by Jon Jacks
The Desire: Class of 666
Jon Jacks
Other New Adult and Children’s books by Jon Jacks
The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly
The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale
A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)
The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator
Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll’s Maid – The 500-Year Circus
P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers
Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)
Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel
Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak
Text copyright© 2015 Jon Jacks
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Chapter 1
Do you desire to know what true desire is?
Is it the desire for beauty?
For wealth?
Success?
Happiness?
That which we desire most is so often denied us
The desire we have for another: that is our heart’s desire
The Desire
I knew I’d been foolish to think the book would somehow change my life.
‘Here we are, Miss. You did say the corner of Bloxum Street?’
The taxi had come to a halt. I switched off the cab’s reading light, closed my book.
It had been a disappointment, the book.
I’d felt strangely drawn to it, when I’d seen it in the second-hand bookshop. It was ancient, its binding shredding. Some pages were barely held in place. The leather cover was worn to a tattered softness. Even so, the pages appeared older still, with the unbending crispness of a medieval manuscript.
Yet, having already read the book once, I’d begun reading it again. Wondering if I’d missed something.
Wondering if, like I’d tried to tell myself when I’d bought it, that it was obviously crazy to think the book had somehow been calling out to me.
‘Miss?’
‘Oh yes, yes! Sorry, sorry.’
Slipping the book back into my bag, I searched quickly through my purse for enough money to both cover the fare and include a reasonable tip.
‘Keep the change.’
‘Thanks, Miss. Goodnight; and be careful walking along there. It doesn’t look very well lit.’
He ducked slightly as, peering out through the taxi’s windshield, he drew my attention to the streetlamps. Many were flickering, or were simply vandalised to a point where they no longer worked at all.
‘Thanks for the warning,’ I said, stepping out onto the kerb.
As the cab moved off, I suddenly felt strangely alone on the surprisingly darkened street. I only lived a short walk down a narrow passageway from here, yet had never known the area to look so forlorn and forbidding.
All this damage to the lamps must be fairly recent. Were the people responsible still hanging around?
Despite the slight chill in the air, I took off my long coat, revealing my police cadet uniform beneath. To provide an extra aura of untouchable authority, I slipped on my cap too.
It all made me look far more confident than I actually felt.
How many people would I be facing if they were still around?
How aggressive would they be? How resistant would they be to anyone daring to challenge them?
Perhaps it would be best if I never encountered them, and I simply managed to get home safely. I decided, too, that there wasn’t any point briefly halting beneath one of the irritatingly flickering lights, as I’d intended, to take another look at the book.
In the back of the cab, everything around me had constantly fluctuated as we’d passed through bright cones of streetlamp illumination and areas of deep, angular shadows. In this flowing light, the book’s illustrations bizarrely appeared to differ slightly from the ones I remembered. It was a trick of the light, of course: yet I would have liked to check that my memories weren’t playing me false.
What sort of police officer would I make with an untrustworthy memory?
‘Officer! Officer! Thank God you’re here!’
A teenage girl of around my age was running towards me across the small green fronting a line of large houses. She wasn’t easy to see in the dim light, being oddly dressed in an archaically long, incredibly tight black dress.
‘Ah, I’m not a–’
Ignoring my attempt to warn her that I wasn’t a fully trained officer, the girl urgently grabbed my arm, pulling me with her as she turned back onto the green.
‘Please, please! You have to come! Someone’s been murdered!’
*
Chapter 2
There’s a darkness within you
A neediness to be liked that
(Hah! How ironic!)
you dislike about yourself
The Desire
The young girl’s running was awkward, constrained as it was by her unusual dress.
I ran with her, letting her continue to just about drag me towards a house ablaze with lights. Loud music came through the open door, along with the excited, senseless jabber of partially drunk people.
It was a party. A party that, for the most part, as yet seemed oblivious to any wrong doing that had occurred.
I’d given up attempting to explain that I was still in training, that I was way too young to be deemed a fully competent officer. In her panicked need, and no doubt also due to the poor lighting, this poor girl had obviously mistaken me for a fully-fledged policewoman.
How would it look on my training record if it became known that I’d turned down a person in need, a young girl’s cry for help?
Suddenly faced by a real-life incident, is a trainee really supposed to just make her excuses and run away from it?
Or would she be expected to show initiative?
I can, at the very least, take a look at this supposed incident.
It may well be a false alarm after all, a boy or girl who’s fainted, rather than someone who’s been killed. Or, at the complete opposite end of the scale, someone who’s taken too much drink or drugs and immediately needs an ambulance. In which case, if I failed to act, I’d be held responsible for a young adult’s unnecessary death. And all because I hadn’t felt competent enough to simply check a potential crime scene.
No matter what the reality, I should be capable of offering reassurance, of calming things down, and restoring some sense of order to an otherwise chaotic situation. I have my cellphone, as well as a few useful numbers; I can call up a more experienced team, and wait for them to arrive and take charge.
We’ve hit the glow of the light from the windows. The dress the girl’s wearing is even odder than I’d originally thought: more costume than retro style, like I’d presumed. It also has a ridiculously wide and high collar, combined with a layering of flimsier material that flows about her as if it were a bothersome mist. There are incredibly dark purples and greens amongst the colouring too.
A Disney evil queen, that’s what it reminds me off. For the first time, I also notice that she has some kind of even weirder hat in one of her hands: all black again, with large, curving horns coming up from the sides.
The queen from Sleeping Beauty. Or Maleficent. Was that the t
itle of that movie?
Stepping in through the door to the house is like entering the world’s most bizarre circus. It’s a fancy dress party, but one where all the kids have enough money to really make a go of it. The costumes are well made, perhaps professionally so, and either hired or bought from specialist shops.
There are witches, ghouls, vampires, werewolves, aliens, zombies, Frankenstein monsters. There’s also someone in a bright red devil’s outfit, complete with tail and black horns. Another is only partially dressed, and carrying a witch doctor’s mask under his arm as he drinks from a bottle.
‘Class of six-six-six,’ the girl says, obviously noting my wide-eyed surprise as we swiftly force our way through all these incongruously loudly laughing people.
Are they really all still unaware that the grim reality of death, perhaps even murder, lies somewhere in this very same house that they’re all having such fun in? Or is it that some of them are aware that someone lies dead, but just don’t care, or fooled themselves into thinking it has nothing to do with them?
‘The theme, I mean,’ the girl explains further. ‘How I asked them all to dress. The Class of six-six-six. Any evil person they can think of, from movies or books.’
‘Aah,’ I mouth, as if thankful for her explanation.
Actually, even within the experience of nothing more than my training, I’ve learnt that man doesn’t have to conjure up mythical beasts to see a manifestation of evil; more than enough evil already exists in the human heart. The harsh reality of serial killers, of murderers who take great pleasure in ensuring their victims suffer pain that anyone else would find unimaginable. Evil lies within man, not in creatures conjured up by our minds to excuse our own actions.
What kind of murderer has been at work tonight? Surely, hopefully, not someone on that sadistic level. But, of course, sadistic enough to take someone’s life.
At the foot of a long, curving flight of stairs, a winged harpy is happily flirting with a boy in an all-black uniform, an SS officer, I guess. The girl dodges past them to lead me up the stairs, prompting me to drop back and follow on behind. The stairs are too crowded for us to continue forcing our way through while keeping abreast.
We pass Mr Hyde, a couple of medieval torturers, a goatee-bearded Spanish Inquisition cardinal. Two characters slovenly dressed in Victorian clothes leave me briefly bemused until I see the labels ‘Burke’ and ‘Hare’ fixed to their tall hats. These two stand off to one side at the top of the stairs and, as the girl leading me approaches them, I realise they’re guarding a closed door.
Seeing my uniform, they give me a pleased, welcoming nod. It’s odd, two body snatchers greeting someone they’ve assumed to be a police officer.
One of them opens the door for the girl. She steps inside, and I follow close behind.
As soon as we’re inside, either Burke or Hare closes the door behind us.
A bedside light is on, otherwise the room is pretty dark. However, the lamp throws out enough light to illuminate the girl lying face down upon the double bed. Her dress is long and multi-layered, perhaps Elizabethan in style. Her long, dark hair is spread out to either side of her head, hiding her face. Her arms, too, are spread out. One hand drapes limply over the side of the bed. A foot hangs over the bed end, the shoe close to dropping off and falling to the floor.
Next to the lamp, on the bedside cupboard, there’s a small glass tumbler. It’s empty but for a few drops of what looks like water but could, of course, be vodka.
Has she taken pills, washed them down with the water? Is this suicide rather than murder?
Is she even dead? Is she just soundly asleep? Completely knocked out? In dire need of an ambulance?
Drawing closer, however, I see the blood matting her hair. An immense, ridiculously curly red wig is crumpled beneath her face, half on, half off.
Was it knocked off like this when she was struck by her assailant?
Naturally, there’s not much chance of finding the murder weapon–
No, it’s there: to one side of her. The side in shadow away from the light. The dried blood on its corner, the corner that obviously struck her, gleams in the little light reaching it.
Leaning over the girl’s body – yes, I believe it is a body now, for there’s none of the steady rise and fall you’d expect from a still living, breathing human – I take a closer look at the object used to kill her.
It’s a book. A book I recognise. Because I’d thought it was probably unique. Thought it was too old to be wildly available.
It’s just about falling apart along its ragged binding.
Its cover is partially shredded, and of incredibly worn leather.
It’s another copy of The Desire.
Instinctively, strangely, I pat the side of my bag, feeling for the bulge there that says my own copy is safe.
It’s not there. The bulge in my bag isn’t there.
And that’s when I suddenly know for sure; the book on the bed isn’t another copy.
It’s my copy.
*
Chapter 3
We forget that reason is simply an instrument we created to try and make sense of the world
And so we believe the world is a mystery to be solved
The Desire
How did I know the book is mine?
How could it possibly be mine?
I don’t know; I honestly don’t know.
‘She is dead…yes?’
The girl is fretfully wringing her hands. Her eyes glow in the light from the lamp.
Eyes that say, ‘I hope I’m wrong. Please say I’m wrong.’
I nod in reply to her spoken question.
Carefully, as an extra precaution, I check the pulse of the dead girl’s limply hanging wrist. I have to disturb her as little as possible.
Who knows what will be regarded as important evidence when more qualified help arrives?
There’s no pulse.
She’s undoubtedly dead.
And, going by the strike to the head, the murder weapon conveniently left behind alongside her, she was murdered too.
My book, the murder weapon.
Just how will that look when help arrives?
Help that I haven’t actually called for yet.
‘I found her like this.’ The girl just about grits her teeth, she’s so overcome with anguish. ‘When I came up to make sure no one was misusing the bedrooms.’
‘We need to make sure no one leaves the house.’
I say it almost absently to the girl. I’m leaning over the glass on the bedside cupboard. I sniff at the contents. Once again, I avoid touching anything.
There’s no sharp alcohol smell. It’s water, almost definitely.
‘You don’t need to explain to anyone,’ I continue, noting the girl’s anguished expression.
She doesn’t want any of her friends to panic.
She doesn’t want any of her friends to know someone has been killed at what she’d hoped would be the party of the year.
‘If anyone’s outside in the garden, call them in. Then lock the doors and windows.’
She’s still standing there. It’s too much for her to take in all at once.
‘Ask one of the guys on the door to do it,’ I advise helpfully. ‘You know, Burke and Hare?’
She turns, heads back to the door, opens it and jabbers excitedly to one of the body snatchers.
I take out my cellphone, go through the motions of dialling a number.
That’s all they are; motions.
The numbers are random. Useless.
‘Hi, this is Officer Denham,’ I say into the phone’s mouthpiece. ‘I need forensic assistance for a suspected murder on Bloxum Street.’
I look back towards the girl as she comes back into the room.
‘Number?’ I say quietly.
‘Number 6,’ she says.
‘House number 6,’ I say into my phone
I act like I’m waiting for a response before supposedly cancelling
the call and slipping my cellphone back into my pocket.
It’s my book on the bed.
With my fingerprints on every page.
When help finally arrives here, I’ll be their prime suspect.
*
Chapter 4
You’re something of a puzzle
You know that
You’re open to what life can offer
You’re more intelligent than you’re given credit for (in your own, specific way)
And yet, and yet…
It’s not working for you, is it?
The Desire
I just need time to think, that’s all.
Then I can call for help.
Put down the delay to…well, I’ll figure that out in a moment too.
‘Has anyone already left the party?’
When I speak, I manage to hide the nervous tremor I can feel in the back of my throat. Well, I hope I’m hiding it. I need to sound authoritative, in control.
It can only be a matter of time before someone spots that my uniform isn’t right: that it’s the uniform of a mere cadet, not a qualified officer.
Hah, as if that’s the only giveaway.
Maybe the fact I’m younger than many people here: that’s probably enough to bring my whole ridiculous charade crashing down.
‘I’m…I’m not sure.’ The girl answers my question nervously. She’s worried that not being able to give a straight forward answer somehow makes her guilty, or at least culpable. ‘It…it’s a party: people going and leaving whenever they want. All the time.’
I nod; figures.
‘And the girl? You know her?’
The girl shakes her head.
‘She was heavily made-up: but I’m sure it’s no one I knew. No one from our school. You know; you have a sort of feeling, don’t you, for who someone is? Even when they’re in a costume?’
‘Your school? The private school: Weldon Girls School?’
‘Yes. How did you know?’
A house like this. Your more refined, less hurried way of talking. Your well-off, if not necessarily rich friends.
‘So, what was she doing here?’ I ask, ignoring her own question.
‘She came with a boy I do know.’
‘From the boys’ school?’
Most of the boys invited, I suspect, are from Highcliffes, another private school.
The girl shakes her head.