It was starting to rain as they went out into the cold night air, and a sudden flash of lightning made Imogen jump with fright. Instinctively, Daniel drew her into him. She wriggled in his arms until she was facing him. "Of course I'll marry you," she said quietly. When he squeezed her she thought she would never be able to breathe again.
Not far away a sleek black stretch limo eased itself from the kerb, tyres whirring on the rain soaked street. It glided almost noiselessly, its engine purring softly like a contented cat. From behind its heavily tinted windows four pairs of eyes watched Imogen and Daniel as they walked. The minds behind the eyes were speculative but confident.
Thunder boomed overhead in counterpoint to the crackling lightning, as the rain grew more insistent. It was late and all the shops were closed, the restaurants and pubs silent. The buildings either side of them loomed large and empty, the street was cold and desolate.
"It's a little eerie when it's all shut down like this," Imogen said.
Daniel pulled her closer to him. "It's just the storm." He couldn't think any bad thoughts tonight.
Imogen was quickening her pace, pulling on his arm. "You would expect to see someone though, there's no-one about."
The long black car cruised past them in the opposite direction, doing about twenty miles an hour, headlights off, its driver hidden behind the tinted glass. As it passed them it slowed perceptively.
"There," Daniel said. "Satisfied?"
"Looks like a hearse."
Daniel ignored her and pointed. "We'll cut across the new plaza, it's quicker."
At the end of the street the car performed a silent turn until at first it was facing them, and then following them.
The shopping plaza was to their right, a wide expanse of new pink flagstones, the central area a huge pedestrian precinct boarded on three sides by glass fronted shops and offices. It was decorated in concrete, with fountains and towering modern statues. The fountains were dormant at night, although the rain gave water enough to compensate. It was when they passed one of the statues, a poorly realised effigy of a man riding a cubist horse, for the second time, that Daniel knew he was lost.
"Daniel, please don't do this, I'm frightened enough already." As she spoke a loud rumble of thunder seemed to shake the statue into movement. She looked behind her but she couldn't see anyone or anything there. The storm was getting worse.
The blaze of headlights blinded them suddenly, as the car emerged from a road opposite. It rolled silently and smoothly into the precinct and stopped, sideways on to them, a hundred yards away.
"How did they manage that?" Daniel said, almost to himself.
One window slid down and an arm reached out from within; a long slim arm, naked but for a diamond bracelet that glittered in the moonlight. In the elegant hand was a cocktail glass, an olive floating in the crystal clear liquid of the drink.
"Daniel, I don't like this," Imogen said.
Daniel disengaged his arm from hers. "Relax, they've probably been to a party or something. I'll see what they want."
She grabbed at his sleeve. "No, that's not what this is about. People coming home from parties don't go out of their way to terrorise total strangers."
Daniel turned to her and sighed. "No one's being terrorised. Wait here." He took her hand from his sleeve, and started walking towards the car.
The arm from the window remained motionless. As Daniel walked to the car he could see the rain ripple the surface of the drink. The car's engine was nothing more than a steady beat, throbbing in time to the swish of the wipers across the wet windscreen. There was the sound of muffled laughter from inside the car, and he thought he was right about them being partygoers.
Daniel was at the door of the car when Imogen called out to him. He turned towards her, and in that moment the arm moved. The slim hand smashed the glass against the side of the car and brought the stem slicing up towards his face. He was caught off balance as the jagged glass ripped into his cheek. He reeled away but the white-hot pain in his cheek stayed with him. The car door opened, slamming against his legs, pitching him to the ground. Then the door slammed shut and the car's engine roared like a demented beast. Daniel tried to scrabble to his feet, convinced they were going to run him over, but the car drove past him, and he knew where it was heading.
"Run, Imogen!" he shouted. Shakily he stood, and started to follow the car.
Imogen was paralysed with fear. She was crying, weeping large tears that mingled with the rain on her face. As the car reached her, a taloned hand pushed out from inside and grabbed her wrist. Another claw planted itself in her hair, twisting cruelly, yanking her towards the open window. Yet another made a grab at her coat, and she heard the material rip. The paralysis left her, and she began to struggle, but there were too many of them. She was making small frightened noises in the back of her throat as she fought to be free, but her strength was ebbing away. Her body was lifted like a rag doll into the air and pulled effortlessly into the pitch-black interior of the car. It was only then that she screamed.
Daniel stumbled across the precinct, slipping on the rain-wet flagstones. The car was still there, engine idling, making no attempt to move off. It sat there mocking him, making him feel useless and guilty, guilty for not listening to Imogen.
Imogen screamed again, but the scream was cut dead. Silence fell over the precinct, even the car's engine had died. Daniel stopped a few yards from the car, his breathing ragged. He shielded his eyes from the glare of the headlights as his mind sought frantic solutions.
All four doors of the car swung open and four women stepped out from the gloomy interior. Four stunningly beautiful women, wearing expensive, revealing, elegant evening dresses. Their perfectly made up faces looked the result of a high-class beauty parlour, and they wore their hair loose, flowing freely in reckless cascades. They came around to the front of the car and stood looking at Daniel.
Their beauty was only a facade. When he looked into the eyes of the women what he saw made him more frightened than ever. The eyes of the four were the same, pale blue, burning with cruelty and anger. He tore his gaze away from them and felt himself take a step backwards in an involuntary reflex movement. Blood trickled from the lips of one of the women, the one with hair like flames. The black haired one had her fist tightly clenched around a scrap of Imogen's coat. They all wore a look of hunger on their immaculately made up faces.
The blonde took a step towards him, and he turned and ran. The rain lashed into his face, thunder clapped in applause above, while lightning forked in illumination. He was conscious that the women were closing in on him, like wild animals for the kill. He glanced behind him and saw them, gliding towards him, oblivious to the storm, their dresses dry, flowing like a cool breeze around their bodies, their hair unnaturally perfect, not even windswept. Then he tripped and fell.
The women stood motionless, watching him now with curiously neutral expressions. Then one of them raised her arm, the same arm that had held the cocktail glass. The statue of the horseman began to move, horse rearing, rider leaning back in the saddle, pulling on the reins. The sound of bronze hooves clattering down on the wet granite plinth filled the night, rising above the howling storm, filling Daniel's head, forcing his hands up to cover his ears. The woman lowered her arm and the statue was motionless again.
The brown haired woman turned her head to look at the fountain, blinked her cold blue eyes and the fountain gushed into life, its spray climbing high into the air to join the rain. At its peak it vaporised, forming a mist that swirled around them. The woman blinked and the fountain shut down again.
The women moved in on him. Daniel had only one choice if they were not to finish him. As the blonde one took another step Daniel rushed at her, and knocked into her. She hissed, raking his face with her fingernails, but he'd caught her off balance and there was nothing she could do to stop him pushing past her. He was out of the circle of women and running. Behind him they cried out, howling in the night.
; He had gained himself a few seconds, no more, and he couldn't even spare a moment to look back to see how close they were. He just ran, twisting and swerving through the rain swept precinct. As he ran the place came alive. Every fountain in the plaza threw up a spray into the night sky, clouding the air with their fine mist. Each of the statues breathed into life, the bizarre shaped figures peering down at him, helping the hunters catch their prey.
Daniel stopped, and ran in a different direction as one of the women appeared in the mist ahead of him. Three paces more and there was another one. He turned again and found himself face to face with the blonde. There was nowhere left to run, they had trapped him. They had steered him back to where he had started, as if they had been playing with him, turning him in circles.
Slowly out of the mist of the storm, meandering like snakes, they drew nearer. The facade of elegance and sophistication was abandoned, and they approached him in their true form. Faces ghostly white, their bodies crouched and tense. They were naked except for a few tattered rags draped around their filthy, emaciated bodies. Long wolfish tongues flicked over yellow, sharp teeth. He stared into their faces, looking for the beauty, and he saw only the hunger.
One of the women floated effortlessly into the air. A second joined her, levitating above Daniel, spitting and hissing at him. Then they fell on him, biting and clawing, ripping at his clothes, tearing at his hair. He tried to fight back, lashing out with his fists, grunting with satisfaction as his knuckles smashed into a woman's mouth, splintering her teeth. But they were too strong for him and he could feel himself blacking out, falling into an unconsciousness from which he knew there would be no return. In the sky above him lightning was flashing blood red and the wind was wailing.
Then the attack stopped. The women were gone.
His body in agony, Daniel staggered to his feet and stumbled hopelessly after them. Across the wet flagstones the women were racing back to the car. Its engine was roaring, doors flung open. The women fell into the car, slamming the doors shut behind them. The engine screamed, and the wheels spun briefly in the wet before it sped away.
"Imogen!" Daniel yelled.
From inside the car Imogen screamed, a scream of terror, and of insufferable pain. Something tiny was thrown from a rear window, before the car was lost in the rain and the darkness.
Daniel searched the puddles around his feet to find whatever it was they had thrown out. He found it. He sank to his knees, pressed his fists to his eyes, and began to sob.
It was Imogen's ring, the ruby ring he had given her on their first anniversary. The ring was still attached to her finger.
There was a gold star on the dressing room door, the interior of the room luxurious, with pine-clad walls, purple velvet drapes, low slung ceiling with concealed lighting. Against one wall an ox-blood leather Chesterfield, against the other a well stocked bar. Around the walls were framed photographs of famous comedy stars from stage and screen; Chaplin rubbing shoulders with Richard Pryor, Laurel and Hardy beaming across at Steve Martin.
On the dresser with the illuminated mirror stood two more framed photographs. One was of W C Fields, resplendent with straw hat and cane, the other was of a younger man, a man in his early forties with film star good looks, light brown hair just starting to turn grey at the temples. On a chain around his neck hung a 22 carat gold replica of a rolled up one thousand dollar bill, and on his fingers were heavy gold rings. The man in the photograph was smiling, a curiously appealing smile that had the ability to draw people in and make them smile as well.
The two men in the photographs shared things in common. One was the name, one was they were both funny men. They weren’t related although the younger man wouldn’t discourage you from imagining they were; it was one of his hopes when he changed his natural name that people would think he was the son, possibly grandson of the famous W C.
That had been when Christopher Fielding was starting out on the road to comedy stardom, but now he had made it, or rather Chris Fields had; five nights headlining here at Las Vegas, as well as being the star of a top network TV show, and his last comedy album had gone platinum. A lot had happened to him in the intervening twenty or so years; ups and downs, getting booed off stage at small town strip joints, seeing his name in lights for the first time, relationships sacrificed. As he looked at the reflection in the mirror he saw the lines webbing out from the corners of his eyes, eyes that had long lost their boyish sparkle and that now were only dull, almost glazed.
There was a respectful tap at the door. “Five minutes, Mr Fields.”
Five minutes and the sparkle had to be back in those eyes because it was Showtime and the customers who had paid their hard earned cash to watch his act would expect to see it there. He emptied the white powder into the centre of a small hand mirror, used a credit card to divide it into neat lines and then took the gold dollar bill from around his neck.
There was another knock at the door. “Curtain, Mr Fields.”
The spotlight hit Fields in the eyes the moment he walked onto the stage. He put his hand up to shield them and made it look like a natural action in reaching for the microphone. The audience were applauding loudly, whistling happily in anticipation, almost drowning out the band, which was playing a medley of Frank Sinatra songs.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” he said into the microphone. The audience quietened immediately, a few even laughed, and Fields said nothing more until they had all stopped. “No, don’t stop, that’s probably as good as it gets.” The laughter started again, but the light was hurting his eyes.
He took the mike from its stand and began to pace about the stage but the light seemed to follow him, interrogating him almost. He launched into his act and before five minutes had passed the laughter was almost continuous. It rose and fell like a wave as the jokes and the stories hit their mark. He felt himself carried along on the tide of laughter, felt the fresh surge of adrenaline as he once again realised that the laughter and the applause had him hooked now as surely as the dreams of them had all those years ago. When it was like this it was easy, he could coast, it all took so little effort, he even had time to distance his mind and take in more of his surroundings.
The theatre was large, but low ceilinged, which gave an intimate atmosphere. The tables were crowded together and smoke hung in the air like grey gauze. His eyes settled onto a pretty blonde in the second row from the front. He directed his next gag to her and she rewarded him with a wet lipped smile full of promise. He’d keep her in mind for later.
He took out a silk handkerchief and wiped his brow. “Well, we’ve had some fun here tonight, but now, with your permission, I’d like to get a little serious.” A stagehand brought out a high stool and Fields hoisted himself up onto it. “I’d like to talk about fear.” The audience grew silent. “Yes, fear. It’s something we all experience but rarely talk about, but I want to talk about it, with you, tonight.” He was playing them along. Using his ability to play on an audience’s reaction. It was an art he’d learned on his long haul to the top, and now he could work an audience, keeping them finely tuned. Knowing when to attack and when to treat them gently, coaxing them into seeing the funny line. He could feel the ripple travelling around the room now as he waited; they were not sure what was coming. “We all have fears. With some people it’s the fear of flying, with others the fear of falling under a subway train.” Someone laughed. “You think it’s funny? You walk down any subway station and you can’t miss them; they’re the ones who look as if they’ve been nailed to the wall. Fear, it’s a terrible thing and it affects us all. Even me, oh yes, I have to confess my fear to you, because I have a fear - Dentists.” “Yeah.” A voice in the audience called out. “Hey, you too? I thought it was just me, but then I guess not. A lot of people are scared of going to see their dentist. We can get together after the show; maybe get a little dialogue going, compare dental records. For me this fear started at an early age. I remember my mother getting me all dressed up – I looked c
ute in that sailor’s suit – and she wouldn’t tell me where we wee going. ‘Where are we going, mummy?’ ‘You’ll see when we get there.’ That’s all she’d say. ‘You’ll see when we get there.’ Well, I knew that. When you get anywhere you know you’re there. ‘Are we going to the zoo?’ ‘You’ll see when we get there.’ The dentist was this old guy who had his surgery above a candy store, great for business. All the kids in the neighbourhood went to see him, and someone had told him that to make the kids feel safe he should do something, maybe wear something to reassure them. Except this man hated kids, really detested them. You walked into the surgery and the first thing you saw was the chair, and you’d seen a chair like that in the movies, and they were strapping a big bad man into it and then the lights flickered. The dentist himself looks about seventy, which he is, and he looks weird. He looks miserable as sin, but what really shuts you up is that on his head he’s wearing this pair of Mickey Mouse ears. ‘Siddown in the chair and shaddup.’ “
Suddenly Fields felt a tightening in his temples, and a throbbing at the base of his skull. A party scene flashed into his brain. There were lights, and people laughing, drinks and food, dancing and…
“You can always tell when a dentist has been invited to a party. All the guests are having conversations with their mouths closed; it’s like being at a ventriloquist’s convention. The hostess wanders over to you arm in arm with some guy, and she says, ‘Chris, I’d like you to meet Roger.’ And you look at her strangely because she said that without moving her lips. ‘Hi, Roger what do you do for a living?’ ‘Actually I’m a dentist.’ Have you ever tried to get through a party without opening your mouth? Drinking’s fine, scotch through a straw tastes okay, and you can smoke too, just about…but eating? You open your mouth even a fraction and he’s in there. ‘My word, what an interesting mouth; when did you get the bridge done?’ They’re obsessed with their work. They sit opposite you on the subway waiting for you to yawn.”
A Weaving of Ancient Evil Page 21