Dance For The Devil (30 page)

When Gil pushed her on the first account, she told him to be happy with anal and oral sex, and then proceeded to
demonstrate with an even more enticing combination of the two. When he pressured her on the second, she’d clam up and tell him to lay off the topic of Jake or she’d stop seeing Gil altogether.

“But why?” he’d beg. “Why do you keep seeing that milksop?”

“Because,” she’d answer, “because I wish to. You’re fun to play with, Gil, but your darkness is disturbing. Yes, it makes you damn hot, but not exactly marriage material. With Jake, I have a future. Now shut up while I suck your big, juicy cock or I’ll leave and then you’ll have nothing.” Gil shut up every time.

He remembered their breakup. They’d been engaged in a particularly pleasing round of anal sex, with Elizabeth bent over in a darkened
janitor’s closet buried in the campus basement, when Gil attempted to quickly slip his penis from one orifice into the other.

“You bastard,” she screamed. “I told you my pussy is off limits.” In the dimness, Gil could see her pretty face contorted unattractively into a shrewish visage. “It’s never enough for you, is it, Gil?” She began rummaging around, looking for her panties.

“What are you doing, Elizabeth?”

“What does it look like I’m doing, you creep? I’m leaving.”

“But... but you can’t.” His penis throbbed painfully. “We aren’t finished.”

“Oh, yes we are. Forever. I’m finished with you for good and I’m going to marry Jake Montclaire to prove it.”

Gil felt his veins turn to ice. “*I don’t understand, Liz. Why Jake?”

“Because he’s a decent human being and you’re not. You’re damaged, Gil. Evil to the core.”

He slapped her, hard. It was the first time he’d hit a woman and it felt delightfully good, an appropriate venue to direct his attention from his aching cock.

“Yeah, well I guess I deserved that,” she said acidly, and in the darkness he could see the blood running down her face.

He felt powerful then, and he knew he wouldn’t let her go without a fight. He pinned her arms to the wall and spat in her face. “Why, Elizabeth? If I’m so evil, why spend time with me at all?”

“Because you’re fun, you nasty prick. Like the apple in the Garden of Eden. My mother told me to have fun before I married, to get it out of my system, and that’s what I’ve been doing. Having fun.”

He transferred her arms to one hand and began to fondle her breasts roughly with the other. “Fun, eh? Let me show you some fun.”

She brought her knee up sharply, hitting him squarely in his damaged testicles, the pain unleashing a flood of unwanted memories from another time, another place. “You bitch,” he cursed, but before he had a chance to recover, she brought the palm of her hand squarely to his nose, smashing it upwards until the fragile bones felt like they’d splintered into his skull. Then she stepped over him, sur
veying his prone, writhing body and stated calmly, “It’s over, asshole, and if you ever contact me again or talk to Jake, I’ll tell everyone you’re a closet faggot with a penchant for little boys.”

How dare she!
That had been told to her in strict confidence, in the throes of orgasmic fantasy.

By the time his broken nose had healed, Elizabeth had become Mrs. Montclaire, and college had been left behind to play the role of Jake’s devoted wife.

Would he have left it alone had he not run into her last year, a bored housewife looking for diversion, desperately searching to find the pretty college girl she’d once been? Eager to reinstate the tumultuous sexual relationship she’d left behind so many years ago? Or, would he have acted regardless on the fumes of revenge that bubbled like caustic acid.

The second go-around with Elizabeth was quite different. This time she’d given him her entire body, but without the forbidden carrot of her off-limits vagina, the thrill just wasn’t the same. A pleasant fuck, to be sure, but really no different from the thousand other cunts he’d plundered. In truth, not even as good as some of those.

The flame had all but extinguished when Suzanne burst in on them, in mid-fuck, in the penthouse suite of the Toronto Hilton. Normally, that wouldn’t have bothered Suzanne; she was used to seeing her husband engage in sexual activities with other women, and often joined in. But Suzanne, struggling with the first spasms of menopause, recognized Elizabeth as the woman in the dog-eared photograph that Gil kept hidden in his nightstand, buried between some Hustler magazines and a bottle of Tums, and she went ballistic.

Suzanne saw Elizabeth as a threat, and decided to put an end to her, once and for all. First she befriended the hapless Elizabeth, who, already spiralling downwards in self-defeat and depression, was an easy mark.

Suzanne introduced Elizabeth to the joys of lesbian sex, then convinced her new lover that a successful career beckoned in Hollywood... far from Gil. It was simple enough to arrange: a screen test, a few bit parts – the Vandercamps had powerful connections in the jaded, fast-paced world of the stars. In fact, several of the major players dabbled in Gil’s special brand of the occult.

By this time, Elizabeth was so pathetic, Suzanne was at a loss to see how Gil found her attractive. But, to be thorough, Suzanne took a leaf from Gil’s own book and eliminated the competition entirely.

Gil was annoyed when he found out about Elizabeth’s death, but not overly so, which reassured Suzanne. In truth, Elizabeth had grown tiresome, a middle-aged nobody who was boring, moody, and had cellulite-riddled thighs that, frankly, were repellant.

But, while his lust had abated, his anger still seethed, and he decided to use this opportunity to exact revenge on the man who’d stolen Elizabeth from him in the first place.

How? By ruining him, of course. By taking away everything from Jake that mattered, just like Jake had done to him two decades before. By crushing Jake Montclaire like the pathetic vermin he was.

**

Skeeter circled around the back of the turret spire, looking down the long sides of the castle to the hard ground below. No escape, just a killer drop. Either he could wait here, on this slippery, steep abyss, or he could retrace his footsteps back into the castle and find a new place to hide.

Whistling in the parking lot diverted his attention. Rat had returned to the car, which had been left parked at a funny angle. Skeeter watched Rat rummage around the backseat, then emerge with a pellet gun. With little fanfare, Rat aimed it in Skeeter’s general direction and took a shot. The pellet bounced harmlessly off the castle roof. Rat spat on the pavement, then reloaded.

Next shot was closer, but not by much. Third shot took out a window. Fourth shot was precariously close. Fifth shot was hopelessly wild, causing Rat to grunt in disgust, and take his time with the next shot. It was time well spent: sixth shot caught the corner of Skeeter’s shoe.

“How does it feel being a sitting duck, Montclaire? Or should I say a sitting
chicken
. Bawk-bawk, Chicken-Boy, next shot goes right between the eyes.”

Skeeter scampered around the other side of the spire, his rubber soled shoes slippery on the wet roof. He’d have to go back inside, take his chances. He waited until Rat took another shot, then used the reloading time to beeline to the window.

Damn, the window was stuck shut.
He jimmied it mercilessly, shaking it until he feared the frame would break.

“Hey, chicken-boy, now you’re a nice open target. See how it feels to have pellet shot up your ass.”

Skeeter cringed as the pellet whizzed by.

“Heh-heh,” Rat laughed, clearly enjoying himself. “Say your prayers chicken-boy, next one won’t miss. Good thing you’re in a church.”

“It’s a castle, you
stupid
jerk, not a church.” Skeeter yelled back, throwing himself at the window. The old frame gave way and he crashed through, glass cascading all around him. He squeezed his eyes together tightly and covered his face, landing hard on his shoulder. Pain exploded as the bones dislocated and darkness loomed.

He thought he was passing out, but the darkness was external, and he opened his eyes to see Rat’s hulking accomplice standing above him, blocking the daylight from the shattered window. The goon leered nastily. “Who you calling a stupid jerk?”

“You, butt-face,” Skeeter hollered, arching his back and bucking his feet forward, directly into the goon’s groin.

The goon dropped, groaning and clutching his testicles, falling squarely onto the broken glass. He screamed as jagged particles became embedded in his flesh, and Skeeter could already see blood oozing from a dozen areas through his shirt.

“I’m going to kill you, you little mother-fucker.”

“Yeah? You’ll have to catch me first.”

The goon let out an unearthly howl, and Skeeter, torn between the desire to kick him again and to get the hell out of there, chose the latter. He ran.

**

966 Glenhaven Drive. The address, scrawled in Cari’s bold print, lay on the car seat between them like a smoking gun. They both remained silent while contemplating the significance.

“Could be a red herring,” Cari pointed out.

“Or the break we need.”

“It’s on the
west side of the island. It’ll take us over an hour to get there. Could be a complete waste of time.”

“Could be,” Jake agreed.

She fretted, eyes darting between the address and the map. “Remote area.”

“Very. No one to help us if we get into trouble.”

“We could let the police in on this.”

“Think they’d be interested in ‘choir’ practise? For all we know, it could be just that.”

“Does Lisa strike you as the kind of girl who goes to choir?”

Jake thought of Lisa’s disclosure that she belonged in
to the cult. “No.”

“We should let them know, we might need backup.”

Jake turned to her. “You heard the voice mail – Carmichael wants to question me about Carmen’s death. Who knows what kind of trouble Vandercamp has me twisted up in now? It could take hours to unsort and I don’t have that kind of time to spend.”

“He knows you’re not involved.”

“I can’t chance it. What if Vandercamp has left evidence? What if the sergeant decides to lock me up? How can I find my kids then?”

“I doubt that would happen.”

“Yeah? Well, I doubted any of this would have happened, and look at me now.”

Cari regarded him steadily. “At least you
should tell him about the meeting.”

“Should’ve done a lot of things, but we didn’t, and we can’t second-guess ourselves. Here’s what I’m thinking: no one knows we have this information. Let’s use that to our advantage. The line’s getting muddied, we don’t know the good guys from the bad. These people are insidious, they worm their way into every walk of life like cockroaches. Carmichael fears even the police force might
be compromised.” He told her about Lisa’s claim that all Marvelworks’ employees were Satan worshippers. “It makes me sick to learn I’ve been working and socializing with this bunch of social miscreants. It was hard enough to realize I’ve been suckered by Gil, but now I find it’s everyone.”

“Kind of like Alice in Wonderland, eh?”

“Yeah, surrounded by Mad Hatters.”

She reached over and ran her fingers along the underside of his unshaven jaw, feeling the bristly whiskers. “The meeting isn’t until seven-thirty, right? We have plenty of time to prepare. Why don’t we go home, see if there’s any word about Skeeter, then grab a quick bite and a powernap.”

“You’re hungry?”

“Extremely.”

“And tired?”

“Exhausted. It would be better if we’re rested. Right now I can barely think straight.”

He hesitated. “We do need to get our capes. No use crashing a cult meeting without proper attire.”

Cari smiled slightly. “Especially since they’re so stylish in that gothic-executioner way.”

“Cari Valentine,” Jake said, kissing her fingertips. “You’d look sexy in anything.”

“You think? Maybe you should try seeing me dressed in nothing.”

He grinned, despite himself. “Maybe I should.”

**

There was no reasoning with Gil, Suzanne decided. She had seen him upset before, on many occasions, but not like this. He was despondent. “I’m serious, Gil,” she said, making her voice firm. “I want to know where Jason is.”

“I told you, he’s dead to me. He’s not coming back.”

“He’s our son, Gil.”

Gil whirled savagely. “No he’s not. I won’t have his name said in this house again.”

Suzanne was alarmed at the maniacal gleam in Gil’s red-rimmed eyes. “Have you been drinking?”

“What of it?” he snarled.

“Nothing,” she soothed. “It’s just, well, you look ill, dear.”

“Ill? You’re telling me I look sick?” His laugh was a cackle. “I
am
sick. Sick of everyone always questioning me, going behind my back. It’s coming unravelled, Suzanne. Our entire existence is coming unravelled and Jason is to blame.”

Suzanne sat warily on the newly upholstered divan. “Tell me what you’re talking about, Gil.”