Khaos

by Louise Manson

  All of a sudden, it dawned on Khaos where she had heard this voice before. It was the voice of the detective who had wanted to interview her at the hospital, when she had been comatose. She must have been trying to track Khaos down all this time. And now, she finally had her.

  ‘Can you state your name for the record, please?’ Detective Heel demanded of Khaos.

  ‘Uh…’ Khaos already felt nervous. ‘Cam… Cam…’ she glanced around wildly for some sort of inspiration for a second name. Her eyes alighted on the mug of coffee the woman had brought in. Mug? Cup? Coffee? Handle? ‘Handle. Cam Handle.’

  ‘Hmm. Handel? Like the famous composer?’ her sharp green eyes pierced Khaos nervous grey ones.

  ‘Uh… yes?’

  ‘And Cam… what is that short for? Camilla? Cameron? Camile?’

  ‘Uh… It’s just Cam.’

  ‘Really? Hmm. Interesting.’ The red haired detective opened the file and began to leave through the paperwork in a pretence of idleness. ‘So how do you know Carmen and Marla Portabello?’

  ‘I work for them. As a bodyguard.’

  ‘Right. And for how long?’

  ‘About a week.’

  ‘Right. And you’ve got to know them well in that time, I take it?’

  ‘Yes, you could say that.’

  ‘So, why did you abuse your position at their household by kidnapping Carmen?’

  ‘I did not kidnap her,’ Khaos denied, deciding that there was no sense in hiding the truth, covering for Marla. ‘Her sister ordered me to take her out to the countryside and kill her! I saved her. I helped her escape. Marla set me up.’

  ‘Really? Because Marla says different. She reported that Carmen had been abducted from their family home, and that you were the prime suspect.’

  ‘No! That was not what happened! We were double crossed!’

  The red haired woman got up then, paced the room for a moment, as if in deep thought. Then she produced a packet of cigarettes and proffered them to Khaos. ‘Can I offer you a smoke?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Not a smoker eh? Very good. Very healthy.’ She lit a cigarette herself and took a draw. ‘I keep meaning to quit, but then I think, the world might end tomorrow, so what the hell?’

  Khaos smiled wryly at the detective’s very accurate observation.

  ‘Do you want to know something?’ puffed Heel.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think I believe you.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Not about Marla wanting Carmen killed, of course. But it does seem like some sort of set up. Plus, Carmen made a statement in your defence. The Portabello sisters are known for their family feuds. The police have been called to their houses numerous times to break up their fights.’

  Khaos breathed a sigh of relief. ‘So I’m free to go then?’

  ‘Not that simple I’m afraid.’ She produced a handful of photographs and slapped one down in front of her. The image was of a sleeping girl. Khaos immediately recognised it as herself.

  ‘Your name isn’t Cam Handel, is it?’

  ‘How did you get these?’ But Khaos already knew, the detective must have photographed her when she had been comatose.

  ‘For now, just answer my questions, please.’ Heel produced another photograph, this time it was a typical police shot of a man holding a plaque with numbers on it, first in portrait and then in profile. Khaos almost breathed a sigh of relief that she didn’t recognise him.

  ‘Do you know this man?’

  ‘No.’ Yet, as she stared at his face, something about him struck a chord. The earth man…?

  ‘Ok. What about, this man?’ This time, a much younger man was in the photograph, and it wasn’t a police photo, it was a normal Polaroid. The following picture Heel handed her was grotesque; a mutilated body burned almost completely away, flesh blackened and fused forever onto bones. The remnanst of the jumper still clinging to the body were exactly like the one the young man in the previous photo was wearing. Khaos’s heart skipped a beat; she remembered her recurring dream of the young man, begging for his life. It was him.

  ‘Do you recognise him?’

  Khaos gulped audibly. ‘No.’

  Ok then. And what about these people?’ Four more photographs; a woman and three men. They didn’t ring a bell. But the next photograph was a slaughterhouse, with more burned mutilated corpses in a destroyed collapsing room. A sick knot formed in her stomach as she realised the murder scene was exactly the same as the one from her recent dreams.

  ‘No,’ she said in a tiny voice.

  ‘Really. Do you see any similarities between these murders?’ Heel’s tone was casual, almost chatty, but Khaos doubted that Detective Heel wanted a real opinion on the photographs.

  ‘Uh, I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, look…’ She spread them out on the table in front of Khaos. ‘All the victims burned to death. Very quickly and severely, it seems. And their homes were destroyed, as though earthquakes had hit them.’ She was clearly using shock tactics, and it was nearly working, though internally Khaos still assured herself that she had not been the one to kill these people.

  ‘What does this have to do with me, Detective?’ Khaos desperately tried to sound nonchalant, but she was shaking. Those things, did they really happen? She had hoped they were just dreams. Did she do those things? Not me, she thought to herself. It was the spirit. It was the spirit.

  ‘Do you know where you were found, Cam? In the next street from this man’s home.’ She pointed to the first photograph, the police stock photo. ‘The report from the ambulance said that you were covered in third degree burns. Yet when you were admitted to the hospital, there was not a scratch on you. How did that happen?’

  ‘What exactly am I being accused of, Detective? Kidnapping? Arson? Murder? Being in the street? Surviving a fire? What?’ Khaos was beginning to feel trapped, and it was getting to her.

  ‘You’re sweating,’ said Heel, staring at Khaos forehead. ‘You need to stop lying, and just tell me what happened. What did you do?’

  ‘You have no idea. And you know nothing.’ Khaos clamped her hands around the edges of the table.

  ‘Maybe, but I’m starting to put two and two together, Cam. I know you’re in the middle of all this.’ She pointed to the little tattoo on Khaos’s now-exposed wrist with her pen. ‘What does this mean, Cam?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing? It’s not a special mark of some sort?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who are you working for? Who put this mark on you?’

  ‘No-one.’

  ‘Is it an instruction? Is it religious?’ Khaos maintained her silence, much to Heel’s annoyance.‘You’ve got to start talking!’

  It’s just a stupid tattoo! It doesn’t mean anything!’

  Heel gave up on the tattoo questioning, and shuffled the photographs of the victims around again, buying herself a little time to come up with a different strategy. She tried to sound unperturbed. ‘You know the other similarity with these victims, Cam?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They’re all either drug dealers, or drug addicts. Wasters. Some might say they deserved to die. Especially this guy,’ she pointed to the stock photo again. ‘He is one of West London’s most notorious dealers.’

  ‘Why haven’t you arrested him, then?’

  ‘Because, we’ve never had any proof. He covers his tracks so well. But I’m sure the families of his victims would like him dead, though.’

  ‘Maybe it was one of them.’

  ‘No, Cam. We know who it was.’

  ‘No, you don’t!’

  ‘You need to stop pretending, now.’

  ‘I didn’t do it!’

  ‘Are you working alone? Or are there others? Who gave you orders to kill?’

  ‘No-one! There’s no-one…’

  Heel held up another picture, the X ray photo of her back. ‘What is this? Some sort of trick?’

  ‘I don’t know…’


  ‘What sort of a stunt are you trying to pull here?’ Heel’s grip on the paper was so hard she shook. She held it close to Khaos face.

  ‘I don’t know what it is! I’ve never seen this before,’ Khaos said heatedly.

  ‘You’ve fooled a lot of people, Cam, but not me.’ Heel tossed the photograph back in the pile. ‘You need to start telling the truth.’

  ‘I told you, I know nothing!’

  ‘You’ve been identified from a line up, Cam. And, we have your… Your weapon.’

  ‘My sword!’

  ‘Yes. Well, I say we have it, we had to order special equipment to store it, since no one can pick it up. It burns anyone who touches it, did you know that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Bit of a coincidence then, that all the victims burned to death?’

  Khaos stayed silent, staring at the table, avoiding those eyes, boring into her.

  ‘But somehow, you can pick it up?’ continued Detective Heel.

  ‘Yes. Do you want a demonstration?’ Khaos suggested wildly. She needed that sword back. Without it, she was nothing, and she would never get out of this place.

  ‘As if we would just give it to you! No, it’s safely locked away. Where did you get a weapon like that?’

  ‘I… I found it.’

  ‘Something as powerful as that, was just ‘lying around’ was it? Where did you find it?’

  Khaos could not answer and withdrew again. Without warning, Heel slammed her hand down on the table. She had lost her temper. ‘You need to start talking. Now! Who are you?’

  ‘I told you. Cam Handle.’

  ‘Bullshit you are! That’s the worst alias I’ve ever heard. We know you did it, so you might as well tell us what really happened. Who are you? Who do you work for? Are you some sort of drug-hating vigilante? Are you part of a terrorist ring? Talk to me! I need answers!’

  Khaos remained silent again, staring at the table. It was all very well being “Khaos, destroyer of worlds” when slaying demons and travelling to different times. But in the real, human world, her actions were viewed as terrorist. She was a murderer. How was she going to get out of this without the sword? Without it, she was just a girl with voices in her head.

  ‘What fascinates me, Cam, is the baby. Why did you save it? You’ve killed her family. Why spare her? In some twisted way, you have a heart.’ There was a strange look of admiration in Heel’s face then.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She remembered the dreams again. So they had all really happened, they were memories, not just her imagination running wild. Not hers, the spirit’s… She felt the spirit then, raging inside her. ‘Khaos, you have to get out of here! The demon! It is nearly time!’

  ‘Enough of the lies, Cam. We already know you were at the scene of at least two of these crimes. We already know you are guilty. The sooner you admit it, the sooner you can go back to your cell.’

  ‘Am I not I supposed to have a solicitor present?’ said Khaos in a moment of imagination.

  ‘Do you have one?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you going to plead not guilty?’

  ‘Do you actually have evidence, Detective?’ said Khaos through gritted teeth.

  ‘You have to get out of here, Khaos!’ urged the voice. The headache was coming back, worse than before.

  ‘I know you did it!’ shouted the Detective, grabbing the sides of the table, her face inches from Khaos’ face.

  ‘Do you really think you know? You don’t have a clue,’ said Khaos in a lowered voice.

  ‘Khaos! Your power, use it now!’

  ‘Tell me then! Who are you?!’

  Suddenly, Khaos was in darkness. It was as if some great shadow had fallen over her mind, blurring her senses. When she spoke, it was the voice of the spirit, speaking through her.

  ‘I AM KHAOS! DESTROYER OF WORLDS!’ she gripped the sides of the table steadily, her whole body tensed in concentration of energy. In her blurred, uncontrolled vision, the human part of Khaos saw the surface of Heel’s long-cooled coffee tremble. Was that her power? Coming to her now? She happened to glance in the one way mirror at the end of the room, and saw that her eyes were completely grey, pupils and all, as they had been in the mirror of Envy.

  Detective Heel stared at her for several minutes, in stunned silence. This clearlyclearly not the response she was expecting. And she was suddenly out of her depth.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Khaos!’ Khaos answered, in her own voice again. The spirit’s power over her was faltering. ‘I am Khaos. We are Khaos.’

  ‘We?’ Said Heel carefully. Then a sudden look of understanding came over her face. ‘You mean there’s’ someone else… in there…’ She pointed to Khaos head. ‘With you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Did she understand? That there was a spirit force inside her?

  The Detective rubbed her temples thoughtfully. ‘Can I ask, did ‘Khaos’ kill those people? Was it Khaos, not you?’

  ‘Sometimes, one person must die for millions to live. When the spirit force of Khaos was in control of me, we destroyed the demon Sloth,’ blurted Khaos, glad she could finally speak of it to someone who seemed to understand. ‘Unfortunately, some sacrifices had to be made.’

  ‘Ok,’ said Heel slowly, taken aback by this sudden influx of information. ‘Ok…Ok,’ she repeated. ‘So, you kill demons. Right. And by ‘sacrifices’ you mean people, right? Some people had to die?’

  ‘Yes. They were bad people, slaves to the demons.’

  ‘So, did they get a chance to change their ways before they died?’

  ‘They had their whole lives to repent.’

  ‘I see. And so, if there’s a spirit, named Khaos, in control of you, who are you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter who I was. I am Khaos now. We are both Khaos.’

  ‘Right.’ Heel was silent again, sucking her pen thoughtfully. ‘So, let me get this straight. Your other identity ‘Khaos’ takes over you, like just a moment ago, and it was as this identity that you killed these six people?’

  ‘No, it’s not an identity, it’s a spirit, a power, inside, that takes control of me! You have to understand!’ Khaos’ heart sank. D.I. Heel did not understand at all. She should have known no mortal was going to believe her story. Of course they would think she was insane, blaming it on a spirit inside her head. Trying to fit her power, the curse of the voice inside her, into the tiny human box of normality.

  ‘So… Am I talking to Khaos right now? Or the evil spirit?’ Detective Heel now had the slightest look of compassion in her otherwise cold eyes, and her mouth had the smallest hint of a smile. She pitied Khaos.

  The spirit was suddenly back in control, flowing through Khaos’s whole body, her mind dark and shadowy again.

  ‘DO NOT MOCK ME!’ cried the voice, enraged, from Khaos’ lips. The whole table shook, though no one was touching it. Through that grey haze once more, Khaos watched as a crack formed on the table top, then split it right down the middle, sending the coffee cup and paperwork crashing to the floor.

  Heel leapt to her feet and the two policemen by the door charged toward Khaos, reaching for their handcuffs. Khaos was on her feet, arms tensed by her sides, hands balled into fists. Once more the power, all the power of the universe, the force of earthquakes and volcanoes, channelled through her. In her mind, she reached out and pulled on the concrete, the bricks and mortar of the very building itself. An almighty crack split the room in two, from where Khaos stood along the floor and up the solid wall. The whole building shuddered, and the policemen and Detective Heel were thrown onto their hands and knees. The mirror exploded, sending tiny cubes of glass to every corner of the room.

  The terrified policemen were now cowering on the floor, covering their heads with their hands. Khaos threw her hands out to either side, and one side of the room began to fall away. There was an enormous groan of metal and concrete, and part of the building crashed and crumbled into nothing, sending rubble,bricks and glass flying int
o the surrounding streets.

  All the while, Khaos stood still, surrounded by the remnants of a room, watching with a look of almost serenity on her face. All around she could hear the screams and shouts of terrified police officers trying to evacuate the building, some caught up in the destruction, some buried in it, some clambering over the wreckage in an effort to escape. Several different alarms were going off, and in the distance sirens could be heard. Unhurried, Khaos climbed down the rubble to the next floor, which, as she had guessed from being guided around the building earlier, turned out to be the cells. All the cellswere now open, the doors burst from their hinges and laying in piles of twisted metal on the floor.

  A swift search discovered what Khaos had been looking for; her sword, glowing a cool blue flame, locked in a strong metal box that was smoking gently. One quick smash and the sword was in her hands. A heavy, flapping sound rang overhead and Khaos looked up to see Nyx, a flying horse once more, coming towards her. When he was near enough, she swung easily onto his back and they flew up and away, leaving the chaos and destruction behind them.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Nyx flew straight and steady this time, there was no question of where they needed to go; straight to the Portabello house. A few moments later, Khaos shook herself, feeling her human soul in control again and the spirit subdued once more. How strange it had felt to truly be Khaos! It was like looking through a blurry grey lens, watching a black and white film, having no say in what happened or where they went. Merely a spectator, a frightened little voice trapped in this body with an avenging angel at the helm, intent on destruction andchannelling the power of the universe through her like a conducting rod. Had anyone died in the destruction at the police station? Had the Detective survived? Or had she been caught up in the rubble? Somehow, even though Heel had interrogated her so harshly, Khaos felt some remorse at the possibility of her demise.

  Now she felt deflated, like a balloon, curled up and useless, when moments before she had been the most powerful creature in the world. Was it really her though? Could she control it? Or was she always to be a spectator, an unfortunate accident, no longer welcome in what had been her own mind? The one flaw in an otherwise supreme being.