Norman Partridge - Wildest Dreams

Life had set a trap or two for me. As a result, I had a view that was different than most.

Remember, I see things differently.

I see ghosts.

I, of all people, knew exactly what I was doing with my knife. Shorn of a pulse, most of my victims didn’t seem that much different. They didn’t sprout wings, and they didn’t grow horns. They simply endured.

But I’ll tell you this-without the money, I wouldn’t have killed anyone. I wouldn’t have had a reason.

Circe Whistler had hired me to cut off the head of an old man who happened to be her father. But unlike so many others, she didn’t dismiss me when the job was done. She invited me into her home. Sat down to dinner with me. Poured me a glass of wine.

She stared into my eyes, and she didn’t blink first. One thing I was sure about-trembling smiles weren’t her style. Not this corporate goth girl. I didn’t buy it for a second.

I said, “You don’t believe any of it, do you?”

“What?”

“The things your old man preached. All that stuff about a new satanic age coming on the heels of his death. And the ruin of Whistler’s corpse shall be Satan’s cradle, and Satan will be reborn in flesh and blood to walk the earth once more-”

“You’ve been doing your homework, Mr. Saunders.”

“Hanging around airports, you have plenty of time to read. Not just Newsweek. You run into all sorts of interesting folks who are eager to share all sorts of interesting pamphlets.”

“More true believers.” Circe sighed. “Look, this is a job to me. Some people put on suits and ties and run corporations. They tell their stockholders what the morons want to hear. I put on black leather and run a religion.”

“Crushed velvet,” I corrected. “Remember your target audience.”

“Have your little joke.”

“Like they say: the devil is in the details.”

“No-the devil is in the bottom line.” She leaned forward, her voice strong and sure. “My father lost sight of that. He pissed away a fortune on archaeological expeditions and medieval manuscripts, looking to verify his prophecies. And my sister was no better. San Francisco was Lethe’s vampire. Forget razor blades and broken glass on the dance floor-from the Haight to the Mission, every human leech in that town had her marked for blood. Our operation was poised on the brink of a sinkhole called debt, and my father and my sister were determined to shove us over the edge.”

“Well, I guess you’re down to one problem, then.”

“No. The way I see it, I’ve turned a negative into a positive. Now my father will be my ace in the hole.” She laughed, shaking her head. “My father created his own fucking mythos. Now he’ll be part of it. Imagine the questions-is he really dead, is he really alive, has he been reborn as Satan? I can play to that. Don’t think I won’t. People love a good mystery. Like Jim Morrison-”

“No mystery there. Morrison died choking on his own vomit in a bathtub in Paris. And your old man died with seven inches of steel jammed through his neck. It’s all pretty simple, as far as I’m concerned. Dead is dead.”

Fire shone in Circe’s icy blue eyes. Blood pumped under that cool marble skin, lighting up her tattoos. Her breaths came short and fast. I knew she was fighting it, because she wanted to maintain control.

But all the signs were there.

She was getting angry…and so was I.

She said, “You’re the kind of man who likes to be right, aren’t you?”

“Sure.”

“I like to be right, too. And I’m right about my father. He may be dead, but he’s coming back. Not by supernatural means, and not as a result of the prayers that spilled over his lips or the lips of his followers. None of that will bring him back.”

“Then what will?”

“Me,” Circe said. “I’ll bring him back. I can do that. Not with magic, but with words and lies that don’t mean a thing.” She sipped her wine, pausing for effect. “You see, we’re not that different, Mr. Saunders. We can’t be fooled with pretty words. We require proof. To us, dead is dead, until someone shows us otherwise. We both know that the only real power my father had was the power people gave him through their misguided faith.”

“And now those same people will give that power to you.”

“Yes. Those people, and many more just like them.”

“And you’ll give them what they want.”

“Yes.”

“The same way your father did.” I shook my head. “Maybe the old man wasn’t quite as stupid as you think.”

It jerked her around good, but she wasn’t about to crumble. Not as a result of a few harsh words, no matter how well placed they were. She said, “You really aren’t afraid of anything, are you, Mr. Saunders?”

“Like I said-nothing I can see.” I grabbed the wine bottle, figuring I’d better quit while I was ahead. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bed.”

She smiled, and this time her lips didn’t tremble at all. “You slept this afternoon. You’re not tired now. Not at all.”

“I’m not?”

“No, you’re not.” She paused. “But you are going to bed.”

Circe was right. I wasn’t tired. Not at all.

We fucked in her bedroom. The room itself was a bit of a surprise. Leather was in short supply, and the dusty cat o’ nine tails on the wall seemed more of a joke than anything else. If there were chains, I didn’t see them.

And if I didn’t see them, I figured they weren’t there at all. Circe Whistler wasn’t the kind of woman who closeted her desires. Open your eyes, open your senses, and you couldn’t avoid them. Her desires were everywhere: wrapped in an excess of satin and crushed velvet bedding-violet and lavender and black-and stoppered in bottles along with heady oils of sandalwood and neroli and a dozen scents I didn’t recognize.

Blankets and sheets were drawn back. Bottles were unstoppered. Oils beaded on our bodies, beaded with our sweat and the liquor of sex, a wild mix that brought our flesh alive in startling and unexpected ways.

No matter what we did, I couldn’t escape the room. Like the rest of the house, Circe’s father had left his mark here, too. Spiked wrought-iron fixtures dominated, from the lamps to the bedposts. Even Circe’s bed had once belonged to Diabolos Whistler himself.

The devil’s own bed. At least that was what Whistler believed. I couldn’t imagine the things the dead man had done in it, and the things that had gone through his head while he’d done them. Filling women with his seed while he waited for a birth that could only come from his own death.

I wondered what kinds of questions he asked himself in the darkest hours, in the quiet that came after those women were fast asleep.

Belief or denial…faith or delusion…none of it mattered anymore.

I’d answered Diabolos Whistler’s questions with my knife.

The old man was dead. He hadn’t come back. Not in spirit, and not in flesh.

So much for metaphysics. I concentrated on Circe. She guided me, swallowed me, sucked me in with two sets of lips, two mouths wet and pink and as seductive as heroin. Whistler’s daughter was young and strong. Through the long night we rode riptides of passion and anger and lust and need, driving to the rhythm of two dark hearts.

I worked her as hard as she worked me. I drank her, and I kissed her silken white neck, and I rolled her on her knees and made reins of her long dark hair. I nipped at the demon faces leering on her belly and licked the tentacled monster on her back with a hungry tongue, daring the soulless demigod to come alive.

Candles burned against the darkness. Black wax spilled over wrought iron candlesticks and pooled and grew hard, and red wax droplets covered the hard ebony pools.