Toby joined them and Clay shook her, gently, desperate not even to cause a bruise.
She blinked back into alertness and revulsion twisted her face as she saw him. She tried to shake herself free, he refused to let go.
“Why?” she cried. “Why did you do it? They loved you, both of them did! Both Raymond and Jake adored you. Why did you kill them?”
“Who was she?” asked Clay. “Who was that girl?”
“Why?” she whined. “Why did you do it?”
He shook her again, a little more forcefully, trying to make her hear him – so he could ask questions, so he could explain.
Toby winced at his side.
“Who is she?” asked Clay.
“I don’t know.” Flower shook her head, tears flowing, saliva dribbling from her mouth. “Her name is Beatrice, she was a friend of Nick’s – he told her things.”
“What did he tell her?”
“He told her about Abigail and the others, told her about the witchcraft. She told him things too.”
“Like what?”
“There’s a man,” she sobbed. “A man they have power over, who they can make do their bidding. They had to wait until they could call him back and once they did, he’d do whatever they wanted. That’s you, isn’t it? Who else has come back? Who else has reappeared just as everybody starts to die?”
He let go of her shoulders and she sank against the wall behind her. Toby caught her and she clung onto him.
“They did it while I was asleep,” said Clay. “I didn’t realise it was me until this morning.”
“Couldn’t you stop yourself? Couldn’t you say ‘No, I can’t do this! I can’t kill him!’ Couldn’t you, Clay?”
“No.”
“So you just killed whoever they told you to?”
“It was a dream, it was like I wasn’t in control.”
She wailed and sank further. Toby held her tight and she grabbed onto him, clutching hard, as if she was fearful of landing on the cracks in the pavement.
“Did you know, Toby?” she asked. “Did you fucking know what he‘d done?”
“I’m afraid so.”
She tried to wrestle out of his arms, but it was a weak gesture. She didn’t have the force, the stamina to do it. She pushed herself against him and then wrapped herself tighter around him.
“Then why didn’t you say something? He should be inside, he should be locked up. Don’t you realise what he’s done? They were your friends, Toby, and he killed them! How can you walk around with him? How can you be with him? He killed my Jake, he killed the man I love. ”
“He didn’t,” said Toby. “Those bitches did it.”
“It was still him!” she cried. “His hands are the bloody ones, he’s the murderer!” Her knees buckled and Toby held tight. Clay reached across to support her and she hissed as if patted with acid. “He needs locking up! He’s going to kill someone tonight and we need to stop him before he does. We have to tell the police so they can put him where he can’t do anything.”
Clay nodded. “I’m willing to do that.”
“No, you can’t possibly,” snapped Toby. “You can’t, we can’t, as it isn’t really Clay – it’s them. If we lock Clay up it’s not going to make the slightest bit of difference. The police will prosecute, the jury will find him guilty – as they’ll never put the truth in their mouths, let alone swallow it – and then he’ll go away for a heavy stretch. But they’ll still be out here, they’ll still be doing this shit. And you don’t know, maybe they’ll cast a spell over someone else and make him murder. We have to stop them, Flower, and right now Clay is our best and shiniest hope.”
She wailed, a painful sound reminiscent of dying. They were starting to draw attention from passers-by.
“I know what I’ve done.” Clay talked quickly and quietly. “I know how terrible it is – but I want to stop it. I won’t sleep again. I’ll kill myself before I fall asleep. But until that happens, you’ve got to help me. We’ve got to stop them before they do this to anyone else.”
Her face was red. She was riven with pain and emotion. But she listened to what he said.
“Now, what else did that girl tell you?”
“She–she–she–” Flower staggered on her words, as if her mouth wasn’t her own. “She said they’d cast a spell and called you back, that you’ve only come for a week and in that time you’ll do whatever they want.”
“A week?”
“That’s what she said.”
“How did she recognise me?”
“Beatrice is a witch too. A good witch, a nice witch. She recognised Nick, just saw him on the street and realised he was under a spell. So she got to know him, helped him, looked after him. He told her about Abigail boasting that she’d make somebody do their bidding. This girl thought that was crap, because no one is that powerful – but when she saw you, she recognised you as someone under an awful spell. She recognised that person as you.”
Clay felt those familiar cold footsteps tracing his spine. It wasn’t Belinda she ran away from that first time. She’d seen exactly what he was and been too scared to do anything else.
“Who has she told?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, “I don’t know. Clay, there was something else – but I just can’t believe it.” She choked on emotion. “Clay, tell me – where were you? Where did they call you back from?”
“I was just away, just hanging out.”
“Where? What was the name of the place?”
He was sweating. There was no shadow near and he could suddenly feel the sunlight bearing down on him, burning and blistering his skin, warping and twisting his skull.
“It was a good place,” he said. “There was a beach, there was sea. There were other people. I liked it.”
“What was it called?” she asked.
Toby held her tight. “Why don’t you know, Clay?”
Clay was weak, a vampire in the sunshine. He staggered while standing still, his body swaying on otherwise steady feet.
“Where was it, Clay? Do you know?”
He pitched forward and smashed into the wall. Flower screamed and he was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
It was him and that man again.
He’d waited, excited to see this man. Waited, nervous to see this man. Spent the whole day in restless anticipation, unable to sit or focus clearly on anything else. It was like a jumping in his heart when the doorbell finally rang – punctual, of course.
They kissed. He swooped his lips up to him, so happy to see him, delighted to have him there, because he didn’t actually want to speak to him. It was difficult to describe how much he loathed this man, absolutely hated him. There were no real reasons for it, no horrible crime of which this man was guilty, nothing much in his personality worth hating. But he’d just pulled together all his little irritating traits, combined them with his own circumstance and sense of failure, and created an irrational correlation between the two. It was as if this man was responsible for it all; without trying, he had ruined his life. This man’s mere presence meant his own existence was marked by the wilted flower of failure.
He kissed the man long and hard, better to shut him up, to bruise his lips and make him wince. He led the man back towards the bedroom, kissing the whole way.
They giggled as they went – and this made him hate the man even more. He was giggling because he knew what was coming, he knew what was really going on, while the man was giggling because he was stupid, because he had no comprehension of what was going on. He kissed him and pitied him, kissed him and hated him.
They reached the bedroom and he got the man to undress. It was the one thing about the man he hadn’t tired of, his body – his chest, his stomach, his behind, his thighs, even the whites of his soles. He enjoyed looking at him naked, enjoyed being with him naked. It was everything else he disliked, every other moronic limitation he possessed.
The man sat on the bed and they continued to kiss. He bi
t into the man’s lip – gently, but not really gently – and twisted it around in his teeth. The man seemed to enjoy that – he really was something to be hated and stamped upon.
He got himself undressed quickly, and was glad to see that usual spark of desire in the man’s eyes. They kissed again, his naked legs on the man’s naked thighs, kissing and kissing, trying to hurt the man and the man seeming to enjoy it.
He was soon bored though. The man might have liked it, but this wasn’t what they were here for. He slipped out of the man’s grasp – the man’s hands grabbing for him as he went – and got down on his knees in front of him. He could see the flash of surprise on the man’s face: he rarely did this for him.
As he sank to his knees, he simultaneously reached under the mattress. He put the man’s cock in his mouth and grabbed the knife. The sense of power was acute: he actually enjoyed giving a blow-job for the first time in a decade.
The man was totally at ease, vulnerable, expecting nothing but pleasure from his companion – and in his right hand he had the chance to exploit that vulnerability, to give everything but pleasure.
He worked that cock and felt the man’s enjoyment grow. The man – like an imbecile – reached his hand onto the back of his head. He didn’t force his head back up as he normally would, he didn’t spit the dick out in disgust – he just gripped that knife tighter, the hilt warming in his hand.
The man was excited. He could feel the moment getting near and he worked faster. Then they were there – the man reached the edge of climax with a stupid schoolgirl gasp, and he tortured him by letting go, taking his lips away and looking up.
That hated, stupid man was sweaty. He was out of breath, needing to be brought off, desperate for it to happen.
He smiled at him, smiled at his discomfort, and didn’t care that the smile wasn’t loving.
There was a vow he needed the man to make, words which needed to be spoken.
He held the knife.
“You’re always mine,” he said, fixing the man in his anxious-to-please eyes. “You will always be mine, won’t you?”
“Yes,” said the man. “Yes, I will.”
He smiled and leaned forward. Predictably, the man closed his eyes and lolled his head back.
It was then he brought out the knife.
He jammed it into the man’s chest and he gave another stupid gasp – more frightened schoolgirl this time. Then he sliced open the rib cage. The man slumped back to the bed – still alive, just the way they needed him.
Rising up from his knees, he grinned at the bed, the blood seeping across the sheets. He laughed at the man’s face, those eyes shocked and pleading.
And for the first time he recognised him, knew the man’s identity.
It was Clay. Himself.
He was lying helpless, life-blood pumping rapidly from him. He’d been sliced open by a lover.
He looked around and realised that everything in the room – the walls, the curtains, the bedspread, the carpet, the furniture, all knick-knacks and ornaments – were green.
And then he saw the mirror and the reflection of Belinda.
She was naked, with the spray of blood across her throat, her breasts, her stomach and right the way through that red hair. He saw the triumphant smile on her face, blood-stained dimples. He saw her delight at what she’d achieved.
He heard her call to Abigail and Judy, so they could see how well it had gone, so they could finish the rest of the ceremony.
She looked at Clay, the blood spurting from him, a pathetic hurt expression on his face, his heart exposed but still pumping. She stood above him, her hand on her hip and gave a little wiggle of power, then she spat in his eye and laughed.
She laughed at how easy it had been, at how wonderful she was to have killed someone as worthless as Clay.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Clay woke on the pavement of the Holloway Road with a hard, wrenching cough that threatened to bring up his gut.
His eyelids flickered as the sunlight entered him. He found the brightness reassuring. After the darkness of memory, after two years of waiting – two years when he hadn’t even realised he was waiting – the white light invigorated. It was real, he could feel it, he could recognise the world under it.
Toby and Flower knelt in front of him, fear gone, anger dissipated, offering concerned pity.
“They killed me.”
“Who did?”
“Belinda – but they were all together. Now I can remember going there that night. We’d argued and she rang me and apologised, told me she was sorry, that it was her fault, that I should come over so we could make up. I’d been having a drink with Raymond – the last time I saw him properly – and he told me not to go, but I didn’t listen to him.” Clay’s voice was thick with emotion. “I was so stupid in love that I dashed round there. We kissed, she took me to her bedroom, then she pulled out a knife and sliced me open.”
He stared at Toby and Flower. The memories flooded back and sickened every inch of him. You’re not supposed to remember your own death – what the Hell had they done to him that he could actually manage to do it?
It took him a moment to find the words, then he continued: “Belinda called the other two and the three of them stood in front of me. They were all naked and they put their hands in my blood and smeared it all over themselves. They laughed as they did it. They fucking laughed as I was dying.” It was as if he could feel the pain all over again. “They put their arms around each other and then Abigail started to chant. They chanted in some language I couldn’t understand. Maybe it was Latin, maybe it was something even older. The three of them sang this tuneless song to some horned god below, and then Abigail reached her hand into my chest and ripped out my heart. She actually tore it out. I could see it in her palm – still beating.”
Flower and Toby both clutched him, the three of them sharing tears now.
“She had my heart in her hand and held it up and sang that chant once more. And then they ate it. They ate my heart while it was still beating. They tore it apart with their bloody fingers and ate it.” He choked. “I can remember no breath in my body, but I was peering up at them while they ate my goddamned heart. Drooling as they stuffed it in their mouths, swallowing it quickly. They ate it and smiled at me, their teeth stained with my blood.”
He buckled over. The sun still burned down but he was pale and washed away.
They both held him.
“What-what-what did that girl tell you?” asked Toby finally.
Flower took a breath. “Apparently, Abigail got drunk one night and told Nick about the killing and the heart eating. This was before it happened and she didn’t say she was going to do it, just brought it up as a hypothetical witch’s thing. One of those scary tales from old books that don’t make any difference in today’s life.” She wiped her eyes and then laughed – a strange laugh, without a fraction of joy. “He was so besotted, he apparently thought she was flirting with him, thought she wanted to sleep with him, for him to be the sacrifice. But when he made a pass, she told him to fuck off and left with some other bloke. Afterwards, he told this Beatrice girl about it and she looked it up in one of her books. There is a spell like that. It makes the witches incredibly strong. It gives them power over their poor victim. Even though he’s dead, they still control his soul. They can summon him back – only for a short time though, a week or so. But they can make him physical again and control him.” She rested her head against his chest. “Oh dear God, Clay, I can’t believe this could actually happen.”
“This girl – Beatrice – she’s a witch, isn’t she?” said Clay.
“Yes.” Flower raised her head back up, fixed him with her sodden blue eyes.
“Well, can she help me? Can she cast some kind of spell on them?”
“No. I asked her and she said Abigail is too powerful for her – they’re all too powerful now. She could try but it wouldn’t do any good. She’s sorry, but there’s nothing she can do. If there w
as, she would have helped Nick.”
“Okay.” Clay stared up to the sun. “I know what to do.”
“What?” asked Toby.
“I’m going to sleep.”
“What?” exclaimed Flower.
“There’s a limit to their power,” he said. “Last night, I didn’t go to kill Jake – I went to kill you.”
Flower’s hand covered her mouth.
“They wanted you dead because you’ve got a part in that show – and if you died it would have to be recast, maybe to one of them. The problem was, you weren’t there, and they had no way to find you. So I think if you all hide yourselves away – all the people we know, all the people they’re likely to hurt – if you hide tonight, then whichever one they pick, I won’t be able to find. I won’t have chance to harm. And when the evening’s over, they’ll bring me back to them, bring me back to their flat and I’ll deal with them there.”
“What will you do?” asked Toby.
“I don’t know yet. But if you’re safe, I don’t have much to lose.”
Flower crushed herself to him, trembling with sobs.
“Make phone calls,” he told them. “Get everyone out tonight – Bunny, Charles, Lizzie – anybody who might be next.”
Flower shook her head, worried. “I don’t think Lizzie will leave the house.”
“Okay, you’ll have to take care of her separately. The others though – tell them I’ve just seen the police so they don’t ring them beforehand to give my location. Then, when we’re all together, I’ll tell them to hide – to get out of sight where I can’t find them. And afterwards I’ll check into a hotel, swallow a few sedatives – and it’s goodbye.”
Toby stared at him. “You sure about this?”
Clay nodded. “Once you’re all safe, well – I’m hardly going to worry about dying myself, am I?”
The Wannabes Page 22
