The crowd below produced a wall of indecipherable sound, getting all the more muffled as the alcohol worked its way through Khaos’ veins. She had promised herself she wouldn’t touch another drop, and here she was, downing a week’s worth of booze in one go.
She glanced to her left again. The beergut guy was still going strong, though now his whole body matched his face in a shade of redness. She looked to her right; the drunk girl was not well, that was clear to see. Her face, once rosy-cheeked, was now grey and drawn. She was waving her hand as if she wished to stop, but no one went to her aid. Surely she wouldn’t last much longer?
Khaos found herself struggling, despite having been drunk every day for the past few weeks. Seemingly that had not been practice enough. Too late, she realised she had barely eaten since she had arrived in the port. Her stomach was too empty; the alcohol bloated out her empty gut. That couldn’t be good.
There was a sudden cheer from the crowd. The already drunk girl was out, lying face down in front of her stool, pants showing.
Khaos turned to beergut, and his eyes darted to her; every vein in his neck seemed to be popping out in concentration. He did not seem to be stopping anytime soon.
Khaos resumed her pace, choking down the horrible liquid, hearing the distant whispering of the Spirit Voice, no doubt telling her something terribly important, but it was almost lost in the hum of other noise all around, blending into one as Khaos felt herself get drunker and drunker.
Then suddenly she was saved. The crowds cheered and whistled. Khaos looked around, bemused. Her mind swirled incoherently. What was happening? Why were they cheering? Had Loka said something to them to rile them up?
Then she looked to beergut and realised why. The tube was out of his mouth, he was gasping for air, and his face had gone an unhealthy, purplish colour.
‘He’s gonna blow!’ yelled someone from the crowd.
Sure enough, he doubled over, clutching his gut, opened his mouth wide, and a waterfall of vomit poured out.
The crowd laughed and jeered at him. Khaos stared down at him in confusion. Then Loka appeared at her side, grabbed Khaos by the wrist, and raised her arm up in a show of success.
‘We have a winner!’
CHAPTER TWELVE
Khaos’ mind swam once more in the slow, calm sea of unconsciousness. She was beginning to become used to this place, almost to the point of being relieved to be there. It was so much easier to deal with than reality.
Yet reality always forced its way back somehow; she began to be aware of a pulsing, drumming sound lancing through her stupor, forcing her to notice it.
Other rhythmic sounds began to join the drumming, until it became clear that the sound she could hear was music. It got louder and louder, squeezing out the white quiet of unconsciousness, filling Khaos’ head.
She cracked an eye open. Wherever she was, it was dark, but a succession of bright lights lit up her vision every few seconds. She could see movement and flashing bright colours, lights moving over shapes. Her eye gained a little of its focus and the shapes turned out to be people, dancing.
Khaos realised she was in some sort of club or bar. She couldn’t move. The effort of opening one eye had caused what felt like fireworks to go off behind her eyes, and the drumming sound seemed to be coming from inside her own head, pulsating through her body nauseatingly.
She was lying down on her side, sprawled over something; she started to be able to feel the rest of her body now and wished she couldn’t. Every bit of her ached. What had she been doing? How did she get there?
Then she became aware of someone else’s arm around her shoulders, as its hand stroked Khaos’ hair.
With all of her strength, Khaos turned her head enough to see who it was that was holding her, and looked up into the serene face of Loka.
Inexplicably, it was Loka. Of all people. Khaos’ own arms, she realised with a jolt, were wrapped around Loka’s waist.
Khaos tried to move, but her head swam and her body would not obey. She tried to speak, tried to form words, but all that came out was a muffled groan.
Loka glanced down at her then, her expression thoughtful, but said nothing. Though the music was loud and the club they were in crammed full, somehow the space around them was quiet, as if the rest of the world was on mute momentarily.
‘Just sleep, Khaos,’ murmured Loka, stroking Khaos’ head again. ‘Dream it all away.’
Khaos was forced to obey. She could not move, she could not think. Unconsciousness took her once more, and she did not have the strength to fight it.
A flurry of memories flashed across Khaos’ dreaming mind as quick as lightning, one after the other. Her mother, sitting on the bed with the piece of paper in her hand. Her father’s arms reaching for her, underwater. Tree branches coming through glass. A young man, pleading for his life, a clawed hand clutching his throat. Carmen staring at her fiercely, accusing. Marla’s face, smiling strangely, a thick slimy worm-like thing sliding across her eyes. Loka’s face glaring at her, surrounded by darkness, clutching Khaos’ hand. Her mother again, with the small vial or tube in her hand. What was it? Too quick, it was gone. She began to resurface.
Khaos’ eyes opened slowly, conscious again, though this time, blessedly, she awoke to silence and a greyish darkness all around.
She could see a low metal-panelled ceiling. She was inside something, some sort of vehicle perhaps. She tried to lift her hand to her face to rub her eyes and struggled, her arm a dead weight. She looked down at herself to discover that she was still fully-clothed, shoes and all. Thank goodness for that.
As feeling returned slowly to her body, Khaos became aware that every bit of her ached. Even muscles she did not know she had. It felt as though she had been fighting. Had she? What had happened last night? She remembered vaguely the busy port, full of drunken revellers, the stage, seeing Loka. She remembered seeing Loka. Had they fought? Her head swam as she attempted to sit up. Waves of nausea washed over her. She had suffered much pain before this, but somehow this was the most paralysing, vomit-inducing, whole-body devastation she had ever felt.
‘Am I dying?’ she said out loud. ‘I thought I was invincible. Is this it? The end?’
No, Human Soul. You just have a hangover.
‘Oh God!’ She clutched her face as a wave of hammering pain passed across her forehead. Suddenly, memories of the previous night came flooding back. The drinking competition! ‘Oh God, that was a lot of alcohol.’
Luckily for you, you cannot die. Unfortunately, you still feel your human sensations. Pain. Nausea. Dizziness.
‘Yes thank you, Spirit Voice. I’m quite aware of how much pain I am in.’ She vaguely remembered that after her success at the drinking competition, she had been carried by several members of the crowd to the nearest bar. More alcohol had then seemingly been consumed, though her memory of it was extremely patchy. Somehow she had gone from the bar on to the club where she had woken up, but she could not remember how.
She gasped as she recalled being slumped, passed out in Loka’s arms. She shuddered. How did that happen? Surely they should have been fighting, if anything. Somehow it had been sweet. A gentle moment of rest amongst the noise and hubbub surrounding them. And why had Loka allowed Khaos to lie there? Had she not been trying to kill Khaos the last time they had met? It was best not to allow herself too much time to dwell on such things. It meant nothing. Loka was tricksy. Khaos had to always remember that. Of course she would let Khaos rest, let her guard down. But only momentarily, until Loka had planned her next move.
Maybe that was it. But whatever Loka’s reasons, Khaos couldn’t fathom them for sure.
Oh no… Khaos suddenly remembered something else.
‘Was I… Dancing?’ She shuddered again.
I’m afraid so. Badly.
‘Oh God!’ A vision popped into her mind of her climbing up on to a table and proceeding to perform a “victory” dance. And rather than save her from embarrassment, everyone around her in
the club had encouraged her.
When you are quite finished feeling ashamed and sorry for yourself, we have a demon to find.
‘I hadn’t forgotten.’ Khaos glanced around again, initially looking for a clock, as she became more aware of her surroundings. The vehicle she was inside had grey metal walls and a roof. There were windows but little black curtains blotted out the light, hence the gloom. She had been lying on a narrow black leather couch. ‘Where am I?’
You are inside Nyx, of course.
‘Ah yes, good old Nyx. He found a way through the crowds then.’ She stood up, feeling the rush of blood to her head again, yet this time, it was not quite as nauseating as before. Even the mother of all hangovers was not enough to bring down the almighty Khaos. ‘What time is it?’
Seven.
‘I guess I better be going then.’ She picked up her sword, which had been lying on the floor. When she moved, a small white square dropped to the floor, seemingly from her pocket.
Khaos stooped to retrieve it: a white card. She could not remember where this might be from; could it be a ticket perhaps? But no, it seemed to be a sort of business card. There was nothing on it, however, save an address, printed in bold in the middle of the card:
Unit No. 7
Storage Bay Area 12
Harbour Bay
Edgewater
Khaos stared bemusedly at it for a moment, before pocketing it. Perhaps it would be of importance later.
Bright, early morning sunshine blasted Khaos’ eyeballs unforgivingly as she stepped outside. She took a long, deep breath of fresh air; for a second she thought she might be sick, but it passed.
From the outside, Nyx’s black metal sides shone in the morning sun; to anyone else, he was an ordinary camper van. Khaos patted his side.
‘Thank you for coming to my rescue.’
They were parked in a quiet side street. Well not exactly a street, more like a pass between two large storage-type buildings, the sides of which rose high above Khaos. It seemed remarkably quiet outside. She had expected to be met with a wall of noise, expected that people would be cramming around Nyx, still drinking and partying like last night. But this street was silent and deserted. She could neither hear nor see anything at the end of the street either.
Once she’d reached the street’s end, she found that it opened back out to a wide open space, a cobbled town square encircled with other warehouses of various sizes. Once, they would have been used for storing fish or nets or supplies for the fishermen; now they were all bars or clubs, garish neon signs hastily nailed up above the doors. The main square would perhaps have once been a market; now the stalls were pushed to the sides and used as outdoor bars.
In the middle was a wooden stage, where last night’s competition must have taken place. She could only detect this because the drinking apparatus was still there, abandoned. The stage would have once been used for auctions, not for the entertainment of drunks. This place had been crammed full of people last night. Now it was deserted, except for the garbage that had been left behind. What the square now lacked in noise and hubbub it gained in stench; the air was full of the stink of stale beer, urine, and other unsanitary smells. A crowd that size couldn’t drink all night and not need to use the bathroom, and it seemed many had used the streets as their toilet.
‘Where is everyone?’ Khaos said out loud.
The party must be over. For now.
‘Well, I guess it is only seven am.’ She gazed around, wondering where to go. She looked back at the street where Nyx was parked, wondering if he would follow them, and noticed a neon sign above the building: “Circus Nightclub”. This seemed familiar; could it have been the club from last night? So Nyx must have waited for her here last night, he had been parked just outside all along.
She also noticed another sign, this time painted wood, that seemed a lot older and more original than the nightclub one:
Unit 1, Storage Bay 5
Looking around, she realised that every warehouse that she could see had a sign like this. She checked the white card again: Unit 7, Storage Bay 12. She knew somehow, though last night’s memories were patchy, that she must find this address, and it was something to do with Loka. Wasn’t she supposed to have won something for last night’s escapade? A VIP pass or something to the island? She checked her pockets; she had no pass nor ticket. Loka must want her to come and find this address, she surmised, though for what dark purpose, who knew? Nothing about Loka was straightforward; she wasn’t going to just give Khaos the tickets, even though she had won them fair and square.
Khaos quickly worked out the direction that the numbers worked and followed it round, checking the number on each warehouse. She walked around the square until she was nearly at the opposite side to Circus Nightclub.
Finally she found it, an unassuming brown building, no different in appearance than the others, apart from perhaps being a bit grubbier. This one had apparently not been converted for any other purpose though, unlike the others, and merely had its street number painted on the side. At the front was a large garage door which seemed rusted shut. Khaos tried it, but it barely budged. She contemplated using her power to break it down.
Do not waste time and energy using your power now, Khaos. Think; there must be another way in.
Khaos heeded the words of the Spirit Voice in her head and slipped down the narrow side alley of the building, looking for another entrance, as the voice had suggested.
Sure enough, a small black door was at the end of the alleyway. As she made for it, about halfway down, a shape lying on the ground caught her eye. The smell hit her nostrils second. She looked again and saw a man lying face down in a pool of vomit. Not moving. Though she could not see the face, she knew, with a sinking heart, by his old green jacket and fuzzy hair, that it was Bottle.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
On closer inspection, she confirmed it was indeed Bottle; she lifted him by his shoulder and saw his craggy, bearded face. She could tell from the open eyes and stiff body that he was dead.
Khaos dropped him back down and stepped back sharply, reeling from this discovery. But how, how had this happened? Sure, Bottle had liked to drink, and maybe being surrounded by all the free alcohol had been too much for him, but he knew when to stop. Didn’t he? Khaos had seen him drink copious amounts of alcohol and it hadn’t touched him.
Somehow, this didn’t seem like an accident. He looked very drawn and pale, long dead, though if the drifters had arrived here just before Khaos, he could only have been dead a few days at the most.
A lump formed in Khaos’ throat as she recalled his kindness to her in her darkest hour.
He is lost. His soul is gone. There is nothing you can do for him.
‘I know. I just wish I could have convinced them not to come.’
And then you yourself would not have come, and the demon would have become even stronger. Eventually all humans will be drawn to the demon, Khaos. You know that. It was inevitable that they would come here, whether you had tried to stop them or not. Like moths to a flame, mankind will always be drawn to danger.
‘What about the others?’
You have no time to try to find them, so please do not try. You must stop this at its source. Destroy the demon if you want to save your friends. It is the only way.
Once again, the Spirit Voice was right. She had no choice but to go on.
Still shaken from her discovery, she continued toward the black door. Up close, she saw it had ‘seven’ painted on it in cracking white paint.
Behind the black door was a narrow flight of stairs which Khaos marched promptly up, not wanting to waste any more time. They were poorly lit and had no further signage nor any kind of decoration, no pictures on the walls, no plants, nothing.
So it was a surprise that when she reached the top and opened a further black door, it opened out into a massive, open plan office space, all painted white, complete with a tiled white floor. Huge floor-to-ceiling windows occupied one wall.
A water cooler was positioned immediately by the door that Khaos had entered. Huge glass vases of white lilies were positioned occasionally along the windows, their sickening scent filling the air.
In the middle of the room was a glass desk, at which a flamboyantly dressed young man with a shock of peroxided hair was very busily making and taking calls via a headset, in the manner of all overly busy receptionists. He took no notice of Khaos. Behind him was a set of chunky wooden double doors, with thin slits of glass in each; trendy but completely impractical for seeing through. They also appeared to be locked, with a large metal keypad on one side.
Khaos made her way over to the desk; the sound of her shoes on the tiles seemed annoyingly loud. As she passed the windows, she noticed that they looked out directly over the square, and there was a perfect view of the stage.
Khaos made several attempts on the long walk to the desk to make eye contact with the receptionist but failed each time. It was as if he had been specially trained to ignore people. When she arrived at the desk, she found herself listening in to his conversation.
‘I’m sorry, ma’am, I appreciate that you are worried about your son, but trust me, he is probably too busy having a great time, and perhaps has just forgotten to call you? Well, I assure you, there is nothing strange going on. Perhaps he booked to stay a little longer and forgot to tell you?’
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