Anyway, a large house plant that was almost as tall as a man was a pretty noticeable addition to any room, particularly when someone had apparently been stupid enough to place it right in front of the hall closet, blocking off the door. And Stiles was pretty certain that it had not been there the day before. That coupled with the feeling that it was looking at him, combined to make it a fairly suspicious incident. Especially in view of what they now knew.
He heard a snort of suppressed laughter behind him and turned to see Tamar beckoning him over with one finger pressed to her lips.
* * *
They laid Finvarra to rest on a blustery November day. There were patches of frost on the ground, even a little snow in the air. Everyone was shivering; Denny had dark circles around his eyes. He had not slept well the night before. In fact, he was beginning to dread sleeping at all. Tamar looked at him in concern. When was he going to talk to her about it? She knew he was having nightmares; she recognized the symptoms, but it was unlike him to try to hide them from her. Well, if he did not say anything soon, she would.
It began to snow in earnest.
‘Dad hated to be cold,’ observed Jack wistfully. ‘But I suppose he can’t feel it now?’ Iffie squeezed his hand. ‘He can’t feel anything now,’ she said. ‘Perhaps he’s happier now. He suffered so much.’
‘I know you’re trying to help,’ he said. ‘But you can’t understand how I feel. I hope you never do.’
And Iffie shivered again, not from the cold, but at the thought of how it would be if she ever lost her dad.
~ Chapter Four ~
There was an awkward silence between the two men as they walked down the street.
‘Fancy a drink?’ said Slick. ‘No sorry, bad joke.’ he added, cursing his inappropriate sense of humour.
But Ash actually laughed. He was in quite a good mood anyway. This part of the plan appealed to him; it dealt with Denny – the hated one. ‘Better not,’ he said. ‘Mother really would kill me this time.’
Slick let this sink in. ‘Christ,’ he thought. ‘That must have been some night – or some girl.’ The little stiff really seemed like a different boy. ‘I must say, you’re taking this a lot better than I expected you to,’ he commented. ‘You aren’t planning to slip off somewhere are you? Or maybe you think this is the perfect opportunity to fit me for a pair of concrete boots.’ He raised his eyebrows interrogatively.
‘I don’t know what that means,’ said Ash. ‘But I can guess. You don’t have to worry.’
There was another long silence then suddenly Ash said. ‘I heard you, you know. I heard you sticking up for me, after I got inebriated. I wasn’t in my bed at all, I was behind the door. I don’t know why you did it. I know you don’t like me. But … anyway I …’
‘You’re welcome,’ said Slick. ‘And for the record, I don’t dislike you at all. It’s you that doesn’t like me.’
‘No,’ agreed Ash. ‘I don’t much. But perhaps I don’t really know you. You’re not like I thought you were.’
‘Who is?’ said Slick. ‘Bloody hell, it’s the body-snatchers. This isn’t the same kid. It can’t be.’
‘You said you don’t dislike me. I would if I were you,’ Ash confessed.
‘Well, I don’t. I think you’re all right really. No one’s perfect.’
‘No.’
‘It’s not time yet,’ said Slick. ‘Why don’t you tell me about this girl you met?’
‘I’m not supposed to talk about her,’ said Ash defensively.
‘Hey, I’m not trying to catch you out kid. I won’t tell, I promise. You want to talk about her, don’t you?’
Ash made a grunt that might have been an admission.
Slick took it that way anyway. ‘Was she pretty?’ he asked.
‘Beautiful. At least, I couldn’t see her face too well. She was all painted up – like a Jezebel, but she wasn’t like that you see, she was good.’
‘It’s confusing isn’t it?’ said Slick sympathetically. ‘But, you know, a bit of make-up isn’t a sin.’
‘I’m glad you said that, I was worried about her soul. Vanity is a sin you know. And she was adorned too.’
Slick had to think about this one for a second. ‘You mean jewellery?’
‘Rings and necklaces and earrings and a silver pole stuck right through her …’
‘Too much detail,’ interrupted Slick hurriedly.
‘Eyebrow,’ finished Ash, to Slick’s relief.
‘Why would she do that?’ asked Ash in a puzzled tone. It must have been painful. I didn’t like to ask her. She was very scornful if I said anything – dorky.’
‘Dorky?’
Yes, she kept saying I was dorky. My hair was dorky, my name was dorky. What’s dorky? Am I dorky?’
‘Oh, god, from hated nemesis, to father figure in one easy move. He meets one girl and suddenly he turns into a human being.’
‘Not dorky, no.’ said Slick thoughtfully. ‘Not with that physique,’ he thought. ‘Just a bit sheltered. And no one can help their name.’
‘She called me Ash, like you do. She said it sounded … cooler.’
‘Why do you think I do it?’
‘I thought you did it to be annoying.’
‘Well, that too,’ thought Slick. ‘Well, now you know,’ he said.
‘So you can choose your name. You chose yours didn’t you. I mean I know you aren’t really called Slick.’
‘Your mother told you, did she? Well the truth is I didn’t choose it. Someone else gave me the name and it kind of stuck.’
‘Like she gave me the name Ash?’
‘Just like that, yes.’
‘Slick suits you.’
‘That’s what she said.’
‘And she said that Ash suits me.’
‘It does.’
‘So they were right, the people who renamed us?’
‘Let’s just say they saw a different side to us from our mothers. Look, don’t take it all so seriously kid. It’s just a nickname. A name given out of affection. It doesn’t have to define who you are, any more than your given name.’
‘Ashtoreth is an angelic name, given to me to honour my father.’
‘Precisely. Be yourself kid, it’s easier.’
‘What’s your real name?’ asked Ash suddenly.
‘No way, kid. That goes with me to the grave.’
‘I won’t tell anyone,’ Ash wheedled. ‘I think you want to tell … well, if not me, then someone.’
‘Touché, kid. I guess I walked into that one,’ said Slick, and he laughed.
He considered for a minute. ‘Just between you and me kid?’ he demanded.
‘I promise,’ said Ash eagerly as if he were about to learn the secrets of the universe. It was touching in a way, Slick thought, the poor kid had never even had a secret shared with him. It was little enough to do for him after all.
‘You can’t tell anyone, not your mother, not even your little girlfriend, right?’
‘I promise,’ said Ash solemnly.
‘It’s Veritas,’
‘That means truth doesn’t it?’
‘Yep, I don’t know what my mother was thinking. I think she hoped it would make me an honest man.’
Ash started to laugh. ‘Veritas, oh dear,’ he said. ‘And she said my name was dorky.’
‘Not a word, remember?’
‘Oh I won’t tell. Who would believe me anyway?’
Slick started to laugh too. A miracle! They were laughing together.
Ash wiped his eyes. ‘Have I been an absolute swine?’ he asked seriously.
‘No worse than any other teenager,’ said Slick. ‘No worse than I was. I hated my mother’s boyfriends too. Mind you, they were a right bunch of drunken losers. Most of them used to beat me up or similar.’ He shrugged. ‘I tried to keep out of your face as far as possible. I never expected you to like me. I wouldn’t have, if I’d been you.’
Ash’s face was a picture.
‘Confusing isn
’t it kid?’ said Slick. He looked at his watch. ‘You’re on kiddo, time to roll. I’ll meet you back here.’
And Ashtoreth went off to put part two of his mother’s plan into action. Divide and conquer.
* * *
Denny was beginning to be afraid to fall asleep. Every night she came to him now. Like the tales of alien abduction or the olden time stories of being ridden by witches in the night, it began with the sensation of waking in a paralysed state. Then, contrary to all expectation, even in the blackness of the room, it seemed that the shadows deepened.
As he tried vainly to move, the deeper shadows around the bed resolved into a figure. It was not just paralysis; it was a deep lassitude, a bone weariness that made it impossible to fight the invisible bonds transfixing his limbs.
The figure was skinny but strong, the raddled face and claw like fingers utterly repulsive. And she crept up the bed like a spider and pinned him by the shoulders bringing the distorted countenance close to his own. ‘Love me.’ she would whisper, but Denny was capable only of the rapid breaths of fear.
Her gestures at first were gentle, caressing and she would gaze at his – as far as he was concerned – very ordinary face, as if he were Adonis himself.
He tried to close his eyes but found that he had no control over his body at all. She had it all. ‘Love me,’ she said and, most unwillingly, he did. But even this did not satisfy her. He had to say it. Try as he might to stop himself, eventually the words formed and were torn from his mouth. He thought that if he could resist, it might break the spell – but he never could.
As soon as the words were out the figure dissolved into the shadows again with a sigh of satisfaction and his limbs were released. Then he woke sweating and shivering in horror and disgust.
He might have tried to explain this to Tamar, if he had not been so ashamed of it. He should have realised that Tamar, having been a slave for 5000 years, was uniquely qualified to understand the horrors of violation.
* * *
‘Love me, love me, love me, love meee!’ Denny woke up in a cold sweat. This was getting ridiculous. He was now certain that the dreams were prophetic. It had happened before to him. But what did it mean? Who was the hideous crone in his nightmare? And why did she … what did she want?
It did not feel like a dream or even a premonition. It felt rather too real for that. A pre-experience. Like a real life preview of what was to come, rather than just a dream of it. The crone was a real thing; she just did not exist yet. But she would.
And it was getting closer, the experience becoming more vivid.
Denny reached over to turn the bedside lamp on and got the shock of his life. He was lying in a strange room, covered in blood. Someone else’s blood. Not a cold sweat then.
Whoever it belonged to was obviously dead. No one could lose that much blood and survive. He was bathed in the stuff. Good God, it might even be the blood of several people. A massacre!
Denny had seen some horrible things, but nothing like this. The worst thing, was that the blood was still warm. Denny started to retch and shake convulsively all over. He leapt up off the bed and promptly fell over, he felt too weak to stand. ‘Got to get out of here,’ he reached for the Athame – it was gone. ‘Not now!’ He searched the room on his hands and knees for it. But to no avail. It was definitely gone. He sat in the middle of the room with his head in his hands, shivering and he stayed that way for a long time.
Eventually he realised that he could not stay here forever, wherever here was, and he did not remember how he had got here either. He took off his bloody shirt and wrapped it up in the bloody sheets. Then he dumped the lot in the corner of the room. He discovered that he was in a hotel room with adjoining bath. He took a shower. And then removed the bloody pile of laundry to the shower tray and ran the hot water on it.
He moved swiftly and calmly concentrating only on the details of what had to be done. He would have a nervous breakdown later.
Trying to contact Tamar for help had been a dead end. He could not find her telepathically without the Athame and his mobile phone was missing along with the Athame. But why was she not trying to contact him? She had telepathic powers too, and they were not dependent on his. Unless, some similar disaster had also happened to her. In which case they were all in really big trouble.
He checked his watch and was not terribly surprised to learn that it was Thursday. He was missing four days.
So what the hell had happened?
‘Okay so keep calm,’ he told himself. ‘You’ve been in worse jams than this one.’
First, try to remember the last four days, try to piece together how you got here which leads to, secondly, try to find out where the hell you actually are.
When his clothes were more or less dry, he inspected them. Not too bad, they would pass all but a close F.B.I. inspection. His shirt still looked a bit grubby but nothing out of the ordinary.
A thought struck him, and he went to the mirror. Was the portrait out of the attic? He looked carefully at his own face. No, he had not changed. He still looked like a young man in his twenties. Still it did not prove anything. The Athame had prevented him from aging while he had it, but that did not necessarily mean that its loss would result in him being metaphorically “hit in the face” with the last twenty years all at once.
The key to the room was on the dresser. He picked it up, squared his shoulders, took a deep breath and went out to find out where in the world he was.
He checked out with no problems. The hotel was called the Prima. He had never heard of it. It seemed to be a resort hotel. There were sandy beaches and holidaying families. Not the sort of place, in other words, that he could ever imagine himself coming to voluntarily.
He walked along the beach feeling, despite the raucous family fun going on around him, like Robinson Crusoe. Truly lost.
Now that he was calmer and able to think straight, his experiences led him to look at his problem in a different way than other people might do.
First he had to consider the very definite possibility that he was not in a real place at all. It looked real, but that did not mean anything. He discounted the oceans of gore in the hotel room. He had a feeling now that it had been planted there to unnerve him. But even if that were not the case, it was low on his list of priorities right after getting the hell out of here and finding the Athame. Not necessarily in that order. After all, if he found the Athame he would get out of here in no time. On the other hand, perhaps he would not be able to find it until he got out of here.
First he tried the obvious. ‘Close file,’ he said. This should have worked in any case, should have taken him straight to mainframe. ‘Close file,’ if said with the right intent, always took you into mainframe, since the whole world is in a file somewhere. They had learned this handy shortcut some years ago when Denny had become one with the mainframe and, like all these things, it seemed obvious when you already knew about it.
However, it did not work, which proved that he had been right. He was not in the world. He was clearly not in a file of any kind. This was a little frightening. However, there were places that were not filed. He had been in Hell – it had been very like this in some ways – the heat, the noise, the screaming children – and Hell had an exit of a kind. He took heart, if there was a way in then there was a way out – somewhere.
But it did not make sense. Whoever had done this, clearly wanted him out of the way, but they had not just killed him. Why? He was evidently defenceless. They had managed to take the Athame from him, steal four days of his life and trap him in wonderland. They had obviously had complete control over him, so why had they left him alive?
If he could just get his memory back, he was sure it would all become clear, which was probably why it had been erased in the first place.
The last thing he remembered was a pretty routine natural disaster. A tidal wave. Then he woke up here. He did not even remember how it had been dealt with. That had been on Monday.
; * * *
‘Don’t touch him,’ said Ashtoreth. ‘If you so much as breathe on him, he’ll wake up and then we’ve had it.’
Slick looked down at Denny dispassionately. He had not had a problem with this part of the operation. He had never cared for Denny anyway, and it was not as if they had killed the guy. Privately he suspected that it would prove impossible, in the end, to do this. Even in this condition he was too dangerous to risk getting too close to. How could you kill a guy like that?
‘Are we just going to leave him here like this?’ he asked Ashtorteth
‘Yes, for now. That’s the plan. That’s what mother said, and anyway there’s nothing else we can do with him at the moment.’
‘You said “wake up”, but he isn’t exactly asleep is he?’
‘No, it’s not sleep.’
‘I don’t pretend to understand what you did, it’s all beyond me. But I do know that if he ever gets out of it – whatever it is – he’s going to be royally pissed off. We should leave.’
‘He can’t get out of it,’ said Ashtoreth. ‘It’s easy to get in but impossible to get out of where he is now.’
‘I wouldn’t underestimate him if I were you,’ said Slick. ‘I really wouldn’t.’
Ashtorteth gave a slow, gloating smile that made Slick shiver (the boy was enjoying this far too much). ‘Mother will be pleased,’ he said.
~ Chapter Five ~
It had been a routine natural disaster. That was what Tamar could not get her head around. To think that something like that could be their Waterloo, it was unthinkable. She could not think it; it was impossible – ridiculous. But the fact was, she had seen Denny swept away by a tidal wave and she had not been able to contact him since.
And yet … was it so impossible? Was it not possible that they had dealt with so many far more dangerous things that they had become careless about the everyday, the supposedly “lesser” things, forgetting that they could be as dangerous as anything, if you were too blasé about them?
She refused to believe he could be dead. Just like that, so suddenly and finally. But she could not ignore the facts. If he had lost the Athame in the deep water, he would have died like anyone else. Oh but no, not just like anyone else, though. The power of the Athame was residual. It could last for hours, maybe days, after the actual loss, before his mortality reasserted itself. Surely long enough for him to save himself? But the fact remained, that if he had saved himself, he would be here. At the very least, supposing he had saved himself, just in time, before his power waned away, she should still have been able to find him.
Rise Of The Nephilim (The Tamar Black Saga) Page 4
