Raven and Skull

by Ashley Lister

  Maddeningly, sleep evaded him.

  Lying in the darkness, trying to shut his thoughts away for the night, Geoff’s mind kept returning to the problem of how he would be able to take the skull from Charlie Raven’s office and whether or not he would be able to manage the theft without being detected.

  It was not something he wanted to think about.

  He didn’t want to be brooding on the issue because he was tired and knew there would be time enough for some serious planning in the morning when he was rested and refreshed. But his mind refused to see the situation in such simple terms. His mind kept returning to the problem and revisiting the intricacies of how to get into Charlie Raven’s office and how to walk out with John Skull’s skull.

  Geoff supposed it wouldn’t have been so bad if his thoughts reached a satisfactory conclusion. Instead, his mind seemed content to have him envision every internal detail of the Raven and Skull offices and reconsider them afresh. It was almost as though he was starting work early and being forced to endure the ritual of his nine-to-five day through the last of the weekend hours when he was supposed to be asleep.

  He could see the cubicle where he worked in the accounts office, sharing workspace with Shaun from Customer Services. He could even see the monitor of his own computer, the screen hidden behind a corporate screensaver that had the Raven and Skull logo bouncing lazily from one side of a black background to the other. He saw his own reflection in the monitor’s black screen and was surprised that he did not appear in his work’s suit with neatly tied tie and stylishly fashioned coiffure. Instead, the reflection showed a Geoff who was wrapped in a tatty blue bathrobe, wearing Homer Simpson slippers, with his hair looking like an untidy thatch.

  As sleep continued to elude him, Geoff was able to walk into Charlie Raven’s office and walk idly around the room. John Skull’s skull grinned at him from its place on the desk. The gold plate gleamed dully. The hollow eye sockets gleamed with a dark and malignant glee. Not usually prone to flights of fancy, Geoff could have easily given into the belief that the skull’s eyeless gaze was following him as he patrolled the office. The thought made his stomach fold.

  He lay restless in bed, wishing he’d used some of the stranger’s money to buy himself a bottle of scotch. It crossed his mind that he ought to get out of bed and make himself a soothing drink of instant cocoa. But, even though that idea might have helped him achieve a restful night, he still thought it sounded like too great an effort.

  His imagination took him into the company’s boardroom.

  The blinds were drawn. Candles illuminated the room. There was the scent of sickly sweet plants, sweat and smouldering smoky flames. Instead of being empty, the boardroom was playing host to the scene the stranger at Shades had described.

  Geoff considered closing the door and backing out of the room. Curiosity made him linger. Skull, Raven and Black sat on one side of the boardroom’s impressive table. A nervous translator sat at the foot of the table. The bespectacled man’s lips were moving in a constant but soundless babble. The three formidable Vodou bokor stared blindly at Geoff as he entered the room. Their expressions bore an intensity that suggested they could see him, but they had no interest in really looking at him.

  Geoff resisted the urge to wave.

  In the centre of the boardroom table, Skull’s naked secretary held a curly-bladed knife. Geoff wanted to admire her naked figure. She was attractive with curvy hips and hard, long nipples. Her freshly oiled flesh looked gloriously inviting. Her bush had the overgrown appearance of the untamed thatches he had seen in vintage seventies porn. But that was only a small detail that did not deter his interest. His gaze was drawn away from the allure of her bare breasts and exposed sex. Instead, he found himself watching with reluctant admiration as she commanded the attention of everyone in the room.

  Fiona’s fingers were wrapped tight around the ceremonial handle of the kris. She pressed the tip between her breasts and gasped softly as it penetrated flesh. A dark bead of blood, turned black and oily in the guttering candlelight, blossomed beneath the blade. It drew, a slim dark line as it spilt down her torso.

  At her feet, Geoff could see the headless corpse of a chicken. When he raised his gaze to study Fiona’s face he saw that her lips were a rouged and messy smudge.

  He couldn’t remember how much the stranger at Shades had said about the ritual in Raven and Skull’s office, or Skull and Raven as it had been then, but Geoff felt sure he hadn’t heard this level of detail. Had Fiona gone all Ozzy Osbourne and bitten the head from the chicken? Or had she simply drunk the fresh, warm blood straight from the chicken’s brutally severed neck? He could almost taste the hot gush of thick coppery fluid rushing over his tongue and down his throat. It was impossible to dwell on either idea without needing to quell a rising wave of nausea.

  When he glanced again at Fiona’s face he saw the woman had changed. The blade remained pressed between her breasts. Her eyes were open wide and, Geoff realised, Skull’s secretary had been replaced by Nicola. Her pretty, kissable mouth was open in a shock of surprise. She pushed the kris deeper and then began to drag it downwards.

  Raven and Skull exchanged a nervous glance.

  Rillieux nodded approval.

  Geoff took a moment to admire Nicola’s body. It was as perfect as he remembered from their short and torrid relationship. Little had changed about her except, in this dream, she now had a tattoo on her hip. The mark was a red and black design: a dagger penetrating a heart with the words beneath it saying Don ‘n’ Nicola. Geoff wrenched his gaze further downwards to Nicola’s feet. He saw that one bare foot was almost touching the severed stump where the chicken’s head had been. He wanted to mutter a warning, tell her not to let her skin touch the unpleasantness of that wet, bloody flesh.

  But the words refused to come.

  And he could see that the chicken had changed into something that looked vaguely human. A headless corpse at her feet. Sprawled across the boardroom table. Blood pooling from the raw stump of its severed neck.

  Geoff opened his eyes and sat upright.

  His bedroom was held in darkness. For an instant, as the shadows pressed in on him, he could still smell the scents of van van oil, High Jon powder, naked flesh and fresh spilt blood. There was a tinge of smoke in the room that brushed his nostrils. From somewhere in the depths of the shadows he could have sworn he heard a sultry, feminine chuckle.

  Scrabbling to turn on the light, he was treated to the sight of his own, drab bedroom. A tumult of laundry festered in one corner. A seldom-worn tatty blue dressing gown hung on the back of the door. The curtains lay flat and unmoving against the window. The whole room was so still and silent he had no doubt that everything he had seen had come from the eerie depths of his hyperactive imagination.

  Checking the alarm clock by his bed, Geoff was dismayed to see that it was close to five in the morning. He couldn’t recall sleeping properly through a moment of the night. His body ached with weariness and his flesh was tacky with greasy perspiration. Repulsed, Geoff dragged himself out of bed and stumbled into the shower hoping the hot water would prove invigorating.

  Over a breakfast of coffee and toast, Geoff decided that he would set off to work early. Battling against the shroud of weariness that hung over his thoughts, he dressed for the office and told himself that getting there early might present an opportunity for him to simply take the skull. If he could simply walk in and snatch the skull before the day had properly started, he knew it would stop the theft from weighing on his thoughts.

  Two hours later, with his eyes feeling grainy and his head throbbing from the lack of sleep, Geoff started his regular walk down the street that led to Raven and Skull’s offices.

  The road was already gridlocked with traffic. A bustle of early morning zombies trudged the pavements. They were the physical embodiment of his own absence of enthusiasm to get to work. Because this was an hour earlier than his usual routine, Geoff took time to pity the wage slaves as they
crowded the streets, gliding easily between each other like well-choreographed dancers.

  The thunderstorm rattle of a shutter startled him from his musings. He turned to see what had caused the noise and watched a slender brunette opening the security blinds from one of the High Street shops. As she pushed the grey metal covers into their housing at the top of the shop’s facade, Geoff saw the place was named: L 4 LEATHER. It wasn’t a place he had seen before and he stepped past the slender brunette and into the darkened interior.

  ‘I’ll be two minutes getting my float sorted,’ the brunette told him.

  ‘Just browsing,’ Geoff assured her.

  He walked once round the shop when the idea hit him. A second circuit of the place was long enough for the plan to be firmly in his thoughts. He selected a pair of leather gloves, took them to the counter, and waited patiently for the brunette to serve him. Whilst she was taking his money and counting out his change, Geoff tore the price tag and the labels from the gloves and pulled them onto his hands. He accepted the change and then walked back around the store and selected a pilot’s case from L 4 LEATHER’s extensive range of bags and cases.

  ‘Did you want to see how the gloves would look with the case?’ the brunette asked.

  ‘No.’ Geoff flashed a disarming smile. ‘I’m just making sure my fingerprints aren’t on there.’ He paid in cash, and was pleased with the way the shop assistant seemed uncertain as to whether or not to treat his remark as a joke. He opened the case on the shop counter, tossed out the small pack of silica granules, and adjusted the combination lock to a setting of 444 and 444.

  ‘Why that number?’ asked the assistant.

  Geoff raised an eyebrow. ‘If someone really wanted to get inside this case, they could cut their way in with a good knife. If someone wants to take a sly peek without raising my suspicions, they’re going to have to guess the combination. If they try to do it in a logical sequence, most likely they’ll start from the 000 setting. To my reckoning, it should take as long to get to 444 if a person starts at 000 and works upwards or if they start at 999 and work their way down.’

  ‘You’re clever,’ the assistant smiled.

  Geoff nodded. ‘Let’s hope so.’ He removed the last of the packing materials from the case, as well as the labels and price tag from its handle, then stepped back onto the street.

  He could see Raven and Skull’s offices in the distance. The building stood like a dark and ominous tower on the horizon. The sight made him feel as though eyes from the office had just watched his transaction inside L 4 LEATHER. That thought sent a shiver tickling down his spine. He tore his gaze from the Raven and Skull offices and walked two doors along the High Street before stepping inside a grocery shop.

  Calmly, unhurriedly, he searched the aisles for sugar. A plan was formulating inside his mind and he felt comfortable going with the intuitive hunches that were guiding him rather than over-thinking the situation. Buying two bags of sugar, placing them securely inside the pilot’s case, Geoff tested the combined weight and decided that would be as heavy as he was likely to need.

  ‘You don’t want a carrier bag?’ the shopkeeper asked.

  ‘They’re OK in here,’ Geoff told him.

  ‘If those bags of sugar split they’ll make a mess inside your briefcase.’

  Geoff could have pointed out that it was a pilot’s case, not a briefcase. He could have explained that he had specifically purchased the pilot’s case for its extra width. But he didn’t bother to say as much.

  A conversation like that would likely have him explaining that one bag of sugar was approximately the same weight as a human skull. Two bags of sugar would compare to the weight of a gold-plated human skull that might be made heavier by any other unexpected surprises in its composition. Confident that the shopkeeper did not need to know such nuggets of information, Geoff simply fumbled to get a note from his wallet whilst wearing his new gloves.

  He made his way out of the grocery shop and walked into a beating.

  31

  Geoff didn’t see either of the men approaching him until it was too late.

  Obviously he had noticed them. They were both so large and broad it would have been impossible to miss them. Dressed in the fashionable borderline debonair stylings of nightclub doormen, with sunglasses, black overcoats and heavily-blinged knuckles, they both had shaved heads and the sort of lumbering gait that suggested a formidable amount of physical power. But, because they seemed preoccupied with the conversation they were having, Geoff dismissed them from his vision as peripheral parts of the scenery.

  The Raven and Skull offices loomed larger on the horizon. Geoff braced himself to go in there and put in a full day’s worth of unremarkable work. It was something he’d been doing without effort or enthusiasm for the past five years and he reasoned that today should be no different.

  A large hand slipped beneath his left armpit.

  As he turned to find out what was happening, another hand slipped under his right armpit. Before Geoff could splutter a word of protest he was dragged backwards through a shop doorway. The ring of the door’s overhead bell sounded at the same time as he asked, ‘What the fuh?’

  A large hand grabbed his face, cutting off the expletive before it could be fully formed. Geoff was pushed backwards and, as the floor fell from beneath his feet, he found himself sitting heavily on a chair. He had a moment to realise he had been pushed into a dingy and relatively unoccupied cafeteria.

  A fat waitress stood behind the counter. She chewed gum and looked bored. A cheery pop song played in the background from a tinny portable radio. The sound of the singer’s happiness was eerily faraway.

  Aside from the two burly bouncer-types who had dragged him there, Geoff saw that Don was also in the cafeteria. He was as tall as the bouncers but not quite as broad. Dressed in a loose shirt with the throat unfastened, he sat, composed, at a table near the counter. His frown was a leer of forced menace.

  ‘Good morning, Geoffrey,’ Don said. His voice was crisp. He was clearly trying to sound business-like for the benefit of his thugs. ‘I’m glad you could join me for this meeting. Would you care for a cup of tea?’

  Geoff shook his head. Panic and confusion pounded inside his head to make his headache worse. He wanted to protest being dragged into the cafeteria but he had an idea that the less he said, the more likely he would be able to get out of the dingy cafeteria without suffering too traumatic an ordeal.

  ‘Four cups of tea,’ Don told the waitress. ‘And take your time making them in the back room. Away from here. Out of earshot.’

  ‘Mr Chin insists that I stay here whilst the shop is open,’ the waitress told Don. ‘He says, as long as there’s a chance customers might come in, I have to stay in here and keep an eye on the door.’

  One of the burly, bald-headed men went to the door and dropped the door’s latch. As an afterthought he turned the OPEN/CLOSED sign.

  Don flashed a shark-like smile for the waitress. Reaching inside his coat for his wallet, he produced a fifty pound note and tossed it on the cafeteria’s dirty counter. ‘Keep the change,’ he said, sweetly. ‘And stay in the back room until you hear the shop bell ring again.’

  The waitress hesitated for an instant.

  Geoff whispered a silent prayer that she would refuse to do as Don asked.e hoped she would. He hoped she would threaten to call the police. A wave of disappointment rushed over him when she snatched the money and then disappeared out of sight.

  Geoff was sorry to see her go. He took a deep breath and tried to ready himself for whatever trouble he now faced. He suspected, no matter how long he tried to prepare, he wouldn’t be ready for whatever it was that Don wanted to throw at him.

  ‘Good morning, Geoffrey,’ Don said pleasantly.

  He stepped towards the chair Geoff had been thrown into and placed his foot on the seat. The sole of his shoe appeared between Geoff’s spread thighs. The toe of the shoe hovered dangerously over Geoff’s crotch. When Geoff made an at
tempt to move, the two doormen stiffened. It was enough of an unspoken threat for Geoff to realise he had to sit where he was and endure whatever torment Don thought necessary.

  ‘I believe you’ve got some money of mine,’ Don began.

  ‘No,’ Geoff assured him. ‘I’ve not got any of your money yet.’

  The fist came from nowhere.

  If he had thought he was likely to be punched, Geoff knew he would have braced himself for the impact. Because it struck like a flash of summer lightning, he was simply slammed back further into his seat. His head snapped backwards. The back of his skull smacked hollowly against the brick wall behind him.

  ‘I think that was the wrong answer, Geoffrey.’

  Don’s voice sounded hatefully pleasant. Geoff could hear the man’s words through the dull ringing that now clanged inside his aching head.

  ‘I think you might have ten grand of mine and I’d like it now please, before I lose my patience.’

  ‘That’s not the arrangement,’ Geoff started. ‘You get your cut when I’ve received the full payment.’

  Don nodded.

  Geoff was lifted out of his chair and then punched back into it. The blow to his stomach left him breathless, winded and gasping for air. The forehead that smashed into his nose left his face an exposed sore of agony. Fresh panic rippled through his thoughts as he realised he was at the mercy of the three violent men who had him trapped in the cafeteria.

  ‘Now,’ Don said quietly, ‘it seems we’ve had a little confusion here because you’ve misunderstood when I should get my money. I think, now that the misunderstanding has been resolved, you’re going to hand it over, aren’t you?’

  Geoff looked at him incredulously. His vision was a little out of focus. Geoff suspected that he needed a few painkillers before his sight would sort itself out. But it was still impossible to believe that Nicola’s boyfriend could be dumb enough to believe he was carrying ten thousand pounds on his Monday morning trip to the office.