Slowly, like a movie animation, the word NightWhere materialized at the top of the screen, silver letters carving through the black, in an arch over the tangled image of a snake.
Below the logo, a headline also appeared: Do You Know This Molester?
Mark gasped.
Beneath the headline, was a photo of a man’s face. The very same face he saw in the mirror every morning. There was no question; this was no “that guy looks like me” scene.
The photo was of Mark, grinning full face at the camera.
“Holy shit.”
Beneath the photo it said:
Mark Rogacz may look like just an innocent bystander, but he has flashed dozens of girls at a local grade school near his house and is believed to have had sex with at least five children aged 8-12.
He has a long history of sexual abuse and police have speculated about the possibility that he has hidden away the bodies of some of the girls he has slept with in the basement of his home.
This man appears affable and trustworthy, but he is actually a very dangerous sociopath. Police suspect he may have even murdered his wife, who has not been seen or heard from in several weeks.
If you see him, do not interact with him; call the police immediately.
“What the fuck!” Mark sat back in his office chair and stared at his own mug shot staring back at him from the computer screen. His chest felt like ice. How could they do this to him?
He didn’t ask why…he knew why. Because he hadn’t played along. He had tried to pull Rae away from NightWhere, and when she’d gone anyway, he’d tried to find her.
But, Jesus…if this was on the Internet, how long would it be before police were at his door, ready to pull him in for questioning?
Probably not too long, he speculated.
“They’ve ruined me,” he whispered to the empty room. “First they took my wife, and now they want to take what’s left of my life too?”
Mark clicked the X with a sharp finger snap to the mouse and closed the browser. Then he sat back and took a deep breath.
He had to find Rae. For his own sake now, as well as her own.
He stood up and went into the bedroom to change out of his sweatpants and into his jeans. It was after 11:00 p.m., but he needed to go out. He knew places where the city came alive after dark. And that’s where people might have information on NightWhere.
He wasn’t going to find NightWhere sitting in his house…or looking on the Net.
And based on what he’d just seen online, it looked like he didn’t have a lot of time left to find it before the authorities came looking for him.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dark Dreams Come True
The sound of the leather on his back sent a shiver down Rae’s spine. Mark would never have allowed her to flog him like this…and if she’d tied him up and beat him anyway…he certainly wouldn’t have enjoyed it. The enjoyment of pain just wasn’t in his makeup.
But Peter couldn’t get enough.
The skin of his back was burning pink when someone asked her to stop. Rae looked up from her focus and smiled. Perplexed.
“Stop…why?” she asked.
The man, decked out in blue jeans and a leather vest, looked at Peter and said, “Because you’re really hurting him.”
“Exactly,” Rae had laughed and turned away to continue the process.
She swung her arm harder with every stroke and reveled in seeing his body shift and arch off of the rack. She could see that part of him yearned to be beaten and part was, at the same time, pulling away, afraid. She wanted to warm the skin of both sides. She would turn his fearful side into a slave of the whip.
But maybe not tonight.
Peter’s back was welting and red, and her arm tired. And at this point, what Rae honestly wanted to do to him…
A clock tolled.
A cool hand closed around her wrist. “It’s time,” a familiar voice said. Kharon removed the flogger from her hand, as two other Watchers undid Peter’s bonds.
“Tonight is a special night,” he said. “And I have something special in mind for you and Peter.” Kharon put his arm around Rae and let his lips graze the top of her head.
“You have a cruel streak that I adore,” he said. “Let’s see how deep it runs.”
He led the way to the heavy wooden door of The Red. They passed the velvet ropes and Kharon pulled the iron ring to open the way. They stepped inside to the candlelit foyer. Screams echoed from somewhere in the distance. A girl with silver hair gently rubbed down Peter’s back with a wet rag. He arched his back when she hit the tender spots, but when he looked at Rae he smiled. “Thanks,” he said.
They walked down the long hallway and passed the crucifixion room and the others that Rae was familiar with. But soon they were in a part of NightWhere that she had never been to before. The bricks seemed to change with their progress; the walls grew from modern and smooth to darker red, with uneven grout and chipped and pitted bricks. The walls all glinted with heavy moisture. In some areas, the wetness seemed to flow steadily across the bricks in what looked like a stream of blood.
“Where are we going?” Rae asked after walking a while.
“The last room before The Black.”
“What is The Black?” she asked.
“You’ll find out, depending on what you do in this room,” Kharon said. “I have every confidence that you will meet the Night Mother very soon.”
Finally, they reached the end of the hallway. The brick here seemed to weep cement, and the air smelled of heavy mold and something richer. Almost metallic. The light was low too; everything was cast in a long shadow, and scuttling sounds came from the dark places on the floor as they walked. Rae wanted to lift her feet higher than they could ever reasonably go, uncertain of what lurked along the damp floor.
They stepped into a room that looked like a medieval castle dungeon. The walls were rough-hewn grey stone, and the lighting was provided by flames in sconces set every few feet at eye level along the walls. In the center of the room was a stone table. It was raised just three feet off the ground, and its center was adorned with the ubiquitous symbol of NightWhere-a scaled serpent that ate its own tail.
Kharon went and stood at the head of the table, while six followers took positions on either side, men to the left and women to the right. All of them wore black silk robes, loosely sashed. They were obviously naked beneath. Rae thought the scene looked like a Victoria’s Secret version of a druidic ritual. Sackcloth had been replaced by obsidian, sensual silk. And nobody wore hoods. This was a different group of people than she was used to seeing out in the Blue Room of the club; though, like all the Watchers, they had a similar look to Kharon. They were pale and thin, with complexions like corpses. The women all had small breasts; two of them had barely sashed their robes, and the grey nubs of their nipples were exposed as they stood next to the table. Their ribs were visible beneath what looked to be flawless marble skin.
The men appeared strangely thin and as hairless as the women from what she could see beneath their robes.
“Strip him, and then lay him down before us,” Kharon commanded. His voice was quiet, but firm.
Rae turned to Peter and pushed the robe that someone had covered him with to the floor. She kissed him softly on the lips and then pushed him back to the table. He lay back and scuttled forward until his head lay in the indentation that was also the dark head of the snake carved into the rock’s surface.