Portent (23 page)

    Bibby stepped out the back door on to the uneven red-stone path carrying a tray containing two glasses of lemonade and a small bowl of mixed nuts and raw carrots. As she trod the well-worn path she cast a maternal eye over the summer vegetables, the soil around them already dry and crusted, despite the recent downpour. At least the earth beneath the topsoil would still be good and damp, she reassured herself, then glanced towards the heavens for signs of more rain. Although a layer of cloud filled the sky to the hilly horizon, there was no bruising, no indication at all of rain to be shed. At least the big watertank at the back of the house had been replenished, so there was no need to worry about the usual summer hosepipe ban. Now, where were Josh and Minnie Mouse? Probably feeding the ducks judging by the half loaf left on the kitchen table.

    A shadow seemed to pass over her broad and generally good-natured features as she opened the rickety gate at the end of the path. The twins troubled her so, with their visions and their dreams. She feared for them, yet could offer no specific reason for that fear. Except, perhaps, that these visions seemed more frequent nowadays, with less and less interlude between them; it was as if they were taking on their own momentum, the events speeding up, heading towards…

    She stopped, a hand resting on the top of the gate. Towards what? Would there be an answer? Would it be soon? A bee droned by as she pondered. There was a heaviness in her heart that was unaccountable, a sudden dread that caused her to sway and grip the gate more tightly. In a panic, Bibby scoured the area for the children and, when at first she could not see them, the anxiety almost caused the drinks to spill from the tray.

    With relief, she heard their voices from somewhere nearby, behind the shrubbery and trees that screened the pond from the garden. Of course they were there, she had known they would be there. Bibby chided herself for her foolishness. Their shouts and giggles were perfectly normal, the careless cries of children with no real concerns for the gravities of a stricken world. The notion strangely cheered as well as saddened her.

    'Where are you, my little dryads?' she called, knowing well that they would be at the water's edge teasing the ducks with bread morsels, luring the bigger ones away from the less hardy so that all would receive their share.

    Josh, or it might have been Eva, returned the call. 'Here, Nanny Bibby. Have you got more bread with you?'

    Bibby let go of the gate and her stride was forceful, buoyant even, just the sound of those little gypsy-haired delights dispelling her dark mood. 'I've got something nice for you,' she said loudly as she made her way through the trees.

    They watched her approach, eager smiles on their faces. Although softened by the cloud layer, sunlight enhanced the fine blueness of their eyes so that even at a distance Bibby was startled by their lucent beauty. She scoffed at herself, for the light was always catching their gaze just so, and this indeed was no new experience; nevertheless, she took pleasure in her own surprise, happy that she could still be thrilled by the children's bewitching presence.

    'What have you got for us, Nanny?' It was Eva aka Minnie who broke ranks and ran towards her, the last of her breadcrumbs hastily scattered among the avaricious ducks.

    'Lemonade,' Bibby announced, 'and nuts'n'things.'

    Both children's mouths drooped at the latter.

    'Now you know they're good for you. Just because Grandad spoils you with sweets and chocolates…' She grinned at their arched eyebrows. 'Oh, I know what he brings you back from town and sneaks into your pockets when he thinks I'm not looking. Grandad Poggsy hasn't fooled me once since we've been married and believe me, kiddoes, that's been a long, long time.'

    Eva smiled up at her. 'We won't tell him you know, Nanny.'

    She laughed. 'Oh, I see. That would spoil things for him, wouldn't it? Yes, I bet he enjoys the subterfuge. And so do you two.'

    Eva frowned at the unusual word, but nodded agreement anyway. She looked to her brother, who was clapping breadcrumbs off his hands into the pond, the ducks quacking their approval. Josh joined his sister and grandmother, taking the lemonade from the tray as if it were vital that he drink immediately. He gulped down half of it before tendering thanks; then he did so with a smile.

    The twins were dressed in white T-shirts and shorts, their feet bare. With their grandmother they squatted in the grass and dipped into the bowl of nuts and carrots set between them. Eva began to tell Bibby of their morning's adventures, Josh chipping in when he felt the tale needed more detail, and Bibby began to relax in the peacefulness of the setting: the pond rippling lightly with the movement of the ducks, the graceful cascade of the willow on the opposite bank, the low lush hills in the distance. A chaffinch landed close by in the hopes of a morsel or two from the bowl, and the twins willingly obliged.

    After a while, the chatter faded, the bowl was empty, the lemonade gone. Bibby lay back on the grass and stretched her arms, content to rest there in blissful quietness until it was time to prepare lunch. An extra place would be needed, for Diane was bringing James Rivers home with her. He was an interesting man in some ways, there was a depth to him that initially wasn't obvious; but did he have any relevance to what was happening? Bibby was not as sure as Diane and Hugo appeared to be that he did. Did the mere fact that Rivers had witnessed the peculiar light -and survived-really have any importance? The children seemed to think so, but she could only wonder.

    As she lay there, lost in her own thoughts, she slowly became aware that the world around her had become even quieter.

    She raised her head to look at the children.

    They were sitting perfectly still, Josh's head cocked to one side as if listening for something.

    Bibby sat up. She had observed them like this many times before, so she was not unduly concerned. However, there was concentrated expression on their faces that was different to anything before, as if the thoughts in their minds were more elusive on this occasion.

    A shiver ran through Eva and, as though it were contagious, it was taken up by Josh a moment later.

    Bibby wanted to interrupt this odd contemplation for, unlike other times when the twins adopted this trance-like state, now there was a clear edge of fear in Josh's eyes and a slight trembling of Eva's lower lip. Bibby felt the need to draw them back from whatever imaginary abyss they were approaching, yet her hand stayed itself in mid-air, her call remained behind her lips, as an instinct warned her not to interfere.

    The children's eyes were cast to one side and focused on some unseen spot as they listened to voices of no substance. They sat with their backs straight, their ankles crossed, hands loose in their laps. Suddenly they stiffened, froze for a moment, then scrabbled towards each other in one instantaneous movement. They clung together, arms entwined, hugging each other close.

    It was heartrending for Bibby to watch them and she moved towards them, ready to engulf them both in her arms, to offer them the protection of her plump bosom. But once again she hesitated, aware that there could be no physical risk to them, that the danger-if there was such-was within their own minds and entirely beyond her reach.

    Eva's tousled head was against her brother's shoulder and her eyes, as were his, were wide and staring. She could feel the presence of so many others like her and Josh, and so many others who were not like them, those with thoughts that were malign and misshapen. And one was stronger than most, and its thoughts were foul and full of ill-intent. They conjured up an image that caused the children-and these mind-aberrations-to whimper in fear. The instigator seemed huge and swollen in their thoughts, a power with a terrible loathing of humanity, and with the sensing came the essence, a vague visualization, of the being itself, something dark and brooding, something gross…

    Now Bibby did enfold the children within her arms, for their small bodies were shaking and tears flowed from eyes now closed. She drew them close, but felt they were still far away, out of reach for the moment, in a place where she had no power to follow.

    Josh and Eva were inside each other's mind and together they confronted this awesome thing whose image could not sustain itself, but fluctuated with the beat of a slow heart. It had no edges and no character, and it bloomed and withered, withered and bloomed, with rhythmic pulsing. They recognized it, for it had touched them before, although never like this, never with such strength and so blatantly. They felt weakened, almost overwhelmed. They felt at its mercy.

    Until another's thoughts announced themselves and undermined this malignant, pervasive growth and the cohorts that had gathered behind it. This new presence was full of light and was wonderful, and it exhumed all shadows. And it was one they knew, for it had visited them before: Josh and Eva called it the 'Dream Man'.

    Instantly the connection was broken: the children-and others with them-were released.

    Josh and Eva collapsed against their grandmother and she held them as tightly as she could without crushing their little bodies, rocking them to and fro so that they would feel safe again, aware that she, herself, could never realize the true nature of their fear.

    

    

    Candlelight filtered through the lace veils that screened the bed from the rest of the gloomed room, lending soft illumination to the violations within, only sounds escaping the concealing shrouds, although movement inside might occasionally ruffle their textured folds. The room itself was locked and on the outside two guards slept, one on a hard-backed chair, the other prone on the floor. They would be needed later.

    Mama Pitie rose over the glistening bloodstained body that lay mute and helpless on the soiled sheets, her massive thighs straddling the drugged man's hips. Her fingers groped beneath her to find his swollen penis, its size still immense, sustained by the potion she had poured between his murmuring lips hours before, and she fed it into herself, her own capacity and moisture helping to smooth its absorption. She pressed down, feeling its swift journey, relishing the ascent, her knees straining, thigh muscles stretching pleasurably. She moaned, a deep grumbling sound, and shifted her buttocks, pushing harder, crushing the man's pelvis into the bed so that he uttered a protest, wheezed for release, his vocal chords traumatized by the needle inserted before his rape had begun.

    Mama filled herself with him, thrusting hard so that the bed shook, the veils swayed. She lifted his enfeebled hands to her great heavy breasts and forced them against the protuberant nipples, guiding him as a woman might guide a shy lover, but harshly, squeezing his fingers so that they squeezed her, leading them down over her gross belly and through the mass of tough black hair that curled between her legs, making him touch her there at her body's hidden entrance, pressing his hands against his own root. She sighed with the sensation, but was soon frustrated by his inactivity. The man was almost spent, the power of her potion dwindling rapidly.

    Almost four hours had passed since he had been brought to this room and laid semiconscious on her bed. And his youth had served her well during those hours. But now there was little vigour left in him and he was beyond any brew she could administer. Soon his carcass would be taken to the swamps up in Cajun country and left to putrefy or be devoured by the gators, probably both.

    His kinfolk might miss him, would pester the police some, but young bucks like this were loose shots, they came and went as they pleased, loyal only to their pushers. Mama Pitie had an alliance with the best pushers in town.

    Naturally, she chose carefully-no victim could ever be associated with the Temple, or traced back to it-be it a prime stud from Lafayette's black community, or a Bourbon Street whore. And she liked them young, young and tender, the men hard-fleshed where it mattered, the girls soft and fragile-boned. Each sex had its own delights and various ways of use. Mama was very inventive.

    The man's head rolled to one side, and his eyelids were drooped with only white slivers where his pupils should have been.

    Mama Pitie grunted and settled herself. Sweat ran between the gully of her naked breasts and trickled over the swell of her stomach. She regarded her unwitting lover and a pink tongue slid across her broad lips.

    'You not done yet, boy,' she told him in a low rumble of a voice. 'Now come the real pain, the pain that bring you back to life'fo' you proply dead. The pain that make you wiggle and writhe and try to buck me. But that on'y make me feel good, boy, it on'y give me mo' pleasure. An' when you done, when yo' blood begins to cool, why that give me even mo' pleasure,'cos you one last scab on this good Earth, one mo' piece of excrement that don' trash on the Great Mama. That give me ecstasy, honey, that give me jubilation.'

    Without losing him, she stretched over and lifted one of the lace drapes, reaching beyond to the bedside cabinet on which three candles glowed. She slid out a drawer and brought it into the bed, its metal contents clinking together as she laid it by her side.

    Inside the drawer were ten rings, their bands wide enough to take Mama Pitie's stout fingers and thumbs up to the first knuckle; a long curved blade extended from every one of them so that when worn they appeared on the hands as talons. She took her time to fit them on her fingers and smiled when she had finished. It was a brutal smile.

    Mama held her arms above her head, wrists bent, claws pointed downwards at her prey, a dramatic gesture incited by her own weary exhilaration and, as if sensing something worse was about to happen, the man straightened his head and opened his eyes. His mouth widened to scream, for even a drugged mind will recognize death's approach, but only a high wheezing sound issued from those parched lips, a muted squeal that held no vitality.