by Naomi Clark
Before I could ask her, she slammed her fist down on the sideboard as the frustration boiled over. “Our only lead is Searle, and we have no idea where she is. What if she’s dead, Ethan? What if she’s another victim?”
I shook my head. “That doesn’t feel right to me.”
“I can’t work this case on your gut instincts,” she snapped.
I shrugged. “I’m a down-and-out PI, Anna. All I have is instinct and alcohol.”
She sighed and slumped against the counter. “Don’t pull that shit with me, Banning. Your faux-noir façade might work on other girls, but not me.”
“Actually it doesn’t work on anyone.” I rubbed the back of my neck and offered her a weak smile. “Even my mom thinks I’m just a bum.”
She smiled. It wasn’t much of a smile, but then it wasn’t much of a joke, so I took it. “Look,” I said, “Searle isn’t dead. Don’t ask me how I know, but she’s not. It doesn’t fit, you know? If she was a victim, she would have surfaced by now. Maybe there’s an innocent explanation –she’s on vacation, maybe. She might be out of town and not ever have known Rhian was using her flat.”
“We’ve considered that,” Anna replied. “We’ve considered everything.” She threw her hands up, but the heat of her frustration was gone. “She’s dead, Ethan. I know it.”
I didn’t believe it. No idea why, but I just didn’t. Yeah, it was just a hunch, but...
“She’s alive,” the Voice said unexpectedly. “I felt her presence in the apartment.”
I frowned, filing that away for future consideration. I didn’t like it when the Voice got helpful. I couldn’t help but think it was probably a trick. Call me paranoid.
“So we’ve got nothing,” Anna continued. “Until another body shows up, anyway. Then we have one more dead body.”
I hated seeing her all discouraged like this. I guess Anna was less familiar with failure than me; she certainly took it harder. “Look,” I began and then my cell phone buzzing in my pocket cut me off. I flicked it open, surprised to see Baxter’s number flashing on the screen. I’d kinda forgotten about him, what with the exorcism and all. I felt a spur of hope. Baxter would have word on Searle. I could pass that on to Anna and she’d give me a real smile, maybe a blow job.
“No chance in hell,” the Voice snickered. “I bet she’d rather blow the dog.”
I answered the phone through gritted teeth. “Baxter, how’s it hanging?”
“I can’t find any contact details for Tamsin,” he said without preamble, crushing my hopes for both smiles and blow jobs. “Any news on Rhian?”
He sounded tense, rushed, and I could hear traffic in the background. “Where are you?” I asked curiously.
“Outside my office, about to go into a board meeting,” he said impatiently. “Does it matter? What about Rhian?”
“Yeah.” I hesitated. I didn’t really want to tell him about Rhian and Moss over the phone. It just seemed mean. “Are you free tonight? We should touch base.”
Baxter fell silent for a second, and I could almost hear him turning possibilities over in his head. He had to know I had no good news. “Fine,” he said shortly. “The Coburg again? I can probably make it for six.”
I checked my watch. “Six works for me. See you there.”
“I should come with you,” Anna said when I hung up. “I’d like to talk to him.”
I frowned at her. “You surprise me, detective. Haven’t you already questioned him?” I didn’t think Baxter was guilty by a long shot, but I didn’t have to investigate him. The cops did, and I knew for sure Anna would have grilled the guy thoroughly at the first opportunity.
“He’s got a solid alibi, has had solid alibis all the way through the investigation. He reported her missing a while back, you know,” she added.
He’d told me that when he hired me. Something about how the police did jack shit, while his fiancée was out there probably being gang-banged and tortured. “So you have spoken to him?”
She nodded. “Just not as a suspect. Look, Ethan, you should try to get some sleep before we meet Baxter, okay? You look like hell.”
“You sure know how to turn a man’s head, Anna.”
“Just rest,” she ordered. “I’ll come pick you up at five-thirty.” She strode past me, hesitating in the kitchen doorway. “And shower before you come out, too. You smell like a tramp.”
I didn’t have a good comeback for that, so I saw her out and went to crash out on the sofa with Mutt. I didn’t mean to fall asleep–I didn’t trust the Voice not try and extract some revenge for the whole exorcism thing–but as soon as I lay down, my eyes started to fall closed. Mutt sprawled across me, apparently determined to suffocate me if all else failed. I draped an arm over him and promised myself I’d just nap. A nap won’t hurt, right? The Voice had been pretty quiet since we left the church, so a quick nap wouldn’t hurt. Anna was right–I did need the rest.
So I let myself fall asleep.
* * * *
I knew I was dreaming because I was in bed with Anna. The dream was so vivid though. I could smell her perfume, all flowers and fruit. I could feel the faint scratch of the bed sheets against my knees as I fucked her. She knelt on the bed, back to me, all that gorgeous blonde hair falling forward to hide her face. I gripped her hips, pumping hard, and full of aggression. My eyes raked over her creamy skin, all laid bare for me. Her breasts were crushed against the bed sheets and her eyes squeezed closed. My dream-self was wild with lust, digging my nails into Anna’s soft curves, and for a second I thought she was just as crazy with it. She writhed, moaning...no, screaming…crying…begging. Begging me to stop.
“Ethan...you’re hurting me! Oh God, stop, stop, stop!”
Revulsion and horror filled me, and I tried to stop, tried to pull back, but my body just kept going. I heard myself shouting. My voice drowned out Anna’s wretched cries, but my muscles ignored me. Suddenly, my aggression meant something different, something nasty and vile, and I wanted to wake up so bad. Tears streamed down my face and blood streaked down Anna’s hips as I dug my nails in harder instead of letting her go like I wanted, like I screamed to do.
I couldn’t stop, and the worst part was, it felt fucking amazing. As much as I hated it, as much as it sickened me, it felt so fucking good. Anna felt good, like I’d always thought she would. God help me I was going to come. I couldn’t help it. She just felt so goddamn good, and her cries and begging didn’t help. Fuck it! I want to wake up!
The Voice laughed at me, burrowing under my skin like a cockroach to feel what I felt, enjoy Anna’s pain and terror and humiliation, and enjoy my disgust and rage and god-awful pleasure. This was my punishment for trying to get rid of the demon.
“Anna, God, Anna, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...” I tried, I tried so fucking hard to make it stop, but the nightmare was relentless, closing in on me like some hell sent monster, forcing me to see the rape through to the inevitable end. And, God help me, afterwards Anna collapsed on the bed, weeping fit to break my heart and I still couldn’t pull out, couldn’t wake up, and put a stop to this shit.
Then my vision blurred, the nightmare changed, and it wasn’t Anna lying prone beneath me. It was Rhian Ellis, ice-cold and dead as the day I’d found her. Her corpse was pale and maggots crept through her hair. I moaned as vomit rose in my throat. I struggled to pull out of her and get away, but her body had a death-grip on my dick. It felt like trying to escape quick sand. The harder I struggled, the tighter she clutched me. The Voice shrieked in my ear.
“I can do this to you every night of your miserable life. Remember that, Ethan. Every. Fucking. Night.”
I woke up screaming and thrashing, knocking Mutt to the floor. He whined as I fell off the sofa and emptied my stomach onto the carpet. Mutt sniffed the puddle and I knocked him away with a wordless snarl. He sat down next
to me, looking unbelievably hurt.
“What?” I croaked. “It’s puke, for God’s sake.” He licked my ear, which weirdly made me feel better. Tells you everything you need to know about my life, really.
I sat up, running my hands through my hair. The nightmare still burned in my head. I could see it all so clearly, feel it all, even, and I hated the Voice more than I’ve ever hated anything in my life. Hate myself too, because the seeds of the nightmare have to be in my mind to begin with, don’t they? Christ, what sort of person am I?
“Just the same as any other person,” the Voice said. “Weak, easily corrupted and ultimately no better than any animal.”
I looked at Mutt, who regarded me with a hopeful expression. I couldn’t see Mutt raping the neighbor’s poodle, somehow.
“That was just the start,” the Voice continued. “I can make you relive that every night. I can make you relive every bad memory you’ve ever had, send you on killing sprees in your dreams, break you down until you don’t know the difference between dreams and reality any more. And then...”
“What do you want from me?” I cried, knotting my fingers in my hair. “What do I do to make this stop?”
The Voice didn’t answer. For a second I almost felt confusion from it. Like the question was so beyond its expectation, it just couldn’t reply. Then it said simply, “Kill yourself.”
There was nothing else.
So I thought about it. If what the Voice said was true—and I believed it—the nightmares would get worse. I might go crazy like my old man and end up strapped up in a padded room somewhere sucking down Valium and antipsychotics. Hell, that might actually be a better scenario than going crazy and taking out a bunch of kids in a school yard, or actually attacking Anna and...
Shit. Can’t finish that thought.
So if that is my future, is it worth living for? I tried to think of a good reason not to eat my gun, right there, right then, with the nightmare running feverishly round my head, I couldn’t think of a single damn one.
I picked my gun up, ran my fingers over the barrel, and even slid it past my lips. I wondered if I’d feel it. I wondered if blowing your brains out killed the nerves instantly, or if I’d have a few seconds of blistering agony before I actually died. I bit the barrel, tasting the metal. I fingered the trigger. It felt like the world held its breath, waiting for me to check out.
Then Mutt stuck his nose in my vomit and started eating. I flung the gun aside with a yell and chased him out of the living room. No way I’ll kill myself and leave Mutt behind to survive on my bodily fluids.
Chapter Nine
At about four-thirty, I realized I had an hour to get my shit together before Anna showed up for the meeting with Baxter. I gave Mutt a quick hug to apologize for not letting him eat my vomit, and then cleaned up the mess. I felt numb, like I’d gone into shock, and had to work hard to drag myself upstairs to the shower.
Everything looked like a chance to kill myself. I could throw myself down the stairs and try for a broken neck. I could slit my wrists with my razor. Maybe empty the medicine cabinet on the bathroom wall and see what a packet of painkillers and a bunch of out-of-date hay fever tablets did mixed with a bottle of whiskey. Probably not much, but I might have fun finding out.
I gritted my teeth and forced myself to shave without attempting suicide. It wasn’t like I wanted to die. I just couldn’t think of any other way to get rid of the Voice. God hadn’t helped, and as much as I appreciated Crane’s efforts, no way I was going back to the Overture Church any time soon.
I thought about Stoker’s advice about witches as I showered, and wondered if there was any merit in that. I’d never met a witch. I had this picture in my head of some old crone cackling over a cauldron full of bat wings and newt toes, and felt pretty sure I was way off base.
Okay, well, before I write my suicide note, I’ll try and find a witch. Can’t hurt, right?
“Nothing you do will change the inevitable.”
“Fuck you,” I said loudly. My voice bounced off the shower tiles. God, I wanted to hurt that fucker.
I finished my shower, feeling a little better for being clean. On the outside, anyway. Inside I felt filthy. The sound of Anna’s screams and the sensation of Rhian’s dead flesh crawled inside me like parasites. I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat. It was a dream. Just a dream, doesn’t have to have any bearing on real life, right?
Right. Of course.
Except I dreaded actually seeing Anna when she arrived in thirty minutes or so. How the hell am I supposed to make eye-contact with her after that? It would have been hard enough if it had just been a regular wet dream, but after that...I was so screwed.
I dressed, still feeling slightly numb at the edges, like pieces of me were peeling away. I couldn’t help staring at my unmade bed, trying to figure out if this was the bed from the dream. I’d have to burn it if it was. Chop it up and burn it in the garden. Mutt and I could make s’mores or something.
The bed offered no answers, so I left it alone and went downstairs to feed Mutt. That done, I still had a good twenty minutes before Anna arrived. I contemplated getting drunk to make seeing her easier and then changed my mind. Lowered inhibitions were the last thing I needed right now.
Instead, I went over my case notes for Rhian for about the millionth time, still looking for something new, something I’d missed. That Baxter had no contact details for Tamsin irritated me, and I half-hoped I’d find a phone number or email address in my notes, somehow overlooked until now.
There was nothing, of course. I’m just not that lucky. The mindless busy-work calmed me down a bit though, and by the time Anna rolled up outside the house, I felt almost normal again.
“You look better,” she told me when I answered the door.
Funny, I feel worse. “We ready to go?” I asked gruffly, trying not to look directly at her. It was hard. I could smell her fruity perfume, more aware of it than I’d ever been before.
“Yeah, all set.” She looked at me curiously. “What’s wrong, Ethan?”
I didn’t answer, just tossed Mutt a chewy bone to keep him occupied, and locked the front door. I didn’t trust myself to speak, and didn’t trust the Voice not to use my mouth to say something appalling. So I followed her to her car in silence, trying to ignore the odd looks she kept shooting me over her shoulder.
When we were safely strapped in, she turned to me, fixing me with her best detective stare. “What’s wrong?” she demanded.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me, and we’re not going anywhere until you do. If you’re withholding evidence from me...”
I risked a glance at her. Her blue eyes looked serious, her lips pressed into a thin line. For a second I imagined kissing her, grabbing her ponytail and forcing her mouth to mine. I shuddered and pushed the image away. “I’m going through some weird shit, Anna,” I told her frankly. I could have lied, and she’d know and keep poking at it until I lost my temper. I didn’t want to lose my temper. I didn’t know what might happen, me on a hair-trigger like this, and the Voice so pissed off with me.
She softened a little. “Anything I can help with?”
“No.” I folded my arms and glared at the road. “We moving or what?”
She sighed and put the car into gear, pulling away from my house. I had a last glimpse of Mutt watching through the living room window before we turned away. Off to give Baxter the good news, his girlfriend cheated on him with an incubus and turned to prostitution when her sex addiction got out of hand. I didn’t see it going down well.
* * * *
It didn’t. I may as well have thrown in some insults about his mother too. He sat across from me and Anna in the Coburg, nursing a bottle of beer and looking like he might smash it over my head any second.
“Rhian did not cheat on me.” He said it with utter authority, like it was an immutable fact that the entire foundation of his life rested on. I guess it could have been. “She would never have cheated on me.”
“Mr. Baxter, I spoke to her…” I hesitated, searching my limited vocabulary for the right word. Lover? Beau? Paramour? “I spoke to Rhian’s boss at Hush,” I said finally. “He was very clear on the matter.”
“How the hell would he know?” Baxter snapped.
If he wasn’t going to pick up the obvious, I wasn’t going to clue him in. The last thing I wanted was Baxter storming down to Hush to slug it out with Moss. Although I guess it might be kind of funny. “Look, you asked me to find out how she ended up at Hush, I’m telling you what I found out. You don’t have to like it, but you do have to pay me for it.” I drained the last of my beer. “I don’t know if we agreed on a fee, but—”
“Ethan!” Anna shot me a warning glare.
I wasn’t being nice enough. I frowned back at her and leaned back in my seat, folding my arms. Fine. She can play with the banker.
She leaned forwards, and her face softened into what I thought of as her sympathetic cop face, still business-like, but with compassion in her eyes and a sad smile on her lips. “Mr. Baxter, we understand how upsetting this must be, with everything else you’ve learned recently, but Rhian did have an affair.”
Baxter stared down at his beer and swallowed hard. I watched disbelief, grief, and rage flicker across his face, watched his hands clench into fists. The Voice inhaled all that pain, lapping it up, waiting for more.
“Did he kill her?” Baxter asked me finally. “This…home-wrecker, did he kill her?”
“No.”
“You sound pretty sure. Have you arrested him? Asked him anything? Asked him what he did to take a sweet girl like Rhian and turn her into—” He cut himself off, turning his ahead away.
This was getting us nowhere. I just wanted my money and any information he could give me on Tamsin Searle. I wasn’t sure what Anna wanted out of this—if she wasn’t prepared to arrest Baxter for questioning, there wasn’t a whole lot more she could do here.
