The Amulet (15 page)

"That's it! That's the last time. You're barred, Marshall. I don't want you coming round here again-understand?"

The violence was still there in Marshall's eyes as he spat in the barman's face.

The barman actually smiled, a huge grin, as he punched Marshall in the stomach, just once, but enough to knock the wind out of him, causing him to slump in the arms of the men holding him.

"You want to try that again?" the barman whispered, his voice carrying through the room. The hate in Marshall's eyes would have withered a lesser mortal, but the barman just snorted in disgust.

"Get that fucking arsehole out of here before I do him some serious damage," he said, turning away.

Still struggling, Marshall was frog-marched to the door. The prostrate man was helped to his feet, and the crowd returned to their drinking as if nothing had happened.

I finished my drink and followed Marshall out.

He stood, alone in the car park, and I saw the urge for violence in him. I made a play of lighting a cigarette as he lifted a dustbin and threw it against the wall, strewing rubbish into the street where it was caught and spun away by the wind and the rain.

"Fucking bastards!" he screamed, delivering a kick to the nearest car, leaving an obvious dent in its paneling before turning off down the street. A man of taste and charm, our Mr. Marshall.

I followed him, but it was risky business in the dark empty streets. Several times I had to duck into doorways to avoid being seen, and once or twice I got close enough to hear that he still muttered obscenities to himself. We went on for maybe a mile in this way, through tenement-lined streets as the rain pelted relentlessly down on us, until finally he turned up a path into one of the buildings.

It was an old Victorian tenement-four stories high and converted to flats. I knew the type. I'd lived in one similar in my student days. The close was dark and smelled of stale urine, and I'm sure I heard rats scurrying in the darkness as I entered. Five yards in I came to a flight of worn stairs. An unshaded light bulb lit graffiti-covered walls smeared in something that was brown and didn't bear thinking about.

From my position at the foot of the stairs I heard Marshall above me, still cursing as he climbed. I watched and listened as he made his way up to the top and heard the slam as he entered a flat before I followed.

As I climbed the stairs I tried to formulate a plan. Thus far I had been merely following my instincts and I had no idea how to approach him. I stood outside his door, still unsure, and lifted my hand to knock.

Before my hand reached it the door was pulled open and my arm grabbed tightly. He pulled me inside, hard, and as I tried to regain my balance, I tripped, falling face-first to the floor where the rough carpet scraped across my face.

I was roughly turned over and found myself looking into the angry face of Brian Marshall. I heard a harsh click, loud in the confines of the room, and caught a glimmer of silver as a flick knife was brought up in front of my face.

"And who the fuck are you?" he asked, the whisky fumes from his mouth threatening to engulf me. I was close enough to see every pore in his skin, to count the pockmarks from youthful acne scars. It suddenly struck me that he was afraid. Afraid...and very, very angry.

"You don't look like the Polis. Did they send you-the rich bastards wi' their plummy voices and their fur coats?" He didn't give me time to respond. "
Did they?"
he screamed in my face, and I felt quick lancing pain, then the hot rush of blood against my neck as he drew the knife through my left earlobe. I saw the smile on his face as he did it and I knew then that I wasn't going to be able to reason with him.

He shifted his weight and sat on my chest. My muscles tightened as I tried to breathe. He brought the knife up again and it headed for my cheek.

"All that talk of theirs about money-they didnae tell me that it was worth a fortune, did they?"

He was talking to himself, but I didn't have time to pay much attention; the dancing silver knife in front of me hypnotized me.

"Two thousand pound, they said. Bollocks-that wee trinket must be worth tens o' thousand, at least. And I suppose they sent you tae get it aff me? A saft bugger like you?"

He laughed, an evil, cold thing, and drew back the knife to strike.

I got my left arm in front of it. The blade sliced easily through my coat and the jacket underneath before bringing a burst of red heat as it found my skin, then my muscle. It scraped as it hit bone. I squirmed, trying to get some leverage, and tried to fight back the pain as I pushed, twice, before I managed to overbalance him. He fell away off my chest and onto the floor beside me.

I tried to scramble away but he was on his feet again before I had got off my hands and knees, and his foot drew back. I turned away, too late, and the booted foot hit me full in the ribs, sending me rolling into a corner of the room. I looked up into his eyes as he came for me and saw the wide grin. He was in his element. The knife glistened redly as he brought it up in front of him and licked the blade.

"Got you now, you fucker," he said and moved in for the kill. I tried to put my arms up in front of me but my chest muscles screamed in pain and refused to allow any movement. I kicked out with my feet, every action bringing fresh pain to my chest, but he danced away. He laughed again and waved the knife at me.

"I think the auld folk will hiv tae send somebody a wee bit bigger the next time," he said. He kicked me, hard, in the big muscle of my thigh, bringing another bolt of pain that threatened to send me spinning away into a faint. I struggled to keep alert, pushing my back against the wall, trying to get as far from him as I could. It wasn't going to be far enough-he was still smiling as he came for me.

I caught it, that fetid smell which stuck in the back of my throat. Marshall must have smelled it as well. He stopped, a puzzled expression on his face, then turned away from me as a rustling in the corner of the room caught his attention.

I followed his gaze, and my heart gave a lurch. Once more I had difficulty drawing breath, but this had nothing to do with the searing pain in my chest-this was from a much less physical source.

At first there wasn't much to see-only a deepening of the shadows, a new blackness that hadn't been there before. Then there was a spiraling, rainbow cloud of dancing motes of light that slowly coalesced into form.

Suddenly, the smell got stronger, enough to make my eyes water and my throat clam up in rebellion. The motes swirled faster, and a figure formed in the cloud, pulsing into and out of the blackness. There was the far off, almost inaudible, noise of flutes-no tune, no recognizable harmony, like a group of kids at their first recorder lesson.

I blinked, and it was there-the tentacled beast. It took full shape as I watched, drawing the heat from the room as it came through. A spider web of frost crawled its way across the mirror behind the creature.

"What the fuck is that?"
Marshall shouted, looking to me for help, but I was only able to shake my head. Suddenly I felt pity for the man.

He turned away towards the door, but it was on him in less than a second, pouncing across the room like a cat after a mouse. It didn't seem to have any use of its arms; they hung, useless slabs of meat at its side. But then again, it didn't need them for its purpose. The tentacles all screamed in unison as it bore down on the doomed figure of Marshall.

The tentacles caught his arms first, and I could see the cloth of his jacket fray and tear as the tiny teeth went to work, saliva glistening evilly in the dark.

He screamed, in pain at first, then a loud roar of defiance, and lashed out with the knife, drawing a line through the red distended scalp of the thing. Blood welled up, but only for an instant-the wound closed itself almost as fast as it was formed. A shiver ran through the scalp, but the creature didn't falter in its attack.

Marshall opened his mouth to scream again, and one of the tentacles cut off the sound before it could escape, its saliva-coated teeth biting down hard on the meat of the doomed man's tongue, causing a sudden explosion of blood to run down the man's chest as the tentacle chewed.

More tentacles found his body; writhing and cavorting like a nest of snakes. One found his left eye socket and Marshall gave one last moan as it burrowed. His body jerked, once, then was still. The dead body was lifted off the ground and shaken like a terrier with a mouse, and there was a thud as something heavy hit the floor.

The creature lowered Marshall's body and bent over it, paying no attention to me as I started to scramble away.

All I wanted to do was to get out of that room, away from the horror, but my eyes kept drawing back to what was happening on the floor. I could see bulges moving from the mouths, down the tentacles towards the head, the large red raw head growing even as I watched. If anything, the noise was worse, the tearing and the gnawing sounding like a dog with a juicy bone, and, beneath that, a low, almost orgasmic, moaning.

I got myself to my hands and knees. Fighting back the nausea, I crawled towards the door.

I got halfway there when my hand struck something on the carpet. I thought at first it was the knife, but then I felt the grooves and the chain. I almost laughed-it was the amulet-Marshall had it in his pocket all the time. I wrapped the chain around my hand and kept going, the pain in my ribs and my arm causing me to wince with every movement.

It seemed to take forever to cover that short patch of carpet. At every moment I expected it to come for me, my back muscles tensed against the awaited assault. My mouth wanted to scream, but I managed to force it down as I concentrated on reaching the door.

I only looked back once; as my hand closed on the handle of the door and I pulled myself upright.

Marshall's body lay on the floor, strangely deflated, and at least twenty tentacles still burrowed their way deeper, seeking out the soft parts, their slimy bodies red with gore along their whole length, the saliva now a pool on the floor, a spreading puddle of spittle and gore in which the creature knelt as it continued feeding.

I opened the door, slowly and very carefully, but I couldn't prevent the old hinges creaking loudly in the silence. The creature stiffened, and two of the tentacles lifted from their bloody feeding, dripping more gore and saliva onto the body beneath them as they swayed in the air like mesmerized cobras.

Although there was no sign of eyes, I had the feeling that they were watching me as they danced in synchronized time, tiny tongues licking their gums as if trying to taste my position. When another two joined them I knew it was definitely time to leave.

I ran out of the door fast, slamming it shut behind me, and got halfway down the first flight of stairs before the door shook as something heavy tried to force its way through.

Despite my pains, I ran faster than I had ever thought possible, my feet splashing through puddle after puddle as I made for the car.

I knew that I would be next-that thing wasn't going to stop until it had what it had come for. I'd run out of options-my only hope being to return the amulet to its owner and hope that she knew a way to stop the beast from taking it back to Durban.

I didn't pass anyone on the streets in my flight to the car-not even a curtain twitched at my passing. If someone had asked me to run a mile before that night I would probably have told them that I wasn't capable, but the adrenaline pumped through me and fear kept me going. I didn't look back, not once; I was afraid of what I might see.

The car park was deserted and the pub lights were out when I reached the car. I found my keys at only the second attempt and slid into the driver's seat, placing the amulet in the glove compartment and shutting it in where the sight of the tentacles couldn't remind me of the horror in the flat.

As I turned to reverse out I caught a flash of movement in the headlights and my heart missed a beat, but on a second look the beams lit up a startled cat leaving in the opposite direction.

Now that I had stopped moving I was acutely aware of my wounds and my pains. I felt the hot trickle of blood at my ear and my arm pounded with a dull hot thud in time with my heartbeat.

I couldn't go home, not when I knew that the creature had been there before, but I needed to do some work on the wounds, and I needed some rest. Suddenly I felt very tired. I thought of the people who would help, then remembered my promise to Doug. Maybe the archaeologist could help me make some sense of the situation.

Twenty minutes later I pulled up outside his house, and for the first time in a while I looked at my watch. It was only 12:30, only just over an hour and a half since I'd walked into the East End pub, only four and a half since the summoning in the clearing. It felt like a year.

I leaned on the doorbell for long seconds as the tone played 'Amazing Grace'-a birthday present which Doug had found gloriously tacky.

I was jumping at shadows, half expecting the beast to pounce from the shadows at any moment. I held the amulet under my jacket in my right hand, as if keeping it hidden would somehow fool the creature that was searching for it.

Doug wasn't answering. I leaned on the door and banged it hard with my fist, sending a fresh jolt of pain up my arm. If he didn't come soon I would lie down and sleep, just curl myself up in his doorway and let oblivion take me down.

Suddenly the door opened, almost propelling me down to the carpeted hall floor. I managed to steady myself in time, bringing a fresh jolt of white pain to my arm.

"God, you're a mess," Doug said as he pulled the door fully open. His hair was splattered over his forehead in long strands, and I realized, for the first time, that he was going bald. He wasn't wearing his glasses and his eyes looked wide and naked, still gummy with sleep. I had got him out of bed, but I didn't have the energy to laugh at his Mickey Mouse pajamas.

"Aye," I managed to say. "But you should see the state of the other guy."

I almost fell into his arms, and he had to grab my arm to stop me from heading once more for the floor.