Dark Seduction (3 page)

Decaying metal drainpipes flanked the mouldy walls, putrescent liquid spurting from rusty cracks. Another flight of steps led up and turned to the left, causing Zen’s thighs to ache with the exertion. Then the alley came to a dead-end, a brick wall daubed with two luminous red, spray-painted words:
world’s end
.

Zen wanted to scream.

He quickly scanned the area and noticed a barely discernible door to the side. With no handle visible, he pushed, relieved when it swung open. He turned back to grab Chastity, startled to find she was no longer there. He looked along the alley, but couldn’t see her.

He scratched his head and shivered as he remembered the albino man and his cohorts disappearing in a similar fashion.

Footsteps echoed in the distance.

Chastity? He opened his mouth to shout, but the two police officers ran around the corner. In the gloom, they looked unnatural, composed of darkness. Visibly shaking, Zen tumbled through the door and slammed it shut. He scratched around the frame, found a bolt and threw it across, relieved that he could shut them out.

He leaned against the door, wheezing. Sweat coated his body, making him feel uncomfortable. On the other side, he heard the police officers. Although hard to discern, it sounded as though they were sniffing the door. Zen frowned.

As he caught his breath, he looked around, but it was too dark to see anything. He wasn’t going to venture back through the door, not while the police were on the other side, so he took a few tentative steps into the room, hoping to find another way out, his hands feeling for obstructions.

He noticed a faint light in the distance, and he headed towards it. The ground felt slippery so he proceeded with caution. He took a breath, coughed; the air smelled fetid, like rotting vegetation or meat. Thick enough to chew, the aroma made him feel slightly sick. The ground didn’t help. Unreliable, it swayed as he stepped on it, like uneven flagstones.

The light grew brighter, flickering and dancing across walls that seemed to twist and turn.

“So you’ve made it.”

The voice made Zen jump and he spun around to trace the source. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a flame and he turned towards it, mesmerised as it grew brighter, seeming to hover unnaturally in the air.

“Who’s there?”

The flame flickered like a serpent’s tongue. “Have you forgotten so soon?”

“Forgotten what? What is this? Who are you?”

“The bet.” The albino man stepped into the light and grinned.

Zen swirled around, his heart pumping, fingers tingling. Not waiting around to find out what was going on, he ran in the opposite direction, but another light flared in his path and the albino man’s large partner appeared, his face bathed in the flame’s glow. Zen skidded to a halt and changed direction, but another flame flared and the bald headed man with the scars appeared. The odds didn’t look good.

Zen clenched his fists, breath hitched in his throat.

He couldn’t believe it. The card players had found him, although he had the gut feeling that he’d never been lost.

CHAPTER 3

“Okay, what the fuck’s going on? What the hell is this place?” Zen tried to make his voice sound calmer than he felt but his heart was racing and a spear of ice penetrated his abdomen.

“We want to lay out the rules of the bet,” the albino man said.

“Bet. Are you stupid? You don’t really expect me to put my life up as a stake. And where the hell am I?”

The albino man glared at Zen. “This is the place of dreams and nightmares. If people are willing to pay the price, they find us, or we find them. You accepted the bet. There’s no going back.”

“You didn’t think I really meant it. Whatever it is, you can forget it. I’ll pay you the money back.”

“Do you like pain?”

Zen spat on the ground. “You can’t scare me. Bigger men than you have tried.”

The albino man laughed. “I see you like having your body pierced. Perhaps if I show you some of the body modifications we’ve performed.” He clicked his fingers, creating a dry sound like snapping bone, and a figure materialised out of the dark.

Zen bit his tongue and strained his eyes to make anything out. He didn’t know how they’d found him, but whatever they threatened him with, they couldn’t force him to do anything he didn’t want to.

The figure stepped into the wan light of the candle and Zen almost choked.

Naked, hideous stapled wounds were all that remained of the woman’s breasts, the flesh stretched taut between the fastenings. Her torso appeared equally revolting; the skin sliced to leave angry scars like visible ribs. However, most grotesque was her face. Cheeks removed, hinged metal filaments replaced the skin, a cage for her teeth that gleamed behind the bars. She smiled – or at least attempted to – the metal rods bending to accommodate the facial expression.

Bile rose in Zen’s throat and he gagged.

The figure raised an arm skewered by metal rods. Where the rods entered, the flesh puckered.

“We did this to her because it’s what she wanted. Now imagine what we could do to you,” the albino said

Zen swallowed, fought not to be sick. His legs shook. “You’re all fuckin’ crazy, but you can’t scare me.”

“The terms of the bet are as follows. To win, you have to kill someone.” He grinned.

Zen went cold. He shook his head. “Look, forget it.”

The albino man shrugged. “By taking the money, you’ve already accepted. Now certain people will try to stop you ... to kill you, but if you succeed, you win.”

Zen snorted loudly. This was crazy. “And just for one moment suppose I accepted. What happens if I don’t succeed?”

“Then we’ll kill you.” The three men laughed and the disfigured woman formed the semblance of what might have been a salacious grin.

Zen felt as though he’d taken a wrong turn on the reality highway.

“Now you need to head for a village called Trinity,” the fat man barked. “That’s where we see how lucky you really are.” He extended his arm to indicate Zen should leave. Zen didn’t need telling twice.

After a few steps, the dark devoured him and his foot caught on something lurking in the gloom. He raised his hands to cushion the fall but still managed to hit his head on the ground. Bright lights flashed before his eyes and he felt dizzy.

Zen sat up and rubbed his head, wincing at the resultant pain. His fingers came away slick with blood; he’d hurt himself more than he realised.

“Bloody drunken bum.”

Zen looked up and frowned.

“Haven’t you got any respect, you bloody freak?”

The three figures standing over him were faceless shadows. Above them, he saw the sign for The Ferret public house.

“How did I get back here?” Zen mumbled.

“If you didn’t drink so much, you’d remember.” The men laughed cruelly, kicking him to punctuate the words.

Zen tried to gain his feet to fight back, but the men kicked him back down. He hugged himself against more attacks, felt each blow like a spear driven through his body.

After what seemed an age, one of the men said, “Fuck it, I could do with a drink. Leave the bastard.” A final boot connected with Zen’s head and then he heard their footsteps retreating along the street.

He sat up and winced at the pain that assailed his body. Felt as if he’d been in a car crash.

The memory of the mutilated girl impinged behind his eyes and he coughed, spitting out a wad of bloody phlegm. Had he imagined it all?

His stomach relinquished its hold on its contents. When he’d finished vomiting, Zen wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve and stood up. His head spun, the world turning too fast.

He wasn’t a murderer. They couldn’t make him kill someone. He would think of something. He had to.

CHAPTER 4

The library door crashed open, rattling books on the floor-to-ceiling bookcases.

Startled, Fraser Crowe dropped his copy of The Odyssey and looked up. Framed in the doorway, his new bride Melantha resembled a living painting. With her long, black hair tied back, her defined cheekbones appeared more severe than usual, and her green eyes flashed with eagerness.

“What's the matter?” Fraser asked.

Melantha flicked a stray hair from her face and curled it behind her ear. “I think it’s time we consummated our marriage.” Her accent seemed to flow and change with each syllable, as though wandering through dialects without adopting one.

“It is!” Fraser felt himself go red in the face.

“
Avav
. Come on.”

“Really?” He studied his beautiful young bride to see if she was joking. Could she finally be serious?

Melantha smiled and cocked a finger towards him. She curled the digit, beckoning him like a mysterious Pied Piper.

And Fraser followed.

They walked out of the library and into the parquet hall. The smell of old wood and polish filled the air. Fraser wrinkled his nose.
The aroma
always irritated his sinuses. At the end of the hallway, a wooden banister spiralled to the upper floors of the rambling, sixteenth century mansion. Landscape paintings and portraits lined the stairway. Fraser noticed a bright patch on the wall where the painting of his first dearly departed wife, Maude, used to hang before his new bride took it down.

He didn't feel any sense of loss for either the painting or his wife, which was strange considering that for over forty years she had been the love of his life.

Melantha strode ahead, and he eyed her curvaceous posterior. Dressed in a short black skirt, a black jacket and a tight, white, diaphanous top, she oozed style. Three days into a marriage conducted in an unorthodox gypsy ceremony, he hadn’t even seen her naked yet. He knew some people might call him a dirty old man for marrying someone so young, and that she only married him for his money, but he didn’t care. Until now, she’d rebuffed any attempt he made at intimacy. But this was it. He shivered in anticipation. To hell with what anyone else thought.

Fraser hesitated when Melantha walked past the stairs. “I thought we were going to bed.”

“Oh, this’ll be much more fun.”

Too excited to argue, Fraser followed.

Once outside, he hurried to keep up. The bright daylight stung his tired old eyes and he blinked rapidly as he watched Melantha cross the drive towards the stable block.

“Wait,” Fraser shouted, but his call went unanswered. What was she up to, the little minx?

Fraser increased his pace, and the arthritic pain in his legs flared up. He winced but didn't slow down. No way was he going to slow down now.

A mild spring day, the garden would soon be a wash of colour as the flowers that hibernated during the long winter reappeared. In the tall oak trees at the foot of the garden, crows squawked and squabbled.

Glimpsed in the window of a darkened room, Fraser's grey hair looked almost incandescent. His first wife used to say his benevolent face would let him charm birds from trees. His blue eyes weren’t as bright as they used to be, but he still saw well enough, which was more than could be said for some of the corpulent captains of industry with whom he associated. He put some of his longevity down to the glass of malt whisky he consumed every day, the rest dogged determination to live forever.