27 Baz
27
Baz
I didn’t know I could climax so much during a twenty-four-hour period. The last one happens on my kitchen island, where Dorian eats me out with such enthusiasm I feel like a damn queen. Afterward, we squeeze into my little shower to wash off. I’m embarrassed by the mold threading the grout between the tiles and by the very cheap gardenia-scented soap in its grimy dish, but Dorian doesn’t comment on any of it.
By the time we’re done soaping each other up and rinsing off, he’s getting hard again. But he doesn’t insist on relief. So I push him naked against the bathroom wall, kneel on a fluffy towel, and take him in my mouth.
I thought Dorian Gray was beautiful before. But nothing surpasses the sight of his wet, gleaming body braced against the wall, every muscle in his abdomen taut with aching pleasure, nipples tightly beaded, the tendons of his neck standing out, his cheeks flushed rosy. His lips could be in a lipstick commercial. They’re perfectly shaped, parted just enough to show a hint of straight white teeth. His arms are rigid, hands splayed against the tiles. He’s gasping, his lashes fluttering as I take him deeper.
Pretty boy. So damn pretty.
I savor him, every inch, hollowing out my cheeks and opening my throat to take him deeper. I enjoy the idea of giving blow jobs, but dicks are usually smelly, and they often taste like sweat and piss. Pretty sure Dorian would taste good to me no matter what, but licking him right after a shower is the best-case scenario for sure, because he smells like gardenia soap and tastes salty-fresh.
He comes in a hot burst over my tongue, lines of his release painting the inside of my mouth. I collect it all with my tongue and swallow before letting my lips slide off him.
“Shit.” He sinks right down to the floor, panting. “You give head like a pro.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Thanks? And also, you’re welcome. You’re not so bad yourself.”
His head rocks back against the tiled wall, and his eyes drift shut. “I’m starving. You?”
“Yup.” I hesitate, but then I ask anyway. “So you’ve done it with professionals? Like porn stars?”
“Porn stars, models, high-end escorts, actors whose names you would know, soccer moms you’d never suspect, politicians, princes… Yeah, I’ve done them all.” He lifts his head. Looks straight at me. “But none of them exist anymore. They’re all gone. They are the past. You’re my present, and my f—”
“Don’t,” I gasp, my eyes stinging with sudden tears. “Don’t say it.”
He doesn’t, but the word future hovers between us like a ghost.
We don’t speak again while we dry off. Once we’re dressed, Dorian orders from P. F. Chang’s while I feed Screwtape.
“Any more word from Lloyd?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“He should be more concerned about the skriken and what their activity could mean. I don’t understand why he’s not.” I peer out the window into the darkness, half expecting to see a monster of sticks and rubbish skulking between the buildings.
Dorian clears his throat, shifts his position on the couch. “There’s something you should know about Lloyd-Henry.”
“What?”
“I’ve known him for about sixty years.”
The enormity of what he’s saying takes a minute to sink in. “Oh my god. What is he?”
“He claims he doesn’t know. That’s why he’s so invested in studying folklore. He’s trying to figure out why he stopped aging at thirty-two. We first met around 1965 or so, and then again twenty years later. Neither of us had aged a day, and we got to talking later that night. That’s how he and I came to be close friends.”
“So you’ve been friends for forty years?”
“Yes. Even lived together for a decade or so. Platonically, as I told you. And he hasn’t changed a bit since the day I first saw him. Well…he’s quieter now. More reserved. He’s always been the quiet type, but we don’t talk as often as we used to. In fact, I got the sense he’d lost interest in me completely until I called and told him my painting was decaying. He told me I needed to hunt down Basil Hallward’s descendants.”
“It was his idea.” Something tugs at the back of my mind, but I can’t tease the thought forward enough to grasp it.
“He asked me once what name Basil took when he moved to France. I suppose he was curious and wanted to find Basil’s descendants himself, if any existed. I didn’t want to talk or think about it, so I never told him. But I knew Basil’s new name—Allard, much easier for French tongues to pronounce. It wasn’t the first time he’d changed names either. Before he came to London, he was Basil O’Halloran. It was too Irish a name for him to be accepted in the upper circles of London society, so he became ‘Hallward’ instead.”
“O’Halloran,” I murmur. It’s a strange, warm feeling, knowing a true name from my family tree. “So Lloyd was interested in my family?”
“Of course he was, once I told him about my portrait. The whole thing is in his wheelhouse, you see. The kind of anomaly he likes to pursue and dissect.”
“Any idea how old he is?” I move to my altar and shift the candle over half an inch.
“No.”
I narrow my eyes. “Seems like that should have come up. Shouldn’t he have shared some of his secrets while you were sharing yours?”
Dorian shrugs. “I didn’t think his age mattered.”
He may not think so, but I am very curious about Lloyd-Henry now. Despite Dorian’s keen eye for people’s characters and personalities, he seems to have a blind spot where Lloyd is concerned.
“He’s a patient man,” Dorian continues. “He doesn’t rush into things. He likes to mull them over, investigate thoroughly, and draw conclusions slowly. And he prefers to focus on one thing at a time. He’s completely invested in whatever Gatsby’s doing up on Glassy Mountain, and only when he completes his time there will he be able to focus on our problem.”
“Great,” I mutter.
“Shouldn’t be long, though. He said he’d be back in a few days.”
“Maybe in the meantime, we should do some of our own investigating. I’d like to go back to that abandoned building near the Chandler.” Briefly I tell Dorian about the feeling I had when I touched that door on the day I met him. “I don’t have any proof there’s something supernatural buried there. Just a feeling.”
Dorian leans back on the couch, doubt warring with interest in his blue eyes. “And you want to poke around there? Doesn’t seem like a smart choice, Baz. Especially if that’s where the skriken want to take you. More of them are bound to show up.”
“We can bring more flamethrower thingies to defend ourselves. Dorian, we need more information. We need to know what’s happening and why. Maybe I’ll be able to sense something else from that door.”
“And you want to go tonight?”
“Hell no. Tomorrow morning. It’ll have to be early, though, before all the runners are up.”
“A predawn investigation.” Dorian nods. “I’m game.”
***
At 4:30 a.m., we drag ourselves out of bed. Dorian is a little grouchy, but less so than yesterday morning at the hotel. We stop by Lloyd’s place so he can change into something more casual than yesterday’s outfit.
The lights in the penthouse flick on automatically when we enter. All is quiet, and when Dorian comes back from his room in a hoodie and jeans, his face is grim. “Sibyl’s gone. Cleared out. Probably went back to Nashville to get the rest of her stuff from my house.”
“You can still be friends,” I say. “She may not work for you anymore, but I doubt she wants to cut you out of her life completely.”
“That’s exactly what she wants.” He hands me a pair of thin leather gloves. “Here. In case we need to throw flames again.” He slings a gym bag onto his shoulder, the clink of spray-paint cans betraying what’s inside.
“What about Vane?” I ask. “Is he here? Should we check on him before we go?”
“He’s probably sleeping off a shitload of dope. I’ll check on him when we get back.”
The predawn air is cool, sharp with the scent of fish and salt and moisture. Dorian and I walk down the driveway of the Chandler, and I glance back to admire the golden beauty of the building, uplit and silent. The palmettos stir lightly in the breeze, and a fountain on the grounds gurgles pleasantly, a foil to the background murmur of the ocean’s distant breathing.
Something stirs in the shadow of one of the palmettos. A man, I think. Probably one of the guests out for a walk.
As I turn away, the thought races through my mind—
Maybe it’s something else.
I look again, squinting toward the shape. But it’s gone.
Had to be a resident. Probably someone who came out for air and then went back inside. Nothing suspicious.
We cross Broad Street, and Dorian peers through the chain-link fence into the concrete yard of the Coast Guard station. Here on the back side near the abandoned building, it’s mostly storage—old equipment and containers.
“There’s a lot of iron here,” he mutters. “And look at this.” He touches a small object attached to the fence. It’s a crucifix.
“There are more.” I turn on my phone light and step in closer, pointing out chains and crosses—dozens of them, wreathed with the links of the fence. As we skirt the edge of the abandoned building, I notice more crosses nestled into the ivy and moss, jammed between bricks, tucked on ledges. “I might have missed some of these the first time, but I definitely wouldn’t have missed all of them,” I tell Dorian. “Someone must have been busy shoring up the spiritual defenses. Which means we’re in the right place.”
We turn the corner, approaching the front entrance beneath the overhanging trees. Dorian swears as a dangling cross hits him in the face. He has to bat several more aside as we move forward.
My fingers trail over the wall of the building, where newly painted Bible verses thatch the brick and concrete. A cockroach almost as big as my hand scuttles near my fingers, and I nearly shriek, but I manage to stifle it.
Dorian chuckles at my sudden recoil, but the sound dies in his throat. “Baz.”
Around the entrance to the building, a soft, fluttering darkness clusters, thickly coating the bricks and ivy. Velvety midnight wings, feathery antennae, crooked legs. Hundreds of them.
“Black moths,” I whisper.
They stir as I approach, their wings fanning, their soft, fat bodies shifting. Several of them take off and skim toward me on silent wings.
Last time they approached me, I was taken by surprise, and I was a little creeped out. But they’re just moths. They can’t hurt me, right? I keep my breathing measured and slow as handfuls of the creatures settle on my shoulders, arms, and back.
“They’re not so bad,” I say faintly.
But Dorian is walking forward, alarm radiating from his body as he aims his phone light ahead. My gaze follows the beam of light, and there, in the recessed doorway of the building, lies a lumpy shape, blanketed with moths. The diamond windows and diagonal boards of the door form a sorrowful frown overlooking the lumpy object.
Dorian waves the moths aside.
“Mrs. Dunwoody.” I clamp my hand over my mouth, bile burning my throat.
She’s been partly skinned—nibbled in places and torn in others—but I’d know that ragged floral housecoat anywhere. Two Sharpies have rolled out of her pocket into the gleaming blood and spilled paint pooling in the corner of the doorstep.
I gag sharply, slamming my hand over my mouth. A shudder runs over my body, disturbing the moths that have landed on me. They take flight, surging forward and settling onto the blood, their tiny mouthparts dipping down to it.
Dorian comes to me, his face white. “We can’t help her, Baz. We need to leave. We can call in a tip to the police, let them take care of it.”
“Just—leave her?” I gasp. “They’re drinking her blood, Dorian. The fucking moths are drinking her blood!”
“We have to leave her, Baz.” Dorian grasps my arms, urgency in his tone. “She’s gone. We have to think about how this will look…”
But a shuddering gasp startles both of us—a hoarse, wet inhale from the body on the ground.
“Oh shit,” I sob. “She’s still alive.”
The moths flutter upward, abandoning the pool of blood and alighting in the mat of ivy covering the walls. They seem to melt into the shadows between the leaves.
Fighting nausea, I step forward and kneel beside my neighbor’s body. Her bloodied hand lifts, and her fingers clamp on my wrist. “Need to tell you,” she wheezes. “Need to—”
“Dorian, call 911,” I order in a choked voice.
“Too late.” Mrs. Dunwoody’s eyes are wide, fractured with pain and urgency. “I have to tell you…tell someone…about the Holy City of Charleston, built on unholy ground. One eldritch thing buried here, and one beneath Old Sheldon Church. That one is bigger, more dangerous. You have to warn the others…that it’s so much worse than we thought…” She coughs wetly, swallows.
“You don’t have to talk.” With shaking fingers, I touch her matted hair. “Please, just rest. Dorian, are you calling 911?”
“It’s like she said,” he replies quietly. “It’s no use. Let her speak, and we’ll call when it’s over.”
I flash him a glare— damn callous man —and then I turn back to Mrs. Dunwoody. “Forget him. I’ll call you some help.”
“No!” Her raw voice scrapes across my nerves, and her fingers tighten fiercely on my wrist. “ Listen! ”
“Okay,” I soothe her. “Okay, I’m listening. Please…just lie still.”
“I’m the watcher of this spot,” she says, each phrase punctuated by a labored breath. “Have been for decades. I remember when the Coast Guard had to abandon this dining hall. They said it wasn’t needed any more. But there were rumors it was haunted. The other Protectors and I knew the truth. Every week, I’ve walked around this place to pray, sing psalms, and sprinkle holy water. It’s been quiet, so quiet we thought it was at rest for good…so quiet they only needed one watcher for the task.” She blinks, and her chest trembles with a rattling inhale. “But for months now I’ve felt something working against me—a presence.”
My mind goes to the voice I heard. “A presence? Inside the building?”
“No—something outside.” Her voice is growing weaker, and I lean closer to make out the words. “I’ve found blood here, freshly poured, ancient knotwork among the vines, and wicked symbols. I reported it to the other Protectors, and they told me to walk and pray twice a week. There used to be more of us here, taking shifts to walk the grounds, but they lost their faith, left their post. And now the evil is growing, growing… It will consume us all.”
I turn to Dorian. A sick dread is coiling in my stomach, and from the look on his face, he’s unsettled, too.
“Someone has been feeding this ground,” Mrs. Dunwoody says. “And my fellow Protectors at Old Sheldon Church have reported the same thing. Dark signs on tombstones, blood-soaked ground, dead sticks rising to form unholy creatures. It’s worse there. They couldn’t spare anyone to help me, they said…”
“But what is buried here and under the church?” I ask desperately. “Is it a relic, a weapon—some source of supernatural energy? What is it?” I hesitate, unsure whether to voice the question beating louder and louder in my brain. Not what , but who .
Who is it?
But before I can speak the words, the ivy on the walls gives a violent shudder. It’s not the wind; those vines are moving on their own, thickening, crisscrossing. Something is building itself together, forming half-a-dozen long, thorny tentacles reaching out from the ruined wall.
As the vines lash outward, Dorian grabs my shoulders and drags me up, away from Mrs. Dunwoody, away from the thrashing ivy. I shriek, half protest and half shock. The vines coil around Mrs. Dunwoody, wrapping her torso, snaking around her throat and face. Eyes blown wide, she chokes as thorns and sharp sticks pierce the flesh of her neck. There’s a horrible wheezing sound, and then she’s dragged against the wall of the building, pinned there while vines crawl over her with terrifying speed, concealing her body within seconds.
It’s a nearly soundless death. Just a single horrific crack from somewhere under the vines.
The trees above us are stirring, and the moss on the wall is shifting. From deep in the recesses of my mind, a voice echoes—a deep, thrumming voice, the same one I heard the day I met Dorian, but stronger now. Compelling, irresistible, quaking in my bones and vibrating the muscle of my heart, galvanizing the synapses of my brain, choking me with the vast, impossible power of its will.
Let me out, let me out, let me out!
I can’t move. And a skriken is beginning to emerge from the overgrowth of the building—a monstrosity pulling itself away from the wall, its wolflike head ringed with tentacle vines.
“Wake up, Baz!” Dorian orders, shaking me a little. “Come on! We’ve got to go!”
His voice shears the link that the Other Voice was trying to establish with me. I suck in a sharp breath, and I run.
We flee out of the tree-shadowed darkness onto the sidewalk, then back across the street to the Chandler. I keep glancing back, anticipating the shapes of skriken emerging from the shadows. But none appear.
“We should… We should call someone,” I stammer.
“We can’t be linked to the scene. Let someone else find her and call it in—if there’s anything left to find, which I doubt. Wipe your face, and try to act calm. At least there’s not much of her blood on you. We’ll wash it off when we get to the penthouse. Slow down a bit, love.” Dorian grips my wrist, slowing me to a forced walk as we enter the glass doors and cross the lobby.
In the elevator, Dorian plucks a black moth from my back. It flies up to the mirrored ceiling, leaving tiny, bloody footprints on the glass. I shudder, leaning mutely against Dorian’s shoulder. But within seconds, the moth’s soft body and feathery wings crumble and dissipate into powdery black dust, and the flecks of blood vanish as well. The only trace is a smudge of dust on the floor of the elevator.
In my mind, I compose an image: a moth with bloodstained mouthparts, minuscule footprints trailing behind it, dry brushes of scarlet paint.
A minute later, we’re back in Lloyd’s penthouse, in the eerie quiet.
After washing up in the bathroom, I collapse onto a sofa, trembling, barely conscious of the clink of glasses at the bar and Dorian’s murmured swears.
He comes over, shoves a cold drink into my hand, and sits down beside me. The hand holding his glass is shaking, too. When he sees me eyeing it, he clears his throat and starts swirling the whiskey around to cover his tremor.
It helps a little, knowing he isn’t entirely unaffected by the horror we just witnessed.
“I guess it’s pretty clear now,” he says hoarsely. “That place is concealing a supernatural entity or object of some kind.”
“Did I wake it up?” I stare at him. “By coming to Charleston, visiting that place—did I cause all this? Did I get Mrs. Dunwoody killed?”
“Your presence may have awakened something.” His gaze captures mine, blue and clear and innocent. “But she shouldn’t have been there at night. Not alone anyway. Besides, you heard what she said about someone feeding the ground . None of this is your fault.”
“You can brush it off that easily?” My voice cracks. “The death or pain of other people doesn’t affect you at all?”
His jaw tightens. “So this is about me now.”
“I guess so. You want me to be able to shrug off any guilt or responsibility for the part I may have had in this when it’s obvious I’m involved somehow—that my arrival and my gift have had an effect on the skriken at least, and possibly on something else. Denying that doesn’t help matters.”
“Removing the guilt makes you feel better,” he says.
“Oh my god.” My hands clench with frustration. “It’s not that simple, Dorian. Feeling better shouldn’t be the end goal, especially when your presence and your choices have caused harm to those around you. Can’t you understand that?” I search the azure void of his eyes, looking for the cracks I saw before, searching for a chink in his armor. But I can’t find that vulnerability, and it frightens me, because what if I imagined it? What if I tricked myself into seeing what I wanted to see, into believing I could fix him, like every other stupid girl who falls for a toxic man? “Maybe you really can’t care,” I murmur. “Not anymore. Maybe you’re too far gone.”
“I’m not, I swear.”
“Then why don’t I see any regret? For the people from your past, for Sibyl, for Vane—for any of it?”
He blows out an exasperated breath, a scoffing sigh. Like’s he’s minimizing everything. Mocking me for making it such a big deal.
I set my drink down and rise, my pulse racing. A frantic heat crawls over my skin. Something inside me is fracturing, crumbling into bloody shards and ashy fragments.
“I’ve been fooling myself,” I whisper. “Pretending I saw something in you when there’s really nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Baz.” He lunges to his feet, knuckles whitening on the glass in his hand.
“No. Don’t—don’t speak to me right now. I’ve heard what you had to say, and I can’t.”
I pause, weighing the meaning behind my words before I repeat them again, slow and final. I have to do this while I have the courage, while I can see clearly.
“Dorian, I can’t. The answer is no.”
His body goes rigid, his face a mask of dread. There’s a leaf in his golden hair and liquor shining on his lips.
I want him. I hate him. I need him… I can’t save him.
Pain. I haven’t felt pain like this since that day.
Blood on the sofa…
“I have to go.” I move toward the door.
“So you’ll cast me aside, take what I gave you, and become Charleston’s ingenue?” he says. “The up-and-coming artist everyone loves?”
The bitter mockery in his tone spurs another decision, one I might regret—but it feels thoroughly right.
“No. I won’t ask you to do what I’m not willing to do myself. I’m taking responsibility for my part in this, and I’m leaving Charleston. I’ll cancel my appearances at those art shows. Everything you bought me… I’ll send it back to you. You can resell it or donate it. I have to get away from here before I do any more damage. The longer I stay, the more that Thing is going to stir. I can feel it.”
“This is madness, Baz.” His accent sharpens with each word. “You artists of the modern age—you crave visibility, yet you’re so eager to throw it away once you have it. It’s absurd. Come back and sit down so we can talk about this.”
“We’ve talked about it enough. I can’t discuss it any more tonight, except to tell you again that the answer is no. I won’t paint you.” I step into the elevator, scarcely able to see the buttons because my eyes are glazed with tears. “I’m sorry, Dorian.”
I find the button for the lobby and hammer it with my finger, vaguely terrified that he’ll come toward me, seize me, keep me from leaving.
But he’s still standing there, flawless and motionless, when the doors glide shut.