A Body Displaced (Lansin Island 2)

by Andrew Butcher

  Nick’s brows puckered and his nose creased upwards, like he was trying to crush something placed between his eyes. ‘How do you know that?’ How many times would Kerra’s betrayal come back to hurt him?

  ‘When I forced her spirit back into her body, I extracted information from it first,’ Austin explained. As Nick struggled to comprehend it, he heard the necromancer ask, ‘You know why she cheated on you?’

  Because I deserved it, came the automatic answer in his mind. Although, until now, he was sure he’d moved past that belief.

  ‘Because you were self-obsessed,’ Austin spat out. ‘Lost in your own sad little life. From what I picked up, she wanted to be happy with you; she really did. But you didn’t let her in. You pushed her away.’ He gave a pitiful look, like there was no hope for Nick. ‘But guess what? She really did love you this time.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Nick knew his past mistakes; he didn’t need to suffer them again. He knew them in detail … In detail! That’s what was missing from my drawer this morning. ‘You took my diary,’ he said, somehow feeling embarrassed at a time like this.

  During Nick’s depression, his therapist had suggested he keep a journal to track his progress and better his understanding of himself. He had stopped using the diary some time ago now, but it would still be full of embarrassing ramblings: angry rants aimed at people like Alex Campbell, pathetic and outdated musings over the reasons his mother had up and left, mock letters of forgiveness to people he thought had wronged him across the years. I should have destroyed that thing.

  ‘Yes, I have your crappy diary,’ said Austin, making it sound like he couldn’t think of a more boring topic. ‘It makes for a terribly dull and depressing read.’

  He broke into my house … When? Nick tried to think, and struggled for an answer. He’d only noticed the open drawer this morning, so Austin couldn’t have broken in long ago. Maybe while I was at the station yesterday? Or the day before, when I was at the maypole dance? ‘Why are you doing this?’ The vacant factory rebounded his question, making him feel small. ‘Why did you kill her?’

  ‘You want to hurt me, don’t you?’ Austin sneered. ‘I left the key to your handcuffs near you. All you have to do is reach for it.’

  Nick was so full of hate, he didn’t know what he wanted. Maybe hurting Austin would make him feel better. But it wouldn’t give him answers. ‘No, I don’t want to hurt you.’ He looked over at the key apathetically. ‘I want to know why you’re doing this. What do you want from me?’

  The necromancer seemed disappointed. ‘I’m in charge here. And I have some questions to ask you.’ He glared. ‘What do you know about your ability, Nicolas Crystan?’

  He knows I can see the future. The shock must have registered on Nick’s face, because the necromancer hastily added, ‘Don’t even try to lie. I know you have an ability.’

  ‘I … just had a daydream one day, and it turned out to be a vision of the future. Every now and again I have visions … but they’re not always accurate.’

  ‘You have no control over it?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he lied.

  The man with black hair squinted. ‘Do you know anything about your heritage? Do you know of other people with your ability?’

  Nick paused before replying. ‘My heritage? No.’ He’d hesitated because his mother was immune to Aldrich’s ability too, and his gran had foreseen her own death while ill in hospital. As far as he could tell, the ability had run through his family and was only passed down to the firstborn.

  ‘You know … if you’re lying to me, I can make your girlfriend suffer more than she already has.’ The necromancer peered over at Kerra’s body, standing statue-like.

  ‘I thought she was dead …?’

  ‘Oh, she is. But her spirit can still suffer. I believe she’s aware of what’s happening to her. She just has no control over it.’

  Suddenly, Nick yanked his wrist away from the metal frame, making noises of protest without meaning to, causing loud clanks that travelled throughout the factory. But the handcuffs didn’t budge. Instead, Nick was left with a throbbing wrist, marked white and red. After a while he grumbled, ‘I’m not lying.’

  ‘Hmmm …’ Austin gave a single laugh. ‘Okay, next question. What do you intend to do with your power?’

  ‘What? I don’t intend to do anything. I don’t know where I got my ability. I don’t know why I can see the future. And I don’t know why you care so much about it!’

  The necromancer’s jawline seemed to harden, and his head moved slowly side to side. ‘You’re just like every other good-looking guy your age. Think you’re better than me. Think you can shout at me … talk down to me.’ His breathing turned into rhythmic huffs.

  ‘What?’ Nick stared at the man, trying to understand his logic. ‘You murdered my girlfriend! How would you like me to talk to you?’ Then it finally sunk in. Kerra was dead. Actually dead. Nick gave up on his bravado and began to sob, covering his face with his free hand.

  Austin sniggered, and then laughed openly. But it seemed forced. He stopped within a few seconds and then paced about until Nick was in a calmer state. ‘Righteo, well, let’s get this show on the road, eh?’

  With no tears left, Nick asked desperately, ‘Can she be saved?’

  ‘I told you: She’s dead. The only thing binding her spirit to that body is me. Once someone’s dead, nothing can put their spirit and body back together, not the way they were.’

  Nick felt numb from grief, and it enabled him to ask the horrific question that had been nagging him. ‘Why hasn’t she decomposed?’ Emotion bit him again, unexpectedly, but he pushed through.

  The necromancer pouted impatiently for a second. ‘I obtained an enchanted item that looked surprisingly dull, actually. Looked like a brown olive. For the enchantment to work, the item had to be placed inside of the body I wished to keep in stasis. My options were to force-feed it to your girlfriend while she was still alive, or to pop it inside once I’d torn an opening.’ He smirked. ‘I chose the less messy option … Can you imagine how gross it would have been to have to force-feed her?’

  ‘Stop with the descriptions,’ Nick pleaded.

  ‘Oh, what? You don’t like to know the gory details? Poor you. Lemme show you the fancy weapon I used to create the opening … something I fashioned in my own time.’ He pulled a double-bladed knife from inside his jacket. ‘And now that you’ve answered all of my questions, I’ll use it to kill you too.’

  The necromancer approached, then stopped. ‘Or actually, should I get your cheating-lying-dead-bitch-of-a-girlfriend to choke the life out of you?’ He turned to Kerra’s corpse and reached a hand out to it, using his ability to make the body caper on the spot in a way that would have been comical, were it a living person. Austin laughed at his own twisted humour.

  ‘Wait!’ shouted Nick. ‘If you’re going to kill me, can you answer my questions?’ He added a word that tasted vile in this situation: ‘Please.’

  ‘Please? Oh, the boy’s got manners! Do you know where manners get you? Nowhere.’ He pulled a silly face, using his tongue to push out the area below his bottom lip. Then he straightened up. ‘But because your timid demeanour reminds me of my younger self, I’ll answer your questions.’ He appeared to assess something in his mind, then quickly added, ‘And this time, don’t complain if I give you the unpleasant details. Every time you protest, I’ll come up with a more inventive way to kill you.’

  Thinking of the weapon and Kerra’s vacant eyes sent a chill down Nick’s limbs. ‘Whatever you say,’ he replied. He thought he was beginning to understand Austin’s behaviour. The necromancer liked to have the upper hand, and became angry when he was treated irreverently.

  Austin quickly sat down, cross-legged, and ran his fingers along the blunt edges of each blade. ‘Go on then. Fire away.’

  ‘You came into Creaky Crystals and spoke with one of my colleagues, didn’t you? A guy with mousey-brown hair.’

  ‘Another good-looking la
d, like you …’ He threw a scornful look. ‘… except he seemed a bit slower in the head than you. I bet he’s popular, though, and that he’s good at sports, and that all the girls swoon over him. Not that he’d be interested, as it appears he’s boning your brother.’ He scoffed disapprovingly. ‘The dope.’

  Nick ignored the impulse to defend Tom and Michael. He almost replied, ‘You’ve got serious issues,’ but thought better of it. Finding out how much Austin knew about his life was disconcerting. ‘My colleague told me you didn’t seem to know me. You asked how to spell my name. Why?’

  ‘Because until then, I didn’t know your full name.’

  ‘So why were you looking for me?’

  ‘Now, I can’t tell you that.’ He grinned insincerely.

  ‘But you’re going to kill me. Why not tell me?’

  ‘Because I’m making the rules here.’ His teeth clenched, muffling the last words of the sentence.

  To have any hope of leaving alive, Nick had to work around Austin’s personality—or personality disorder. ‘Okay, I’m sorry.’

  Austin, appearing perplexed, scrutinised Nick before continuing. ‘I already knew your first name and that you worked in a Pagan shop in Amiton. I also had another …’ He seemed to hold back on what he was going to say, and then followed on with, ‘… lead.’

  Nick’s mind struggled in confusion. How could someone with so little knowledge of him be so interested in him? ‘How did you know we were going to stay at West Edge Country House?’ We … He trained his eyes away from Kerra’s body.

  ‘Once I found out your full name and workplace, I did some research and discovered where you live. You do realise you have no security password on your Wi-Fi network? It took a rudimentary hack to see where you’d spent money online … to bring up your booking details. So I went to the hotel, and while the idiot manager was distracted with setting up the hall, I searched the reception desk and figured out the room you’d be staying in. I lay low for a while, then after the owners prepared your room, they left the window open to air it out.’ Judgementally, he slowly shook his head. ‘I climbed up the trellis at the side of the hotel, got into your guest room, and then hid in the ensuite.’

  That was a disturbing thought: Austin had already been there, waiting in the room while Nick kissed Kerra outside the door. ‘So you were expecting both of us to enter the room? Were you going to kill me too?’

  ‘I was going to put the knife to your girlfriend’s throat so I could interrogate you. And then I would have killed you both. But as you didn’t enter the room, and I couldn’t have remained undetected for long, I had to get … creative.’

  Nick hung his head and muttered, ‘I don’t understand why you’re doing this.’ He ached with the tension spreading down his neck and across his shoulders. Listening to Austin’s narrative was a double-edged blade; it was good to know the truth, but almost unbearable too.

  ‘I can’t hear you,’ Austin mocked.

  Nick jerked his free hand forward and raised his voice. ‘I don’t understand why you’re doing this!’ Desperation clamped down on his throat, making him swallow to soothe the pain.

  Austin tightened his fists. His pale knuckles sheened. ‘You shout at me again, and I’ll make you regret it.’

  Nick bit down on his lower lip and said nothing, which the necromancer found amusing.

  ‘So,’ Austin went on, ‘my tasks were to find out your full name, where you work, and where you live. And then to make your life a living hell, to test you, and discover what you know about your ability. And then to kill you, if possible. Waiting for you in the hotel room was my attempt to take a shortcut. I couldn’t be asked to test you, ruin your life, etcetera, so I was going to skip to interrogating you, and just get to the killing. But since you didn’t enter the room, I reverted and decided to make your life hell.’

  Are you schizophrenic? Nick thought, struggling to make sense of it all. Austin was going to take a shortcut on the twisted course he’d set himself? ‘How were you supposed to test me?’ Nick tried to avoid questions that would enrage the murderer.

  ‘However I saw fit. As long as it put you and others you cared about in danger.’ He squinted at his captive. ‘Speaking of the test, I blame you for this …’ He pulled up the sleeve of his jacket. ‘Thanks to my ability, it’s almost healed, but even so, it stung like a bitch!’ On his forearm was a large red and flaky mark.

  ‘You drove the car into the pole and set the fireworks off?’

  ‘Obviously …’ Austin sneered. ‘Jeez, you’re almost as slow as your woolly woofter work friend.’ Even though he was sitting down on the ground like Nick, he pulled in his chin, creating the impression that he was looking down on the man he planned to kill.

  ‘Did I pass your test?’ The question sounded ridiculous.

  ‘Well … I saw you save your manager from danger, you fucking hero, you!’ With apparent reluctance, Austin added, ‘And nobody died.’

  ‘Seems the only one who got hurt was you,’ Nick responded before he could stop himself.

  The necromancer rose swiftly and pointed the serrated blades at Nick. A vein swelled on his forehead and throbbed under his wild black hair. ‘I was considering killing you quickly, but now I’ll make you wish you’d shown some respect.’

  Fear had steadily covered Nick’s back in sweat, and now it was sticky and cold. He didn’t believe for a second that a quick death had ever been planned for him. He watched Austin’s rage grow more intense. The necromancer crossed his arms, the weapon sticking out to one side, and flicked his eyes from Nick to Kerra’s corpse. Slowly but surely, a smirk creased his white cheeks. He laughed to himself, slipped the double-bladed knife into a pocket inside his jacket, and then unzipped his trousers.

  Nick’s face twisted in confusion … and disgust. Austin turned away. From behind, all Nick could see was the necromancer’s shoulder and elbow moving vigorously. He heard the repetitive rhythm. What Austin was doing was obvious, but it concerned Nick more to imagine what the necromancer planned to do once fully aroused.

  After pulling something out of his pocket, there were rustling and sticky noises. Austin turned around. Evidently, he travelled prepared. He started swinging his body side to side, making his sheathed erection sway and slap his own hips, and then said in a mocking voice, ‘Hello, I’m Mark Caraway! Do you like my stock?’ He held out his palms to draw attention to his manhood, and broke into hysterical laughter.

  Terror urged Nick on. He reached for the key. The handcuffs ripped into his wrist as he stretched, desperately, desperately. Austin actually pointed at him, his laughs escalating. ‘Oh! What a shame’—he switched off his amusement—‘what you want is only just out of reach. But don’t worry, this isn’t for you.’ He glanced down at his exposed area. ‘I’m not like your work friend.’

  The necromancer raised a hand swiftly. He aimed his fingers at Kerra’s standing corpse and used his magic to make her follow him. He walked casually to a big square table that was scuffed and marked. It was probably once a workstation, where staff might have stood around and processed labels or letters, or performed some other humdrum chore.

  Dead-Kerra, limping, made her way to the table and then slammed her chest down onto it. Her head thudded the wood in her graceless movement. The lumps of torn flesh that had clung to her neck now rested on the surface of the workstation. Nick winced, acid burning the base of his tongue.

  Austin took a position standing behind the enchanted corpse, then he pushed up her muddy, bloody green jacket and polka dot blouse. ‘I bet when you were at school, all the girls liked you.’ He glowered at Nick, delivering his assumption as if it were an insult. Nick’s mind protested, No, after Mum disappeared, most girls avoided me, treating me like a fragile object, like I wasn’t worth the hassle … every girl except Kerra. Austin yanked down Kerra’s black jeans.

  Nick pushed his eyes away, stretched harder for the key.

  ‘You know,’ Austin went on, ‘before I got my ability, I wasn
’t half as attractive as I am now. Acne. Rebellious skin—too oily, then too dry, and then cracking and flaking. My face was undeveloped, plain, dull. I was scrawny … pigeon-chested, some said.’ He seemed lost in his terrible memories for a moment.

  Nick used the opportunity to reach for something else instead of the key: the black scarf that had fallen from Kerra’s dead body. Austin had kicked it aside, but hopefully not too far.

  If Nick could attain it, then he could use it to drag the key to him.

  ‘Girls like this,’ Austin carried on, obviously referring to Kerra, ‘they never looked twice at me back then. Shallow sluts, the lot of them. Now that my ability has improved my looks, though, and has toned my body, they throw themselves at me. But why should it be on their terms still? Why should I think, Oh, thank you for finally deeming me worthy, thank you for finally opening your legs to someone as pathetic as me?! No! I’ll do it my way. And I can have anyone I want …’ He turned his eyes on Nick and gave a smug grin.

  ‘Provided you kill them first,’ Nick muttered. To prevent Austin from discovering his plan, he had stopped reaching for the scarf.

  After a glare, Austin grabbed the dead body by the hips. The table wobbled, creaked, and then the necromancer looked at Nick once more. ‘Now that I’ve learnt everything I wanted to know, I’ll have my way with her … and then I’ll kill you.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  JULIET ENTERED THE building to the sounds of a repetitive creak, a slap slap slap, and a man’s grunts and groans. She realised what she was hearing and scrunched up her face, feeling awkwardly voyeuristic. But she had to continue. Unable to see their faces from her angle, she couldn’t tell who the man at the table was, nor the woman he was thrusting into, nor the guy who was handcuffed to a frame and throwing a black scarf in front of himself.

  Have I walked in on some kind of BDSM club? She was about to clear her throat to draw attention to herself, but then she recognised those grunts … recognised the black tufty hair on the back of his head.

  ‘Austin?’