by Kit Hallows
“Perhaps I should put a hot knife to my eyes,” Samuel offered. “Blind myself to her allure.”
“If you think it’ll help.” Astrid muttered, as the car swept along the driveway and away from the asylum grounds.
I parked under the bridge as the dawning sun rose behind us, painting the lapping waters and steely girders in soft pinks and reds. I climbed out of the car, stretched my legs and took a moment to gaze across the silver and grey city. It was colder than I’d expected, but peaceful at this early hour.
“You okay?” Samuel asked as he joined me.
“Mostly,” I said. “I guess that incident at the asylum unsettled me. It’s weird, carrying someone else inside you. Or maybe it’s the other way round; maybe he’s carrying me inside of him. That might help to explain his rage.”
“Could be.” Samuel gave me a slow, almost surreptitious glance. “You know, once this is over, if it goes our way, you might want to consider finding a way of resolving your split. We have a lot of learned people in Penrythe. Some of them are pretty powerful.”
“I’d like to try,” I said. “Just as soon as we’ve stopped Stroud from his wholesale destruction.”
“You’re optimistic.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I suppose I am. Otherwise I’d probably just weigh myself down, jump in the ocean and go to a peaceful, watery grave.” Samuel nodded toward the city. “You really like this place, don’t you?”
“I do. I mean it’s far from perfect but it’s home. At least it has been for a long time now. And I like the people, for the most part, and I don’t want them to get hurt.” I turned to look behind me as a clacking sound echoed along the bridge.
Glory, walking in her stilettos down the concrete sidewalk. She shone as ever and the rising sun behind her seemed to dim as she drew in all the colors of dawn, leaving the river dull and grey in her wake. Her golden hair was piled up on her head, perfectly complementing the short sleek violet dress that fit her like a glove. She smiled, her teeth pearly against her full red lips and I felt the warmth of her eyes upon me, even through those dark designer shades.
Astrid climbed out of the car, her face sleepy. She watched Glory’s approach and I saw her hand drift toward one of her daggers.
“Morning, Glory,” I said. Just like I always did.
“Indeed. Early morning.” Glory pulled her sunglasses down and smiled at Astrid and Samuel. Her eyes shone crystalline blue “Is that a note of Penrythe I detect below the mud, blood, and exhaustion?” she asked Samuel with a wink. “Reminds me of Tom.” She turned to Astrid. “And his good friend Hellwyn. I met her once. You’re her kin if I’m not mistaken.”
“You’re not mistaken. I’m Astrid.” She offered her hand to Glory and as the succubus shook it, a little of the tension loosened from her shoulders.
“Tom was very fond of your mother. He said she was as valiant as she was formidable, at least against her foes. We need brave people like that right now,” Glory said, as she turned to me. “And Elsbeth Wyght. Ding dong, I’m glad the bitch is dead but you’re looking awfully rough Morgan. ”
“I’m glad she's gone too, but unfortunately our problems didn’t end there.” I sighed and laid out all the relevant details. Glory wasn't going to just roll over on one of her own kind, not without an explanation.
“And that’s why you’re looking for the succubus.”
“It is. Someone's tried to reopen the portal to Penrythe, we think she might’ve had a hand in it.”
“To bring Stroud through?” Glory asked and raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow over her shades.
“Exactly. And our river’s run dry so we’re following any leads we can get our hands on. So, that brings us to Kitty Frostrup.”
She shook her head “Doesn't ring a bell, but in our little circle names can change. What else have you got?”
I delved into my pocket and pulled out the photograph from the asylum. Glory glanced at it and a slight furrow marred her brow. “Well, well. Would you look at that? Frostrup indeed. She must have left quite the trail of former identities, broken hearts and destruction judging by the age of that photograph.” She handed back the picture. "You'll find her on the east side; Hattersley Street. Last I heard she was dismantling an old man who'd spent his entire life building up this city. Wrecking ball that she is.” Glory shook her head. “Nasty, bitter old thing. Be careful, Morgan, she’s dangerous.” She pulled out a phone, tapped the screen and my cell phone buzzed. “That’s the address. Her current beau was as rich as Midas and he ain’t in the ground yet, so she should still be there, sucking him dry.”
“Thank you.”
Glory gave me a slow, seductive smile. “Of course if you’d described her when you’d called it might have saved you the trip. Then again, that would have robbed me of the opportunity to see you. It’s been a long time, sweetie. Far too long.” Her smile faded. “Call me if you need anything else. I want to help. I hate the shadow that’s fallen over our city. I want to see it gone.” Glory gently placed her hand on Astrid’s shoulder. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Astrid.”
“As it was to meet you,” Astrid said.
“Samuel.” Samuel extended his hand and gave her a big cheesy smile. “We weren’t introduced for some reason.” He cast me and Astrid a dark look. Glory slowly rubbed her fingers across his palm before she shook his hand and released it. “A pleasure to meet you, Samuel. I get the sense you’re a fellow hellion.”
“I… I can be.” Samuel’s cheeks reddened, and he looked down at his empty hand, as if mourning the loss of hers.
“I suppose it’s high time I catch up on my beauty sleep,” Glory turned and walked off, waving over her shoulder as she went.
“Can I give you a ride?” I called.
“Oh you could, I’m sure,” Glory called back. “But I’ll make my own way, Morgan. You have things to do and places to be. As ever.”
“Well she's… fascinating,” Samuel said as we watched her go.
“She certainly is,” Astrid said. “Stop sniffing your hands, Samuel, it’s creepy. And keep them out where we can see them.”
Samuel shoved his hands into his pockets. “I was smoothing my beard.” He cleared his throat and nodded to the car. “We going then?”
"Yeah," I said as I watched Glory turn the corner. I hadn’t seen her since Tom’s wake, indeed I’d hardly seen anyone since that dark day. I vowed, right there and then, to make sure to spend time with all of my friends when this shit was over. To go out and raise hell with them, and to keep them closer. “Come on,” I said as I climbed into our stolen car. It was time to make some headway and put an end to Stroud’s evil before it swallowed up everything I loved.
13
We cruised past the long rows of townhouses that lined Hattersley Street. They were the gateway into another neighborhood in this city where people on the higher side of society lived, and a place I rarely visited. A different world, one I hadn’t been given the key to, and likely never would be.
As we climbed out of our stolen ride, Samuel took a deep sniff of the cold air. “This place absolutely reeks of money.” He glanced at the houses. “We could probably amass a fair bit of treasure if we…start digging.” He ran his hand over a wrought iron gate. “They believe this keeps them secure, how delightful.”
“We’re not here to pilfer,” Astrid said. “No light fingers.”
“Fine.” Samuel said, but as we passed he gave the house a slow, lingering glance.
“Good man!” I threw my arm around his shoulder, gave him a sharp pat on the back and led him down the street, hoping to disrupt the plans percolating in his mind.
The road was quiet and still; the only sign of life at that early hour was a stressed looking man sitting by his window, eating breakfast as he stared into a newspaper. He glanced at me and then casually turned away, a sign that the illusion Astrid had cast, to disguise our relatively rag tag appearance, was working. In a place like this we’d have stuck ou
t like a sore thumb without it, just like the house the succubus was inhabiting.
It was obvious long before I pulled out my phone to double check the address. Drawn curtains, overgrown garden and the abundance of flies buzzing round the filthy windows. They were all symptoms pointing to the air of evil murmuring through its walls and wafting over the tall iron gate.
“This place is infected,” Samuel said as he peered through the bars.
I nodded as I reached for the black wrought iron handle. “It’s locked.”
Samuel rifled through his ring of keys, worked his magic and stood back with a satisfied smirk as I pushed it open. The hinges squealed and the bottom rung of the gate rattled scraped over the concrete path.
Soggy dead leaves littered the front steps and the bell next to the large oak door was broken, so we knocked and waited, but there was no answer. I walked back down to the path and checked the windows but it seemed no one was home.
“Allow me.” Samuel whipped out his keys, which definitely beat my method of dissolving pesky locks to rust. Within moments the door swung open onto a wide hallway dotted with furniture draped in dust covers. The place seemed deserted, like a musty summer house closed up during off season. I shut the door behind us and we started checking the place out.
The front rooms had been totally stripped of their furnishings; dents and impressions marring the thick shag carpeting told tales of where sofas and tables had once rested, and a trailing dark red stain drew my attention to a short dark hallway.
For all of its apparent emptiness, there was someone here. I could feel it.
“Is it blood?” Samuel asked as he nodded toward the rug.
“No. Wine.”
We did a quick sweep of the ground floor, found a pristine kitchen without even so much as a single dirty cup in the sink, and another emptied room alongside a small bathroom. Then we headed upstairs, our footsteps stifled by the plush carpet.
The first room had a few pieces of furniture shrouded by paint-spattered drop cloths and the marks on the dust-laden dresser spoke of the objects that had once rested there. But the second room really piqued my interest and I walked to the far wall.
It was covered with photographs and there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the arrangement of the images, but the theme was decidedly Kitty Frostrup; she was the focus of each and every one of them. No not the focus, the star. I glanced over them quickly to avoid the pull as she gazed out, her reddish brown eyes gleaming like rubies, her thin lips pouting, her soft honey-colored hair in an ever changing variety of styles. The locations and landscapes behind her spanned the globe, from deserts and tropic isles to exotic cities like Milan, Tokyo, London, Paris, Moscow and everywhere in between.
In some of the snapshots she posed with men. Most were well tanned, decked out in designer clothes and their smiles were straight, bright, white and confident. While their posture was always pure alpha, it was very clear that they’d all been brought to heel. But, as the photographs in the erratic timeline changed I found her men seemed to diminish in their stature until they almost appeared shriveled. But not Kitty, no, she beamed in every single image and if age had ever gotten a claw into her, she hid it well.
“Hmm. Looks like someone’s a bit conceited,” Samuel said as he joined me.
“Just a touch,” Astrid agreed as she pulled a frame from the wall and looked into Kitty’s eyes. “Still, if you look hard enough, you can see her true face. Not that I’d recommend it.” She set it down on the floor, nodded toward the ceiling and turned to leave.
We checked the final room before heading upstairs. An oak bureau that held a few scarves was just to the right of the door and a wing-backed chair sat in the center of the floor, facing another wall covered in framed photographs. They were portraits of men carefully arranged in a grid and each one had a big red X crossed over it in lipstick, as if they’d merely been spent days on some twisted calendar.
We headed up to the third floor. There were two doors leading off the small landing. One door led to a gleaming bathroom stocked and outfitted with every luxury I’d expect to find in a house like this, except a mirror. And as I turned and thought about it, I realized there wasn't a single mirror anywhere in the place.
The space around the second door seemed to shift as I pushed it open and a chill passed through me as I spotted the emaciated figure laying stock still in the queen-sized bed. It was hard to make out whether it was alive or dead, but as I drew back the curtains it coughed, stirring dust that had wafted up into the dappled morning light.
The wrinkled old man, stared up at me as he reached toward the bedside table with a clawed, bony hand. I grabbed the empty glass he was seeking, strode to the bathroom to fill it with water and rushed back to him. He forced himself up and drank fast, the water slopping over his flaky unshaven chin. “Where is she?” I asked.
He cocked his head, as if trying to listen. His pale, watery eyes flitted over me, then to the corner of the room. “Kitty,” he said, his voice a feeble whisper. “Kitty, is that you?”
“She’s robbed him of his senses as well as his gold,” Astrid said.
“And why wouldn’t I?” a cold, clipped voice demanded.
Kitty Frostrup stood with one shoulder leaning against the doorway. She still had it, the sensuality, the pout, the wicked gleam in those reddish-brown eyes as they peered over her designer shades. The glamor was still there in the elegant cut of her jet-black dress and the twinkling jewels that sparkled above the swell of her breasts. But there was a hidden hint of ruin as well as the tragic jaded air of someone who knew they were well past their prime, yet refused to let it go. The resentful desperation of someone clutching at their lost youth with brittle, trembling fingers.
I caught a glimpse of the creature she was desperate to mask. Her scaly, demonic face, her dark almond-shaped eyes and the pair of black feathered wings nestled behind her bent bony shoulders.
She hissed and a forked tongue slithered over her thin parched lips, then she reignited the illusion and Kitty, seductive slayer of men’s hearts and minds, was back. “Now who the hell are you?” she demanded, “and what are you doing in my house?”
14
“We're here to find out about Galloway,” I said, “and why you made Charrot open the portal.”
“And you just assumed I’d have something to tell, did you?” Kitty gave a slow, creeping leer as she glanced from me to Samuel and then Astrid.
“No. We’re sure you have something to tell, and we’re prepared to go to great pains to inspire you,” Astrid said, her thumb stroking the hilt of a dagger.
“Maybe even fatal pains,” Samuel added. “Which has been known to happen when things don’t go our way.”
I drew my gun. “So tell us what we need to know and go back to whatever stone you crawled out from under, or, we’ll do this the hard way.”
Kitty rolled her eyes and spoke as if addressing a child. “Stupid man. You want to know about the asylum?”
I nodded.
“Go fuck yourself.” She glared at me as she whispered and placed a manicured finger on the jewel gleaming around her slender throat. Her entire form shimmered, and I watched in awe as all evidence of the passing years began to drop away and she suddenly looked like she was in her twenties once more. “Now,” she said to Samuel, her voice a breathy purr, “come here, come to Kitty.”
He looked confused as he glanced from the succubus to me. As if he knew me but couldn’t remember why or how. I kept my eyes trained on a spot just above Kitty’s head as I raised my gun toward her. “Stop the enchantment. Now.”
“Stop what? Being beautiful? Young? Magnetic?” she asked teasingly, and softly parted her lips with the tip of her finger. “Help me.” She turned back to Samuel. “That nasty man’s threatening me.”
Samuel leaped between me and the succubus, his face impassive, but I could tell he’d forgotten who I was.
“Samuel!” Astrid growled, “Come here.”
He glance
d her way but returned his attention to Kitty as she pointed at me. “Destroy that man, honey. Get him now, him and that sour-faced bitch. They’re trying to keep us apart.”
Samuel came at me, hands raised, eyes smoldering with fury.
“Samuel!” I warned. He threw a punch. I ducked, backed away, and holstered my gun.
He roared as he tore toward me, hit me hard and took me down. I tried to shove him off, but he weighed more than I’d expected and most his bulk seemed to be well honed muscle.
I tried to evade him as he seized my throat and bared his teeth. He began to squeeze, his eyes locked on mine, flames dancing in their reflection as if he was staring into an inferno. Kitty had started a wildfire and if I wanted it to stop I was going to have to put it out myself.
I grabbed his hands and struggled to pry them back. He’d cut off my air supply and my chest started to ache. I brought my head up hard, smashing it into Samuel’s nose. He shook his head before doubling down on his efforts and slowly choking the life out of me.
I reached behind me to find anything to batter him with, but there was nothing nearby. Pure wrath stirred within me and snaked its way through my pain and bewilderment.
My other. Rising to the surface of my consciousness like a long-submerged crocodile.
Black stars danced in my eyes, my back spasmed and my fingers seized within the soft nap of the carpet. I tried to smash my forehead into Samuel’s nose once more, but he drew away and my head fell back to the floor with a thud.
Someone screamed, the sound garbled in my ringing ears.
A woman.
She sounded outraged, furious.
I knew in an instant it wasn’t Astrid.
The flames in Samuel’s eyes began to dim, and a furrow crept across his brow. His hands loosened just enough for me to pull them away and then I gasped for air and shoved him back. I staggered to my feet to find Astrid standing with the succubus’s jeweled necklace gleaming on the end of her dagger.