by JD Nixon
“No! Stop it!” demanded a clearly rattled Reverend Joshua, his face paling. He appealed to Trent. “Make him stop. Make him stop.”
Malefic continued reading, his voice measured and calm.
“God! Oh God! My Love and my Light. What’s he doing to me? Make him stop!” Reverend Joshua clutched his throat in panic. “Oh God, make him stop! I can’t breathe!”
Trent looked over at us and raised his hands in an urgent what the hell do I do now gesture. Reverend Joshua gurgled a couple of times before slumping over the desk, unconscious.
Trent jumped to his feet. “Cut! Cut! Get an ambulance. Someone get a fucking ambulance here now!” He glared at Malefic. “And you just shut up. Shut up with all that crazy shit you’re sprouting!”
Malefic closed his book and sat back in his chair, totally nonplussed as everyone else ran around in panic. Viv loosened the Reverend’s tie and collar while ringing for an ambulance. I stood around uselessly holding a glass of water that nobody wanted or needed or had even asked for. The security man looked as though he was about to faint with the stress. Brady yelled at someone on the phone. Trent remained at his desk, shell-shocked, edging away from Malefic and hovering over the Reverend.
That night we ran with the boob reduction story. Trent wasn’t his usual exuberant self, a fact noted by several TV critics the next day.
As soon as the show wrapped that night, I escaped the station using the fire stairs and a side door so that I didn’t run into anyone – especially Brady. The looks he’d thrown me later during the filming of the live links for People’s Pulse had made me wonder if I needed to call Heller for protection to get home safely. I wasn’t entirely confident I’d even have a job to return to here tomorrow.
The parking lot wasn’t well-lit and because I’d arrived later in the day, I’d had to park at its extreme edge. The useless security officer had pissed off to parts unknown – probably to play with himself in the bathroom – so I felt a little nervous making my way across the bitumen. I started thinking that having Heller there for protection wasn’t the worst idea I’d ever had. And believe me, I’d had a few bad ideas in my time.
When I reached my little car, the first thing I noticed was the flat front tyre. Oh great! It’s just not my day, I thought with resignation. I kicked it in utter frustration before locking myself inside the car and ringing Heller. After my last tyre-changing experience, there was no way I was going to risk doing it myself again in the dark with nobody around.
“Make sure your doors are locked, my sweet,” was the first thing he said to me when I finished explaining my predicament.
“Absolutely,” I assured him.
“Check again, please.” I checked the locks again.
“Yes, they’re all locked, Heller.”
“Don’t open them for anyone. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
“Thank you,” I said, trying not to sound more weak and pathetic than I felt at that moment. I brimmed over with gratitude that I had someone to ring for help, even if he was over-protective at times and embarrassed me to death at others.
I turned on the radio softly and snuggled down in the driver’s seat, preparing myself for a lengthy wait. I checked my phone and answered a few texts from Daniel and Niq, singing along to the radio for a while.
A sharp rapping on my window made me straighten up, shrieking in terror.
Malefic stared in at me.
Chapter 20
I wound my window down a bare inch. “What do you want?”
“You appear to need assistance.”
I couldn’t help myself. This person would probably cost me my job. “You have a spell for changing tyres? Because excuse me if I’m wrong, but I’m not really imagining you as a mechanical kind of guy.”
“I don’t do ‘spells’, Matilda. I perform rituals.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I thought you’d done your research on me.”
I shrank back. “Nobody calls me Matilda.”
He cocked his head to the side and considered me. “I think one person does. He’s on his way now. I’m interested in meeting him.”
“Why?” I asked suspiciously.
“He has power. That always interests me.”
“Leave him alone.”
He chuckled. “I’m not going to hurt him, Matilda.”
“Stop calling me that and go away!” I said, seriously freaked out. How could he know any of that information? I tried to wind the window back up but the electric button stopped working. I jabbed it anxiously.
He leaned in closer. “I want what he wants.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, not wanting to engage him.
“I want your light.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I desperately pressed on the window button again. Hurry up, Heller!
“Your light. I want it.”
“Well, I sort of need all my light. I don’t have a ray to spare. Sorry.” Jab, jab, jab.
“I will give you something in return, of course. But you must gift me a lock of your hair.”
“What could you possibly give me that I’d want?” I asked, my finger paused on the window button, curious despite myself.
“My seed.”
Okay! Ick! “I get quite enough ‘seed’ from my boyfriend already. I don’t really need any more, thanks for the offer anyway.” Jab, jab. Why wouldn’t my fucking window close? Of all nights!
“Do you understand the honour I’m proposing to you?” His acolytes, lurking silently at his shoulders nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, but like I said, I have more than enough seed at the moment to suit anyone. I’m really not in the market for any more. It would just be greedy of me. And to be honest, you’re not really my type.”
Headlights shone in the distance, moving closer. Oh, thank God, I thought, even happier a minute later when a vehicle pulled up next to mine, and a familiar silhouette emerged from the driver’s seat.
“Heller,” I breathed to myself, getting out of the car and never so glad to see him in my life.
He muscled up to Malefic, instinctively detecting my fear of the man. “Yes?”
“You’re even more impressive in person than I ever imagined.”
“Do I know you?”
“Everyone knows Malefic,” he smiled.
“I’ve never heard of you and your conversation with Matilda is over.”
“Rather protective, aren’t you?” he chuckled. “I was merely outlining a business proposition to Matilda –”
“Don’t call her that. She doesn’t like anyone using that name except me.” Frankly, I didn’t even like Heller calling me that either.
Malefic smiled again. “A simple business proposition. Unfortunately, she’s not interested. Shame. It would have been mutually beneficial.”
“Your business with Matilda is finished. Don’t let us hold you up from leaving.”
“Hmm, subtlety isn’t really your strength, Mr Heller.”
“I was being subtle, but I could be much more direct, if you’d prefer. It would be my pleasure.”
“I’m sure it would. But I prefer to fight my battles in less brutish ways.” He laid a hand on Heller’s arm, closed his eyes and chanted some words in that same (or another – who knew?) archaic language.
Heller looked down at his arm as if a particularly large and hideous insect had landed on it. “Get your hand off me.”
Malefic opened his eyes and frowned at the lack of effect his words were having on Heller. He closed his eyes again and stepped up the chanting, faster and louder.
“I said, get your hand off me,” Heller repeated in that dangerously polite voice that you’d be strongly advised to heed if you wanted to live to a ripe, old age.
Malefic opened his eyes again, petulance rippling across his face. “Why is this not working on you?” He suddenly lunged towards me and laid his hand on my shoulder, chanting again.
“Oh!” I cried out as I felt something dark and ugly slowly unravel
ling inside me, tendrils of it spreading from my shoulder down into my very veins and cells.
Heller roughly yanked me from Malefic’s touch, sheltering me behind his comforting bulk. “Touch my woman again and you won’t need to plan what you’re having for breakfast tomorrow or any other day.”
Thwarted and peevish, Malefic turned to lay his hand on one of his acolyte’s shoulders, speaking what sounded like the same words. She gasped several times, her eyelids fluttering and back arching. She swooned to the ground in a faint. Malefic turned back, his features loaded with triumph.
Heller put his hand on my back and gave me a little push towards his vehicle. “Come along, Matilda. I don’t have time to waste on these ridiculous people and their childish games. I’ll have one of the men come back here tomorrow to change the tyre and bring the car home for you.”
Without sparing them another word or even glance, he ensured I made it safely to his vehicle and we sped off. I watched the trio receding in the side mirror, trying to get my mind around what had just happened to me.
“I felt something when he touched me, Heller. I really did. It was cold and evil and it started creeping through my body.” I shuddered. “I never want to set eyes on that man again. He frightens me.”
“He’s not frightening, my sweet. He’s a charlatan. He uses mind tricks, dramatics and illusions on vulnerable young minds. And probably drugs too, when he has the chance. Did either of those women with him strike you as being particularly sharp?”
“Not really. Did he not affect you at all?”
“No. I was trained to recognise people like him. My mind isn’t susceptible to his tricks.”
“You’ve been trained to do everything. Do you think I’m weak-minded?” I asked, depressed that I’d convinced myself I’d felt something at Malefic’s touch.
He took my hand and squeezed it. “Of course not. You’re a very smart young lady. You are just inexperienced with people like him. You also have an active imagination.”
“What about Reverend Joshua?”
“He’s already a very superstitious man. He’s predisposed to believing in great evil.”
“But there is great evil in this world sometimes. You can’t deny that.”
“Yes, there is evil, but it’s not caused by magic. It’s caused by men.”
“I suppose.”
“What was the business proposition that man offered you?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do, Matilda. I want to know everything about you.”
“It was icky.”
He smiled. “I can cope with ‘icky’. Tell me.”
“He wanted some of my hair in exchange for his . . . ‘seed’.”
“What for?”
“I don’t know. Some ritual, I suppose. He said something about wanting my light. It didn’t make any sense to me. I told him I wasn’t interested.”
“He’s lucky I didn’t know that when I was there with him. Otherwise his evening would not have ended so peacefully.”
“He’s definitely weird, but he does have a lot of followers. They all must believe in him and his claims about his powers. Those girls wouldn’t have murdered their families if they didn’t believe in him.”
“There will always be people who feel lost in their lives and look for something that will give them the answers to questions that sometimes may have no answers.”
I smiled wryly. “You’re very philosophical tonight.”
He stroked my cheek and smiled back. “I’d rather be physical.”
“Are you trying to use mind tricks on me? Power of suggestion?”
He laughed. “Maybe I already have, my sweet. I had to think of some way to get you into my bed, seeing nothing else was working.”
I slapped his thigh lightly. “I got into your bed of my own accord.” I paused and cut him a glance. “Didn’t I?”
“You have told me a few times that sex with me is magical.”
“Now you’re just being silly.”
“Would you like to experience some more magic tonight? I can guarantee that when I touch you, you’ll really feel something magical inside.”
I giggled. “Heller! You’re such an egomaniac.”
“It’s not being an egomaniac if it’s true,” he grinned.
“Well, you better prove that to me tonight.”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Soon, back at the Warehouse, he did prove it and once again, it was magical.
Later, his arms around me and his leg thrown casually over mine, the post-coital glow should quickly have led to satisfied slumber, but I couldn’t quite shake the memory of that feeling I’d experienced at Malefic’s touch. I lay awake for hours afterwards, reliving it.
……
Farrell and Bick had been charged with the task of rescuing my car, and they waited for me to fly down the stairs, still haphazardly dressing myself. Clive looked pointedly at his watch. “Late again.”
“Sorry. I didn’t sleep well. Something creepy happened to me yesterday.”
“We don’t need to hear your life story,” he said gruffly. He nodded over to the doorway, where the two men’s backs disappeared from view. “Better haul your arse. Looks as though they’re going without you.”
I clattered down the stairs at the double after them and flung myself into the back seat, just as Farrell reversed. Ignoring their moans about having real work to do that didn’t involve them being my handmaidens, I sweet-talked them into detouring to drop me at the courthouse before they went to the station.
“How’s it going with Dixie?” I asked Bick.
“I don’t know,” he replied morosely. “She always seems to be busy when I call.”
“She has to do a lot of auditioning, I guess,” I offered up as a weak excuse.
“Do you think she’s seeing someone else?”
“I don’t know, Bick. I honestly don’t.” But I really should have said, probably.
“Oh. I should ask her, but I’m not sure I want to know the answer.”
I hastily changed the subject. “How’s your love life going, Hugh?” It was a bold question for me to ask, but I felt sure I could trust Bick not to say anything to anyone.
He met my eyes in the rear view mirror. “Scarce, Chalmers. That’s the best that could be said for it.”
“Oh. Well, I’m sure there’s someone out there and . . .” I petered out, embarrassed and wishing I’d never brought it up in the first place.
He met my eyes again. “Don’t worry about me, Chalmers. There’s someone out there for me and I’ll be waiting for them when they’re ready.”
My cheeks began to burn. “You shouldn’t put your life on hold like that waiting for someone. You deserve happiness right now.”
“As I said, don’t worry about me. I’m a patient man. I know what I’m doing.”
I held his eyes for a moment longer, then broke off to look unseeingly out of the window. None of us said much more for the rest of the journey.
As this was expected to be the last day of the hearing and the magistrate would deliver her judgement on whether the two women would be committed to trial, the public gallery was even more crowded, which seemed an impossibility to me. I found enough space for one butt cheek on the end of a long bench seat in the media gallery and perched there uncomfortably during proceedings.
Though aware of Malefic’s presence in the public gallery, I studiously avoided making any eye contact, not wanting to encourage him to talk to me again, especially about him ‘gifting’ me with any of his bodily fluids.
The defence team finished their unconvincing argument and both sides summed up. The magistrate retired to her chamber to consider her judgement. She returned a bare hour later, obviously having found the case as cut-and-dried as the rest of us. Alice and Charlotte were each separately and sullenly made to stand and hear that the magistrate had decided there was enough evidence to charge them with a number of criminal offences and proceeded to
read out the long list of them.
When she asked them how they would plead to the charges, they surprised everyone by pleading ‘not guilty’ to each one. As they’d confessed to the murders previously, most people expected them to proudly plead ‘guilty’, but I guess their defence lawyers had finally started earning their public defender salaries.
With pursed lips, the magistrate had no choice but to commit each woman to trial in the Supreme Court and order them to remain on remand until that date.
Malefic stood. “Fear not, my sweet demons. I will be at the trial at the right time. Malefic never forgets a loyal subject.”
“Thank you for your generosity, my Dark Lord. We worship you every day,” Alice sobbed. Charlotte didn’t even get to say anything as the correctional officers took them from the courtroom to return to prison.
And then it was all over and we filed out of the courthouse, small groups of people standing around, discussing the verdict. I wasn’t really sure what I should do for the rest of the day, as it was only lunchtime. I had a vague feeling I should go to work, but wasn’t positive I still had a job or that I’d be welcome there at the moment after the previous evening’s fiasco.
I rang Viv to find out if she had any information on Reverend Joshua’s state of health. Surprisingly, he had checked himself out of hospital last night, declaring that once out of the presence of ‘that abject and debased sinner’, the power of prayer had decisively cured him of his ailment. She told me management were urgently discussing strategies to deal with him in the event he decided to sue the station and gently suggested it might be best for everyone if I didn’t show my face there today.
At a loose end and appearing to have avoided Malefic, I wandered out of the courthouse, wondering if Daniel and Niq wanted to visit the shopping mall this afternoon. Since the incident on the rooftop, Daniel had only left the Warehouse under sufferance, which meant that Niq hadn’t left much either. Heller saw absolutely no problem with that situation continuing indefinitely, and indeed his strong preference would be to keep the two of them, as well as me, permanently sequestered inside the brick walls of the Warehouse. But I worried that Daniel would never regain that small amount of self-confidence he’d been slowly growing if he didn’t confront the real world at some point again.
