Vivisepulture (6 page)

This one, tall and thin, seemed to revel in the dance, the grin on his face wide and toothy, his long limbs moving with expert precision ready to slice and dice. It took all of Blaklok’s speed and guile to avoid another wound. It was clear this one wasn’t going to tire any time soon. The initiative had to be taken.

Blaklok stepped in, arm raised to block Krane’s knife arm. Then he reached out, grabbing the lanky bastard by the back of his neck and pulling him forward. His jaw clamped closed, teeth biting deep into Krane’s beaky nose. There was a brief struggle, as Krane dropped the knife, desperate to unclamp himself from Blaklok’s bite, but it was no good. He shrieked as Blaklok bit down hard, teeth crunching through flesh and cartilage, head writhing from side to side with a mouthful of nose.

Krane fell back to the ground clutching his face as blood spurted through his fingers. Blaklok saw Milo coming in once more, too late to help his friend, but quick enough to get his vengeance. As the fat bloke advanced, Blaklok spat a gob of flesh, bone and blood into Milo’s face, at the same time catching the hand with the big curved blade as it scythed in. In a flash he’d twisted that fat, podgy wrist and dragged the knife from his hand. Milo had just enough time to gawp in surprise before Blaklok cut his other hand clean off, sending it falling to the ground, still gripping the needle thin stiletto. He kicked out, sending the fat bastard reeling as he let out a girl’s squeal, clutching tight to his severed appendage.

Both men sat in a heap now, one gripping where his nose had been, the other desperate to stem the blood pissing from the stump at his wrist.

‘I did try and fucking warn you,’ said Blaklok, wiping the blood and snot from his lips. He wasn’t sure what kind of response he expected, but it wasn’t for the fat lad to stand up, screaming at the top of his voice before sprinting to one of the windows and jumping through it. Before the echo of smashed glass had even finished, the tall lanky one had followed his mate, jumping through the broken window, still clutching his shortened nose.

‘Bye then,’ Blaklok said, waving them off. He glanced around the corridor, at the bloodstains on the rug and broken glass and shattered furniture strewn all around. ‘Well, I think that was a good night’s work, all things considered.’

‘I want them dead!’ Arkell screamed, his face, so amiable a day before now twisted in rage.

‘Shout at me like that again and there’ll be a fucking corpse all right,’ Blaklok answered.

That seemed to quell Arkell’s fire. There was no way he was going to push his luck, not with all six-foot-odd of Thaddeus Blaklok standing in front of him.

‘I’ll give you money – more money – if you hunt them down. Find them and kill them.’

‘I’ve got all the money I need for now. Besides, they won’t be back, trust me.’

‘That’s not the point. They broke into my house; it’s a bloody insult. I want them dead, I have to send a message – no one fucks with Clarence Horatio Arkell.’

‘Well, I reckon that’s your problem. I’ve done my bit.’ Blaklok turned to leave.

‘Wait. Just wait a minute.’ Arkell was standing now, his face red with exasperation. ‘I’m led to believe you’re a man of honour, Mister Blaklok, despite your reputation for wanton violence. I’ve heard tell you’re a man who will do the right thing.’ True enough, Blaklok supposed. ‘These men are killers. It’s not just me they’ve terrorised, look for yourself.’ Arkell held out a copy of the
Chronicle
. Blaklok could see the headline ‘Murder Most Foul’ emblazoned across the top in thick black script. 

‘Four others have been killed recently. Four other men of note… men I knew. Do you think it stops here? If you don’t hunt these animals down there’ll be more murders, you can guarantee it.’ Blaklok had to admit, it didn’t look good. ‘There’s no telling what these people are capable of. How long before they turn their attentions to women… children? Are you happy with these animals rampaging loose in your city?’

‘All right. No need to go on – I’ll do it. But you’ll have to cover my expenses.’

‘Of course,’ Arkell replied with a smile, reaching into his desk drawer and producing yet more bank notes.

Well, in for a penny…

‘By dose! He bid off by fugging dose!’

The voice echoed through the dark corridors, Blaklok could hear it from a hundred yards away. ‘I know, Mister Krane. But look what he did to my hand. These stitches itch terrible like. And whatever will I do when I need to pass water? I’m ever so clumsy with my left – I’ll get piss everywhere.’

What a pair of fucking cry babies!

He had stalked them for hours. It hadn’t been a difficult trail to follow, but it was circuitous. They’d tried to cover their trail in several spots, but they clearly hadn’t banked on being hunted by Thaddeus Blaklok. Now he had them in their den, and what Arkell had said about there being more murders had clearly been right. The deeper he went into their lair, the more evidence of their nefarious deeds was on display.

Body parts were casually strewn about, severed heads hung on meat hooks and entrails were nailed to the walls and ceiling like birthday streamers. It stank, the sweet smell of rot, and had Blaklok a weaker constitution he might have retched his guts up on the blood-smeared floor.

Ahead of him, illuminated through the gloom he saw them, one fat, one painfully skinny, nursing their wounds and moaning like school children.

‘Someone’s been busy,’ Blaklok said, stepping out into the light.’

‘You!’ said Milo, brandishing the stump of his missing hand.

Krane merely stood, his face wrapped in bloody gauze, eyes staring about wildly in search of a weapon.

‘I think playtime’s over. You two need a dose of the rough stuff, and I’m the kind of bastard that’s ready to give it.’

Blaklok let his greatcoat drop to the floor, exposing the tattooed flesh of his torso. He was painted with a myriad of different markings; arcane sigils, occult symbols, intricate scarring, all wound together to make a fearsome tapestry of his flesh. And as Milo and Krane watched in horror, some of those markings began to move and twist, glowing with baleful light or darkening and searing with their evil intent.

‘Wait,’ Milo managed to say. ‘It wasn’t us! We was paid. We’re just employees, like you. The real killers are the ones that hired us in the first place.’

‘Who?’ Blaklok demanded, the hellish contortion of his flesh not abating.

‘That would be us.’

Blaklok turned at the new voice, expecting someone sinister, expecting someone arch and evil both of manner and visage.

What he saw made him cease his fell conjurations and frown in confusion.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ he said to the diminutive, middle-aged woman standing right in front him. Behind her he could see other figures as plain and inoffensive as she was. Some clearly wore the rags of the penurious, others looked old and frail. Hardly a pernicious gathering of base criminality.

‘Who we are isn’t important. Why we hired these men is more the point. Arkell and his ilk have taken from us, taken things that cannot be replaced, and we will have our avengement.’

‘Oh, I get it,’ Blaklok replied, fast losing patience. ‘Arkell fired you, or swindled you, or didn’t give you that pay rise you wanted and now you’ve decided you want to make him suffer. Well look around, love. Don’t you think this is a bit excessive? Arkell’s business partners are in fucking pieces.’

‘We are not his employees, and these butchered animals,’ she gestured to the disembodied corpses, ‘were not his business associates, though they were all part of the same club.’

‘What, bridge club? Some gentleman’s club?’

‘Arkell and his associates have certain
appetites
.Their succour is the children off the streets, children that no one would think to miss. Their money and influence has made them untouchable. But not any more.’

‘What do you mean children off–’

Suddenly Blaklok realised what the woman was trying to tell him.

‘
Our
children, the spawn of the poor, the urchins no one thought anyone gave a damn about. But
we
do. We all do. Arkell and his ilk inflicted horrors on them, used them like chattel, like whores and slaves, until they needed them no more and discarded them like human waste. It could not be allowed to stand. Justice is all we wanted.’

Blaklok regarded the crowd that had gathered behind the woman. They didn’t look like they had a collective pot to piss in but they’d managed to scrape enough money together to hire two assassins from out of town. That must have cost everything they had.

‘So what now?’ Blaklok asked, glancing back at Milo and Krane as they stood sheepishly in one corner, clearly terrified.

‘Now we need the final monster to be defeated. But this is all we have to offer.’ She held out her palm, showing Blakok was lay upon it. ‘Will you take it, Thaddeus Blaklok? Will you avenge our children for us?’

‘Aye, all right. That’ll do I suppose,’ Blaklok replied.

Clarence Arkell sat behind his desk as Blaklok entered. He was clearly not a man used to being kept waiting. 

‘Well? Is it done?’

Blaklok simply stood and stared.

‘What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue? Have you earned the money I’ve paid you or not?’

Blaklok reached into his great coat and took out a pile of crumpled bills, throwing them on the desk in front of him. ‘I had a better offer,’ he said.

‘Better offer? What the hell are you talking about, better offer?’

‘I’ve found out the real reason those two bowler hatted twats wanted you dead.’

He let that hang there for a minute, watching Arkell’s response. The fat man went from an expression of innocence to stupefaction to denial in less time than it took to waggle piss from a cock.

‘Well, what the fuck do you care? Why should it matter to you, you’re just a thug for hire. A nutter from the streets.’ It was clear Arkell didn’t know him at all. 

‘They offered me money to do you. Obviously they didn’t have much left after hiring those two useless cunts from out of town, but I accepted anyway.’ Blaklok reached into his pocket and took out two copper pennies. ‘To be honest, I’d have done it for free.’ He moved forward, his brow furrowing, his hands tightening into fists.

‘Now look here,’ said Arkell, rising unsteadily to his feet, his wooden chair toppling over backwards. ‘We had a business arrangement. I paid you for
aaaiiiccchhhh
–’

Blaklok took him by the throat, he’d heard enough from this fat fucking pederast. 

Now it was time for the fun to begin…

+++Scene Report of Morticianeer Vexell p. Topper. Case File 1265-967/b+++

+++The corpse of Clarence Horatio Arkell was found lying on the floor of his study. Two copper pennies had been placed over his gaping eyeballs. As well as having his intestinal tract removed (not found at the scene) his penis had been torn off and inserted in rectum+++

+++There was no forensic evidence as to the identity of those who may have perpetrated the crime+++

+++Investigation is ongoing. All further results should be referred to Indagator Beauregard Morden+++

ROTTEN CUPID

by

IAN GRAHAM

Michael woke, sweat-soaked and shivering.

The room was dark, and the darkness was disturbingly
organic
, gripping him like the sap-slicked jaws of a Venus flytrap.

He lay motionless, listening to the clock ticking out on the landing. He loathed the timepiece, the cold relentless clacking of the mechanism. He wondered why he did not remove the batteries. It was Melissa’s clock and Melissa had gone.

Realising he would not sleep, he got out of bed, peeling the stinking sheets off his wet body as if they were layers of unwanted skin.

On the landing the clock read half-past midnight.

He went downstairs, gripping the banister tightly. He had been drinking constantly since Melissa left, seven days ago. His consumption of Calendar Whisky was causing considerable damage to his vital organs. His kidneys ached like gunshot wounds and he vomited four or five times a day - always the same infusion of bile and dark treacly blood. 

He slept badly, tormented by grotesque, meaningless dreams.  

Nonetheless, he found it impossible to care. In his experience, it was best to avoid confronting one’s woes when the woes were fresh. It was wisest to languish in self-pity for a while.

Collapsing onto the living room sofa, he grasped a Calendar bottle from the coffee table, unscrewed the lid then grimaced. For a quivering drunk, there was no sight more distressing than a nearly empty bottle. He swallowed the dregs and though the flavour was comforting, he had not drunk enough to make a gnat tipsy. He needed to visit the all-night petrol station.

Michael squinted out of the window and saw huge fat snowflakes whirling through the yellow glow of the streetlights. He performed a quick calculation. The petrol station was half a mile away. Not a great distance in itself but an ordeal when you were bad on your feet and had not eaten in several days. But the trek would take just fifteen minutes there and fifteen back, and a few reviving swigs of Calendar would make the return journey easy enough.

He lingered on the sofa, gathering his strength.

His gaze drifted to a shoebox tucked under the coffee table. Stooping, he picked it up, knowing that he would finds its contents upsetting. He put the box on his lap and lifted the lid, revealing a slurry of photographs featuring Melissa and himself.

The photographs were neither artistic nor conceptually original. Love was an ancient cliché and invariably entailed clichéd responses. There was Melissa riding a child’s swing in a leafy park; there she was again, tossing bread to a gaggle of mallards; now Michael made an appearance, eating an ice cream and, humiliatingly, attempting a wheelie on a mountain bike; and suddenly it was Melissa again, at a restaurant table, gilded in candlelight . . .

Christ, what drivel, thought Michael.