Something Wicked (31 page)

Andrew took a breath. He didn’t know who he should be addressing. Lara was in one corner, Nicholas in the other blocking the door. He didn’t really know what had been going on and
wanted to watch the reactions of them both but was going to have to choose. He also wondered if Nicholas’s placement was deliberate. There was no way for Andrew to leave without going past
him.

He opted to watch Nicholas, giving himself a moment to take in the young man’s features. He’d certainly aged since the photograph Andrew had seen. As well as losing weight,
he’d let his hair grow. The tufts of stubble made him seem more grown-up but there was something else too: a hardness to his stare and the way his left arm hung by his side. The right one was
limp, betraying his missing fingers, but the left was primed, fingers slightly crooked as if ready to fight – which might well be the case.

Andrew tried his luck anyway. ‘I’m guessing the pair of you were caught up in something you didn’t really know about.’ He nodded at Lara. ‘Your father was involved
in the occult in a way you didn’t understand. I don’t know if he was the one in charge of the group, or if it was Kristian Verity. You took the name Malvado and had the tattoo done,
thinking it was honouring your dad. Perhaps you were even a part of his group, thinking it was a bit of fun, or that it was just about anarchy. You didn’t realise that the other people in
that group took it far more seriously than that.’ He motioned towards Nicholas. ‘When you turned eighteen, they decided they were going to use you as some sort of sacrifice to Malvado.
They might have even thought you’d go along with it? They took you out to the spot in the woods where the trees and the land are laid out like the symbol. Perhaps they even cleared the earth
to make it like that? Anyway, somehow you got away and Lara’s been hiding you ever since.’

He stopped, waiting for confirmation that he was right or wrong. Neither would have surprised him. Nicholas’s gaze flickered to the back corner of the room before returning to Andrew,
waiting for more. Andrew gulped. He could feel sweat forming under his chin and around the back of his neck.

‘What else?’ Nicholas asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘You do.’

‘Well . . . I’m only guessing here but I’m assuming you didn’t take too kindly to any of that. While you’ve been hiding, people connected to the group – to
Lara’s dad – have been going missing. Kristian Verity’s not been heard from, Brian Oswald doesn’t seem to be at home and I found James Wicker dead in his own living room
with that symbol cut into his chest. There are probably others too.’

Nicholas nodded slowly, reaching into the back of his trousers with his left arm and pulling out a large knife. The tip was pointed, glinting in the overhead light, with angled razor-like
serrations cut into the blade.

Nicholas twisted the knife in his hand. Andrew had no idea if he was originally left- or right-handed but it didn’t appear to be a problem for him now. Andrew remembered
the night he’d seen a man set on fire but that was nothing compared to this. He wasn’t in danger then, he was now. Sweat was flowing along the back of his neck as he wondered if his
body was going to be found with perspiration stains in the armpits of his shirt. What a way to go that would be. Then he wondered what on earth was going on in his mind. As if that was
important.

Nicholas’s eyes left Andrew, darting towards Lara, who was sliding along the bed towards the wardrobe.

‘Don’t be a dickhead,’ she whispered harshly.

Nicholas frowned at her and then returned the knife to the back of his trousers. He peered back at Andrew but didn’t seem all there, fingers twitching as if he wanted to feel the blade
again. ‘Who are you going to tell?’ he asked.

Andrew held his hands out, trying to appear open. ‘No one. People will understand what you did – and that’s if you want to tell them. I can stay quiet.’

He didn’t actually know if that was true but it was better than saying he was going to go straight to the police.

Nicholas and Lara turned to each other again, trying to weigh up what they should do. Lara shrugged. ‘He seems all right.’

‘My dad . . .’

‘I don’t know. Just . . . not here.’

Andrew was unsure what was going on. ‘It’s okay. You’re safe now. Kristian Verity’s disappeared, hasn’t he?’ He chose the word ‘disappeared’
carefully. ‘Whoever’s in charge has gone. Who else can be after you?’

Nicholas spun to face Andrew, eyebrows meeting in confusion. ‘Verity?’ Nicholas said.

‘He was in charge, wasn’t he? He collected all the books and had details on everyone.’

‘He’s not the one who tried to sacrifice me. He was one of the sheep.’

Andrew realised Lara and Nicholas were both staring at him and knew he’d missed something. ‘Who then?’

His only other thought had been Lara’s father, but he’d died naturally before any of this had happened.

Nicholas reached towards the back of his trousers again but he didn’t take out the knife. ‘I thought you knew?’

‘Knew what?’

‘That’s why I followed you in the first place; why I set fire to your car. I was trying to warn you off.’

‘That was you?’

‘So you’ve been in the dark the whole time?’

Andrew stared between the two young people wondering what they were talking about. He’d clearly overlooked something that should have been obvious.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Andrew said. ‘I thought you were part of the Malvado group and then taking your revenge when you realised what the truth
was?’

‘That’s sort of true,’ Nicholas replied, ‘but the person in charge was never Lara’s dad or Kristian.’

‘Who was it then?’

‘You do know what “Carr” is short for?’

‘No.’

‘Cardozo – it’s Portuguese. My dad hired you because he wants to finish what he started.’

‘
. . . You have to be tactful around them and understand they might be using you as much as you’re hoping to use them . . .
’

Andrew’s mouth flopped open. He’d been used the entire time. He’d even told Jenny that the job had an element of using people and then missed it. What a fool.

‘I told your dad to meet me at my office later,’ Andrew whispered.

Nicholas took out the knife again. ‘Let’s go then. He and mum rarely leave the house – they’re really careful because they know the rest of the group have been
disappearing. It’s why he went to you. He knew I was getting closer to him and wanted me found. At the time, I was spending some time on their road, trying not to be noticed by the
neighbours, hoping they’d leave themselves open. For ages, it didn’t look like they went out by themselves. Lara hired a van so that I could wait but we were out of money and it was the
final day when I followed him to your office. I was hoping I’d get a chance where he’d be on his own but he was really careful.’

‘It’s not a game, Nicholas. You can’t just go around killing people.’

Nicholas’s eyes flared; he didn’t reply because he didn’t need to. Everything that had happened to him had left him detached from the world around him. He was solely focused on
revenge against those who’d led him here. Andrew could see it from his gaze: the idea of killing excited him.

‘Nicholas.’

The young man shook his head, drifting back into the room. ‘What?’

‘Are you saying your father was looking for you, and you were trying to find a moment when he was alone?’

‘I suppose. The final straw came when Oswald went missing the weekend before last. Dad would have known I was close then. They’d long-since changed the locks at the house. As the
rest of their group continued to disappear, he knew I’d be coming.’

Andrew turned to Lara. ‘If that was true, why wouldn’t one of them go after you?’

‘They only suspect I might be involved – only you know for certain. We used to argue a bit, so they were never sure if we were together or not.’ She glanced up at Nicholas,
smiling sheepishly. Andrew could only imagine how trivial those petty squabbles were now. ‘Also, why do you think I go out of my way to look so different? No one ever fails to notice you when
you’re walking to lectures like this. I don’t go out after dark and I’m always close to groups of people. Even if they knew for sure, there’s not much they could
do.’

Andrew felt as if he needed a long lie-down on a very comfortable bed. He’d completely lost the plot, metaphorically and literally. He rubbed his head. It felt like he was close to
completing a jigsaw but the final few pieces he had to work with belonged to a separate puzzle.

‘You’re going to have to explain some of this to me.’

Nicholas was bobbing on his tiptoes, ready to go, but Lara moved across to him and tugged on his sleeve. ‘We can give him ten minutes.’ She leant up and kissed him on the cheek,
before sitting on the corner of the bed and turning to Andrew.

‘My dad got me involved in his circle of friends before he died. I’d always known the name “Malvado”. He brought me up with this nursery rhyme about how Malvado was a
Brazilian prince. He tried to take food from the noblemen to help feed hungry peasants but was killed by the King’s men in the woods. That night, his spirit returned and took vengeance on the
sleeping soldiers and from then on, his essence patrolled the forests, protecting those who needed it.’ She glanced at Nicholas, then back to Andrew. ‘Yeah, I know.’

Andrew couldn’t judge. If you were brought up being told Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy were real, then you believed it because you trusted your parents. That was before you started
thinking about religion. It was as Keira had told him: everything was about faith.

Lara rubbed at her face, accidentally smudging some of her eye make-up. ‘I don’t know when I stopped thinking it was real but I believed it all for a while. Growing up, he taught me
about our ancestors. He said that we were cursed as a family, destined to be without true love for eternity because one of my great-great-great-uncles was a witch-hunter or something like that and
that he massacred innocent people. That’s where our name came from, which is why I wanted to change it. When I was fifteen or sixteen, he started taking me to these gatherings in the woods. I
thought it was a bit silly at first but . . .’ She peered at the floor. ‘. . . I saw things that I couldn’t explain. You think it’s all chanting and being immature but
there’s more to it than that. Words are powerful.’

‘What did you see?’

She croaked slightly, reaching out for Nicholas. He perched on the edge of the computer desk, putting the knife down next to him and taking her hand in his left.

‘Just . . .
things
. I want to believe they were tricks but I don’t know how they would have done it. There was a fire and we would ask Malvado to show himself, to guide us. It
was scary.’ She squeezed Nicholas’s hand. ‘That’s where we met. Nicholas’s father was the person in charge of it all, and his mum was involved too. For a little while,
we were into it. That’s when we got the tattoos and I used to wear this upside-down cross. After a while, it seemed a little silly.’

‘What about the books under Nicholas’s bed?’

The two teenagers looked at each other. ‘Nothing to do with me,’ Nicholas said.

They must have been left by Richard as just enough of a nudge to put him and Jenny on the path that had led him here.

Lara continued the story: ‘When my dad found out he had cancer, he wanted me to take his full place in the circle.’

‘Circle?’

‘That’s what they call it: the Circle of Eighteen. Malvado was a young prince – he was killed when he was eighteen. I was scared by what I’d seen in the woods but didn’t know what it was all about. Like you said, really.’

‘What did happen?’

‘It’s more or less what you were talking about. Because Malvado was eighteen, we believe—’ She stopped, coughing and squeezing Nicholas’s hand again.
‘
They
believe that the number is sacred. The circle needs eighteen people and every eighteen years, they sacrifice an eighteen-year-old. It’s supposed to provide Malvado with
new blood to help restore him to his former glory. We only found that out on the night when Nicholas had to go missing.’ She rolled up her sleeve, revealing the scars of her circle tattoo
with the triangle inside. ‘I got this done before any of that.’

Andrew nodded at Nicholas. ‘Is that why you disappeared on the night you turned eighteen?’

‘More or less.’

Lara cut in: ‘It happened pretty much as I told you. We didn’t know anything about it but Nicholas hadn’t been feeling well. He walked me home and we said goodnight. I was
living at home by myself at the time.’

Nicholas took his hand back and crossed his arms as best he could. Andrew tried not to stare at the flattened section of his glove where he once had fingers. ‘I think my mum or dad put
something in my food earlier that day. My stomach was in agony but I thought I could walk it off. I texted my mum to say I was on my way but it took me a while to get there. When I did, the lights
were still on, which was unusual. I often got home late and they’d be in bed. I went through the front door and my mum was in the living room. I remember saying hello, and then . . . I have
no idea.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I guess they used some sort of drug or that chloroform stuff to knock me out. The next thing I knew, I was in the woods, tied to a tree.’

Andrew motioned towards Lara. ‘Were you there?’

She shook her head. ‘I didn’t know anything about it.’

‘Weren’t you one of the eighteen?’

‘Exactly – we’re guessing they only had seventeen there. They would have known I wouldn’t go for it.’

‘There are lots of rituals,’ Nicholas said. ‘Lara and me saw animals being sacrificed but never anything more. I think they were building us up to it. On that night, my parents
were there. It felt cold and there was the dry lightning going on. They thought it was a present from Malvado. I was in the clothes I’d gone out in, jeans and a hoody, but there was something
in my mouth so I couldn’t speak. My dad was telling me I was the chosen one and that it was an honour. They were wearing the same brown robes they always did and were chanting. I knew some of
the words but not many.’ He held up his right arm. ‘Then they started to take my fingers.’