Terrorscape

  TERRORSCAPE by NENIA CAMPBELL

  Copyright © 2012 Nenia Campbell All rights reserved. DEDICATION

  Put your name here: .

  Thank you so much for purchasing this book. (You made this author's day.)

  Table of Contents

  Epilogue

  1. MEADOWSWEET

  2. LOVE-LIES-BLEEDING

  3. PEONY

  4. LOBELIA

  5. VISCARIA

  6. IRIS

  7. MOSCHATEL

  8. CHECKERED FRITILLARY

  9. GLADIOLUS

  10. TIGER LILY

  11. HYACINTH

  12. COLUMBINE

  13. BELLADONNA

  14. TUBEROSE

  15. RHODODENDRON

  16. LIME BLOSSOM

  17. BEGONIA

  18. DAHLIA

  19. CYPRESS

  20. BUTTERFLY WEED

  21. RAINFLOWER

  22. HEMLOCK

  Epilogue

  Bonus Material

  —J'ADOUBE

  —EN PRISE

  —GAVIN'S ESSAY

  Prologue

  Several weeks had elapsed since her death. Each succeeding day felt more distanced from the last until time, for him, began to have the feel of an archipelago experiencing rapid continental drift.

  The memory of her eyes had begun to fade from the horizon of his mind, like drying paint. Once, they had struck him as exceptionally vivid, as if she cradled evergreen boughs from the forest in the depths of her irises, but now he thought of her only in terms of the abstract—when he thought of her at all, that is. A palette of colors bundled up in geometric precision.

  By now that green translucence would have been occluded by the milky glaze of death.

  Like a succubus, she possessed him, and he felt nothing, and he did not know why. He knew he should feel something. He had seen countless others fall to pieces in the face of death, as though tragedy were a blunt projectile that had been hurled with the utmost violence into their fragile psyche.

  But no, in place of that je ne sais quoi was silence, and a quiet sense of complacency that left him feeling quite content. Yes, he was content.

  He had killed her before in effigy, had even imagined killing her in his mind. Killing her in person, though, with his own two hands—that was far more visceral; it contained the elusive qualia inherent to experience, and it made him feel…alive.

  Death was a way of life and the natural order. Like so much else, death became him; it flowed in his lifeblood and pumped his heart, and it numbed him so sweetly from within.

  If anything, the death of Val had set his possession of her in stone. She had refused to be his in life. Now, she would belong to him ever in death. Poetic justice. Were all poets so cruel?

  He had plenty of time to think as he worked his way from West to East until, finally, he arrived at his destination.

  The house from his childhood was in a state of disrepair. The cupola, with its ragged wood tiles, threw off cruel blades of light from the hooked beak of its bantam weather-vane, which were then caught and reflected by the glass roof of the conservatory.

  His eyes fell to the splintered whitewashed steps leading up to the paneled wooden door. It had not been painted in years, no part of the house had. Even the roses had been allowed to languish and die.

  Shaking his head, he rapped the iron ring against the paneled wooden surface. Cracks rifted through the oak where the ring had made repeated contact. He wondered idly who had come calling with such enthusiasm, to a house where not even death was ashamed to unveil its face. What pitiful lamb would trot so willingly into the lion's den?

  The door creaked open.

  A pair of clear gray eyes only a few shades lighter than his own looked out over the chain. Her brows arched, her lips forming a grotesque imitation of a smile as she undid the latch. “Gavin.” Striking but cold, she walked a fine line between hideousness and beauty; it was a boundary that fractured more as time continued its ruthless march forward. “Welcome.”

  He inclined his head. “Mother.”

  Anna Mecozzi offered her cheek. He bent, perfunctorily, to kiss it. Beneath the notes of violets from the sachet in her gown, her skin was redolent of hot metal and soured milk.

  In a lightly accented voice, deeper than one might expect from her small frame, she said, “It has been a while.”

  “It has.” The boards groaned beneath his boots as she beckoned him quickly inside. Worried that the neighbors might see and think he was the newest lover in a long line of conquests? He sneered.

  She saw. “Are you staying long this time?” “Perhaps for a while,” he allowed.

  “Your sisters will be wanting to see you.” “Hmm.” His expression did not change. “And

  Dorian and Luca?”

  “Luca is away at college, studying psychiatry.” “What about Dorian?”

  The look she gave him now was one of warning. “Dorian is away.”

  Each word fell like a block of ice from her lips, left to shatter in the silence that now spanned between them. Dorian was the reckless one, too quick to anger and to take offense where none was given. Anna treated him like a favorite, culturing his impetuousness instead of curbing it as was proper.

  “I see.”

  “Anna-Maria is coming.”

  He favored his mother with a dispassionate smile. He was pleased to see the wrinkles around her mouth furrow a little as she tightened her lips.

  One day, not long from now, you will die, and then the crows will pick the flesh from your bones.

  “What a dubious honor that is.”

  “It will be so nice to have the girls back home.”

  She stopped outside the guest bedroom—his old room. It was on the second floor with a private bathroom overlooking the dead garden. The weather was cold, chillingly so, but he hardly noticed the prickling follicles on his arms as he moved to inspect the room as his mother discreetly took her leave.

  She had retained a surprising amount of his belongings. He supposed this was out of a sense of ownership, rather than of a sense of sentiment.

  As if she could know me through my mere possessions.

  He slid a finger across the desk and studied the dust before wiping his hand on his jeans. She had kept his computer, along with everything else. He wondered if it would still service after all these years, and then laughed coldly as he realized the same question could be put to his mother, as well.

  Still smiling, he pressed the power button. The monitor flared to life with a crackle of static. He leaned his chin against his hand as he waited for the computer to boot, and reflected, as he so often did, on Val's final seconds of life.

  His jeans grew tight in anticipation as he entered her name into the search engine. He exhaled slowly, deeply, savoring the constricting sensations even as he fought to ease it, and dug his fingers into his thigh.

  Soon.

  Her death would make the news, of course. The beautiful ones always did. They would eulogize her, praising her innocence and beauty as if she were a virgin sacrifice from a bygone age.

  Because she was, in a sense, for they feared death. They, too, wished to be remembered. Because nobody wants to believe that existence carries on without at least taking a stumble from their departure of this world. And so, they mourned the dead.

  A video link showed up at the top of the search results. Californian Teenager Left for Dead in House of Horrors. How…theatrical. He smiled unwillingly. Even murder could be turned into a cheap and tawdry vaudeville act.

  He clicked the link—and the smile on his face disappeared.

  She was alive.

  Breathing.

  Barely alive, true. Barely breathing. Breathing through an oxygen mask, but breathing nonetheless
. She.

  Was.

  Alive.

  He growled low in his throat, slamming his fist against the table. The computer monitor rattled. He thought he had possessed her, fully, as no other man would, only to find out that she had been out of reach the entire time. This was the ultimate act of defiance.

  Each rise and fall of her breast was an insult. Each drop of blood in her veins, a taunt. Every second of life was a second she had robbed from him.

  He should not have attempted to gift her with a beautiful death. Sentiment had entrapped him within its snare. He should have slashed her throat like a game hen the moment she had refused him.

  She dared.

  Anger made his limbs heavy and put fire in his blood. He swayed a little as he stood, drunk with the sheer force of it, but his mind remained sharp. Lethal.

  He knew now what he must do.

  Death is one lover who cannot be spurned.

  She had to die, by his hand. And his alone. His eyes fell to the image of Val, frozen on the screen, and narrowed. But first—she must be made to suffer.

  He picked up the monitor easily, despite its bulk, and hurled it against the wall with a roar. Sparks flew, glass shattered, and the wreckage was quickly engulfed in swirling clouds of plaster and drywall.

  He stared blindly at the mess, the glorious cacophony of it ringing in his ears, and his chest rose and fell in quick succession as he leaned back against the wall to steady himself.

  A knock sounded on the door. He turned towards it impatiently. “Yes?”

  “It's Celeste.”

  The youngest sister. The least foolish, but the softest as well, which was nearly as bad.

  “I heard a crash—”

  “Come in.”

  There were ears everywhere in this household. Conversation was best not had in its halls.

  Celeste entered, creeping into the room like a cat. She was sixteen now, like Dorian, with magnolia-pale skin and the cool blue eyes of an English china doll. Her twin had the same coloring but there was a hardness in Dorian's face that was not present in Celeste's.

  She wouldn't meet his eyes while under his scrutiny. That was unwise—but then, Valerian could never meet his eyes, either. Not without effort.

  And beneath that deer's skin beats a serpent's heart.

  He realized he had already made the mental switch to the present tense and his hand tightened. Celeste darted a nervous look at his clenched fist.

  “Your computer—?”

  He waved her question aside with the hand she was staring at, gratified when she flinched. “An unfortunate accident.”

  It was clear she didn't believe him. She combed her fingers through her hair and said nothing.

  “Was there something else?”

  “Anna-Maria is coming.”

  “I know that.”

  “Mother invited her.”

  “So I imagined.”

  Women were such treacherous, predictable creatures.

  “She knows that you don't like her.”

  “It isn't quite that simple,” he said.

  “Are you fond of her?”

  “I think you should go.”

  She winced but persisted. “Be careful.”

  “Do not lecture me on topics about which you know nothing.”

  “I want to know. What did you do in California?” “You are too young to understand.”

  “I am not. I know that you killed her and you—”

  He slammed her into the wall. “It was her choice, damn you. Hers, not mine. She knew the rules as well as I, and that was her move; it cost her life.”

  He paused.

  “As I said, I don't expect you, a child, to understand. Go now. To your room.”

  She nodded tightly and left, close to tears.

  He struck the space where she had been standing with his fist. Blood burst from his skin and he brought his hand to his mouth and closed his eyes, focusing on the taste of copper as if it were a koan.

  ▪▫▪▫▪▫▪

  As the days passed, and his fury cooled to a quietly simmering anger, his resolve focused. He began to plan Val's death.

  Returning to California so soon was out of the question, he knew that. He bottled his frustration, letting it ferment. One day, that frustration would finish its alchemical transformation into revenge. When that day came, he would savor it.

  There was no satisfaction in killing what was already half-dead, after all. The girl from the video was a pale shadow of what possessed him. He would bide his time. She would let down her guard, eventually, even as she gained back her strength.

  Time was his quarry now.

  He sketched. He played chess. He killed the minutes as only he knew how. Celeste came to see him sometimes but never for long. Not after their last confrontation. He whiled away most of his hours in solitude and this was his preference.

  It was on one of these occasions that Anna-Maria stopped by his doorway. She did not announce herself but the seductive swish of expensive fabric betrayed her presence just as effectively.

  Anna-Maria could be formidable. Behind the feminine surface she took such pains to cultivate, she was all hard edges and sharp, flinty lines. He kept one eye on her as she sashayed into the room without asking permission. “What are you drawing?”

  “Something a Philistine such as yourself couldn't possibly appreciate.”

  She made a moue of annoyance. “An insult?”

  “One must have the capacity for chagrin if one is to be insulted.”

  “You're a fine one to talk.” He was pleased to detect a snarl of annoyance in her voice. She prided herself on her control; he prided himself on his ability to make her lose it.

  “I appreciate beauty where I see it.”

  “And I cannot?”

  “You are blind to everything that exists beyond the frame of your bedroom mirror.”

  She smiled. “You think I am beautiful?”

  “I think you are foolish.” He made a slash of charcoal on the page and caught himself wishing it were her throat instead. “Where is your husband?”

  “Not here.”

  “He served his purpose so quickly, then?”

  “He isn't dead,” she snapped, “though he might as well be. I don't let him touch me.”

  He chuckled. “How very unfortunate for him.”

  “Oh yes. It amuses me, to see him sweat and beg like a stinking pig.”

  Gavin stopped laughing. She was wearing a thin shift of silk and lace. Distaste filled him. White was no color of a blonde. Certainly not this blonde. It was a elicited thoughts symbolic of purity and innocence; his sister possessed neither.

  He drew himself up and pulled away before their lips could brush. “Leave.”

  She knocked his sketchbook out of his hands. “Not until you look at me.”

  He did, with irritation he no longer made any attempt to hide. “Pick that up and hand it to me.”

  “You like having people obey you, don't you, my dark Adonis?”

  He continued to meet her pale blue eyes levelly, saying nothing. Thinking, though. Always thinking.

  “I know you killed that plaything of yours. Celeste told me everything about—what was her name? Valerie? You did the right thing, irregardless. She was weak, and not very pretty.”

  His lips twitched into a sneer at her use of the word irregardless, and, mistaking it for affection, she wrapped her slim, strong fingers around his wrist.

  “I never said you could touch me.”

  She pressed his palm against her breast and arched against him. Through the thin layer of fabric he felt the nipple harden.

  “Make love to me,” she said. “My husband is as impotent as he is pathetic and stupid.”

  “A man without parallel, your husband.” “I want to feel a real man inside of me. I want to know what it is to be fucked.”

  “It doesn't sound as if you need any help in that quarter. You chose your bed, poor choice though it was; I'm afraid your only
option now is to lie in it.”

  “You insult yourself then. You were always my choice. My first choice.”

  “No.”

  “There is steel in our blood. It is our duty, yours and mine, to carry on the family legacy. Luca thinks only of his books, and Dorian prefers the company of men. Leona and Celeste—well, they are foolish, silly creatures who will marry foolish, silly husbands—”

  “As you did.”

  She grabbed him between his legs. He growled and swiped for her arm but Anna-Maria had been fastest and she used all her weight to shove him back against the mattress, gripping her prize tightly.

  “You are hard for me, and I will not be denied.” “I am not thinking of you. My plaything, as you call her, lives.”

  Her smile snagged. “What?”

  “Did Celeste neglect to inform you of that trifling fact? Oh dear. Perhaps your influence here is not as great as you have thought.”

  “You self-satisfied catamite son of a bitch—”

  He shoved her off the bed with his outstretched legs. She fell to the floor in an ungainly heap, with her shift around her thighs.

  “I suggest you save your conjugal visitations for your husband,” he said, “but since you are down there, perhaps you might make yourself otherwise useful and hand me the sketchbook.”

  She threw it at him. “Bastard.”

  “Bawd.” He caught it easily. “You may leave now.”

  He didn't look to see if his words had drawn blood. They had rung true, and new ideas fueled by his disgust at his half-sister and his anger at Val poured forth from the charcoal onto the page, forming a nimbus of sketches, scribbles, and cursive notes.

  You were always my choice , she had said. My first choice.

  There were choices, weren't there? He had quite forgotten. Other choices. Other women, with red hair and insolent eyes. He ran his fingers along his neck, tracing the ridges of the scar left by that jagged blade.

  So many means of killing.

  ▪▫▪▫▪▫▪

  Seasons changed, but his thoughts remained the same: boiling, frenetic, and impure. But now—now he had a purpose to filter them through.

  His mother did not question his late arrivals, nor did she pause long enough in their terse exchanges to notice the drying blood beneath his nails. And even if she had, she would have said nothing. Done nothing. Whether he was an innocent man or a guilty one mattered not, as long as she was left out of the affair. It all came down to self-preservation in the end.