Dark Duets Part 13

He jerks backward-so Ellie is slightly in front of him-and wraps the cord around her throat. Pulls it tight. She makes a gagging noise and her hands come up, pulling at the ligature, but he just hauls it tighter.

"Drop the gun!"

Jeanette's mouth sets in a firm line, her eyes like stab wounds in her pale face. "You're in no position-"

"Drop the f.u.c.king gun or I'll choke the life out of her!"

"Don't you hurt our-"

"I mean it!" He tugs on the cord, jerking her head back against his chest.

Ellie makes a noise that could almost be his name, one hand slapping at his fists where they're wrapped around the cord.

And then Angelina's voice shrieks out across the courtyard. "Dad? What the h.e.l.l are you . . . ?"

He looks up and there she is, standing next to Grace, one hand up to her mouth-just like when she found her mother and b.l.o.o.d.y Hugh.

"Angel, I need you to-"

"Oh G.o.d, what are you doing?"

s.h.i.t . . . He's half naked, strangling a little girl who's dressed like a prost.i.tute. "It's not what it looks like; they . . ."

Jeanette shifts her grip on the gun.

Wesley pulls tighter on the cord. "Drop the b.l.o.o.d.y gun or she's dead!"

Spittle flecks the back of Ellie's head. She's not struggling as much as she was.

A hiss escapes from Jeanette's thin lips, then she lowers the shotgun to the ground.

"Dad, you're hurting her!"

"Pick up the gun, Angel."

Angelina does what she's told, for once, holding it like a live snake. "Where are your clothes?"

"They tried to make me sleep with her, make her pregnant, it's-"

"Leave her alone! Why do you have to take everything away from me?"

"The whole family are insane: ask the women in the cages. Ask the little boy. Go on, ask them!"

Ellie's hands stop scrabbling at the cord and fall into her lap.

Angelina turns to stare at the empty cages. There's no sign of Moppet, Ginger, Boo, or Spooks.

"They must've gone inside, it's-"

"You're sick!" She spins around, mouth hanging open, eyes wide beneath furrowed brows. "You're a sick, filthy, murdering rapist. Hugh was right about you, wasn't he?"

"Open the cages and let them out-they'll tell you I'm right. The keys are in George's-"

She brings the shotgun up to point right at him. "Get away from my friend!"

"You don't understand, it's not-"

"Get away from her!"

"Okay, okay . . ." He lets go of the dressing gown cord, and Ellie falls facedown into the snow. She isn't moving.

Oh G.o.d, not again . . .

"Angel, it'll be okay. Grace can fix this, she's a nurse. We just need to get Ellie some-"

"All that s.h.i.t about going to the house and Hugh strangling Mum." The gun shakes in her hands. "I almost believed you. But it was you, wasn't it? You killed her. You killed them both!"

Wesley raises his hands. "No, Angel, it was an accident, I didn't-"

"I'm glad this happened. Glad I can finally see you as you really are." Tears glisten on her cheeks. Her face is flushed, her whole body trembling. "Well, do you know what, Dad?"

She pulls the trigger.

WESLEY BLINKS. COLD. Numb. Tired.

His arms and legs are made of concrete, his head of broken gla.s.s. And when he breathes it sounds wet and crackly, bubbles frothing deep in his lungs. He's lying on his back, staring up at a sea of white.

A melody is blowing on the wind: the adagio from Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, played with a raw beauty that makes his teeth ache.

Wet.

He's lying in an inch of water. He tries to sit up. Grunts. Gasps. Reaches for the plank of wood above his head, hauls himself up to his knees, and the music stops.

Fog rises from the surface of the loch, swirling in thick eddies that curl as the rowboat drifts farther out onto the dark water. Flakes of snow sink through the frigid air, clinging to the wooden hull where they hit.

Something warm drips onto his hand. He looks down and there's a splatch of dark red on porcelain skin. Farther down and there's a gurgling hole in his chest.

The music starts again, picking up where it left off.

For a moment, the fog thins, and there's the edge of the loch-the boathouse with its small jetty. Four figures stand close together: one, small and thin, leaning heavily on the unmistakable rounded silhouette of Jeanette. That must be Ellie. She survived. He didn't kill her.

A smile breaks across his face. That's something.

A fifth figure stands a little way off from the others, swaying in time to the music, playing for her father.

It's beautiful.

The water's getting deeper.

If he sits up, he'll have a better view. He'll hear the music better. Can tell Angelina that he loves her, no matter what. That it isn't her fault.

He pulls at the plank, but he's stuck. There's a chain around his waist, attached to something in the bottom of the boat. He feels his way along the ice-cold links, until he gets to the curling stone padlocked to the end.

Ah . . .

He slumps back against the hull, rests his head against the damp wood, and lets the music wash over him as the boat slowly sinks.

T. RHYMER.

Gregory Frost and Jonathan Maberry.

1.

When the tall, sleek man caught Stacey's eye, she ignored him. He was sitting alone at a table, a gla.s.s of whiskey between his palms, watching her.

Stacey turned away. She even made it clear that she was ignoring him. It was too early in the evening to throw anyone too much rope. Let him tread water for a while. If she swam past all the guppies and he turned out not to be a shark, then maybe she'd offer that rope.

Coming to this place wasn't even her idea. The whole Edinburgh club scene was a bore; but tonight it was a necessary evil. The trip to the nightclub was an impromptu minicelebration because her roommate, Carrie, had gotten the promotion she'd been aching for. Carrie celebrated everything of value in her life with tequila, loud music, and a degree of flirtation that would shame Hugh Grant.

And, thank G.o.d, it was Friday.

As well as the night before Halloween.

More reasons for Carrie to throw caution, common sense, and-all too frequently-her clothing, to the wind.

Stacey wasn't entirely sure if she was here as a friend sharing a moment, a wingman, a designated driver, or a chaperone. Since moving in with Carrie, Stacey had been all those things. More than once.

She sipped her drink and killed some slow minutes by looking around. Jack-o'-lanterns lit every table; warm drinks came in mugs filled from a bowl that bubbled and smoked like a tub of dry ice on the end of the bar. A lot of people pranced about in costumes, and some half out of them. At the best of times she would have avoided the lights, crammed crowds, and thumping beats of clubbing. The speakers were loud enough to create little Jura.s.sic Parkstyle vibration rings in her drink. She had a favorite song by the Be Good Tanyas that observed how only crazy people went to a place that was too dark to see and too loud to hear in order to meet anyone. Whatever else she was doing, she was not looking to meet anyone.

No way, Jose.

Especially after the last time, with the law clerk. She should have fled early from that one. He was twenty-six and had posters thumbtacked to his bedroom walls. Not framed art-posters. Granted, they were cla.s.sic movies-Casablanca, Metropolis-but it was a warning sign she'd chosen to ignore. The law clerk was cute, with a kind of Bradley Cooper vibe that somehow disabled her common sense. The first time he cried during s.e.x Stacey thought it was special, a sharing of something genuinely deep and meaningful. By the fifth or maybe sixth time the word Flee was painted on the inside of her head. Even then, she stayed too long, and now she felt wrecked, jaded, and weary of the whole dating thing.

So this field trip was strictly for Carrie. A few drinks and then she'd go home. Otherwise she'd have worn something more stylish than a drab sweater and black jeans over her Nina slingbacks.

And yet . . .

Her attention kept returning to the man. Black jacket over black crew-neck shirt. Black hair, too, with a windswept style that looked expensive. Perfect deepwater tan. And eyes the color of hot gold.

Stacey lifted her gla.s.s to take a sip and set it down with no conscious awareness of whether she'd had any. She tried not to look at those eyes.

Tried.

He gave her the smallest of smiles. Not a come-on. Not even encouragement. Just a smile. Showing that he knew she was looking at him, just as he was looking at her. It was the first thing he'd done since sitting down. All this time he'd simply sat there, watching the crowd swirl around him, some in work clothes, some in costumes. He was in the middle of it and entirely apart from it.

Stacey thought, No thanks, buddy. Whatever you're selling, I can't afford it.

She thought that, but then she realized that she wasn't sitting at her table anymore. In some dreamy and distant way she felt herself moving. Walking across the floor, weaving without thought between cl.u.s.ters of vampires and zombies and a few grinning Guy Fawkeses.

Then she was at his table. Standing so close that the edge of it pressed into the tops of her thighs. And he didn't seem the least surprised when she just came to a rest right before him.

Her mind told her to leave.

To run.

Right now.

But she stood there, leaning into his table, aware on some level that if it weren't there she'd have fallen on him.

Wake up, you stupid b.i.t.c.h!

Her mind kept screaming at her, but it was like the sound track of a film she was watching: happening to someone else.

The man lifted his eyes. They really did look like hot gold. As if they were lit from within. Weird contacts? No, came the answer in her mind. It isn't the contacts that are weird.

Run. For Christ's sake . . . run.

From across the room the man's eyes were just eyes. From across the room his smile was friendly.

Oh, G.o.d. . .

But here . . . within reach, within touching distance, the eyes were alien, and his smile . . .

Oh, Jesus, what's wrong with me?

But she knew-on every level-that what was wrong here was not her.

That smile seemed to somehow touch her. Without lifting a finger or saying a word, this man seemed to touch her. Everywhere. Inside her clothes. Inside her body.

Inside . . .

She could see in the gold of his eyes as he peeled each and every one of her secrets and slipped them like raw fruit between those smiling lips.

Took them.

Consumed them.

Please.

She thought she said it aloud. Maybe she did, but the music crushed it flat.

Please, she begged.