Carved in Stone: Monochrome Destiny (25 page)

Ducking
and weaving through the sea of carcasses, they made their way to the back wall
which was shelved.  Expecting something condemning, Robyn was disappointed
when the trays stacked there contained butchered joints, chops or offal
products ready for packaging.  There was nothing erroneous or strange
about this set up, but she still had that feeling.

“There’s
nothing in here.”  Andrew’s quiet whisper broke the silence.

Robyn
crouched down so that she could see wall to wall.  There were no boxes, no
products of any kind placed on the floor, the supervisors preferring to keep
everything neatly on the shelves, and no contraband.  The chiller was a
long rectangle in shape and the only obstruction to that shape was against one
corner. Crouched as she was, Robyn could see that in the far right corner there
was another room, a room within a room.

“In
the corner.”
 
She began to move before she’d finished speaking.

Andrew kept
close behind her, shining the light to assist but kept all his senses sharp and
continually checked the room for signs that they were no longer alone.  He
knew that this was a bad idea.  If anyone ever discovered that either of
them had been here like this, then there would be nothing he or his grandfather
could do to stop Robyn being forced out of the community.  Yet, he’d seen
such hurt in her when she’d told him her darkest secret.  And he
understood secrets better than anyone else.  Robyn needed to do this and
there was no way he was going to stop her.  Helping her had just seemed
like the right thing to do.  He didn’t believe that there was a secret
smuggling ring, or anything like it, but he couldn’t let her go walking into
danger alone.  This was her last place to check and he only hoped that
once she had found nothing here, she’d admit that there was indeed nothing
mysterious or sinister in her friend’s disappearance.  She needed to drop
this and settle, with him.  Now that he’d found her, he wasn’t letting her
go.

Robyn
stopped in front of another door, much smaller than the last it had a digital
thermostat in the centre reading 4.0°C.  It was a fridge within a fridge.

“Why
would they need a separate fridge unit?”

“I
don’t know, but I’m about to find out.”  She reached automatically to open
the door.

No
dead eyes looked at them this time.  Instead all he saw was red.

The
walls of the little room were lined with shelves and standing on the shelves
were racks and racks of bottles.  The bottles were filled with a deep red
liquid.  Even in the bluish light of the phone, Andrew could not mistake
the colour, for it was a rich, deep, crimson and thick.  The light did not
penetrate the liquid. 

On
the floor stood several plastic crates, red in colour, they held empty bottles,
dozens of them.  Empty, but not clean.  The sides of the bottles
showed tide marks where the thick red liquid had once been inside.

Robyn
stepped forwards into the room.

“Don’t.”
He held his hand out but he was still dazed by the sight of all those bottles
and he made no further effort to pull her back.

Robyn
stooped down to get a closer look and picked up a discarded bottle. 
Holding it up to the light, she turned the glass to show thick remnants of
liquid still sticking to the sides.  Thicker sediment pooled in the bottom
and a mottled red smear on the inside showed that the liquid was lumpy, not
smooth.

Andrew
blinked and his skin went cold.

Staring
at the neck of the bottle as Robyn turned it in her hand Andrew saw the
unmistakable print of pink lipstick.

Robyn
brought the bottle close to her face, placed it under her nose and smelled the
contents.  He wasn’t quick enough to stop her, but as soon as she inhaled
she paled before buckling over and dropping the bottle.

The
noise hurt his ears, so loud in the silence, as the glass shattered upon impact
with the concrete floor.  Shards sprayed out from the centre and gleamed
in the light from the phone, tinkling noisily as they went.  Robyn ran out
of the room and into the darkness.  Andrew took only seconds of staring
into the small room to come to his senses, slam the door and go after
her.  She was at the chiller entrance when he caught up but she didn’t
stop, she headed straight for the fire door.  He got there first and
slammed into it before Robyn tore out into the night and ran for the trees.

Fleeing as if
being chased, Robyn raced past the rain soaked trees, pushing branches from her
face and put more and more distance between
herself
and the abattoir.  Ragged breaths escaped her, pluming in front of her as
the night grew cold and her chest ached, but she did not stop.  Her calves
and thighs burned relentlessly but she still ran unabated, deeper and deeper
into the safe haven of the trees.  She ran in no specific direction, her
only purpose was to get away from what she had just seen, smelled.

Eventually,
she had no choice but to slow down and stop.  Leaning, one hand braced
against the moist, spongy bark of a tree, she hunched over, gasping for air and
clutching at her chest.

Andrew
came to a stop beside her.

“What
was it?” His breathing was even, as if he hadn’t run at all, but his voice held
pain.  

Robyn
clutched a hand to her heart and felt its rapid beat as she stared at Andrew. 
She wanted to hold him and cling to reality as the world around her tilted into
the fantastical.  She couldn’t stop the thoughts of ritual and ceremony
that ran thought her mind.  It all made so much sense and that pained her
even more. 
A town on its knees, desperate and easy
prey.
  How far would people be willing to go?  What would they
be willing to embrace?

“What
was in the bottle?” Andrew’s eyes were so wide.  Robyn could see his
anguish and knew that it would be reflected upon her own face.

“You
know.”  He was there.  He saw, he must have seen more than her, for
to her, those bottles simply held thick black sludge.  Andrew would have
seen them differently.

“I
thought it was smuggling; I thought the worst I would find was drugs, guns, but
now
. .
oh
, God.” The rain had
stopped but the ground was saturated and muddy as Robyn dropped to her knees.

“Robyn! 
Please, what was it?”  He didn’t make any move to come closer, as if his
whole body was frozen by the impact of what they had just seen.

“Blood!
  It was
blood.”  Her words made it real and her mind put it together then; blood,
symbols, Wiccan charms.  It all made a sick sort of sense.  “They’re
practising Satanists or witches or both.  And there are so many involved.”

He
stood so still. 
Too still.

“Did
you hear me?  It was blood, Andrew.  They’re drinking blood.”

“That
can’t be.  You must be mistaken.”  He stayed back, denial ripe in his
words.

Robyn
felt sick.  “I’m not wrong. 
The lipstick.”
 
A cramp gripped her nauseous stomach and she buckled forwards, placing her
hands in the mud, but only succumbed to dry heaves.

“The
whole town cannot be . . . my grandfather . . .”

Robyn
lifted her head and cut him off.  “What?  Because you have family
mixed up in this, it can’t be true?  These things can’t happen to
you?”  Her temper flared, finding untapped energy sources.  “Oh, I
know how you feel.  I’ve been there, believe me.  Not me.  Not
mine.  We can all tell ourselves that we couldn’t have
known,
that we aren’t to blame.  We can all lie to ourselves.”

Andrew
shook his head.  “You blame me?”

“Shit,
no.”  She shook her head and climbed unsteadily to her feet.  “You
couldn’t have known about this, but just because you didn’t know doesn’t make
it any less true”

“I’ve
spent enough time here to know that those who don’t conform get driven
out.  I know that James has a stranglehold on this town and its resistance
to change keeps some here and others away. 
But this?”
 
Andrew’s hand swept out behind him.  “Never, never in my wildest dreams
would I have thought him involved in this.”

“There
is no other explanation.  You said it yourself.  The town is on its
knees.  Perhaps the people think that selling their souls will bring them
prosperity.  Perhaps they tried faith and prayer but got nowhere.  I
can’t tell you why they’ve done it, or when, but I know what I smelled.”

“You’re
jumping to a conclusion without thinking about all the possibilities.”

Robyn
stepped forwards, anger raising her voice.  “Then you give me an
alternative.  You saw that lipstick just as clearly as I did.  What
do you think that gathering was doing?”

He
was silent.

“We
have to tell the police.”

Andrew
stepped forwards until he stood directly in front of her.  “And tell them
what, Robyn?  That we broke into the abattoir and found blood.  It’s
hardly something out of place in an abattoir and we would have to admit to
committing a crime.”

“We
tell them about the lipstick, the ritual.”

“We
have no evidence and that bottle is smashed, gone.  Besides, is it
actually illegal to be a Satanist?”

She
shook her head.  No, she doubted it was illegal.  “There has to be
something.”

Andrew’s
hands lifted to her cheeks.  “It’s late and you’re cold.  We can’t do
anything tonight.  It’s time to go home, Robyn.”

When they
entered Andrew’s house, the dark space seemed lifeless and cold.  Perhaps
that was because of the way Robyn felt.  She was numb, hollow and she
didn’t know what to do.  What the people of
Porthmollek
were doing was sick, but not illegal.  It explained the secretiveness and
why newcomers were hounded out, and why Kat had left.  No-one would want
to stay once they found out what was going on.  In fact, Robyn was
thinking that she didn’t want to stay either.  It was true that she’d come
to
Porthmollek
to start afresh, to build a new life,
but she was more desperate than that.  She’d been a high flyer, going
places.  Her position in research was very sought after, the company on
the cutting edge and she’d just got the promotion that could really boost her
career.  But she’d lost it all.  She’d been dismissed and her C V
looked pathetic.  No-one was going to hire a woman who couldn’t see
properly and hadn’t been able to hold down a job, any job, for five minutes
since her accident.  She’d stayed when she should have left and now she
knew more than she wanted.  The only thing that was keeping her here was
Andrew, but she couldn’t ask him to leave his family.  Family was
everything.  She knew, because she no longer had one.

“I
should go.”  Robyn could see the guilt he carried and she couldn’t stand
to see him like it.  He needed time.

“You
shouldn’t be alone, not tonight.”  He cupped her face in his hands.

“I’m
not afraid.”  It was a lie.

Andrew
dipped his mouth to hers and gently traced his tongue over her lips.  “I
shouldn’t be alone tonight.”

She
melted into him, his need for her filling part of the hollow that had formed
inside her.  No man had ever needed her before.

Andrew
led her to the bathroom and reached his long arm into the shower cubicle to
turn on the stream of water.

“Stay.” 
He stepped closer to her, the long fingers of his hands playing through her
hair.

In
answer, she reached out and began to unbutton his coat.  Pushing the
jacket over his shoulders, she traced the line of his muscular arms as it fell
to the floor.

He
wore a soaking black pullover that she now lifted off his lean torso before
beginning to remove her own clothing.

Robyn’s
pulse raced as Andrew pulled her mouth to his and plundered.  Desperation
produced wanton desire as he tasted and sucked and savoured.  They were
both naked, their cold bodies crushing against one another for warmth and
Andrew swept her into his arms with ease to carry her under the cascades of hot
water.

He
didn’t set her down, but instead pushed her back to the tile to brace her as he
pushed inside her wet folds.  Robyn welcomed the sweet length of him as
she was stretched and filled and she rejoiced in the all-encompassing heat that
came from his velvet flesh entering her core.  He was warmth and light
itself and this was a joining of need, a joining of affirmation, the calm in
the eye of the storm.

Their
love making was a slow, sensual, physical expression of their desire as Robyn
clung to Andrew, her legs wrapped around his hips and her arms gripping his
shoulders.  He drove slowly in and out of her and as he did so, she felt
his muscle and tissue unwind and become fluid beneath her touch as both the hot
water and the hot sex consumed him.

Robyn
could feel herself quickening around Andrew’s thickness all too quickly. 
He felt it too and thrust faster, harder to drive her over the edge and into
bliss.  Her head fell back as her body pulsed around him, the heat of her
orgasm driving away the chill that had entered her bones.  How could she
even consider leaving behind a man that could do this to her?  She pulled
her head forwards onto his chest and moaned as he drove into her again, her
folds greedy for him.

She was putty in
his hands, hot and pliable and glowing pink with the flush of her orgasm, but
he hadn’t finished with her yet.  He needed more, a lot more, to drown out
the thoughts running through him.  He hated what he’d seen, the secrets
that had finally been revealed, but what he hated more was Robyn’s silence, on
the walk home.  She had been too engrossed in her own thoughts and Andrew
feared that it meant only one thing; she was leaving.  He couldn’t let her
do that, not now that he’d found her.  He wanted to keep her, mark her,
own
her, anything to stop her from slipping through his
fingers.

He
cupped her arse and lifted her off of his stiff cock before turning her to the
wall and placing her hands against the tile so that she knew not to move. 
She trembled a little under his touch and his cock twitched, desperate to be
inside her again.  With one leg, Andrew pushed Robyn’s feet further apart
and he grabbed her hips and pulled them back to meet him. With one swift thrust
he buried himself in her tight wet folds up to the hilt and began to pound into
her.  It was deeper like this, closer and he needed to burrow inside every
inch of her like he’d never needed anything before.  God, it was heaven
watching his cock slide into her over and over as her beautiful arse shuddered
under his pounding rhythm.  He wouldn’t last long like this, especially
when he watched her breasts swaying freely under his assault.  She was
tight on him, clenching his cock hard within her, but she wasn’t there yet, not
quite, and he wasn’t going over the edge without her.

Andrew reached
around their joined bodies and pressed his fingers into her folds.  Robyn
gasped as he found her clitoris and began circling it firmly with one finger
even as he pounded her from behind.  She’d never felt him so deep and with
the added pressure on her clit there was only one way this was going to go.

Robyn
screamed as her orgasm broke over her.  Rising from deep within it shot
through her, burning everything in its path.  Andrew thrust into her one
more time, tearing what little reason she had left from her body and sending
her into spasm.  She felt his seed spill hot inside her before everything
went numb and she collapsed into his hold.

Staring at the
ceiling, watching the shadows of tree branches brush across the white paint,
Robyn could not turn off her mind.

Andrew
slept
beside
her, his breathing slow and steady, his
black hair in stark contrast to the crisp white sheets.  She’d watched him
in awe and drank in every microscopic detail of his slumbering features to lock
them away in her memory.  She now stared at the grey patterns being formed
across the ceiling, hoping to empty her mind.

It
wasn’t working.  She was plagued by memories of what they had found: the
stark white room, the dark elixir in the bottles and the lipstick.  Images
surged through her mind of altars and dark priests engaged in depraved and
unholy sacrifice.  Symbols:
Triskeles
and
Witches Knots swirled like Catherine wheels.  She rolled over, trying to
get comfortable, but more thoughts of blood plagued her.

She
rolled onto her back again as the word ‘blood’ ricocheted through her
brain. 
Blood
; it wasn’t the first time she had thought about it
this week.  The memory suddenly hit her, and so did another.

Robyn
slid out of the bed and grabbed a shirt from Andrew’s wardrobe.  Her
clothes were still wet and lying in a heap on the bathroom floor. 
Tiptoeing down the stairs, she put on a lamp and quickly found Andrew’s
laptop.  She went straight onto a search engine and started looking for
information to confirm her suspicions.

Reading
the information on the screen, Robyn heard footsteps on the stairs and the
gentle creaking of the old wood.  Andrew entered the lounge barefoot,
wearing only pyjama bottoms.  His hair was a wild mess and his eyes were
sleepy.  He smiled when he saw her tucked up on the sofa.

“What
are you doing?” He entered the doorway, one hand lazily rubbing his eyes.