by Jack Wallen
Tony muted Drew and turned to me. “By the way, I thought for sure I’d have had your track issue solved by now; but damned if that extraneous noise isn’t still present. In thirty years of engineering, I’ve never come across something like this. I’ve run the recording through every piece of software I have. No matter what I throw at it, nothing is cluing me into what’s causing the noise. I’m certain I can fix it in post-production, but I shouldn’t have to. I’m better than this.”
I avoided touching the bare flesh of Tony’s arm; instead, I gave his back a slow stroke. “We have absolute faith in you, Tony.”
Drew finally finished the take. When he glanced up, I held aloft the paper bag containing his lunch. With a curt nod, Drew returned his guitar to its stand, pulled off the headphones, and made his way into the booth.
“Bloody brilliant, my body has begun the slow, steady process of devouring itself.” He grabbed the bag, took a quick peek within, and offered up a joyous laugh. “Oh, hell yes; just what Dr. Drew ordered.”
Tony stood from his console. “You wanna beer, Drew?”
“I could fucking kiss you, Tony.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re not my type.”
Drew rolled his eyes. “You lie ‘cause I’m everyone’s type.”
I exchanged a knowing glance with Drew, one that spoke a litany of shenanigans. “Let the man slip into a dress—I guarantee you’ll have a change of heart.”
“Seeing you in drag would make this experience the stuff of dreams.”
“Dream on, my friend. Dream on.” Drew sang in his best Steve Tyler voice. Although his best was a bit of a failure, it had the perfect effect of changing the subject and filling the booth with a riot of laughter.
On the periphery of my vision, I caught Dizzy glancing at his camera and then pointing toward me, his face a mixture of confusion and fear. Without a word, I excused myself from the booth and joined the crew in the soundproof room, easing the door shut behind me.
“What’s up?”
Bella gasped, unable to hide her misplaced guilt within a framework of innocence.
It was Dizzy that found the bravery to confront me. He held the camera screen my way, the video of the thief’s errand playing back. “Can you explain what happened?”
The punk had recorded our secret tête-à-tête; every word, every action was there for all to spy—the brilliant red light, my command of the less-than-innocent soul.
Bella pointed a shaking finger toward the camera. “What did you do to him?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Bella and Dizzy backed away, defenses up and eyes wide with fear.
The door opened behind me. “What’s going on?”
Bella skirted the room until she was at Drew’s side, her arms wrapped tight around the man’s chest. “There’s something wrong with Grog.”
Drew returned the embrace, his cheeks tinged with the slightest blush. “You mean other than her being the most badass human on the planet?”
Bella pointed across the room. “You need to see what’s on Dizzy’s camera.”
Drew slipped the bonds of the young woman’s grip and sauntered his way to the cameraman. “Let’s have a look.” Before I could conjure a plan to prevent Drew from viewing the footage, he focused his attention on the camera. After a moment, he looked up, his gaze directed at Dizzy. “Is this the making of a video for one of the new songs? It’s pretty twisted, but I like the direction—”
Dizzy pulled the camera from Drew’s grasp. “No. That shit is real.” Dizzy pointed toward me. “She did that.”
“Yeah, well…” Drew’s voice faded as his gaze locked onto mine. “Grog’s … we already told you about The Seduction. You don’t go through something like that without having it fuck with your chi on inhuman levels. Give the woman a break.”
Bella’s face flushed, her hands clenched into fists. “What are you talking about? There’s something wrong with her.”
“Yeah, it’s called The Dark Seduction. She survived it and then survived a tragic loss.”
Dizzy pulled his attention away from the camera. “So you’re saying we should write off what was caught on camera as nothing more than remnants of some dark, unseen realm?”
“Yeah. That’s about right. If you can’t, I’m certain Gordon can hire another film crew.”
Drew’s last statement draped a blanket of discomfort over the room.
My breathing eased. I couldn’t risk drawing any more attention to my actions. Knowing Drew would defend my every move, sight unseen, was a much-needed comfort. “What a day. Anyone else up for a bit of bingeing in front of the telly?”
It was Drew’s turn to be met with silence.
“Or not. What’s the millennial equivalent of my guilty pleasure? And please, no one dare say ‘The Vampire Diaries.’
EIGHT
There’s no such thing as ‘uncomplicated’
every heart has a wall with a gate in it
The television binge-a-thon worked to perfection, drawing everyone’s attention away from the footage on the camera and the questioning of my intentions—dark as they might be. We devoured popcorn, beer, and as much mindless entertainment as possible. Roughly three hours into the marathon, eyelids began to grow heavy. Gravity insisted heads nod into a blissful respite of rest. That was my cue to take leave of the current company.
The cooling night air was a soothing balm for my boiling need to rain down a long-overdue vengeance upon the living. My lungs filled with the sick, expelled breath of humanity. I could taste every existential crisis and failure, all of which was tinged with the flavor of greed and wanton destruction. The one thing the living did best was consume.
That particular tide was about to turn.
A man, standing sentinel under an entryway awning of a questionable establishment, decided to come out and play. He was tall and lanky, the stench of souring milk permeating the air around him. The crook of his right elbow was peppered with the yellowish bruises of false hope, his pupils dilated from the overstimulation found within a needle. “Holy hell, they don’t make them as sexy as you anymore. What say we head into the Pleasure Dome and spread love over one another?”
In a show of surprise, I offered up my undivided attention. “Pleasure Dome? That sounds intriguing enough. I could use a spot of distraction.”
“Yum. British. Follow me then. Your every whim and want will be made real.”
The night was young. Since I was in a mood for a bit of fun, I gave the man permission to lead me on. “Your life is about to change.”
My hips swayed as I followed the junkie up a flight of stairs. A flutter came into my throat, followed by the simple words, “As is yours.”
At the first landing, a doorway stood, covered with the stains of hardship and misuse. The man knocked rapidly six times, followed by another round of the exact same pattern. A click arose from the other side of the barrier. The door swung open on hinges begging to give up the ghost.
“After you, my dear.” Junkie Boy gestured for me to enter. It struck me as odd that a man—even one strung out on liquid loss—wouldn’t question a woman willing to enter an unknown building with a complete stranger. Had I been on his side of the coin, red flags would have urged me run away.
Considering what he currently had in his care, he’d have needed to run very far, very fast.
The inside of the room perfectly matched the exterior—a wash of dingy grays, the stink of piss, and furniture begging to be set afire.
I turned back to my seducer. “So, about that life changing?”
Before I had a chance to react, the slip of a man had me by the wrists, pinning my arms together with a strength that belied his frame.
“Yeah, about that…”
Another man entered the scene—this one was the size of a small gorilla—completely naked, his sex swinging wildly between his legs. “Present arms, motherfucker.”
Junkie Boy maneuvered my right arm, so my n
ewest playmate had free access to the spaghetti work of veins that riddled the crook of my elbow. When I didn’t cry out, the naked man was taken slightly aback. He said not a word but offered a gold-toothed grin as he tied a rubber tube around my right bicep.
“This,” Goldy Mouth spat, the trailing ‘s’ offering up a slight lisp, “is your ticket to paradise.”
I tilted my chin slightly and then glanced down at my arm. “What are you waiting for then? Send me off into that dream within a dream.”
Junkie Boy cackled from behind me. “We have a fucking winner with this one.”
Goldy Mouth cupped my chin in his free hand. “I wonder if she knows her fate beyond this first trip.” He held aloft the syringe, so that the light glinted off the stainless-steel needle. “After one hit from this shit, you are hooked. You’ll do anything for your next score.” The man leaned in close enough that I could smell his rancid, tooth-decayed breath. “Any-fucking-thing, if you get my meaning.”
“Sex trafficking. I get it. Now hit me.”
Both men celebrated with a round of libido-shrinking cackles. Junkie Boy blurted out, “A fucking willing participant. This bitch must love—”
Before the troll could complete the sentiment, I pulled out of his grasp, grabbed the hypodermic, spun on my heels, and jammed the needle through his right eye and into the thick of the man’s brain. He tried to speak, but his words came out in a slur of gibberish. After a round of convulsions, he flopped to the stained-tile floor and expired.
“What the fuck did you just do, bitch?”
I grabbed Goldy Mouth by the manhood and dragged him to me. “What I did was rid the world of yet another junkie. And for my next trick…” I gave the flaccid meat in my hand a hard enough squeeze to rouse a howl from the man’s throat. “Do bad things.”
All pretense of anger and violence sloughed away from the man, leaving him my malleable soldier, ready to serve my word. In perfect silence, he turned on his bare feet and took his leave from the despicable headquarters, naked and soon-to-be infamous.
I followed, the nighttime playground of the living begging me to continue my game, down the creaking steps to find a body, stripped of life. Goldy Mouth had taken my command too literally. I’d hoped only to have my soldiers spread the seeds of sorrow through the streets, not empty it of life.
“Lesson learned.” My voice was dull against the peeling paint and stained tile floor. My directive would require less ambiguity, which was a shame, as Do bad things rolled off the tongue like a rivulet of warm blood.
The open air licked at the exposed flesh of my face, neck, and arms. I paused to take in the experience: the sound—a mixture of unfettered joy and abject fear, the smell—a secret perfume of sweat and lust.
The sight.
A blinding red light filled my vision in three hundred and sixty degrees. The scarlet landscape alone would have been of no concern; however, when the howling voice of my living twin sister threatened the integrity of my hearing, I knew my time on The Planar Mortalis was no longer a given. This meant but one thing—I had to act fast, had to spread my word like a disease until every living soul had blackened to my desire.
I will destroy you, my twin roared from The Shallow—that purgatory between The Mortalis and The Black Blizzard. I had assumed her confinement to be inescapable.
“It seems I have underestimated your strength, Sister.”
The red beacon pulsed against my retinas—sunspots of the damned.
“Baby, you’re a hard nut to crack,” I sang the lyrics to the song I’d be recording tomorrow. “I got a hammer, so people stand back.”
The fabric of reality ripped open before me to reveal Grog, wailing at the walls of her prison. The veins and tendons of her neck stretched tight against a budding rage. Her hands came together to form an unfamiliar shape—from which erupted the crimson blast. That she’d managed to retain what little power stolen from The Dark Seduction should concern me. However, arrogance had always been my undoing. I wasn’t about to change such a fundamental aspect of my makeup at this point. Besides, I lived and died for the challenge. Let the bitch escape; I’d take her down a second and third time—if need be.
I shook off the scarlet mantle until my vision returned; Grog was still locked away from reality—this reality.
“As I had suffered unto he, you should suffer unto me,” I whispered and returned to the duty at hand.
A prostitute and a john.
An officer of the law and the guilty as charged.
The homeless and the helpless.
The devout and the faithless.
No one was safe from my touch and my words. This time around, the edict of choice was Spread the seeds of suffering. I had no way of knowing the perfect phrase to speak which would best serve my needs. This was psychiatry of the darkest kind—evil’s own trial and error. At some point I would string together the exact command to open the gateway between the two worlds; I would pass through The Shallow, enter The Black Blizzard, and forever be its Queen. To finally leave the festering mess of The Mortalis behind would be a sweet victory. That it might burn and blister at my whim brought to me no end of joy.
In celebration of my return to The Black Blizzard, I sang the only fitting song. “Your god has abandoned this project. Vampires, his children, burning in the desert. Heightened appetites, can’t be sated. Angels, all fallen, nothing is sacred.”
A young male, sporting the symbols of anarchy passed me. “Black Blizzard.” He banged his head in the air. “Fucking Grog Rox. Jesus, would you make my world a better place and pose for a picture with me?”
“Yeah, mate, let’s make that shit happen.”
The spiky-haired fellow wrapped his arm around my waist, leaned in, and held his phone up high. Before he could snap the photo, I turned my head, snaked my tongue into his ear to baptize his mind for what was about to cross the threshold of his cochlea.
“Spread the seeds of suffering,” I whispered and followed it up with a nibble of the earlobe.
Spikes snapped the picture—one that displayed the slack-jawed glare of a mind robbed of grace and coherence. Next to the newly ordained minion, stood a mere shadow, a dark blur trapped between a state of living and dying, the ghost of rock and roll past. With prize in hand, the young anarchist swaggered away. As he passed an elderly gentleman, he cocked his arm and crashed his fist into the unsuspecting man’s face. The older man dropped as if he’d been simply switched off. Slowly the man sat up, shouting obscenities at the offender and calling for the authorities to, “Arrest the punk!”
My work here was only just beginning.
As sleep was of no concern, I continued to sow my ill will throughout the night. I fed off every connection, feeling my strength growing with each soldier I’d recruited. I wasn’t a mathematician, but this particular two plus two offered up a fairly simple answer—this dread danger of mine would spread exponentially with each whispered word.
Teenagers.
Caretakers.
Drunks and addicts.
Poverty stricken.
Rich and famous.
Atheists and ecclesiastics.
My reach was blind to race, creed, and color. All that mattered was that the victim had a pulse and the faculties to disseminate the word of Grog.
For I am legion.
***
It was about six AM when I returned to the flat. Drew and crew—I chuckled over the lame rhyme—were still crashed on the couches and chairs, spread out before the all-seeing eye of the telly. I ignored their pathetic states and made my way directly to the shower, stripping down to flesh as I walked.
The cold water was a refreshing distraction from the heat of power rising from my naked skin. My entire body was abuzz with a current of electrostatic desire flowing within my veins. I was so close to ascension, I could feel it; sorrow worming its way into the fiber of humanity, a fundamental despair unmaking and unmasking the false face of joy.
Some part of me wondered if The Plana
r Mortalis would make for a better kingdom to dominate than The Black Blizzard. The human creature was hardly a foe; the ease by which they could be turned had been on perfect display to me. The whispered syllables from my bloody lips to their open ears were all it took to have the living under my thrall.
Where was the challenge in that?
No. I wanted the thrill of besting the Blizzard, of taking down the King of Darkness himself, dragging him through The Shallow and dumping the damnable creature into this mindless and weak world.
I had become so enthralled with the seduction of power, I’d forgotten I was standing naked in the shower. The fog of war blanketed the small room, secreting me away from sight. I could have remained in that make-shift sauna for hours. Much to my disappointment, I shut off the flow of water, toweled myself down, and stepped from the bathroom—glistening skin made available for all to see.
All being everyone in the living room, tucked deep away into a slumberous land.
“I could kill you all now,” I whispered from the corner of the room. I wouldn’t; this I knew. “Until you’ve served your purpose.”
I sauntered past, my naked body touched by the artificially cooled air of the room. To give the appearance of humanity—even if only on a superficial level—I made my way to the bedroom, pulled down the sheets, and slipped under the bedclothes. As I lay, with the sickening perfume of human flesh assaulting my nostrils, I dared my living twin to appear. “Show me your misery.”
Nothing. The coward remained tucked away in The Shallow, unable to fight her way back to the world she called home. “Weak and powerless,” I seduced the air with my voice.
