by Rex Baron
Marc watched the shapes and shadows on the studio walls creep and crawl in the flickering light of what remained of the three red candles. He sprawled on the sofa, still naked, smoking a cigarette and searching the room with his eyes for traces of the Horned God that he knew still remained after the spell. He had done the banishing spell to ensure that the infernal being would be sent back to the dark regions from which he had come. But nevertheless, he could still feel the presence in the room, watching him, reveling in his nakedness and feeding off of the energy of Marc’s unbridled greed and ambition.
“I know you’re there, you lascivious old bastard,” he shouted to the room. “Why don’t you just go to Hell and leave me in peace?”
He laughed aloud at the irony of his unintentional joke. He drew in on the cigarette and surveyed the pile of junk on the coffee table. His eyes fell on the oozing, charred remains of the little clay man that he had committed to the flames of his incense burner, and fouled the stale air of the room with the smell of damp, scorched earth. He sunk back into the sofa cushions and wondered what his life would be like in just a few weeks. With the ECTA art commission and the New York show guaranteed, he would be positioned exactly where he wanted to be.
He blew out a puff of grey smoke, corrupting the dense air still further, and thought of the great Emilio Juarez. He had actually been a nice man... until he got all pissy there at the end of the evening, Marc thought to himself. What a pity such a talented rival would be dropping out of the competition so early in the game.
He envisioned the old man choking to death, as he suffocated under the strangling grip of his agent of death, Cernunnos.
“Strangling is too good for him,” he whispered angrily to the presence that lingered above his head, laughing softly, just within the range of Marc’s hearing. “Even though it’s a coward’s way to die. There is no real resistance possible... and therefore, no nobility. One is robbed of the dignity of a fight. You simply choke to death, a stupid, coarse, unintelligent way to die... Oh well, he was old, and it was time for him to go,” Marc stated with resolve, as he stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Pacific Palisades
Loretta leaned into the flowerbed outside the door of her apartment and picked a sprig of dill that she needed to add to the fish she planned to broil for dinner. As she poked at the young saplings in the miniature garden of the stone planter, she could not help but notice a man standing in front of the door to Elizabeth's apartment. He was tall and handsome. She clutched her housecoat around her in embarrassment as he turned his eyes on her, appraising her eccentric activity.
“I don't think she's home,” Loretta called across the courtyard to him, as she waved the severed plants to get his attention. “I saw her go out earlier.”
Without answering, the man slipped a sheet of paper into the handle of Elizabeth’s apartment door and walked toward the gate. He walked right in front of Loretta, and as he passed, he nodded a laconic hello. Loretta could not help but notice his fine features and glistening dark hair as he brushed quickly by her, leaving an exotic blend of aftershave and the smell of expensive leather behind.
As she finished her dinner, she wondered who the man was, and what might be going on in her neighbor Elizabeth's life. It was Thursday night, and for the second week, Elizabeth had not appeared at their usual laundry room encounter. Loretta thought, with a sigh, that Elizabeth must be trying to avoid her. She had noticed that her neighbor had broken her routine of going out early in the morning, and surmised that she had changed her job or was on extended leave from the university. She had only seen her once or twice in weeks, and when she did appear, she seemed so distracted and unwilling to be disturbed that Loretta dared not intrude to ask how the appearance of the LOVERS and the TOWER in her reading had affected her life.
She sat at the dinette table finishing her tea, when she felt the tug of the tarot cards on her consciousness, from inside the carved wooden box atop the bookshelf. She rose and carried them to the table, as she hastened to clear her mind in preparation for a reading. It was as if the forces were calling her with an urgent message, and she felt the electric surge of power emanating from the pack and into her brain, as clearly as if she heard the ringing of the telephone.
She sat down and shuffled the cards. Skillfully, she drew a card from the center of the deck and held it face down in her palm. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Instantly, her mind reeled with the images from her recurring nightmare, the ghoulish figure on the horse who chased her along the cliff's edge to her death.
She flipped the card over in her hand to see the skeletal figure of DEATH, clad in the armor of a knight, sitting astride a pale horse and brandishing a deadly scythe in his bony fingers.
She took in a deep gasp of breath and stared down at the card, concentrating on its meaning. There was no reason to be afraid, she reminded herself. The card only signified new beginnings and seldom the gruesome end that many associated with it. Still, she could not shake the feeling of apprehension she felt. She closed her eyes and dove into the deep recesses of her mind, hoping to invoke a message from the wisdom outside herself. In her mind's eye, the face of the man who had come to Elizabeth's door appeared. His head and shoulders were outlined in layers of green and dark red light, emanating from him like tiny volcanic explosions, filling the air around him with sparks of violent and disturbing energy.
Loretta gripped her eyes tight and struggled to concentrate, as the room around her seemed to take on the smell of sulfur. She placed the DEATH card against her forehead to try and decipher its significance and its connection to the handsome young stranger. But as she listened to the sound of her own even breathing, the teacup in front of her began to rattle violently in its saucer.
She opened her eyes to see the chrome and glass light fixture over her head swinging from side to side, as far as the arch of its chain rope would allow. The walls of the room groaned and shifted their weight, as if bored with the eventlessness of the evening.
It was an earthquake, she thought as she braced herself against the dinette table and prayed for the violent rocking to abate. The doors of the kitchen cabinets flew open, revealing the crockery inside and the row of white mugs lined up on the lower shelf, like teeth in a great leering smile. The ground rumbled under her, as if some angry mythological beast had been disturbed in his hibernation, and she watched in amazement as a narrow crack appeared on the wall in front of her, dividing the pattern of miniature bachelor buttons on the wallpaper into two distinct and separate patches.
When the unsteady movement around her quieted, and the low rumble moved off into the distance like summer thunder, she ventured from her place at the table and turned on the television set to see if the news would cover the event. The screen was instantly filled with images of shaken buildings, near the quake's epicenter, somewhere out in Whittier, and the newscasters in the studio had already made contact with the Seismologists at UCLA.
Loretta realized she still held the DEATH card in her trembling hand, and carefully tucked it into the pocket of her jeans as she settled on the sofa to watch the news.
After a while, she decided to tackle the dinner dishes and turned up the set so she could hear it from the galley kitchen a few yards away. She had finished the glassware, when she heard the newscaster mention what she thought was a familiar name, and came into the living room to see Holly Driscoll's face on the screen.
“Gallery owner Holly Driscoll had no comment in connection with the unexplained death of famed New York portrait artist, Emilio Juarez, but disclosed that a California artist, Marc Augenbech, had been named to take his place in the seven country détente sponsored by the European Common Trade Alliance, which will meet tomorrow in New York City.”
Loretta was transfixed by the image of the man she saw on the screen. It was the same man she had seen just moments before in her mind. It was the same man she had seen at Elizabeth's door, who had stirred the uneasy
air around her as he passed with a dark and unsettling sexual energy.
Lorretta studied the image of the smiling man who appeared in the projected photograph with Holly. She felt uneasy and sensed a darkness in him that could not be masked by his handsome face. She turned off the television, but could not dismiss his image from her brain, nor the phrase “unexplained death,” which the newsman had tossed away as inconsequential in his reporting of the superficial society event. Her intuition told her that there was more to it than that, and she felt a deep sense of danger associated with this attractive newcomer.
She knew that she had to warn Holly. She would have no chance to chat with her over her usual Wednesday hair appointment, if she were leaving for New York with him in the morning, as the newscaster had announced. She would have to act quickly.
She fumbled through her client Rolodex until she came upon Holly's home number. She did not know what to say, or how she could justify the intrusion on Holly's last night in LA. It was only a hunch, based on her intuition and the tarot card she had in her pocket, but she knew that she must see her in person and try to convey the psychic feeling of danger that she felt surrounded her. Perhaps the urgency of the cards was enough to convince her not to go away with this man. After all, she had read for her often enough, and had some success in convincing her, at least where insignificant things were concerned.
She rang the number and listened anxiously as the telephone, on the other end of the wire, rang four times and was finally intercepted by an answering machine.
“Hello,” Loretta recognized Holly's voice on the machine. “I'm not able to come to the phone at the moment, so be a dear and leave your name and number and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.”
Loretta was about to put down the phone when the thought occurred to her that Holly might only be outside for a moment or in the shower, or a hundred other places near at hand. If the danger was as great as her instincts told her it was, there was no time to lose. She decided to leave a message.
“Holly, this is Loretta Sharp. I'm sorry to be bothering you at home so late, but I need to see you before you go tomorrow. It's something in the cards. I know it might sound crazy but there is something about that guy, Marc... something that has to do with that other painter's suspicious death... I can't explain now. If you get this message before midnight, come to my apartment complex. Just in case you don’t have it handy, my address is 1620 Bundy above Sunset, on the way to the Palisades. I'll be keeping an eye out for you. Just honk once, and I'll come out in front of the building in my red jacket, so you can't miss the place. Please come... it's urgent. If I don't hear from you by midnight, I'll try again. I'm sure your life is in danger.”
The beep sounded, signaling the end of the message.
Marc stood over the answering machine holding a martini in his hand. Quickly, he erased the recorded message.
“Who was on the phone?” Holly called from the bathroom. She had been in the shower with the water running, out of earshot of Loretta’s warning.
“No one, darling,” Marc called back. “It was someone from the LA Times, trying to sell the newspaper. Can you imagine at this hour. They must be nuts.”
Holly entered the room, toweling the dampness from her hair. She planted a friendly kiss on his cheek and stole a sip from his martini glass.
“I know I'm not young enough to let you see me with a face like this, but I haven't even begun to pack, and I did want to see you one more time here in the privacy of my own home, as they say, before we started off on this ghastly, but profitable public tour.”
“It's been wonderful as always,” Marc said, returning her kiss with a peck on the top of her wet head.
He looked at his watch.
“It's nearly ten-thirty. I really must be on my way.” He gulped down the rest of his drink.
Holly dropped back in surprise and stopped folding a sweater that she had laid out on the bed.
“I thought we decided you would stay here, so we could leave together in the morning,” she said with a sigh of annoyance.
“I'd love to, but I haven't brought any of my things with me, and I'm about as conscientious as you are when it comes to packing. The fact is… I haven't even started yet.”
Holly smiled indulgently and gave him a long goodbye hug.
“I'm really excited for you,” she said. “You have a once in a lifetime opportunity here, with this European trade thing. I'm very proud of you.”
Marc peeled her away from him and held her at arm’s length, staring seductively into her eyes. She was old without benefit of makeup, and her hair seemed thin and unnatural in color when wet. He forced himself to ignore the tiny lines around her lips as she brought them near his to be kissed.
“I'm off. If I don't leave now, I'll never get out of here... the effect you have on me,” he said with a sexy smirk.
Holly released him from her embrace, and he grabbed his jacket and headed for the door.
“I'll call you first thing in the morning,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Pacific Palisades
On the ride down from Holly's house in the hills, Marc mulled over in his mind what he had to do. Time was getting short and this Loretta had got in his way. He had intended to meet Elizabeth before he left for New York in the morning. It was his last chance to fulfill his end of the bargain with the Dark Forces and eliminate Elizabeth before his own success began to unravel, as his mother had intimated it would. He had left a note for her on the door of her apartment that he knew would fire her interest. He must surely have his confrontation with this poor lovesick woman, who had suddenly become his nemesis. He would meet with her before midnight and secure his position of power forever, but first, he must deal with this Loretta person. She would not be expecting him. No one knew that he had intercepted Holly's message and was driving to meet her. And since the answering machine message had been erased, no one ever would.
He needed to convince her that in spite of what she knew, or thought she knew, he was no threat to Holly. In fact, he scarcely needed the socialite, he thought. Especially now that he had the pact with the demon behind him, he really needed no one.
The thought reverberated through his brain as he came into full realization of what the agreement with the Dark Forces really meant. He could have whatever he wanted and would never need to be a supplicant again, at the feet of the likes of an Edmund Raymond or Holly Driscoll. He was a supreme being now, who held in his grasp the power of the universe, to be employed at his own whim.
His sleek black sports car glided through the residential areas of Sunset Boulevard, through Beverly Hills and on into Brentwood, passing the gated houses of the old guard, with their elaborate gardens walled in behind ten feet of protective pastel stucco. The palm trees, spaced at even intervals on both sides of the road, interrupted the light of the full moon, producing a strobe effect, which increased in intensity as Marc accelerated toward his goal.
His mind raced along with the engine, as he tried to decide what he must do to appease this Loretta. It was not simple blackmail, whereby he might offer her money in exchange for her silence. She intended to slur his character to Holly and ruin everything. He had no idea of what this woman might know. She said on the message that she had something on him in relation to the death of Emilio Juarez, and yet, what could she know? The old bastard had not been dead long, so how could she possibly know anything? And yet, maybe this Loretta was one of Emilio’s friends and he had mentioned something to her about expecting a visitor.
“So what, I wasn’t even there under my own name,” Marc insisted, trying to calm his own nerves. “There is nothing that this woman can say to implicate me,” he insisted aloud, as he approached the area where the meeting was to take place.
Still, whatever this woman had to say, he could not take the chance that she could alienate him from Holly and bring damaging publicity upon him, just as he was beginning to get what he wanted. He could not allow some n
obody to interfere with what he had worked so hard for, what he had sacrificed his very Soul to obtain.
The area at the corner of Bundy and Sunset was devoid of any light other than the inconsistent moon through the trees. The car turned the corner and slowed, as Marc realized he was on Elizabeth’s turf.
Suddenly, up ahead, a woman stepped into the glare of his headlights. She was wearing a red jacket and waving her arms over her head to signal him to stop.
He rolled down the window and called her name.
“Loretta, is that you?”
For a fraction of a second, her face twisted in a look of confusion, as she stood in a face off with the halted car. At first, she did not comprehend this man's voice in place of the woman she expected. She held her hand up to her eyes, shielding them from the harshness of the headlights, to see if Holly sat in the passenger seat. But when she recognized the stranger, she began to run.
The red jacket was an easy target in the dark. Marc pressed the accelerator to the floor, and within an instant, she had disappeared from the spotlight before him and lay crumpled and broken fifty yards behind him. He did not stop to see if she was dead. The unnatural position of her body, as it lay in the lifeless and desolate street, told him that his desire had been accomplished.
He drove the car out near the ocean and cut the lights as he pulled off the road. He examined the front grill for damage, under the frail light of a flashlight, and found nothing that he felt would appear incriminating. Returning to his place behind the steering wheel, he started down the coast road back toward Westwood Village and his studio.
As he drove the darkened stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway, he caught sight of his own reflection in the rear view mirror and smiled to himself that he had taken care of this little problem with so little effort. He casually plucked at a wayward strand of hair that had fallen over his handsome face, when suddenly, the face reflected in the mirror shifted, giving him a start. He swerved, nearly running onto the shoulder of the road, as he watched his own features distort into those of his mother. Her dark eyes glowered at him from the rectangular panel of glass over the darkened windshield. She looked down disapprovingly, as he heard her voice all around him in the car, as if she were everywhere present at once.