by Karl Tutt
I stayed about a hundred yards behind the Buick and parked the Saab. Despite the light of the full moon, I stumbled through the underbrush. I heard the chanting as I grew closer. It had a haunting, rhythmic sound. I approached as quietly as I could. Still, tiny branches crackled beneath my feet. There were twelve of them. Their heads were covered in gray hoodies, their faces indistinct. At the center was a makeshift altar. Underneath it was a metal washtub. A body lay prostrate. A naked female. She was bound at her head and her feet. Despite some sort of gag on her mouth, I could hear her whimpering and see her writhing . . . struggling to free her arms or legs to escape the terror and mutilation that was coming.
The leader, clad in a full robe that covered head and body, held a glittering scalpel. It was poised over the woman. Hallemina was soon to be sacrificed to some hideous God or demon for some purpose known only to the Devil, himself. I placed a sweaty palm on the butt of the Taurus and fingered the trigger. Suddenly I felt a grip of iron on my wrist. He grabbed a handful of my hair. My head was jerked back and a sensation of cold steel played at my neck. The silvery blade of a huge machete shone in the moonlight. The iron grip went to my waist and removed the Taurus instantly. I was pushed forward. The night I was kidnapped flashed in my mind, but there was no mistake. This time I would be harmed, if I even survived.
“Thank you for joining us, Dr. Fleming. No doubt you will find this quite interesting, if not somewhat disturbing. This is the child you worried over. Now we can assure you that she is safe. Her mother was not available. So we have volunteered to provide her the best accommodations we can afford. She will not suffer much longer.”
I looked into the howling eyes of Hallemina. Her wrist and ankles ran raw and bloody where she had fought the bonds, but they were tight. I tried to speak, but the words choked in my throat. I finally managed to whisper, “Let her go. There are others behind me.”
“I rather doubt it. We spotted you before you ever left the marina.” The voice was more a growl, but there was something familiar in the cadence. “Please relax and enjoy the show. I fear it will be your last.”
Hallemina began to moan like an animal caught in a trap. She was gasping for breath, but her hands and ankles were now still. Her eyes tightly shut against the terror. The leader turned back to the child and placed the scalpel against her neck. The innocent one knew death was upon her. The tub beneath the altar would soon be thumping with the sound of her life’s blood puddling in the filthy bottom.
There was the crackling of brush behind me. I was able to turn my head just enough to see a man holding an antique flintlock pistol in his right hand.
“I can assure you that this ancient weapon is still quite deadly, especially at point blank range. I have but two shots. You may rush me if you like. There are many of you, but at least two will die. You, Ange Noir, with the knife will be the first.” He pointed the barrel at the leader, “And you, big man, holding my friend, will follow quickly afterward.”
There was a hush and all eyes focused on the antique weapon. The brass glittered in the firelight, daring and threatening.
“T.K. Take the machete and retrieve your Taurus.”
I lifted my hand gingerly to the blade and eased it away from my neck. The man of the iron grip held it fast, but Louis turned the old flintlock toward his face and cocked it with a loud click. The grip eased. He nodded in mock respect, stepped away and raised his hands slowly. It was the first time I had actually seen him. He was huge. The nose was cocked to one side and a jagged scar raced across his forehead. He grinned. There was no fear in him. He simply waited for his next move. I took the 38 from his waist band. The revolver held only five rounds. There were thirteen of them. The odds were getting better, but we were still outnumbered. Louis looked back at the leader.
“Now we require the girl.”
“She is mine,” the robe hissed.
“Perhaps . . . but not tonight. Please give her your robe.”
For the first time, I caught the full visage that was seconds away from mutilating the child and not much more from mingling my blood with hers. The face was painted white, the eyes hollowed out in black. The mouth of a skull framed full red lips and a tongue that seemed to dart in and out like a serpent. The yellow moonlight gave it all a sickly sheen.
A white hand went to the hood and lifted it off the forehead. The robe fell open to reveal a body, also a ghostly white. There was a painted circle in black that began just under the neck and encompassed the full breasts. It met above a tuft of dark pubic hair. There were stumps of black that extended down the legs and terminated above the ankles. I froze as the name formed on my lips. “Maleeva.” Despite the hideous markings, the body was magnificent. The nipples were hard and erect. Every curve and shape was all that some god had intended.
“I do shine, don’t I, Professor?” she hissed, “this can be yours, your altar, your temple, a thing to command. Give up your weapon and join us. The girl is nothing. She squeals like a pig. Her blood will be the sustenance of those who seek power and truth. The darkness consumes all.”
I stared at the body of Maleeva once more. For a moment I feel her, smell her, taste her. The desire welled up in my loins. But her taste was bitter on my tongue. It cut and burned like the sharpest acid.
I moved toward Hallemina and cut the bonds of the child. The Ange Noir spit at me. Her eyes gleamed with the fires of hell. The sweat and the scent of a woman aroused pricked my nostrils. I picked up the robe and placed it around the child’s shoulders. She shivered, but grabbed the front and covered her nakedness. We stepped away from the pyre and Maleeva moved with us.
“And will you shoot me,” she asked Louis, “only because I claim what is mine?”
He pointed the old flintlock at her chest. Her smile was malignant, reflecting pure horror in the moonlight. The members of the coven were paralyzed in awe or in fear. Still she came toward me. She seemed to float towards us on a cloud of hatred and contempt. Louis waved the flintlock once more. Still she came. There was an explosion and a hole the size of a silver dollar appeared in the chest of the Ange Noir. She bolted backward and stumbled for a moment. Then she put her finger to the bloody wound. She doused it in the thick red liquid, them put it to her lips and smiled. She sucked on the finger and began to sink, first to one knee, then the other. As her body eased to the ground, there was a subtle rumbling. It grew. It was as if the earth began to collect her. No slumping corpse, no lump of bleeding flesh. Like a great fish, the dirt and sand had swallowed her.
“All right, T.K. Keep your wits. The Ange Noir is gone. We must go, also. Give me the girl. Keep the Taurus on our friends. Do not hesitate to dispatch them if necessary.”
Suddenly the giant bolted at me. His hands were like huge claws waiting to grate my flesh into small bloody bits. I fired a single shot. A mass of dark red appeared in his belly. He hesitated a moment, startled and lame. He laid a hand on the wound, stared at the blood and slumped over the pyre. The crimson flood rushed from his body into the tub creating a gruesome sacrifice. He jerked in a massive heave and lay motionless. When I looked from the corner of my eye, Louis and the girl were gone. I stepped slowly backwards. The remaining members had dropped to their knees and bowed their heads facing the desolate piece of earth that had consumed the Ange Noir. I made for the Saab and was gone.
I received a message from Louis the next day. Hallemina was on a plane bound for Trinidad. He ended with a tart, “there is nothing more to discuss.” Actually, there was.
I had killed a man, or so I believed. The Ange Noir had vanished like an apparition. The other members of the coven had scattered. My mind was a morass of maddening questions that I might never be able to answer. I called Frank.
He listened politely, no doubt wondering how much Jameson I had consumed. I met him and the forensics team at the site that afternoon. Nothing but an area of tamped down grass. No bodies, no pyre, no traces of anything that had happened during that night of horror. It was
like the whole thing had never happened. I began to doubt my own sanity, but I had been there. Louis had seen it all, but I didn’t think he would admit to anything.
Maybe it didn’t matter. Hallemina was safe. The Ange Noir had been dispatched, perhaps to another dimension. Later that evening, I received a message. I couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like the voice of Marcuse Durant.
“Your mission is complete . . . at least for now. Rest, my friend.”
I slept.
Chapter 17
Sunny called the next morning. She said she needed some help packing, but I suspected what she needed was me. She wanted me to tell her that life without her was impossible, that I would I commission KAMALA and head north to become her own personal saint and savior. I mounted my ten-speed and headed to her apartment.
The trunk of the Saab was open and the boxes were jammed in tight. “Almost finished,” she said, “Come on in.” For a moment she didn’t look at me. We mounted the steps to the small apartment. It was cold and bare. She was right. There was little left to move.
“Sit down if you like. Sorry I can’t offer you any coffee. The stuff is already packed.”
The chair felt hard and barren. I looked down the hall to the bedroom where we had played and talked and loved. She sat across from me with her head in her hands.
“I’m sorry, T.K. I might have spent the rest of my life with you, happy and content in the sun and the salt air. Soaking in the excitement and even weird serenity of this crazy town. Loving you, letting you love me. These might have been the best three years I’ll ever have. I’ll miss you. I’ll miss KAMALA, but I guess I’ll get by. I always seem to. Just promise me you’ll think about me.”
I nodded. I would and I did. I thought about my dream. Which parts of me was she taking with her? And what would be left?
She got up slowly and picked up the last of the boxes. I walked down the steps.
Chapter 18
I went back to KAMALA. I poured a double of Jameson and sat in the cockpit. The morning was magnificent. The sun danced on the light swells and my own personal Rocinante danced with them. The southwest breeze fondled the stubble on my cheeks. I took another sip of the sweet Irish whiskey. It burned and soothed as it slid down my throat. I smiled. There really wasn’t much to think about, but I knew I didn’t have too much time. I had to get to work.
The O’Day was bristol and capable, but she had to be ready. Unless I got a window offshore, it was two weeks to Beaufort.