The Indie Collaboration Presents: Tales From Darker Places Read online

Anticipating her arrival made him ill at ease. His was a rock and a hard place. Gravity seemed harder to fight, flesh felt tenuous at best housing his soul. This is where distinction had led him, his vanity, and for all his handsomeness, flesh was only a vessel, the same as a jar or vase, just as fragile, as easily shattered.

  She did not phone. He began to pace between shots of scotch, fretting over his decision. No doubt, Racknell was watching- no doubt. He peered through cracks, or through the stairway, from some shadow some place, a darker location possibly, a closet, from under the bed, Racknell saw him, he knew. Oh, yes- the bugger knew. The demon spawn understood inner trappings, private thoughts; the language one’s body speaks as his was then.

  At 3:05 PM, Evelyn pulled her sleek sports car into the drive. Kenneth heard the pop music she always insisted on listening to when they coupled before she came into view. Her heels clopped down the sidewalk. The bell rang. He fetched the handle, trying to smile, despite the unpleasantly of his nose.

  “Darling, you are ravishing.”

  “Oh lord Ken, what is with your nose?”

  “No worries, just a rather nasty bump.”

  “Well it doesn’t look good, you should have it checked.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “How is your new place? Did you rest well?”

  Her eyes seemed like a pinprick for only a second.

  “Yes and no. Could we discuss something?”

  “Why of course. Here? Or would you rather pour us a drink?”

  “Follow me.”

  Kenneth led her to the sitting room, to the bar there.

  “Pick your poison,” he said half-jokingly.

  “I’ll have rum, over ice, with ginger ale.”

  He poured out a scotch, neat, three fingers high, and made Evelyn’s drink. He had rehearsed and re-written his speech all day. It felt high time to unburden himself. Strolling back to his seductive visitor, he handed her drink over.

  She took a fair sip, moistening her plump lips after.

  “So have you met Racknell?”

  He spat out his whiskey, dropping his glass, which shattered on the floor. The shadows played tricks with his eyes then, the darkness wanting to betray him, to take him with it to some darker place, where angels die.

  “Racknell! Come on out, it’s time to bargain.”

  Wide-eyed and panic-struck, Kenneth said nothing. His windpipe had abandoned him. The world swam, and he felt again how loosely his flesh clung to his soul, and just how simply he could cast his body off, becoming a ghost.

  Thump, smack! Footpads on floorboards, staunch trepidations, searing needling dread, his ripened ambitions trumped, had he been a poser? Racknell maintained he had. He heard the demon, made more real in the light of day, whistling as he approached- a Yankee song, “Dixie.”

  Absurd, he thought, Oh how cruel life is! I am a buffoon.

  “Kenneth.”

  The voice was not Evelyn’s, not as magical as that.

  For heaven’s sake, I cannot look at him… I shall not, Lord please.

  Nothing heard him. Kenneth had no choice but to obey. He had choices to face up to, unpleasant choices, dark or darker decisions, and indecisions. Turning his head to the voice, determined he might see the demon who haunted him the prior night he expected to see Racknell. The demon who haunted him the evening past, with a straggly u-shape bowl of hair, stringy and oily, framing a haunt of a face, with sharp coal eyes, capped off by an angular jaw, and a jutting chin, lined with rows of pointy, jagged teeth, sporting spiky, hairy ears, sitting on a thin neck, adorning a frightful skull. Kenneth imagined the menacing head arriving in his field of view riding atop a torso with hard packed sinewy muscles drawn taut over squat and strangely longish, impish bones, with slender lengthy fingers coming along for the ride on angry, assaultive hands, replete with thick, sharp nails, and attached to capable arms…

  This, he did not see.

  Baldric had come, using Racknell’s voice, his hair and the demon’s the same as Kenneth had just imagined, his skin the same dead gray… long fingers…

  “Listen to her, and do not run. You die if you run.”

  Like a moth to a flame, he had taken to her, the Jezebel, the temptress, of desirous flesh, and fancy. She tricked him!

  “Racknell gets over enthused in the wee hours. I will give you your explanations, and then, seeing how mighty I am, how I own you, I believe you will become my champion. It was your command of words that first caught my attention. It is a talent. This I cannot deny. I would let you serve me, as Racknell has for the past two thousand years, if you agree to pluck the souls I deem. You will become a mark, a blight to some, and my creature. I will spare you your soul if you do. You see, Racknell has served his term, so I must allow him his leave. I need someone new to take his place in the darkness of dreams.”

  “Will you serve me?”

  “My wife- you killed her!”

  “Why of course I did. I am Jezebel, a queen. She stood between my desires and me. Now, what is your desire? Do you choose endless damnation or to serve me? My flesh is still yours, if you still long for my embrace. Give me your answer now, you have run out of time- choose.”

  Kenneth’s first thought was about her last offer, of her flesh, and he wondered if Racknell had gotten the same deal? Had he shared his devious lover with the demon? Certainly. The choice was an easy one, despite the foulness it promised.

  “I shall follow.”

  “Good boy.”

  “Racknell, please lead him to the altar.”

  When he looked over, it was no longer Baldric, but the beast with whom he kept company. Racknell reached out, taking Kenneth’s hand in his, and together they walked away.