Louise sat in the
blue Vauxhall, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, glancing every other
minute at her mobile phone, expecting it to ring. A police car had passed by and her heart nearly
leapt into her mouth.
She thought about the dead man lying in
the corridor of her flat. Everything was
different now. She couldn’t take it
back. She wouldn’t lose Celia because of
it, because of this madness. Celia was
all she had now. Celia was her world
now. She could never let it go. Even if there was no real love there was
friendship, companionship…and now that would have to suffice. In time she would make Celia love her. She would force her to. She’d be the whore, the mistress, and
anything else that Celia wanted. She’d
dedicate her life to satisfying Celia’s desires. What else was there to do now?
Louise slung the duffel bag across her
shoulder and stepped from the car, closing the door and walking away, pointing
the alarm-key. The Vauxhall bleeped and locked itself. She hurried across the street, to the glass
doors of Hades House Publishing. She
tugged at them but they were locked. She
glanced at the intercom and saw a tiny camera watching her. She pressed the buzzer and waited. There was no reply. She held her thumb to the button and it began
to buzz continuously.
“Hang on,” came a man’s voice, slightly
strained. She took her thumb away. The
glass doors buzzed and clicked open.
Louise ventured inside and went to the
elevator.
In the carriage she kneeled, dropped the
bag, removed the gun, and slung the bag back across her shoulder. She was scared, although not as scared as she
should’ve been. The weapon was
comforting. She clicked off the
safety. The doors opened and she stepped
cautiously into the well-lit hall, sweeping the gun like she had seen cops do
in the movies. Her mouth felt dry. The hall was empty but there were spots of
blood on the polished floor. Something
had gone wrong.
There was only one explanation.
Louise glanced left and right, unsure
which way to tread. Instinctively, she
went right and began walking quietly down the hall, gun aimed, held tightly
with both hands. She strained her ears
for sounds. She heard nothing but the
silence. She half expected to see the
young twins she had witnessed at Litchfield, but she blanked it from her
mind. It was a man that was the problem.
“Celia,” she called out tentatively. “Celia…where are you? Jesus Christ, Cee, where are you…?”
Nothing.
And then a doorknob rattled faintly.
Louise spun to face it, gun aimed.
She swallowed and took a step towards it. “Cee?
Baby girl, you in there?” Staring
at the doorknob, she slowly lowered the gun, inching carefully forward.
She pressed her free hand against the
smooth wood and put her ear to the door, listening for wounded sounds on the
other side.
Something was driven clean through the
door and into her shoulder, piercing her back.
Like a lance of white hot steel.
Her mind seemed to implode and she tried to cry out in the worst agony. The release didn’t come and she gagged. Like a vortex of flame spinning in her
shoulder. She tried to cry out again,
eyes bulging. Her voice lodged in her
chest. Louise began to spasm, gun
slipping from her hand, bag slipping from her shoulder. She was impaled, pinned to the office
door. Images in her mind came too quick
to process, each one tumbling over the other and bleeding together. Her voice dislodged itself and she let out a
guttural scream.
Agony.
Confusion. Horror. Her hands shot up and gripped the thing in
the inch between herself and the door – the coldness of a blade. “Oh
Christ…!” she managed, each tiny movement sending trails and spirals of
pain through her shoulder. Like acid in
her flesh. Through the pain she heard
the lock disengage, lolling forward as the door was opened, pinned to the smooth
wood. Louise gasped and gagged.
Someone pulled the blade from her shoulder
and back through the door in one clean motion.
She cried out and collapsed to the floor, just inside the dark office. She managed to look up and see a man, probably
Paul Drazer. He was staring down at her,
grimacing, dressed in a shirt and tie, holding a bloodied hand to the side of
his head, a long dagger in his other hand.
A dagger smeared with her own blood.
“Please…don’t kill me,” she managed to beg
before her mind began to ebb and shift unsteadily. He stepped past Louise and out into the
hallway, closing the door behind him.
The darkness in the room was soon overcome by the darkness that began to
swell in her brain. She prayed that
Celia was alive before she blacked out.
***
Hiding in her dark
corner, behind the desk, Celia heard Louise calling out to her. She was too afraid to run to her baby girl,
knowing that Paulie was out there. She heard
Louise cry out in agony and fear that drove deep into her head, but she still
couldn’t go out there.
Why
is he doing this…? It’s not Paulie. It can’t be.
It couldn’t be the Paulie she knew, the
Paul Drazer she’d known for six years, the man she dated and very nearly slept with. But of course, it was. Celia could think of nothing but the feeling
of the dagger slicing into her flesh.
Another sob burst from her lips.
Louise wasn’t screaming anymore. A fist slammed against the door and she
wailed involuntarily.
“Why are you doing this! Paulie…please! I’m begging you – don’t do this! I’ll do whatever
you want!”
Fists slammed the door again and she saw
shadows in the slip of light beneath it.
She couldn’t just cower there. Get up.
Celia scrambled from her hiding place and pulled open the desk
drawer so hard that it crashed to the floor, scattering pens and papers and
paperclips around her knees.
“Oh God oh God oh God…” She snatched a fountain pen, yanked off the
lid and surged towards the office door.
It blasted inwards suddenly, and Celia saw Paulie stumble through,
shoulder first.
She leapt at him and he didn’t have time
to orient himself. Slamming into him,
her forward momentum sent them both back through the door and into the
hallway. She struck out with both hands
balled into one fist, catching him in the face with the nib of the fountain
pen. It sliced open his cheek as he
stumbled back against the wall, blinking rapidly, trying to raise the dagger in
his hand. She struck out again,
screaming. This time the nib of the pen
caught him deep across his neck.
It sliced open his throat in a thin red
smile.
Celia heaved herself backwards against the
opposite wall, hands still balled in a subconscious attack posture. Paul Drazer stared at her, the dagger
slipping from his hand and clattering on the hallway floor. He opened his mouth, trying to speak.
His knees buckled and he fell suddenly,
gagging on his blood, hands pressed desperately to his throat. He made wet sucking sounds, writhing and then
shuddering, then twitching, then finally, stillness.
Celia let herself slide against the wall
to the ground. Her fists were shaking,
like they had a life of their own. Her
stomach felt empty and burning.
“Where…” she murmured, “Where…”
She looked again at Paul Drazer. A pool of crimson was collecting on the floor
around his head. She wanted to wretch
but didn’t. Looking down at her hands,
she realised she was still holding the bloodied fountain pen in a tightly
clenched fist. She dropped it and screamed, “Lou…! Lou, where are you! Louise!
Louise!”
Against the wall she struggled to her feet
and began to run, haphazard, down the hallway.
She rounded the corner and stopped, falling to her knees again in defeat
at what she saw.
Mr Finn.
He was standing there in the hallway,
without eyes. Empty black sockets.
Celia slammed her fists uselessly on the
floor. “No, it’s not fair…it’s not
fucking fair...” This was never going to
end.
“None of this is fair,” Mr Finn said, “To
any of us.”
Celia began to laugh. A vacant, shaking laughter that seemed to
rise up from somewhere deep inside her.
“No,” she muttered, tears rolling down her blood smeared cheek, “No, no,
no.” She laughed again, her face
shifting from sobs to grins. She pressed
her hands to the sides of her head.
“No. No. No.
No. No.”
From a side office stepped the tall, bald
black woman. Lillibeth Renn; clad in a
long indigo gown. No eyes either, just dark
sockets in her face. Celia doubled over
on her knees, pressing her forehead to the polished floor.
“Is it the end of the world…?” Celia asked
softly.
“No…not yet,” she heard the woman
say. “Soon enough, but not yet. You’ll have to wait for that, for the War of
Miracles, when your mind is opened and the Elders flood through. The true serpents.”
Celia looked up from the floor, so tired,
wanting nothing more than to sleep. The
black woman was holding a gun, casually, in her left hand. She weighed it in her palm like it was an
alien thing.
“This is an ingenious device, designed for
the sole purpose of taking life. I
remember these machines.” She glanced
then at Mr Finn. “Namahey, do you
remember these machines?”
He nodded.
Lillibeth returned her amused gaze to Celia, who stared up
pitifully. The black woman extended a
hand and Celia took it, pulled to her feet like tightly-spun static gripping
her forearm. Lillibeth pushed her to the
wall and stroked her face, brushed aside the edge of her jacket and cupped her
breasts through her shirt, peering without eyes to see. Celia didn’t resist it.
“I remember this body…I remember this
flesh.”
The black woman leaned forward and kissed
Celia. It was like falling through
sweet, dark smoke. Her hands reached
down, one holding a hip, the other pushing itself between Celia’s thighs,
rubbing at the crotch of her jeans.
Celia didn’t resist.
“I remember this. This was very
important to me. To you.” Celia closed her eyes and listened. “We were watching what you did. A savage display. I don’t remember it being at all like
that. You need your brutality, don’t
you? It’s not a journey unless you Come…?
For me it was slower. I hungered
too, but my Celia was played less forcefully than yours. Isn’t it strange how we can be the same and
yet different? You take this role more
seriously than I did, I’m sure. But
then…who’s to say? The way I remember
it…my beautiful Louise was so hungry. I
put a gun to her head. I never forgot
her, but I was angry that she’d moved on…and that I was too afraid to follow
suit. She was my baby girl and I thought
I’d lost her. But death is an open
circle. Death is just a door. Now we’re united forever and we take any form
we choose, without morality, without the confusions of flesh. I fuck Namahey’s mind, his spirit, his
soul. His very heart. I don’t sup at his cunt anymore…”
An image came to Celia, cold like
ice. Staring at a reflection through
silver water. Lillibeth nodded, up
close.
“The dead moon, Miss Gray. Although I was never so vain.”
“You were,” said Mr Finn from behind
her.
Lillibeth smiled. “Perhaps.”
Celia understood, recognising herself. She exhaled, long and deep. She felt darkness inside, deep and blinding.
“Now you sense the edges of enlightenment,
yes?”
Celia stared at the bald black woman. “Yes.
The white crosses for eyes…where are they? I always loved the white crosses…”
Lillibeth glanced at Mr Finn, half-smiling
as if sharing a private joke. “Our sight
was taken. In the war that is to come,
your sight will be taken also. And after
your physical death…you will be forced to see through the eyes of another.”
Mr Finn stepped forward and Lillibeth took
his hand.
“Celia,” Finn said quietly, “I love
you. I always have. Beyond the physical world you’ll learn how
much Louise loves you. It’s the circle. The returning. Our private myth…and later, after many quests
and wars, when you have seen many worlds – it will become your myth.”
“Where’s Louise…?” Celia asked vacantly.
Lillibeth raised the gun in her hand,
glancing again at Mr Finn. “I need to do
this, Namahey. Celia needs to do this.
The proving of love.” She went to
Celia again, leaning forward, whispering in her ear: “Take away the fire, the
dust…and what is left? I told you I
would kill her. You’re a murderer, Miss
Gray.”
“No…” Celia murmured, with what remained
of her strength, “No, please…”
Lillibeth turned and began walking down
the hallway. Celia watched her go. Mr Finn watched Celia’s desperation.
“I can’t let you leave me,” he told her
quietly, “I can’t, baby girl. Alice came
to see me. I put her in a box but she
got out. She says I don’t love you. That if I did I would set you free…but you’re
all I have.”
Celia shook her head, disbelieving, trying
to deny the truth that was dawning.
“Lou…?” she whispered, staring lazily at
him.
Mr Finn stared back with empty black
sockets. “The returning. Breathe smoke forever. Burn the world and save what can be
saved. This snake-suit protects me from
harm, this demon lie. The blood allows
me to create these worlds for you, baby girl.
For her. Try to understand…I’m
not really a monster. I crave the
freedom. We both do, Cee. We can’t escape our hearts desires. We can’t outrun the workings of the
soul. Even if…even if we don’t have the
words.”
“Lou…?” Celia murmured again, her heart as
cold as death.
“Baby girl,” he replied quietly.
Celia turned and ran, stumbling back down
the hallway after Lillibeth. An office
door stood wide open. Celia stopped in
front of it, her mind filled with sweet, dark smoke. Louise was lying unconscious on the
floor.
Lillibeth was standing over her, the gun
aimed at her head.
“Please,”
Celia begged, spreading her palms wide, “Please…I
don’t want this to happen…I don’t…I won’t be able to live without her…Don’t do
this…”
Lillibeth turned to Celia, cocking the
hammer of the gun. “You will – you’ll be
able to live without her. I did. You’re a murderer.”
Celia dropped to her knees in the office
doorway, face twisted into a ravaged grimace.
She pressed her hands together, slowly, as if in prayer. “Please,
Lillibeth, I’ll do anything! Anything!”
Gun aimed, Lillibeth said softly, “Define
Love.”
“Don’t
do this to me!”
“To you?” asked Lillibeth, “Or to me?”
Louise began to stir. Her head turned. She opened her eyes and saw Celia kneeled in
the doorway. She smiled. Please.
But Lillibeth pulled the trigger.
A pulse of darkest red across the office floor.
Louise; eyes wide, still smiling.
Celia screamed and screamed and screamed…
***
Take
it back. Take it back. Turn back the Clock and love her like she
deserved. Hold her. Make her laugh. Do as she demands, do everything. Bite her shoulder gently and tickle her until
she goes crazy, until she is content.
Kiss her. Kiss her whenever she
seems sad. Love her like she
deserved. Go to her for release. Take it back, take it back. Take it back.
***
Home again, the
same night. The cathedral was bathed in
a blue half-light. On the altar they
were naked, Lillibeth resting her head on the shoulder of her beloved. Namahey was singing to her, whispering things
from their native dream and other things that Lillibeth had yet to
remember. She smiled as she was held by
him, trusting, knowing. Finally knowing.
The little ghost had vanished, disappearing
somewhere between here and there. It
hardly mattered now. She would devour
Namahey when the time was right. That
longing in him would be sated. It was
the only gift that meant anything. The
only gift she could give him.
She thought about Celia; her fear, her
pain and hatred. Lillibeth Renn
understood Celia’s love now. She grasped
why she had done the things she had done, why she once shunned her baby girl
the way she did. Namahey squeezed her
shoulder, hearing her thoughts.
Namahey Finn felt for the princess, for
Angel Wine. The things she would seek
out. The revelations that she did not
believe could find her, but would. The
illumination she would one day hold in the palm of her hand. Seeker.
She thought he cursed her that day…but he had given her a gift. There were things that Lillibeth still did
not understand. Celia was tainted, but
she would seek. She would find it. And perhaps she would birth a new myth; a new
returning, a new Lillibeth and Namahey.
Was that too lush a promise?
Circles were never really circles. They were something beyond. He smiled somewhat hopefully to himself, and
held his beloved tight.
***
They had let her
walk out of there, parting for her. They
let her stumble, sobbing, into the outer darkness. She was kneeled in the courtyard behind
Corpus Christi. It was deep into the
night now, near dawn. She had wept. She had wailed. She had screamed at the useless moon. Her body had been wracked with
convulsions.
A black duffel bag was slung across her
shoulder. She was so tired. She wanted to sleep, just for a while, to escape
this shock and numbness, slipping into something deep, dreamless. But not yet.
She would sleep on the plane. She
glanced up at the dark sky. It would be dawn
soon, another November day.
I
can’t let you leave me…we leave tonight and never come back…
She knew undoubtedly what her baby girl
would have wanted. She would have wanted
her to go on. To fight; stubborn like
she was. Celia thought she’d cried all
her tears tonight, but more of them began to roll down her face. She glanced at the stone cross.
“Hey, mum…I don’t have much time. Long night.
Came to say goodbye. I’m…leaving
you. I’ll try to remember.”
She climbed to her feet and hurried
through the courtyard, to her car.
As she drove she cried again, silently this
time. Her file from the Iris Medical
Institute was open on the passenger seat.
Angel Wine. She stared at the
fake passport in her hand; a photo of herself with the name ‘Lilly
Geller’. The name didn’t turn her
cold. She wasn’t as afraid as she might
have been, too numb to feel terror. She
fiercely wiped the tears from her cheek and pressed a little harder on the
accelerator. She would take it all back if
she could…but she couldn’t.
Lou was gone. Her broken body lay on the floor of Hades
House. Would she never get to hold her again? She would find a way. She would seek it out, move heaven and dream
and earth. Celia burst into tears. She didn’t know what was coming. Baby
girl…my sleeping beauty. As she
stared at the road ahead, she saw that a fine shimmer of snow was beginning to
fall from the dark sky – the first snow of the winter.
************************
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