BiteMarks (14 page)

Karen raises an eyebrow and laughs before she replies. 

“
Naturally, what does a shrink know about how safe it is to release an offender or not? Now can we drop the subject and get back to enjoying this fine breakfast and each other's company?”

“
Sorry, of course we can. What have you got on for the rest of the day?” I take a bite of breakfast.

“
More inquiries to try and find Dodds before he does it again. As you've seen, the attacks are escalating and somebody's going to end up dead. I'd like to see about talking to the girl in the hospital too if she's up to it yet.”

“
At the risk of incurring your wrath again, I went to see her the other day.”

“
You have been bloody busy!”

“
I just went to check that she was still alive, when the paramedics took her she was in a pretty bad way.”

“
I'm surprised that they let you near her.”

“
It took all of my powers of charm and persuasion.”

“
I hope not.”

“
Well perhaps not all of them.” I grin. “They're all for you. Anyway, she was pretty sick, all she managed to say of import was she asked me to kill the guy.”

“
Good God! What did you say?”

“
I'm a man of action, he's in my freezer as we speak.”

“
Very funny.”

“
No. I didn't reply to her, just pretended that I hadn't heard then left and rang you.” Karen's phone starts to vibrate and move across the tabletop, interrupting the conversation.

“
It's Kev, I'll need to take this.”

“
No problem.”

She picks up and answers. “Hi Kev, what's up?” A short pause whilst she listens with a frown gradually spreading across her face.  “I'll be there in thirty minutes. I don't fucking believe it. Right, see you soon.” She hangs up, suddenly all business. “I've got to love you and leave you right now, shift just started early. Our mutual friend just discharged herself from hospital this morning with the help of two, and here I quote, scary Jamaican men.”

“
Not to add to your workload, Karen, but when I went to visit Cristal, or whatever her name is, I bumped into Antony Jones.”

“
How nice for you.”

“
Isn't it just. Anyway we had a minor disagreement and he advised me that, having upset him, I wasn't long for this world.”

“
And you're telling me right now because  .. ?”

“
Threats to kill gives you grounds for arrest if you want him in for any reason.”

“
Shane, men like Jones don't make idle threats. Make sure your paths don't cross until I've had chance to make some calls.”

She doesn't wait for a response as she heads off to the bedroom to begin dressing hurriedly. Moments later she rushes through to the bathroom in a cloud of perfume to sort out her hair.

“
I just bought a new toothbrush which is still in its wrapper in the cupboard. You can use it if you like, lady.”

“
Thanks.”

She finishes making herself presentable in the bathroom, and I fill a metallic thermos with some of the strong coffee, putting it in her hand on the way out of the door.

“
Did I tell you that you are the absolute best?” She smiles and kisses me then breezes away, leaving me standing on the doorstep in a cloud of sweet floral scents and sexual afterglow.

* * *

In the darkness the sweet heady smell of the honeysuckle clinging on and around the metal banister is intoxicating. The scuff and clatter of his battered old shoes on the unfamiliar ground is ridiculously loud in the darkness. Marvin can't be sure whether his senses are sharper because of the absence of light, nose and ears striving to compensate for his virtual blindness, or because of the high quality of the crack-cocaine in his system.

The usual stuff gives a short intense high which is almost gone before it has started, leaving the body racked with all-consuming need for another hit. Marvin doesn't like to think about the things that he's done for just one more hit. This stuff is different though, the high building up then subsiding slowly, before miraculously building again, a series of highs in wave after wave – some sort of variation on the recipe.

All he has to do for a month's supply of this new wonder formula, is post a DVD through a letterbox and try not to think too hard about the creature who lives inside. Easier said than done. Marvin tries hard to stay with the drug's warm embrace, fighting against the memory of the man who lives here but failing to keep it at bay.

“
Give me your fucking money, pretty boy, or I'll slash you a new smile.”

Marvin brandishing the Stanley knife, with its visible smears of old blood up where the tall kid with the eyeliner and nail polish could see it. Even quaking with desire for a fix, he could acknowledge that he enjoyed this in some small dark recess inside; seeing the fear bloom, hearing the tears coming into their voices.

He generally cut the faces of the pretty ones anyway, even if they complied, hating the fact that they look so fresh, untouched by the savage claws of a short lifetime on narcotics that raked furrows into his own features. This kid didn't seem afraid though, and the rage begins to build into something malignant and organic. This one's going to suffer.

“
Are you deaf or fucking stupid?”

“
What with?”

The reply momentarily nonsensical, spoken softly and with an undercurrent of terrible calm and stillness.

Marvin begins his own reply but stops. The Stanley knife is no longer in his hand.

The soft assured voice comes again. “Looking for this?”

The kid had smiled a wide open-mouthed smile that displayed his long pointed fangs, but the fact took a moment to register. Marvin couldn't believe it, but the kid actually handed the damn knife back to him, and he'd lunged for the weird pretty-boy, aiming for the delicate anatomy of the neck.

The kid was too fast. Inhumanly swift and terribly strong, whirling out of the way and around Marvin with ease, one arm encircling his neck and hauling him into some sort of choke, the other deftly removing the blade from his grasp again. The point of the knife had popped something in his neck, a sound that was felt rather than heard, and he'd gagged at the sensation.

The voice came again, this time fluttering over his ear. “That was just a vein, low pressure blood flow. If I opened an artery it would be a different story altogether of course … ”

Marvin had hung there, feet swinging a number of inches from the ground, struggling to breathe. The sound of his own falling blood was loud as it slapped on impact with the rough tarmac, and he had believed absolutely and completely that he would die.

* * *

This time was different though. It was two in the morning, not a single sound around, and it wasn't like he was here to cause any harm. More to the point it wasn't like he had any choice. When Arachnid Jones 'asked' you to do him a favor, he wasn't really asking at all; the offer of the drugs was just an added sweetener.

He was at the door now and all was still quiet; thank God for that. Lifting the opening to the letterbox quietly and starting to push the disc through now, nearly home and dry and then he froze. The darkness at the top of the stairs was laughing softly to itself.

“
Good evening, Marvin. Are you aware that you were talking to yourself?”

Marvin tries hard to say something intelligent, something to explain his presence here at this hour when he would rather be almost anywhere else on earth; but the words just merge and form a continuous unintelligible series of vowel sounds.

“
Shh ... I'm not going to hurt you. Just tell me what you've got there and then tell me what you know about the man with the big fucking teeth, as you so eloquently put it. I suppose really I should say the other guy with the big fucking teeth, shouldn't I? But that's our little secret.”

He smiles showing elongated fangs that shine even in the near absence of light. “I had to deliver this, man. Didn't have a choice, I'm sorry.”

“
Who is it from?”

“
Arachnid and Evil.”

“
And what's on it?”

“
I don't know, I swear I don't. I've not been shown what's on it, I promise.”

“
Relax, fella, I'll watch it for myself and find out then. Now tell me what you know about our fanged friend.”

Marvin's reply is garbled, information rattled off as quickly as possible, with words colliding and falling over each other in their hurry to escape. “I've seen him around, pale guy with white-blond hair. Tall but not as tall as you though, maybe six foot, just normal looking except for the paleness … until you see his teeth.”

“
Where have you seen him?”

“
He was back at that alley where a girl got ripped up the other day, I forget the name of the street. He looked like an easy rob, pretty well dressed and all that, seemed to be lost in some weird kind of trance to start with, then he smiled at me, like maybe he was thinking about eating my heart or something and I got the hell out of there. I thought maybe you knew him or he was related to you in some way.”

Marvin reflexively touches the raised scar on his neck and edges away from me slightly.

“
Why would you think he was related to me?”

“
You've got the same eyes, like you're a shark and you're already dead inside.”

“
You can go now, Marvin, unless you had the foresight to bring popcorn and a nice bottle of wine to go with this movie?”

He shrugs helplessly, missing the fun, and then begins beating a hasty retreat back down the metal stairway. I hear his footsteps as his silhouette disappears into the shadows, footsteps tapping across the courtyard then picking up pace, becoming an all out sprint as they fade away into the distance.

I couldn't explain what precisely had kept me awake tonight, whether it was a by-product of the stresses and strains of the last few weeks, or a premonition that somebody would be paying me an unannounced visit. Either way, it wasn't going to hurt my mystique, and that might be useful in keeping Jones and Bennett at bay for the time being.

I shut and lock the door now that Marvin is long gone, and put the disc on the kitchen table whilst I fix some food and drink. I am aware of a gnawing hollow hunger growing inside me, but I strongly suspect that it won't be sated by the food that I'm going to cook although I'm resolved to try anyway.

I remove a package from the fridge, carefully unwrapping the dark purple cylinder of meat and rubbing it with olive oil and crushed black peppercorns. When the air above the pan begins to shimmer with heat haze, I add the meat sealing it on all sides until the surface is universally golden but the inside remains pink and bloody when sliced. The flavor of the venison is unbelievable, rich and intense with coppery blood. I savor each individual mouthful without accompaniments, and drink the tide of juices off the plate, aware that I'm taking my time out of some juvenile defiance at the implied command to watch the DVD. I'll watch when I'm good and ready guys, not when you tell me to.

I open the top cupboard and remove a bottle, pouring an inch of un-chill-filtered Edradour, a honey rich nectar of a malt, infused with subtle smoke but not a trace of peat, into a crystal tumbler. A splash of cold water to open up the nose and prevent the strong spirit from overpowering the taste-buds, thereby anesthetizing the mouth and ruining the complexities of the taste.

“
Fuck it, I've got to see what the hell is on this disc.”

Ghost opens one eye to glare at me, then sighs deeply and closes it again, still annoyed at being shut away when Karen was round. I switch the television on and put the disc in, scrutinizing the controls for a long moment, unfamiliar with how to play a DVD since I'm seldom interested by anything that's on.

“
Ah, there we go.”

I retreat back a few steps and drop down into an arm-chair with whiskey in hand. The noise, when it arrives, is obscenely loud and unmistakably the screaming of a woman in pain. I fumble the remote control and turn the volume right down, but Ghost is already out of bed with ears raised, standing alert for possible danger.

“
It's okay, back to bed for you, fella.”

He lays back down grumbling, is head on his front paws.

As she comes into focus, the screaming woman is facing away from the camera on all fours. A muscular male is entering her roughly from behind, dark back slick with sweat and shining like a coffee bean, face invisible from this angle. The camera begins to pan around, giving a side view of exactly how he's penetrating her; judging by the difficulty that he's having in inching further inside her, lube was in short supply. She still has her face away from the lens, but there are livid wounds on her mocha-colored skin – like ragged bite marks on the neck and arms.