The Hermaphrodite's Curse

PART ONE - LONDON

- 4 -

As the escalator descended deep into the earth, Gabe slumped his shoulders, lost in thought. There was a large crowd rushing to and fro about the business of the day through Leicester Square tube station, but Gabe seemed not to be a part of them, he did not seem to see them or to interact with them. He had just retreated inside himself and his own thoughts and the world just had to move around him.

On the platform, he waited for the train to pull up, staring at the advertising plastered on the wall on the other side of the tunnel, promising exciting new West End shows he had no interest in seeing. He wasn't really taking in what he could see on the posters, the image in his mind was still that of the goddess Venus, her back towards him, looking back at him curiously through a mirror, and of the frail body of a young woman in a pool of blood, stretched out before the goddess, drawing signs on the wall.

On the train, the regular rumble along the tracks served only to lull him further into his thoughts as he stared at the map above him, tracing the dark blue line through the various stops, wishing, imagining that there was a thread so easily marked out for him to follow now. If only this cryptic crime had handy lines of bright colour, he could follow to their termination rather than the tangled web of questions without answers, puzzles without solutions.

After his moment of triumph when he had seen the young woman with the purple hair in his photo and discovered her tattoo, Gabe had thought that he might be getting somewhere towards understanding, but now he realised that the whole thing was just as much of a mystery as ever. The only thing that had happened in the last day since this first discovery was that Gabe had become more and more obsessed. What had started out as a distraction for his troubled mind, something to take his thoughts away from the disturbingly sickening reality of the slumped corpse leaking blood, had turned his mind even more troubled. He felt that he couldn't let it go, he felt drawn on down the line, like the train he rode over whose direction he had no control, only in this he had no map either.

He had returned to the Gallery that afternoon in the hope that the painting or its surroundings could help with his thoughts. As much as anything, he just needed a change of scene from staring at his laptop screen, analysing every inch of his photos, looking for tiny details he might have missed, examining all of the people surrounding the body. Even at the Gallery, he had got the computer out and had compared his photos to the present state. The room had re-opened that day after the Metropolitan Police forensics team were done with it and now it looked as though nothing untoward had ever happened here. The bloodstains were clear from the floor and the symbol, mention of which Gabe had seen in none of the newspaper or TV reports of the murder, no longer defaced the wall. In fact, the whole trip had proved singularly useless in giving Gabe any new thoughts.

Now, as he travelled back to his small, dark flat to stew in his morbid thoughts, Gabe began to think that he should pull himself together. The police had all of the information that he did and were much better equipped to piece it together and to track down the appropriate witnesses. That was provided they had seen the purple haired punk who made a very quick exit from the murder scene.

As for Gabe, he couldn't take his mind off the woman. In fact, his mind simply seemed to cycle between images and visions of the three women; the unfortunate victim, her throat pierced and the blood pouring from her mouth, the goddess Venus, posing seductively, and the purple haired woman, frowning in confusion, frustration or anger. As his eyes passed across his fellow passengers on board the rattling underground train, he began to see these three everywhere, in the faces of all the women around him.

Looking through the window in the door that separated his carriage from the next, Gabe could see a lurid shock of purple hair standing out amidst the commuter crowd. He knew that it wasn't completely unique for a woman to colour her hair that shade but even so he began to see the woman from the Gallery, the woman from his photo. He couldn't help himself. He stared into the next carriage, trying to get a real look at the woman, to see whether his mind was once more imbuing a random traveller with the face of the woman he had become obsessed with or whether it was really her.

As the train came rushing into the station, she turned her head and Gabe caught a glimpse of piercings, one in the lip, a stud in the nose and a row in the ear lobe. It had to be her. As she stepped onto the platform Gabe, without thinking, hurried off the train, following her. He had no idea what he was doing, what he wanted to see, whether he wanted to confront her and what he would say when he did, still he found himself tailing her path out of the station and up onto the street.

Fortunately, she was easy to follow and Gabe was able to stay back at some distance and still keep a good eye on her. Although she wasn't all that tall, that purple hair could be picked out in any crowd and they were far enough from the real busiest parts of the city for there not to be too big crowds. Gabe spent enough of his life on the outside of whatever was happening, observing but not getting in the way, as was the photographer's role, that stalking actually proved surprisingly easy. Although maybe stalking would not have been the word he would have used to himself.

They were in Islington and it was the middle of the afternoon and, as they headed away from the tube station, the streets became quieter and quieter and Gabe began to worry that the purple haired woman would notice that he was following behind her and the confrontation he was unsure about would be forced upon him. She didn't look big but she did look like she could take him on. Gabe had never been particularly strong and certainly hadn't the slightest clue how to handle himself in a fight. He had never been in one and the idea made him feel slightly sick.

She cut across a park and Gabe followed. They were now alone on the path, cut off from the relatively busy area of the street by a high fence and trees. Suddenly everything seemed much quieter. Gabe began to walk with a lot more care, staying significantly further back from the woman he was watching. At one point, he even dropped to the floor and pretended to be having a serious problem with his shoelaces when he saw the woman turn back as if startled by having heard something behind her.

After a moment, she turned back to the path and continued on her way. Gabe stayed on his knees for a second to watch and in that moment discovered that they were not as alone as he had previously felt. It wasn't his movement that had startled the woman. Two figures were quietly making their way through the trees, moving towards the path. Their movement was almost imperceptible, barely making a rustle in the tree line, but Gabe was used to watching, to observing and paying very close attention and he saw it. He saw that they were closing in on her pretty fast. His heart began to pound and there was a lump in his throat, what should he do? Turn and run, rush to help the woman, or take this as an opportunity to catch and question her.

He didn't have a moment more to think about it as two male figures came springing from the tree line to grab the woman. Both were unnaturally tall, at least 6 foot 5, probably a lot more, with an oddly wiry shape and long arms. They both had pale, shaved heads with heavy, frowning brows. They were dressed identically in what might be a long coat or cape, beneath which could be anything for all Gabe could see.

She kicked one of them in the shin with her big heavy biker boots and her elbow flew back to connect with the second right in the chest. She turned to run but they recovered quickly. As they grabbed her arms, she continued to thrash and kick but they silenced her by pulling out long knives. As all this happened, all Gabe did was watch and now he heard one of the men lean in to her and speak. His voice was a high-pitched lisping hiss but the sound of it carried all the way to Gabe.

"From now on, the rest of your life will be a living nightmare, for we are fear and we are dread!"