Harrowing (32 page)
THE DEPTHS OF
SORDIDNESS
“When I Was a Shaman Apprentice”
S.E. Amadis
BOOK ONE
CARRIE ANNE’S QUEST SERIES
Seas Of Mintaka Publishing
Spain
Copyright © 2016 by S.E. Amadis / SeasOfMintaka.com
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Published by Seas Of Mintaka Publishing
First Published: February 2016
For all inquiries please contact:
S.E. Amadis / SeasOfMintaka.com
Malaga 29006
SPAIN
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Cover Design © 2016 S.E. Amadis / SeasOfMintaka.com
The Depths of Sordidness / S.E. Amadis – 1st ed.
Chapter 1
“Close your eyes.”
She didn’t want to close her eyes. But he stuck his pudgy fingers with their ragged nails, crummy with filth and grime, into her shadowed eyelids, and she had no choice.
Before the dark lashes, long and silky like butterfly wings, fluttered down over the windows to her soul forever, he took in one last long, deep draught of the liquid pools of her eyes – sapphire blue, in this case.
Then he pulled out his blindfold and pressed it hard against her eyes, binding it so tightly the ties left red marks in her delicate, blue-veined temples. He fumbled around in his leather bag, brought up a kitchen knife and whetstone. Setting the whetstone down onto the table next to her, he sharpened his knife on it with clean, brisk strokes, dragging out the agony so her keening senses noted every nuance of sound. Every subtle shade or dragging whisper of metal against stone.
When he finished, he wrapped his whetstone carefully in a white handkerchief with fine gold filigree embroidered on the hem and dropped it back in his bag. Then he rested his foot against the table rung, posed his elbow against the table top with the knife clutched in his hand, turning it round and round with his fingertips.
“Would you like an agonizing, long drawn-out death, or something more instantaneous?” he asked the girl in a calm voice.
She battled against the bindings that imprisoned her wrists behind the chair and shook her head deliriously, moaning against the gag around her mouth.
“I’m sorry.” The man cupped his hand around his ear, brought it near her mouth, brushing his fingertips exquisitely against her lips. “I couldn’t understand you. Why don’t I just interpret your baby gagglings for myself?”
The girl flayed even harder, kicking with all her might against the cords that bound her legs.
The man leaned over her and began to kiss her hair with all the gentleness in the world. His lips grazed her silken brown strands almost like those of a lover. He ran his gaze over her velvety skin down to the sensuous curves of her developing teenaged figure. His eyes lighted on a tint of red peeking out impishly from a corner of her pocket. He reached into the pocket, dragged out a ridged gold tube.
“Ahhh,” he sighed. “Guerlain. So you’re a fan of this delectable name?”
He smoothed the cool metal against her cheek, misinterpreting her gasps of terror for cries of ecstasy.
“Tsk tsk tsk. You shouldn’t be so careless, you know. It’s that little stain of red on the outside of the tube that caught my eye.”
He swivelled the scarlet tube up to the top, then swiped it over her cheeks like war paint and groaned with pleasure.
“You’re looking more beautiful by the second,” he said, flashing her a lascivious grin, although he knew she couldn’t see it. “I was of a mind to torture you slowly. I know what you did to that girl, you know. You and your cronies, a few years ago. That poor child you tried to kill. And what did she ever do to
you,
to deserve such treatment, such harsh punishment?”
He could see her mouth working away underneath the gag. Apparently she had a lot to say about that. Curiosity nudged at him. He decided to tug off the gag and listen to her.
“People rarely ever listen to anyone these days,” he said as he removed the gag with fatherly kindness. “I’m going to grant you the most precious gift possible. I am going to
listen
to you. I’m going to give you a chance to talk. So speak to me. Tell me what you have to say.”
The girl moistened her parched lips. The first sound that came out was nothing but a wordless groan. The man waited patiently. She cleared her throat. Began to scream almost hysterically.
“We didn’t do anything to her!” Her voice was still hoarse. He regretted not arming himself with a bottle of water before coming here. “We already paid for what we did. We already paid. Please, let me go.”
Tears began to stain the grubby blindfold as her eyelids batted furiously beneath the rough cloth.
“Please let me go. I won’t tell a soul who you are. I promise.”
The man shook his head.
“It’s too late, my pretty,” he said. He picked up his knife and pressed it suggestively against the vein in her throat.
“Don’t kill me!” the girl shrieked, shaking her head so hard he thought she would keel over from dizziness. “Let me live! Please! I’ll do anything. I’ll make it up to you. But please, let me live.”
The man licked his lips. A part of him wanted to give in to her. A part of him was still human, and cried and wept for the little girl inside the teenager in front of him. The little girl who still yearned to breathe, and to leap and dance wildly in the fields. To experience the warmth of the arms of the man she could one day have loved wrapped tightly about her, surrounding her. Caressing her. Protecting her from the world.
But it was too late. The trivial, almost infinitesimal part of him that was still human died within him at that moment.
“It’s too late,” he growled again.
He allowed her the luxury of one final, anguished, bloodcurdling shriek before he cut off her voice forever with a stroke of his knife.
Chapter 2
I stabbed my knife into the outside windowsill of Garry Barrett’s cheap Soho apartment and carved my name into the rotting wood.
“Carrie Anne Houghton”
I wrote, over and over again.
Jamie stumbled to my side and peered over my shoulder.
“Carrie Anne Houghton,”
he read with a smile curling at the corners of his lips. “Do you need to do that, to remember who you are?”
I giggled.
“There are still times I get mixed up,” I confessed. “I know that sounds strange. But there are days when I dream I’ve turned into Carola Hochmeister forever. I’ll be walking down the street, and someone will say the name Carola, and I’ll turn my head automatically.”
Jamie wrapped his arms around me.
“Well, tomorrow we’ll go to the bank and use that name for the very last time,” he said. “And of course, I’ll accompany you. I’ll always be with you. You’ll never have to face anything so horrible all alone again, like what you’ve gone through before.”
I leaned against him and cuddled my head against his shoulder. His short, dark waves, as shiny as those of male models in shampoo commercials, were soft and silky against my cheek. I don’t know how many times I’d dreamed of a moment like this, when I was working as head teacher at Miss Havisham’s Exclusive Boarding School for Respectable Young Ladies disguised as Carola Hochmeister. All the days and endless nights I’d denied myself this dream, because I couldn’t let anyone discover my charade. His arms were warm and strong, taut with muscles, soft with compassion. I snuggled into the fragrance of his musky cologne. It was the same cologne he used to wear when he was working as a teacher at Miss Havisham’s.
Garry idled over to our side and bent his tousled blond head – as different from Jamie’s darkly brooding silhouette as the sun from the moon – over the ledge of his windowsill, studying my crude carvings with a wry smile.
“This is a rented apartment, you know, girlie girl,” he chided. “D’you really think my landlord’s gonna dig your artwork? And are you and my li’l bro planning on bedding down here in my home for the rest of your life?”
Jamie grimaced.
“I thought you said I could stay for as long as I wanted,” he complained peevishly.
Garry grinned.
“Just joking, bro! Can’t you take a joke from your fave older bro?”
“You’re not my fave older bro. You’re just my
only
older bro.”
They both burst out laughing and batted each other across the shoulder.
We’d been back five days from Europe now. At times I did admit to myself, I was grateful for this opportunity – albeit totally unexpected and not planned for in the least bit – that I had been granted to discover Europe for myself, at an age when most teenagers were still immersed in their high school studies and had never yet climbed aboard a plane before.
For the moment, Garry was gracious enough to let me bed down with him and Jamie in his apartment. I knew I couldn’t stay here forever, and I had no idea what would await me in the future. I couldn’t return home anymore. Not after I myself had “disowned” my own father.
But we would worry about that another day.
“You can both stay here for the summer,” Garry had told us. “Then it’ll be high time, young lady, that you got yourself registered into some school somewhere. You’re still young enough to go to high school, might as well take advantage of that fact. Besides which,” he’d added with a smug expression, “since you’ve missed three years of school, you’re going to have to stay in school even longer. So ha!”
I shrugged.
“Doesn’t the year I spent actually
running
a school count?” I asked idly, since I already knew the answer.
For almost one school year I had worked as Head of School at Miss Havisham’s Exclusive Boarding School for Respectable Young Ladies while masquerading as the fictitious twenty-seven-year-old Carola Hochmeister.
Garry reached over and snubbed me on the chin.
“I’m afraid, girlie girl, that’s one thing you’ll never be able to put in your CV, unfortunately. Unless you want to go to jail, that is.”
He laughed. That reminded me.
“You don’t think Patricia’s friends are going to report me for what I did to them, do you, Jamie?” I asked the young man whom I had hired to work at the school.
Things had developed between us in such a way that I hoped I could soon call him my boyfriend.
Garry guffawed again.
“What an admirable accomplishment,” he exclaimed. “I do have to say, I gotta take my hat off to you, girlie girl, for what you did.
I
could never run a boarding school all by myself. And I’m eleven years older’n you.”
Jamie stroked my shoulders with care, taking care to avoid the wounds on my arms, although they were pretty well healed by now.
“I haven’t heard anything,” he said. “Although like I said before, I doubt they’d ever say anything to anyone. If they did, they’d have to confess
their
part in what they did to you, too. And from what I understand, what they did to you could very well constitute attempted homicide, or whatever it is that people call it these days.” He grinned sheepishly. “I’m no lawyer, you can tell.”
“Just sue ‘em into the poorhouse if they ever take a swipe at you,” Garry grumbled, rubbing his hands together vigorously. “You’d be totally in your right. What’s for dinner?”
“What’s on
your
mind for dinner, bro?” Jamie asked. “It’s
your
turn to make it, you know.”
Jamie’s eight-year-old son, Lucas, trailed into the living-room at this moment, his dark blond curls falling lank into his chocolate coloured eyes. Those mournful, chocolate brown eyes, which he shared with his father, were what had first attracted me to Jamie.
“I’m bored,” he complained. “I want a new game for my Nintendo.”
Jamie tousled his bangs.
“You’re going to have to make do with whatever you have,” he advised his son. “I’m unemployed now. That means I haven’t got a job. Which means I haven’t got much money.”
“But you’re going to get a job, aren’t you?”
Jamie smiled awkwardly.
“I dunno, champ. I’ve gotta start sending out CV’s now, see if I catch a hold of something for the new school year.”
He tousled his son’s blond curls again. Lucas trailed away listlessly. Jamie glanced around at us.
“Well, how ‘bout hamburgers? I’ll make them. But you’ll owe me one, bro, cos it was
your
turn to cook.”
*
The next morning I armed myself with Carola Hochmeister’s passport and fake Social Security card, hopefully for the last time. I had lost the card, but by a happy coincidence Jamie had picked it up during our adventures. Jamie accompanied me to the bank now, where I withdrew part of my income from the bank account I had opened under my false identity. I also decided to empty out the safety deposit box where I kept all the fake documents I had been using to establish myself as Carola Hochmeister.
There was a lot of money in the bank account, since I had earned a hefty salary as head of Miss Havisham’s school, and I didn’t dare risk attracting any attention by pulling it out all at once. Jamie and I decided that I would take out a small amount every day from bank machines, until I had emptied the account. Then I could close the account and forget I had ever been Carola Hochmeister.
Back at Garry’s apartment, I requisitioned a Dutch cookie tin to hide my money in it. Jamie laughed.
“That’s what you do with your money?” he cried.
I stared at him.
“Why? What did you expect me to do?”
Jamie wrinkled his nose at me.
“Well, why don’t you hide it in your underwear?”
I offered part of my money to Garry to help pay for my expenses. He waved my hand away.
“Don’t worry, kiddo. You’re just a kid. You shouldn’t have to pay for anything. Now, my li’l bro here, that’s another story altogether, eh?”
He turned and stared markedly at Jamie’s back. Jamie bristled.
“You know I’d pitch in but I’m broke. I’ve only got my unemployment payments.”
Garry laughed.
“Well, I scratch your back today and tomorrow you’ll scratch mine. That kosher for you?”
Jamie nodded. Garry rubbed his palms together.
“Good thing I’m an uber successful Wall Street bloodhound,” he cackled out.
*
I spent the most delirious summer of my life in Jamie’s company. Together we explored our city, New York, and I visited monuments and tourist sites for the first time in my life. Although I was born and raised here, my wealthy parents and I had spent long seasons living abroad, and they had rarely bothered to take me sightseeing in my own city.
Amidst the smog and mobs of hassled tourists, Jamie and I hired bikes and Segways, hopped onto the double decker red tour bus, rode the subway lines from end to end and jostled onto ferry boats, bumping elbows with harried commuters. As September drew near, I found I had to get my act together and start scouting out an appropriate high school to attend.
“Why don’t I homeschool you?” Jamie suggested. “I
am
a professional teacher, you know. And in addition, if you’re studying at your own pace, you can make up for lost time and even fulfil the curriculum for two school years in one real year.”
“Don’t you have to work?” I asked.
Jamie shrugged.
“I can work and teach you too. In fact, it’d be my pleasure.”
As Jamie continued searching for a job, I buckled down to a happy routine, hitting the books with a vengeance. I hadn’t forgotten my aspirations to one day become CEO of a major international corporation, or maybe even own my own company.
*
“There’s no reason why you should be paying rent for a crummy hole in the wall in the sleaziest neighbourhood in town when you’re living
here,
” Jamie told me one day.
I had forgotten that I was still renting a studio apartment, which I had taken before accepting the job at Miss Havisham’s, since the rent was debited automatically from my bank account each month and I hadn’t noticed it. I agreed with him, and Garry drove us over one weekend so I could pack up my scant belongings and move them to Garry’s apartment.
With everything crated and boxed, I turned the keys over to the tattooed bloke who lived next door so he could return them to our mutual landlord. As he slammed the door ungraciously into our faces, a clap of lightning, so deafening it rattled the flimsy windowpanes at the end of the hallway, startled us all. Garry began to hightail it down the stairs as fast as he could, leaping down the steps two at a time.
“No way I’m driving my new Merc in a thunderstorm,” he cried.
Jamie and I trailed after him a bit less enthusiastically. As torrential rain began to pour down outside, roaring over the shabby tin roofs like a freight train about to barrel over us, a dark figure ensconced in a streaming raincoat stumbled in through the doorless entryway. A deep hood covered its face, concealing its features from us, shading them into formless concavities underneath the stiff plastic. The strange creature pushed past us without a word of apology, then curled up suddenly on the bottom step of the staircase and began to whimper, sticking a grubby thumb into its mouth.
Jamie and I exchanged glances. I wondered if this creature was all right. Although clearly, it wasn’t. I approached the mysterious fellow, settled down onto the step next to him, pushed his hood away from his flushed face.
We both gasped when we recognized who it was.
“Gayle Kent!” I cried in astonishment.
*
For a long moment we just gaped at her, at a total loss as to what to do.
Gayle had formed part of a gang of four girls at Miss Havisham’s, led by Patricia Arnold, who had bullied me without respite during the short time I had attended the school as a pupil. Patricia Arnold was dead now, killed in a freak accident in a pond on the school grounds. Up till now I had enjoyed the great good fortune of never having to set eyes upon the other three ever again.
Now we were staring at her, and I had no idea what she was doing here. I pushed her mousey hair back from her plump cheeks, shoved the hood further away so I could study her face clearly. Her gaze, as she looked at me, was vapid and blank, as if her mind had been wiped clean as a slate and stuffed with cotton. Her lips parted and she began to mumble nonsense syllables, but nothing coherent came out of her.
“Gayle, what are you doing here?” I asked her in a firm voice.
She merely continued to murmur her senseless words in a low voice. I slapped her gently across the cheeks.
“Gayle,” I continued. “Gayle. Talk to me. What happened to you? What are you doing here?”
