Church of Sin (The Ether Book 1) (23 page)

Chapter 4
9

It was a
lways the same dream.

As far back as her memory stretched, Alix had dreamt of the same thing: a strange place
, usually a centre of sorts, around which nine channels or paths were connected. The places were always different, constantly shifting form and content; a dream kaleidoscope. Sometimes the places were peaceful: a park, a forest, a school. Sometimes they were haunting: an abandoned warehouse, a deserted hotel, a scrap-yard. And sometimes they were off the weirdness scales.

The living world was just part of the same chronicle of dreams, she thought. It wasn’t real.

Which meant she wasn’t dead.

She was freezing
, although her clothes were saturated in sweat. Her head throbbed with that groggy feeling one associates with having too much to drink the night before. Her legs were heavy. She was lying on the floor. She didn’t want to move yet; she wasn’t ready. When she opened her eyes, all she saw was brightness. It felt good: the coldness, the damp, the light. It all meant that the devil wasn’t real. That the walls were just walls and the floor wasn’t alive.

Then she remembered the fire. She remembered the pain in her lungs and the burns on her face and arms. Her skin must h
ave melted off. She daren’t move. Was she horribly disfigured? How had she survived?
Had
she in fact survived? Her mind was scrambled, like every thought was obscured by a thick fog.

She vaguely noticed that the orange tunic she was wearing was made of thick, itchy material. Her heart lurched. It meant that someone had undressed her. No pants or bra. What the Hell had happened to her?

Welcome back¸
said a voice inside her head. The voice wasn’t hers. She ignored it.

Slowly, things came into focus. She was lying on the floor. Why wasn’t she in a hospital bed? Ahead of her, a door. Something was tight around her waist. The walls were white. Everything was white. She touched her face, felt the coldness of her fingers rub across her neck, felt every contour, every little blemish, every soft hair. Then her arms, smooth
and pain free. The burning sensation was in her head and with every second she embraced herself it ebbed away and relief – glorious, restorative relief – flushed through her like a river bursting through a dam, crashing through the dry channel beyond and escaping out into the endless ocean. She wasn’t hurt. Battered and bruised and with a headache that would knock a rhino out, yes, but
really
hurt and burnt to a crisp? Apparently not.

It didn’t make sense. Had she dreamt the fire? No. The living city was a dream because it had nine paths. Anwick’s cell only had one door. That was real. No doubting it. The fire was real.

I appreciate that it’s been a stressful couple of hours, Alix, but you really need to get up now
. The voice again. In her head. How odd. It was soft, melodic, but she couldn’t tell whether the speaker was male or female. It was both comforting and disturbing at the same time.

“That’s
a massive understatement,” she mumbled, rubbing her head and starting to pick herself up from the floor. The blood rushed to her head so she propped herself up against the back wall of the cell. 

The back wall of the cell.

Where the hell was she?

Half way is good. I can deal with half way, provided that it precedes the whole nine yards and you get your ass up Alix Franchot because time is not something that we are blessed with.

“Okay, okay,” she said, blinking in the light. “Just give me a minute.”

Jesus, she was talking to herself. And hearing voices in her head. It made her laugh. Laugh because she was relieved to be alive and because she was apparently now mad. She remembered an anecdote from her psychology degree. In the seventies, a group of students from the US carried out a study into the way that madness was diagnosed. They split up and attended different psychiatric institutions and attempted to get themselves admitted. They pretended to be suffering from a delusional psychosis with no symptoms other than they claimed to hear voices in their heads. The point was to show how easy it was to get sectioned. They succeeded. It took some of them over a year to be discharged and certified sane despite coming clean after the first week.

Claiming to hear voices gets you into a whole heap of trouble. That’s why most people keep it to themselves.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m up.” And she was, although her legs felt like jelly. Was this Anwick’s cell? She crossed the room to
the door but her progress was suddenly halted and she felt a sharp tug around her waist. The leather strap that had bound Anwick to the wall. She looked back. The cord was fed into a small hole in the wall. She pulled it. Nothing.

“Fuck,” she said.

I’m pleased you’ve seen our predicament. Don’t waste your energy trying to pull the cord out of the wall.
The voice inside Alix’s head didn’t sound as comforting now that her senses had returned. It was crystal clear; not the far away whispers that people who heard voices often described. It was like her own voice sounded in her head: pure, uncontaminated. She shouted out, “Hey! Hello! Hello!” She stopped and listened. There it was. “Hey! Mary had a little lamb!” And again.

Her feet were as white as snow,
the voice replied. She stopped and fell to the floor again, slumped up against the wall, defeated.

I guess you were listening for the echo,
the voice said.

“Yes,” she replied. When she had shouted, the acoustics of Anwick’s cell had fired the noise around a few times before it evaporated. But the voice inside her head only resonated in her ears.

Would you like me to shout, Alix?
The voice offered.
That way you can tell for sure that I’m in your head
.

“No, no. It’s fine. Really. Things couldn’t really get any weirder anyway so, what the Hell, bring on the talking voices in my head.”

I appreciate this is difficult for you.
The voice sounded genuine enough.

“No, to be fair, I don’t think you have any fucking idea how difficult this is for me.” Aix hunched herself up in the corner, arms folded over crossed legs. It reminded her of her secondary school rebel days when she spent the whole of one Saturday in detention for putting salt in Mr Johnstone’s coffee curled up in the corner of her classroom singing the theme from the Breakfast Club. She had spent the whole of next Saturday in detention doing what she was supposed to
do. Those were the only two detentions she had had. The rebel days were... short.

I can help,
the voice said.
If you want to understand, I can help.

Alix laughed weakly. “Can you? I doubt that.”

I can explain why you didn’t die in the fire.

Alix thought about that. The fire. Trauma. She had been through a traumatic event. The nightmare she had had when she was out cold. Sleep paralysis perhaps. Her unconscious mind had created a latent personality as a coping method, to help her overcome her ordeal. It would probably also construct a seemingly logical explanation for the fire which would calm her, bring down her anxiety level and allow her to survive. If it
’s one thing the human mind did well it was survival. There: a psychological explanation for the voice. She felt better already.

“Okay, shoot.”

My name is Azrael
.

“Of course it is.” Of course it is. The alternative personality that Anwick had constructed. Eugene Anwick: the man who was so mad, he couldn’t remember whether he’d killed his wife and an innocent nine year old girl. This day was getting better by the minute.

Chapter
50

The disturbing thing was: Alix didn’t
feel
mad. That was disturbing because, of course, mad people don’t
feel
mad. Mad people
feel
normal. Generally, Alix felt normal, which is why the conversation she was apparently having with herself was even more disconcerting.

She sat in the corner of the cell.
The smell of smoke hung in the air. That meant it was Anwick’s cell, but his charred remains weren’t there. She shuddered at the thought of his burning body, how silently he seemed to accept his fate. How unnaturally he had held out his arms, surrendered to the flames. He hadn’t jumped around, or sprawled on the floor like she imagined someone seriously on fire would. He had just stood there and died.

And then at the back of her mind, the sound of his viscera... sizzling.

She tried to push aside the voice in her head by concentrating on the questions she had to answer: how and why did Anwick suddenly catch fire? Where was he now? How had she escaped choking to death? Why wasn’t her face burnt? Who had tied her to the wall of Anwick’s cell and why? Where was Omotoso?

She blinked a few times and things became a little clearer. The walls were
scorched, blackened by the heat and the smoke. She felt short of breath. Her head throbbed. There was the low hum of the blood rushing past her ears.

Alix?

The
voice again; the soft, earnest voice.

Have you had your moment? I know there’s a lot to take in but we really need to be working our way out of here.

“Oh really?” she laughed, “and how do you propose
we
achieve that?”

Well -
was that a sigh? Did the voice just sigh? –
perhaps if you start by getting up. It really is in your best interest to listen to me now but, if you do, I promise I will explain everything.

The unanswerable questions spun around in her
head - Ash, Anwick, Innsmouth, Zara, the fire – until she could no longer distinguish between them; in the same way that a storm is a mixture of wind, rain, thunder and lightning, the demarcation between the individual elements no longer seems important. It’s just a storm.

She hadn’t expected the tears to come but they rolled down her face like
the rain on autumn leaves. She tasted the salt as they passed her lips, following the contours of her cheeks and culminating at the bottom of her chin before finally falling off onto her knees, glinting in the artificial light as they fell. She broke down, put her head between her legs, bent her neck as far over as she could and clenched her teeth, willing back the tears, summoning up something from somewhere to help her.

For what it’s worth, I’m sorry Alix. Things aren’t ever going to be the same for either of us now.
How curious that at her most desperate, she should take comfort from the sound of the voice in her head but the words were spoken so sensitively, like an old friend putting an arm round her shoulder. Like her mother telling her everything would be okay.

The whir of an electronic bolt made her look up suddenly and for a moment she forgot her sorrow. The mechanics kicked in and shortly the door swung open. Alix sat bolt upright, then quickly scrambled to her feet. Perhaps it was Omotoso. Perhaps this nightmare would end. She walked forward but was jolted back by the cord attached to the wall.

“Hello?” she said weakly. There was no reply. Just the sound of someone clumsily dashing something against the door; a metallic sound, clanking. Then a trolley appeared in the doorway, like a service trolley. Were they bringing her food? The trolley was wedged in the doorway, holding it open and she could hear murmurings on the other side. Singing. Was someone singing? She strained to hear, held her breath, wished the sound of the blood rushing past her ears wasn’t so bloody loud.

There was someone definitely on the other side of the door singing
She’ll be Coming Round the Mountain When She Comes
.

In a Russian
accent.

Alix swallowed hard, fumbled for the cord around her waist, felt
the ridges digging into her. How was it secured to her? She needed to release it, quickly. Panic started to build. She couldn’t get her shaking fingers to work properly. She cursed under her breath as she felt how tightly the cord was attached; there just didn’t seem to be any clear way that it was fastened. It was just part of the orange tunic, part of
her
.

More banging as the trolley bashed against the sides of walls. There seemed to be some problem fitting it through the doorway. She began to pull the cord out from the wall furiously but it was no use.

“Fuck!”

Alix, breath through your nose. You’re taking on too much oxygen,
said the voice in her head as clear as day.

“Piss off!” she shouted back.

The voice was calm. At least the mad part of her was calm. That was good.

Ned had to stoop slightly to fit under the doorway. His massive body filled it almost entirely and
, when he finally managed to bash the trolley through, the cell seemed just that little bit smaller. He wore scrubs and a surgical mask but it was unmistakably the same man that she had met on her first visit to Innsmouth, the same man seen at the hospital on the CCTV outside the lift to where Katelyn’s body was taken, the same extraordinary height. The same dark eyes.

“She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes-” he sang quietly as he busied himself closing the door to the cell and pushing the trolley up to the far wall before turning to her.

“N- Ned,” she stammered. “It’s me. Doctor Franchot. I was here the other day. Do- Do you remember me?”

He ignored her, turned back to the trolley so that his back was to her, humming the same tune over and over again.

“Ned?” she said hopelessly.

I don’t think he’s here to offer room service,
said the voice in her head.

“Shut up!” she screamed, clasping her hands over her ears and falling to the floor. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

There was the horrible sound of metal scraping against metal, the sound of instruments on a tray. He seemed to pick one up and study it for a while before replacing it.

I always find She’ll be Coming Round the Moun
tain When She Comes a bit of a sad tune,
said the voice in her head.
Did you know it’s a derivation of the Negro spiritualist tune called When the Chariot Comes, which is a reference to the end of the world?

“No,” she said weakly. “I didn’t know that.”

I know that you people have massive annoyance about invading mental parasites who say, “I told you so” – I learnt that from Anwick – but I have been saying you really need to get out of here for some time now.

After a short while examining each instrument from the tray, Ne
d turned to face her. Beneath the mask, she saw his cheek muscles manipulate into a broad, sickening grin. She leaned up against the wall for support, pulled some of the cord out a little to give her some room to move, adrenaline flooded through her as her body prepared for fight or flight but in truth she knew that only the former was a genuine option.

“What do you want?” she croaked.

“I apologise for inconvenience, good doctor, but since you may be staying with us for some time it may be necessary to prepare you.”

“Prepare me?”

“Yes. You must be prepared.”

He held her gaze for a short while before picking up something silver from the tray. A tool of sorts,
pliers maybe.

Then it hit her. Like a tidal wave.

Anwick had said they had removed his teeth and nails.

“No,” she wheezed, scrambled against the wall, frantically pulling the cord. “No!”

He advanced on her quickly, trapping her in the corner with ease and pulling her by the hair to the middle of the room, the horrible noise of the cord rubbing against the pulley as she was pushed to the floor. She screamed, lashed out with her hand but he caught it neatly and cast it aside with unnatural strength.

You’re going to need my help if you want to keep your teeth, Alix,
said the voice.

She struggled but it was useless. Ned had leverage over her and he used it to twist her arm upwards and round, restricting
her movement. Crushing pain ripped down her arm. It felt like another inch and her arm would snap off and she quickly realised she couldn’t even wriggle without it being agony. He stood over her and with his free hand squeezed hers hard, so hard that her fingers quickly engorged and reddened.

“Get the fuck off me!”

“Please, Doctor Franchot, this will be over quickly if you keep still.” He said ‘please’, but there was no hint in the tone of voice that he had any desire for this to really be over quickly.

Any time you want me to step in, you let me know, Alix.
The voice seemed so calm in all the commotion.

He took his other hand off her arm but she was still locked in place. She felt her body sway to the right as he leaned to pick up the
tongs from the tray. In her panic she pulled the other way. Pain swept up her arm. She swallowed back the vomit, let out a cry, tears of rage rolled down her face as she seethed and spat at her aggressor but she knew he had her.

Surely you’re not going to let him do this, Alix,
said the voice.
Just say the word. Believe. Believe in me and this will stop.

Alix hated her nails. As much as she tried when she was younger to groom them, manicure them, grow them, they never seemed strong enough to last very long.
They snapped so easily. Nail polish was a fad. Nail polish remover was more dangerous than it was helpful. How many times had she looked at her hands and thought how much easier life would be without them? Recently, she had forgotten about doing anything with them at all and they looked haphazardly misshapen and unloved.

But right now, they were the most precious thing to her in the whole world.

She felt his hot breath caressing her neck, felt his eyes down her top as it fell open slightly, felt his sweat run down her face, felt his body stiffen suddenly, his heart rate increase.

“This will be quick,” he told her.

“What did you do to me?” she seethed. Her clothes were gone. Her underwear gone. Fuck, what did he do to her?

She heard the horrible noise of his grunt in her ear, the noise of
gratification, of dominance. Knew how he was enjoying the moment, taking her in, reeling in her helplessness.

There was nothing left.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Help me.”

The change was like nothing Alix had ever experienced before. It started in her stomach, an energy
waking within her, like a light suddenly switching on. It spread out across her midriff, embroidering itself into her body, weaving itself into her limbs, down her legs, up her arms; a translucent second skin growing over the first. She felt light and agile, she felt empowered. She felt as though what was around was now part of her, that she was no longer just a person in a room: she
was
the room, and the building beyond it and the sky above it. She was whatever she needed to be to survive. The world no longer constrained her and what was previously impossible was now ordinary. She felt as though, if she needed to, she could re-write the laws of physics.

But there were other feelings. Deeper, more intimate feelings. A feeling that her body was no longer exclusively her own, that her mind had merged with something else. Like she was not completely in control.

Something caught her eye. The glint of metal in light and she remembered the giant man towering over her, crushing her hand and placing a pair of tongues around her finger nail. She even felt the nail start to bend as the tongues were squeezed together and a spark of pain run down her arm into her shoulder as the edge of the nail snapped away from her finger. It tingled, like an electric shock.  One short, sharp tug and the nail would come away as easily as a Velcro strip. But there was an odd stillness in the air despite her predicament. The loudest sound was that of the blood rushing past her ears and even the noise of the giant man lifting up from the floor, high above her head, and crashing against the concrete wall, was somehow muffled and distant.

She stared at him, blinking in the light of the room. He lay awkwardly screwed up in a ball on the opposite side of the room, a little blood trickling from his mouth. He was conscious, b
arely, heart beating, but dazed and winded. What the Hell happened?

Then the cord binding her to the wall. She examined it. How fragile it was, how breakable. Like old twine. She tugged at the leather round her
waist and it tore easily. She wondered why she had ever been worried about it in the first place. It fell to the floor by her feet and she kicked it against the wall out of the way and then she realised what it was that she had first missed, that feeling she couldn’t quite place. She felt awake. Unequivocally awake. Had everything that had happened to her before this time been a dream or an illusion? Perhaps this was what it is like to wake up after a long coma, to see the world through real eyes for the first time, to taste real tastes and to feel real sensations. It felt like previously the world that she lived in had been shrouded in an opaque veil, so that everything was virtually determinable but the world’s true image was always just slightly obscured and out of view. Now that veil had been lifted and she saw things as they truly were for the first time. She saw every imperfection on the walls around her, every groove, every hairline crack. She saw the door leading out the centre of Innsmouth, saw its locks and various internal mechanisms. But it was ajar. Easy to open. The world was so simple now that she could see it properly. And from deep inside her head she heard the familiar voice again of the entity that called itself Azrael, sitting on her mind, symbiotically looking at what she saw through the same eyes.