by S M Hardy
Crouching down I lifted one corner and it soon became evident there was more to it. Hidden beneath the mat a marble inlaid trapdoor filled the space between the bar and the wall. I had found my way under the house and hopefully to the underground chapel.
‘Thank you, ladies,’ I murmured.
Descending the stone steps into the belly of the house, the beam of the flashlight leading the way, I felt like the loneliest man on earth. The stairs led to a long, narrow, stone-clad corridor. Empty brackets for torches lined the walls just above head height and the tart, oily aroma overlying the smell of dirt and dust suggested they were put to good use. After a few yards the torch beam found a large wooden door blocking the way. If it was locked I was fucked. Just looking at it I could see it would take a battering ram to get through the thing.
Heart thumping, I grasped the iron ring handle and twisted. The gods were with me. With a loud click of the lock it opened and I stepped inside, lifting the flashlight to slowly swing it back and forth.
‘Bloody hell,’ I muttered.
When Mrs Walters had told me there was a secret chapel beneath the west wing, I had thought it would be a small family-sized vault for worship during times of trouble. The first Lord Pomeroy apparently didn’t do anything by halves. The place was maybe not a full-sized church, but it wasn’t far off it, the beam of my torch barely reaching the far end.
I doubted anyone was lying in wait in the darkness, but all the same I took my time as I walked towards the front, the softened echoes of my every step following my progress and bouncing off the walls to fill the chamber.
Something moved to my right and I spun around, the torch cutting a swathe through the dark and catching the glint of small, beady eyes, before a rodent scampered away. Rats – that’s all I needed. I thought of Emma, rats never bothered her at all. ‘They’re more scared of me than I am of them,’ she used to say, and my heart gave a little lurch. Where was she? If I didn’t find her soon … I couldn’t think that way. If I did the mission would fail before it had even begun.
Mission? What was I thinking?
The way you have to if you want to succeed. The voice in my head sounded very much like Simon, the old Simon, who Reggie and I could count on when we needed to, the voice of calm reason when we had a job to do.
I kept on walking. Apart from three rows of pews right at the back, the rest of the chapel was an open space until it reached the altar a few yards from the front. Behind it my torch caught the glimmer of black glossy curtains, patterned with gold astrological designs, covering the stone walls.
As I drew closer, I played the torch beam over the stone-hewn altar and a small stab of horror pierced my chest just above my breastbone. A swathe of rumpled red silk was piled in its centre and it looked to me as though it might be covering something – or someone.
‘Jesus, Jesus,’ I murmured. If there was ever a time for me to find religion it was now.
I slowly continued walking and the closer I got the more convinced I became that beneath the crimson material lay a human body. I could hear my heart beating in my ears. My windpipe felt so constricted I was finding it hard to breathe. Oliver had Laura – he didn’t need Emma any more. Is this why Mrs Walters sent me here? So I could find my dead wife?
A tear trickled down my cheek and I swiped it away. I stopped about a yard from the altar. There was no deluding myself, there was a body under the covering. Darkened patches stained the material and lines of blood streamed down the grey stone forming glossy pools upon the floor.
I took one shuddery breath and then another, closing my eyes I suppose, hoping that when I opened them again the material, body and blood would be gone. It wasn’t to be. I knew I was delaying the inevitable. But if I didn’t lift the silk for a few more seconds, a few more minutes or maybe even a few more hours I would still have some hope. I could still believe the love of my life was alive.
I took the final couple of steps to stand looking down upon the altar. Possibly the last two steps I’d take before my life changed for ever. I reached down and took hold of the edge of the silk. It felt cool and soft between my fingertips.
‘Oh, Emma.’
I took one more shuddery breath, the last one before my heart would break into a million pieces, and slowly pulled the material back.
The breath caught in my throat and I couldn’t swallow as I was swamped with a myriad of emotions and – God help me – the biggest one was relief. It lasted but a moment before the whole horror of it came crashing down upon me, but I would always remember the feeling, I would remember I had felt relief that it was someone else and not my wife who had died.
Detective Sergeant Peters had died badly. Like Brandon he had been tortured before they had cut his throat to let him bleed out over the altar. They had let him keep his tongue, I guess he needed it to tell them what they wanted to know, but apparently his teeth were fair game and from the shattered stumps that remained they had taken a hammer and chisel to them. It was difficult to tell the colour of his shirt. It was a bloody mess. Once they’d run out of teeth to destroy, they’d taken the chisel to his chest, judging by the dark eruptions of gore and slim gashes in the material, smashing every one of his ribs and then collarbones.
‘Jesus Christ,’ I muttered, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
‘He’ll not help you, dahling,’ a voice said from behind me.
I swung around and the beautiful but deadly Tanith Bloxborough smiled at me, raised her fist palm upwards slowly unclenching her fingers and, when it reached head height, puckered her ruby lips and blew. I staggered backwards as shimmering dust hit me in the face, my eyes closing not quickly enough to stop them stinging. I fell as silver sparkles erupted in my eyeballs and, as everything faded to black, she leant over me and began to laugh.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
A sharp pain in my right earlobe had me struggling to open my eyes. The dwarf, who must have been sitting on my aching chest and hitting me very hard on the cranium with a pickaxe, was making it extremely difficult. My hearing felt muffled like I had cotton wool stuffed in my ears and I would have killed for a sip of water. Then I remembered Tanith bloody Bloxborough raising her hand and blowing a fine, sparkling dust into my face and it began to make sense of why I felt so awful. I’d been drugged.
Another pinch to my ear and I forced my eyelids to peel themselves from my eyeballs and open a slit. Eyes so dark they appeared to have no pupil stared into mine filling my vision, and for a couple of seconds were all I could see. I had a moment of vertigo and the world gave a lurch. She rocked back on her haunches. Tanith Bloxborough was kneeling astride my legs, her short skirt riding up to show slim, tanned thighs.
‘At last. Poor dahling, I thought your heart might not have had the strength,’ she said, in a cut-glass accent.
I tried to move, but my arms and legs could have been made with lead. She smiled and reached out with a long, crimson-painted nail to trace it down my exposed jugular to the collar of my shirt, then along the material and down past the open top button to the next. The reflection of gold flickering torches lit her eyes and for a split second it gave the impression of her pupils being fiery vertical slits. I gulped down my fear. I knew this woman was dangerous, but I hadn’t realised how evil. It oozed from her, seemingly wrapping itself around my body and gripping me in its tight embrace.
She undid the button with a flick of her finger. Her eyes still on mine. ‘You are a very interesting man and I am not quite sure what I should do with you.’ Her fingernail tapped the third button and, with another flick, it was open.
I tried to speak. It was impossible. I was paralysed and the realisation caused my fear to escalate, constricting my chest and making it hard to breathe, or was that the drug? Was I to asphyxiate as my organs ceased to function while the paralysis spread throughout my body?
She undid the fourth and fifth button, her fingers moving ever downwards to linger on the material just above my belt.
‘I have b
een told you’re also a dangerous man.’ Her eyes twinkled in the torchlight. ‘I am a dangerous woman, but I think you know that. Perhaps we could both be dangerous together? What a team we would make.’
If I had been able to move, I’m sure I would have shuddered. The feelings she stirred in me were all of primeval dread.
She laughed and slid her hand under my shirt and now-empty holster, resting it on the left side of my chest above my heart. Her palm was warm and soft. She pressed it against my skin, hard enough that my bruised and battered flesh complained, the ache pulsing in time with my heartbeat – or was it hers?
‘No, your heart is not weak. You have a strong heart. It beats with a passion.’ She laughed. ‘Are you a passionate man, Jed? I suspect you are. I suspect you are a very passionate man.’
Her hand slowly moved down my chest, across my stomach and back to my waist. She hooked the tip of her finger through the front of my belt and pulled. The tongue slipped out of the buckle. She pulled it back a little harder, slipping the buckle pin out of the hole holding the belt closed. I gulped as she gripped the metal and tugged, sliding the leather out of the loops around my waistband. Her eyes went back to mine. They glistened darkly in the torchlight as she ran the tip of her tongue along her bottom lip. She chuckled softly and leant back, lifting her hand and drawing my belt with it. With one final tug I felt it pull free from my trousers. With a triumphant laugh she brandished it above me, grasping the leather just below the buckle. It hung there twisting and undulating and, in my head, at least I think it was in my head, it transformed into a snake. Her hand wrapped around its neck just below its head, as it hissed and its forked tongue flicked, tasting the air, its beady black eyes glaring down at me as it opened its mouth wide, showing long, pointed fangs. Then with a snap of her wrist she dropped it to the floor and, as it fell, it became nothing more than a plain, black leather belt, with a chunky brass buckle. I managed a shuddery breath, though my chest felt like it was barely moving at all.
Her hand dropped back to my waistband and she slipped her forefinger beneath the material. ‘What have we here?’ Her feline smile growing upon seeing my fear. I had no way of hiding it. I was trapped, a spectator of my own fate. I could only watch as she did whatever she wanted to me.
She undid the button to my trousers and pulled out my shirt, opening it. She leant back studying my chest.
‘Hmm, nice body for a man of your age.’
She leant forward again, and I heard my zip go as she slowly drew it down. As stupid as it was it crossed my mind how I was glad I had showered and changed my clothes, then I wondered what the hell I was thinking.
I swallowed and it occurred to me that maybe I was regaining some movement. This was belied by my failure to even be able to twitch my fingers.
One of hers found its way below the waistband of my boxers and her eyes went back to mine. ‘So, Jed, are you the passionate man I think? Do you fill your wife’s nights with lust and ardour?’ Her fingers walked their way down my belly, the tips of her nails sharp against my skin, until they found what they were looking for.
I closed my eyes. I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t want to see her expression as she exerted her power over me, because this was what it was all about, and a hiccup of fear for Emma and Laura made me screw my eyes tight.
Her hand closed about me, squeezing hard enough to make me gasp. ‘Such a shame I have no more time. But never fear – we will grow further acquainted. That is a promise.’
A thumb and forefinger gripped my chin very tight and her lips crushed against mine, before the tip of her tongue ran across my bottom lip.
‘I will see you later,’ she whispered.
I caught whiff of something spicy and my head began to spin, at first slow, then faster and faster and faster until I slipped into oblivion.
I came to with a start, my nostrils filled with the pungent, sweet perfume of incense that instantly made me want to puke.
‘The old boy’s awake,’ a youthful male voice said.
The old boy? Little shit.
‘Sit him upright.’ Oliver, I recognised his voice all right.
I tried opening my eyes as someone manhandled me into a sitting position. They stung like fuck and everything was a misty blur like I was peering through rumpled polythene. I tried to raise a hand to rub my eyes and found they were bound together with a cord, which wouldn’t allow me to lift them more than a few inches. My befuddled brain was having trouble working it out until I tried to move my feet and instantly felt an added pressure to my wrists. My ankles were tied and linked to my wrists by the same cord. I supposed I should have been grateful they hadn’t hog-tied me. Then it occurred to me – I could move. I could actually move of my own volition.
My eyes were beginning to clear, but my head was aching like it had been used as a football, my hearing was muffled and my stomach churned worse than if I’d been on a week-long bender. I supposed it was hardly surprising. I’d been drugged – twice.
Then I could see and realised how much trouble I was in. Oliver, Tanith and the lad, Sebastien, who Dan had said was slack and then had gone and shot me, were looking down on me. My back was against a stone wall, which was most likely the only thing keeping me upright. The way I felt I would really rather lie down again.
The Boy Wonder had Dan’s sawn-off pointed at my chest, his expression a little too eager for my liking. He was itching to pull the trigger and it was in my best interests that he didn’t. I wondered where Emma and Laura were − even thinking of Emma in these maniacs’ clutches caused an ice-cold band of anxiety to tighten around my heart.
‘You really should have taken the hint and gone on home,’ Oliver said. ‘Now I’m afraid you and your lady wife are going to have to have an unfortunate accident.’
‘Why …’ I tried to say, but my tongue was like a flap of leather in my mouth. I had another go. I knew it was impossible to negotiate with true psychopaths, but I had to give it a try. ‘Why are you doing this?’
‘It’s a long story and far too tedious to tell right now.’
Tanith sidled close to him, wrapping her arm around his waist. Just looking at her made me feel sick. The smile she gave me made me feel dirty. Dirty and somehow lost. ‘He is about to die,’ she said. ‘It’s only fair he should know why.’
‘We haven’t the time,’ he said, pulling away from her, allowing me to get a view of where I was being held.
I was still in the chapel and I surmised I must be leaning against the altar. Something I had been unaware of during my time spent with Tanith. I’d literally only had eyes for her. The metallic aroma of fresh blood tainted the air and the whole area was now awash with the light from twenty or so burning torches spread out around the walls closest to the altar.
I felt like shit and if I was to be effective I needed time to clear my head. I needed to keep him talking. ‘You killed your own brothers,’ I said. ‘You killed my friend. I want to know why.’
‘Your friend?’ he laughed. ‘The friend you haven’t spoken to for over two decades. You’re as bad as him.’
He had me there, but I wasn’t about to let him wrong-foot me. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Simon was a two-faced sneak. I let him leave. We let him leave. I told him it was over, so he’d be free, but he couldn’t let it be.’ His voice began to rise and his face took on a blotchy, reddened hue. ‘He didn’t trust his own brother. He didn’t trust me.’
‘Apparently his instincts were spot on,’ I commented.
‘You know nothing,’ he snarled. Tanith’s hand went to her mouth trying to hide a smile. She was laughing at him, enjoying his anger.
‘Dahling, don’t upset yourself so. They are dead, kaput, gone,’ she said. He wrinkled his nose and she stroked his cheek. ‘And in a few hours so will she be – the last of the Pomeroys.’
My already delicate stomach was beginning to feel decidedly queasy. They were both monsters. ‘What has Laura ever done to you?’
Oliver sta
red down at me. ‘Not a thing,’ he said. ‘She’s paying for the sins of her father.’
‘Your son?’ I asked.
His lips curled into a bitter smile. ‘Martine told him the child was his, but then she had told me it was mine – it turned out that she’d lied to both of us.’ He glanced at Sebastien holding the sawn-off and an expression of distaste flickered across his face.
‘Go and get ready.’
‘What about him?’ Sebastien said, pointing the gun at my head.
‘He’s strung up like a turkey. Go now.’ He glanced at Tanith. ‘You too.’
‘Can I not stay?’ she asked with a pout. ‘I love your stories.’
He reached out to tip her chin upwards. ‘Get ready. I want you at your best tonight.’
The pout disappeared to be replaced by a slow, cat-like smile. My skin crawled. The woman oozed a dark sensuality, and Emma had been right, it was the sort reminiscent of a Black Widow right before she bit her suitor’s head right off and, given half the chance, I had the feeling she had her sights set on mine. The pair of them creeped me out; even so, I used the opportunity of their being engrossed in each other to start testing the ropes binding me. From the sounds of it I didn’t have much time before the ceremony was due to start.
She pressed her red lips against his cheek. ‘Save a bit of him for me,’ she murmured, loud enough that I could hear it. She favoured me with a lingering look and blew a kiss before walking behind the altar. Oliver stood watching me in silence until the echo of her high heels disappeared with the creak and clunk of a door opening and closing.
