Colour of Death, The

by Cordy, Michael

  Delaney couldn’t believe it. The man still didn’t understand. Don’t be so obtuse. These are much more than echoes: they’re spiritual footprints, a trail left by the departing astral body. A trail we can follow.”

  “How can you know that?”

  How can I know that? Had the psychiatrist not been listening? Did the man not understand that he was the Seer? Delaney’s veneer of civility suddenly deserted him. “How dare you fucking question me? How dare you doubt me? What do you know of this? Have you studied the phenomenon? Have you experienced it? Of course you haven’t. I have.”

  Fox still wouldn’t back down. “Whatever it is, your Great Work’s over,” he said. “When the police come looking for me—”

  “They’ll find nothing,” Delaney snarled. “You were never here.” He indicated Kaidan. “The police don’t think the killer was linked to us before, why should they think he is now? Not only have they no proof Kaidan was ever in Portland, they don’t even know of his existence. And the police won’t find anything to interest them in here. A silk garrote is used for every sacrifice, which leaves no blood or mess, no trace at all.”

  “What about the bone pit in the forest?”

  Delaney thought for a second, absorbing the fact that Fox had found the burial ground. “What about it? It’s simply an unconventional burial site on private property — an offering back to nature of our discarded bodies. Assuming the authorities do find it, Kaidan will have already removed anything remotely incriminating. If I were you, Dr. Fox, I’d worry less about dismissing the Great Work and more about what’s going to happen to you.” He turned to his daughter. “What do you think, Sorcha? Will you kneel on the lotus flower, touch the amethyst and then tell me they’re nothing more than empty echoes or dumb imprints?” Sorcha didn’t move. “I thought not.” He turned to the Wives. “Enough of this. Take her away.”

  While listening to Delaney talk about his precious tower and Great Work, Fox had been studying the man, trying to understand better who he was dealing with. Throughout his career Fox had interviewed numerous patients and criminals with every form of psychosis and neurosis, but the ruthlessness of Delaney’s psychopathy and scope of his megalomania were in a different league. Not only could the man not comprehend why anyone would be horrified by his Great Work, he demanded adoration for its brilliant vision and execution.

  Fox’s main focus had been on Kaidan, however. He’d been waiting for when the big man might lower his guard — and rifle. That moment came when Delaney ordered the Wives to take Sorcha away. As the Wives approached, both Regan Delaney and Kaidan shifted their attention for an instant, and Fox took his chance. He lashed out with a straight punch to Kaidan’s solar plexus, then he turned and hit him hard, aiming for the larynx with the point of his elbow. But Kaidan twisted as he fell, protecting his throat. Fox reached for the rifle, but before he could wrest it from Kaidan’s fingers Delaney was upon him. He was strong and it took Fox precious seconds to fend him off by slamming the heel of his hand into Delaney’s face with a satisfying crunch. By then Kaidan had recovered enough to ram the rifle barrel into Fox’s gut and then slam the stock against his back. Fox’s legs buckled beneath him and he fell to his knees, winded. As Kaidan stood over him and raised the rifle butt Fox tried to catch his breath and defend himself. Then Sorcha stepped onto the amethyst and threw herself at her half-brother.

  “Leave him alone.”

  “You’re on the amethyst, Sorcha,” said Delaney, spitting blood from his mouth. “You care that much for Dr. Fox?”

  She ignored Delaney and bent down to Fox. “I’m so sorry, Nathan,” she said. “For getting you into this.”

  “It’s OK,” he wheezed. As the Wives pulled her away he tried to rise to his feet, but Kaidan hit him again. “Where are you taking her?” Fox demanded. “What are you going to do with her?”

  Delaney bent down so his face was inches away from Fox’s. His skin was white with anger. “That doesn’t concern you anymore.” He revealed a syringe in his right hand and injected the contents into Fox’s shoulder. The instant he felt the jab Fox knew it was ketamine. He could feel the numbness running like ice through his veins. He tried to fight the drug but knew it was futile. His head fell to the floor and before his face lost all feeling the polished amethyst felt cool against his cheek. He had fallen on one of the areas patterned with holes and as he lay there he glimpsed the Wives dragging Sorcha down the staircase. “Nathan, Nathan,” she kept calling up to him. But he couldn’t reply.

  “Dr. Fox, you should never have got involved with my daughter,” said Delaney, taking the small silk noose, which Fox now realized was a hand tie, and securing his right wrist to the amethyst plinth. His voice sounded far away. “You should never have come here.” At that moment, if Fox could have spoken, he would have agreed with him. Delaney walked toward the stairs. “Come, Kaidan. We must prepare for tomorrow.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s not going anywhere. Let him get to know the other ghosts.” Fox heard the violet door close but could still hear Sorcha calling his name. “Help them keep her quiet,” said Delaney, sending Kaidan ahead. As Fox lay immobile, he noticed the plaques on the walls around him. All were blank. Delaney had no violet death echoes in his collection. Was this why Sorcha was so important to his Great Work? Were they both to be sacrificed at Esbat so they could join Delaney’s chorus of the dying?

  Suddenly, the lamps went out, leaving him paralyzed and in virtual darkness. Only a dim light from the level below shone through the holes in the glowing amethyst. He no longer had any sense of his body and wondered how much ketamine Delaney had given him. Large enough doses could cut you off from your surroundings and sense of self. Drug users called it the K-hole. As well as making it impossible to move or talk it could also make swallowing or breathing difficult.

  He thought of the other lost souls trapped in the tower and suddenly felt very alone. It would be days before his aunt alerted Jordache that he hadn’t returned and even then the detective would have no reason to suspect the worst. It could be a week before Jordache came looking for him, if he came at all. By then Fox could be nothing more than an imprinted memory, his dying moments recorded in the walls of the tower. Trying to keep at bay the echoes in the dark, he peered through the holes carved in the floor, and focused on the weak light below.

  Suddenly, he saw two figures. For a second he feared they might be ghosts, then realized they were Delaney and the heavily pregnant Maria. For some reason they hadn’t gone down with the others. As he listened to their whispers he was glad they were still there, perversely grateful for any human presence.

  Then he saw what they were doing and wished he could turn away.

  Chapter 52

  As Regan Delaney stood on the Indigo level and watched Kaidan help the others escort Sorcha down the tower, he could taste the blood from his split lip. Who the hell did Fox think he was? How dare he come here to his domain and question the greatness of what he had achieved? Did he not have the vision to appreciate he was on the brink of something truly miraculous?

  “Relax,” Maria soothed beside him. “He’s not worthy of your anger. He cannot understand what you’re trying to do. He knows nothing.”

  Fox had dismissed his project before he had explained the final stages and the ultimate objective of the Great Work. Delaney couldn’t remember the last time someone had challenged him — let alone questioned the Great Work to which he had dedicated his whole life. How dare Fox claim the astral imprints were just echoes? What did he know of such matters? He was a quack. Maria was right: the man knew nothing. But he would learn soon enough.

  The cause of his tension wasn’t just Fox, though, it was the prospect of tomorrow night. Maria stroked his arm, sensing his apprehension. “Everything’s in place,” she said. “After Esbat tomorrow night, your Great Work will be one step closer to completion.” She moved her hand to his crotch and began caressing him through the cloth. “Nothing will go wrong. All of us w
ill help. You are our Seer.”

  She led him into one of the rooms and pressed his hand against one of the engraved amethyst plaques. Instantly, intense images, sounds and smells flooded his senses. Despite his anger and tension, he felt himself become aroused. He considered getting the cushions from the alcove but his need was too urgent. Keeping his hand pressed against the amethyst, he turned Maria to the wall and hitched up her robe. As he mounted her he felt for her distended belly. The child in her womb — his child — would be born any day now and he wondered if, after all these years, it would be another violet. As his pleasure intensified, he smiled. After tomorrow night it wouldn't matter if the child were born with a violet aura or not. Quickening his thrusts he pressed his palm harder against the wall plaque. Maria turned to look over her shoulder, cheeks red with exertion. “I want to see your face,” she panted. “I need to see your face.”

  He groaned, pushed back his head and stared blindly at the ceiling. As he reached orgasm his eyes rolled in their sockets until only the whites were showing. For a few ecstatic seconds he was a god unconstrained by earthly bonds. He felt his spirit self depart his physical body, travel the astral plane and commune with the echoes around him. He sensed his pure consciousness merge with the astral signature imprinted on the amethyst plaque beneath his hand — the imprint of Aurora, the indigo mother of his violet Sorcha — and for a tantalizing moment, was convinced he was about to accompany her on her journey to the other side: to death. Then, knees trembling, forehead glazed with sweat, he was back in the physical world, returned to his mortal body. If while traveling the astral plane the invisible silver cord linking his two selves were severed, then his spirit would be free to follow Aurora all the way. But if that happened his physical body would die and he would never be able to return. To succeed in the Great Work he needed to straddle both worlds — the living and the dead. In time though, with Sorcha’s help, that would happen. He was sure of it.

  “What did you see?” Maria asked. “What did you see?”

  He smiled, brimming with renewed confidence. “The future,” he said. “I saw the future.”

  Chapter 53

  Sorcha fought with all her strength but Kaidan and the remaining Wives were too powerful. After they bundled her into her room and locked the door and shutters, she collapsed on the bed, exhausted, holding her locket.

  She was glad to have it back but Fox had been right. They should have gone back to get Jordache and the police when they’d had the chance. All she had achieved by entering the tower was to confirm how truly diabolical her family were. She had known Kaidan was a murderer from his handiwork in Portland. But her father was far worse. He had not only murdered Eve and ordered the murders of all the lost souls in the tower but he had killed her mother with his bare hands. When Sorcha had relived her mother’s dying moments it had been almost too much for her to bear. Not only had she felt Aurora’s pain and terror as if it were her own but she had seen her father’s face, as close as a lover, staring into her eyes as he’d tightened the silk garrote around her neck. She would never forget the excitement on her father’s face as he’d squeezed out her mother’s last breath.

  She tried to calm herself and process what had happened. If she was going to be of any use to Fox and herself, she needed to regain the equilibrium and distance the psychiatrist had taught her. However vivid the images, smells and sounds in the tower, however much they terrified her when she inhabited the victims’ pain and suffering, she had to remember that they were just residual memories of terrible events. If her father chose to believe they were the victims’ sentient souls, cursed to relive their deaths again and again, it was because he wanted to commune with the dying and follow their path to the other side. To maintain her sanity, she had to remember — and trust in — what Fox’s aunt had told her: death echoes were nothing more than the light from dead stars. They were the vapor trails of souls long gone, harmless and no longer in pain.

  She had hoped that entering the tower would help her recover her own memories but it had triggered only tantalizing glimpses of her past. Beyond the death echoes, she sensed something more recent had happened in the room where her mother had died, something involving Kaidan and herself. She couldn’t bring it into focus, though, and memory flashes of Kaidan and her as children further confused her already hazy recall. She could remember fighting with him in the tower as if her life depended on it and feeling intense fear and revulsion when she had fled down the stairs. But she also remembered them both as children, bonded by their color and branded the violet twins. She could recall him stroking her hair and her dressing the wounds on his shoulders after their father beat him. Like reflections in the shards of a shattered mirror, these partial recollections proved more disorienting than her earlier amnesia, without pattern or order.

  As she tried to reassemble the fragments, she wondered what her father wanted with her. Did he intend to sacrifice her and enshrine her death echo in the tower because he believed her violet aura might better illuminate the path to the other side? Or did he have something else planned for her? She couldn’t believe his Great Work culminated in collecting death echoes. It seemed too petty, like a cruel child hoarding dead beetles. Her father had to be aiming for something more ambitious.

  The sound of the door opening made her rise from the bed. Zara and Deva appeared with a bowl of steaming soup. She found it surreal that they could hold her captive, prepare her for who knows what horrors lay in store, and yet bring her soup. It smelled like chicken. “Where’s Dr. Fox? Is he OK?”

  “He’s sleeping in the tower. You’ll see him tomorrow,” said Deva. “Now drink this. It’ll soothe you.”

  “I don’t want soup. I can't eat after what’s just happened.”

  “You must drink it. It contains a sedative to help you sleep. If you don’t have the soup we’ll have to inject you. Trust me, this is more pleasant.”

  “Zara, how can you be with my father and serve him after all he’s done?”

  The blonde smiled. “He’s a god. It’s not our place to question him. Everything he does, he does for the Great Work, which benefits us all. We must all play our part.”

  Deva nodded. “To be summoned to the tower on the night of Esbat is a great honor and privilege.”

  “But I don’t want the honor.”

  “Of course you do,” Deva said. “Everyone wants to be chosen. You’ll feel differently tomorrow.”

  “Don’t be frightened,” said Zara. “We know what it means. Its’ special. You’re lucky. Not only will the Seer be there when it happens — we all will.” She smiled her infuriating, patronizing smile. “We’ll make it easier for you. Now drink your soup.”

  Sorcha grabbed the steaming bowl and threw it against the wall. “There’s no way I’m going to be complicit in this. Whatever it is.” She stepped close to Zara. “Listen to me. I don’t want this. Its’ not an honor or a privilege. This is wrong. This is against my will. Do you understand?”

  “We understand completely,” said Deva, behind her. As Sorcha turned she felt the needle pierce her right buttock. Then Zara and Deva were bundling her into bed, clucking smooth platitudes as if placating a truculent child.

  Both the wives and the room seemed to retreat as if Sorcha were being pulled back into a deep hole. Before she lost consciousness she registered the door opening and her father sitting on the bed. He was smiling and stroking her face. “Get some sleep,” he said from some faraway place. “Tomorrow will be challenging but worth the sacrifice because something miraculous will come of it.”

  After Regan Delaney and Maria had left, all the lamps had automatically switched off, plunging the tower into total darkness, leaving Fox with the persistent image of Delaney’s sightless eyeballs staring up at him. He remembered Connor telling him who his brother claimed to have an out-of-body experience when he reached orgasm, but what disturbed Fox more was that Delaney had been touching one of the plaques when it happened. It was almost as if he believed his disemb
odied spirit could commune with the echoes of the dead.

  Fox regarded himself as a rational man but he understood better than most the dark, illogical turns the human mind could take. That night, lying paralyzed in the tower, Fox wasn’t sure what he knew or believed any more. The ketamine hadn’t rendered him unconscious but hyper-conscious, as if he had become nothing but a mind with no body. Deprived of all sensory stimuli, he could feel nothing, see nothing, and hear nothing. Even the amethyst pressing against his nose had no smell. Nevertheless, he sensed the constant presence of others crowding around him in the dark. Whether it was the drug, sensory deprivation or just his imagination fueled by what he knew had happened in the tower, Fox constantly heard whispers, glimpsed shadows and detected bizarre smells in the pitch black. The idea of being surrounded by the dead unnerved him until he thought of his parents and sister and imagined the ghosts protecting him.

  As he lay there willing the effects of the drug to fade, he went over everything he had learned since first meeting Sorcha, searching for anything that might give him leverage over Delaney. He reviewed his first sessions with Sorcha, his meeting with Connor Delaney and his subsequent interactions with his brother — everything he had learned up till tonight. The discipline kept his mind active and staved off fear but it also confirmed the seriousness of his predicament. Over time, he began to feel sensation returning to his body and his mind drifting toward sleep. Part of him craved the escape of unconsciousness but another part needed to stay awake and plan. As he slipped toward sleep he recalled what Sorcha had told him about the tense relationship between Kaidan and his father and he wondered how best to exploit it. As he pondered this he thought of the three grisly killings in Portland. Sorcha had said that Delaney had known about the murders but hadn’t approved of them. That meant they had nothing to do with the Great Work. Kaidan had carried them out on his own against the Seer’s express orders.