‘That’s not the point. They broke into my house; it’s a bloody insult. I want them dead, I have to send a message – no one fucks with Clarence Horatio Arkell.’
‘Well, I reckon that’s your problem. I’ve done my bit.’ Blaklok turned to leave.
‘Wait. Just wait a minute.’ Arkell was standing now, his face red with exasperation. ‘I’m led to believe you’re a man of honour, Mister Blaklok, despite your reputation for wanton violence. I’ve heard tell you’re a man who will do the right thing.’ True enough, Blaklok supposed. ‘These men are killers. It’s not just me they’ve terrorised, look for yourself.’ Arkell held out a copy of the Chronicle. Blaklok could see the headline ‘Murder Most Foul’ emblazoned across the top in thick black script.
‘Four others have been killed recently. Four other men of note… men I knew. Do you think it stops here? If you don’t hunt these animals down there’ll be more murders, you can guarantee it.’ Blaklok had to admit, it didn’t look good. ‘There’s no telling what these people are capable of. How long before they turn their attentions to women… children? Are you happy with these animals rampaging loose in your city?’
‘All right. No need to go on – I’ll do it. But you’ll have to cover my expenses.’
‘Of course,’ Arkell replied with a smile, reaching into his desk drawer and producing yet more bank notes.
Well, in for a penny…
‘By dose! He bid off by fugging dose!’
The voice echoed through the dark corridors, Blaklok could hear it from a hundred yards away. ‘I know, Mister Krane. But look what he did to my hand. These stitches itch terrible like. And whatever will I do when I need to pass water? I’m ever so clumsy with my left – I’ll get piss everywhere.’
What a pair of fucking cry babies!
He had stalked them for hours. It hadn’t been a difficult trail to follow, but it was circuitous. They’d tried to cover their trail in several spots, but they clearly hadn’t banked on being hunted by Thaddeus Blaklok. Now he had them in their den, and what Arkell had said about there being more murders had clearly been right. The deeper he went into their lair, the more evidence of their nefarious deeds was on display.
Body parts were casually strewn about, severed heads hung on meat hooks and entrails were nailed to the walls and ceiling like birthday streamers. It stank, the sweet smell of rot, and had Blaklok a weaker constitution he might have retched his guts up on the blood-smeared floor.
Ahead of him, illuminated through the gloom he saw them, one fat, one painfully skinny, nursing their wounds and moaning like school children.
‘Someone’s been busy,’ Blaklok said, stepping out into the light.’
‘You!’ said Milo, brandishing the stump of his missing hand.
Krane merely stood, his face wrapped in bloody gauze, eyes staring about wildly in search of a weapon.
‘I think playtime’s over. You two need a dose of the rough stuff, and I’m the kind of bastard that’s ready to give it.’
Blaklok let his greatcoat drop to the floor, exposing the tattooed flesh of his torso. He was painted with a myriad of different markings; arcane sigils, occult symbols, intricate scarring, all wound together to make a fearsome tapestry of his flesh. And as Milo and Krane watched in horror, some of those markings began to move and twist, glowing with baleful light or darkening and searing with their evil intent.
‘Wait,’ Milo managed to say. ‘It wasn’t us! We was paid. We’re just employees, like you. The real killers are the ones that hired us in the first place.’
‘Who?’ Blaklok demanded, the hellish contortion of his flesh not abating.
‘That would be us.’
Blaklok turned at the new voice, expecting someone sinister, expecting someone arch and evil both of manner and visage.
What he saw made him cease his fell conjurations and frown in confusion.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ he said to the diminutive, middle-aged woman standing right in front him. Behind her he could see other figures as plain and inoffensive as she was. Some clearly wore the rags of the penurious, others looked old and frail. Hardly a pernicious gathering of base criminality.
‘Who we are isn’t important. Why we hired these men is more the point. Arkell and his ilk have taken from us, taken things that cannot be replaced, and we will have our avengement.’
‘Oh, I get it,’ Blaklok replied, fast losing patience. ‘Arkell fired you, or swindled you, or didn’t give you that pay rise you wanted and now you’ve decided you want to make him suffer. Well look around, love. Don’t you think this is a bit excessive? Arkell’s business partners are in fucking pieces.’
‘We are not his employees, and these butchered animals,’ she gestured to the disembodied corpses, ‘were not his business associates, though they were all part of the same club.’
‘What, bridge club? Some gentleman’s club?’
‘Arkell and his associates have certain appetites.Their succour is the children off the streets, children that no one would think to miss. Their money and influence has made them untouchable. But not any more.’
‘What do you mean children off–’
Suddenly Blaklok realised what the woman was trying to tell him.
‘Our children, the spawn of the poor, the urchins no one thought anyone gave a damn about. But we do. We all do. Arkell and his ilk inflicted horrors on them, used them like chattel, like whores and slaves, until they needed them no more and discarded them like human waste. It could not be allowed to stand. Justice is all we wanted.’
Blaklok regarded the crowd that had gathered behind the woman. They didn’t look like they had a collective pot to piss in but they’d managed to scrape enough money together to hire two assassins from out of town. That must have cost everything they had.
‘So what now?’ Blaklok asked, glancing back at Milo and Krane as they stood sheepishly in one corner, clearly terrified.
‘Now we need the final monster to be defeated. But this is all we have to offer.’ She held out her palm, showing Blakok was lay upon it. ‘Will you take it, Thaddeus Blaklok? Will you avenge our children for us?’
‘Aye, all right. That’ll do I suppose,’ Blaklok replied.
Clarence Arkell sat behind his desk as Blaklok entered. He was clearly not a man used to being kept waiting.
‘Well? Is it done?’
Blaklok simply stood and stared.
‘What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue? Have you earned the money I’ve paid you or not?’
Blaklok reached into his great coat and took out a pile of crumpled bills, throwing them on the desk in front of him. ‘I had a better offer,’ he said.
‘Better offer? What the hell are you talking about, better offer?’
‘I’ve found out the real reason those two bowler hatted twats wanted you dead.’
He let that hang there for a minute, watching Arkell’s response. The fat man went from an expression of innocence to stupefaction to denial in less time than it took to waggle piss from a cock.
‘Well, what the fuck do you care? Why should it matter to you, you’re just a thug for hire. A nutter from the streets.’ It was clear Arkell didn’t know him at all.
‘They offered me money to do you. Obviously they didn’t have much left after hiring those two useless cunts from out of town, but I accepted anyway.’ Blaklok reached into his pocket and took out two copper pennies. ‘To be honest, I’d have done it for free.’ He moved forward, his brow furrowing, his hands tightening into fists.
‘Now look here,’ said Arkell, rising unsteadily to his feet, his wooden chair toppling over backwards. ‘We had a business arrangement. I paid you for aaaiiiccchhhh–’
Blaklok took him by the throat, he’d heard enough from this fat fucking pederast.
Now it was time for the fun to begin…
+++Scene Report of Morticianeer Vexell p. Topper. Case File 1265-967/b+++
+++The corpse of Clarence Horatio Arkell was found lying on the floor of his study. T
wo copper pennies had been placed over his gaping eyeballs. As well as having his intestinal tract removed (not found at the scene) his penis had been torn off and inserted in rectum+++
+++There was no forensic evidence as to the identity of those who may have perpetrated the crime+++
+++Investigation is ongoing. All further results should be referred to Indagator Beauregard Morden+++
ROTTEN CUPID
by
IAN GRAHAM
Michael woke, sweat-soaked and shivering.
The room was dark, and the darkness was disturbingly organic, gripping him like the sap-slicked jaws of a Venus flytrap.
He lay motionless, listening to the clock ticking out on the landing. He loathed the timepiece, the cold relentless clacking of the mechanism. He wondered why he did not remove the batteries. It was Melissa’s clock and Melissa had gone.
Realising he would not sleep, he got out of bed, peeling the stinking sheets off his wet body as if they were layers of unwanted skin.
On the landing the clock read half-past midnight.
He went downstairs, gripping the banister tightly. He had been drinking constantly since Melissa left, seven days ago. His consumption of Calendar Whisky was causing considerable damage to his vital organs. His kidneys ached like gunshot wounds and he vomited four or five times a day - always the same infusion of bile and dark treacly blood.
He slept badly, tormented by grotesque, meaningless dreams.
Nonetheless, he found it impossible to care. In his experience, it was best to avoid confronting one’s woes when the woes were fresh. It was wisest to languish in self-pity for a while.
Collapsing onto the living room sofa, he grasped a Calendar bottle from the coffee table, unscrewed the lid then grimaced. For a quivering drunk, there was no sight more distressing than a nearly empty bottle. He swallowed the dregs and though the flavour was comforting, he had not drunk enough to make a gnat tipsy. He needed to visit the all-night petrol station.
Michael squinted out of the window and saw huge fat snowflakes whirling through the yellow glow of the streetlights. He performed a quick calculation. The petrol station was half a mile away. Not a great distance in itself but an ordeal when you were bad on your feet and had not eaten in several days. But the trek would take just fifteen minutes there and fifteen back, and a few reviving swigs of Calendar would make the return journey easy enough.
He lingered on the sofa, gathering his strength.
His gaze drifted to a shoebox tucked under the coffee table. Stooping, he picked it up, knowing that he would finds its contents upsetting. He put the box on his lap and lifted the lid, revealing a slurry of photographs featuring Melissa and himself.
The photographs were neither artistic nor conceptually original. Love was an ancient cliché and invariably entailed clichéd responses. There was Melissa riding a child’s swing in a leafy park; there she was again, tossing bread to a gaggle of mallards; now Michael made an appearance, eating an ice cream and, humiliatingly, attempting a wheelie on a mountain bike; and suddenly it was Melissa again, at a restaurant table, gilded in candlelight . . .
Christ, what drivel, thought Michael.
But heartbreaking drivel nonetheless. Like a sobbing maiden in a period drama, Michael clamped a hand against his heart, feeling as if some monstrous thistle had materialized there, skewering the delicate tissues with brutally sharp barbs.
Then there was another photo, of the most banal variety: a self-taken picture of the two lovers cheek by cheek, the camera angle crooked, the image ever so slightly blurred.
That’s the worst one of the lot, decided Michael.
No, not quite: the photo tucked beneath it was more repellent than the others combined. Sitting on the scarlet-upholstered bench of a Gondola, Michael and Melissa drifted along a romantic, stinking, rat-infested Venetian canal. They appeared absurdly happy, clutching hands, grinning as if to bounce the sun’s rays off their teeth back into the stratosphere. The snap had been taken by a gondolier whose oleaginous charm Michael had found threatening. He had bullied them to have the picture taken. Yes it would not be cheap, he said. But what price can be placed on such a gorgeous memento? They would treasure it forever, exhibiting it to their grandchildren as proof that they had once been young and prey to the splendid romantic passions of youth.
It wasn’t merely the photo Michael loathed but the frame in which it was mounted. Cut from cheap pink card, laced with faux-wood curlicues, it sported a grotesque cherub in the top-right corner. This beaming, pot-bellied Cupid gripped a golden bow with an arrow nocked to the string. Michael considered it obscene that a baby should be the symbol of amorous love. What was more, he despised this particular Cupid because either its marksmanship was poor or the romantic elixir basted on the arrow-tip was faulty.
Melissa had abandoned Michael a fortnight after Venice.
“Fuck this,” muttered Michael, tossing the photo on the coffee table. He had better things to do than brood. Things like purchasing a bottle or three of Calendar.
With considerable effort he got to his feet. His legs were wobbly, his vision blurred, and he suspected that if he failed to get a drink soon he’d get the DTs instead. The molecules in his emaciated body were vibrating in the strange, familiar way that preceded withdrawal.
In the hallway, he put on his boots and leather jacket then picked up the walking stick he would need for the trek to the petrol station.
Michael was proud of the stick. It wasn’t the curl-handled affair favoured by geriatrics but an honest-to-goodness hazelwood knob stick, the sort wielded by Oliver Reed when playing Bill Sykes in Oliver! It did not suggest infirmity. On the contrary, Michael was certain it gave him an eccentric and dangerous appearance.
He tugged the front door key from his pocket.
“Oh fuck. Money,” he sighed.
Returning to the living room, he grabbed his wallet from the sideboard then paused, spotting movement out of his eye-corner.
What on earth was it? A spider? A mouse?
Or something worse: an hallucination.
A thin scalpel of panic twisted in his belly. Hallucinations were common enough during delirium tremens. But sometimes they preceded seizures. And that would be bad.
Oh shit, I can’t have a fit, I mustn’t . . .
He glanced across the living room. The moving something was not scuttling over the floor like a spider or mouse but wriggling slowly and weirdly on the coffee table.
Squinting, Michael saw a vague wobbling pinkness that resolved itself into Cupid. The cherub’s head had already risen from the frame like some glistening pink bubble and now, tiny hands braced on the frame itself, he was heaving upwards like a bather climbing out of a swimming pool. His body shook with effort but gradually, his chest rose up, followed by his belly, lower regions and legs.
Pursing his lips, Cupid hitched up his loincloth, that had become snagged during the ascent. Then he stooped, tugging the bow and arrow out of the frame. Sweat dribbled from his golden-curled scalp. Raising a leg, the spirit of love farted silently. Then he looked at Michael.
I am hallucinating, thought Michael miserably. What if I have a seizure?
He cast about wildly, seeking somewhere soft to fall when the spasms began.
Cupid rolled his shoulders, rubbed his neck then performed a few knee-bends as if loosening muscles that had spent too long in a cramped space.
Wings fluttering, Cupid rose into the air, hovered, then swelled into a baby of full-sized proportions.
“Screaming fuck,” whispered Michael, trembling.
Sniffing, Cupid lifted his shapeless chin and, with crawling slowness, his glossy pink skin wallowed into a sickening green colour. Lesions blossomed over his body, seeping pus-tinged blood that dripped onto the carpet. Bloodshot exploded through his eye-whites. His flesh decomposed and one putrescent flap flopped from his cheek, exposing the greyish white bone beneath. Scarlet veins spindled through his stubby nose and the curls covering his scalp thin
ned into greasy scraggles. His lips opened, baring teeth as sharp as a cat’s and as green as a corpse’s. The gums bled prodigiously, the garish discharge trickling over the cherub’s chest and belly. His feathers, dove-white moments ago, glowed as red as superheated iron. Casting aside the bow and quiver, he fanned out his fingers and long yellow nails sprang out as swiftly as flick-knife blades. Ochre talons curled from his toes.
He hovered a moment longer then hurtled toward Michael.
Stunned, Michael had no time to react. Cupid clutched Michael’s jacket, fingernails piercing the thick leather. Yowling, Michael toppled backward onto the floor. Opening his mouth impossibly wide, Cupid bit into Michael’s ribcage. The pain was extraordinary - and energising. Flailing madly, Michael rolled onto his side, grasped Cupid’s shoulders and ripped the cherub loose. Cupid struggled in Michael’s grip and roaring, Michael hurled the thing across the living room. Cupid barreled through empty air then, wings working furiously, hovered once more, tatters of coat-leather, cashmere sweater and skin dangling from the needle-sharp fingernails.
Cupid attacked again.
Despite his panic, Michael was better prepared. Dodging sideways, he caught Cupid’s arm and flung the putti full-strength into the wall. Cupid impacted with a glooping splat then bounced onto the coffee table, scattering photographs. He lay still a heartbeat then rose once more.
“What the bloody fuck are you?” Michael knew the answer as soon as he asked the question. Like it or not, he was hallucinating. He was terrified but his wits were intact: he knew drunks were confronted by all sorts of ghastly illusions. Giant lobsters, spiders, aberrations that would’ve alarmed Bosch . . . all seemingly real yet none existing beyond the imagination.
Glancing down, Michael saw his jacket was ripped. And he was bleeding. But surely, these were also figments of his imagination?
“You do not exist,” breathed Michael, petrified yet jubilant. “All this is a dream -”
Cupid launched another assault. Michael’s defiance vanished. Yodelling with fear, he dived out of the living room into the hallway. Following, Cupid swept through the doorway then swooped but Michael was already sprinting up the stairs toward the bathroom.
Vivisepulture Page 5
