Morrow drew his hand away. ‘You’re in a police station. You’re safe now,’ he said.
‘Nowhere is safe anymore,’ she replied.
Morrow noticed her slipping back into the trance-like state they had found her in. He leaned towards Reeves and whispered, ‘I’m going to call Ridley, get him to come over here and evaluate her condition.’
‘What are you telling me for?’ Reeves enquired.
‘Because you are going to wait with her until he arrives.’
Kate was fading back into her own mind fast. Morrow wanted to ask her one last thing. ‘That creature we saw pick you off the schoolhouse roof, do you know what it was?’
‘No, but Jerrico can tell you – it belongs to him.’
‘Belongs to him?’
‘You’re not going to hurt Jerrico, are you?’ Kate asked.
‘It sounds as if we should be more afraid of him hurting us,’ Morrow said.
Sins of the Tall Grass
1
Briaridge Orchard, Bedfordshire
Evelyn carefully opened the door to Jerrico’s room. He stirred in his bed. Once certain he’d settled again, she crept over to the window. The daylight had all but faded. A brown autumn glow remained, casting strange fairytale shadows across the manor’s grounds. Evelyn thought it apt. The spring and summer had taken place in another life, where only their human identities mattered. They had all wandered in autumn’s shadow ever since the whispers of Celeste had awakened them to this new, unwelcome reality. She knew that they stood on the brink. Winter was on its way. The insidious chill deepened every night. She would give anything to see a sunset. She could see the intense hub of light struggling to break free from its blood red oppressor. One wave of sunlight sweeping over the landscape would be enough to stave off the inevitable sense of dread in her heart. Evelyn pulled the curtains together. She could no longer bear to look. The disappointment was too great.
Jerrico seemed at peace in the darkness. She leaned over the bed and tucked his sheets around his shoulders. As volatile as he was, Evelyn was always struck by an overwhelming urge to mother him, even more so than with Stuart. Something so fragile resided within him that at any moment in his rage, she feared he would break. She turned from him and made her way to the hallway, never noticing Jerrico’s open eye.
Heven sat outside reading his book. They had decided to take it in turns guarding his door in case he tried to make yet another escape. Heven had volunteered to take the first shift, bringing with him a chair from the kitchen and Doris Lessing’s Shikasta from the manor’s impressive library. He glanced up from the page when he heard Evelyn’s footsteps.
‘How’s he doing?’ he whispered.
‘He’s asleep, at least,’ Evelyn replied.
‘That’s something most of us can’t manage.’
Evelyn spied the open book. ‘I loved to read, you know, but it’s never occurred to me to do so since we arrived here.’
‘You should – might never get the chance again,’ Heven replied. His thought was a morbid one, but it made perfect sense. Maybe she should go and pick one from the shelves. ‘Would you like me to get you anything from downstairs?’ she asked.
‘Nah, just make sure that someone comes to take over in a couple of hours. My ass is already numb from this damn chair.’ Heven smiled and went back to Doris.
2
Jerrico sat up. His body was fatigued. He felt as if his veins were alight, pumping fire instead of blood. He knew just from the soreness that his eyes must be red raw. The rage that had overtaken him came from a place Jerrico always knew existed. It had been inside of him from the beginning, enticing him to embrace it, right up to the point when he rebelled, and it separated from him. It didn’t make sense. If it extinguished itself in the creation of Clover, how could it still be inside of him? Maybe the creature’s proximity had brought it back to life.
He dipped his head to try to ease the ache in his neck, pressing his face into the duvet. It still smelt of her. She had gone for good, and what was worse, she’d left of her own accord, deciding that she preferred to take her chances with the dammed than be coerced by the inhuman. From now on, she would only ever see him as an imposter, and he could do nothing about it. All of the power burning within, and he could not save her. She would soon be participating in Cradleworth’s nightmare opus like the rest of humanity.
The urge inside him burned. He pulled one curtain aside so he could look upon the manor’s perimeter. He spied Clover, the source of what called to him, crouched at the edge of the woodland, staring up to his window. Jerrico could only see the outline of the creature’s body, but he knew what it wanted – to talk.
3
Stuart loitered in the entrance hall, anxiously flicking the Jollybird’s control stick with his thumb – not enough to propel the chair forward, making the stick rattle in its resting position.
Evelyn met him at the foot of the stairs. ‘He just needs to rest now,’ she said, trying to stem the boy’s uncertainty. ‘It’s going to be tough for him, but we’ve all got to pull together. Besides, when he’s got you for a friend, he can’t possibly think that he’s on his own.’ She reached down to caress his tight curls.
He nodded, staring down at his useless legs. He hated feeling sorry for himself. He’d hoped that scared little boy would never show up again. ‘How much more does he have to suffer? If he tries to—’ Stuart paused. It did not matter. Evelyn knew what haunted his thoughts. ‘What I mean is – Kaleb isn’t here to do anything about it.’
‘I don’t think he will do that to himself again,’ Evelyn replied.
‘But what makes you so sure?’
‘He loves Kate, with all of his heart. Even if he can’t save her life, he will not give up the chance to save her soul,’ Evelyn said.
A smile invaded Stuart’s face. ‘A pissed off Jerrico and we might have a chance,’ he said.
‘Exactly.’
‘Stuart!’ Martha’s call alerted them. They rushed to living the room at the front of the house. Martha stood against the leaded glass of the main windows, looking out onto the manors exterior.
‘What?’ Evelyn asked, startled.
Martha looked down to Stuart. ‘Your buddy’s back,’ she said.
Without pausing, Stuart executed a u-turn and headed back into the main hall, so desperate to get out, he caught one wheel of the Jollybird on the edge of the front door’s frame. Barnes was still a fair distance away, and trudged along the path as if he carried a passenger on his back. His head hung so low his snout almost touched the ground. He was panting, the steam from his hot breath billowing up into the air like smoke from an extinguished fire. As Stuart ventured further out, he could see that his fur was coated in a dull, grey substance.
Barnes regarded him with only the feeblest of nods, struggling to get his front paws onto Stuart’s lap. ‘Are you okay? What happened, boy?’ Stuart stroked his head, careful not to run his fingers over the nasty cut set crooked across the bridge of his nose. The soot from the dog’s fur was smeared over his palms, and Stuart studied the black substance with curiosity. Barnes tried to bury himself between Stuart’s legs. ‘Is it Eric?’ Stuart moved one of his hands to Barnes’ belly, flinching when he touched the hard matted tips of singed fur. Barnes could only reply with a desperate and exhausted whimper. ‘I know how much he meant to you,’ Stuart wrapped both arms around the dog’s neck, pushing his forehead into his fur, ‘but I’m so glad you’re safe. I didn’t think you would be coming back.’
Barnes blinked. The last thing he wanted to do was talk to anyone, but what he had witnessed in Chester was too important to keep to himself.
4
Jerrico clambered down the walls of the manor, using the tangled ivy to help him. Still weak from his brutal display of power, he nearly slipped a couple of times before he reached the ground. He stood at the edge of the woods, peering into the darkness. Clover had disappeared from sight, but he could still feel him close. Their sense of each other was growing by
the day. When Jerrico was a child, they had been separated physically, and after Ridley had taken him into his care, mentally. He had no context for how he was feeling back then. He just listened to his doctor’s explanation, eventually trusting his judgement. It was a nice illusion while it lasted, but there was no going back, no matter how many pills he forced down his throat.
‘I know you’re there. I’m part of you as well, remember?’ Jerrico said.
Clover emerged from the shadows behind the tree line holding the partial corpse of a small animal. The raggedy pouch of torn fur and blood looked like it could have been a rabbit. Its red juices ran from its mutilated head, down through Clover’s hooked fingers. ‘Clover’s always been there, even before Jerrico set him free into this world.’ The creature’s mouth dripped with the rabbit’s insides, making its southern drawl even more difficult to decipher.
Jerrico smiled through his own malice, nodding his head in agreement. ‘You know what? You maybe a twisted, murdering fuck, but you won’t let me down, ever, will you?’
‘Jerrico needs a talk with Clover.’ Clover skirted round about him, as if it were stalking its prey. ‘He knows what he godda do. Cradleworth waitin for him in the darkness, and Cradleworth will wait forever and ever if he needs to.’
Jerrico shuddered, half turning in the direction of the manor. ‘I can’t. I don’t ever want to look into the eyes of that thing again, ever,’ he said.
Clover edged closer, staying low to the ground in submission. ‘Jerrico can do it – know it don’t feel that way now.’
After all he had been through, all he’d suffered, glimpsing beyond Cradleworth’s bottomless eye cavities was a terror he did not wish to return to.
‘If Clover knows it, then, deep down, Jerrico must know it too.’
Jerrico looked upon his creation. For the first time, he viewed the creature without fear or repulsion. It lasted only for a moment, but in that moment, Clover seemed to carry a macabre kind of beauty. Its skin glinted and changed colour under the red moon, like an elegant Hawk Moth rising from the woodland foliage. ‘Maybe that’s why you exist. Maybe, I just couldn’t stand to have that knowledge inside of me anymore,’ Jerrico said.
‘Then Jerrico has to reunite with it, reunite with Clover.’ Clover stepped out from the protection of shadow and closed in on him, sniffing the air to catch his scent.
For once, the creature showed no apprehension, creeping up on him until it was inches away. Jerrico took a step back but Clover shifted behind him to block his escape. Its breath singed the skin on his neck and the sensation transported him back to lying face down on the carpet of his old house. He couldn’t move, weighed to the floor by his monster, whose body dripped with the blood of his slain parents. Underneath his clothes, the scars across his back burned with the memory of Clover’s knife opening up his flesh, again and again.
‘Jerrico can still save her,’ Clover whispered.
Jerrico overcame his fear enough to turn and face it.
‘His princess ain’t dead, nor is she gonna be.’
Clover reached out to touch his face. Jerrico wanted to pull away, but he feared that if he did, Clover would not continue with its latest revelation.
‘No way Cradleworth would see her harmed. She’s collateral, in case he thinks he can’t defeat Jerrico.’
‘He’s really that worried?’ Jerrico asked.
‘Shittin in his britches.’ The tips of Clover’s fingers brushed against the underside of Jerrico’s chin, and the flesh of both rose to meet, to converge, aching to become one. Jerrico recoiled, reaching up to his face to check that it was not transforming into something hideous.
Undeterred, the creature sloped towards him. ‘Accept Clover back, and Jerrico will taste her again, taste her on his lips.’
To Jerrico’s horror, he realised what it wanted, what it had wanted from the day they had come face to face in Celeste’s room. He understood its hunger, how long it had waited. Have I not suffered enough? Jerrico thought. Anything but this. Kate’s beautifully pale skin washed through his mind, only his undying need to see her allowed him to succumb. He sat down at Clover’s feet, taking a long, quivering breath before he lay back in the cold grass. Clover smiled down upon him, hitching up the dirty dress it wore, so the hem reached the top of its scrawny, varicose thighs. Jerrico unbuttoned his jeans and arched his back to pull them down to his ankles. To his surprise, he was already hard for the creature. His penis began to throb and burn as clover lowered itself onto him. Their flesh started to amalgamate just like before. Clover’s moans rattled from its throat and its writhing increased in pace. It placed its hands on Jerrico’s chest, and he could feel his skin trying to reach out through his clothes. He could not look at the grotesque sight on top of him any longer. He turned his head to one side, peering through the long grass to the manor. Room by room, each light in the house came on as the sunlight faded fast, accentuating the burning conflict within the clouds.
Clover pounded down upon him, their pelvic bones colliding with sickening thuds. The creature wheezed and spluttered. The burning spread from Jerrico’s penis, throughout his whole body, as if Clover was thrusting itself inside him. The pain approached such a level that it became its opposite – pain and pleasure, indivisible. Jerrico finally turned back to Clover. It snatched its head back to the sky, roaring like a beast in a feeding frenzy, pushing down onto him harder and harder. Jerrico’s breathing quickened too. His head started to spin and the sickness churned in his stomach. The sensation made him want to come, and when he eventually did, it felt inverted, as though he were coming inside of himself. Clover let out a final, strangulated roar.
Close to passing out, Jerrico’s body fell completely numb, as if all the blood had pumped out of him when he’d ejaculated. Unlike Jerrico, Clover seemed revitalised. The surface of the creature’s skin had taken on a new, polished tone. It leaned in towards Jerrico’s face, still wheezing through its rotten teeth. ‘Cradleworth ain’t gonna know what hit him – you’ll see.’ It grinned once more, pulling Jerrico out of his euphoric agony, ashamed and dirty.
Clover could see the disgust in Jerrico’s eyes and was not impressed. ‘Sooner Jerrico truly accepts what he is, better off he will be, better off the world will be.’ With that, Clover lifted itself, separating their flesh once again. Before Jerrico could raise his head from the damp earth, Clover had disappeared back into the shadows of the woodland.
5
Knightsbridge, London
The recently refurbished corporate suite of the Berkeley Hotel carried the familiar smell of newness. Pascal Ramirez had stayed in many like it during his frequent business trips to London. Of course, that was the last thing on his mind. Many of his associates had expressed concerns when the news of his son had broken. In light of recent events, none of it seemed to matter anymore – business, healthy or otherwise was irrelevant.
Pascal could not stop his hands from shaking as he reached over from the bed for his glass of bourbon on the rocks. He didn’t know what else to do now he had faced the cameras and made his plea. It is hard for any father to accept their child’s a murderer, especially when the circumstances are so inconclusive and bizarre. It was his decision alone to entrust the welfare of his son to Professor Daniels, and by all accounts, the doctor had driven himself beyond accepted boundaries with his thirst for discovery. Heven spent years treated as nothing more than a lab rat, and Pascal had not noticed.
When Victor Tread was killed in a drunken bar fight in Dansbury, the police discovered their first solid link to Heven. The FBI had been onto him long before that, telling Pascal some bullshit story about how witnesses noticed someone matching his son’s description at the scene of the other two murders, fleeing as soon as the men had fallen. Pascal didn’t care much for what the police were telling him either. One detective had a theory that Heven was somehow administering a drug that induced a seemingly natural death. There was never any evidence to back up these claims, as Pascal’s legal team po
inted out.
The police, however, were undeterred, their suspicions reinforced by Heven’s refusal to come in for questioning. Pascal knew why he would not turn himself in. He was trying to push his old man’s buttons, letting him know who was in control. The longer he could avoid capture, the longer he could draw the whole thing out, and the more damage he would do to Pascal and his companies.
Pascal contemplated the cruel irony, as he lifted his aching back. Through all the suspicion, he was the only person truly aware of his son’s guilt. The incidents bore too much resemblance to the death of Professor Daniels for it not to be true. Pascal couldn’t understand why Heven would choose to kill the others or what purpose it would serve, or why he travelled halfway across the globe.
He had used his money and influence to do some digging of his own. Heven’s alleged victims did have one other thing in common. The state found Billy Dean Bedlam of Pendleton, Oregon, guilty of raping a fourteen-year-old girl in 1982. He’d served his time, even though the authorities were convinced he was the man responsible for the molestation of two other girls in Pullman in ‘79.
Heven’s next victim, Uri Gorski, an immigrant who’d settled in Bakersfield California, died of a supposed aneurism. Only then did the police find evidence linking him to a previous child trafficking ring in his native Poland.
The same with Victor Tread. His wife came forward after her husband’s funeral. He’d been abusing her for years, sometimes punching her in the groin until she could hardly walk.
They were all bad men, men that few would miss.
He heard the lock click on the hotel room door and Duncan Fennick, one of his aids, entered. ‘Our contact in the police force told us something strange, but I think it’s worth checking out,’ Duncan announced.
Pascal ran his hand over his hairless head. ‘What is it?’ Duncan could not get the words out fast enough for him.
Infanticide (Fallen Gods Saga Book 2) Page 16