Trance

by Southward, Adam

  ‘Who . . .?’

  ‘Doctor Stevenson,’ said Victor. ‘Dr Emily Stevenson. You supervised my treatment in Comăneşti Orphanage in 1985. I’m number thirteen.’

  The woman’s lips trembled and she stuttered something incoherent. Victor whispered again to her. ‘Sit up,’ he said.

  The woman lurched upwards, the speed belying her age. She swivelled around to face him on the edge of the bed. Victor remained standing, some three feet away.

  ‘I have come for you,’ said Victor. ‘Some are already dead. The rest will be soon.’

  Again the doctor stuttered. Her hand spasmed as she tried to reach out to him.

  ‘I didn’t . . .’ she began, but her brow furrowed. She searched his eyes and he saw the recognition appear.

  Victor was satisfied, and whispered to her, indicating the plastic bag, still held by the fragile fingers of her left hand.

  ‘I forgive you,’ he said.

  Her eyes objected but her body didn’t. Her hands slipped the bag down again, over her face, tight around her neck. She held it to create a seal, and the suction as she tried to draw breath dragged it into her mouth.

  She thrashed. Her body was fighting but her mind held fast. The more she convulsed, the harder she held the bag tight around her neck. She was old, but still strong enough to fight and make a noise. She lashed out with one arm, catching the lamp on the bedside table. It teetered and fell, knocking over a glass of water as it went. Both smashed and the thud and crash of broken glass echoed in his ears.

  Still Victor watched. He tilted his head, whispered again, and the arm withdrew, pulling the bag tight. Victor leaned in, studying the frantic battle between her mind and body, the confusion of wills. Only one could win.

  Her movements began to slow, her breath laboured. He wished he could see her eyes, but the bag obscured them, the condensation blurring the inside. A few seconds more and she stopped breathing, her body giving up.

  Her life extinguished by her own hand.

  Victor paused to savour the moment, but he was aware of the noise she’d made. He needed to get away. Getting caught again would cause too much delay. He had no wish to go back to a cell and his symptoms would start again soon. He dreaded the onset. It made him weak and angry. He must go.

  He made it as far as the top of the stairs.

  ‘Professor?’ It was faint. The carer, her voice high-pitched and concerned. ‘Emily,’ she called again, ‘are you OK?’

  Her voice wafted up. From where? He couldn’t see her. The only escape was the stairs, so that’s the way he had to go. Down he crept.

  ‘Professor?’

  He froze as he saw the carer slip across the hall in her socks, approaching the banister. An outside lamp by the front door cast enough light through the window to show her silhouette. Slow motion as she turned at the bottom of the stairs to face him. He was still eight or nine steps up, rucksack on shoulder. Unfamiliar and dressed in black, he must have looked like a nightmare.

  She didn’t scream at first. The situation took two or three seconds to register in the dim light.

  Victor shouted, no longer frightened about the noise. But he was too late. She screamed at the same time, drowning out his instructions. The trance didn’t take hold and she ran.

  He dropped the rucksack, jumped the remaining steps and sprinted after her. The bag tumbled down the stairs, coming to rest by the front door.

  The girl screamed as she reached the kitchen, slamming the door in his face as he pursued her. He barged through, splinters of the door frame scattering on to the floor as he lunged at her. She scrambled back, slipping on the tiled floor and falling into a seated position against the kitchen cupboards. She screamed again.

  ‘Please! Don’t hurt me.’

  It’s too late, he thought, advancing on her. He couldn’t leave her.

  He spoke again, trying to grab her with his instructions, but she was talking over him, pleading, screaming. Her wails prevented him from finishing his sentences. He was out of breath from chasing her, and the thumping intensified in his head.

  He didn’t have long. He’d soon be too sick to fight her.

  He leaned over, hand in his pocket, searching for his penknife. He couldn’t find it and took his eyes off the girl, peering into the recesses of his jacket.

  She took the opportunity and jumped up, thumping past him, heading towards the hall. He swore as she caught him off balance, but before she reached the door the girl trod on a piece of splintered door frame, the sharp wood digging deep into the sole of her foot. Crying out, she staggered sideways, her socks causing her to slip and twist her ankle.

  His heart raced and the headache deepened – a yawning background thump, signifying a much worse pain to come. The girl was trying to get up, hobbling, weeping loudly, blood pouring from her foot. He grabbed her by the hair, dragging her back to the kitchen and throwing her on to the floor. Her head cracked on the tiles and her eyes rolled. She coughed and tried to lift her head, begging. ‘Please. Please let me go.’

  He stared at her, confused and unsure. This wasn’t in his plan. She shouldn’t die. Or should she? What would the instructors say? They would tell him to finish it. He had no choice. It was sad, but it had to be. He looked around, keeping one eye on the girl, wary she’d run again. She screamed and his ears filled with pain.

  His eyes settled on the knife block, but it was empty. Next to it sat a pot of utensils. He picked the biggest thing in there: a mallet with a metal head, used for tenderising meat. It was heavy and the metal looked sharp. His mind raced and the nausea took hold, the elephants in his head stamping their feet.

  The girl was conscious, but dazed. She saw the mallet and gasped, putting both her hands up. ‘No,’ she repeated, over and over. ‘No. Please no.’ He frowned, feeling sorry for her. She was so pretty. It was a shame.

  Hefting the mallet in the air, he hit her as hard as he could. She lashed out with her hand and deflected the blow. There was a wet thud as it hit her shoulder, the metal cutting the skin. He grunted and lifted it again for another go.

  The screams were louder now, desperate and uncontrolled. No words, just noise. He couldn’t have that. It might alert the neighbours, who might call the police. Police would be bad. He wasn’t finished yet. He couldn’t get caught again so soon.

  Straddling the girl, he put his left hand over her mouth and hit her again with the mallet, on the side of her head. He wasn’t sure what to aim at, but this time she went limp. He felt the heat of her blood on his hand as it raced out of her scalp, the skin broken. Her screams cut out, replaced by a weak muttering. At least it was quieter. He took his hand away from her mouth.

  He raised the mallet again but something stopped him. Her eyes were open but vacant, her lips parted, trickles of blood running down on to her lips. Was she dying? He didn’t know. He didn’t need to hit her again. He’d just wait.

  It was only 1 a.m. There was plenty of time. He looked around into the hallway. His bag was still there, where it had tumbled down the stairs after him. He mustn’t forget it.

  Turning back to the girl, his breathing slowed. He placed the mallet on the wet tiles and moved his face closer to hers.

  Why did the guilt tug at him so?

  He leaned back and stared at her body. She was still moving: small, gasping breaths. Her head injury must be severe. A cough or two as her body struggled. Her top half was a mess, covered in blood.

  He stared at her face, watching her lips tremble as she struggled to breathe. She fought to keep her eyes open, trying to keep Victor in her sights. She looked so young, so innocent, but he could see the terror in her eyes. Terror he’d put there. He gasped as memories began to flood over him, and closed his eyes against the growing stampede in his head. He could see the past; he remembered. The dormitories. The young girls, so many of them. Laura was one of them, crying herself to sleep at night, trying to hold her breath to choke back the tears, hoping that the dormitory supervisor wouldn’t hear her. Th
e supervisor would stand at the doorway, watching for dissent, waiting until the children appeared to be sleeping before she left.

  Victor had tracked the supervisor down. In his teens, many years after the soldiers had taken them away and he’d escaped. He roamed the city and grew into a young man and discovered his talent made it easier to live undetected.

  She wasn’t hard to find. She was old and careless, retired and showing no regret for what she’d done. She didn’t care that all the children had been taken away to their deaths. She said she did, but she didn’t. He could tell by the way she screamed.

  Victor told her she’d pay for what she did. She didn’t have a choice.

  He’d followed her, back then. At a cafe, he’d lent her correct change for the vending machine and she’d bought a coffee with it. She smiled and joked and hadn’t recognised the boy she’d abused.

  It was in a parking lot. Dark. Underground. He didn’t want to put her in a trance; he wanted her to watch, just as he’d been forced to. He found a quiet spot, pinning her to the floor.

  She screamed and he clamped his hand over her mouth. He ripped her clothes and hit her until his fist swelled and his knuckles bled. He twisted her bones and dug at her nerves. His mind spiralled as he looked down on the monster, willing himself into action.

  Cars raced by overhead and the occasional headlight lit up the concrete wall behind him. He waited, and remembered, and waited. He pictured those nights when she had hit him, punishing him for showing even a shred of emotion, a hint of the child within. He remembered the sick satisfaction she had taken in exerting her power, reducing him to a snivelling, grovelling wreck. He imagined the other children, night after night.

  He held her head as she’d held his, forcing her to stare at him. He released his hand but she shouted and raged, hitting and scratching, calling him scum, even laughing at him. He was the first to break eye contact and he turned away, hiding his tears. He couldn’t do what she did, and he hated himself for it.

  Instead he forgave her in the only way he knew how. He pushed a knife through her throat and whispered his forgiveness into her right ear. He pulled her dress back down to cover the bruises and left her there.

  He cried all the way home, his actions consuming him then for many months. However, it was foolish to think he could do such a thing without repercussions. The police swarmed all over the city and his face was known. Gathering his few belongings, he set off and travelled for years on end, never staying in the same city for long. Eventually age brought a change in his appearance and the authorities stopped looking.

  Now, in the home of another tormentor he had forgiven in his own special way, he opened his eyes and saw the young woman in front of him, her skirt hitched up, helpless. His stomach tensed at the sight of what he’d done. The nausea surged and his headache thumped, masking the churning in his stomach, low down where his body knew something was wrong.

  He reached for the girl’s skirt and pulled it back down, covering her underwear. He patted it on to her legs and tried not to let the sorrow overcome him. Hitting her had been necessary and he had no choice. But he didn’t need to do anything else. He didn’t need to forgive her. This wasn’t what he wanted. It wasn’t what Laura would have wanted.

  This young girl could live. She’d done nothing wrong.

  He checked her pulse and then he left. His ability was spent and he needed sleep and painkillers. He must recover quickly, for he had so much to do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  A tall woman stared at Victor’s crouched body from her vantage point in a garden across the road. She and her friend observed in silence, and it was some moments before she released the breath she was holding. Child thirteen, one of the puppet masters, was displaying what he could do. The boy who’d walked away into the Romanian village of Sălătruc and whom Natalia hoped she’d never see again.

  Natalia’s own number was fifty, and her life had been hard since Comăneşti. She had no doubt Thirteen’s had been too, but Natalia had come in from the cold a long time ago. She had purpose, if little choice in what she did.

  Her face twisted in disgust as she watched Thirteen bending over the young woman. She hissed and recited her words but was held back by Freak. He placed his hand on her arm to calm her.

  ‘He didn’t kill her,’ said Freak, always one to state the obvious. ‘Did you see that, Natalia? He let her live.’

  ‘He killed the professor,’ said Natalia. ‘Upstairs somewhere. You saw it.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Freak, raising his eyebrows. ‘Do you care?’

  ‘Yes, I care, Freak,’ she said, using his name from the orphanage, which she only did when angry. He flinched.

  ‘Perhaps he has it right,’ said Freak. ‘Don’t pretend they don’t deserve—’

  ‘Why are you being like this?’ said Natalia.

  Freak held his tongue.

  Natalia put her hand on his arm. ‘This is our job. Our purpose . . .’

  Freak looked at her, his eyes troubled. They both knew he was never destined to be anything. He was within an inch of being discarded when Natalia found him.

  ‘Thirteen was—’

  ‘I know what Thirteen was,’ said Natalia. ‘He didn’t have a choice then. But he does now.’

  Freak nodded, as he always did when Natalia insisted. She believed in their mission. Whether Freak believed or not, it didn’t matter. She was in charge. She had to endure her fake existence, her play-acting and fruitless attempts to figure out their prey.

  ‘You think it’ll be easier now he’s out of prison?’ Freak closed his eyes again.

  Natalia knew she was taking her time. She didn’t need Freak reminding her.

  ‘I hope so,’ she said, although she was far from sure. She felt her own anxiety bubbling up at the chaos in front of her.

  Freak also knew how hard it had been for them both over the last few weeks, since Thirteen had reared his violent head and things got noisy here in the UK. The people Natalia and Freak worked for didn’t like noise. Their organisation relied on a quiet, delicate approach, and they wanted this mess tidied up – fast. Thirteen needed to be dealt with, and Natalia was the one to do it. So far, it hadn’t gone to plan.

  ‘We were sent to put a leash on this dog,’ she said, wishing it was that simple.

  ‘He wasn’t supposed to get away, was he?’

  Natalia threw Freak a dirty look. She feared Thirteen and Freak knew it.

  They watched Thirteen stagger from the house and away. Neither fancied confronting the man, not yet. Not until he was weaker, or he made a mistake. There were always cracks, and Natalia and Freak were practised at looking for them. Their talents – Freak’s ability to run interference and resist control, and Natalia’s to take it – complemented each other if used well, and they’d been encouraged – forced – to make it work. They had brought in no less than four products of the Romanian experiments so far, and two more from Russia. This was their mandate, as the fallout of that period of history was slowly but surely brought back under wraps. For what purpose, Natalia had her suspicions, but she couldn’t air them. Her masters did not negotiate.

  But Victor was their seventh and most lethal target by far, the strongest they’d ever been sent to hunt. When she made her move she’d need to be absolutely certain of victory. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘They might not wait much longer,’ said Freak. ‘Might they?’ His eyes gave away his fear. They knew they were on a tight leash themselves.

  ‘What choice do they have?’ Natalia knew there was always a choice. Put a bullet in Thirteen, and both of them. The thought was never far from her mind, always left unsaid. ‘They’ll wait,’ she said, convincing herself. ‘They’ve waited this long for him. Big-game hunting is dangerous; it takes time.’

  ‘Whatever you say.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  And it wasn’t like they had another plan. After Thirteen’s escape from prison, she’d asked to be brought back in
and they’d refused.

  Figure it out, they’d told her. Don’t come back until you have him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Alex woke to the sound of Jane in the shower. She finished up and returned to the bedroom, dressing quickly in silence. The familiar smell of Cerruti perfume wafted over him. Grace had often worn that fragrance, and the thought of her caused a stir in Alex’s stomach, another pang of regret.

  Jane grabbed her bag from the dressing table and made to leave. ‘I’ll be late tonight, OK?’

  Alex lifted himself from the pillow. Jane smiled. Their eyes met, but she turned away, perhaps not having the energy to deal with him this morning. He couldn’t blame her.

  Alex slumped back into the pillow. His neck and shoulders ached all over. He felt his forehead and glands but there was nothing to suggest he was ill. Just tired.

  Jane left, the front door slamming slightly harder than it needed to. Alex slid out of bed, heading straight to the kitchen. He filled the coffee machine with water and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes while it spluttered into life. Checking his supply of Xanax, he popped one and made a mental note to call Mikey, his pharmacist, at the earliest opportunity.

  Before he’d fallen asleep last night he’d had an idea, and now he mulled it over, trying to think above the noise of the dripping coffee and the incessant buzzing of his phone on the table. He huffed, feeling a headache coming on, pulled his shoulder joint until it cracked, then shuffled his feet on the cold tiles towards the phone. Grabbing it, he headed for the bathroom.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It’s me,’ said Sophie.

  ‘Hi. It’s early.’

  ‘I wanted to check . . .’

  Alex rubbed his eyes, in need of caffeine, or perhaps just proper sleep, undisturbed by his frantic anxieties. ‘I haven’t heard anything. You?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you at Whitemoor?’

  Sophie hesitated. ‘Are you worried?’ she said. ‘That Victor might come after you?’