by K D Grace
“I know.” He settled me onto my feet then reached behind the seat and pulled out a battered leather jacket, spreading it around my shoulders, bathing me in the comforting scent of wood smoke, ozone and clean male sweat. It was only then that I realized I was shivering. “It’s on the house.”
He shut the door and I noticed for the first time the logo printed in bold white against the dark green of the truck. Weller Building.
“Are you Weller?” I asked, as he placed a hand under my elbow and steered me toward the café.
“Michael Weller,” he said, opening the door and nodding to a booth in the corner. “And I take it you’re Susan.”
“That would be me.” Once we were seated, he handed me a menu, but I slid it back across the table to him. “I just want coffee.”
He grabbed my outstretched wrist and held tight. “Listen to me, Susan.” He glanced around to make sure we were alone. There was only one other couple in the café this early on a Sunday morning and they were clear across the room. “You have to eat.”
He leaned over the table, and for the first time I noticed the bright blue of his eyes—how they contrasted with his dark hair and sun-bronzed skin, and the dark stubble on his chin and square jaw that made him look edgy, just up out of bed. His eyes were startling in their intensity, like some artist had created a face that was more intriguing than it was handsome, but had added, as an afterthought, a stroke of something hypnotic, something beautiful and raw, almost frightening. And yet, the man had been my savior. From what? From a bad dream? From a friend who was slowly going off her rocker?
“Listen to me,” he said again, dragging my attention back to his words with a tight squeeze of my wrist. “He starves his lovers. As he grows stronger, they grow weaker, and the more attention he pays to them, the less interested they are in food or drink or…” He looked out the window at the sparrows flitting in a sorry looking berberis that had probably been a lackluster attempt at landscaping when the place was built. “The less interest they have in anything, really.”
Then he looked back at me and I was startled all over again by his eyes. “He becomes their world, and once he’s drained them dry and moved on to someone else, they… they have no reason for living.”
With a shiver I remembered the knife in Annie’s hand.
“Are you ready to order, Michael?” I jumped at the sound of the waitress’ bird-like voice.
He glanced up and offered a smile to the chunky middle-aged woman with newly manicured nails, then he returned his gaze to me. “Two full English, Izzy, and keep the coffee coming.”
For a second, I feared I’d throw up, as I watched the woman’s blood red nails grip the pen, take the order on the pad. I closed my eyes and grabbed onto the table, trying to make sense of everything.
When the waitress left and I was sure I wasn’t going to disgrace myself in the Little Chef, I spoke between my teeth. “You make it sound like he’s real.”
The waitress brought coffee and water. Michael asked after her kids, both now off at uni, and I wondered how he could make pleasant conversation under the circumstances.
When she left again, he waited until I’d had a sip of coffee, all the while holding me in his startling blue gaze. “Oh, he’s real all right, and you know it as well as I do. How long have you been at Chapel House?” he asked, looking me over like he was a doctor and I was a patient with some unspecified ailment.
“I got there Friday evening. I’m on holiday. I was surprised that Annie invited me. She’s always so busy, but she said she had some time off, and wouldn’t it be great to catch up. And then, when I got there—”
“Strange things started happening.”
“An understatement,” I grunted. “She says he’s God.” My face burned with embarrassment at saying such a ridiculous thing, but Michael didn’t laugh. “He’s not a ghost, is he?” I asked as an afterthought, only then letting the weight of the statement sink in, the fact that I was talking about my friend’s imaginary lover as though he were real. And what was worse, my opinion was being validated by a man who seemed completely lucid and of more than average intelligence.
“He’s no ghost, but he’s not a god either.”
I took a gulp of my coffee and burnt my tongue, aware of Michael’s blue gaze.
“Susan.” He took my hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze that really didn’t reassure me at all. “Susan, have you… have you dreamed since you’ve been at Chapel House?”
Michael nodded to my right bicep, where the jacket, way too big for me, had slid off my shoulder to reveal four oval bruises the color of overly ripe plums. I slid out of the jacket and shifted in the seat for a better look. They could have almost passed for the inked fingerprints the police take when they book someone.
Bile rose to my throat. I swallowed hard and turned to examine the other arm, finding similar marks. “It was a dream. It was just a dream. It had to be.” I hadn’t noticed when I woke up in the gloomy gray of the windowless room, wouldn’t have thought to look, when all I wanted to do was get the hell out of Chapel House as quickly as possible.
But there was the experience in the bath, the smell of roses, the constant feeling of being watched, being touched; there was what I’d seen last night with Annie splayed on the altar. And then… what had happened after. It couldn’t be real. None of it could be real. And yet the bruises were there, and it was no mystery what had caused them.
The waitress appeared with the food, but I don’t remember much after that. My brain chose that moment to rebel, because none of this could be real. It was all a bad dream, and I was in my own bed in my own flat, having the worst nightmare ever. Had to be! Absolutely couldn’t be anything else!
I remember shoving my way out of the booth and running for the door, desperate for air, desperate for the return of sanity, desperate to get away… far, far away. Mostly I remember being desperate to wake up.
Chapter Five
It was the trickle of sweat under my arms and along my ribs that brought me back to myself. My arse ached from sitting on the hard cement. The sun baked down on my back and a large hand gently stroked between my shoulder blades. At some point, Michael had joined me. I couldn’t say when.
“You’re all right. You’ll be fine. It’ll be okay.” His voice was barely more than a whisper, but his touch was solid and comforting. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but better you know. If you don’t know, you can’t fight.” He stood and offered me his hand. “Come on back inside. I’ve had Izzy keep the food warm. You need to eat.”
Back in the Little Chef, Izzy delivered the reheated plates, offering me a look of sympathy. Then she gave Michael a smile and a nod, refreshed our coffee cups and left. He gestured to my plate. Grudgingly, I forced the first bite of eggs past my gag reflex only to discover that they tasted pretty damn good.
Michael watched as I gulped two more bites, stuffed half a piece of toast in my gob and washed it down with coffee. He raised his own cup and held my gaze. “When was the last time you ate?”
“I don’t know.” I thought about it while I polished off a rasher of bacon. “I guess the last real meal I had was the takeaway I ordered my first night at Chapel House.”
His gaze was beginning to make me squirm. “That’s a long time between meals.”
“I’ve had a lot on my mind, what with Annie behaving so strangely and all.” But even as I said it, I felt the skin on my arms prickle. I wasn’t known for my lack of appetite. I, who never missed a meal augmented by several snacks in between. The only time I wasn’t hungry was when I was asleep, and even then sometimes I dreamed of food.
His own meal barely touched, he sipped his coffee, then leaned across the table, still holding me in blue scrutiny. “Susan, tell me about the dream.”
I’d eaten my breakfast and half of his and sat shivering in his jacket by the time I’d finished telling him about last night, struggling to keep the details to a minimum and the whole experience at a safe distance.
/> We waited for Izzy to fill the cups again, then I plucked up my courage, rubbing my arms, now tender where the bruises bloomed and darkened. “It wasn’t a dream, then.”
“Some of it was, fortunately.” He nodded to where I still chafed my arms. “Those are evidence that it wasn’t all a dream, but the fact that you woke up in your own bed… Well, something interrupted his efforts, I’d say.”
“But how could that be?” I remembered the feel of being battered, being invaded, falling through the bottom of the world; I remembered the empty eyes of the angel, his hand extended to me in invitation.
He leaned closer across the table until his forehead nearly touched mine. I was struck by how large he really was. I’m tall and well muscled, but he made me feel petite, delicate. Why hadn’t I noticed that before? His big hand came to rest on mine, and his voice was a soft rumble I felt deep between my hipbones, almost like the first intimations of a storm. And fuck, if he didn’t quote John Donne!
“Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
*****
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.”
By the time he was finished, I was shivering uncontrollably, and I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so frightened. “So he’s not God, this imaginary lover who seduced my friend and nearly raped me, but the rape part was a dream because God rescued me from this devil or demon or whatever the fuck he is before he could do the deed? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
He downed the last of his coffee and pushed his plate aside. “I’m only trying to tell you that nothing that’s happening to Annie or to you is straightforward. Things are always way more complicated than the stories in the mythology books, or even in the Christian Bible, make them out to be.”
We sat in silence for a long moment as a young couple tried to settle two small children and a toddler into a booth nearby.
“It was a seduction, not a rape,” he said, absently watching the man maneuver the squirming toddler into a high chair. “He doesn’t want to take you by force. He wants you to come to him willingly. He’s not above hurting you if you don’t, but it’s your free will he wants most. He wants you to want him like you’ve never wanted anything in your life. Your lust, your desire for him, that’s the thing that empowers him most, you see?”
Even the thought of my experience in the bathtub made my nipples tense, and the fact that the sensation low in my belly wasn’t entirely fear made me flush with anger. “No. No, I don’t see. I don’t see at all. Is he a demon?” I spoke the word through my teeth, the shape of it the bitter pip at the center of sweet, ripe fruit. “Or… maybe an incubus? I mean he did come to me in a dream, didn’t he?”
“He’s neither, but he has characteristics of both. He’s what he needs to be. He has no definition, not really, and he’s attached to the place, you see? That place, the place where Chapel House was built, was a site of power long before Christianity came to Britain, long before there was even a name for the ancient powers, the forces that command the changing of the seasons and the ebb and flow of the tides. That was back when people lived in fear of the dark, and offered sacrifices to drive back the forces they didn’t understand, the forces that led to famine, starvation, death. He was always there. That place, it’s his place, and he’s happy to share it, needs to share it, actually, but his hunger is as bottomless now as it was when the blood of virgins and young warriors stained the altar stone.”
“How the hell does a builder know all this stuff?” I asked, tugging his leather jacket tighter around me.
He shrugged. “I make my living doing renovations of listed buildings mostly. I do a lot of old barn conversions as well, and church and chapel conversions, of course. I specialized in that area because I find the history of the places I renovate fascinating. I know just enough about archeology to understand that old buildings often have a history older than the building itself, and that history often connects them with the space where they’re built. When your friend hired me to renovate Chapel House, I jumped at the chance. I got more than I bargained for,” he added as an afterthought.
There was another long silence while the little family discussed the menu and the toddler fussed and wriggled. “I have to get my stuff,” I said.
“He won’t let you go easily,” Michael replied, slapping down money for the bill. “Especially if what Annie said is true, and he had her send for you. You’re the one he wants. You’re the one he’s chosen.”
“You said he wanted me willing. Well I’m not.”
He held my gaze. “You weren’t even tempted?”
I felt color rush to my face, and the bruises on my arms tingled as though they had just been caressed tenderly. He didn’t wait for my reply. It was obvious, I guess.
“Susan, you have no idea just how persuasive he can be. If you wanted him, if you were tempted even a little bit, he’s already found a way in. The only way to keep him from getting what he wants is to get as far away from him as possible, and even then he won’t make it easy.”
“Jesus,” I murmured, closing my eyes.
Michael said nothing, but I could feel him watching me.
“And Annie?” I asked, at last.
He looked down at his hands, now folded on the table as though he were about to say a prayer.
“What about Annie?” I asked again, feeling my chest tighten and my throat constrict.
“I don’t know.” His voice was barely audible. “If he’s had her call you. If he’s already grooming you.”
“He’s not grooming me,” I said, a little louder than I intended. “I’m not his for the taking, and I want my friend out of there.”
He said nothing, just sat there, still looking at his hands.
“I have to get my stuff,” I said again. “My phone, my car keys, my computer. All my stuff is there. I want it back.”
This time he did look up at me and smiled. “Yes, she told me you were a writer.” Then he added quickly, “In the beginning, when she first hired me, she told me, and I know enough about writers to know that the tools of their trade are their treasure. Especially in this day and age.” Then, before I could respond, he stood and offered me his hand. “Come on. Let’s get your stuff back.”
Twenty minutes later we stood together at the front door of Chapel House, our knocks going unanswered. My calling through the door that I just wanted my stuff drew some suspicious looks from passersby, but no response from inside.
“She’s in there,” Michael said. “She’s just not responding.”
“So what should we do? Call the police?”
“I don’t think so.” He took me gently by the elbow and turned me about. “I know another way in. You were staying in the guest room, right? I’ll get your stuff. You wait in the truck.”
We walked in silence back to the alley where he’d parked, and he helped me up into the cab. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
“Hold it.” I grabbed his arm. “My phone. I dropped it in the transept last night when I… when she was with him… when he came after me.”
He placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. “Don’t worry. I’ll get it.”
“Be careful, Michael,” I called after him as he headed through the wrought iron gate.
It felt like I waited ages for him to come back. I was just about to get out of the truck and see if I could find him, when I noticed a splash of color under a bramble thicket on the alley side of the fence. I slid from the seat, leaving the door open in case I wanted to return in a hurry. Reminded of the bruises on my arms, I wondered just what good I thought that would do.
There under the brambles were my things, as though someone had tossed them in a heap over the fence
. Ignoring the prick of the brambles and the sting of nettles, I tugged and pulled both my travel bag and my shoulder bag free. Holding my breath, heart pounding, goose flesh climbing my spine, I dragged everything back into the truck then slammed and locked the door behind me.
My computer was safe in its sheath inside the shoulder bag, right where I always carried it. Down in the little side pouch next to my car keys, I found my cell phone and my wallet. Everything was in place. The clothes in the travel bag, my toiletries; everything had been neatly packed before it had been tossed over the fence.
The relief of having my stuff back was short-lived, though. My thoughts returned to Michael. What the hell was taking him so long? Was he still looking for my stuff? He didn’t know Annie had thrown it out, after all.
Once again I slid out of the truck and closed the door carefully behind me. The alley was deserted. I smelled neither roses nor burning garbage. Perhaps Annie was occupied with her lover and neither of them noticed me. Or perhaps they were occupied with Michael and he was in trouble. As an afterthought, I opened the door again and pawed through the space behind the seat until I found a screwdriver, not a big one, but big enough to do some damage if I needed to. But then, what was I going to do? Use it on my friend? Clearly it would do no good on this lover of hers. Nevertheless, I gripped it tightly, shut the door behind me and headed through the wrought iron gate.
Almost immediately I found myself engulfed in the overgrown garden. With heart pounding, I stood for a moment, trying to get my bearings. It had seemed like a straight shot from the back door to the gate this morning when Annie had kicked me out. Surely I would have remembered the way. Surely it wasn’t so complicated.
I squared my shoulders and moved forward into the garden, convincing myself that all I had to do was follow the main path.
Ten minutes later, I realized the folly of my decision as I pushed and shoved through ivy and overgrown hawthorn, adding new scrapes and scratches to those already stinging from recovering my bags. I smelled neither roses nor garbage, only the thick, rank scent of summer vegetation.