Dark Seduction (22 page)

Verity nodded. “What happened to Melantha? How did she change like that?”

“I guessed that her skin contained the spell, and that cutting it would break it. Looks like I was right.”

Verity stepped forward and reached out to assist Zen when she heard a sound behind her. She turned, horrified to see Melantha lurch to her feet.

“You may have broken the charm, but you can’t kill me that easily,” Melantha snarled, sliding the knife from her stomach.

“It’s over,” Zen said. “Your people, they’re all dead.”

Melantha grimaced, mutating her scarred visage into something even more grotesque. “But our legacy lives on forever.”

Then she charged towards Verity and Zen, lips curled back, teeth bared. Verity instinctively pushed Zen aside, then threw herself in the opposite direction. She hit the ground hard, aggravating the wounds across her torso. She closed her eyes, sucked a breath to quell the pain.

When she opened her eyes, she saw Melantha hovering above her like a vulture, the knife a talon extending from her fist.

Verity wanted to close her eyes again, to shield her from the horror, but she couldn’t look away, felt as transfixed as when Melantha bore the Glamour.

“When I said it’s over, I meant it,” Zen said, lurching into view behind his mother, the knife he’d thrown at her to break the spell raised above his head.

Melantha turned, blood dripping from the wound in her stomach. Before she could react, Zen rammed the blade into her chest, once, twice, three times, his face a rictus of anger and pain.

Melantha stumbled back, and despite the agony she must have felt, she looked sad.

A furious sound of beating wings filled the air, and the black wave of flying creatures swept in like a tsunami, smothering Melantha.

Next second, the world started to spin, blurring at the edges, getting faster and faster, and as if waking from a dream, the Shadowland vanished.

Feeling dizzy, Verity closed her eyes. When she opened them, she found herself lying in the high street in Trinity. Leo stood close by, sheathing his sword. Zen sat in the road. He looked across with tears streaming down his cheeks.

In the distance, she heard the sound of a horse’s hooves and she turned to see Melantha’s caravan trundling away with Barrabas at the reins.

“We've got to stop him,” Verity said, gritting her teeth. “He’s got the book.”

“Then take this.” Zen threw the bloodstained white knife across the road and Verity picked it up.

“Aren’t you coming?” she asked.

Zen indicated his injuries. “I won’t be able to keep up.”

“Wait, I'll come with you,” Leo said, unsheathing his sword.

Glad of the support, Verity nodded. “We’ll be back,” she said to Zen.

Then without another word, she ran after the caravan.

CHAPTER 34

Dark clouds blanketed the sky, adding to the pervasive atmosphere.

At the corner of the road, Verity saw the back of the caravan in the distance and she increased her speed. Leo kept pace at her side. The mysterious faces hiding in the caravan’s design seemed to scowl at her. Ignoring them, she ran to the front of the caravan and looked up, strengthening her grip on the knife as she prepared herself to face Barrabas ... but he wasn't there.

The grey horse whinnied; it sounded almost like a laugh.

Confused, Verity looked around, across the windswept fields and back along the road, but she couldn't see Barrabas anywhere.

The horse trotted along, unconcerned there was no one at the reins. She looked at Leo and he pointed at the caravan.

She clambered up to the driver's seat and peered through a small window; spotted movement within the shadows.

She grabbed the latch to open the door and heard an audible click emanate from inside the caravan.

The noise sounded familiar. She had heard it in the Shadowland, just before Barrabas shot at the winged creatures.

Verity dropped down to lie on the floor between the driver's seat and the horse, and she heard a roaring explosion and splinters of wood showered down around her as Barrabas opened fire with the shotgun.

Startled, the horse started to gallop along the road, jostling Verity around like a rag doll. She grabbed the edge of the seat, afraid she would fall.

Another shot rang out, the pellets punching a fist-sized hole in the front of the caravan.

Despite her ears ringing from the gun’s report, she thought she heard screaming that seemed to come from the very walls of the caravan – or it might have been the wind whistling in her ears as the caravan sped along the road.

She looked up and for a brief moment, she thought she saw the faces hiding in the caravan's design contort in pain, and among them, she imagined she saw Melantha's sardonic visage.

She started to stand as they careered over a bump in the road, almost throwing her off. She grabbed the edge of the caravan, and just managed to save herself, straining her arms to pull herself back until she stood upright. Without hesitating any longer, she grabbed the latch, opened the door and dived through the doorway.

Pots and pans hanging from the ceiling jangled together like percussion instruments and she ducked to avoid them as they swung around her head. In the near dark, she strained her eyes to see, just able to make out Barrabas, legs spread out to ride the variances of the caravan as it bobbed and rocked like a ship in turbulent seas.

“This is the end of the road for you,” Barrabas said, laughing.

She heard the click of the gun as he pumped a cartridge into the breech, but before he could fire, she charged towards him, screaming. She brandished the knife like an artist with a brush, generating sweeping strokes on a living canvas.

Rendered in blood, hers was no oil painting.

She found the act of killing easy. Too easy. Deep down, she realised what they had done to her in the Shadowland wasn't only purchased with pain. They took a piece of her humanity as well. The armour the albino man bestowed upon her wasn’t physical, but mental, allowing her to kill with impunity.

Barrabas slumped to the ground, bleeding profusely, his throat cut from ear to ear like a grotesque clown. The blood pooled around his body, seemed to soak into the wood, staining it a rich mahogany colour.

She checked his body for the book; found it in the inside pocket of his jacket. The caravan came to a stop, and she opened the rear door and stepped down onto the road where a puffing Leo ran to join her.

“Is he dead?” Leo asked, hands holding his sides as his chest rose and fell.

Verity nodded. She lifted the book and flicked through the pages. There were so many names in alphabetical order. When she came across her family’s lineage, she bit down hard on her lip and traced her finger down the page until she came across her own name.

Angry, she snapped the book shut and looked up at the caravan. She thought she saw Barrabas's grinning countenance added to that of the other visages trapped in the wood.

“This is what I think of your damn book,” she said, tearing pages from it and throwing them into the sky like confetti.

With the last of the book shredded, Verity only hoped there were no other copies out there.

Zen sat at the side of the road, puffing on a cigarette as Verity and Leo approached.

“Did you find it?” he asked.

Lightning flickered overhead, throwing long shadows beneath its glare.

“Found it and destroyed it,” Verity said.

“Good.” Zen coughed, wincing as his injuries flared up in response. “I feel partly responsible, you know, with her being my mother and all.”

“You couldn’t stop what she did,” Leo said.

“Maybe.” Zen didn’t feel as sure. If Melantha hadn’t been raped, and he hadn’t been born, perhaps none of this would have happened.

His mother’s blood stained his hands, but he knew the stain went deeper and that he would never be able to wash it out.

“We’d better get your injuries seen to,” Verity said, “then I’ve got a few bridges to build with my brothers. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that family’s important.” She crouched down and helped Leo lift Zen to his feet.

Once upright, Zen eased himself out of their grasp. “Sorry, but I’m not going with you.”

Verity frowned. “You need to get to a hospital.”

“I know. But there’s somewhere else they’ll be able to fix me up even better. The albino man told me that I carry a bit of the darkness in my heart, and I think he’s right. Strange as it sounds, I felt more at home in the Shadowland than anywhere I’ve ever been. I’ve always felt as though I was on the outside lookin’ in, now I know why. Besides, there’s nothing left here for me any more. I guess it’s true what they say. Home is where the heart is.”

Lightning ripped across the sky, throwing Zen’s shadow across the road, a path leading into darkness.

Zen followed it, and he didn’t look back.

###

About the author:

Shaun Jeffrey was brought up in a house in a cemetery, so it was only natural for his prose to stray towards the dark side when he started writing. He has had five novels published, ‘Killers’, ‘The Kult’, ‘Deadfall’, ‘Fangtooth’ and ‘Evilution’, and two collections of short stories, ‘The Mutilation Machination’ and ‘Voyeurs of Death’. Among his other writing credits are short stories published in Cemetery Dance, Surreal Magazine, Dark Discoveries and Shadowed Realms. The Kult was optioned for film by Gharial Productions.

Visit the author's site at:
 
http://www.shaunjeffrey.com

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