Dark Seduction (7 page)

Zen's father nodded and his coat rippled, as though something moved underneath.

The leaves on the trees rustled and whispered in nature's secret language. Overhead, a shooting star streaked across the sky, leaving a rainbow of colours in its wake.

The trees changed and Zen found himself standing in a mangrove swamp. His parents hovered over the surface, while he sank up to his knees. Something agitated the surface to his left and a chimerical bird took flight from the branches of a bizarre, twisted tree, the roots of which looked like distended fingers.

The leaves of the tree burst into flames; then they flew away like moths that flew too close, their wings beating frantically in an attempt to put out the fire.

His father opened his coat. “Beware the wolf in sheep's clothing.”

Zen tried to back away, but his legs wouldn't move. He was sinking too fast. A creature was merged with his father's naked body. Canine teeth gnashed at the air, its feral eyes glowing like amber. Its paws protruded from his father's chest and thighs and its head broke through his ribs, the bones of which fused around its face like a macabre skeletal cage.

Zen screamed. He didn't know whether the sound also vented in the corporeal world or not, but it seemed loud enough to conquer realms.

His father dropped to the ground, and the animal legs propelled the creature towards Zen. The wolf face snarled and his father smiled, seemingly unaffected by the mud into which Zen sank.

A pressure constricted his chest as he sank and he raised his head, hoping to stop himself from going under; and then the world went black.

Zen woke gasping for air. A debilitating weight pressed against his waist and he looked up. For a moment, he thought he must still be dreaming, caught in an infinite nightmare loop.

Jade crouched over him, knife in hand. Zen shuddered, and a sick feeling hunkered in his stomach.

Next second, Jade stabbed the blade towards Zen’s face.

CHAPTER 9

Zen brought his hands up and grabbed Jade's wrists. She gnashed and struggled like a rabid dog as he fought to restrain her, the blade of the knife inches from his eye.

Jade grunted, using all her strength to drive the blade home. With only the whites of her eyes visible, she appeared haunting and unnatural and Zen wished he were still dreaming.

“Die, you son-of-a-bitch,” she squealed, spit flying from her lips.

Fear stabbed Zen with as much pain as the knife would if it found its target. It took all his strength to wrestle her. The tip of the blade inched closer to his eye. “What do you think you're doing?” he snarled.  He twisted aside and relaxed his hold, allowing the blade of the knife to spear the bed where his head had been.

“
Bastard
,” Jade snarled, pulling the knife back out.

With her centre of gravity altered, Zen seized the moment and rolled her off. She crashed into the back of the cab and he quickly jumped out of bed and onto the front seat. Behind him, Jade swore and he turned to see her looming towards him, still intent on stabbing him with the knife.

Zen grabbed the handle and flung the door open, shivering as the cold wind embraced him. But he moved too slowly. Pain flared across his back like a white-hot star exploding as she sliced his skin and he sucked air through his teeth, back arched in agony.

“You're crazy,” he shouted, jumping out of the lorry.

“And you're dead,” Jade screamed, following him out.

The moon glowed behind ominous clouds and Zen looked around for a means of escape. He briefly realised that both of them were still naked and his manhood shrivelled, partly due to the cold, and partly due to fear.

The cold seemed to infiltrate his body more where the metal piercings entered his flesh, using them as conductors to chill him to the bone.

Although it was dark, he spotted Jade's teeth glowing as she peeled her lips back, incisors like daggers. At any other time her naked body would have excited him, but now it looked obscene, her muscles bunched and taut as she advanced, grinning.

Zen turned and fled. Sharp thorns on the road stabbed his feet, but he ignored the pain. He would rather suffer a little prick, than a big one from the knife.

He could see a rock face in the distance, rising like a fortress wall. Trees to his left rustled in the wind and he ran towards them, ignoring the masochistic lash of the branches in the hope he could hide within their shadows. His hair snagged, strands pulled painfully from his scalp and for a moment, he thought Jade had grabbed him and his heart missed a beat but she remained a few feet behind. He heard her slashing the branches, hacking like a maniac at everything in her path.

Overhead, an owl hooted, the forlorn sound carried on the wind like a dark omen.

In the background, a dog barked. It sounded like a wolf and he remembered his father's warning in the dream.

Beware the wolf in sheep's clothing.

A vehicle rumbled along a road in the distance, the headlights chasing the dark. Zen headed towards it, his feet bleeding. He stepped on a sharp branch and winced, bit his lip, his face prickling, but he pressed on. Fear quelled the pain.

“You can't get away,” Jade shouted.

He risked a quick glance back, but couldn't see her. At least when he knew where she was, he knew what to run from, and in which direction to head. Now, she could be anywhere. The wind whistled a sinister tune in his ears. His arms pumped like pistons, but his legs pumped faster, propelling him through the trees.

Ahead, the trees seemed different. Darker. More sinister.

Light flashed through the branches, and Zen headed towards the source. He could hear a low rumbling engine, and he emerged onto a road as a lorry trundled past. Its headlights momentarily bathed him in a strange orange glare, turning him into a sundial with a revolving shadow that stretched before him like a dark road in the gloom of the night.

Then the lorry disappeared, and he found himself on the edge of a forest
entwined by black roses in a macabre marriage, thorny and barbed rings of wedded bliss.

An intermittent, cancerous orange light pulsed in the distance, and Zen froze in his tracks and stared at the lighthouse; he immediately recognised it as the one from the city. But what was it doing here, in the middle of nowhere, shining like a beacon for lost souls?

He heard someone crashing through the trees, but he didn't dare look back, too afraid of what he might see. Up ahead, the lighthouse loomed, impossibly high. So high that it made him dizzy to look up. Surely he would have seen such a monumental building before, on the way through the town.

Confused, scared and cold, he headed towards the monolithic structure, each step excruciatingly painful, as though he ran on broken glass; his lungs were on fire.

Although the tower appeared to be miles away, it only took seconds to reach it. Zen frowned and looked back, but could see only inky black trees.

At the foot of the tower, a door opened and the albino man appeared.

He smiled without warmth.

Was there no escape from the madness?

A scream emanated from the trees. Startled, Zen looked back to see Jade crash though the foliage, lips peeled back and the knife poised above her head. Blood trickled from cuts on her legs and from a gash on her forehead.

“You'd better come in,” the albino man said, stepping aside.

Zen grimaced. “Why bother? You may as well kill me here.”

The albino man frowned. “Why would I want to kill you? You haven’t lost the bet … yet.”

“Because that's what you sent
her
for.” He pointed back at Jade.

“She's nothing to do with me. I did warn you that people would try to stop you.”

Still unsure, Zen bit his lip. The doorway led to a dark passage, and with a final look back at Jade, he entered. The passage wasn't that long and moments later he came out into an impossibly large open area the size of a small village, dotted with strange buildings that defied all laws of geometry. Some seemed to balance on their roofs; others leaned at such acute angles Zen felt certain wires must hold them up. Some buildings were circular, others glass towers. As he stood marvelling, Jade ran in behind him. He suppressed a scream. Why had the albino man let her in if he didn't want her to kill him? They circled each other, leaving macabre, bloody footprints on the tiled floor like bizarre
dance steps.

The other two men that tricked him into the venture appeared from the shadows, as though forming out of the very atoms of the air they displaced.

The men closed in on Jade, leaving her nowhere to run. She looked around with wide, white eyes, breathing heavily. She slashed the knife, but the men grabbed her and subdued her without any trouble at all.

Conscious of being naked, Zen covered his privates with his hands. He couldn't believe that only a few hours ago, he’d slept with a crazy woman that now wanted to kill him. He watched the men manhandle her to the ground, but he couldn't feel any sympathy for her, not after she’d just tried to kill him. But
why
had she tried to kill him? Hadn't she said she was sent by the very men who now restrained her?

It was getting more confusing.

The albino man approached Jade, his expression unreadable. A long leather coat hid his legs, although he seemed to float more than walk, his movements too fluid to be natural.

“Did she send you?” the albino man asked as he crouched beside her.

Jade spat in his face.

The albino man shook his head. “Well if you’re not prepared to speak, your mind can’t hide the truth.” He ran a hand across her face and Jade flinched. A word appeared on the back of his hand like an indelible tattoo: Yes.

“Just hold on. What's going on?” Zen said, growing angry.

“That's what I was going to ask you,” the albino man said as he turned towards him, his red eyes flashing with anger.

Zen stumbled back, his legs shaking. “The girl said you sent her to help me.”

“Then she lied. You're a fickle man who thinks with his dick instead of his head. If there was some other way ...” He turned away and waved his hand in a dismissive gesture.

“Some other way to what?”

The albino man whirled around, coattails flapping; his features set like granite.

“Well?” Zen prompted.

“Tell him it's his own
mother
you want him to kill,” Jade said.

The albino man turned on Jade, and in that moment, Zen saw something in the man's features that chilled him to the core.

“Be quiet,” the albino man hissed, his voice like waves crashing against rocks.

He turned back towards Zen, opened his coat and swept the flowing coattails over him, enveloping him in darkness.

CHAPTER 10

The rain lashed down, stinging Verity's face. She stood on her brother's doorstep, her cheeks red and sore.

Her resolve hadn't wavered. Determined to find out what happened, John was her first port of call.