She leaned on his left side and Y on his right and they hobbled through the emergency exit and debris like the walking wounded to the sanity of the world outside.
Epilogue
Hanger Lane gyratory, West London has been known as Britain’s scariest junction for good reason but tonight it was eerily quiet as a panel van pulled into a parade of shops – flung out from the orbit of the roundabout. There the filming started:
The naked man, eyes and mouth bound, forehead marked with the chalky symbols of an inhibitor spell, squirming in an office chair that he was tightly strapped to with packaging tape, was being bungled out of the van by two balaclava clad figures. Tyrone – tonight’s victim - had obviously gone through all the stages of being a captive in his mind. First there was disbelief, acceptance and then he was now occupying the zone of sheer terror as his predicament became clear. Well that was what his facial expressions were saying because elsewhere on his anatomy was a whole different story. Baby boy had a raging erection that poked through his bounds and either the turn on was to come or it had occurred previously and the memory stoked his passion, fear and anger. Whatever it was he was a man in conflict as he thrashed and swore. The mo
bile camera footage was a good resolution capturing the abduction clearly but with the instability many experimental directors tended to use for its realness a la Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity movies. They pushed him along a strangely deserted sidewalk and then onto the gyratory. High pitched grunts accompanied the chair being lowered onto a four lane roadway, precariously pushed and then left on a pedestrian island in its centre. The picture became blurred, a frenzy of motion and sound then after some minutes, clarity.
The final shot showed the bound man’s gag removed, his mouth so wide as he screamed his uvula was dangling at the back of his throat, lips in a pretty shade of cock sucking red and plastered all over his body were flyers of his face with the heading ’Most Wanted Thief And Scum’.
Pause.
The YouTube link was sent to approximately fifty thousand women across the globe, avid subscribers to the runaway success - Bitches & Ballers blog. Outside of its uncompromising title it struck a chord with its users to such an extent that the numbers rose steadily as women everywhere – and some men too - wanted to vicariously experience the ups and downs of the phenomenon of Bad II the Bone. Today was special.
Today their blog had a triumphant air to it. A thank you to its enthusiastic subscribers and a fuck you for all who thought they would be pushovers.
It read like this:
Dear Sisterhood
In our very first blog 3 weeks ago we introduced ourselves, began sharing our life with you and, without knowing you as we know you now, we asked for your help.
You heard what we had to say and felt our pain by lending us your blessings and support. After everything we’ve been through - I won’t spoil next week’s thrilling issue - ours and your patience has paid off.
The snake thought he could get away with ripping us off. Trying to destroy what we worked so hard to achieve and then find another unsuspecting candidate and wreck their lives too. You saw this was a righteous cause as much as we did and for all the messages of sightings you pinpointed his whereabouts, thanks. But our mystery benefactor didn’t just find him but went the extra mile, presenting us with a gift that was more appreciated than chocolate under the Christmas tree.