The houses were in darkness, the high street deserted. Equidistant streetlights cast cones of light that struggled to keep the dark at bay. The wind roared, snuffling like a large predator as it chased the litter it liberated from a dustbin.
Zen pulled Leo's old jacket tighter around his torso, trying to keep warm. The coattails flapped around as though trying to conduct the wind.
Verity stood beside him, her short hair covered by a beret while the only thing holding her calf length skirt down seemed to be the tassels that whipped her legs. Bangles on her wrists jangled like tambourines. She wore a diaphanous white blouse beneath the green army coat.
“So where are we going?” Verity asked.
Zen looked along the high street, his eyes narrowed against the wind and rain. “I don't think it matters. They want to find us more than we want to find them.” He started walking along the road. Verity followed, head bent against the wind.
He could understand her scepticism. If he hadn’t seen the place, he imagined he would feel the same.
Leo had refused to help them, saying they should get out while they could, but Zen knew that for Verity and himself, there was no escape.
As he passed the undertakers, Zen inclined his head and looked towards the window. A face peered back, making him jump. Discovering it to be his own reflection, he felt stupid; having not expected it, he felt on edge, like someone coming down from a bad trip, only to find that the nightmares hadn't diminished.
Zen flinched as the resonance of the wind sounded like a growl, and he spun around, scanning the shadows beyond the streetlights. Hairs prickled on the nape of his neck. Movement caught his eye and he tried to trace the source, but the shadows concealed it. He walked on, vigilant.
The sound of voices drifted out of the Salvation public house. Zen wished he was inside, knocking back a few bottles of Budweiser, rather than standing outside haunted by the phantoms of his imagination. At least it would be dry in there.
At the end of the high street, a solitary streetlight flickered. They approached, and Zen watched their shadows foreshorten and then creep ahead; a dark path in the fabric of the night.
“What the hell’s that?” Verity shouted in his ear.
Zen looked where she indicated, just able to make out a lofty rotating light high in the clouds. The light pulsed with a sickly orange tinge. Momentarily illuminating them, it cast their shadows along the ground like elongated stick figures.
“That's it,” Zen said. “That's their beacon.” He shook his head. “We've jumped over our own shadows.” He looked back and saw the houses of Trinity had disappeared, replaced by gothic structures that hulked against the night. “Come on, there's no going back now.”
Verity didn’t move. She looked around, her face pale. “What’s happened?”
“Welcome to the Shadowland.”
“You mean … you mean, this place, it’s real!”
“Either that or we’re both having the same nightmare. Come on.”
The closer they got to the pulsing light, the sharper the towering edifice became. Buttresses became apparent, with what looked like people standing on them, looking out.
At his side, he noticed Verity look up at the lighthouse in awe.
Zen didn't know whether it was the same one he had seen before, or whether it was just a gateway, one of many that called the faithful to prayer at the alter of decadence. Either way he also couldn't help but be impressed.
The building must have been hundreds; perhaps thousands of feet in circumference and constructed at odd angles. At a distance, he thought the walls were straight, but as he got closer, he saw they distorted, sculpted into hundreds of thousands of bodies. The protuberance of a devilish countenance, the gargoyle grin of a stone facade, the hulk of a monster with fangs the size of an arm, a woman suckling imp-like creatures on her distended breasts. A figure with the body of a bear and the head of a man, smooth headed creatures that looked like birds of prey, a woman in a beseeching pose, her naked form in symbiosis with something tuberous and plant-like, figures with grotesque faces on their shoulders, bodies with four arms; a phantasmagoria of demons. The figures looked so real, it was hard to work out if they were just obscene carvings or the victims of a Medusa gaze, this their final resting place, a sarcophagus to the Shadowland.
Zen shook his head, his dreadlocks whipping his cheeks. High above, where the light pulsed, a bolt of lightning split the sky, animating the bodies like Frankenstein with his monster, a shadow play performing to a tumultuous clap of thunder.
At his side, he noticed Verity shaking, but he didn't know whether through fear or cold.
A large door at the foot of the building opened and a pale red light filtered out. Zen stepped through into a short passage and walked into the lighthouse and looked up, feeling dizzy as his eyes traced the spiral staircase that wound around the wall to the buildings perched high above.
“What the hell is this place?” Verity asked, surprising Zen as she took hold of his hand and squeezed.
“You've hit the nail on the head. This is hell.”
“No, really, where are we?”
“This is Alice through a dark looking glass, Dorothy in the land of osmosis; this is where the crazy people come.”
Verity squeezed his hand tighter, as though afraid he would disappear. “I never imagined it would look like this. It's ... it's ...”
“Beautiful,” the albino man offered as he appeared from the shadows.
“I was going to say, ugly,” Verity said, taking an involuntary step back.
The albino man laughed. “One man's beauty is another man's depravity. But enough about the aesthetics of my world.” He sniffed the air and stared at Verity. “You’ve got the bouquet of death about you.”
Verity swallowed.
The albino turned his attention to Zen, his red eyes glowing like coals. “Melantha’s still alive so you’ve lost the bet. Now it's time to pay up.” He grinned salaciously and Zen sensed movement in the shadows, like carrion waiting to feast.
“Hold on,” Zen said. “I haven't had a chance yet.” He took a step back, pulling Verity with him. A cold wind blew down from on high, bringing with it the aroma of decay.
“How many chances do you want,” the albino man spat.
“It's not that easy.”
The albino man chuckled and plucked an assortment of sharp, wicked implements from the air. He proceeded to spin them magically around his hands so they made a soft whirring sound.
Zen felt a trickle of sweat roll down his forehead. “Wait. I need more time.” He looked at the blades and bit his lip.
“You can't be serious about wanting him to kill his mother,” Verity said.
“Deadly.” The albino man advanced, his long coattails flapping.
“What if I help him?” Verity asked.
The albino man stopped advancing; looked suspicious. “I can tell from your expression that you’re bewitched. You can’t do anything to help.”
“She can if she wants to live,” Leo said, appearing in the doorway. He wiped his brow beneath the rim of the trilby. “Melantha’s on her way and it’s a war she’s after.”
CHAPTER 20
Zen looked at Leo in surprise. “I thought you weren’t coming, and how did you find us?”
Leo shrugged. “There’s a doorway if you know where to look, the same doorway Melantha will use. Call me stupid, but I came to warn you.”
Zen took a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and lit it. He needed the nicotine now more than ever. Overhead, something flew between rooms, something dark and sinister with papery wings. Zen shivered and turned to the albino. “So why did you let Melantha get away with this power?”
“We had no choice. We don’t police what happens here. But the Glamour casts a powerful spell, a dark seduction, and the only way to stop her is to kill her.”
“There must be another way,” Zen said.
“No.”
Zen didn't know what to say. He wa
s still reeling from finding out his parents were not really his parents, and that his real mother was a megalomaniac, never mind that he had to kill her to stop her unleashing hell on earth. Things couldn't get any worse, surely.
“Why haven’t you stopped her yourself? You seem to have a trick or two up your sleeve. And it’s not as if you couldn’t raise an army of your own,” Zen said.
“We don’t need to raise an army, not when we have you. It’s so much more satisfying to pit son against mother, don’t you think?”
Zen saw something in the albino’s expression that implied he wasn’t telling the whole story. “You’re lying,” he said.
The albino man glared at Zen, making him step back. “We may not have many rules here, but one that we do have is not to create a disturbance in the infrastructure, the glue that binds the worlds. If we unleash an army into your world, there would be no telling the repercussions. It could threaten the equilibrium.”
“Well why not just wait until she arrives and then take her out?”
The albino didn’t answer.
“You’re scared aren’t you?” Zen felt like laughing. “You’re afraid she might succeed.”
The albino shook his head. “No, we’re afraid that you might fail.”
Zen frowned. “So how did you find me? And why, if you can open doors anywhere, did I have to bloody make my own way here?”
The albino man narrowed his eyes. “We know about everyone that’s been to this place. However, you were born here, so you’re linked in a way you wouldn’t understand – let’s just say you carry a little piece of the darkness in your heart. To make you understand; to make you see the importance of what you have to do, you had to make the journey.”
“Well, why don't you give me some special power to use?”
“Because you don't need one.”
Zen was about to protest, but the room started to spin, becoming a fractal photograph that spun away in a grey and black swirl.
“Remember, Zen. Last chance,” the albino man whispered menacingly in his ear.
Zen's stomach lurched. It felt like riding on a waltzer, spinning round and round and up and down. He vaguely registered that Verity still held onto his hand and he tried to concentrate on her touch, trying to use her as an anchor.
The whirlwind of shapes began to slow, and a picture started to form, gaining in clarity. Zen blinked. He’d never liked fairground rides, now he liked them even less. Buildings became visible; honest to goodness buildings that didn't look out of place. Still raining, Zen felt the drops hit his face; they felt wonderful, real and refreshing. He breathed deeply and exhaled, trying to rid his lungs of the smell of death and decay. Where the clouds dispersed on the horizon, the sun peeked over like a baleful eye.
“Home sweet home,” Leo said.
Zen looked behind him to see Leo swaying slightly, his face strangely pale. Then he turned to look at Verity, to check that she was okay, but there was no one there. He could still feel her hand in his, and he looked down, only it wasn't Verity's hand he had hold of, but a knife, the handle of which nestled in his palm. He held it up, studying it. He had never seen a knife like it. The blade looked like white bone, about eight inches long, and curved in a wicked sneer. There were serrations in the blade, but they weren't regular and they looked like sharp incisors. The handle of the knife wrapped around the back of his hand to stop his fingers slipping onto the cutting edge. Small blades protruded either side of the main one.
“Where's Verity?” Leo asked.
Zen shrugged and held up the knife. “She was holding my hand, next thing I know, I'm holding this instead.” His expression turned sour and he went pale. “The money ...” He held aloft his other, empty hand. “Those bastards.” He spat on the ground.
Leo clenched his fists. “Fool, you left her there.”
Zen didn't appreciate Leo's patronising tone, especially not after losing so much money. “Look, pal. I didn't leave her anywhere.”
“Then where is she?”
Zen didn't know, but he could hazard a guess.
“So you want to help Zen?” the albino man said.
Verity shivered. She’d watched Zen and Leo disappear right before her eyes, and despite trying to keep hold of Zen, like everyone else in her life, he’d slipped through her fingers like water.
“I said I did, didn't I,” she replied, trying to sound braver than she felt. “Melantha wants to kill me. I can’t stand by and do nothing.”
A door opened on her left and a figure appeared. Although hard to make out any features in the feeble red light, she thought she saw the glint of long, sharp teeth and the sheen of sweat on naked breasts before the figure disappeared into the shadows. Whatever or wherever this place was, it was like something created in a nightmare. She couldn't believe people came here of their own free will. A noise overhead drew her attention and she looked up to see a procession of figures walking the steps, but they looked unnatural, their shapes distorted as though viewed through water. Some of them appeared to have wings, others looked ethereal like shadows; some were naked, others were clothed.
Whatever happened when this was all over, she knew her life would never be the same. How could it be? She had looked into the bowels of hell and she couldn't expect to come out unscathed; not when she knew the monsters were real, and that they made nightmares look tame.
“Are you willing to pay the price?” the albino asked.
Verity swallowed, trying to dislodge the lump in her throat. “What do you mean, price? I thought I was helping you.”
“Yes, but unlike Zen, you need endowing with something extra.” He grinned, his teeth ominously white and sharp.
“Endowing with what?”
The albino man smiled. “Armour.”
CHAPTER 21
Melantha watched the sunrise, mesmerised as though seeing it for the first time.
She hadn't slept all night, choosing to tend the fire, a beacon. Her people arrived in dribs and drabs, and now a small enclave of caravans and vehicles surrounded her.
A palpable air of trepidation filled the camp.
As she contemplated the fire, Barrabas approached, gulping tea from a mug. A couple of young men accompanied him, their faces eager, but also afraid.
“So, are you going to tell us the plan?” he asked, throwing the dregs of his tea onto the fire which spat out a tongue of flame and hissed as if in anger.
“The plan’s simple. I’ll take you to the Shadowland. From there, it’s up to each of you to acquire whatever you can, however you can.”
“That doesn't seem like much of a plan,” Barrabas spat, his lips pursed and his eyes narrowed in consternation.
“What would you suggest?”
“For a start, it took you years to acquire your power,” Barrabas said.
“That's because my power’s bound by the flesh. But there are things that don’t need a magical invocation: perfumes from other worlds that make people go crazy. Then there are weapons from far-flung places that you wouldn’t believe.”
“And have you seen these things?” one of the other men asked.
“I don’t have to have seen them to know they exist. It's a place of dreams.”
“But ... but I've heard—”
“Heard what? That it's the home of bengikano. The devil's place. Well, everything you've heard is true, but more so. I won't lie to you. You’ll see things that’ll chill your blood, sights that’ll give you waking nightmares. It's a place you’ll wish you’d never seen.” She looked into the flames, remembering her own experience of the place, and she knew they were right to be scared. The scars she carried were not just physical. She hadn't just looked into the abyss, she had fallen in. “It's up to each individual to choose the path he treads. I won't force you to come, but let me tell you now, no matter how distasteful that place is, if we don’t take from it what we need, then our ancestors will have died for nothing. How much longer are you prepared to suffer at the hands of ignorant people?
There are things there that will help us strike our enemies down. This is our time. Our time to rise up and fight.”
“So how can we expect just to take what we want?” the timid man asked, twiddling his thumbs. “If these people are as bad as you say ... We can’t defeat bengs.”
Melantha looked towards her caravan and motioned with her hands. The dog got to its feet and trotted towards her, grinning, its maw a mantrap of razor-sharp teeth.
“This is your adversary,” she said as the dog sat at her side, cocking its head so she could tickle it behind its ear. “Does it scare you?”
“But that’s just a dog,” the young man said, puzzled.
“Appearances can be deceptive.” To prove her point, the dog's maw shrank; its head became almost human and its paws turned into something resembling clawed hands.
She heard muffled gasps from the men and she smiled.
“I brought this creature back from that place with me. If I can bewitch one, I can bewitch them all. Now you have to trust me. It’s time to go. Are you with me?”
The men nodded and then dispersed to gather their arsenal.
Melantha clambered aboard her caravan and looked at the faces hidden in its design, faces she recognised, family members whose spirits would accompany her on the dark path she chose to tread.
She took the reins and urged the horse on. The army marched at her rear; destination Trinity, gateway to the Shadowland.
CHAPTER 22
“She's coming.” Leo raised the brim of his trilby and looked along the high street at the approaching caravan.
“Shit.” Zen shivered. His hands shook. He couldn't kill his mother.
Up ahead, he saw Melantha grin, the gruesome scars making her flesh mutate into something even more hideous.
He remembered the last words she said to him, if I ever see you again, I will kill you.
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