“Maybe I should have hooked up with him.” She teased.
“The best of luck to you…” He leapt from the battered leather chair, holding to the dim light the finished liquid floating in the beaker. “There we are! Disguise in a bottle; oh, they won’t know what’s hit them!”
“And what has hit them? Sorry if I sound unimpressed, just…” She took the container in her hand and examined it closely, the fluid inside a placid brown, with a few chalky lumps floating like cigarette stubs on water.
“It’s a dye.” Josiah explained happily, winding out the plug of the toaster and forcing it into a makeshift socket. “A powerful dye - one that stains the flesh. On the east coast of the country people have deep olive skin, golden brown, always have done. You can’t get that tone around these parts, so whatever they think of me when I walk through their doors – they’ll believe I’m from a long way away. No matter how much I zap my face, a pasty white man will stick out like a broken thumb.” He promptly sealed his eyes shut and poured the liquid over his head. His skin and clothes instantly glistened with the fresh, bronze glow.
“That looks great.” She commented. “So can’t you just leave it at that?”
“No Lylith, it’ll just look like I’ve gotten a tan.” He slammed the toaster down on the desk and strapped the pads to his face. Bronze wire trailed from his cheeks and across the floor, ending as tightly wound balls around the couple of iron tools jutting from the machine. “Okay then...” Hartt sighed deeply. “Here we are, one hundred and ten volts straight to my face. What could possibly go wrong? Miss White, are you ready?”
Lylith walked reluctantly over to the plug, hand hovering over the switch. Josiah Hartt moved forward, shrugging off his waistcoat and standing firmly in the centre of the room.
“How long?” She asked.
“Ten seconds should be fine.” He muttered. “Just keep counting them down, whatever happens, stick to those ten. A lot relies on this, almost everything.” He turned to her. “And I wouldn’t look, Lylith. Turn your head away.”
She nodded, biting down firmly on her bottom lip. “Will it hurt?”
Josiah looked at her slightly, swallowing hard and clenching his fists. “Yes.”
Lylith blinked and stretched her hand forward, quaking fingertips stroking the plastic switch. Then she closed her eyes tightly shut and flicked the button.
Strokes of electricity shot down the wires, fizzing wildly, snapping around the cable. In a split second they slammed into the pads on his skin. For a moment he stood still. Then his knees buckled, his whole body lurched forward. He slammed into the floor. One… He snapped back up, wailing into the air. His eyes screamed with pain, his skin shaking. Lylith resisted for a moment but the urge was too much. She opened her eyes, turned her head and panted.
The bolts cut into him, slashing his flesh, tearing his skin apart. His cheeks burnt, his body quaked. He buckled upwards, yelling at the top his voice, his mouth wide open, a piercing, quaking cry. Five… He jerked backwards. His shoulders snapped together, his chest jutting outwards. He screamed again, the stinging spinning his head, the bitter, snarling pain the only thing keeping him conscious, dragging him through every second. He wept into the carpet, cheek pressed to the floor. Eight… The world spun to darkness, blood boiling behind his aching pupils. His swollen flesh bubbled into blisters. He gripped the ground, fingernails clasping on, tearing through the splinters. Nine… One more scream, a desperate, pleading cry for help that Lylith couldn’t resist. Her head barked ‘Ten’ as she slammed her fist into the switch and yanked the plug out of its socket.
Josiah’s head drifted slowly, the release like a leaden weight lifted off his skull. For a second he hung there, shifting gently on the floor. Then his eyeballs turned upwards and his body finally allowed him to collapse.
Josiah Hartt drifted into consciousness, the darkness that pooled behind his eyelids shifting into light. A stretch of blurred objects appeared before him, their edges slowly sharpening and reforming. He found he was laying on the sofa downstairs, the familiar arrangement of books and ornaments emerging around him. He raised a hand to his face, soft and fleshy like tenderised meat. A face presented itself through the haze of colours.
“Are you okay?” She asked. The voice of Lylith White was as soothing as silk. “I was going to call a doctor, or the Detectors, but then… I didn’t know what to do.”
“Its good you didn’t tell someone, I’m sure there’s some sort of legislation that makes this illegal.” He sat upright. “I’m fine, just a little hazy.” He felt his way around his skin. “Christ that’s sore.” He groaned. “And wet? Why am I wet?”
Lylith smiled and raised a small, damp cloth. “I’ve been flannelling you.” She held up a grimy mirror. “Do you want to see?”
Josiah grinned and snatched the pane from her, staring closely at his own reflection, something which was indeed hardly recognisable. His skin was battered and bruised, large red blisters cracking across his face. His eyes had been pushed several inches up his skull by the swollen mounds that masked his cheeks. His whole face drooped down like melted waxwork - his sharp features lacked the usual brightness.
“I think you can say it worked.” Lylith smiled. “Although I’m sure you could have achieved the same effect by eating pork pies and a few dozen cheesecakes for a couple of months.”
“But where’s the fun in that?” He grinned at her. He noticed her face was no longer illuminated by the candlelight but instead by the grey shine of an early sun. “What time is it? How long have I been out?”
“It’s six in the morning.” She said, not admitting that she’d been gently dabbing him the whole time. It was to her bemusement when he lifted his coat up from the sofa where he’d left it six hours earlier and pulled it tightly around himself.
“What are you doing?” She spluttered.
“I’m ready; I’m leaving for Ashton Wood right now.” He grunted, a slight hint of annoyance. “I can’t believe you left it so long, why didn’t you wake me? People could already be dead…”
He headed for the door, but Lylith pulled him sharply around, taking him by the shoulder and twisting him to face her. “Wait.” She smiled softy. “If I never see you again…” She breathed slowly and lent forward, skin tingling, lips pouted, eyes shut. Her lips pressed against his swollen mouth. Lylith sunk into his embrace, lingering for a few moments until she realised he remained rigid as a board and so she swiftly withdrew, a look of confusion crossing her face.
“What… what was that?” He asked flippantly.
“That was me doing something I’ve been wanting to for a day or so now.” She put a hand to her forehead and blushed. “But you… I’m guessing you haven’t…?”
“You were trying to kiss me?” He squinted. Lylith nodded, the awkward silence swallowing her whole. “What, so you’re in love with me now?” He laughed, grinning at her that same goofy grin.
For once she wasn’t laughing - her face was stone cold serious. “Do you think I’m joking?” She snapped; her pounding heart dropping like a stone.
“I thought so yes; I’ve told you already, I’ve never done…that. I never will, it’s something I can’t understand. There’s darkness in the love of humanity I’ve just never found. Six packs, short skirts, sun and heartbreak and lust…”
Lylith snorted. “What, you’re a monk now? You’re completely innocent, you never for a moment thought about what you were doing?” Her confusion was turning to frustration now, just when she was beginning to understand him it seemed she’d gotten Josiah Hartt completely wrong.
Even now he was gently smiling. “What – what have I been doing?”
“Oh you idiot.”
“I don’t know what you think I was trying to suggest, but I can assure you - I wasn’t, and right now…I’m busy Lylith.”
“You’re busy?!” She yelled. “Is that it? These past few days you’ve constantly been showing off, you’ve been striding around, taking me by the hand, t
elling me things you said you’ve told nobody else. For Christ’s sake, I’ve been sleeping on your sofa for two nights, what else am I supposed to think? In my book, you’re giving me signals…” She paused for a moment, staggering backwards. “Oh God, you’ve been leading me on.”
“It is not like that; of course I need you here Lylith.” He pleaded, her heart pausing for a moment. “I couldn’t have done this without you. You were the only witness, you are invaluable.”
“Oh, for the case...” She nodded, smiling ironically to herself. “Of course. That’s all you ever think about. No answers, no real solutions and definitely no emotions. These dead bodies, they make me feel sick, but you… ‘Blimey’ was what you said when we found John Price - the way he was lying there, massacred by men who we might be passing every day in the street and all I got was ‘blimey’. Then the Patriarch, he has a wife and a child, you never seemed to care about how screwed up their lives would be without him…”
“What’s the point in caring?” Josiah replied. “All it does is cloud your judgement and makes you bitter inside. If I become attached to them or the people behind the bodies, or… or you - what would that make me?”
“It makes you human, Josiah.” She replied. “You can’t seem to work that out. When you were upstairs, electrocuting yourself, killing yourself, I was scared, I was so scared. But you didn’t seem to realise what it was you were asking of me, what it was you were doing to me.” She snarled. “Because what’s the point of caring eh? What’s the point of caring? Well what about me?!” Lylith sniffed, heading towards the door and putting her hand on the wood. “What did you really say to Cedric Baltazar Josiah? You kicked me out the door like a worthless piece of meat, what, because you wanted to protect me? Because you have no respect for me? Because you’re not the man you say you are?” She nodded to herself, making her mind up at last. “For a moment there, when you were knocked out the couch, I thought that I loved you but you open your mouth and I realise I can’t even trust you. That’s not love. I can’t do this anymore, not when you keep putting yourself in situations like this.” She pulled the door open, looking at him with her eyes full of pity. “And I did care about you. Good luck Josiah…”
He put his hand out to hold her back. “Wait. Don’t go.” He uttered, and obediently she stayed, expecting at least an explanation or apology or something more: but once again he let her down.
“I mean, you can’t go.” He explained. “It’s not safe out there. If they find out, and there’s every possibility they will, then the first thing they’ll do is go looking for anybody I could have told about them, any friends I made. Elisa Smith knows about you, they’ll come looking and so I need you to stay here. It doesn’t look much but I built it with steel plates in the walls, because, well, because I was scared.” He sighed shamefully and replaced her hand with his, pulling the door open. “Sorry.” He said as he hid behind the door and, without looking back, closed it tightly shut.
Once again Lylith White was left alone. And she was glad.
A Brilliant Disguise
Josiah Hartt pulled himself up onto the slight plateau, allowing himself a brief moment to engulf the view when in truth he needed hours. The land was like a broken cobweb, the ragged quilt of grasses and ferns lying across the lumps in the Earth, scarred by cutting rivers and broken forests. Tributaries spiralled from the rivers, dispersing the age old dirt it had broken down and snatched from the ground, in turn cutting their own paths shaped by the rocks that refused to be worn.
He glanced down briefly at the mountainside he’d just climbed, boulders like marbles scattered within the mosses. The unsteady path with had injured both the wanted killer and Field Specialist Elisa Smith was clearly much less dangerous on the ascent as Josiah himself had found enough footholds at least to push his way across the hillside and scrabble between its unpredictable nooks and crannies. It was tough work though, the pain that had been dulled by Lylith’s nursing was back with a vengeance, his limbs battered and scarred by strands of electricity, a tiring ache lying atop of his muscles which in every stretch across the rocks he tried desperately to squeeze out.
Josiah stepped forward again, digging the heel of his boot into the deep peat of the cliff face, drawing mud from the surface of the mountain like blood from a wound. The sky peaked across the horizon, slippery with a marmalade glow which found its way through the layers of clouds and down onto the deep ravines and craters spiralling out from the valley.
He found himself in a corner of the rock where at a right angle the plateau turned into a vertical slope stretching hundreds of feet down to the distant grasses below. He followed the lines in the rock with his eye, their ends met by bushes not dissimilar to those that surrounded him now, but which seemed to be like mere balls of cotton wool when dwarfed by the scale of the cliff face between them.
Hartt’s feet found a rock jutting from the peak, like a running block which he placed his foot firmly down upon. He shifted and tiny pebbles scattered and rolled down, tumbling into the abyss. For a moment he waited, then the wind let up and he peeled his feet off the rock. His toes clipped the edge of the cliff as he fell. Then friction too let go and he was left unprotected as he dropped.
Josiah spun through the air, coat rattling around him. The cold wind soothed his tenderised flesh, tickled the back of his throat. The rock face raced past him, a jagged blur obscured in his vision as he tumbled down the sky. The ground was fast approaching now. Bushes grew larger, the boulders nearer, his body twirled faster, tumbling, racing towards him, closer and closer and closer and closer…
He reached his hands out, diving towards the one tree that grew stubbornly from a gap in the stone. The rough wood obediently tensed between his palms as he fell onto it. For a moment the thick branch waned but he spun himself gently, twisting his whole body around the trunk over and over until bit by bit the spinning slowed and his body stopped, hanging limply in the air. His toes brushed the ground and so as he let go the drop was mercilessly small; his ankles gently dropping to the earth.
Josiah Hartt had walked for hours when he finally reached the woods. He’d spent those precious minutes working out where he stood. He’d made sure he’d ditched his trademark coat a fair distance away. He’d stripped his shirt as well, leaving only his waistcoat covering his chest; turned inside out so the silk scarlet lining shimmered in the sunlight and the hard-edged buttons pressed into his ribs. He liked to think he looked bohemian but as he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the gentle river’s water ‘hobo’ seemed more appropriate.
He had to adjust the rest of himself too. The way he spoke, the way he worked the jaw within his flesh. Everything had changed since his shock treatment – the skin hung differently from his bones now, his eyes blinked slower, his hands shook when still. He had to adapt to himself. Change himself. If he was going to walk into a murderers den like he belonged then the last thing he could be was uncomfortable.
Then there was the fuzzy feeling. A strange fogginess that had clouded his mind which would act as a hindrance in the Lion’s Den. He needed purification: a mental spring clean in the midst of the winter day, dusting off old neural signals to ensure he was thinking sharp again. Lylith White had certainly succeeded in planting doubts in the fertile fields of his mind – questions of emotion and commitment and love. He must be capable of those things. The women in the Agony Aunt columns of the Sunday Gazette had it down to a tee; surely Josiah Hartt could figure them out. But if he possessed such emotions where were they? Had he just lied about how strongly he could feel? He’d worked so hard at those lies that perhaps they’d became his emotionally currency now. If he could feel as easily as he could lie… What a performance that would be.
Josiah shook his head and gave his mind a final polish.
Lylith’s questions would have to wait.
Ashton Wood towered as he stood before it, great trees, thin as pencils but tall as the hills themselves creaked ominously above him. The floor was dry as a bone
, peat like sand tickling his bare feet. The river dipped deeper, its shallow water once running over bumps of sandy pebbles but now swirling viscously into blackness. Animals scuttled around him, the tutting of squirrels, the chirping of birds fleeing as he marched forwards.
The sky succumbed to darkness, far off branches waving, shuddering in the cold. A bitter, damp blanket imposed itself upon him. Josiah’s keen eyes flickered over every detail: snake roots slithering in the undergrowth, trunks wearing thin where rot began to set, gnawing at the wood like a cancer, doing more damage than the creatures of the mosses ever could. Occasionally there was a sign of life; a footprint, a shred of fabric, a drop of blood; all revealing yet none of them solidly leading him to their owners. He dunked his hand in the water again, dripping the cool fluid onto his lips and shuddering instantly. It tasted bitter, rancid, and as soon as his grimace had faded, he smiled.
Josiah Hartt stopped in a heartbeat, placing his hands on his lips and examining the scene before him. An opening of trees that was common in the forest but promising given his recent discovery. Something caught his eye, a light patch of wood on a dark stretch of bark. He hurried over to it, placing his toes inside a knot in the wood and pulling himself up the tree. The yellowed region was smooth, polished and damp while the untouched bark was dry as a bone.
The mossy carpet was scattered with trademarks of the forest, a dead rodent perched against the tree, a flourish of lifeless leaves and strands of fern coating the dirt and dust. Amongst natures litter was a tiny peach coloured twig. At least he thought it was a twig, but as he leapt from his perch and picked it up he found something different. It was instead a cutting of rope: strands of string wrapped tightly around each other and rough as sand between his fingertips.
Blood & Baltazar Page 15
