Bloodlust

By Gar Mallinson

Punishment and isolation govern the lives of two young brothers raised in a strict religious community. When they break away and start a cult of their own, they move from hunting small animals in the forest to young women on the streets of the city. Follow their journey from dank musty cellars to eerie deconsecrated churches and remote forest settings.

As the investigation develops, they call in PI Harry Touchstone and his partner, Sabina Harris, to find the killers who leave disembowelled bodies with strange markings first in the north near a small town and then in the big city. To help the investigation, Spence Riley goes undercover with the help of a local prostitute named Red. The killers lead them from a dank musty cellar to an eerie deconsecrated church to remote forest settings as they practice their obsessive fusion of sex and blood.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gar Mallinson
• Release date: Aug 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781525507557

Book preview

I

Kylie Wingate was sixteen and a senior at Harbour City High. She had just finished her morning chores and was in her room trying to decide what to wear. She’d had her hair done by that super guy at the hair salon, and she thought the reddish streaks looked good, especially with the new cut.

She sighed dramatically. There wasn’t a damn thing to wear, and most of what she had lay in piles on the bed and the floor and the chair. She scrunched up her face, kicked the pile by her feet, and sighed again. She was in the drama club and had been practising that sigh because Billy Short got attentive when she did it. If only she had a bigger allowance, she could get that cute low-cut blouse she’d tried on at Target. Jen could always buy stuff, but oh no, not her. It wouldn’t do to spend money. Why couldn’t her mom stay home once in a while? Jen’s mom never came shopping. It was embarrassing having her mother shopping with her.

Downstairs in the kitchen, Alicia Wingate finished the breakfast dishes and thought about her daughter and her new friends. They seemed to change every semester, and this new crowd, well, she didn’t like them much, especially Jen. She was too wild, and her shorts were too short and tight. So were her skirts, if you could call them that. And her mother was just as bad, with too much makeup and too much flash. Alicia glanced down at the plate she was clearing before she put it in the dishwasher. She dried her hands and walked into the back room to fill the washer.

Kylie changed again and put on shorts, turning up the legs, and a round-necked top that left some of her midriff exposed, but not enough to get her grounded like last time. Jeez, everybody wore tight stuff. She raced down the stairs, yelled, Bye, Mom! on the way out, and slammed the door. She ran down the block before her mother could call her back. She slowed to a lazy shuffle, pulled out her phone, and began to text Jen. 

She watched the screen as she walked, hoping for an answer. She reached the corner at Wallace and turned toward the Tim Hortons. The three of them usually hung out there—her, Jen, and Billy. She was sure she loved Billy, but she wasn’t sure he loved her the same way. He wanted her all right, she knew that, but there were other girls who hung around him, and she didn’t like that at all.

Kylie was still watching her phone. Nobody was answering her texts, and nobody was at the restaurant either. Kylie sighed and walked on. She’d try Bowen Park and the sand court where the gang played volleyball.

She sat on a bench under a tree and waited. She turned away when the old guys started playing because it was gross the way they looked at her. She watched glumly while small groups of young guys played Frisbee golf. She knew Jen and Billy played and thought maybe they’d pass by and she could join them. She didn’t like Frisbees much and couldn’t throw them very well, so Billy never had much patience with her. He had a lot, though, when he got her alone. They’d been close to going all the way a few times. Kylie knew if they kept going, she’d give in and do it. She sure wanted to and so did he, but her mom would kill her if she ever found out. And her dad would kill Billy.

Kylie sighed again. If she could get the pill, she’d feel safe and let Billy do whatever he wanted, the way Jen did with Jimmy. They talked about it all the time, and Kylie was starting to feel left out. It was like the others were getting tired of waiting for her and were moving on to other people, leaving her out of things. Like today, she couldn’t reach any of them.

Another round of players passed the station near her bench and Kylie decided to try down on the seawall. Everybody hung there, and sometimes in the afternoon they’d light up and she’d get high with them. They were the best times, she thought, except for the ones with Billy in the dark. Kylie smiled thinking of him and what they did together.

––––––––

Maffeo Sutton Park was only a couple of blocks away. The Millstream River dumped into the harbour on the other side of the park, and sometimes everybody was up the river a bit, off the path by the water. She’d try both places.

Kylie walked into the park and angled toward the statue. There were too many people around, she thought, maybe from a cruise ship or something. She’d never find them there. She turned toward the Millstream side, took the walkway upriver, and followed the paved path to the turn down toward the water.

She could smell the joints before she reached the place by the rapids and knew she’d found them. She pushed through the last of the shrubs and there they were, Billy, Jen, and Jimmy. They nodded and Jen passed her a joint. She took a hit and passed it to Billy, who pulled her over beside him and slid his hand up her leg. Jen grinned at her and nodded. She let Billy do what he wanted as Jen and Jimmy watched. 

Jen took off her blouse and let Jimmy undo her bra. Kylie watched for a little while, getting aroused. Suddenly, she reached up and undid the buttons on her blouse, slid it off and dropped it behind her. Billy undid her bra and the zipper on her shorts.

Then Jen slid off her perch, knelt in front of Kylie, and pulled at the legs of her shorts. She slid up between Kylie’s legs and caressed her breasts. Kylie watched her friend’s face, felt her lips on her nipples, and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw Billy’s naked body, his erection obvious. Billy and Jimmy ran their hands over her body and Kylie gave herself up to the sensations.

Jen watched as the two boys deflowered her friend over the next hour or so. Jen enjoyed Kylie too until all three were satiated. They remained naked, all of them, and smoked a few joints. Finally, Jen took Kylie down to the river and they both swam for a while before lying on the flat rocks by the rapids and drying in the sun.

Jen looked at Kylie. You’re so good, K. I love you as much as Billy does. We’re together now the way we should be and we all share each other. You liked what we did together, and you liked what I did too. We’ve been waiting for you. The four of us, we’ll share everything.

Kylie looked at Jen’s naked body, the soft sun glancing off the droplets of water still clinging to her skin. She reached over and ran her hand across Jen’s belly, turned on her side on the flat, water-smoothed rock slab, and kissed her. The two girls caressed each other, talking softly, before returning to the boys. Another joint circled the small group before they dressed and left the river.

Kylie walked home slowly. She felt happier than ever. She belonged. She was one of them.

––––––––

The office was on the second floor of Harbour City’s old fire hall above a newish restaurant called Glow, whose name only the owner could explain. It looked out onto Victoria Crescent, at least the curved part of it at the bottom of the hill. This was the beginning of the south end, part of the stroll at night, and home to the seedier elements looking for a handout from the new Salvation Army building across the street in the morning.

Besides social services offices, the crescent housed a couple of small eat-in restaurants, an outreach police storefront, a few second-hand audio stores, and the Cambie, a biker-owned establishment that had a pool hall and a narrow, scruffy restaurant on the ground floor. 

Sabina sat in the secretary’s chair at Willow’s old desk and crossed her legs. Harry smiled at the move, as she knew he would, and that gave her the opening she wanted.

You’d think after last night you wouldn’t give a damn what kind of skirt I was wearing, but those eyes just drift, don’t they?

Harry looked up. Last night was last night. Your skirt’s pretty short, so I was just comparing it with Willow’s, in terms of length only. I was about to check your buttons when you broke my concentration.

Willow was Harry’s old secretary. She’d had a habit of wearing tight skirts with lots of leg, and blouses on which the top three buttons never seemed to work.

Sabina was his new partner. He was hoping she’d dress here the same way as when he’d met her on the stroll in Vancouver. She loved the smell of the street, the car exhaust, the effluvium of lust and carnality. She was, as he’d discovered, addicted to the street, to the excitement and edginess. Even though she rarely participated, she’d told him when he met her that it was a part of who she was. In her other life, she was a programmer and damned good at it. 

Harry smiled and was happy with this new start in the old office. He leaned back in his chair, the springs protesting as they always did, and thought about his old secretary.

Willow was a beautiful Native girl or had been until she’d been kidnapped and raped by a sadistic, brutal psychopath and his equally perverse partner. It was all a part of that last case in the big city. She’d never come back from that trauma, not the way she had been. She now lived with Ling, one of Mamma Jing’s favourite daughters, another beautiful girl from Chinatown. Willow had found a soul mate.

The two of them had grown into a life that Harry now understood a little better. Their relationship mirrored his own with Sabina, minus perhaps a lot of his early confusion with his new relationship. Sabina was a stunning transvestite, and she’d thrown Harry’s libido into chaos, but now he felt closer to her than he ever had to anyone.

On top of Sabina’s physical charms, she was flexible, intelligent, and pure fun. She was a generous spirit and a great companion. If that wasn’t enough, her programming skills and her contacts were top-notch. Sabina’s talents, along with Mamma Jing’s army of men in Vancouver’s Chinatown, had helped solve that last case.

Sabina had recently come back to the island with him when they’d finished the case and now sat in Harry’s old office in Harbour City. Harry watched her studying Willow’s laptop, that Apple thing Willow’d made him buy. He knew what Sabina was used to computer wise, and he could see more money sliding out the door.  

Sabina turned from the computer, swung her leg back and forth, and watched Harry’s eyes tracking. She grinned. Harry, you need to focus here. We gotta get this place organized. Jesus, for a straight guy, you sure have a problem concentrating.

Harry looked at her. You mess with me all the time. I can keep things in their proper places. Well, some things anyway. He sat back, stuck his hands behind his head, and sighed. So partner, what do we need? At least from your end... um, speaking figuratively, I guess. 

Down came Sabina’s foot and up went her eyebrows. Well, first thing, my end ain’t figurative, as you’ve discovered, and second, this computer’s got a pretty small drive. I’ll need a lot of software and some other stuff. And a second computer. So the Apple store for starters. Then we reorganize the office and get some decent furniture in here.

Harry groaned. We gonna spend a lot on this or are you gonna take it easy until we get a few cases? Can’t we work at this in bits? I mean, I didn’t need any more than I got, so why do I need all this stuff now?

Sabina sighed. We’re partners now, and we need a decent work space. You want a secretary to look nice up here, find somebody. Me, I’m setting up shop. You coming, or you gonna sit there all day? 

Harry got up reluctantly and followed Sabina down the hall, watching the flip of her rear descending the stairs in that short skirt. Almost as good as Willow, he murmured. And without as much mouth. Usually, anyway.

––––––––

Just around the corner, on the butt end of Victoria Crescent, was a highway called Terminal Ave, which cut through town and separated the crescent from the main drag. A series of new shops were trying hard to change the street’s image and mostly failing in the attempt. The new conference center wasn’t faring much better.

From the office, Harry and Sabina crossed Terminal at the lights, and walked up past the Serious Coffee in the bottom of the conference center. They turned down a short one-lane alley to the Apple store by a hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Le Petit Chou. Harry wondered why anybody’d call a restaurant a small cabbage, just as he’d never understand why every computer in the store had an apple with a bite out of it.

In this store, Sabina did the talking. Harry looked around and said he’d meet her in the Modern, a newish restaurant up the street by an old three-storey columned building that gave the area a kind of solidity.

The Modern had replaced an old Chinese dump that had been an eyesore for years. Wong, the owner, had died in the kitchen, which gave the city fathers a chance to restore the building. The result was a bar with sandblasted brick walls, shiny dark-brown leather booths on the side and in the center, and high tables in the back.

The food was generous, the menu varied, and the prices reasonable. Harry liked the place, especially since it was only a short block from the Red Brick Bar on a cobbled street run by his close friend, Sam. Sam kept a stock of single malts under the counter just for him. 

On the way to the restaurant, Harry passed one of those tourist-trap shops full of artsy kitchen stuff and uncomfortable looking furniture. The store seemed to hog a lot of space on the street. Following that place were a couple of clothing stores and a coffee shop called Perkins that had indeed perked up the street a bit, what with the Modern just across the street.

He looked in at the art gallery beside the Modern to see what sort of mess was in the window today. Mostly, the place handled local landscape artists, but it reserved the front window for whatever abstraction caught the owner’s eye, which wasn’t always twenty-twenty. Today’s feature was a large mess of blue and white with red slashes

He went all the way to the back of the restaurant and took the last booth. He ordered his usual cappuccino and sat back to wait for Sabina. The longer she took, he knew, the higher the bill would be. He finished that coffee and ordered another. A few minutes later, He watched her walk toward him, as did the barista and the waitress, the one appreciative, the other looking hostile.

Harry grinned at her. You’re having your usual impact. That girl don’t like you. He nodded at the waitress.

She’s just not used to big city girls, she said.

Sort of free advertising, then? Harry frowned. We could use some business now, seeing as how you spent so much time in that store. Tell me what you bought before I order lunch. I don’t want to ruin the enjoyment thinking about it. The food’s good here.

Sabina smiled in that seductive way she had, flipped up an eyebrow, and rubbed his calf under the table.

Relax, H, it wasn’t so bad. Just a couple of laptops and some software and stuff, and I swapped some of it for a cleanup of their accounting system. After all, I’m a programmer. Stuff’ll be ready in a day or so, and my fee covers most of it. So order up, big boy. Let’s eat. I’m starved.

They didn’t say much over lunch, and both settled back afterward with more coffee. Harry was content just to sit for a while, but Sabina was in one of her moods and fidgeted until he sighed and got up. She grinned at him. You’re catching on, Sweets. Let’s roll!

They walked back to the office to get the car. On the way, Sabina explained how the office should look if they wanted to create any kind of impression. Harry plodded along, nodded glumly, and figured he might as well humour her.

The car took them to a couple of stores out on Bowen Road that had been joined together. Sabina began comparing fabrics and styles with the sales girl while Harry wandered around the store. He watched the two girls disappear into the depths, then wandered into the other half. This one was full of Scandinavian stuff. He wandered around looking at the offerings, wondering how some of them worked.

He was still there and still wondering when Sabina joined him, chuckled at his expression, and said, New designs, H, beyond your skill set. Let’s blow the place. I’ve got what we need, and it’ll be ready in a week or so. You’re gonna love it. 

Harry drove them back to the office, parked across the road in the small lot somebody’d cut out of the rock face, and followed Sabina up the stairs.

He stood outside the door for a moment looking out the window at the slice of harbour he could see. When he walked into the office, Sabina was perched at Willow’s old desk, twirling a bit of hair in one hand and working a square thing with the other. Harry sighed and walked over to look. It was another of those gadgets Apple sold, only this one didn’t seem to have a keyboard and it was about the size of a paperback. She started punching the screen with her thumbs. 

Hey H, she said. You ought to get one of these. Keep everything straight, dates, projects, meetings, anything you got for the day. You could set up a whole month if you wanted. 

Harry watched her thumbs flipping around for a bit and shook his head. Why would I want to do that? Just make me depressed to see a whole month. You think we should paint the place? I mean, to go with the new stuff you got?

Sabina looked around and grimaced at the dirty beige walls and chipped woodwork. Well, Sweets, paint would sure help, but we got stuff to do before that, like putting in partitions. See, we could separate the working part from the reception part. Put a bit of class into the place, make it look like a business and not just a place to park your ass for the day. Come over here and I’ll show you what I think.

Harry looked pained but walked over. Sabina spread out a couple of sheets of yellow legal size, and with a running commentary began to draw a plan of the office. She sketched in new walls, doors, furniture, and a computer station. Harry just watched. When she ran down, he grunted.

Ah come on. It’s gonna look great, you’ll love it. And you don’t have to do a damn thing. I’ll look after it all. You just blow off the moths and pay the man. I gotta pee. Don’t go away! 

By the time she got back, Harry was sitting in Willow’s old chair, adding a few touches of his own.

Atta boy. Let’s see what you’ve done. Sabina leaned over his shoulder, long blond hair brushing his cheek. Hey, that’s good! I hadn’t thought of that! How about this?

By the end of the afternoon, they’d finished and were throwing around names for the new firm. Harry’s name and both of hers got put into the mix. He hadn’t known her full name until now: Sasha Hartley had become Sabina Harris.

What followed was a journey into history and a decision to take the whole thing to dinner at the Modern. The first bottle of Shiraz hadn’t solved anything, so they ordered another and kept going. In the end, dinner finished and the second bottle gone, they mulled the result over coffee. 

––––––––

Kylie and Jen grew closer as the days passed. They met Billy and Jimmy at their spot on the river as often as they could, enjoying the reefers Billy always had and becoming ever more intimate, inhibitions fading like light behind the mountains at dusk. By the time Billy suggested tattoos, they’d had sex in every conceivable way, and had welded into a single entity as much as that were possible. The tats, Billy said, would make them part of each other, like a pledge between them.

As time went on that summer, Billy became the one who defined the group. Jen and Jimmy were eager followers, and Kylie was the one who received them all, singly and together. For the first time in her young life she felt secure, a part of something rare, and she gave herself fully.

If her parents noticed anything, they attributed the change to their daughter’s growing sense of who she was. She was less emotional at home, easier to live with, and more amenable to suggestion. If anything bothered them, it was her absences during the day. But it was summer, and they were more than happy to see her away from her computer and electronic devices and out in the fresh air.

After an afternoon of sex and reefers along the river while they lay naked in the sun, Billy showed them the symbol he had decided would be their sign. It was a circle with four arms meeting in the middle, in a kind of cross except that the ends of the arms were joined to form an inner circle. Each arm met the circumference of the circle in two soft opposing curves. It was suggestively phallic, but visually attractive and meaningless to outsiders. Billy smiled. "We get it at the bottom of our backs where our hips start, and we all get it at the same time.

I’ve arranged it for tomorrow. I’ve got a place and a special guy to do it. We meet here and I’ll take you all. Kylie gets another pair of tats, a teardrop on each inner thigh. Kylie was excited and eager. She was full of questions for Billy, about the tears especially, and how she would be exposed to get them. Her arousal was obvious, and they took her yet again as the afternoon wore down.

Kylie smiled and spread her arms and legs in unconscious imitation of the symbol that would shortly join them all.

––––––––

Over coffee in the Modern, Sabina said, You know, you got a real screwy name there. Jesus, what was your mother thinking! Sounds like an English barrister, you know, one of those guys in a wig with his nose up his ass?  Jonathon Hargreaves Touchstone?  Where’d she get that?

If you knew anything about United Empire Loyalists, you’d understand. You young people got no sense of history. Anything past last week is obsolete. It’s a wonder you can figure out anything. Harry sat upright and wagged his index finger in her face. 

Sabina guffawed and kicked him under the table. Well, we gotta make something out of that mess. Why don’t we take the H out of Harry and maybe the S out of me and add the H from Harris and Hartley and Hargreaves and make SHH out of it. Besides, with my last two names, it could be all me if you bail, or you and me together if you can stand the pace.

Harry sat back and thought about it. You know, there’s something in that. Sort of onomatopoeic. SHH: Private Investigations. Maybe on two lines. In gold. Outlined in black. On the glass part of the door when we get one.

Onomatopoeic? Sabina asked. You been reading funny books again? So okay, I get the inside, you get the door.

Harry grinned. Sounds fair to me. Let’s go home and talk it over in bed. I got a Scotch that has to be sipped slowly, and we need to be comfortable for that.

Sabina got up, sauntered past the waitress, camped a bit for the barista, and paid the bill. What followed was a head to head at the register, a few giggles from her, and some nods and a giant smile from him. The waitress muttered something under her breath and went to the kitchen. Harry followed Sabina out the door. 

They walked over to Front Street, passed the Anglican church, and wandered down to the seawall. It was a quiet night, the breeze fitful, the rigging from the marina muttering in the darkness. The harbour heaved quietly, the swell swinging in from the Salish Sea. No waves broke the surface.

They took the path around Maffeo Sutton Park and crossed the pedestrian bridge over the Millstream River. Then they turned up the short street at the rear of the yacht club to their home. Sabina peered in the salon window. Think I should try this place, H, or would I cause a stir and embarrass you?

Hell, most of the guys in there are on your side of the park, so you should fit right in. Try it out tomorrow. We got things to do tonight.

Harry unlocked the door and followed Sabina up the stairs, happy enough with the day and satisfied with the view.

II

The next morning at ten, Kylie met Billy, Jimmy, and Jen in the rocks by the river. It was cloudy, the air close and heavy with the promise of rain, and the lower river sluggish and full with the tide. The four passed a reefer around, spent some time getting mellow, then took the path up the hill to Billy’s old, mud-spattered pickup. It had a rear bench seat, narrow and uncomfortable, but serviceable enough for Jen and Jimmy. Kylie sat up front with Billy, her pleasure at the arrangement obvious to them all. She kept close to Billy until he pushed her away so he could manage the stick.

He took them through the south end, up Victoria Road, and onto the highway. He drove up the long hill past the Cedar Road lights and the Duke Point feeder highway to the cut-off just before the Cassidy Bridge. He turned off here, taking River Road along the ridge. The river below spread green and grey in the soft light. He drove on for a few kilometers to a single gravel track that left the two-lane blacktop and ran steeply down the side of a gorge in two precipitous switchbacks toward the river. On both sides of the narrow, poorly maintained road, the forest rose above them, plunging them into a damp, cool half-light and muting the river’s voice. The track levelled out near precipitous rock walls where the forest ended and through which the river tumbled.

The track led to a low, single-storey clapboard house set on a narrow protrusion of rock. The porch, attached haphazardly, was little more than a handmade addition thrown up in a hurry. It canted toward the river. The house itself was set back on the rock and surrounded by firs, cedar, and underbrush, its scabrous paint peeling in streaks like the moulting skin of a snake. The roofline bowed in a swayback. 

When Billy turned off the engine, the screech of heavy metal pounded out of the place, mixing with the roar of the churning water in the river’s narrow bed. Mist seeped up from the gorge. Everything was slick, wet, and dripping, the moss on the trees like green slime. It was the most dismal place Kylie had ever seen. She sat in the truck unwilling to get out until Billy reached across and pushed open her door.  She looked at him uncertainly and climbed down.

They all followed Billy to the house. Once on the sodden floorboards of the rickety porch, they waited in curling tendrils of mist, enveloped in ear-splitting acid rock, while he pounded on the warped wood door. The sudden cessation of screaming electric guitar chords was as unnerving as the view over the sheer cliff walls to the raging river below. In the open doorway stood a huge, bearded, leather-clad biker who grinned at Billy and clapped him on the shoulder with a massive hand before hauling him inside. Jimmy, then Jen, then Kylie, followed.

The interior held a couple of drab couches on one side, both sagging in the middle, two tilted floor lamps, shades askew, and a huge flat-screen on the opposite wall flanked by speakers as tall and as wide as the biker himself. In front of the couches was a long low table covered in fast food cartons, pizza boxes, and a small army of green bottles, many on their sides like fallen soldiers. Behind all that mess, in the back, was a clear, clean spot, lit by one low-hanging high-intensity lamp over a black leather bench built like a massage table. Standing to the side of the table was a contraption that reminded Kylie of a dentist’s office except that this monstrosity was black.

The biker had his back to Kylie and Jen and was talking quietly to Billy. Jimmy stood by his side saying nothing. Now and then, the biker looked up and eyed the two girls while Billy talked. Then he grinned at Kylie and ran his eyes over her young body. She shuddered, revolted by the intimacy. It was as if he could see through her clothes, and she could almost feel his big hands crawling over her naked body. Her revulsion surprised her. She’d come to recognise and welcome the lascivious looks of her peers and even older men who saw in her walk and manner the promise of her body. Only her parents seemed oblivious. 

As the huge biker continued to eye her, she felt her body react and the heat of it melted away her initial feelings until she began to respond in kind. The biker nodded to her, his smile bigger, his eyes registering her growing compliance. He looked down at Billy and nodded some more. He looked back up at Kylie again, his eyes knowing, his lips parted, his tongue protruding slightly in a highly suggestive way that made ripples of anticipated pleasure flow through her. The intensity of their exchange blocked everything else, and she knew the big man would take her, felt the heat rise in her. She turned from him and walked to the black couch, letting her body reflect her arousal, knowing his eyes were still fastened on her, aware that she was the center of his attention.

The three men finished whatever it was they were discussing and seemed to have reached some kind of agreement. At least that’s what it looked like to Jen, who had watched it all and smiled as she saw the big man watching Kylie, and Kylie loosen and respond. She knew what would happen, knew they’d all be a part of it, and felt her own pleasure rise. 

Billy came over to Jen. Get over there with Kylie and make out. He wants to watch for a while. Get her naked and use the table. We’ll join you when she’s ready, all of us. Later we get our tats, and he’ll get her high and do the tear drops. She belongs to us, and we’re gonna use her to break into the life. This guy’s our connection.

The rest of the morning vanished in a feverish round of sexual activity on and around the black bench. The afternoon stretched out, measured by the sounds of the needle while the four of them received Billy’s circular tat at the base of their spines. The heavy biker was all business with the boys but lingered over the girls, especially Kylie. All of them had been treated to a powerful sedative before he began, and all lay placid on the table as the work was done.

He was good in spite of his appearance, and the tattoos, if simple in execution, were fine examples of his work. Kylie was the last to get her circle and perhaps the most affected by the drug.

When the big man was done with her back, he turned her gently and spread her legs. He created twin teardrops containing intricate internal designs of his own as a kind of special mark for her alone, an appreciation of what she was. The tears were larger than the others had envisioned and were highly suggestive, placed as they were on Kylie’s inner thighs, their tails curling up around her genitals. The area was sensitive, and Kylie was covered in sweat and in considerable pain by the time the work was done. She had whimpered quietly throughout the ordeal, but had never moved.

The boys left her alone on the table while the biker worked. Jen, however, had remained close and seemed to find the tears especially fascinating. She helped Kylie up, got her dressed, and accepted the biker’s instructions about care and a supply of medication.

They were in the pickup again and turning to leave when Jen gave a start. She was in the front now with Billy. Kylie was lying in the rear, still a bit woozy from the drugs, her legs draped over Jimmy’s lap. Jen pointed out the front window and Billy stopped.

In the forest near the house was an apparition that startled them both. The man was tall, thin, and naked, though it was hard to tell since he was covered in what looked like body paint in intricate swirling designs. The colours seemed to glow in the water-laden air. As suddenly as he had appeared, he vanished. Jen and Billy stared after him, glanced at each other, and shrugged.

Billy finished maneuvering the truck so that it pointed up the pockmarked gravel track and paused again. He and Jen watched the forest with the wipers on to clear the mist, saw nothing, and Billy began the climb back to the blacktop in four-wheel drive. He took it slower than he needed to, and the two of them watched the bush on either side, but there were no more apparitions.

By the time they were back in Harbour City, the day had cleared. The sun was low in the sky and the air still laden with moisture, making the colours deeper and more vibrant. Billy parked where they had begun their day. Jimmy roused Kylie, who was napping but had recovered from the drug, and all four of them went down to the rocks by the river. The shrubs along the path were bright with water