Banquet for the Damned

by Adam L. G. Nevill

  She cuts him off. 'Dante, will you promise me something?'

  'Sure.'

  'Don't pry. I don't like questions. Once, a long time ago, I was asked painful questions. Too many questions by terrible people.'

  Breaking his resolve, Dante finally looks at her face and watches a change spread like a thin and soundless ice beneath her alabaster skin, now appearing dead beneath the false colours of toner. Her gloved hands grip the bench and he hears a knuckle crack. The hard seat becomes harder beneath his buttocks. Police, he thinks. Maybe she's talking about Johnny Law. She's had a crazy youth and was busted for something. That's why she turned to Eliot's book. Wasn't he roughly the same? But the emotion suddenly drains from her, rage vanishing in the time it takes to beat one lash across a panther's eye.

  'You are a loner, Dante. Like me,' she says, and her face attains a strange vacancy.

  'Is that why Eliot wants me? Wants us to be close?'

  'We want you to be with us. You wrote to us and we understood.

  The unseen world in Banquet touched you. But a book is only words, a shadow. Why not give yourself to something that is real? I need you to. You must.'

  'What? I mean, like a cult?' he answers, feeling uneasy, and silently praying she will laugh at his suggestion and then vigorously deny it.

  'To be more than you will ever be alone. To be with someone powerful.' Her voice sounds older now; the bashful girl has gone again, with her prickly kisses and gentle hands. Her thoughts have wandered, unhooked themselves from the present and blown away to a place he doesn't understand. 'This is why you came to him,' she says. Her eyes widen with excitement. 'This is why I gave myself to him. I don't remember much about the time before him, and I don't want to. Everything is different now, Dante. I see and hear things I never did before.'

  Dante stares at her, dazed. What has Eliot done to her, with his scarred hands and talk of sacrifice? Drugs maybe. Has the mescaline eater found an apprentice? 'I will help him, I want to,' he says, cautiously. 'I think I owe him. But how can I help? I'm a musician. You and Eliot keep dropping hints about this great adventure. But what is it? Where do I stand in all this? I mean, are you talking about drugs? I smoke dope, Beth, but the rest is shit. Did you try things with Eliot?'

  Tilting her head on one side, she looks at the floor, and although her lips move he can hear no sound. It is as if she is hearing something whispered to her from an earpiece. Her face becomes dreamy, the green eyes distant, the body lifeless under the long coat, like a beautiful marionette left in a corner.

  'Beth,' Dante asks. 'What's wrong?'

  She turns to face him so quickly he flinches.

  He swallows. 'Sorry, too many questions. But I need to know what it is you want from me.'

  She moves her face closer, with her chin raised. And before he can ask another question, she closes the gap between their lips. Against his mouth her lips part. He can see the whites around her irises and smell her strange breath cooling on his face. He thinks of wet stones, dying summers and deserted beaches. 'You are special,' she whispers, stretching her arms out to hold his hands. One of her thighs presses against his own. 'I knew you would be special.'

  Dante feels like he is floating before her face. Before anything real starts between them, it's like she is already hurting him, and it feels good. 'He will take you, and your friend,' she whispers. Are they about to kiss? Blood rushes in his ears and he fails to suppress a noisy gulp in his throat. 'You are right for him,' she murmurs.

  Not thinking, he reaches an arm around her shoulders. Beneath the coat, where he expected softness to be, she feels brittle. Still, he draws her body closer until her perfume drowns him: a drowsy pine forest in her hair, a heavy draft of juniper berries on her throat. She angles her face against his cheek. Her lips brush against his skin until her mouth returns to his and smothers his breath. Cold kisses sprinkle ice particles down his back. Dante surrenders to her mouth.

  Suddenly, she clutches his cheeks with her leather fingers and bites his lips. Streak lightning crackles through his head and blinds him. Sharp aftershocks of agony bring tears to his eyes, and there is a muted sound of something ripping inside his mouth as her teeth go to work.

  But the pain is good. Good enough to overcome his instinct to pull away. Blood me, he wants to whisper. No longer does he think of her confounding wiles or her ability to leave every question unanswered. She's promising something decadent and painful that he suddenly craves, to take him somewhere where he can make pacts with writhing, binding things that will leave him paralysed and powerless. And yet still he will yearn for them. Toward her pallid, beautiful face he falls again, asking for the shock of her betrayals, shared with moments of her attention that will exhilarate and inspire. Laying his throat and heart open to the sweetest pain, he bites back at her mouth, knowing his desire for her is a trapdoor he wants to drop through – to feel his entire weight jolt at the end of her rope where it will dangle and wait for more.

  But just as suddenly as it began, the kiss ends. Beth releases Dante's face and sits back to pant in the dark beside him, her lips smeared with blood or lipstick. He does not care. The smudged image of her face watches him, eagerly. It is as if she is now using extraordinary powers of will to restrain herself. A little whimper for more mewls from his throat and dies on his tongue. She looks insane, slovenly, a hysteric; the mouth gaping, the stare crude, the body slumped, thighs open. Torture pornography against a black surround.

  Coppery blood mingles with the taste of the silvery lipstick she's smeared across his teeth. His limbs are heavy, his body drugged. Shaking his head, he fights the faint, only aware of his need for more of her. Slowly, he moves forward to engage the delicious, biting mouth again. Gentle hands spread wide across his chest and stop him. Baffled but pushing against her hands, Dante implores her for more with his eyes. But his head is like lead and lolls to the side, while one of his feet skitters uselessly through the grass as an unnatural warmth relaxes his body. Thoughts become vague until everything around him seems insubstantial, and even her face blurs in the soft focus of his dimming sight. Forcing one eyelid open, he can barely see her thick lips, crimsoned and spread wide across the dark teeth. There is only a suggestion of her face before him now and it peers into the gloom behind the bench. The private ecstasy on her face is no longer directed at him, but at something he cannot see that makes her lips move but produce no words.

  'Be still,' she whispers, as both of his eyes close. She moves away from him.

  'No,' he mumbles.

  'Be patient.'

  She leaves the bench, but Dante keeps his fingers entwined with hers. 'Wait,' he mumbles, just managing to squeeze and hold on to her hand, until her movements to free herself pull him groggily to his feet. She wraps her arms about his waist and whispers, 'Keep your eyes closed for him –' her stomach presses into his erection '– Promise me. It's for the best.'

  'Promise,' he says, and Beth kisses him, once on his broken lips and then once on his forehead.

  * * *

  When his eyes open, he finds himself slumped on the bench, alone. Peering between eyelids sticky with sleep, he cannot see Beth. The court is silent, save for the distant sound of a car engine, idling somewhere beyond the walls. He tries to move, but his limbs have become numb, as if anaesthetised, and his neck is stiff with cramp and cold. All he wants to do is fall back into sleep. He is reminded of the occasions when he hears his alarm clock ring early in the morning and he can only find the energy to turn over in bed and shut it off. It is as if Beth's wonderful poison is warming through his blood. She has filled him with her delinquency and beauty until he is drunk with her. Beth is strong wine, sweetened in obsidian cellars. She is rich brown heroin shot through the groin. An acid moment before stainless steel where the angles of the world are tilted.

  Falling in and out of sleep, he then experiences a curious inner vision, in black and white, as if it has been left behind by her presence. From above, he sees himself, pale and naked, cur
led up on the night sand, amongst dunes spiked with coarse grass, beneath an unnaturally bright moon. On this desolate strip of beach, a figure appears in the distance. At first its shape is indistinct, but it gains ground rapidly. Long thin arms become visible, and they are thrown into the air as it rushes forward. Flapping like a tattered flag around a crooked ivory pole, some kind of winding or swaddling linen hangs from the spindly figure. Like thin notes from a bone flute, Beth's whispers swirl about him and move the black sand on which he lies. As if on her command, he arches his back and exposes his throat to the hungry thing in rags.

  Through the delirium he suffers on the wooden bench, the last part of his consciousness warns that he is not alone in the court. All around him a breeze rustles through the trees to become a murmur of voices, as if suddenly the place has filled with nervous courtiers who sense the approach of a ruthless king. The old halls seem to inhale and hold their breath inside bleached stone lungs, as if they too have been warned of the approach of an unwanted guest. A guest the halls and lawns want to be quiet and still for, hoping he will pass by. Something creeps through the shadows and along the stone walls. He can feel it coming.

  A part of Dante wants to surrender, to relent and expire, convinced that a full comprehension of the stranger will equal a terror and panic no man would willingly face. To lie still and listen to the melody of the whispers and the rhythm of a slowly approaching tread on the brittle grass, heralded by the bony crackles of parting oak twigs, is easier and his end will be without pain.

  And then the court seems to breathe out, trying to expel the foul air that has seeped in. Suddenly, there is laughter in the distance, in the street, the highway of the living. Someone calls for a taxi. Dante is distracted. He suddenly struggles against the desire to drift away and give up. A rush of impressions enters his dimming, dreamy thoughts. Brightening images of familiar faces shine like white lights through fog. He sees Tom's laughing face, which makes the silver earrings shake in his ears. He remembers the warmth of sunlight on his blinking face and how tea tastes with two sugars, and how beer smells after the little gassy pop beneath a levered bottle top. His fingers twitch for Ernie Ball strings on nickel frets. A distorted D-minor chord roars somewhere at the back of his brain, and he hears the crackle of old vinyl under a diamond stylus. Dante snaps from the trance and opens his eyes.

  For a brief and fleeting moment, as if he has emerged into a new dream, the world has changed. The buildings around the court have slumped against each other and the roses have withered against the walls. Trees are petrified. Woody smells and earthy scents have been replaced with the malodour of age. A phosphorescent light contaminates the air. Somewhere in the distance, he thinks he hears a bell peal with forlorn clangs. Blinking, he moves stiff arms, so his cold fingers can rub the sickly nightmare from his eyes. He is aware of how heavy and empty his head feels, like an old iron pot swinging on the thin handle of his delicate neck. And as he tries to gather his senses, he becomes aware of a presence behind him.

  This impression of company soon manifests into a rustling sound behind the bench. Despite the dark of the court, he also detects the suggestion of a great shadow, rising from leaf mould to stand amongst the tree branches. Without looking, he knows someone now stands upright and close to his back. When he hears the sigh, he runs.

  And falls.

  A stiffness in his limbs and muscles brings him down against the gravel path, which spits under his weight and cuts his palms. Panic and pain drain his mind of the dirty water of the vision. Sensing the presence of something old, but more than a man, waiting to satisfy a profound appetite and now so close to doing so, he is compelled to grope and clutch his way back to the distant street. This is survival. He wants to live and knows, for the first time in his young life, this desire is under threat.

  As he crawls on his belly, his shirt twists against his chest and stones crunch against his face. Sharp pieces of grit spike against his skin and force him to try and find his feet. Rising from the ground to all fours, he glances back at the copse of trees that circles the bench. A peek motivated by terror and made quick by reluctance verifies that something is moving. It looks like a shadow, swaying like a giant black kite caught in a tree. Swaying when there is no wind. Stay, it seems to plead, when it reaches for him.

  Another burst of laughter explodes from outside the gate, followed by the gritty sound of feet scuffling along paving stones. Someone yells 'Taxi' again, and the voice is loud and warm and living. Dante looks toward the entrance. The narrow brick arch and the iron gates are only a few feet away. Headlights swirl across the curved brickwork ahead of him and flash through the iron poles of the gate, lighting a path toward salvation. There is a squeak of brakes and a hydraulic wheeze as a car sinks down on its tyres. He does not want to die in here.

  He runs. His boots slap off the paving stones. The urgent beats of a heart speeding up tell him he is running at full throttle. He is nearly free when something drops to the ground behind him, back by the bench. It makes the sound of loose bones shaken in a gourd.

  Unable to look behind, he flees, off-balance as his right boot skids and then slips on a cascade of polished stones littered before the tunnel. Stumbling, he slaps a hand against the cold brick of the arch to keep himself upright, knowing that if he goes down he is finished.

  Through the gate, he can now see the wide boulevard of South Street. There is an idling saloon car at the curb, resplendent with glossy white paint, and an orange light on the roof, painted with black letters that read TAXI.

  Dipping his head, he leaps through the tunnel, firing himself off his front foot, like he is taking a long jump back at school, unconcerned where he will land. But something, with a long and determined reach, swipes at the back of his head. It catches a tendril of his hair and tugs, bringing tears to his eyes, making his head jerk back. His eyes are suddenly confronted with the smooth curving bricks in the ceiling of the arch. Dante grunts and twists his head. He falls sideways and then rights himself. The lock of hair snaps from his scalp, and his head shoots forward, plunging through the open half of the main gates. He emerges into an explosion of yellow street light; his lungs wheeze, his body moves too fast to control.

  Behind him, a force rears up and then smashes against the closed half of the gate. A miasma, spiced with rot, belches from the stone arch of St Mary's Court and hangs like a cloud on the street. Dante slams against the taxi and plants his hands on the car bonnet with a bang. He glances up at the two tipsy pedestrians who stand by the open rear door of the car. They see something in Dante's face that kills their bleary-eyed camaraderie. 'I have to get away,' he says in the strange, matter-of-fact voice of the truly shocked.

  They nod and then look at the trembling iron gate of St Mary's Court. Dante moves around the car, steering himself with his hands, tasting tar and blood in his mouth, until he finds the open door. Slumping his body across the rear seat, he whispers, 'Drive.' Uneasy, but unwilling to argue, the driver turns to stare at the long-haired youth with the ashen face who sprawls on the back seat of his car. The driver releases the handbrake.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  And even in sleep, Dante can smell the damp concrete. Sleep has transported him back to the cellar and rehearsal space of the band's house in Birmingham. Silhouettes of the drum kit and Marshall amplifiers, covered with rustling polythene sheets, rise up from the depths of the vision. A single lightbulb illumines the four walls. White paint gone yellow with age peels off the powdery bricks. Water pools on the floor where he lies. The ceiling is lost in darkness.

  A gust of wind blows the wooden coal hatch down, built into the wall at the bottom of the brick staircase that runs into the cellar from the ground floor. And with its clatter two figures become distinct. 'He's here for you, Dante,' Beth says in the dream.

  'No,' he tries to say, but his voice dies. It is hard to breathe, let alone speak. When he tries to move, there is no strength in his arms and legs, just an infuriating numbness, like an attack of pins
and needles spreading over his whole body. All he can sense is the dead weight of his own shape. It is useless and cold.

  Eliot stands beside Beth, smiling. 'I needed someone stupid,' he says, and then laughs in his wheezy way. 'An idiot was required.' Beth laughs too. It feels like his heart will break. His face screws up but no tears will flow; even that part of him has stopped working. He just grunts.

  'They used to put people in the ground for him,' Beth says.

  Dante's voice returns. He whispers, 'Not in the ground. Please God. Not in the ground.'