The Terrors of the Earth

11-12 MAY

The Blue Rose Club already had a reputation in certain scenes, even before Wesley Porter took it over, and Theo was not disappointed. The bouncers let him through the steel door, treating him like a celebrity.

Then he saw the Faceless Man, lounged in a booth adorned with adoring lap dancers like it was his God-given right to do his lines off glittering flesh, and the world stopped for Theo Shaw.

Cousin Wesley was staring over the dance floor, too still and focused to be anything other than stone-cold sober, but Theo couldn’t be sure. Theo couldn’t be sure of anything as far as this walking enigma was concerned.

Everything faded around the figure, a black hole of memory sucking attention into its core, and Theo knew there was nowhere else he wanted to be.

He failed to fix Wesley’s face in his mind, but he could fix the ruffled shirt splattered with blood and the midnight-blue skin-tight silk his legs were poured into, and he thought the man must be some kind of god.

The Faceless Man.

Don’t lie to the Faceless Man.

Theo would kill for a minute alone with Wesley Porter. The True Face within him was drawing him near, eager for the reunion, but shyness overcame him. He couldn’t just walk over there. This had to be done right. It had to be done well. Respectfully.

He clocked what Wesley was drinking and ordered himself the same thing.

He’d always hated pornstar martinis – passion fruit was his least favourite thing in the plant kingdom next to stinging nettles and Japanese knotweed – but he put his game face on and got on with it.

“You just missed the floorshow,” someone said in his ear.

Theo twisted around at the sound of the familiar voice. “Oh yeah?”

“Eric Foreman ripped open a barman.” It was Natalie. Her big sister Sasha was in snuff films now. Theo was closest to Nats out of all his first cousins, but she was a colossal bitch.

“And he wasn’t chucked out?” Theo sipped his cocktail, trying not to grimace.

Nats was in skin-tight black, loose dark waves flowing over her shoulders, and the clear plastic heels were probably her sister’s. “Wesley did his nut. Went ballistic. That’s why he’s covered in blood.”

Theo’s heart did backflips. “He killed Eric Foreman?”

“Oh, yeah. Like it was nothing.” Natalie’s eyes were wide and glazed with wonder. “I saw it. I saw his face. I get it, oh my god. I thought you’d gone nuts. It was the wildest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Yes!” Theo could barely breathe through the excitement, light-headed prickles cascading over him. “Yes, exactly! You really saw it? The face, the True Face?” He couldn’t believe it, but Nats nodded enthusiastically, and he gasped great gulps of air to stop himself passing out. He spilled some of his drink on the floor, and Nats took it off him while he tried to get himself together.

“Sorry, I’m just – I’m so happy! Oh, God, I missed it!” The realisation brought him crashing down. “Oh, fuck.”

The True Face below his skin crushed his heart like a tin can, leaving him breathless again and hurting. His eyes welled with tears. It was worse than the time Jem introduced him to his darts team as “some sort of cousin”.

Nats shook her head, uncharacteristically kind. “Oh, babe! Oh, babe. Don’t cry. He’s right there, go and talk to him.”

“I can’t.” Theo retrieved his pornstar martini, looking over. “He – I can’t.”

“The Soothsayer’s here,” Nats said, scanning the room. “He keeps disappearing, but he should be doing his announcement or whatever soon. We’re not allowed to go anywhere until after the meeting, Wes said we can’t even go outside to smoke.”

Theo didn’t give a shit about the Soothsayer.

“Who else is here?”

Nats shrugged. “I’m with Ursula. She’s over there.” She waved in a vague direction.

Theo’s stomach knotted. He took a bigger gulp of the cocktail and nearly gagged. It was too warm. Was there anything worse than warm, sickly, syrupy drinks? Why couldn’t it be a banana daiquiri? He could go all night on those.

Nats crowed. “Oh Theo, you’re so desperate, it’s sweet. Sad. Very, very sad. But sweet.” She got the attention of the barman and ordered a round of drinks, including another vile cocktail for Theo.

“You’re welcome, sweetie,” she said, slapping his cheek twice and squeezing his jaw with her manicured nails. “But you won’t go over there. We both know you don’t have the balls.”

Theo winced, wishing he could think of a comeback, but he was left at the bar with nothing witty to say and a drink he didn’t even want.

He watched Nats sashay back to her table with three drinks balanced carefully in her hands and sipped the one she’d left him with.

It was just as bad as the first.

Theo stared at Cousin Wesley, forgetting why he was supposed to be there.

Only his clothes, the colours of his makeup, the thick dark eyeliner and glitter, the satin and mesh, remained in Theo’s mind. As soon as he blinked, he erased all the other details – haircut, face shape, cheekbones, jawline. Each time he looked, he realised his mental image was totally wrong. He craved some information about him that would stick.

Theo edged into Cousin Wesley’s eyeline, the closest he’d managed to get so far, but still hung back.

He wondered if Wesley was watching him, but each time he turned his head, he forgot. Wes swam in and out of his consciousness in a heady, intoxicating whirl of blurred colour and charisma. He hoped the lighting mitigated the redness he knew was bruising his cheeks in ugly patches.

Wesley was definitely looking at him.

Theo’s gag reflex was well trained, but his heart was tap dancing.

Then it happened.

Wesley beckoned him over.

It took Theo a second to realise this was to him. There were family everywhere, and he didn’t realise how close one rowdy group had gotten until someone cannoned into his side and made him stumble away. He got the remains of his drink on his shirt and looked up in a panic to see Wesley beckon him again, a little more vigorously.

Behind him, someone was getting lairy with the security lads, but they weren’t having any of it.

Theo glanced over his shoulder – another Foreman arguing with a Wend, but they weren’t being thrown out. The door up to the cloakroom was closed and two of Uncle David’s boys were standing in front of it.

Theo had forgotten how to move. He relished the wobble in his legs, the addictive high of being noticed flooding his already overloaded senses.

The floor glided under him.

Every glimpse of Wesley’s face slipped from his head like the lapping of a wave, each recurring millisecond of memory washing over his mind with its mesmerising power. He had to keep staring, to try and fix it firmly, but he couldn’t. Blinking was an irritant, erasing the image in a flicker of his heavy lashes.

The smile slashed a hungry gash in his belly, razor sharp. The feeling stayed even though he couldn’t recall what the smile itself looked like on that face, that flickering, forgettable, hypnotic blur of a face, crowned with gore.

Cousin Wesley scattered the entertainment so that Theo could slide into the leather seat and press himself against the clammy surface, so close he could smell Wes’s musky sweat under the cologne. Like his appearance, that too tantalised his memory before it disappeared until the next inhalation.

“You’re not having fun either?” Wesley asked him, and Theo couldn’t remember what his voice was like once he’d stopped talking. Only the question remained, embedded in his head.

“It’s fine,” Theo said, wondering if Wesley knew who he was. “I’m Theo.”

“Theo what?”

That was a no, then. “Shaw.”

“Ah. You’ve got a brother called Archie, and you were with Jem at the memorial.”

Theo wondered, dazed, if Wesley was some kind of telepath or magician. How could he know that?

“And who are you to me, Theo Shaw?”

Theo concentrated, knowing that he was blushing and he was ugly when he blushed. “I think my dad’s brother married your mum’s sister,” he said, “but that’s it.”

Wesley was clearly too tipsy to work this out, and the smile he gave made Theo’s stomach somersault.

“I promised my partners I wouldn’t bang my relatives,” he said, “But I think they meant close relatives, and we’re… on a bit of a break. How closely related would you say we are?”

Theo swallowed, the bravery draining out of him. He focused on answering the question.

“I think… I think we’re cousins, but by marriage,” he said. “Or maybe something twice removed, I’m not sure. But apart from your matriarch and ours being sisters, if you go back all the way, that’s as close as we get.”

“That’s very defeatist.” Wesley pushed Theo’s curls back from his eyes, tracing the shape of Theo’s face and brushing over his mouth with his fingers. His touch buzzed faintly against Theo’s skin like electricity. “Those lips are too pretty to belong to a pessimist.”

Theo shut his mouth and smiled.

This earned him a scoff. “Oh, fuck no. I didn’t mean pose. I’m not going to paint you like one of my French girls.”

Theo got the Titanic reference but still arranged himself so that Wesley could see as much of him as possible, and Wesley cocked his head.

“Do you smoke?”

Theo shook his head. “Not at the moment.”

He’d take it up if Wesley wanted him to.

“‘Not at the moment.’” Wesley sniggered, slouching back. “What do you do?”

Theo avoided the question, not knowing how to answer in ways Wesley would find interesting. He scanned the dancefloor, packed and heaving with unearthly appendages and sweaty bodies of all shapes and sizes, spotlights weaving over things that slithered and undulated and clicked in the thudding beat, and his own glory – such as it was – wriggled in his throat.

“I dance. Do you want to dance?”

Wes blinked at him, reaching for his cocktail. “No.”

“It’s too crowded,” Theo agreed, and Wes sipped his drink, watching him.

“It’s not. I just don’t want to dance.”

“Right.” Theo tried to think of something he was good at. He eyed the bulge in Wes’s tight silk crotch. “I can help you relax if you want.”

“I bet you can, with lips like that.” Wes flicked out his tongue and grinned. “My cousin has lips like that, and they’re wasted on him.” He frowned. “Not that… Fuck. Forget that. Forget that. Don’t fucking tell him, I don’t actually… No. Fuck. What the fuck is wrong with me? He’s not here, is he?”

“I… Which cousin?”

Wesley grinned, slid his hand more firmly around Theo’s neck and squeezed. He pulled Theo back towards him, until their foreheads were nearly touching. “Never mind.”

Theo’s breath caught.

He drained his pornstar martini and set the glass back down. Wesley watched him and raised a hand. Theo’s heart sank as a giant glass with a couple of straws came over, complete with sliced passion fruit. The enormous glass was set on the table and Theo reluctantly took a sip through one of the straws. He was pleasantly surprised.

“This isn’t bad,” he said, and his host chuckled.

“That’s top shelf, not the basic crap I got them serving you lot with.” Wesley winked. “Difference between made with love and care versus haste and hate.”

“Honoured,” Theo muttered.

“Of course you are.” Wesley sighed. “Right, let’s cut the crap, shall we? I know you were one of Jem’s Remnant. How many of you are here?”

Theo swallowed. “Just me.”

Tell him the truth.

Wesley released him. “Well, fuck. What happened?”

Theo bit his lip. “Most of them fell away when the shrine broke, some of them were – were killed… but I’m to tell you… I’m supposed to tell you they’re all dead. Except…” He trailed off, unsure what was right and what was wrong.

Wesley traced a finger along his chin. “Except?”

“We saw the True Face.” Theo drank down Wesley’s flesh-mask, unblinking and desperate. “Before the shrine broke, we saw it, and – and some of us, the true believers, we stayed to fix the shrine. They’re not here.”

Wesley pulled away. “What d’you mean, they’re ‘not here’? Nobody could resist that, you could’ve felt our Richard’s summons in Australia.”

Theo shrugged, leaning in a little, his chin tingling with a sensation he couldn’t quite remember. “None of us felt it. I’m only here because Nats called me.”

“No. That’s not… that’s not possible.”

Their host began looking around for someone, the Soothsayer perhaps, and Theo felt his attention waning. He clutched his cousin’s arm, grip tightening greedily as his hand throbbed.

“I know where they are,” Theo said, trying to reclaim his focus. “We were all protected, the Soothsayer can’t summon us. We don’t feel anything but the Face, it’s in us, it’s—”

“Fuck.” This got Wesley’s attention all right, but it wasn’t the good kind. Wesley whipped around and shook him. “Tell me you’re joking. Tell me you’re joking, right the fuck now.”

Theo’s teeth chattered. “I’m not! Why would I—”

Wesley released him, covering his mouth with a hand, muttering frantically to himself. Theo barely heard a word, but he caught the tail-end of the conclusion.

“No, that can’t be right because… Oh, shit, Charlie was the exception, that means it— Fuck, fucking hell…”

“We’re reconsecrating the shrine in honour of the True Face,” Theo whispered, hoping this would make things better. “We’re going to worship at it, worship with our bodies, our souls, everything we have, we’ll give the True Face whatever it wants.”

“No. No, you mustn’t.” Wesley shook his head, a wildness to him that sent delicious shivers up Theo’s spine. “It’s not a god, it’s not something on its own.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s me.” Wesley slapped his chest. “Good God, it’s me. I’m – I’m more powerful than he is, he’s not going to like that. Oh, shit, the house. She said it. Spores. Black mould. She knew.”

This didn’t make much sense, but Theo nodded earnestly all the same. He supposed this was some mystery that wasn’t for him to discern.

“Wesley,” Theo began, putting a hand on Wesley’s thigh, but was interrupted.

“Wes, not Wesley. Fuck’s sake. Get under the table.”

That was a bit more abrupt than Theo had been anticipating, but also beyond his wildest dreams.

He obeyed immediately, transfixed by the bulge in Wesley’s – Wes’s – trousers that he couldn’t quite keep in his mind but desperately needed. He wanted to feel it in his mouth, fill himself with it until he gagged, until he couldn’t forget what it tasted like, until it filled him up.

Wes spread his legs a little more. “We don’t have long.”

Theo was shaking too much to unzip his fly, and Wes did it for him in one lazy motion, giving a throaty sigh as the pressure on his cock was released.

His mouth watered.

Wes pushed a hand into his hair and gripped his curls hard. Theo moaned. He couldn’t help it, although he tried to bite it back until he knew if Wes would like it. Jem preferred him silent. He froze and shot a panicked look up at Wes’s face, forgetting the size and girth of what was rising out of his pants.

Wes tousled his curls and frowned. “What’s that look for?”

Theo shook his head slightly, restricted by Wes’s grip.

Wes slackened his hold. “You don’t have to, any number of these cunts can suck me off. Probably.”

“No, I want to,” Theo assured him, and brushed Wes’s cock with his hand to show willing. He took a firm hold, squeezing a little, feeling how firm he was. His whole hand tingled, buzzing. Just the idea of that sensation anywhere else got him hard, too.

Wes groaned deep in his throat. He pushed Theo’s head back down to his cock and Theo ran his tongue over Wes’s tip and it tingled like he’d licked a battery. He guarded his teeth with his lips and was about to take Wes fully into his mouth when Wes tugged his head up and nearly strained Theo’s neck.

“How are we related again?”

Theo stared at him, brain on fire. “Marriage. Maybe. Cousins.”

Wes was biting his lip, stricken with what Theo ached to believe was desire. “Get the fuck on with it then, before I change my mind.”

Someone screamed.

It was loud enough and visceral enough to be heard over the music, over the bass, over the crowd. Theo froze, the sound ripping through him and filling him with instinctive, primeval fear.

Wes sat up, nearly knocking Theo into the edge of the table, and checked his watch. “Right on time,” he said, and pushed Theo’s head back down, not on his cock, but nearly to the floor, and released him.

The Soothsayer had taken the stage without anyone noticing, and as Theo peered around Wes’s legs, he saw him Change. Theo had never seen a full-body Change before.

He clung to Wes’s calf, staring underneath the table at the hulking shadow blocking the swirl of lights, and the screaming stopped. He felt the great shape staring at him, at everything, through a myriad of eyes spinning in its whirlwind coils. He pressed his cheek against Wes’s leg and the True Face pulsed in his bones.

In that moment, he felt as though he was sandwiched in the middle of fractals cutting him to pieces, until he was nothing but a mosaic.

The great eyes, insectoid and numerous, couldn’t see him. The great coils couldn’t reach him. He was swimming in someone else’s mind, and the currents shifted too fast for the Thing-That-Was-The-Soothsayer to catch him.

Theo drifted in the flux, undetectable under the table, no longer anywhere.

Something was happening to the rest of the family. They were rigid, all posed in stiff, bone-breaking positions, spines arched and heads back, as the Thing before them fed on the contents of their heads.

Theo chanced a glance up at Wes, but he was sipping his drink, drunk and profoundly bored. Theo slid his eyes back down to the bloodstain on Wes’s thigh, and wanted to worship him with his mouth, his hands, his arse, rip a hole in his torso and worship with his cavities, offer up anything and everything that Wes wanted to fuck or to destroy, or both.

The Thing began to reduce down in size, dripping mucus.

The family hit the floor and crawled towards the stage, some trying to scoop out their own eyes with their bare fingers, but the tributes were ignored and rejected. The Soothsayer had taken what he wanted, and anything more was worthless to him.

“Now for the big finale,” Wes murmured, pushing Theo firmly between his legs, gripping Theo’s curls with a rough, unforgiving hand.

Theo clutched Wes’s legs, cheek against a bony knee, and saw the crawling bodies on the dancefloor thrashing out of sync, out of time. There was a screech of feedback, the music cutting out, and the crash of a speaker.

The lights went out and strobed back on. Theo saw silhouettes against the flashing neon, and something fucking enormous and unnatural slamming a clawed hoof down on the stage.

A serrated tongue flicked like a whip, and limbs wheeled through the air in splashes of uplit colour.

Theo whimpered, clinging to Wes so tightly that Wes grunted in pain, but Theo didn’t release him, couldn’t, he was so scared. Everything was chaos.

The Beast was here.

“Oh, not the fucking DJ,” he heard Wes complain, and there was a lash of a boned, spiked tail across the floor that knocked dancers over into a jumble of mangled parts. Theo held his breath, unable to blink.

Wes bent down so Theo could hear him. “She isn’t here for you.”

How did he know that? Theo wondered, shaking and unable to breathe.

His head swam.

Then it was… gone.

The chaos persisted, but the Beast was gone. It vanished, as if it had never been there at all, and nothing remained except devastation.

Wes pulled him gently back up as the lights came on, and the survivors started to count injuries and blessings.

A wailing started in the quiet, as the first of them realised they were not going home with the people they’d come with.

In the hush, the wailing carried and was taken up by others, a slowly creeping wave of hysteria sweeping the floor.

Theo stared at Wes, wearing a callous smirk that chilled him to the bone even after he forgot what it looked like on that maddeningly forgettable face.

“Party’s over,” he said. “But at least you met the new gods.” He patted his crotch, cock flaccid, and put it away. “Nearly got a taste of one, too.”

Theo didn’t know what to say. Terror ebbed and flowed with the soothing of the vibrations in his deepest being. He had survived. He was alive.

Alive.

Only now did Theo really know what that meant.

Nearly everyone else was dead.

There were stains and scraps everywhere, but he was starting to realise not much was left in the way of bodies. The only ones that looked intact were those crawling to the exits, or looking desperately for people who were no longer there.

“Let’s get you to my office, while they’re cleaning up.” Wes grabbed Theo’s shirt and hoicked him out from his hiding place, shoving him hard in the back as he scrambled to his feet.

Theo nearly tripped over somebody, or a part of somebody, and tried not to see what or who it was. He let out a little whimper. The club was in semi-darkness, ringing with shrieks and unhealthy, hysterical laughter.

He thought he saw Layla at the bar, slumped with her head in her hands, shoulders shaking, but whether it was laughter or sobs he couldn’t tell. He didn’t think Layla was one of those laughing.

The staff were nowhere to be seen.

Wes wrapped an arm around Theo’s waist and dragged him off somewhere behind the main bar, through a door and up some brightly lit stairs. Theo squinted, the light levels a shock to his system, trying not to think about what he’d just seen and heard.

“Slight change of plan,” Wes slurred in his ear. “This cult is mine now, right? They’re still alive, they’re not here?”

Theo shook his head. “Only me. They worship you, the True Face…”

“He’s not going to like that,” Wes murmured, throwing open another door and pushing Theo inside. “Not at all. But you do as I say, right, you’re mine, and I protect what’s mine.”

“Yes, anything.” Theo was dazzled by the spots, a glittering constellation in a purple-glitter sky.

Wes nodded. “I know what we’re going to do. First, you’re going to rob me. Those drawers, there.” He pointed to the desk, and Theo fumbled his way over to them.

“Top.”

Theo slid the top drawer out. It was empty except for a jar of something homemade.

“That’s a little gift for the Soothsayer,” Wes said, checking the room and the corridor outside. “Take that. Give me your number. I’ve seen his future, and he’s made his peace. The family needs a new direction anyway. Not many of us left now. And I need a bit of glory. Quite a lot more.”

Theo didn’t understand, but it wasn’t his place to ask questions. He nodded, clutching the jar.

“Pen, there.” Wes nodded at the desk again and Theo found a marker pen, guided to it as if this was his desk, and his stationery. He found a post-it pad and scribbled his number down obediently.

Wes grimaced. “I promised I’d give it to him. But you know what, getting attached to people… it’s not working out for me. You know?” He beckoned Theo over, and Theo approached only to be pulled into a tight embrace. Wes stroked his hair. “Never get attached. It just hurts all the fucking time, or it hurts until you don’t feel anything at all.”

Theo was abruptly released. Wes gave him a sad smile that lingered in his consciousness as a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, although the details of the expression were lost as soon as he blinked them away.

“My glory’s going to wear off in a few hours, and I’ll be back to nothing,” Wes said, stepping back from the doorway to let Theo pass. “So let’s hope the part of me that’s in you will remember what we need it to do.”

“What do you need me to do?” Theo asked. He’d do anything.

“Just hold that for me until I’ll text you,” Wes said. “Give me your number, and fuck off.”

There were voices coming along the corridor, echoing up the stairs: a girl’s voice, and a gruffer, deeper one.

Theo did as he was told, clutching the jar, and ran down the corridor in the opposite direction, heading through some fire doors at the far end and down the emergency stairs, hoping he could find a way out. He had no idea what he was doing, but it felt like he had just lived through the end of the world, and it felt incredible.

He wanted to do it again.