by Andy Remic
Yes.
Why?
Because we’ll grow old together.
What about younger meat? Sweeter meat? The sound that it makes when it cuts in deep?
Silly young girls? [laughs] You’re joking, right? Inexperienced naïve fuckers who don’t know the difference between love and sex and lust, and when not to fake an orgasm? You fuck ‘em for the first time, then they roll over and flutter their pretty little eyelashes at you and squeak ‘you’re the sixth one I’ve had’ and think this constitutes intelligent after–sex discourse? No, I think I’ve changed, Sophie. I think I’ve become a bigger man. A better person. I think you’ve done that for me. I think you’ve locked the animal in a cage. Now, I want only you.
You promise me that?
Aye, I promise you.
A tropical beach, crimson sky, sinking sun, cool breeze easing in from the south; sand between curling toes as they ran hand in hand and splashed in the heaving surf.
Won’t Vladimir be suspicious?
No, he’s here on business. He spends most of the damn holiday away on errands. Buying and selling. Wheeling and dealing. Thrilling and killing. Don’t worry about him, my love. Don’t panic! We’re here, we’re free, and we’re in love.
In love?
Yeah, I think I love you Callaghan. Why? Don’t you love me?
Of course I do.
Well say it, then.
[splashes water on her/ affects high–pitched whining voice] I don’t know if I’m ready for that level of commitment at this point in our relationship, ducky. After all, next thing you’ll be wanting me to meet the in–laws, take your mom shopping for a hat, go golfing with your dad, watch your sister horse–jumping at the gymkhana and generally do all your ironing and washing up.
Damn you Callaghan, just say the words.
I love you [she stared deep into the sincerity pools of his eyes].
You sure about that?
Of course I’m sure. I said it, didn’t I?
So I’m the only one for you?
Yeah. Just you, and the seven or eight other girls who fill my life and bed with joy. You eight, or nine, bunnies are all I need to make my life complete and fulfilled.
Bastard.
Bitch.
Fucker.
Fuck her? What, you want it here? Well babe, I really don’t want to be a killjoy so I’ll just whip off my pants and we can get down to some proper splashing monkey business.
You mean it? You love me?
Yeah babe. We’ve just got one problem.
What’s that?
Your husband.
Fuck him.
I’m sure you do, but I can’t help waking at night in a cold sweat dreaming of those 11mm Techrims he carries. After all, if he were to find us here together... intimate...
He’d kill us both.
Hmm.
Something I’m willing to live with.
And die for?
If that’s what it takes to be with you, my love.
You are so sexy...
Good. Now get those pants off. You look like you’re about to explode.
Sophie stared at the falling snow. Watched as a man was ejected from the wine bar’s window scattering glass in the snow. He lifted his head, webbed in blood, then slumped back and lay still. Vladimir appeared fleetingly, face an orgy of triumph, then disappeared. The door thumped open and Vladimir stalked out, face fury, eyes wild. Blood smeared his cheek. A cut lay sliced across his forehead, pulsing with crimson. He moved to the Mercedes. Grinned in at Sophie. His eyes shone.
She started the engine, thrust the gear–stick into reverse, and slid whining through the snow.
‘Hey?’ shouted Vladimir. ‘HEY! What do you think you’re doing? HEY!’
Sophie slammed the Merc viciously into first and glared at Vlad. ‘You fuckwit!’ she screamed through the windscreen. She clasped the steering wheel in both gloved hands. Smoke stung her eyes from her cigarette.
‘Stop right there!’ He moved in front of the car, and placed both hands on the bonnet. ‘Don’t you dare drive off without me! Don’t you fucking dare, woman.’
‘Dare?’ Sophie laughed. It was cold, and it was cruel. ‘I dare a damn sight more than you could believe.’
She hammered the accelerator and Vlad was punched onto the bonnet where he rolled and slammed the windscreen with a crunch, and rolled to the left, hitting hard snow. He grunted, stunned, then pushed himself slowly to his feet and brushed snow from his rumpled and torn Italian suit.
‘You’ll regret that,’ he said, in a crushed–velvet snarl.
‘Hey, you! Russian wanker!’
Vladimir turned. His eyes narrowed. The shaven–headed boxer was there, covered in blood, face swollen after a heavy beating. He carried a snapped pool cue. As Vladimir watched, another seven men spilled from the pub onto the snow; all were beaten, with black eyes and split lips. Each carried a weapon of some kind, broken bottles, one a baseball bat, another a broad–bladed kitchen knife. Their dead eyes spoke volumes. They meant bad business.
‘I told you before,’ said Vladimir, striding forward and un–holstering both Techrim 11mm pistols as he moved, ‘I am a Romanian, not a bloody Russian!’ And with a savage light in his dark eyes, he accelerated and opened fire on the suddenly screaming, fleeing men...
Sophie drove at speed towards – the place. She knew what was happening. Knew what was going down. And for once in her life she truly truly knew what she had to do. It was something she had never before contemplated; something which took her by surprise. She revelled in the anarchy of the act. Received an adrenalin buzz from the sheer unpredictability of her actions. The excitement! No one would believe it. And no one would understand. But her motives were sound. She smiled. Despite the entirety of her existence being a betrayal, she finally realised the truth... and it bit her hard.
She was in love.
As she drove through the snow, she drifted. She imagined. She dreamed. She remembered. Remembered a time when, under the ground, she had partaken in acts of which she was no longer proud.
The three young black girls.
Jesus, those young black girls!
How they’d tortured them. Skinned them. Ignored their screams, their wails, their pleas for mercy. But Sophie had been young then weak then easily led and that made it all OK, didn’t it? After all, a young mind was easily susceptible to the influences of older, wiser counterparts. Especially when she thought she loved one of them...
Sophie still remembered her wedding day. It had been a grand affair. Just before the ceremony, with the church filled to bursting point, the organ playing a traditional wedding march and Sophie’s father – William – gazing at her with nothing but the purest love in his eyes. He’d squeezed her hand. Then hugged her, hugged her tight; and only when his mouth was close to her ear, he’d whispered, so quiet it was little more than breath...
Are you sure?
Sure you’re doing the right thing?
Are you sure this is the man for you?
She’d gazed long and hard into his love–filled eyes. And knew, with a cold dread settling like a mask over her heart that he disapproved of her choice of man. He did not like Vladimir. For whatever reasons. To his credit, he had retained his opinions, kept his mouth shut, but deep down and only now in the voice there was a streak of hatred – yes, she read it in his eyes – hatred and distrust for the man who had captured his daughter’s soul.
God, how William had been right.
Right.
Sophie bit her lip hard. Pushed her foot to the floor.
And sped through the night.
Callaghan couldn’t breathe. The smoke and the heat filled his world. It filled his eyes and his nostrils and his throat and his lungs. He ate smoke, drank smoke and it filled him like a vessel full to overflowing and he knew then; knew he would die.
Hands touched him, moved up over his arms and tugged at the chains above. His discordant eyes fluttered open – to see the figure, shadowed,
hazy in smoke, something wrapped around mouth and nose – a damp towel? – and for a long moment, so long Cal thought he would die there was a fumbling and his arms were suddenly free and he slumped over the person, allowed himself to be half–dragged from the room past roaring flames which scorched his skin and face and hair; out into the blissfully cool corridor where the air, although polluted, was a billion times more fresh.
The person laid him out, and he choked and coughed, spluttering, body wracked with spasms, tears streaming and head pounding. He sucked in beautiful ambrosia oxygen. Then reached up, pulled the towel from his rescuer’s face, to reveal –
‘Sophie?’ he croaked.
‘Hello, my love.’
‘How the hell did you find me here?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘You’ve got to go back in; release the other man.’
‘Volos? No, he is evil. Truly evil. He will kill me.’
‘Volos – how do you...’ Cal frowned, choking and coughing. ‘How do you know him?’ Cal's mind flickered back to the fight at the lock-up. Vladimir had known him, also...
‘Again, my angel, a long story.’ She bent forward, luxurious hair tickling him, and kissed him despite the sorry state he must have described. She laughed then, tears running down her cheeks. ‘I thought you were dead. I thought Bronagh had murdered you.’
‘You’ve got to free Volos.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s the only one who knows where they’re taking Mia.’
‘Oh.’ Sophie’s face went hard. ‘Her. Yes. I forgot about her.’
‘Come on, Sophie!’
She stood, wrapped the wet towel around her face, pushed again into the pumping, billowing smoke. Callaghan waited an age; a millennium; an aeon. Then Sophie appeared, Volos resting heavily on her. He, too, slumped to the ground, choking.
‘We have to move,’ Sophie said, as Volos retained some form of consciousness. ‘The whole house is ablaze. I fear Bronagh wishes to destroy as much evidence as possible.’
Then it was there – the cut–throat razor.
It rested delicately, dangerously, against the pale white of Sophie’s throat.
‘No,’ said Callaghan. ‘She saved us.’
‘She is one of them,’ growled Volos.
‘One of them?’
‘A Feeder. A Deviant. She is a serial killer, Callaghan. A Killer. Did you not realise? She betrayed you, all along, set you up; now, she must be destroyed.’
‘What a crock of shit,’ snarled Callaghan.
‘We need to move,’ said Sophie, voice calm, eyes fixed on Callaghan. She ignored the blade at her throat pressing a thin red line against pale flesh. ‘Or we will all die. Guaranteed.’
Volos removed the razor, and stared long and hard at Sophie. Then they ran along the passage which swirled thick with smoke. Above, they heard the roar of the fire and Volos led the way, up steep stone steps without rails to a door under which smoke sent questing tendrils.
Volos kicked down the wooden portal, and beyond fire blazed. The kitchen roared with flames. Everything seemed to glow.
‘God’s punishing you for Jimmy,’ said Callaghan.
‘I need no punishment from an Inferior,’ snapped Volos, and charged through the kitchen, through the smoke and flames and launched himself at the window. His body crashed through the squares of glass and framework of wood, and he rolled on one shoulder across the gravel, coming up in a crouch, blade at the ready. Snow settled across his shoulders. Distantly, the sirens of emergency vehicles could be heard.
Cal and Sophie leapt thorough the broken window, and Callaghan grabbed Sophie, patting out flames in her hair. He stared at her blackened face; then kissed her, a long, languorous kiss.
‘I like,’ she said.
‘Whatever happens,’ said Callaghan, ‘thank–you, for coming for me.’
‘You’re kissing a Deviant,’ said Volos.
‘Go to Hell,’ snapped Cal.
‘I’m already there.’ Volos turned glass eyes on Sophie. He seemed unaffected by his trauma in the furnace–room, and although Callaghan could hardly stand, his face reddened, peeling, his hair scorched, lungs raging and choking with smoke–damage, Volos showed none of those signs. ‘You have a car?’
‘This way.’
Sophie led them across gravel to the side of the house. Cal froze when he spied the black Mercedes – with tinted windows and gleaming alloys. ‘Vladimir’s?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I will drive,’ said Volos. Then he stopped, and looked at Callaghan strangely. ‘She will betray you, my friend.’
‘No...’
Cal turned, and stared into Sophie’s opal eyes. Her beauty radiated like a live thing. He took a deep breath. ‘You won’t betray me, will you, doll? You love me, don’t you?’
‘I won’t betray you, Cal. I love you. I know that... now.’
‘A serpent’s tongue,’ hissed Volos. ‘We should kill her now, Callaghan. You know I am right.’
‘No!’ Cal turned, back to both of them. ‘No. We will do this my way. You hear me? I am sick of being a fucking pawn. We will play this game the way I want – from this moment forward. Or not at all!’ He whirled back, fury etched on his face. His eyes glowed like demons, reflecting the fire.
Unseen, Volos smiled a thin, triumphant smile.
Behind, Bronagh’s Victorian mansion squatted, a raging inferno. Timbers creaked and cracked, fire roared, and the upper stories were totally engulfed in flame. As they watched, several bricks exploded outwards and sparks showered the ground with banshee howls.
Cal took a deep breath. ‘Where are we going?’
‘To the mountains,’ said Volos, face grim.
‘That’s where Bronagh’s taken Mia?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘For sacrifice.’
‘Shit. We’d better move!’
‘As you wish,’ said Volos.
They climbed into the car. Wheels spun gravel.
And they headed away, into the night.
‘Where are you taking me?’ Mia’s voice was sullen. Brooding.
‘I told you. A quiet place.’
‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’
‘Somewhere we can... relax.’
‘And why the fuck would I want to relax?’
‘I need you to relax. Because... only then can you be my bride.’
‘Your what?’
‘Bride. We are to be wedded. Of a fashion.’
‘Call me old fashioned, Bronagh, but it’s usual to ask a girl’s permission first. If I’d known about your psychopathic crush on me, hell, I would have given you a signed photo and a fucking BJ. There was no need to go kidnapping me and shooting people. You really are a social retard, aren’t you, Mr Dumb Little Piggy?’
She saw him smile in the rear–view. It made her shiver.
‘You don’t understand, little Mia.’
‘That’s the only sensible thing you’ve said all night.’
‘It’s not a traditional wedding.’
‘What is it then? A registry office ceremony? A redneck rampage in a barn? Perhaps you want to dress up as Elvis and head for Vegas? I’m all for kinky, Bronagh, but I thought you were a married man.’
‘No. You misunderstand me.’
‘Damn fucking right.’
‘We are to be married by the soul.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You will be stripped, and I will cut little pieces from your flesh. I will eat you. I will digest you. Your blood shall run in my blood. Your soul shall dissect my soul. Only then can we truly be married, together, a blend of organics. I will absorb you into my flesh, my little black dove, for only then can I cleanse the world of your filth. I will purify you, Mia. Because, at the end of the day, you are nothing more than distilled impurity.’
Mia thought for a long, long time in the darkness.
Motorway flew past, endless signs, an endless runway of blac
k tarmac. And Mia knew; this maniac was going to kill her. Eventually. Finally. But she had to bide her time. Bide her time until another opportunity for escape presented itself.
Mia settled back. Her face was dry. Despite the pain, physical pain and mental suffering, the psychological torture, the persistent, crawling existence of fear and desolation... Mia realised, and realised it well, that the time for crying was done and gone and over; the time for tears was dead.
Only Mia was going to help Mia.
Only Mia could get herself through this.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE KILLERS
CAL SLEPT BADLY, curled up against Sophie on the luxurious leather seat in the back of the Mercedes. His nightmares were bright and vivid, were filled with pain and blood and fire. Bright white filled his internal vision and he awoke, shivering, head against Sophie’s breasts with her hand stroking his hair to calm him; as if he were a small child in need of comfort.
‘Bad dream?’
‘I... can’t remember. Christ, what I’d give for a snort of Mr Charlie.’
‘Shh.’ She stroked his face. His tortured face. ‘Go back to sleep. We have a long drive ahead of us.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘The mountains.’
His eyes closed again, only this time his dreams weren’t pain–fuelled and tinged with terror; this time they were calm, steady, and a starkly contrasted black and white.
White. Bright white. Invaded his dream. Invaded his nightmare. And then swirls, spirals of ink–black darkness which exploded outwards into a static image. Black and white – with a myriad of shades. But no colour. There was never colour.
The image showed a young girl, about nine or ten years old. She had very pale skin, jet–black hair, and a long lace–edged dress which reached to her ankles. She was beautiful – stunningly beautiful. Her head was lowered, eyes hooded. In her hands she carried a long, curved sword. The sword blade was corrupted with blood. Several drops had formed a small pool beneath the blade’s tip.
Callaghan stared at the tip.
‘Do you know why you’re here?’
Cal looked up; her mouth moved, and a beautiful young lilting lullaby emerged. Tears formed in his eyes. Everything was so stunning it made him want to be sick.