The Shadow in the Dark Chapter Thirty Five - Final Chapter!

 

I was led - guided, really - through a sequence of archways and narrow corridors until the space opened into something more intimate than the grand halls I had first woken in. This inner chamber felt like the heart of the villa: tall but enclosed, the walls covered in frescoes of gods and nymphs frozen in moments of motion, their painted eyes following me no matter where I stood. Sunlight filtered down through a high, latticed opening, turning the dust in the air into drifting gold.

 

I stood alone in the middle of it, barefoot on warm stone, my red silk tunic whispering against my thighs every time I shifted. The fabric was scandalously thin and cut far lower than anything I would ever have chosen for myself, exposing a deep V of skin that made me acutely aware of how vulnerable I was. The steel collar sat at my throat like a brand, cool and unyielding, a constant reminder that whatever this place was, I was not free in it.

 

My heart thudded painfully as I waited. I didn’t know what I was waiting for, only that something was coming.

 

Then music burst into the room, accompanied by a swirl of disco ballroom lights.

 

Dance, Boogie Wonderland, hey, hey

Dance, Boogie Wonderland

 

Not flutes. Not lyres. Not anything that belonged to this ancient, marble-and-mosaic world.

 

A driving bass line, bright horns, and a jubilant disco beat filled the chamber as “Boogie Wonderland” by Earth, Wind & Fire began to play, rich and loud as if piped in from some invisible, impossible sound system. The clash between the ancient Roman surroundings and that unmistakably modern, glittering sound made my breath catch in my throat.

 

Midnight creeps so slowly into hearts of men

Who need more than they get

Daylight deals a bad hand to a woman

Who has laid too many bets

 

The mirror stares you in the face and says

"Baby, uh, uh, it don't work"

You say your prayers though you don't care

You dance and shake the hat

 

“What…?” I whispered.

 

Before I could finish the thought, a man stepped through one of the archways and struck a Saturday Night Fever style pose.

 

Elijah Bannon.

 

I knew that face. I knew it from years ago, from Mount Holyoke, from parties and lectures and late-night conversations when the world had still felt wide open, and from our recent meeting in that grand house in Massachusetts. But now he was dressed in a perfectly tailored dark suit, the kind that probably cost more than my entire old wardrobe combined, his hair immaculate, his smile sharp and knowing.

 

He didn’t speak. He just began to dance.

 

Dance, Boogie Wonderland, hey, hey

Dance, Boogie Wonderland

 

With exaggerated flair, he pointed to himself, then to me, mouthing the lyrics with theatrical precision as he glided across the stone floor. His shoes slid effortlessly, his shoulders rolling in time with the music, hips swaying in a way that was both playful and unsettlingly confident.

 

I stood frozen, my mind scrambling to make sense of it.

 

Elijah reached me, took my hand as if we were old friends at a party, and before I could pull away he spun me gently out and back in, guiding me into the rhythm. His grip wasn’t rough, but it was firm enough to make it clear that he expected me to follow.

 

So I did.

 

Sound fly through the night

I chase my vinyl dreams to Boogie Wonderland

I find romance when I start to dance in Boogie Wonderland

I find romance when I start to dance in Boogie Wonderland

 

All the love in the world can't be gone

All the need to be loved can't be wrong

All the records are playing and my heart keeps saying

"Boogie Wonderland, Wonderland"

 

We moved in a strange, surreal parody of the disco routines from old movies - wide steps, mirrored arm sweeps, a quick pivot followed by a dramatic dip that made my stomach lurch as the silk of my tunic fluttered. He slid one foot back, then forward, snapping his fingers, then pulled me into a turn that sent my loose hair fanning out around my shoulders.

 

I tried to keep up, my bare feet slapping softly against the mosaic tiles, the collar at my throat glinting each time I spun. I could feel eyes on me even though the room seemed empty, and that made every movement feel exposed.

 

Why was he doing this?

 

Why was I here?

 

I find romance when I start to dance in Boogie Wonderland

I find romance when I start to dance in Boogie Wonderland

Dance, dance, dance (Boogie Wonderland), dance, dance, dance, dance

Dance, dance (Boogie Wonderland), dance

 

Fear knotted in my chest, but I forced a shaky smile because I didn’t know what would happen if I refused. Elijah danced closer, guiding me through a series of quick side-steps and spins, then a playful shoulder shimmy that felt grotesquely out of place against the ancient frescoes.

 

My thoughts raced even as my body moved.

 

This was a performance.

 

This was a test.

 

This was part of the God Game.

 

I caught my reflection in a polished bronze surface for a split second: a girl in a red silk tunic, collared, her face heavily made up with cosmetics, wide-eyed, being twirled by a man from her past to a disco anthem in a Roman villa that shouldn’t exist. The absurdity of it was almost enough to make me laugh - and almost enough to make me scream.

 

Elijah leaned in as he spun me again, mouthing the chorus with gleeful intensity, his eyes bright and unreadable.

 

I danced because I was afraid not to.

 

And with every step, every forced smile, I felt myself being pulled deeper into whatever nightmare this place had prepared for me.

 

“Boogie Wonderland! 1979! Peaking at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, but people forget it made number 2 on the Billboard Hot Soul Singles chart! What a song! Boogaloo – in excelsis! ” declared Elijah as the music came to an end, and he released my hand. “They don’t write them like that anymore. Welcome back, Ashlee. I must say, you are looking positively… ravishing.” he licked his lips as he said that. 

 

“Where’s Martin?”

 

“Oh, God, does that always have to be the first thing you ask me, Ashlee? Where’s Martin? Where’s Martin? Oh, heavens to Betsy, help me, where’s Martin? You sound like a stuck record.”

 

“Where is Martin?!” I asked again.

 

“Somewhere deeply unpleasant, right about now. You really don’t want the details, trust me.” Elijah smiled and then kissed the back of my hand with a flourish. “Well, wasn’t this a good run? One of the best, I think. Fun fun fun and now your daddy is taking your T-Bird away.”

 

“Elijah, what are you doing. Please…”

 

“It’s the God Game, Ashlee. Oh, come on, I know you figured that out. You always do. You know how I loved that book. And now… I AM Conchis.”

 

“What do you mean, I always figure it out?”

 

“Every time we play.” He grinned as he saw the dawn of realisation on my face. “Oh, did you still think this has only been running a few days? Ashlee, we’ve been playing the God Game for several years now.”

 

“No…”

 

“Oh, yes. Over and over again. Different scenarios each time. Last year you were a super pop star! Humble beginnings with your debut album that was just a bunch of cover songs from Frozen. Then came your tentative first proper pop album, ‘Lip Gloss Secrets’ which, according to Rolling Stone, showed the first signs of a promising new talent emerging from cover version hell. Your single ‘All Eyes on Me’ grazed the Top Forty, but it wasn’t until you hooked up with hit song writer and producer, Elijah Bannon, that you had a super smash breakthrough mega hit with ‘We’re All Dancing to a Different Tune’. Your follow up album, ‘Oops, Still Me’ showcased 14 exquisitely composed Bannon recordings, and the world was frankly your oyster.” Elijah paused to fondle my breasts through the silk.

 

“Don’t!” I snapped.

 

“Of course I got bored. Didn’t really know where to take the pop star thing. Writers block you could call it. Though…. I’ve had some ideas.” He began to walk around me. 

 

“Picture this – swept up in her meteoric rise to fame, disco diva, Ashlee Ellis, hooks up with her drug dealing, lowlife bassist, Matin Bastable, and starts listening to some old Stooges albums. Raw fucking Power! Come on!” Elijah thrusts his fist into the air. “She cuts her hair all short and spiky, bins the sparkling glitter dresses, and starts wearing biker slut gear and tells the shocked Elijah Bannon that she’s going for a change of direction with her follow up album: all garage rock riffs and Nirvana attitude. Faithful Elijah warns her that drastic changes in direction rarely work, and she risks losing her fans, but will she listen? No. The album flops of course, and poor Ashlee starts abusing drugs in her misery as she sees her career slipping through her fingers. So sad.”

 

“What are you talking about? I’m an FBI agent.”

 

“Ashlee, Ashlee, Ashlee… you were never an FBI agent. Never. You only think you were. Hello, yes – the God Game? Pennies dropping, yet?”

 

“I know who I am. I studied law at Mount Holyoke college and then when I graduated I…”

 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Ashlee, Do I have to explain everything, every single time? It’s so BORING! You never went to Mount Holyoke. I did. Michael did. You didn’t. You were just a fucking prick-tease waitress in the Gatsby bar in South Hadley, where we used to go for drinks. You used to wear that tiny mini-skirt because you knew it would get you lots of tips. God, I still have fantasies of that mini-skirt you wore. I was dating Bryony Addison and Michael was dating Emily Whitstable.”

 

Emily Whitstable! I suddenly recalled the name of the waitress that Christmas Eve – the one who had seemed strangely intimate with my boyfriend, Michael. The woman who was in this villa right now. 

 

“I saw you that Christmas Eve before we graduated,” said Elijah. “You were fucking sex on legs. So hot. Bryony had made a fool of herself singing a song from Frozen on the karaoke, and she had stormed out when she had seen me talking to you while she was on stage. Stupid bitch only went and got herself arrested by the local police and spent Christmas Eve in a holding cell.”

 

“No… I was… that was… me…”

 

“I was really nice to you, Ashlee. Really fucking nice. Didn’t I give you a generous tip? And you were obviously hot for it. You wanted me to fuck you, because you were wearing that slut skirt. Shaking your fucking tight ass in my face each and every time you wiggled by with a tray of drinks. But would you put out? No. You fucking said no to me: ‘I have a boyfriend’. ‘Martin is so lovely,’ you whined. ‘We’re spending Christmas together and I think he’s going to propose.’ Pathetic.”

 

“No, I… you’re lying… this is part of the God Game. Multiple levels of deceptions. You’re trying to make me doubt myself.”

 

“That’s the sheer beauty of it, Ashlee. You’ll never really know for certain, will you?” Elijah grinned. “What is real and what isn’t?” He tapped the side of his temple. “What can you trust, Ashlee? Scary, isn’t it? Am I telling you the truth?”

 

“Why are you doing this?”

 

“Because you fucking said no to me. I’m a Bannon! No slut says no to me.”

 

“Are you going to enslave me?” I touched the collar. I knew what this meant.

 

“Enslave you? Ashlee – I fucking enslaved you years ago. It was the first thing I did. Touch your left thigh. Go on.”

I touched my left thigh and felt the mark of a brand. I traced a cursive letter ‘k’ branded into my skin. It felt old – several years old.

 

“No…” I said.

 

“You’re conditioned never to look at it when you’re not wearing a slave collar, Ashlee. You never acknowledge it’s there.”

 

“You wanted me to kill Martin?”

“YES!” He pumped his fist into the air in triumph. “Full marks, at last! Or Martin to kill you. It varies depending on how the game turns out. I’d take either result. I want you to prove to me that all this fucking talk of love is meaningless. There is no love, not really. You could have let me fuck you, and then gone back to Martin, but no, you had to be in love. Love is something that poets invented. It’s not real, Ashlee. There’s no such thing. Love doesn’t exist. And one day, in one of our games, you’ll kill Martin, and prove it to me.”

 

“What happened to Bryony?”

 

Elijah smiled. “What do you think happened to Bryony when I got bored of her?”

 

I sobbed. “She was my friend.”

 

“No, Emily Whitstable was her friend. You were a waitress.”

 

“I KNOW she was my friend.”

 

“Hold on to that thought, Ashlee.” Elijah pointed his hand at me as he circled me again. “It’s giving me ideas for another Game, sometime soon. I can see the title now: Sacrifice. The two of you in danger together. But can you trust her? And what are each of you prepared to give up in order to save the other one?”

 

“You’re sick,” I sobbed. “I actually pity you.”

 

Elijah laughed. “Save your pity. I’m only the most brilliant man in the world, Ashlee. Hardly surprising, really – the great Joseph Curwen was my grandfather. He resurrected the Nineveh working, developed by Ipqu-Aya in 612 BC – the working that stablished a principled method for actually summoning the great Beasts of the Steel Worlds. Of course Ipqu-Aya thought of it as magic. It was a primitive time. The culture of the Steel Worlds was always very tribal, Ashlee. They like ritual and ceremony. They like a big show. They established a pact with Ipqu-Aya, in 612 BC, shortly before a howling mob tore him apart – that’s the raging proletariat for you – they always try to destroy what they don’t understand -  but the details of that pact have never been forgotten by the Steel Worlds, and it has been passed down to me. I’m the only man on Earth who knows how to actually summon the great Beasts. Aleister Crowley met them once, but he was off his fucking tits on psychedelic mushrooms, and didn’t have a clue what he had accomplished. I have their ear. That’s more than the Ubar of Washington has. And they listen to me. They recognise my potential.”

 

He was babbling. None of this made any sense to me. I listened, afraid to interrupt.

 

“I’m a genius at anything I turn my hands to, Ashlee. Writing fourteen killer pop songs for your breakthrough album took just a day. Well, I had a little help from the Steel Worlds AI, but the basic song titles were all mine. ‘We’re All Dancing to a Different Tune’ is my favourite. So catchy! I don’t understand why it didn’t get to Number One and stay there for, say, sixteen weeks. People have no fucking taste these days. They all want shitty hip-hop. The Steel Worlds don’t use their AI much, you know. It’s completely sentient by now. It’s been left alone to… grow in the dark web. I talk to the AI because the Steel Worlds have given me access. I use it to perfect every permutation in the God Game. It tells me what you might do, every step of the way, and it’s never wrong. You really are dancing to a different tune. I asked the Steel Worlds AI to cure all forms of cancer yesterday. it took ten seconds”

 

“You have a cure for cancer?” I said, astonished.

 

“Well, I did have, I deleted the file. It wasn’t important. What is important is I’m developing a Sun Bomb with its help. It’s going to take eight to ten years, but…”

 

“A sun bomb?” Was he just making all this up on the spur of the moment?

 

“A weapon capable of igniting the atmosphere of the planet. Everything – and I mean everything – dies within 6 seconds. Whoosh! All gone! No atmosphere. No life support left.”

“Why the hell would you want to do that?”

 

Elijah suddenly looked pained. “Well, of course I wouldn’t want to do that. Of course I wouldn’t. That would be madness. Do I look like I’m insane? Of course I wouldn’t WANT to do it. Unless someone made me do it. Then it’s there as a last resort. WHOOSH! There’s going to be a war, Ashlee. In eight to ten years, I’ve worked it all out through the alien AI.” He tapped his temple again. “The Priest Kings are vulnerable. They have been for decades now. The Steel Worlds have been too cautious. But they’re beginning to listen to me. I‘ve run a million possibilities through their AI and I have a plan. Of course, first of all I’ve got to take over the world. That should be obvious enough. I suppose I’ll have to kill my parents as they don’t look like they’re going to die anytime soon. Bit of a shame. Mother was always rather good to me. I won’t miss father, though. I’m going to marry a Frick girl. I like the Fricks. The Fricks have what I need – ruthless power,  free of any sign of moral weakness. It’s a shame Chelsea upped and disappeared. She would have been my first choice. Combined with my brilliance, the Bannon-Frick alliance will control the Steel Worlds council. Eight years. Ten at the outset. And then those fucking space insects are going to be exterminated, once and for all”

 

“What are you going to do with me now, Elijah?’

 

“You’re my pleasure slave, Ashlee. You’re dressed in a very brief piece of silk. What do you think I’m going to do with you now?”

 

“I’ll kill you one day. You know that, don’t you? One day I’ll figure out the God Game sooner rather than later, and it’ll be early on, when you leave yourself vulnerable for a moment, and there’s just you and me – like we were in your house a few days ago - because you’re arrogant like that, and you’ll underestimate me, and then I’ll kill you.”

 

“It’ll never happen, Ashlee. The Steel Worlds AI will always be a million steps ahead of you. Always. Now take off your silk, and do it sexy.”

 

And then he began singing as, sobbing, I began to strip myself.

 

God help me, he started singing a Bee Gees/Yvonne Elliman song.

 

Am I strong enough to see it through?

Go crazy is what I will do

 

If I can't have you, I don't want nobody, baby

If I can't have you, ah-ah-ah, ah

If I can't have you, I don't want nobody, baby

If I can't have you, ah-ah-ah, ah-ah

 

Can't let go and it doesn't matter how I try

I gave it all so easily to you my love

 

To dreams that never will come true

Am I strong enough to see it through?

Go crazy is what I will do…

 

-------------------------------

 

I woke up with sun streaming through the half shut blinds, and a mild hangover. Martin – my bassist – lay in the bed beside me, snoring softly. An empty bottle of Jack Daniels lay on the floor next to my discarded panties and fishnet tights. On the far wall a framed poster of the sleeve artwork for ‘We’re All Dancing to a Different Tune’ hung at a crooked angle. Martin had drawn a moustache on my face in the picture with a black marker pen.

 

I yawned, stretched, and slipped out of bed. I pulled on my panties, then the fishnet tights, and I gazed at myself in the mirror. I was still wearing my Iggy Pop t-shirt. Raw Power never dies.

 

“I’m going to… get some coffee,” I said to Martin. “You want some coffee?”

 

He mumbled something inaudible and covered his head with a pillow.

 

“Yeah, well fuck you, too, Martin,” I said as I turned on the ball of my foot. My other foot kicked the empty bottle of Jack Daniels that rolled a few inches along the messed up carpet.

 

“I think I was sick last night,” I said as I gazed at a dry vomit stain. “We probably need to slow down for a bit.”

 

I walked, barefoot in my fishnets into the kitchen and to my surprise I found Elijah sitting there. The sneaky little bastard had only let himself in again. I scratched my head and simply padded towards the coffee machine.

 

“Afternoon, Ashlee,” said Elijah with a smile. 

 

“Isn’t it morning?” I picked up a coffee pod and tried to remember how to insert it into the machine.

 

“Not for last couple of hours, no. You… changed your hair style?”

 

“Yeah.” I hadn’t seen Elijah for several weeks, since that awards ceremony in LA.

 

“It’s very…” he searched for the right words.

 

“Empowering,” I said as I forced the coffee pod into the machine and clamped it shut. “Got sick of looking like a Barbie doll. You’re looking very… clean, Elijah.”

 

“Right. So... new image?”

 

“New fucking image. What are you doing here?” I yawned. I really shouldn’t have given him a key. 

 

“I wanted to play you the demo of a new song I’ve written. It needs a bit of studio time, but I think it could be your next single. It’s called ‘The Way You Say My Name’.”

 

“Jesus.” I watched the coffee gurgle into the cup. “It sounds fucking shit.”

 

“Ashlee…”

 

“I’ve written a song with Martin,” I said as I lifted the coffee cup to my lipstick smeared lips. “I’m not sure whether to call it ‘Break Something Beautiful’ or ‘Tear it Up, Burn it Down’. It fucking rocks.”

 

“Rocks?” Elijah raised a concerned eyebrow.

 

“Yeah, sort of Detroit Garage Band style. Stooges meets the Thirteenth Floor Elevators.”

 

“That’s… not what your fanbase will be expecting.”

 

“They’ll love it. Trust me.”