The initiate wrapped a large hand around her ankle. It was clearly a male’s. He pulled hard against her leg, making her body jolt across the surface of the altar. Her hands, definitely unrestrained, raised above her head, and fingers wound tightly around the edge of the plinth, ensuring she couldn’t be pulled off the top altogether.
The man stepped between her legs, both hands firmly holding her ankles and drawing her legs apart. She was naked beneath the sheer fabric of the dress, I watched strangely mesmerised as the material slid off her thigh and pooled at the base of the altar, baring her for not only her “chosen” to see, but everyone who watched on.
The humming rose. Almost a reward. For her or the cloaked figure who leaned down and licked up the inside of her calf, I’m not sure. The arms of those across the chamber rose, their dark cloaked figures swaying. Their faces hidden, but it was clear they were watching. Seething with a lust of their own.
“Holy fucking shit,” Nick muttered as Pierce just shook his head. “Never heard of anything like this existing in Auckland before. Have you?”
“Nah-uh,” Pierce murmured. Eyes glued to the screen and the erotic display unfolding before him.
It was clear the woman was enjoying it. It was obvious the cloaked figure, now lying across the base of the altar and burying his face between her legs, was in heaven - or was that Paradise? - as well.
And it was plain to see that those hooded, unidentified figures around the chamber were extremely pleased with the experience too.
“Lust,” I said into the stunned silence of the ASI control room. The woman peaked, her cries of release adding to the echoing chant of the men in the room. At least, I assumed they were all men. I couldn’t tell. And I guess that was the point.
But each and every one of them let out a deep, rumbling breath of combined desire and heartfelt hunger, as if on cue.
“Fuck,” I heard softly spoken over the speakers. The type of expletive given in awe, not anger or fear.
Damon.
Nick started laughing. Pierce just offered a knowing smile. And then both men turned and looked at me.
“Lust,” Pierce repeated. “But hardly illegal.”
I stared at him for a suspended moment, and then turned around and kicked the chair I’d used earlier, sending it careening across the small room.
It was better than hitting Ryan Pierce.
Chapter Fourteen
“It gets easier, Keen. This job. Easier, but at the same time it slowly suffocates the fuck out of you.”
“I don’t know which way this is going to go,” Pierce said carefully, filling the strained silence that had erupted between us.
We were standing out the back of ASI, next to my car. I had my arms crossed over my chest. He’d been scrubbing at his goatee bearded jaw. We were at a stand-off.
Hardly illegal. That’s what he’d said. A sex cult acting out some bizarre Dante’s Inferno ritual that didn’t necessarily link it to the homicide on Karanaghape Road, and indicated even less that Carole Michaels had been in Sweet Hell unwillingly.
“What about my theory?” I pressed.
“Hiding a crime behind all of that,” he waved his hand around in a vague circle above his head to indicate the Irreverent Inferno, “and then getting forgiven for it, like some Hail Mary ordered by a priest as penance?”
“Well, when you say it like that…”
He glanced off into the distance, unseeing.
“You could be onto something. It’s weak, but it’s all we’ve got,” he conceded. “Convincing Hart will be difficult,” he mused.
“You want me to come with?” As if he’d be going to the Inspector right now. It was late, way past eleven at night. Hart wouldn’t be at CIB and approaching him at home on a Friday evening was damn near suicidal.
Pierce let out an unamused huff of breath.
“He’ll expect an update in the morning.”
“Then I’ll see you there.”
“No.”
What? “What do you mean, no?” I asked, voice steady, my pulse anything but.
“This is going to take some convincing, and even I’m not convinced yet, Keen.”
“What are you saying, Ryan?”
He rubbed at his jaw again and then shook his head, as though to clear it.
“Tell me this,” he asked, lifting his eyes and staring directly at me. “What would you have done if Michaels had been the one that woman had chosen?”
My turn to shake my head. “But he wasn’t.”
“He could have been.”
“He wasn’t,” I growled.
“You’re not that naive, Lara,” Pierce said softly. “And at the moment he’s our only way into Sweet Hell. If Hart goes for this, and I’m not saying he will, because fuck, it’s weak as shit. But if he does, Damon may have to do things you would rather not see him do.”
“What exactly are you saying, Pierce?” I demanded, enunciating each word carefully.
He let a long breath of air out.
“What I’m saying is maybe it would be best if you’re not there when I approach Hart with the full breakdown of this sting.”
“You think I can’t do my job?” My stomach dropped unpleasantly.
“I think your emotions are close to the surface.”
“Bullshit.”
“You kicked a fucking chair across the room when Damon got turned on by that scene. And,” he held up his hand to stall my next tirade, “he wasn’t the only one to get turned on, all right? Nick and I were enthralled as well. So don’t think his reaction was anything other than that of a normal man’s. It was fucking hot,” he added, as if an afterthought.
I raised an incredulous eyebrow at him.
“It was fucking freaky,” I countered.
“But freaky hot,” he snapped back.
Men!
“So,” I finally said, when the silence had grown uncomfortable again. “I can’t see Hart with you, but I’m still on the case. Right?”
The need to clarify that, to seek acceptance, made me mad. But the desire to ensure I wasn’t being sidelined was too great to ignore. I had to know. I’d been on probation and hadn’t even been aware. If I was pushed aside again, I’d damn well be prepared this time.
“I’m not going to take you off the case,” Pierce said carefully, as though there was a “but” to come afterwards.
He didn’t go on, so for now I’d accept his words at face value.
“OK. Tell me what Hart says as soon as you can.”
“No problem. Go get some sleep. Your man looks like he’s gone home as well.”
I nodded and took a step towards my car, then had a thought.
“The speaker said something about the initiates needing to prove their worth before dawn tomorrow, otherwise the door to Paradise would close.” Pierce held my gaze with a steady one of his own. “You’ve already thought of that, haven’t you?”
“Go home, Keen. I’ll take it from here.”
“What aren’t you saying?”
Another head shake. “I don’t know what to tell you, Keen.” He sighed, scrubbed at his goatee again and then turned toward the back entrance of ASI. “If I think of anything you’ll be the first to know,” he announced as he slipped through the door when it clicked open automatically.
Nick was watching from control. And Pierce had just given me the brush off.
If there’d been another chair nearby I would have kicked it.
I stared into the dark corners of the carpark and then finally admitted defeat and climbed into my car. I knew what they were doing in there. I knew the sting tonight wasn’t over. But I’d been pushed out, the door closed in my face. Because my emotions were too fucking close to the surface.
I slammed a hand down on the steering wheel and growled my frustration.
Damon needed to complete this task to make it into the third circle. If he was to be used at all for infiltrating Sweet Hell. Right now that was still a possibility; Hart not passing his fi
nal judgement on the sting until tomorrow.
And this task Damon needed to pass involved lust.
My head fell back on the headrest and I felt my eyes burn with the need to cry.
It gets easier, Keen. This job. Easier, but at the same time it slowly suffocates the fuck out of you.
I was suffocating, all right. No longer drowning, but gasping for breath instead.
I put the car into gear and slowly rolled out of ASI’s carpark, entering the late night traffic on Broadway.
My chest ached. The taut skin over my knuckles stung as I gripped the steering wheel too tightly. I had to blink my eyes to ward off the burn of tears. I’d never been a weepy kind of person, but lately I couldn’t seem to stop the waterworks.
Which just went to prove how right Pierce actually was. I was emotional and I was wearing my heart on my sleeve for all to see.
I contemplated stopping off at a pub and having a drink; pretending I had friends by sitting anonymously amongst a crowd of strangers, living vicariously. Not the alcohol, that I’d consume myself. But the feeling of not being alone.
It had been a long time since I’d felt this alone. Carl had started this recent cycle. Disappearing, pretending to be gone. And now Damon. I’d just let him back in, opened myself up again to his brand of kindness. Only to have it torn away when I needed it the most.
Anger was a good accompaniment as I drove across the CBD, my head full of twisting ribbons of unconnected thoughts. I pulled the police issue sedan into my driveway, noting that the wind had picked up, stray leaves flying across my windscreen from a nearby acacia tree. Someone’s dustbin rolled across the street, clattering enough to scatter neighbourhood cats from their hiding places. Wind always made creatures jumpy. Windy nights were the worst.
All the crazies come out during a windstorm. Central Police would be swarmed.
I slid out of my car and quickly ducked my head as I ran across the front yard to my porch. My car beeped as I remotely locked it and my hands, I realised, shook as I inserted my key into the door. Within seconds I was ensconced inside my sanctuary, surrounded by the smell of Damon.
I closed my eyes and leaned back against the door and just breathed. Through my nose. Even though I told myself not to, I did it. Some sadistic part of me hell bent on making me just as crazy as those who would embrace the wind tonight.
I let a long breath of air out and pushed off from the door, walking blindly into the kitchen, flicking switches as I progressed, stopping when I pulled down a Whisky bottle and a heavy crystal tumbler from the top shelf. The liquid sloshed into the glass, splashing over the side and leaving droplets on the granite bench. It burned going down. That I embraced.
I turned and stared at nothing as I leaned against the bench, downing the rest of the shot and then pouring some more. I sipped the next. Then forced myself to slow down when I started to feel my fingers and toes again. Not realising that for a moment, I’d felt absolutely nothing at all.
My eyes landed on my kitchen table and a book that I hadn’t placed there before.
The Whisky turned sour. The glass thunked as it settled on the granite surface at my side. There was still an inch or so of brown liquid inside it. I ignored it as my body took me closer to the intruding item sitting innocuously on my table. In a position I couldn’t possibly ignore.
I stared down at a battered and dogeared copy of Dante’s The Divine Comedy and contemplated the reasons why it would be sitting on my table. Inside my house. Behind a locked door. My head came up and I glanced at the kitchen door. Locked. My eyes scanned the windows I could see. Closed. Then settled back on the entranceway. The alarm system deactivated.
I hadn’t done it. I’d completely forgotten to check when I came in.
Carl had been to visit.
My fingers trembled as I reached for the book, lifting it up off the table. Something fluttered out from between the pages, landing upside down on my hardwood floor. I reached down and picked it up, turning it over with a sense of anticipation mixed with dread.
A photo taken with a high powered lens. Cawfield reaching into the boot of his police issue sedan and pulling out what looked like a black, hooded cape.
I pulled a chair out and promptly sat down, my legs dead weights, my head spinning. I lay the photo next to the book and just stared.
“What are you telling me, Old Man?” I whispered. “What have you given me?” I shook my head, my mind a jumbled mess of discordant thoughts. Dots disconnecting. “What the fuck am I meant to do with this?”
It was circumstantial. The source untrustworthy. But a picture tells a thousand words. I ran a hand over my face and thought back to the images on the screens at ASI tonight. There was no way to tell initiate apart from full-fledged member. All the cloaks looked the same, and when the initiates had stepped forward, there had been nothing to single them out from the rest, other than positioning.
Fuck. Had Cawfield been the one to bring that woman to orgasm?
The Whisky threatened to expel itself from my gut. I rubbed at my stomach.
Cawfield with a cloak that looked suspiciously like those worn at the Irreverent Inferno. Seen, tonight, outside Sweet Hell. Oh, God. If he was the CIB traitor, how did this cult fit into the profile I’d amassed of the betrayer so far? What possible gain would he get from infiltrating this back room members only club?
Or was it purely personal preference? Was he like my father? Seeking pleasure in a controlled environment that smelled of something immoral.
But was hardly illegal.
I didn’t buy that. Not completely. My gut told me something was going on at Sweet Hell. Something that culminated in the death of Samantha Hayes.
And Cawfield being linked in any manner just made me jumpy.
I moved on from the photo and picked up the book, flipping through the pages, hoping Carl had circled passages that would help make sense of any of this. The book was well used. But contained no indication of what secondhand store it might have been purchased at. And no markings of any kind that would single out what the hell this all meant.
I started reading at the beginning.
It was easy to see where the Irreverent Inferno got their references to Purgatory, Paradise and Hell. But gaining any further insight from the poem itself was going to take more effort. I needed help. English literature had not been my strong suit in high school.
I pulled my cellphone out and swiped the screen to bring up a browser, then spent the next ten minutes reading the CliffsNotes version. Three beasts; a leopard, a lion and a she-beast later and I knew the poem was not so much the golden standard the Irreverent Inferno wished to emulate. But the reverse.
Dante wanted to progress through Hell. Wanted to reach God. Become a better person in the afterlife.
The Irreverent Inferno wanted to celebrate Hell in order to reach their own version of Heaven. By debasing themselves and others in the here and now.
Maybe it wasn’t as distasteful as that. Maybe they were simply egotistic, nihilistic, and hedonistic.
What is Paradise?
That which you seek.
Nathaniel Marcroft had been adamant when he’d spoken those words to Damon; Paradise was different for each member of the Irreverent Inferno. Their goal was not aligned with Dante’s. They wanted to mimic his journey, of a fashion, but their chosen method lacked respect.
Irreverent Inferno.
Contemptuous Divine Comedy.
They were making a mockery of the nine circles of Hell. And in the process providing something that obviously appealed to a section of our society. A section that my father, Eagle and Carole Michaels - and Samantha Hayes - frequented.
It said more about them than it did about Sweet Hell. The club was a business, providing a service that met public demand. Irreverent Inferno catered to the next level of self-indulgent, pleasure-seeking, sybaritic thrill seekers. And someone had taken that indulgence a step too far.
I flicked through the book, trying to identify th
e nine circles. I knew lust was circle two, but what of the rest? I had to resort to an online encyclopedia. Lust was definitely there, in the second slot. But so was limbo, right at the beginning.
Damon had said he felt like he was in limbo, while he waited for Marcroft to bring him into the Irreverent Inferno fold. Circle one had been achieved earlier this evening.
Circle two, lust, was still on the agenda if Damon wished to continue with this sting.
I forcefully pushed all those emotions associated with that train of thought aside and went through the remaining circles of Hell. Gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud, treachery. Quite a cocktail of potentially immoral, possibly illegal, things.
Bringing this to Pierce’s attention would not necessarily provide us with the evidence required to get Hart to sanction the continuation of the sting. But it might just give us some leeway to convince him another twenty-four hours was on the cards.
I wasn’t sure what we could achieve in twenty-four hours, but something was happening at Sweet Hell. Something that I felt certain tied in with Samantha Hayes. Something that would lead us to Carole and Eagle. That would answer the questions I had about Cawfield as well.
Sweet Hell was important, I just had to prove it was in a very short period of time.
I slipped the photo of Cawfield inside the book and took both to my bedroom, flicking off light switches as I went. I didn’t bother to shower. I was too exhausted. And when my body told me sleep was possible, I wasn’t going to argue. I needed sleep. Proper sleep. Not the kind found in an armchair out in the lounge.
I needed sheets that smelled of Damon, his pillow crushed against my chest. I needed a moment in time where the thoughts stopped spinning and the emotions were drowned out by pleasant dreams.
I needed to forget. Carl. My father. Eagle. Even Carole Michaels.
I needed to forget.
I woke to lips on the bare skin of my neck and a warm, hard body moulding to mine.
“Shh,” he said. “I need this, love. I’m sorry.”
And I remembered why I needed to forget.
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