Adam Nevill - Banquet for the Damned

Unwinding her arms from his back, Beth steps away from Dante, leaving him tottering on the spot and wiping at his lips. 'Oh precious,' she whispers, her expression now that of the little-lost-girl the first time they met. But her eyes remain wide, disabling his ability to look away. He tries to speak but can't remember how. His face is numb, his mouth traumatised. 'I told you to wait,' she says. 'Why couldn't you wait? You didn't trust me. We were wrong about you.'

He feels a sharp pain in his stomach, which becomes a desperate need to placate her, to make her want him still, but she turns on her Cuban heels and marches away across the gravel, out of the headlight beams and through the grass to disappear amongst the dunes. 'Beth. Wait. Beth! Wait! It's not like that!' he shouts. But she is gone. Dante leans against the Land Rover. 'Beth,' he calls, weakly, 'I'm not well. Don't make me chase you.' Sulphur smoulders in his lungs.

His desire to stray no more than a few feet from the Land Rover grinds with his need to see her again. Her quick and savage introduction arouses a lunatic desire in him. It blinds him, douses his fear. He feels reckless, and trembles on legs that feel especially thin and useless as he calls her name. She never answers, so he crosses the gravel partway, slowing down when the sensation of loose stones beneath his boots gives way to the cushion of dune grass.

And soon he is shouting with annoyance. His resolution to stay near the War Wagon is broken, forgotten. He stumbles over pieces of driftwood, and twists an ankle on the uneven ground where the dunes begin to rise. Ascending the first hump of sand, he falls into the harsh grasses growing through the damp sand. They stab at his face and poke an eye. And he is reduced to sitting with a hand pressed against a wet and stinging eyelid, shut tight. But at least the pain revives him, helping him to think straight for the first time since she kissed him.

Back on his feet, he climbs to the top of the nearest dune. Bending over, he swats the sand from his knees. When he straightens, Beth is standing in front of him. 'Jesus!' he cries out, and staggers back. And he is about to shout at her, when she removes her long coat. She looks down her body, her face concealed by her hair. 'When you left the court, we were punished.'

'What?' Dante asks.

'You were told to be patient and not to ask questions.'

'Can you blame me?' he asks, baffled.

Beth makes a little muffled sobbing sound in her hair.

'What's going on, Beth? Tell me.'

'There is another, Dante. He wants to meet you.'

'Who?'

Beth raises her chin and shakes the hair from her face. A creek of tears shines on her cheekbones. She sniffs and then turns around to show him her slender back. She slips a tiny strap of her slip off one shoulder. The silky garment slides down her pale back. There is a shadow under her scapula. Dante moves closer and the shadow becomes a large bruise. He winces. 'Shit.' As his eyes accustom themselves to what thin light the moon transmits, he catches a glimpse of something that resembles a giant black orchid, with a smattering of red petals around it. The evil flower covers half of her back. 'Who did this?' he says, his voice tight. From his bad eye, tears stream hot and sting his face.

'One whom I love,' she replies, a tremble in her voice.

'Eliot?'

When she answers, her tone changes again. It is soft and hushed, as if she is speaking of someone of great importance. 'Pain can be a reward.'

Dante swallows but stays quiet. He has no idea how to react; what she says seems to diminish him. There is nothing in his experience to compare with the seductive horror of her suggestion.

'Are you afraid, Dante? Of offering yourself to something greater than you could ever be alone?'

He wants to say 'you need help', but is afraid of setting her off and making her violent again. She is ill; this is clear to him now. Schizophrenic even. These mood swings explain it all. There are at least two distinct personalities active in her: she switches from this young and vulnerable girl to something sadistic and out of control. And Eliot is responsible. He keeps her and controls her and beats her. He lures impressionable students into his twisted games, and then uses them as playthings. It is all starting to make sense. Maybe he uses narcotics and some kind of suggestion to beguile and then control his victims. It explains the illness. He must have been drugged. No wonder the Hebdomidar tried to warn him, and it is no surprise that Janice reacted so strongly to his association with Eliot. The Hebdomidar mentioned all of this at the Orientation, and he failed to connect the clues because he was so smitten with Beth and in awe of Eliot. But now, the penny has finally dropped and he'll go straight to the police, and he'll take Beth along as proof.

'We thought you were the one for him. But you couldn't understand,' she says, adrift in her own world.

'Shut up, Beth. Cut the crap,' Dante answers, his voice quick. 'I know more than you think. I know what's been going on, and I want you to come somewhere with me. Tonight. I want you to trust me on this.'

Beth glares at him. Her teeth are revealed in another mad grin. 'Do you think Eliot is my master?' She laughs, crazily, at the sky. Dante looks over his shoulder at the silhouette of his Land Rover. 'Beth, you're coming with me. I've had enough of this.'

'Fool,' she mutters behind him, in a deeper tone of voice. He is shocked to hear her speak like this; it contradicts her youth, spoils her beauty, is incongruous, as if her face and body are a façade to conceal something far uglier. 'There are greater ones to serve than broken men, who only now begin to realise what has begun. And you are privileged. Our lord is hungry. He will take you in his arms tonight, and you will truly know him.' She comes for him without a sound, closing the distance between them with one step. Her arms are colder and thinner than ever as she embraces him. Her hands disappear beneath his shirt. Fingernails tear into his back. Dante cries out in pain. He tries to pull himself free, but she smashes her face against his neck. Immediately, her teeth become busy on the soft flesh. With her fingers locked behind his back, close to his spine, she prevents him from pulling his arms free, and when she begins to squeeze him with her bony arms, the breath is forced from him, and then his ribs began to shift and groan. Overwhelmed by her unnatural strength, and a fear of suffocation, he stamps about in the sand, trying to shake her loose. But his desperate staggers only succeed in toppling them to the ground.

As they roll in the sand and wet verdure, he kicks his legs about, and tries to call out, but his squashed and winded torso can produce no sound beside a rasping noise that vibrates in his throat. Blind with panic, he is sure he will pass out.

When her grip suddenly loosens around his chest and he is able to draw some air into his lungs, she begins to lap at the deep abrasions on the skin of his neck. Her tongue is dry as a cat's and she makes a snuffling sound as she suckles his throat. The sound is worse than the pain that preceded it.

And then she breaks away from his throat, moves off his body, and sits crouched down beside him. She stares into the dark nearby.

Unable to move from shock, Dante looks in horror at the lipstick and blood smeared about her mouth and chin, making her look slovenly, like the insane hybrid of a harlot and a clown. 'He comes,' she mutters. Then tilts her head back, with her eyes closed and her dark mouth open. A desperate scream issues from her mouth. It pierces his inner ear and he rolls his head from side to side to ease the pain.

Beth falls silent, and she looks like a young and pretty girl with chocolate around her mouth. 'He's here for you,' she whispers, and then lowers her lips to his forehead. He flinches. She kisses him, tenderly.