The Haunting of Anna McAlister (32 page)

Ariene turned back and Tom came to her. She took him gently into her arms.
 

* * *

The figure became no more distinct as it approached. It moved silently around the table. Only the music filled the air, and it filled it completely. As the shadow passed behind Stacy, what felt like a blade of ice moved across her skin from shoulder blade to shoulder blade.

When the figure moved behind Anna, she felt the hair being moved slowly away from her left ear and heard a whisper that sounded like the wind.
 

“
Je taime
. I love you.”

Anna smelled the same sickening, rotting breath she had smelled in her own home, in her own country. Something kissed her cheek. It was the deepest cold she had ever felt.

“Anna, you’re bleeding,” Stacy said. She had watched the tiny wound open on Anna’s cheek.
 

“Don’t break the circle,” Anna said. She felt a few drops of blood trickle down her cheek. They felt like tears.
 

The shadow moved first behind Phillipe, and then into him.

* * *

Tom returned Ariene’s embrace. He felt her running her fingers through his hair, and pressing her body against his. She felt as solid and real as any woman Tom had ever been with. She smelled of roses. Tom felt himself responding to her touch.
 

“No, this can’t be happening.” Tom tried to pull away, but Ariene tightened her grip in his hair.
 

* * *

Phillipe looked up at Anna, his eyes were black and empty.

“Phillipe?”

“I am much more than that,” Phillipe said. His mouth smiled slightly, but his eyes remained blank.
 

“Are you Renee?”
 

Anna felt Phillipe’s hand squeezing hers until her little finger broke in two places. She ignored the pain. It didn’t matter. “Are you Renee?”

“I am . . .”

Before he finished his statement, Phillipe’s eyes suddenly returned to their normal shade. He looked at Anna for a moment. Then, his head fell toward the table. He was dead before it hit. From beneath his face blood spread out in both directions.

“Phillipe, no!” Stacy cried. Both she and Anna tried to pull free, but Phillipe’s hands wouldn’t release them. In fact, both thought they felt his grip tighten.

“I am going to show you what you came to see,” Detective Malmann walked into the circle of candlelight around the table.

“His eyes, Anna,” Stacy quickly whispered. “Look at his eyes.”

Anna saw that now it was Detective Malmann who looked at them through the eyes of the dead.
 

“Inspector Cerone,” Stacy screamed. “Help us!”

Detective Malmann started to laugh. When he opened his mouth, the smell of decayed flesh filled the room. “Inspector Cerone is . . . elsewhere.”

The candle flame grew larger. It lit the room just long enough for Anna and Stacy to see Inspector Cerone slumped against the door. His clothing was caked with drying blood and his throat had been cut to the bone.

“Where is Ariene?” Anna screamed at the body of Detective Malmann. She thought for a moment that his facial expression changed slightly at the mention of her name. “Ariene,” Anna stared directly into Detective Malmann’s dead eyes. “I am here to help Ariene.”

“We are all here to help Ariene,” Malmann laughed once more and looked away.

“I will free her.”

“Yes,” the being paused. “You will.”

“Bring her to me now.”

“To help the dead, you must feel their death,” Detective Malmann moved toward Anna. “Come to me, Anna. Come to me now.”

* * *

“You should have protected me,” Ariene cooed into Tom’s ear. She twisted his hair around her fingers and held him in place. “You should have stayed awake. You belong to me, Renee. Now, you belong with me.”

Tom felt Ariene’s grip tighten even more. She pulled his head back and rammed it into the cell bars with incredible strength. She did it again, and again and again. Before losing consciousness, Tom felt his skull splitting open. Ariene continued to hit Tom’s head into the bars long after he was dead. She didn’t stop until it was forced between the bars, a broken mass of bone, brain and blood.

* * *

Detective Malmann reached out to Anna. Taking her hand in his own he gently pulled her to her feet. Anna felt herself leave her body. As she was led toward the bed, Anna looked back at herself still sitting at the table.
 

“Anna, no,” Stacy yelled. She had watched Anna step away from her physical body. When she did, her hand suddenly felt as heavy and lifeless as Phillipe’s,

“Stop, leave her alone!” Stacy screamed. She tried to get up, but Anna’s hand tightened on hers.

“Shhh,” Anna turned back and looked at Stacy. “This is why I’m here. This is how it will end.”

Detective Malmann moved her to the edge of the bed. He touched the open black music box on the nightstand. The waltz continued to play and an avalanche of memories crushed through Anna’s mind. These were from someone else’s past, but Anna relived them as if they were from her own. “Ariene, no,” Anna whispered.

“
Oui
,” Detective Malmann said. “Ariene.”

Anna looked down at the bed. A young girl was tied to it, her body bruised and naked. A man, Renee, climbed between her legs and pushed himself into her. Anna heard herself laughing at the girl’s screams.
 

Renee fucked her violently and climaxed quickly. When he pulled out, Anna felt and saw her own hand slapping the girl’s breasts as hard as she could. She saw Renee remove a small, razor sharp knife from the music box. He held it out to her.
 

“No, Renee,” Anna heard a strange voice coming from her mouth. “I think I would like to watch while you carve. And this time, my darling, start with her beautiful, beautiful breasts.”

Many memories played out their scenes of horror and pain before Anna, who relived them all through Ariene’s eyes. Different girls, some men, all tied to the same bed and tortured until Ariene tired, and ended it with a blade.

She saw a girl attacked by many men. She begged Ariene to make them stop. Ariene honored the request by using Anna’s hand to stick a knife into the girl’s lower abdomen at least a dozen times. She made the men suck the blood from the dying girl’s vagina and comment on its taste.
 

Anna felt herself sucking the cock of a tied man to full erection and then while it was still in her mouth, cutting it off at its base. When the man screamed, she put her mouth over his and pushed his member deeply into it with her tongue. She stood back and delighted in his choking on his own penis while he bled to death on the bed.
 

Anna tried to block the memories but could not. A girl skinned slowly, another impaled on a long broom until only it’s gore covered bristles could be seen protruding from her body. All the time, Anna could hear herself laughing.
 

No no no no no no no!
 

“You’ve come to help me, and now you will.” Ariene now stood next to Anna. She placed a blood stained hand on Anna’s back and forced her on to the bed.

Stacy had watched Anna and Detective Malmann standing and staring at the bed. When she saw Ariene suddenly appear and push Anna, she managed to break free of the corpse’s hands that held her. She ran toward the bed, when she did Anna’s body fell from its chair to the floor.
 

“Leave her alone!” Stacy screamed.

“Of course,” Ariene was upon Stacy before she could react. Ariene kissed her cheek and ran her hand from her throat to her vagina. When she did, Stacey’s skin opened under her clothing and what had been inside spilled out. A look of absolute disbelief and horror filled Stacey’s face as Ariene hugged her and lowered her onto the carpet to die.
 

Anna tried to move off the bed, but she was now tied to it . . . and again laughing, enjoying what was happening as Ariene had so long ago. Renee was dancing around the bed, naked and fully erect. He held a bottle of brandy, from which Anna gladly drank.
 

Anna knew she was bound as tightly as any of the servants or street sluts had been, even though her wrists and ankles were secured with silk, rather than the spiked wire she and Renee preferred for their games.
 

Renee finished the bottle of brandy and opened another. He shared some with Anna and drank much of the rest.
 

“Oh, please monsieur, have mercy.” Anna heard herself say in French. It was Ariene’s voice that spoke. She was aware of the intense sensual delight she received from being tied to the same bed where what she called her “playthings” had suffered and died. She undulated with pleasure as they had writhed in pain.
 

Finding the second bottle empty, Renee threw it across the room, shattering the glass against the wall. He was very drunk. Renee approached the bed. He tripped and fell across Anna’s body.

“You idiot!” Anna screamed in French. “What good are you to me when you are like this?” She felt his now flaccid cock flop against her leg like a dying fish. “Perhaps it will be you tied to the bed next. Untie me now!”

Renee laughed, assuming Ariene’s pleas were simply part of the game. He rolled down her body and fell from the back of the bed.

“Now, Renee! The game is done.”

Renee heard Ariene’s words through the alcoholic fog that embraced him. The words were her command for him to stop and release her. They had done this dozens of times before.
 

“Of course
mi amour
. Immediately.”

Renee moved to untie Ariene but tripped. He stumbled backward into a chair.

“Renee!”

Renee tried to rise, but instead fell into a deep, drunken sleep.

Ariene struggled against the silk that bound her to the bed, cursing Renee and calling for help. No one heard her pleas. The heavy tapestries on the walls muffled her demands as much as they had her victim’s cries and screams. Finally exhausted, Ariene lay still in silent fury.

Anna felt the lids close over Ariene’s eyes.
 

It wasn’t until morning that there was a gentle knocking on the door and Ariene’s personal maid very timidly poked her head into the room. Before that, she had prayed, as she did every morning that the apartment would be empty. The maid had seen many terrible things, horrible things, but had been ordered to be silent and threatened with a tortured death to guarantee she obeyed. This morning, she saw Mademoiselle LaMoreau spread and tied to the bed, and an equally naked Monsieur Desan passed out on the chair.
 

Ariene looked at her. “
Aidez moi
,” she begged sweetly. “
Aidez-moi
.”

Through Ariene’s eyes, Anna saw the woman’s lower lip tremble slightly as she pulled her head back from the room and closed the door. With Ariene’s voice she heard herself scream. “Come back, bitch whore!”
 

Anna felt the silk, now soaked with Ariene’s sweat, start to cut into her wrists and ankles as she struggled to be free.
 

* * *

Servants and street people in the area had heard many rumors about the beautiful and very wealthy woman who lived at the Hotel Baronette. Rumors of young women and men lured by money or sex to their deaths.

Ariene’s use of servants for her physical pleasure was well known to all. The truth of the rumors was suspected by many. At least a dozen people had vanished, but anyone who even whispered the name Ariene LaMoreau in connection with these people was either ordered to be silent, declared insane or never seen again.
 

Only Ariene’s personal maid knew the real truth. While Renee usually had removed the body before she arrived, she had often been forced to assist him in cleaning up pools of blood and pieces of human flesh.

Once she had refused to remove a detached hand that remained tied to a bedpost. Renee, who always stank of alcohol, had whipped her until her clothing had torn away. He had then pushed her face down onto the blood-soaked mattress and brutally sodomized her from behind.
 

After satisfying his lust, Renee had forced her to untie the hand and carry it from the room between her teeth. She had never disobeyed him or Ariene again. Until now.

Chapter 31

Ariene’s maid was named Joselyn Corbet. She did not shed a tear as she led the others to room 531.

* * *

“Renee, you bastard,” Anna shouted in Ariene’s voice. “Wake up or you will die.”

Renee mumbled something which Ariene couldn’t understand. Still naked on the chair, he rolled onto his side and snored loudly.

* * *

It didn’t take long for word of Joselyn’s discovery to spread through the hotel and onto the street. Almost all of the servants had friends who had disappeared. One man had lost a sister, another—a child.

Joselyn told everyone all she had witnessed. On the way up the winding back stairway, the group of a dozen men stopped at the kitchen. Each selected the longest knife he could find.