The Night Inside

by The Night Inside (epub)

  She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the dim light. They were in a long, narrow room, dominated by a huge window. The back wall was lined with shelves of electronic equipment: televisions, videocassette recorders, cameras and items whose purposes were more obscure. Some were on, red lights blinking in time to some hidden rhythm. The window did not open onto the outside, but looked out over a huge room. The asylum common room perhaps, Ardeth thought, for the room was almost two storeys high and at least as long. Now it housed a strange assembly of draperies, floodlights and people. A dais was set up in the middle of the room. Men were moving hooded lights into position in front of it, focusing on the white-draped table there.

  A film set, Ardeth realized suddenly. And the glass in front of her was not a window, but a one-way mirror. From this room, Roias could watch the proceedings without anyone seeing him. He caught her look of sudden comprehension and smiled slightly. “Have a seat.” He gestured to one of the chairs set up in front of the mirror. She sat, awkwardly aware of her hands still cuffed behind her back. “It’s not exactly Hollywood, but it serves its purpose. Ever wanted to be in show business?”

  “No,” Ardeth said automatically, mistrusting the gloating pleasure in his voice. Whatever he had brought her up here to watch was not going to be pleasant, she knew. Roias liked to watch people suffer, she guessed, remembering his reaction to her fear of the vampire.

  “There’s our director, Leseur. He’s a genius, or so he says.” Roias pointed to a small, rabbit-faced man surveying the set. “Thinks he’s Steven fucking Spielberg or something.” Roias seemed to find this comment intensely amusing and chuckled to himself. Ardeth decided it was safer not to say anything.

  She looked at the set again. Despite the bright lights, there was an air of decay about it. The drapery on the table was fraying into mouldy strands of silk at the bottom. There were crystal glasses filled with pale liquid at the eight places set along one side of the table and she could see the pale drift of cobwebs running from cloth to glass. They must be fake, she thought, though the grime and the dust on the walls behind the table were undoubtedly real. Whoever had designed the asylum had not been interested in pure function. The mouldings on the walls were heavily carved and a crooked, dusty chandelier dangled twenty feet down from the ceiling. The religious edification of the mad patients had not been left to chance either. A dust-coated mural covered the upper wall behind the dais. It was a poor copy of Michelangelo’s Last Supper. The proportions were slightly off, giving the impression that the heads of Christ and the apostles were too large for their bodies.

  One of the men scurrying about the set emerged with a large, two-tier wedding cake and set it on the table. The scene suddenly reminded Ardeth of Dickens’s Great Expectations. She waited for the mad old woman, Miss Havisham, to appear in her rotting wedding dress.

  The dress was old, that was obvious, the silk yellowing, the train now moth-eaten, but the girl in it was no old, raddled crone. She was young, far younger than herself, Ardeth suspected, and pretty. Her blonde hair had been left loose about her shoulders, one bared by the too-large neckline of the dress. She was nervous and trying not to let it show, though there was something ominously feverish about the way her hands darted about, tugging up her dress, toying with her hair.

  More actors had entered, representing the rest of the wedding party. As with the bride, their clothing was a strange, twisted version of tradition. The single bridesmaid wore a blood-red dress, red elbow-length gloves and a veiled hat of black lace. High leather black boots disappeared beneath the swirl of the dress over her knees. The male attendants wore tuxedo coats or tails but one of them wore no shirt, another leather pants. All of them wore half-masks of black or red, edged in jewels, studs and feathers.

  A man approached the bride, spoke reassuringly to her. He was young, with blond, slicked-back hair and a grey suit that Ardeth guessed must have cost thousands at one of the exclusive Yorkville stores. The girl smiled nervously and he kissed her slowly, one hand sliding into the folds of silk between her thighs. When he stepped away, she was flushed but laughing.

  “That’s Greg. He’s our talent scout,” Roias said conversationally, then leaned over to flick a switch on the panel in front of his chair. A speaker above them crackled into life. A hum of conversation filled the room. “There’s not much dialogue in this film, but there’ll be some good sound effects,” Roias told her with a wide grin that seemed to hang, Cheshire catlike, in her vision after he had turned away.

  “Positions everybody, we’re going to start. You know the rules. Ignore the cameras, and we won’t interrupt you,” Leseur said from below them and waved the two cameramen into position. They carried portable cameras, to supplement the main stationary camera aimed at the table. There were some last-minute adjustments to the lights, as the cast assumed their positions.

  “Wait a minute. Where’s the groom? Get him out here!” Leseur yelled and a man came dashing out of one of the side doors. Like the others, he was masked with black leather. He wore antiquated evening dress and a long cloak was slung over his shoulders. Unlike the others, there was no visible twist to his clothing. He waved an apology to Leseur and assumed his seat beside the bride.

  “All right then, let’s go. Action!” the director cried and red lights blossomed on the tops of the cameras. For a moment, the group at the table remained still, a tableau of odd elegance, then the groom inclined his head. Whether it was in acknowledgement of an unheard comment or the giving of one, Ardeth could not tell.

  The man to his right, the one with the red feathered mask, rose and stepped behind the groom to stand beside the bride. He held out his hand to her and she took it slowly. He drew her to her feet and escorted her to stand in front of the table. He bowed briefly to the groom, and then took the neckline of the bride’s dress in both hands and tore it down the front. The rending of the fabric jerked Ardeth up in her chair, her eyes widening.

  “Well, what kind of movies did you think we were making?” Roias asked with a malicious chuckle. Ardeth shook her head dazedly, lowering her eyes from the window. “Keep watching. It gets better.”

  The bride had clutched the torn dress to her but when Red Mask took her chin in his hand, she let it go, to tumble in a froth of rotting lace and silk at her feet. Beneath it, she wore a tiny white lace bra, white panties, garter and stockings. Red Mask’s hands slid over her throat, lingered for a moment in the hollow between her breasts as if he would tear her bra from her as well, then withdrew. He stepped back and Ardeth realized that beneath his evening coat he wore leather pants with a special leather codpiece. When he began to remove the codpiece, the bride sank to her knees.

  “They’re all amateurs, you know?” Roias commented. “A group of people with certain . . . tastes . . . that don’t normally find such an interesting outlet.”

  “What about the girl?” Ardeth asked, her voice a faint whisper as she watched the blonde head moving against the leather.

  “One of Greg’s . . . stable.” Red Mask was done, and he left the bride crouched on the floor. The shirtless man was next and he removed the girl’s bra with a knife before sprawling her across the floor on her back to turn his attention to her bared breasts. He kept the knife at her throat the whole time and when he rose Ardeth thought for a terrible moment that she could see the marks of his teeth on the girl’s skin.

  It went on for an hour. Each attendant took a turn and in the end the bride was naked, her body gleaming with sweat and semen. Roias watched Ardeth as much as he watched the show and every time she dropped her gaze, his hiss of warning would jerk her head back up. She did not know which was worse—watching the endless use of the girl and listening to the sounds, the cries, the crack of the whips, the slap of flesh on flesh—or wondering what Roias was planning to do to her next. Or perhaps it was the guilty memory of her own half-conscious erotic dreams of being taken, overwhelmed by some force strong enough to blot out fear, and doubt, and even
rational thought itself. But in the dark, secret depths of her fantasies, she was a god, even in chains. She had complete control of her own domination, and the power to make her own ecstasy the ultimate goal of her dominator. Here, she’d be nothing but the next victim, the receptacle of others’ dreams, and there was nothing erotic about it at all. Not me, please God, I know I don’t believe in you, but please God, don’t let them do that to me, she prayed helplessly as four of the chosen gathered around the bride for one final assault.

  When they were done, they lifted her body, shaking with sobs, and laid her across the table before the groom. “Cut!” yelled Leseur, and Ardeth let her breath out in one long shudder. They were through, it was over, she thought in relief.

  “One more scene. The best one of all,” Roias said, as if reading her mind. On the set, Leseur was shooing off the attendants and the groom. Greg had brought the bride a robe and wrapped her in it, helping her to sit down on one of the abandoned chairs.

  “You were great, baby, just wonderful,” he told her, wiping away her tears. Ardeth could hear their voices faintly, over the activity on the set.

  “Can I have some now, Greg?” she asked, her voice shaking.

  “Now, honey, we had a deal. You do this job for me, and I’ll give you all the stuff you want. You just have one more scene.”

  “Please Greg. I . . . I need it. I did all that for you, please . . . just one,” the girl pleaded.

  “Suzy,” the name was a warning. “When it’s over, like I promised.” He kissed her forehead briefly. “Just one more scene. For me.” Suzy stared at him for a moment, mouth working as if she wanted to beg him again. Then she bit her lip and nodded slowly. “That’s my girl. You just finish this scene, then I’ll let you have as much as you want.” She bent her head against his shoulder and Ardeth looked away, torn between anger and pity.

  The set had been emptied of everyone except Leseur, one of the cameramen, Suzy and Greg. Leseur was moving the main camera closer to the dais and instructing the remaining cameraman on the best angles. When the actor-groom reappeared, Wilkens at his heels, Greg abandoned Suzy, with one more quick kiss on her bruised mouth, and disappeared out the main door. Ardeth watched the groom return to his seat. There was something about the stance beneath the black cloak, the tilt of the pale head behind the leather mask that made her uneasy. She felt her palms turn clammy. She shrank as far back into her chair as she dared.

  “Finally,” snorted Leseur with a glance at Wilkens. “All right, my dear, please take your place.” Suzy shed her robe and walked shakily around to the front of the table. She was shivering and Ardeth waited for Leseur’s order to control herself. But the director said nothing as the girl draped herself across the table. The marks of the earlier scene were still etched in red across her skin.

  Wilkens hovered behind the groom, then bent to whisper something behind the mask. The man nodded slowly. With a last warning glance, Wilkens retreated from the dais. “Ready?” Leseur called and the cameraman moved slightly. “Go!”

  The actor’s hand came up and curled into Suzy’s disheveled blonde hair. She whimpered slightly as he dragged her off the table and to her feet beside him. Ardeth knew the sound of pain and fear was not feigned.

  The other narrow, long-fingered hand slid slowly up the girl’s side from hip to breast, lingering there a moment. Suzy’s eyes closed beneath the caress and Leseur shouted, “Open your eyes!”

  She did, and Ardeth did not have to see her face to know there were tears in the blue depths. The groom’s hand consolidated its position in her hair, pulling back her head to reveal the line of her throat.

  They posed there a moment in tableau. Then, with elegant theatricality, the actor took off his mask.

  “Oh my God,” Ardeth whispered when the black mask fell away and she saw the pale, chiselled features and ragged fall of grey-smoke hair. The cameraman was close now, shooting up into the revealed face. Unable to look away, Ardeth watched as the vampire smiled.

  Suzy’s scream came a second after Roias’s laughter.

  Ardeth saw the vampire’s head dart down like a grey snake striking, and she closed her eyes as tightly as she could. Roias was on her in a second, forcing her up against the mirror. “Open your eyes!” he ordered, twisting her cuffed hands up behind her. “Open your eyes and watch, bitch, or it’ll be you up there next!” Helplessly, Ardeth opened her eyes.

  The vampire was hungry and not particularly neat. When he was done, he dropped Suzy’s body over the table. Blood was smeared across her breasts and shoulders, painted across her face in a parody of cosmetics. Her blonde hair was dark with it, but not as dark as the gaping hole in her throat. When he let her fall, one limp arm knocked over the wedding cake and left its remains decorated with red icing.

  The vampire straightened slowly and looked down at the body for a moment. Then he lifted his hand and wiped the blood from his mouth. Ardeth watched his shoulders rise and fall in one long breath and then he turned away from the table. Roias’s grip on her head had loosened and she shrank back from the cold glass. But she was unable to look away from the cloaked back, the grey head bent slightly over the dark rise of the cloak’s collar.

  When Wilkens appeared, cattle prod tilted like a lance, the vampire stepped off the dais and walked out the far door.

  Roias let her go and her knees buckled. She slid down the glass wall to huddle at his feet. “You see what will happen if you give us any trouble. You may not be as pretty as that strung-out junkie, but they’ll have fun with you anyway. And we’ll make sure His Highness is particularly hungry that night. So you’re going to be a good girl, aren’t you?”

  Ardeth nodded, wishing her breath wasn’t coming in faint whimpers, wishing tears weren’t tracing the dust on her face. “You’re going to be good, aren’t you?” Roias repeated.

  “Yes,” she managed to gasp out. “Yes.”

  “All right then. Stand up and we’ll go back to the basement.”

  She stood up.

  Chapter 6

  Wilkens had herded the vampire back into his cell by the time they arrived. He stood in the centre of the cell and did not glance their way as Roias returned Ardeth to her own prison. “Get the suit off, Your Highness. You’re not going to any parties for a while,” Wilkens ordered mockingly. The vampire did not move for a moment, then one hand lifted woodenly to unfasten the cloak.

  Ardeth willed herself not to look, not with Wilkens and Roias there, but her curiosity was too much for her and she risked one surreptitious glance from beneath lowered lashes. The vampire’s skin had a smooth, matte gleam beneath the lamps. She saw the pale tracings of scars across his chest and stomach. He looked like a man; arms, chest, legs all finely proportioned, muscles shifting in silver planes of light as he moved. Even his genitals looked human. What did you expect, girl? she asked herself, returning her eyes to a fixed gaze at the floor. That they shrivelled up and fell off when he became a vampire? But she hadn’t expected him to look so human, and so vulnerable, though he himself gave no indication that his nakedness made him uncomfortable.

  She kept her eyes on the floor until the rustle of material indicated that he had dressed again in the pants and torn shirt he had worn earlier. Wilkens held the cattle prod in front of the vampire’s chest and Roias fastened the leg-iron about his ankle. “You were very good tonight, Your Highness. For that, we won’t even give you a dose of the old ultrasound,” Roias said casually, leaning brazenly on the vampire’s cell door. The vampire gave no sign he had heard them. He retreated to the cot and sat there, staring at a point past Roias’s head.

  “You see,” Roias said, to Ardeth, “we can make him do anything we want. And we can make you do anything we want too. Remember that.” Ardeth wished she could mimic the vampire’s complete dissociation from her captors, but she didn’t dare. Instead, she nodded as quickly as she could. Wilkens laughed and Roias clapped him lightly on the shoulder. She could hear
their laughter echo back as they climbed the stairs.

  They sat in the semi-darkness, Ardeth on her cot, the vampire on his. When she let her trembling breath return to normal, Ardeth thought she could hear the faint rasp of the vampire’s own breathing. She inhaled deeply to blot out the sound. It didn’t blot out her images of the movie. She thought that it would run forever through her mind, an endless tape loop of horror. She saw the final image projected on her eye-lids, Suzy laid out across the table, clad only in her skin and her blood, the red-streaked tablecloth, the roses of blood on the cake. And the vampire wearily wiping his crimson mouth.

  Ardeth glanced at the vampire carefully. He was sitting absolutely still, head bent slightly. It wasn’t until she saw his hands, clenched together so tightly the knuckles had bleached to the colour of bone, that she realized he was even truly conscious. There was no pretending he was an escaped lunatic, not any more. The solid, undeniable reality of him terrified her. Her universe had been very ordered, the line between reality and fantasy clear and unmistakable. Now that line had been moved, no shattered forever and she was left in a world without foundations.

  This would be endurable, she thought suddenly, if only I could understand it. All her life she had believed that if she could comprehend something, from a historical fact to her own emotions, she had some sort of mastery of it. In desperation, she had spent the last day refusing to think about her situation, as if that would somehow change it. But now, perhaps if she could make some sense of the madness she was trapped in, she could restore her bearings in the world.

  But here, in the darkness of her prison, there were only questions. Did Conrad’s murder have anything to do with her situation? Who was the “other man” they had referred to—and could it have been Tony? Who were Roias and Wilkens and did they have anything to do with Armitage? If so, what? Who was the vampire and what did he have to do with the answers to the other questions?