Daimon - DANIELLE BOLGER (best fiction novels TXT) 📗

I ran my fingertips gently along my forearm. The fragile crimson coating flaked away and revealed unmarred, porcelain skin below. The crumbs fell upon the white sheet like macabre snowflakes. Gulping, I pulled away the filthy linen and inspected the rest of my body; there was more of it, a lot more. The coating was thicker, darker, and wet. Below the gooey mass was a torn corset with a fierce slit in its center. I tore the apparel away, along with its heavy viscous burden, and exposed skin— muddy and red-stained, but without visible defect. No tears, no scrapes, no bruises, and no open wounds. A hand pressed to my chest revealed a steady, healthy heartbeat. I sighed with relief, but when I looked down at the soiled sheet and corset on the floor, my heart reclaimed its speed again.

In my head I heard them, the screams and pleas for a life to be spared. It was me who was begging. It was my life to be spared. They were my screams that were stifled by a metallic liquid gurgling from my mouth. An internal injury—that was what had to have caused the bleeding. My lungs would had to have been flooded with blood, and those types of wounds people do not easily come back from.

There was no knife, no stab into my chest or theft of my heart. It was all just to scare me.

It was certainly strange, and I failed to make much sense of it. The substance I was currently viewing on my hands, face and chest was most definitely blood, but without any injury, it would have to be someone else's. I hoped it was only animal's blood, but knew that the extraction process would have been too complicated. Despite some of the brutal acts the gang had performed, the Foxes were criminals, not butchers. This led me to suspect that the blood was most likely robbed from a hospital's donor supplies. With this stolen liquid my attacker drowned me, but just as I lost consciousness, he must have resuscitated me and returned me home. Why he placed me back in my bed and why he used blood to suffocate me with I could not understand, but at least I knew that he did not carry out his malevolent threat to murder me. With a fiercely beating cardiac organ resting beneath my hand I could be certain that my great fear of being parted from my heart had not been met. It was not him; it was not the mass serial killer, just some gangster scaring me off. It most definitely worked.

That explanation was a weak one, but with the soiled clothing and bed sheets, I could not pretend that it was all a dream and I most certainly could not entertain any of the alternatives. Any other option was purely fantastical and impossible.

Leaving my bed, I removed the remaining articles of clothing that still clung intimately to my form. I set the water in my shower to the highest bearable temperature and maximum pressure, and plunged myself in the small cubical. The bathroom was wrapped thickly in steam and I could feel the weight of it as I breathed humid air into my lungs.

Once I exited, I wrapped a towel around me and walked back into the bedroom, shuddering at the sight that greeted me. Mud and blood streaked the carpet as if a corpse was dragged inside. The sheets, likewise, were a mess. My alarm clock was in pieces on the floor, and even the cream curtains displayed a very proud red handprint.

Alerting me out of my reverie, the doorbell chimed, demanding my immediate attention. I took a couple steps towards my bedroom door, but after detecting the soft carpet tickling the soles of my feet, I became dimly aware that I was still undressed and turned instead to my closet. After donning a pair of jeans and a baggy black T-shirt, I tentatively returned to the doorway of my room. The doorbell continued in its strident song.

I pulled the bedroom door open slowly and was thoroughly dismayed at the muddied trail that ran across the floor tiles, speckled with crimson drops. The doorbell was now a continuous buzz.

I hurried to the front door, becoming incensed at the irritating noise. I peeked the door open to discover a haughty female clothed in a carefully manicured pencil skirt, canary yellow satin blouse, and pointed black three-inch stilettos. She possessed a soft nose, and lips so full I would have been sure they were filled if I hadn’t viewed them since childhood. Her eyelashes were fake, but her large bright green eyes almost made them believable. She was also such a perfect combination of short and slender that she could practically get away with murder. Normally, all this made her exhaustingly attractive, but today purple shadows framed her eyes and her blonde hair appeared more dry and damaged than its usual bouncy look. It hadn’t been for many months, the last time I had seen her hangover, that she looked so gaunt and malnourished. Instantly, she made to swing the door open wide, but my grip held firm; no more than my face showed through.

Her eyes narrowed as they fixated on me.

“Obviously, your phone must be lost or broken,” Sandra stated firmly.

“My phone?” I echoed lamely.

“Yes, you know, that device that's used to make and receive calls, which you never return! I think I deserve an apology for making me so worried all yesterday. I know you're pissed at me for what I said but shit, Jane, I was freaking out about you all day! You could have flicked me some little message, or just left one at the Horizon if you really wanted to avoid me. Geez, girl! I got no work done yesterday, no sleep. I was so sure something bad was going to happen, but look at you—you look great! You obviously haven't had any trouble sleeping. Well, you're alive, that's the important thing, I guess.” She sighed, shaking her head. “So, spill the beans. What scoop did you get?”

“I...took pictures of some documents on my phone,” I murmured as printed sheets flitted through my mind. I had taken pictures with my cell, then someone grabbed me, and I awoke to that bizarre scene.

“Wait, hang on!” She gripped my hands swiftly. “Where is your phone? You didn't leave it there did you?” When I did not reply in the brief opening that she left, Sandra continued. “Christ, Jane! How did you lose it? They didn't find it, did they? Obviously not, otherwise, you would be dead! Oh God, tell me everything that happened.” She leaned in so close that I could hear her pulse from her carotid artery. The left side of her neck flexed so beautifully, gently. “You are okay, aren't you, Janey-honey?”

I lifted my gaze to meet her eyes. “I'm fine.”

Sandra squinted at me and gasped. “Hold on, your eyes, they're so black! Are you feeling okay?”

“I'm fine— just tired.”

She didn’t look convinced as she bit her lower lip. She softened her tone with a sigh. “You know, I'm a little bit thirsty. We have a few minutes before we need to leave for work, how about we have a coffee while you tell me about your latest crazy adventure? Seeing as how I drove all this way, and because I'm such a nice friend, I'll even drive you to work.”

I stood fixed at the door, hand on the frame and exposing only a slit of the interior. “You don't like coffee,” I reminded her.

“Yes, but you do, and you can just make me a good English breakfast tea instead. Now c'mon, let me in.” Sandra started trying to force the door open, but I held it in place firmly.

“No! I...it's a mess...”

“When is it not a mess?” she interrupted.

“Just, no! Okay?” I noticed the fullness of her succulently red lips. “We'll...we'll talk in the car! You said you'd drive me right?”

She looked at me quizzically again. “Alright,” she relented. “I can see when I'm not going to win. We'll get some drive through drinks on the way then.”

I forced a smile, it was harder to do than I imagined. “Wait one sec!” I ran back inside the house, closed the front door and snapped the lock. I didn't know what Sandra would think of that, but with another glance around the interior of my home I was incredibly glad that I did so. The mud could be explained innocently enough, but the blood…that would be complicated. Sandra was my best friend, but I couldn't tell her about this, not until I could make sense of things for myself first.

I raced into my bedroom; found my spare key in my bedside table, grabbed my wallet—grateful that I had had the sense to leave it at home—and a handbag. I skirted back outside the front, relocked the front door and tested the security with a couple of forward thrusts. I turned back to my puzzled friend and forced another smile. “All ready!”

****

I sat at my desk at the Coastal Horizon, driving a graphite pencil into my notepad and watching the soft particles press into the paper. I was supposed to be working on a performing arts exhibition article but I found it impossible to concentrate with all the noise of the office: incessant chatter, the constant flick-flick-flick of keyboard buttons, clicking of mice, heavy bounding footsteps, and the occasional bout of hyena laughter from that annoying Emma Hart.

I desperately desired a coffee, but the beverage I had in the car tasted like ash and completely turned me off the idea. I was craving something. My nerves felt as if they were on edge, but everything I thought to consume sickened me. I thought that perhaps I was hungry; I hadn't eaten breakfast that morning. It had completely escaped my mind after the startling discoveries, but now I did feel a yearning to eat something. However, when I considered popping over to the cafe for a muffin or a sandwich, I felt like retching. There was one comforting sense here, though, and that was the tantalizing symphony of heartbeats in the office. They resonated louder than I had ever heard a heartbeat, the thumps excitedly murmuring over the racket of the workplace. I couldn't understand why, but there was something very soothing to the sound. I desired to move closer to my co-workers and gain a better seat to the hidden music they performed. I noticed Sandra's heart beating in the car, too. I could feel my mouth water as I allowed myself to become entranced in its melody. I wanted to get closer, look at it even. I wanted to see the music.

“Any progress on this big exposé in Devil's Eden yet?” Frank stood before my desk staring pointedly at the disappearing graphite on my pencil. I placed the pencil flat down and lifted my eyes, first to the erratically throbbing artery in his neck, then up to his wide face. I could smell tuna on his heavy breath.

“Still in progress, Frank.”

“Of course it is. What about the exhibition story, finished that yet?”

“I'm brainstorming as we speak.”

As Frank glared, his eyes disappeared into fat. “You've done some amazing pieces, Jane, that's why you're here.” I was getting the speech again. “Nevertheless, you're inconsistent as of late, and to say that your productivity has been dismal would be generous. I'm expecting some very big things from you soon, I know you will not disappoint me.” This was not intended as encouragement, but as a threat. “Get me that story by noon.”

“Of course.”

He stood there a second longer, swaying and breathing heavily as he leered. From my vantage, I heard his enlarged heart belt out forceful and desperate thrusts. I wondered what was with my sudden obsession with heartbeats and whether they were always so easily audible.

Just as Frank turned to walk away the television in the corner of the room was suddenly turned up. Everyone in the office hushed as highly attuned reporter ears grasped at the vibrations emanating from the flat screen's speakers. From the very first sentence, all eyes and ears were attuned.

“Valentine has stolen another heart. New reports are coming in that forty kilometers from the outskirts of the city another victim has been found. This newest, and latest, victim marks the astonishing fifteenth murder by the notorious Valentine, who continues to thwart apprehension. Details are scarce at present, but it appears that this body was discovered in an abandoned car found off Terry highway. It is, at present, unconfirmed as to whether or