Norman Partridge - Wildest Dreams

Black candles that burned now, and the ghosts of red candles that had burned in the past.

I didn’t want to, but I saw them all.

I didn’t want to, but I saw everything.

And more. The dusty cat o’ nine tails mounted on the wall gleamed with fresh blood. For now the dead were here.

They came to watch us, Diabolos Whistler’s women, ghosts with memories of nights uncounted in this room and this house. A misplaced flower child with a lashed daisy on her cheek and horror in her eyes screamed warnings at us. A much younger girl with kohled eyes sat clutching herself in a corner, wearing nothing but a torn black T-shirt and cigarette burns on her white thighs. And then there was the blonde chained between the bedposts at the foot of the bed, begging to join us.

No chains restrained her. Not anymore, but she couldn’t realize that. She was dead, underground in a box somewhere if she was lucky, and she would never touch living flesh again. But she begged for a touch or a kiss, and only Circe’s living moans and pleas could eclipse those of the dead woman.

One night I might join the dead. One night I might be here, in this room, as insubstantial as a sigh that comes in the darkest hours.

But not tonight. Tonight I was alive, and all I wanted was Circe-blood pounding through her veins, heart thundering, breaths coming hard and fast. She didn’t see the shackled blonde at the foot of the bed. She didn’t see the ghosts that had been condemned to this room by a tryst with her father. And I didn’t want to see them. All I wanted was the two of us, purging those raw emotions that drew us to Circe’s bed. All I wanted was to gather her in tides of black velvet that would take us deeper and deeper to a dark, empty place where we could be alone when the blackest hour closed around us.

But the dead came, more of them now, came closer, the dead who could endure pains born long ago that were never tempered by time, they came clawing at us through night and velvet and satin. So hungry, driven by urges they couldn’t understand or forget, trying to grasp the life that pounded and surged within us, fumbling with fingers that could not touch us and kissing with lips we could not feel. For their lips were now dust, and their fingers were shorn of flesh, and they were now the most desperate of lovers, driven by the empty impotence of the grave.

I told myself that I was alive and they were dead.

We were not the same. Not at all.

I almost believed it. I closed my eyes. I would not see them. I pulled the blankets close. I would not feel them. I would only feel Circe.

And I would only hear Circe. Not the lies she spoke across a dinner table, but her stripped moans and naked gasps of pleasure.

And the savage drumbeat of her heart.

In the light of morning, the hungry ghosts were gone. So was Circe.

But I was not alone. The little girl sat on the edge of Whistler’s bed, twisting a long strand of blonde hair around one finger.

She sighed dramatically. “I thought you’d never wake up.”

“Then you were wrong.” I smiled. “Some privacy, okay?” She giggled and covered her eyes while I dressed. “All clear,” I said, giving her a wink as I opened the bedroom window. The sea breeze was cool and crisp and clean, and I liked the way it felt on my face.

“Are you surprised to see me?” she asked.

“To tell the truth, I thought I might never see you again. I’m glad I was wrong about that.”

A smile blossomed on her face. “You’re really glad I came?”

“Sure.”

“Good. I thought you might be mad…about yesterday, I mean. I got pretty scared. I don’t like the bottle house, and when that lady showed up-” Her lower lip trembled. “Well, that lady scared me. The way she talked about ghosts. I hid, but I heard what she said to you. I didn’t think she was very nice, and when she said she was taking you to the Whistler Estate…”

“It’s okay, sweetheart. Whatever it is, you can tell me about it.”

“She scared me, is all. I was worried about you. I thought maybe I could help if something was wrong.”

“You’re very brave,” I said. “But I’m fine. Everything is okay.”

“You’re sure?”

“Sure I’m sure-”

I bit off the sentence before I could finish it. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure about anything at all. Outside, a troubling sound scratched the silence. The squawk of a police radio.

In a second I was at the window. Before another second ticked off, I saw everything I needed to see. Near the porte-cochere that hooded the main entrance to Circe’s mansion stood two sheriff s deputies wearing shit-brown uniforms. One of them swore under his breath as he turned down the volume control on his handpack radio. The other drew a pistol, his gaze roving from window to window.

I was lucky. The deputy didn’t spot me. He slapped his partner with a dirty look and together they disappeared under the porte-cochere, heading for the front door.

I had to get out of there. I turned and nearly stepped through the little girl. She looked up at me, startled blue eyes in a face that was a handful of nothing.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I lied. “Everything’s okay. But you have to leave, and you have to do it now.”

“But why?”

“Just trust me,” I said. I couldn’t give her another answer. There wasn’t any time.

I wasn’t armed. I glanced around the room. The dusty cat o’ nine tails hanging on the wall wasn’t going to do me much good. My K-bar was in the guest bedroom. I had to get it. Fast.

I started down the hall. The little girl trailed me. She was talking too loud, and I had to remind myself that no one could hear her but me. Still, I needed to concentrate. I had to hear the cops. I had to know what they were doing.

I told her to be quiet. I said it too fast and too hard and too loud. She started to cry. Gooseflesh prickled my skin as her little hand passed through mine, but she couldn’t stop me now. Nothing would stop me now. I had to keep moving. I needed that knife.

Two steps and I’d be in the guest room.

Below, I heard the front door swing open.

The sound of the sea and whispers.

And then another sound stopped me cold.

A held breath burned in my lungs. I stood just inside the bedroom doorway. The sound was everywhere.

The little girl didn’t hear it. Not yet. I turned. I had to stop her before she entered the room. But there was no stopping her. She was a ghost.

She tumbled through my arms, and through me, and into the room. And what she saw there was a raw vision of hell, and what she heard was the tireless buzzing of a hundred flies.

The walls of the guest room were papered with bloody tattoos. Torn ridges of blue scale. Hellish smiles eclipsed by crawling carrion insects. The faces of children and demons I might have recognized had they not been wet with bright red gouts of blood that had dripped like clotted jam until they dried to an enamel gleam.

Circe Whistler lay on the bed in a tangle of black satin sheets, her corpse crawling with flies.

Dead. Gutted. Skinned from head to toe.

Red everywhere, except for her cold blue eyes.

My K-bar knife was planted in her heart.

I saw a flash of movement in the far corner of the room. Something was huddled in the shadows. Something shorn of skin, a tattered mess that opened its cold blue eyes and screamed.

It was Circe’s ghost. It had to be. She rose from the corner, her eyes twin beacons of pain, and I could smell hate on her like a perfume born of murder and blood and the rot of an early grave.

The ghost didn’t come for me. She didn’t even look at me. It was as if she knew that I was powerless to stop her. Instead she staggered toward the little girl.