Dark Screams, Volume 6

by Dark Screams- Volume 6 (retail) (epub)

  I moved to my right and saw that there was a definite progression to the painting: It grew darker, the figures more violent. Now they looked less like gods and more like monsters. “It looks like the Magnasco upstairs, but…”

  “Yes. One of the guests was a medium—you know, they were all crazed for spiritualism back then—and she swore the artist was channeling Magnasco.”

  “Who was the artist?”

  “His name was Dennings. You wouldn’t have heard of him—he was a highly regarded forger, you see.”

  I came to a corner, turned to the right—and stared in shock. Now the figures on the walls had the dark, shaggy fur coverings of mammals, but they walked upright and bore human faces. And they were…well, not to put too fine a point on it, they were vigorously fucking one another. A few yards farther to the right, two of them were entwined above the dead body of a naked woman, blood pooled on the ground around her severed legs. Feeling simultaneously nauseated and curious and excited, I moved around the next corner and saw piles of dismembered corpses, some with splayed legs as if they’d been violated.

  “Jesus,” I muttered.

  “It’s fascinating, though, isn’t it?” Lennox stood behind me, so close that I could feel his presence like a storm cloud. “They’re gods, you know. Old, very old, gods. Can you imagine watching this take shape beneath the artist’s brush, while around you a real-life orgy is happening? The rich smells of the smoke…and the sex…”

  A shiver passed through me, my own excitement surprising me. Lennox must have seen it, because he purred soft approval.

  Past the next corner, the art gave way to words:

  Once, long ago, in a land on the far edge of the world, there lived a poor shepherd. The shepherd, his wife, and their two children barely existed on goat’s milk and a few rabbits the shepherd was able to snare…

  I bent down to read more but paused when I felt Lennox just behind me, his body close to mine, his breath hot on my neck. I was suddenly afraid—not of him, not even of the terrible scenes on the wall or the childish story, but of myself, of what I might do if I suddenly turned, when he was there behind me…

  “Lennox!” That was Madelyn’s voice. I hadn’t heard the door open, and I did turn, startled by her harsh tone. She stood just inside the Beltane Room, her posture rigid. “The party is upstairs.”

  Lennox was facing her, away from me, and he was slightly hunched. When he spoke, his voice sounded too deep, too rough. “Why can’t you leave me alone?” A musky scent hit me, strong enough that I backed away and tried to breathe through my mouth.

  Madelyn waved at Lennox angrily. “Lennox, stay here while I escort Sara out.” I hesitated—which of them did I prefer to displease? But Lennox kept his back to me, silent. “Lennox, I’m sorry,” I said, as I walked past him.

  Madelyn led me upstairs—not back to the Gold Room, but out the front door, where the limo waited for me, my bag already inside. “I’m so very sorry, Sara—this was entirely my fault.” She handed me an envelope. Inside was a folded sheet of paper—and a check. I saw the words NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT at the top of the sheet. I didn’t bother to see how many zeroes were on the check. I passed the whole thing back to her. “Don’t worry—it’s not necessary to buy me off. I like Lennox too much to hurt him.”

  I climbed into the limo, pulled the door closed, and looked down into my lap. I didn’t want Madelyn to see that I was crying.

  —

  The next day Lennox called me at home. “I’m sorry for that, Sara,” he said. “I’d like to see you again.”

  “Your sister made it clear that was a bad idea, I think.”

  “My sister is not my keeper.”

  We chatted awhile longer, about everyday things, almost like normal people—about birthdays and airport security and bad in-flight movies and weather. After an hour, Lennox asked me what I was doing later that night.

  “Nothing,” I answered, my heart hammering, feeling for all the world like a teenager on the phone with a cute guy.

  Eight hours later, I was staring at a blank computer screen when there was a knock at my front door. Curious, I moved to the peephole, looked through…

  Lennox was there, holding flowers.

  I panicked. I was wearing dingy sweats; it hadn’t occurred to me that he’d actually fly up. “Just a minute,” I called through the door as I turned, unsure what to do first.

  “You’ve got three minutes, then I bust this door down.”

  I fled to the bedroom, plundered the closet, realized I didn’t have time to put on anything more serious than my best jeans and a plain pastel T-shirt with a V-neck that gave me the illusion of cleavage. I was checking myself in the mirror a final time when he knocked again, more insistent. “I swear, Ms. Peck, in ten seconds—”

  I gave up on primping, ran to the door, took a deep breath, opened it.

  For an instant we just stared at each other, smiling, not quite believing. Lennox broke the silence at last. “You know, I just lied to my sister and flew through a storm to be here—are you going to invite me in?”

  “Of course. Please come in.”

  I stepped back and gestured. He handed me the roses (yellow, my favorite—how did he know?) and came in, looking around. I was immediately self-conscious, seeing every frayed furniture corner and speck of dust, but he just nodded. “So this is how real people live.”

  I was about to come back with some witty riposte when it occurred to me that Lennox probably really hadn’t been in many homes that weren’t mansions. Sitcoms were probably the closest he’d ever gotten to even upper-class suburbia.

  I inhaled the heady scent of the bouquet. “These are lovely. Let me get them into some water.”

  I walked to the kitchen, set the flowers down to reach up to a high cabinet for a vase, had just pulled it out and was turning to fill it with water when I saw Lennox in the kitchen doorway, gripping the sides as if holding himself up. “I’m not very good with social skills, so I’m just going to say it: I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.” His eyes locked onto mine, and I couldn’t suppress a small tremor. I had to look away just to keep any ounce of composure.

  “Lennox, I…”

  He stepped closer. “If you want me to leave, I will. If you want to sit and talk for a while, I’ll try. But what I’d really like to do right now is kiss you.”

  I couldn’t speak. I leaned back against the sink, breathless, as he pressed himself against me. His lips found mine, his hands were on my waist, my fingers twined around his neck, in his hair, pulling him down to me.

  “Sara,” he whispered, moving his tongue to circle an ear, then trace a delirious path down my jaw.

  I said nothing because I was lost. I was lost in arousal, lost in my desire, my need, for Lennox Wilmont. I nearly sobbed because it annihilated me. I’d never felt this before—not even with my husband, when we’d been first married and still genuinely in love. When Lennox moved his hands down to my hips and pulled me to him until I could feel how hard he was, I groaned as my own lust broke my inner censors.

  He moved his mouth down to my breast, seeking it through the thin fabric of my clothes, and I arched, wanting him to find it. He said my name again—

  Something was wrong. His voice sounded strange, too coarse even though roughened by sex. Some part of me tucked safely away heard and sounded an alarm, but the other ninety-nine percent chose not to listen, not to stop—

  The front door burst open. I gasped and pushed Lennox away so I could turn.

  The driver who’d met me at the airport stood there, his massive frame barely squeezed in. He was staring at us, and even from across the living room I could hear his breathing.

  “Lennox, what—” I turned to look at him—and froze, staring.

  The skin on his face had changed color, going so pink it was almost fiery. His hair seemed longer, shaggy, his ears slightly pointed. But it was his eyes that really paralyzed me: They’d lost all color, including white, and were depthle
ss black pools. He released me and started toward the driver. “Why can’t she just leave me alone?”

  It took me a second to realize the “she” wasn’t referring to me, but probably to his sister, Madelyn. Lennox was making sounds now like something between a whipped puppy and a banshee wail, his frustration so overwhelming that he didn’t even react as the driver gripped him by one shoulder and steered him out of my house. The driver said only one word as he led Lennox to the car:

  “Father.”

  At least it sounded like “Father,” but that made no sense—Lennox’s father was dead, so the driver wouldn’t be taking him to see Daddy Dearest. A priest, perhaps?

  Whoever it was, I hated them for taking Lennox from me. I watched the car drive away, then went to my bathroom, turned on the shower, and cried as I stood under the water, still dressed.

  —

  I got an email from Lennox an hour later. It didn’t say where he was—on a plane going home? Still in the car? In some other house owned by the Wilmonts?

  Dearest Sara:

  There’s a story I’d like you to hear. You read part of it in the Beltane Room, but of course my sister wasn’t about to allow you to read all of it. Well, in honor of Madelyn, here’s the story for you:

  Once, long ago, in a land on the far edge of the world, there lived a poor shepherd. The shepherd, his wife, and their two children barely existed on goat’s milk and a few rabbits the shepherd was able to snare. They weren’t happy—they were hungry and cold.

  Things got worse after the shepherd’s wife died, leaving him alone with two small children. His wife had made the goat’s milk into cheese; without her, they had only milk to drink. They were alone in the wild countryside, with no one to help them.

  One day, as hunger gnawed at their insides, the shepherd cursed the gods for his ill fate…and lo, the very deity he’d blasphemed appeared before him. The shepherd began to shake with fear—for the god was fearsome in appearance—but the god smiled upon him. “You have called me, shepherd, and I’ve come to relieve your suffering…if you are willing to pay the price.”

  The shepherd fell to his knees, lowering his eyes. “Anything! Just give us food.”

  “I will give you more than food: You and yours shall always have good fortune. You will never again starve, or want for anything material. Your children will be as gods.”

  “Yes,” the shepherd said, sobbing in gratitude, “yes, yes!”

  “But the price is this: Your children will appear human until they feel lust, and then their desire will make them into my children, divine in appearance and strength. Should they seek to satiate themselves with a mortal, they will create a victim, not a lover. They will have only each other to fulfill their needs and continue your line.”

  The shepherd quaked in horror at this terrible offer, but then he saw his children’s gaunt faces and bloated bellies. “Is there no other way?”

  “There’s painful, empty death.”

  The shepherd accepted the offer.

  Instantly he found himself before the door of a fine house; stepping inside, he discovered tables piled high with delicious food. His children appeared and they all began to eat, marveling at this sudden wealth.

  For some years they were happy, and the shepherd began to believe that he’d earned this good fortune with his own hard work. But then his children came of age, and he saw the signs. When his son tore a local maiden apart, he hid the act and told his children the horrid truth. They saw what they must do, and so they coupled only with each other, in the form of gods, and their divine progeny continued down through the centuries, walking in secret among mortals.

  After the story, Lennox had added, “I hope you’ll remember only this about me: that I loved you.”

  I printed out the email and read it over again, hoping that somehow the hard copy would render the words into something comprehensible, sensible, but there was no sense to be found. After my fourth reading, I set the email down and sped through airline websites. I made phone calls and found a flight leaving for Atlanta in three hours. I didn’t bother to pack; this wouldn’t be a long visit, if the Wilmonts even agreed to see me at all.

  But I had no choice: I had to demand answers. And see Lennox again.

  —

  I arrived at the Wilmont estate shortly before dawn. The sky hadn’t started to lighten yet as I pulled the rental car up to the front gate. The guard, whom I still couldn’t see behind the window of the guard shack, spoke into a phone before rolling back the gate. I pulled forward.

  It was late, and I was operating on no sleep and a cup of bad coffee I’d picked up at a convenience store after leaving the airport, so it took me an extra, startled second to react when the figure ran in front of the car.

  I slammed on the brakes and was thrown forward against the seatbelt. I knew instinctively that the thing outlined in my headlights was the same one I’d glimpsed on my last trip here, running awkwardly through the woods: a humanoid figure with furry legs, bent back at the knees like a quadruped’s, with hooves instead of feet. The torso was downy, the arms long, the head capped by a tawny mane and curling horns. It stared at me with wide, golden eyes.

  It raised an arm and brought it down on the hood, hard enough to dent the metal. Opening its jaws wide, it screamed, a sound that stopped my heart.

  It started to come around the front of the car toward the driver’s side, gliding on those impossible legs, a long tongue darting out of its mouth. I glimpsed something moving in the groin, and my paralysis snapped. I slammed my foot down on the accelerator. The car shot forward, tires squealing.

  I didn’t look into the mirror to see if it was following. As I screeched to a stop before the house, the front door opened and someone stood there, outlined by light. I grappled with the seatbelt and then leapt from the car, shouting, “Lennox!”

  “No, it’s Madelyn. Come in, Sara.”

  Now I did look back, but nothing had followed. Cold flooded me; I was shaking. When Madelyn put an arm around me, I fell into the sanctuary of it. “Something chased me, something not human—”

  “Grant,” Madelyn said.

  I stopped, gaping at her. “Grant? But that’s your son’s name…”

  “Yes. My son—with Lennox.”

  “With…no. Lennox?”

  “Come in and sit down. I’ll get you something to drink.”

  I let Madelyn lead me into the great house, into a room of rich padded chairs and large hearths. Madelyn seated me, brought a glass. I sniffed it—bourbon—and downed it in one gulp. My chill began to ease. Madelyn sat opposite, sipping her own glass more carefully.

  “I know about Lennox’s email to you,” Madelyn said.

  At the mention of Lennox, my heart thrummed. “Can I see him?”

  “Not yet. We need to talk first.” Madelyn set her glass down, piercing me with her gaze. “Sara, I have to ask: Are you in love with Lennox?”

  I started to answer, then caught myself, thinking. Yes, I wanted Lennox—dear God, how I wanted him—my entire body thrilled at the thought of him…but was that love? And was this intense attraction natural, or had I been manipulated, unnaturally influenced? “I’m not sure.”

  Madelyn considered before going on. “I’m prepared to offer you a life with Lennox, but not the life you’re probably imagining. I would approve of your marriage to Lennox, you would live as his wife, with all the privilege of a Wilmont…but you would never be able to consummate the relationship.”

  At first I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard, but then I remembered my last visit here. “Like Alan?”

  “Yes.”

  I thought of Alan, the bitterly drunken husband, useful only for appearance’s sake. “No. I won’t live like that.”

  “You have to understand that if you were to…be with Lennox, you wouldn’t survive.”

  “Are you saying that story—the one in the email, the one in the Beltane Room—is true?”

  “It’s the family history.”
r />   An unwelcome image of Lennox and Madelyn entwined, naked and altered, saturnine, popped into my head. “How many children do you have?”

  “Six. Five of them have to be hidden away. You met Grant outside. Only one looks human; she will be my successor.” Madelyn gestured at a silver-framed photo of a blond-haired little girl smiling into the camera—the most beautiful child I’d ever seen. “We’re still trying for a boy.”

  My stomach filled with bile. I tried to stand, but my knees threatened to give way and my vision swam. “But Lennox loves me…”

  “Sara, let me get a room ready for you. You’ve suffered a shock, you’re in no state to travel again right now.”

  Numbed by revelation and liquor, I didn’t react as Madelyn took me up the stairs to the Gold Room. I was dimly aware when she stepped out and locked the door from the outside as she left. I fell onto the bed, where I let myself go, weeping with little strength, repeating his name over and over.

  “Lennox…Lennox…”

  Eventually I fell into an unhappy state that might have been sleep.

  —

  I awoke when I heard my name, soft and muffled. The sky was only starting to lighten, so I knew I hadn’t slept long. I lay there, fuzzy-headed but sobering up quickly, listening. It came again:

  “Sara…”

  Even though it didn’t sound human, I knew it was Lennox. He knew I was here. I wondered if he’d caught my scent.

  What will I do if he opens the door? Does Madelyn know he’s out there, prowling, already transformed by his desire for me? Had she planned this—giving me to Lennox as an easy way to dispose of me?

  The door bangs and shudders; he’s thrown himself against it. A new sound now: claws scrabbling at wood.

  He’s turning the lock.

  I don’t scream, at least yet. I don’t call Madelyn, or prepare to run. I’m sweating, but it’s not from fear.