80
JONATHAN FRAZER looked at her closely. He’d noticed her the moment he’d stepped into the bar: a slim dark-haired, pale-skinned young woman, maybe nineteen, maybe twenty, looking awkward and out of place here. A tall, stunning African American woman chatted to her for a few moments on a few occasions before disappearing with two different men. He knew what she was, but the younger woman was different. He closed his eyes, squeezing them tightly shut, attempting, without success, to call up the figure of the image. He looked at the woman through slitted eyes.
Did it matter what she was? She was still cattle. Flesh and muscle, bone and blood. Especially the blood. She was an animal about to be butchered and sacrificed to the image.
He leaned back against the wall, his left arm extended, feeling the pressure of the knife against his forearm. It was a risk wearing it in case he was picked up by the police, but it gave him such a feeling of power, of control, of authority.
Jonathan Frazer sat forward, and stared into his glass of Coke. Reflected in the dark surface, he saw his own haunted expression, his deep sunk eyes, the lengthening stubble on his chin, the new lines around his eyes.
The image looked at him.
Startled he looked up and around the room.
And saw the beasts.
The people were still there, but surrounded now by thin glowing ovals of light. As they moved, the ovals shifted, moving with them, sometimes hardening to a reflective surface, then dissipating to reveal, not the person beneath, but the flickering image of an animal, a fleshy beast with the attributes of a human, a man with the face of a swine, a woman with the huge eyes of a cow, a small man with the feral features of a rat. The shimmering ovals were wan pinks and delicate greens, pale blues, insipid yellows. But one was different: the woman at the bar was bathed in a warm blood red light that so was intense he could barely make out her features beneath it.
Jonathan Frazer was on his feet before he was even aware that he was moving. The beasts parted before him.
81
TONI WATCHED the guy move through the crowd, and knew instinctively that he was making his way towards her. Tall, thin, with a three-day growth of beard on his face, and a directness about his gaze that she found disconcerting. His clothing was good quality, but looking a little rumpled now, as if he had slept in them.
Watch out for the crazies, Frankie had warned her.
He stopped in front of her, saying nothing, simply staring at her. She attempted a smile, but found she couldn’t meet his eyes.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said hoarsely. “A girl like you is too pretty, too good to be doing this.”
Surprised, she looked up, staring into his eyes. She thought she saw genuine pity there. But Frankie had warned her about this type, too—the type who wanted to save her from herself.
“You’re new.” The man moved in beside her, and she caught a faintly musty, damp smell from his clothing. “Let me guess: a husband unemployed, the rent due, bills to be met or maybe you’ve lost your job?”
Toni nodded. Was he a pimp, a social worker, or the police maybe?
He shook his head, drawing his fingers through thin black hair that needed a wash, pulling it back off his face. “It doesn’t matter, does it? What matters is that you’ve been forced into doing this.”
“Are you going to tell me there’s another way?” she asked boldly.
“No,” he shook his head, surprising her. She expected him to give her an answer; everyone had an answer to her problem. “If you see this as the solution to your problem, then so it is.”
“I owe money,” she said suddenly, surprising herself. “Over three hundred dollars to a money lender. He’s grown threatening. I think he’s going to hurt my baby if I don’t give him the money.” She had no idea why she was telling this stranger her story.
“How much do you charge?” the man asked gently. Now the shadows beneath his eyes lent them compassion.
“Forty.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“This is my third night.”
“And how much have you earned so far?”
“Eighty,” she whispered.
“Tonight?”
“Over the past two nights. I’ve had two men…”
“Come with me then, and I’ll pay you two hundred and twenty dollars on one condition…”
“What’s that?” she asked fearfully, expecting to discover that he wanted her to do something kinky.
“You ask me no questions.”
“No questions?”
“None.”
“You don’t want to do anything … odd, do you?”
“Not in the slightest,” he smiled. “Just the most natural thing in the world.”
Toni slipped her hand into his. “No questions then.”
* * *
NOW, SHE HAD a hundred questions, and she didn’t like the answers she was getting.
She had been reluctant to bring him back to her apartment; there was only one room and the baby slept in the crib in the corner, and when he had suggested his place, she had immediately agreed. He gave the taxi driver an address in the Hollywood Hills. She’d immediately thought he owned a place but when he led her past the side of the main house and towards the guesthouse she realized he only rented the place. Standing outside the door of the guesthouse she felt an uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. She heard him muttering when he discovered that the door was already open.
“Do you live here … is it OK for you to be here?” The last thing she needed was to be done for trespassing or breaking and entering.
He looked back over his shoulder. “The house is empty; everyone is away. I’m … I’m looking after things. I work here,” he added as an afterthought.
Toni followed the man into the dark interior of the long room, wrinkling her nose at the dry, musty smell … similar to the smell that clung to his clothes. A hand—dry and cold—reached out of the darkness and found hers, pulling her deeper into the shadows. “Sorry, there’s something wrong with the circuit breakers, the electrician is supposed to be here tomorrow morning,” he murmured, his voice little more than a whisper. There were objects piled high all around, but with an almost uncanny knack he led her deep into the pitch-dark room without bumping into anything. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she could make out the vague squares of the windows and similarly lighted rectangles high in the ceiling. The man—she realized he hadn’t given her a name, and hadn’t asked for hers in return—dropped her hand and moments later she heard the rasp of a match being drawn across sandpaper and a tiny yellow light flared. He put the flame to a tall white candle, creating a warm circle of yellowish light.
There was an enormous mirror in front of the candle that helped reflect the light. She looked into it. The glass was old and warped: she imagined she could see shapes twisting in the darkness behind her. And then she jumped, her hand flying to her throat as a pale face materialized out of the shadows behind her right shoulder. “Jesus! You frightened me!”
“Sorry.”
The dancing candlelight lent him a ghastly expression, deepening the shadows under his eyes, shading the stubble to create a skull-like appearance. He moved around in front of her and handed over a thick wad of twenty-dollar bills.
“You can count it; there’s thirty there. Consider it a bonus … buy something for your child with it.”
Toni put the money into her bag without counting it. “I think I can trust you,” she said, smiling.
“I think you can,” he agreed, his lips drawing back from his teeth in an imitation of a smile.
Without another word, Toni began to undress.
82
SKINNY, FRAZER thought, flat-chested, narrow-hipped, her stomach still carrying the weight of the child. He watched her undress without the slightest flicker of emotion, and when she was naked, he came around behind her and stood with his hands on her shoulders staring into the glass.
“What do you see?” he ask
ed curiously, wondering if she saw the woman standing behind him.
“You … me,” the young woman smiled.
He urged her forward with his hand in the small of her back. Her flesh felt cold, clammy. When she was close to the glass, he reached over her shoulder to touch it, his fingers pointing to the darkness beyond her shoulders.
“What do you see there?” he asked again.
“Shadows,” she whispered. Her skin began to ripple with gooseflesh. Frankie had warned her about these guys—the crazies. Humor them, her friend had said, humor them and when you get your opportunity, run like hell. But make sure you get paid first. “What do you see?” she asked hoarsely.
“Shadows,” he said with a smile. He moved around behind her until his dim reflection in the glass was almost completely obscured by her body. With both hands he drew her hair back off her shoulders. “I think candlelight is more romantic, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Do you know there is an old wives’ tale that if you stand a lighted candle before a mirror, you will see the face of your lover behind your left shoulder?” His face suddenly appeared over her left shoulder.
“Does this mean you’re going to be my lover?” she asked coquettishly.
“Absolutely,” Frazer whispered, his hands at her hair again, then moving down to her throat, across her breasts, onto her slightly rounded stomach. The woman closed her eyes and rested her head back on his left shoulder. Maybe he wasn’t that crazy after all, just Hollywood weird.
Frazer drew the knife out of his left sleeve. It was a twelve-inch mid-nineteenth century Japanese tantō. Designed for piercing lacquered armor, it slid effortlessly into the woman’s flesh just above her groin. He felt the tremor run up her body and the fingers of his left hand locked around her throat as he savagely ripped upwards, eviscerating her, flooding the mirror with gore. He pressed the wildly spasming body against the glass with his weight, eyes and mouth wide with savage glee. This shouldn’t be some nameless whore, it should be his slut of a wife. She was no better than them. They did it because they had to; she did it because she enjoyed the rutting. She was a beast, cattle. She should be in his arms now, with the knife buried between her breasts, her body cut open, slaughtered like the animal that she was. He threw back his head and screamed her name aloud, “Celiaaaaaaaaaaaa.…”
83
CELIA FRAZER awoke in absolute agony.
She opened her mouth to scream, but it was as if an iron band was locked around her throat. The pain in her stomach was so intense, a spear of agony just above her groin.
It was her appendix … no it couldn’t be, she’d had it taken out.
An ulcer, a burst ulcer, a bleeding ulcer.
She’d made love with Colin earlier that evening. They’d ended up on the floor with him pounding away as they both screamed and grunted their way to orgasm. He’d been buried so deeply insider her; maybe he’d damaged her, ruptured something …
Celia threw back the bedclothes and desperately attempted to raise her head to look at her stomach, every movement an agonizing effort. She was bathed with sweat, her hair sticking to her head. She managed to raise her head a couple of inches so that she could look at her reflection in the mirror of the dresser directly opposite the bed.
She could see nothing.
She blinked, not sure if the mirror was fogged or her eyes clouded.
And now she could see a thin red line on her flesh.
The pain was a live thing now, boiling inside her, ripping up through her body, pure and absolute anguish. Her head dropped back to the pillow, eyes squeezed tightly shut, tears squeezing from beneath the firmly clenched lashes and then with a monumental effort she managed to lift her head the few inches to look into the glass again and saw that …
… flesh was parting, skin folding back almost neatly, to reveal the raw muscle beneath, and then that, too, was peeling back to show glistening organs …
With a sudden wrench, her entire stomach burst open, lengths of intestines coiling onto her skin, curling onto the bedclothes. Blood and thick gobbets of flesh spattered everywhere, the walls, the ceiling, the mirror.
The pain took her, wave after wave washing over her body, in surges of ever-increasing intensity, finally concentrating on the spot between her breasts, where her heart hammered so hard it was difficult—no, impossible—to draw breath. A new pain, solid and cold blossomed beneath her left breast, slid up into her shoulder and tingled down along the length of her left arm.
The new pain took her and finally claimed her as she heard something bestial howl her name in the distance.
The bedside clock showed 2:22 A.M.
* * *
JONATHAN FRAZER KNELT on the floor of the guesthouse in the blood and tattered flesh of the woman and pressed himself against the glass, staring intently into it. He could see the image of Celia Frazer and her lover lying naked on a bed, arms and legs splayed. He focused on his wife: she had been torn apart from groin to breast.
* * *
COLIN MARINER AWOKE with the dawn as usual. His dreams had been particularly vivid—he’d made love to a woman, heavy breasted, dark-eyed for what seemed like an eternity—and he was almost painfully aroused. He rolled over, his arm going across Celia Frazer’s breasts.
And then he sat bolt upright recoiling from the chill of her flesh.
Scrambling from the bed, he looked down on the woman. Her eyes were wide open and glassy, her skin clammy, and even before he pressed his hand beneath her breast he knew there would be no pulse. Heart attack?
Colin closed her eyes and attempted to remember the prayers of his Catholic upbringing. He should say something. He was going to miss her; she’d been fun and he had genuinely liked her. But at least she’d died peacefully in her sleep after a night of lovemaking.
That was the way he wanted to go.
84
AN ECSTATIC shiver rippled through the enormous astral whirlpool, vibrating deep in its core. The pulse throbbed throughout the Otherworld, bringing dreamers all across the city abruptly awake, shivering from nightmares, while children awoke crying at shadows.
One by one, the dogs of Los Angeles began to howl, until the entire city echoed to what sounded like the cries of the damned.
* * *
IN LOS FELIZ, Joe Thompson came awake from a startlingly vivid erotic dream. He rolled over in the bed and turned to the digital alarm clock on the bedside table: the glowing green letters read 2:21 A.M.
Jesus Christ! But if he’d told those people once, he’d told them a hundred times that their fucking dog kept him awake howling outside his window. And he’d just done a thirty-six hour straight shift at Walgreens because two of the other managers were sick and they were already short-staffed with cut backs.
When he worked days, the dog kept him awake at night.
When he worked nights their kids kept him awake during the day.
Well, right now, he’d just about had enough.
The big man staggered out of bed and pulled on a pair of ratty jeans over his plaid flannel sleep pants. He hauled on a polo neck sweater and slid his feet into ancient slippers before stamping into the kitchen. Pulling back the drapes he peered out into the high-walled backyard. The fucking dog was running around in a circle in his yard—wouldn’t do it in its own yard, oh no—howling its head off.
Thompson wrenched the back door open and pitched an empty tin can at the animal. It missed and clattered off into the darkness, but the sudden sound made the animal stop, and it turned to face the big man, a growl beginning deep in its body. The dog was a nondescript mutt, but big and wiry with a mangy black coat that left hairs everywhere. Thompson reached for another can and tossed it at the dog. This one struck it squarely on the nose.
Without a sound, the animal leapt for the man. He saw it coming and slammed the door in its face, seeing his own reflection in the glass … but the animal kept coming, exploding inwards through the glass, its teeth finding and locking on his
throat even as the shards of flying glass ripped into the big man’s face, destroying his eyes, while simultaneously disemboweling the dog. It was 2:22 A.M.
* * *
IN CULVER CITY, Kenneth Pearson awoke at 2:21 A.M. with a pounding in his head that was positively frightening. He sat up in bed, holding his head in both hands, imagining he could actually feel it throb.
OK. So he couldn’t drink … what was it, how much … an entire six-pack? Or was it two six-packs? So maybe six had been one too many … or seven too many.
Thankfully his parents were asleep when he got in; they would have been less than impressed. Drinking beers was something rowdy teenagers did, not well-educated kids. Mind you, at the time he could see the attraction of it, and he especially remembered the attractions of that girl … what was her name?
He shook his head savagely … and instantly wished he hadn’t. The pain in his head was excruciating, and he needed to puke. Christ, his parents were sure to hear him throwing up. He’d have to use the downstairs bathroom.
The young man staggered out of bed, and discovered that he was still dressed, but his brand new Levi’s jeans were stained and the heavy black leather motorcycle jacket hanging on the end of the bed had a long strip hanging off it.
Fuck! That jacket had cost him a fortune.
With his stomach roiling, he hurried down the stairs and ducked into the toilet in the narrow corridor between the kitchen and the stairs. Leaning straight-armed against the sink, he stared into the mirror, squinting against the pain in his head. He felt like he was going to die. Kenneth squeezed his eyes shut, feeling beads of sweat begin to pop out on his skin. He rested his forehead against the cool glass. Why had he ever agreed to go out with the rest of them? It wasn’t as if he even liked beer, it wasn’t as if he even liked alcohol; good, old-fashioned fizzy Coke was his drink.
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