Chapter 11
It had been a long, long time since Damien had been to a proper party. Rose had never been fond of them, and he himself had always been something of an introvert. It was, however, coming up on Halloween, and Mary had insisted. He’d volunteered his apartment, as it was slightly larger.
He glanced around the kitchen while Mary busied herself with a paintbrush and a large sheet of bioplastic which hung, flapping on the wall. She was painting a mural, and he watched the lines of light and darkness unfold as the image spread across the canvas. She’d taken her specs off to paint (which had shocked him in a deep and indefinable way), and he was surprised to see how beautiful her eyes, deep blue and gold, were when they shone by the light of the flickering drop of fire topping the candles sitting in the corner. He found himself fascinated by the languid curve of her nose, the deep shadows running back and forth in the crevices of her smooth skin as her head moved this way and that, attention completely focused on the wall. She was utterly beautiful. For a moment, he almost forgot the deep unease he had about her for the last several weeks.
Technically speaking, he was supposed to be carving Jackolanterns, but he’d been more than a little worried about coming out of the process with fewer fingers than he’d gone in with, so he’d spawned a set of constructs to handle it. He had to give a bare minimum of attention to arbitrate high-level decisions, but other than that, his hands more or less did what the glasses told them to do on autopilot.
Before Mary, the mural was unfolding. He got the impression that, somehow, there was already an image on the canvas, and that she was merely revealing it, wiping away the canvas with her brush to show the truth beneath.
The mural was an awful scene. Men clung screaming to trees as dark-hooded figures dragged them away to a fire in the center, stacked high with corpse-ash. Broken bodies lay strewn carelessly to the side as more dark-hooded men walked past, carrying their screaming victims. The longer he stared at it, the more it gave him chills. There was no sense of humor to it at all. No leering grin of Jackolanterns. No smiling skulls, no cartoonish ghosts or ghouls. It wasn’t horror. It was atrocity. Pure, stark, and terrible.
He looked at her, and he realized that she was crying. Golden droplets ran down her cheeks, pooling in the lines of her face. He silently walked over and tore the mural down. He dragged it outside and sprayed it with water from the garden hose, which would be frozen in a few days, watching the bioplastic melt. He dragged the half-melted lump inside and crammed it into the recycle bin.
By now, she seemed to have calmed down.
“I’m sorry.” She said. He took her shoulder.
“It’s okay. I won’t ask you. Do you want to call off the party?”
“No. I’ll be okay. Let’s see those Jackolanterns.”
She lied with her smile, and sat and helped him hack the last one into shape. He smiled, and chatted, and all the while his soul was screaming. One of the dark-hooded figures had had eyes of blue-gold and coal-glow hair.
The small apartment was packed. Mary had had another go at the mural, and a few corny Jackolanterns sat grinning stupidly to themselves by the side while a line of vapid-looking skeletons line danced in the middle. There was no trace of the sheer evil that had been found in first attempt, and she seemed guilty about it, as though she had broken down in a moment of weakness and said something stupid.
In an effort to distract himself from the horror that was growing in him, he had made an effort to help to decorate, and had let some of his constructs loose in the public mindspace to do their best. One of them, doing it’s best impression of a swarm of spiders, swarmed over the walls leaving trailing tendrils of web crisscrossing the ceiling. Another one was in the walls, extending a face made out of wood and plaster to scream at people. Of course, these things were barely noticeable compared to the guests themselves.
Damien had chosen a conservative costume, of a werewolf. His back was arched, and covered in silver hair, and his face extended into a snarling, bony snout.
He was horrifically under-dressed, he realized when one of Mary’s friends arrived dressed as a zombie, with her upper torso being dragged behind her lower by trailing ropes of pale intestines.
He glanced over at Mary. On the small couch in the corner, she was curled, a wine dark leopard with eyes of blue-gold. He sat down next to her, and in his mindspace she took on her true form. He gave her a quick kiss, which would doubtless have looked very odd to an outside observer.
His world had a very grim tone at that moment, and the claustrophobia wasn’t helping. The apartment had been a nice fit for one, but there were thirty people here! And more arriving every moment. A flock of insubstantial ghosts, representing the visitors who couldn’t arrive in person made the space feel even more cramped.
Damien stared blankly as a tarantula the size of a small car (Damien was beginning to understand why he was feeling so cramped) began to flirt with a female vampire, who clung the ceiling, blood drizzling from a stake protruding from her rather improbable bust.
Blast. That mural would haunt his dreams for weeks. What had she been involved with? (A small part of his mind was wondering what level of internal torment she must be suppressing at the moment). Four more people arrived. Personal space became an outdated concept.
“Next time we throw a party, remind me to rent a stadium,” he growled at her (growling was, in fact, what he did. The avatar was high-quality, if a bit understated).
He was just about to run outside screaming when someone suggested that they migrate to the park down the street. The idea was treated with much approval, and the refreshments and guests were packed up and carried with the clot of people. In the park, somebody found a old fire pit, and threw a space heater into the middle, ringing it with virtual flames.
His constructs went nuts at the opportunities, and within an hour the entire park was covered in cobwebs, and people had to deal with trees trying to grab them as they walked by.
Damien grabbed a tall glass of the stiffest drink at the picnic table, and downed it quickly. He was freezing, and the dread in his soul was festering. He wished the night was over.
There was a brief surge of panic when two militia squads arrived (this was a park Mary had recommended, and was, as it turned out, under the jurisdiction of the militia. Fortunately, it quickly become apparent that they were there as guests.
They complimented Damien on his decorations, and he thanked them in a polite, distracted way.
He turned around and accidentally walked through a ghost with a generic face.
“Damien! It is nice to see you under happier circumstances-“ and here he lowered his voice, half-mockingly secretive, “Sheila’s gone out of town on business, so I can stay here all night, if need be.”
He spotted the somewhat viscous consistency of Damien’s drink.
“Gods man, what’s gotten into you? Livers are at a premium these days.”
Damien shook his head and said something vague, and then started to direct him to the drinks table before his constructs reminded him that this would be exercise in futility.
“Well,” said the ghost worriedly, “let me know if you need anything.”
Damien assured him that he would, and sent him on his way.
He glanced around. Two zombies were dueling behind him with a set of great swords. One of them was clearly superior – the other one was on his last limb, and loosing ground fast.
His constructs heard someone coming up behind him. He turned around.
“Hello General.”
“Hello Damien.”
The man, who wore no costume, took his cigar from his mouth.
“You and Mary are getting on well?”
It was not a question.
“Yes sir,” he lied.
“No, no sirs here. We’re not at work. Here, “ he puffed, “We are equal.”
He chuckled, voice rich and deep. He walked away.
A word flashed unbidden to the surface of Damien’s mind.
“Mobster,” he whispered.
“What?”
He jumped. A wine dark leopard unfolded itself into Mary as she approached.
“Nothing,” he said, “Let’s go grab some pizza.”
The night rushed on, sped and blurred by the alchohol racing around
The party was over and the night was headed that way. He lay next to Mary in his apartment, a deep and horrible sense of foreboding choking the embers of euphoria.
What could be so terrible a secret that she could not even speak about it? What in her history was so terrible. If only he knew. He could rationalize it then, or come to a decision of some kind, but his ignorance burned at his mind.
He looked at her face, empty in sleep, and wondered who else had seen that face through screaming eyes.
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Continue to Chapter Twelve
