Hellraiser: The Will of One

HELLRAISER: The Will of One

Chapter 5: Tools of the trade.
Standard disclaimer applies.

He searched in the older part of town, the section of the City no one but the criminal or the insane dared venture. A place of filth and decay, both physical and moral that had long seen its heyday as a center for art and culture, even the museums and art houses that once dotted its landscape has long ago closed their doors and moved on to the Westside. He was now cursing the idea that he’d left the car, but finding it stripped for parts would have been too hard to explain. He parked it in the closest garage he could, and that was more than five blocks away. He’d been accosted three times so far for money, drugs or the offering of sex for the drugs, but had only shoved some wadded singles into their hands to stave them off.

They’d gone on their way, the homeless, the thirsty, to find whatever they could with their cash to ward of their personal demons, and he resumed his search, cursing that he’d not done this in daylight. Down the poorly lit streets he wandered, shadows playing everywhere, he was briefly reminded of the carvings of Dore’for Dante’s Inferno. He half expected some creature to pop out and seize him, but knew inside that that was only his nervousness playing at him, demons didn’t exist.

What he did know was there were places for people like him, people who craved more than the typical bout of grinding pelvises. He had heard rumors, whisperings really, of a store in that part of town that specialized in needs like his, the fabrication of implements of torture the likes of which only his fervent, blackest desires could conjure up in his mind, but never be made, or so he’d thought. When the rumors came, it sprung hope afresh in him, and now that he’d found his Goddess, he would spend whatever he could in order to obtain them for her.

Money did not worry him. Through his families personal estates there was a small fortune to be had, and his playing with the stocks only enriched it. Money did not matter to him at all. Only his mother’s constant questioning about his love life got in the way of things. She knew he’d been going out, even though she housed in the country and he in the city, his personal assistant kept tabs on him and provided her with the information about his comings and goings. Harold didn’t care about that, the assistant was forbidden by him to go out with him on these visits, and had assumed he was seeing someone mother would definitely not agree about, some Nellie boy or something like that.

Harold paid the assistant more to keep his mouth shut and not follow him out of the house; he didn’t care that Davies told Mummy he went out, only that he not tell her where. Davies for his part, cared not a whit about it, he was being paid at both ends, and, as long as neither one found out about it, was content to tell when but not where, and keep his Master’s secrets to himself.

All of this left his mind as he continued on the way. Down this street, through that alley, until he’d found the place. Small, innocuous, completely nondescript. He walked up to the faded brown door. A plaque on it read;

L. Talbot, Antiquities of the East.

He was overjoyed to find the rumors true. So many times they were just ghost stories. Something to tell a lover you wanted to spur on while you played at what passed for kink by the vanilla couples he knew of. But no matter now, the truth was in front of him, just waiting. The door almost looked to Harold’s eyes to be breathing, like a thing alive by way of Poe or Lovecraft. He stood there in trepidation; should he knock, was this really what he wanted.

-Just go on, you idiot, he told himself, -You’re here, this is what you’ve been praying for half your life, knock!-

His hand almost trembled as he knocked on the door. After a few nervous moments, it carefully opened, just a crack. “Yes?” the older voice asked.

“I’m looking for something …unusual.” Harold began. “By way of-“

“Of course,” the voice replied brusquely. “Just a moment.” The door closed abruptly, a chain slid off, and the door reopened. “You’d better come in, I suspect.”

Harold stepped inside, and the door closed behind him. The man before him was smaller than he, somewhat gnarled in appearance, certainly his hands looked arthritic, and he was completely bald. An old-fashioned pair of spectacles hung near the end of his nose. He looked at Harold expectantly. “How can I help you?”

Harold stalled for a moment; he’d been so intent on finding the place that what he was actually looking for was almost an afterthought. Just finding the door had brought him peals of joy followed by some odd sense of dread he had not been expecting. “Well, I have a friend who’s-“

“Sir, please,” the older gentleman raised a hand to stop him; a slight smile took hold at the corners of his mouth. “I assure you, nothing you say will shock me in the slightest. Just be frank about it. It’s easier that way.”

Harold blew a sigh of relief. “Floggers. I need one with metal tips. And braided, for strength.” He looked at the proprietor. “How long would it take to make one-“

“I have just the thing right now, if you’ll follow me?” The elderly gentleman walked around Harold and behind his desk and register, into a room closed off from view by a slightly mottled purple drape. Harold drew up his courage and walked behind the man, dusting his coat off from contact with the drape.

The proprietor walked to a shelf, looked upwards briefly and then selected a three foot long black, rectangular wooden box from the shelf. He blew off some dust on it, away from Harold, and then presented him with it. “To the counter in front, if you like?”

Harold turned and walked back out, carrying the box with a careful hand. It looked old, the box was carved with symbol he didn’t recognize, but looked Baroque in design. It had some weight to it; a heft he thought was strange. He expected it to be heavier. Just the box itself fascinated him. He walked around the counter, and carefully placed it atop the felt blotter already there. The proprietor dusted his hands off on his trousers, opened the box carefully. There seemed to be a faint gleam coming from within the box, but Harold assumed it was light coming in contact with the box’s metal rim. He peered down inside.

Lined in red velvet, was the very thing he asked for. Thirteen black tails, braided exquisitely, the ends tipped with steel barbs and blades. The handle was ebony and ornately carved in human forms intertwined, in so many positions Harold lost count. The pommel of the flogger was studded and penile. Made for more than one use, it was a thing of obscene beauty. Harold knew he must have this, no matter what. He could have asked for millions, and Harold would have transferred the money in an instant. The shopkeeper interrupted Harold’s thoughts.

“The Flagellum Iniqiuitatus.” He said with pride, a smile of appraisal on his face. “Crafted in 1763 by Armand D’Lecoste, it reputedly was created for the Marquis De Sade. The handle is stained human bone, the whips, are flesh. Human flesh, braided skin around sinew cores for strength. Its creator, according to myth, you understand, reportedly steeped the whips in blood for a period of six days, imbuing it with oils and tallow. A thing of macabre beauty. And yet, still supple, and as hardy as the day it was made. You understand, sir, such a thing like this is a one of a kind item.” He removed the Flagellum, held it up to Harold in offering.
He took hold of it gingerly, and when the whips’ tips touched him, he gasped in surprise as one of the over two hundred year old blades cut a thin slice into his palm. Blood welled up, and the old man took it from him, offering a handkerchief. Harold nodded in thanks, and pressed it to his hand. He was sold on it. The proprietor laid the whip back in its box, closing the lid.

“Price?” he asked, no that it mattered.

“Again, Sir, as I said, it is a one of a kind item-“

“No matter. Price?” Harold knew when to be insistent; his job in the stock market required it. He must have it; his Goddess deserved such a thing. He could not wait until he felt its barbs raking his flesh.

“Twenty thousand.” Talbot responded, raising an eyebrow.

Harold didn’t even bat an eye. Devotion was expensive, he was used to that. And he was devoted. “Credit acceptable?”
Talbot demurred. ”With proof, of course.”

Ten minutes and one call to his bank’s automated line was indeed sufficient proof, and he left the ship with the item in hand, its ornate box wrapped in black paper. He felt fulfilled in a way he’d not expected. Harold figured he would have to wait and deposit at least that amount for something to be made. But to have the very thing he wanted on hand, and at only the cost of an assumed deposit, was near to miraculous. Talbot had given him instructions about the things use and upkeep that he sternly warned must be followed to the letter, and Harold left the shop with a list of items to purchase for said upkeep. He was not sure how some of them would be acquired, but he knew it must be done.

Once outside, his own paranoia whipped up again, but as long as he could walk back to his waiting car a few blocks away without being molested again he would be fine. His treasure was too precious, they could have the car, but his Goddesses’ gift must not be lost. So he moved quickly, not running as he was sure it would be a sign of fear in the eyes of the predators he was certain were trailing him. He hated them, these miscreants, with their filth and foul suggestions. He was by no means a prude, but they were horrid to look at, and his revulsion was that of the ‘better them than me’ variety.
A few more blocks, and he got back to his car, shutting the door tightly and locking it the second he was inside. Placing the gift on the passenger seat, he started the car, gazing at it lovingly. It was such a thing fit for a goddess, he knew this for certain. He couldn’t wait, sat there a moment, licking his lips in fevered anticipation of her delight when she opened it. Releasing the parking brake, he angled the car towards his townhouse, drove out of the garage and into the glimmering lights of home.

Talbot closed the door to his shop. All in all, a rather profitable day. First that writer looking for the notebooks of Giles de Rais, and now the Flagellum sold. Not a bad day indeed. He chuckled to himself. The rich and their obsessions. He wasn’t even sure that what he said about the whip was true. But as long as they paid well, he would give them, the rich and powerful, the means to indulge their fantasies. He went back to his room, behind the stockroom, and sat down in his old, comfortable chair. He picked up the pipe he was smoking and relit it, drawing a few times until the familiar warmth and taste of cherry vanilla tobacco filled his palate. He resumed reading, satisfied in his bank account for another day. A new item had come into the lists, one of three ornate puzzle boxes believed lost in the closure of the Channard Institute more than ten years ago. Talbot himself had supplied him one of the boxes, and a strange sense of unease came over him. Channard himself had been in the shop that day; he seemed to be exactly like the customer he’d just had. Obsessed, he wanted the box, no matter what. His mind wandered a moment, recalling the look on Channard’s face and his insistence of anonymity. Talbot had assured him, no one would be told. For a price.

They were all like that, all wanted no outsider’s knowledge of their secrets, and he was happy to keep them; had been for the better part of forty years, when his father had told him the shops’, and by extension the customers it served, secrets. He was sworn to keep them, for his father told him they would pay well, a comfortable life was ahead of him just for keeping his mouth shut.
Talbot kept his mouth shut, and made himself rich. Stocks came and went, jewels and other valuables either lost their luster or their value, but secrets, Talbot knew from long experience, secrets were the most profitable thing of all. He smiled again, puffed his pipe and sat there, feeling the slight ease of drowsiness come upon him. He closed his eyes.

The fire that destroyed half the block was started by a careless smoker, who was found, burned to death on the floor of a back room of an antique shop. It took the fire department four hours and seven units to put it out, as some of the man’s wares apparently had incendiary sources. The Captain of the unit wasn’t sure, but a pipe appeared to have started the fire, but they normally did not. He sighed with apparent frustration. Just another night in the ruins of Old Town, and no one was truly missed.