Dakota Lee: The Palace of Satan [NaNoWriMo]

Chapter 1

The soft hiss of paint against brick lulled me into a sense of false security, but on the streets that never lasted long.  I finished off my graffiti and was midway through packing up my paint cans when the back of my neck prickled, almost like I was being watched.  Slowly, I turned, expecting to see a mugger, or maybe some lost kid.

Instead, I came face to face with a wide mural covering the majority of the brick wall.  Had that been there before?  It was hauntingly creepy, and seemed to glow faintly.

“Well, aren’t you a beauty.”  I smirked, running a hand across the twisting silver river.  I had just raised my canister- after all, someone else’s work was my favorite canvas- when a small voice piped up reproachfully,

“You shouldn’t do that.  The angels will be mad.”  A little boy tugged on my sleeve, staring up at me with big brown cow eyes.  I snorted, and swatted him away.  It was one of those homeless kids that huddled around the bright glow of the NationsBank building like the light was their fire in a harsh arctic blizzard.  They were like locusts- swarming around and getting in your way.

“Yeah?”  I turned and sprayed a thick black line across the mural.  “Well, you tell the angels to go bother someone else.”  I scooped up my bag and, cramming the last canister inside, turned away from the mural.  

Suddenly, a humid breeze wafted down the alleyway, stinking of decay, and the alley began to glow with a harsh red light.  Behind me, the little boy let out a muffled shriek.  When I turned, squinting into the glowing red light pulsing from the mural, he was standing, frozen, in front of the mural, and leering out of it was a woman in flowing, ragged black robes, moaning, eyes leaking tears of blood.  She reached out towards the boy, and her bony hands fastened around his neck.  Almost in slow motion, he writhed, small hands prying at the fingers, gasping and choking.  Her expression was completely blank, but her black eyes hinted at untold menace.  

“Hel-p.”  The boy sputtered, before going limp in the woman’s grip.  She tossed him aside and his body hit the wall with a crack.  As if realizing for the first time I was there, she raised her head to met my terrified gaze, then melted into the shadows.

My limbs were stiff and unyielding, but I managed to stagger towards the boy, who lay sprawled on the cement, unmoving.  Reluctant to touch a potentially dead body, I reached out and rolled his over.  His cheeks were pale, and there was a nasty gash on his forehead.  From his muted scream, I could tell his spine was shattered.  

“Did- she see- your-”  He gave a hacking cough, spraying scarlet flecks on the ground, before continuing hoarsely, “-face?”  I shuddered as I remembered the gaping eyes leering at me, sending icy chills up my spine, and nodded.

“Yeah.  Why?”  But he whimpered, and cringed away from me.  His body contorted as he let loose another violent cough, and then it relaxed.  He went limp, and I leaned closer to him,  “Why is it important that she saw my face?  Who was she?”  The boy shuddered, and whispered,

“Bloody Mary- is coming.”  He convulsed, and then lay still, like a discarded toy.  

“Who is Bloody Mary?  Why is she coming?  Why was it important that she saw my face?”  He, of course, gave no reply.  I straightened, and pressed myself against the wall.  What was going on?  Who was Bloody Mary?  I shook my head violently, trying to clear my muddled thoughts.

Leaving the dead boy in the alley, I stepped out into the glow of the NationsBank building, and with every step I became less and less sure of what I’d just seen.  Had I just imagined it all?  Had it been a prank?  Gang rivalry?  Was Bloody Mary a code word?

I made it home just before midnight, and in the kitchen, along with the smell of burnt chicken, was my mother, her frail frame perched on the kitchen table, drumming her fingers on the table top.  When she saw me, she leapt up and launched into what must have been a preplanned lecture,

“Dakota Lee, how dare you go wandering the city at this hour, you, of all people, should know how dangerous it is, what with your father-”  She trailed off as I stepped into the light, revealing my bloodstained clothes and tragic expression.  I must look awful.  I thought briefly, before my mother ripped my duffel out of my hands and unzipped it,  “What.  Is.  This?”  She asked, her voice dangerously low.  “Do not tell me you’ve been vandalizing.  You promised you’d stop!”  I stared hard at the ground, tracing the wood grain with my eyes.  

“Yeah- well- I saw someone die.”  I blurted, without thinking.  Stupid.  I.  Am.  Stupid.  My mom gasped, and pressed herself against the wall,

“Did you- no, was it the gangs?  What happened?”  I stepped forwards, raising my hands calmingly,

“It wasn’t me.  There was this-”  I paused.  What would she do if I told her about the lady coming out of the wall and seeing my face?  Probably chuck me in the nearest mental institution.  That is, if we could afford it.  “I mean, yeah, it was the gangs.  Some street fight.  It was nothing.”  She pointed accusingly at the blood on my clothes,

“Then what is that?”

“Um, well, there was a lot of blood-”  Her hand flew to her mouth,

“You mean you tried to help them?  Are you trying to get yourself killed?”  Her mouth twisted bitterly, “Would you like me to paint a target on your back?”  I scowled.  Stick with the story.

“Yeah, I tried to help.  They were dying.”  I paused, wondering whether to bring up the forbidden subject.  Oh, what the heck.  I was on a roll.  “And I thought they shouldn’t die alone, like dad did.”  My mother inhaled sharply, then went stiff and pale, like those lifelike mannequins in store windows.  

“Stop, Dakota.”  

“He died alone.  No one should do that.  There was no one there for him, he died thinking he was alone, no, knowing he was alone-”

“Dakota- stop, please.”  My mother’s knuckles were white as she gripped the table ledge, and her lips were pressed together.  She was trying to look angry, but I saw the sheen of tears in her eyes.  Even after nearly four years, she still hadn’t stopped grieving.  At night, I would see her in her room, kneeling at her bedside, lips moving in silent prayer, clutching a picture of my father to her chest.  

“Fine.”  I stalked past her, slamming the door to my room and collapsing on the bare mattress, because we couldn’t afford to buy sheets.  I tried the block out the whirlwind of emotion inside of me, but it all poured out at once, and ended up with me screaming into my pillow.  Better alone than out there with Ms. Control Freak.  

It took two days for my life to get back to what I liked to think of as ‘normal’.  Basically, for me to be able to come home without getting into a row with my mom.  What can I say- I live a sad life.  

I’d nearly forgotten the little boy’s desperate warning, and had just began to relax, when I heard the sirens.  Black and white police cars, lights flashing, pulled up in front of our house, ignoring my silent chant of ‘not us, not us, not us.’  The only reason they could possibly be here was to either confront me for vandalism (unlikely, seeing as it’s been over six years and they’ve never noticed before) or a darker reason- to question me about the murder of the boy.

I’ve never really noticed before, but when police knock, they don’t do it daintily.  No, they’re all ‘let us in or we’ll bust down this door, and I don’t care if you’re in the bathroom!’  

Just in case, I waited for my mom to get the door, hiding in the shadows of the kitchen.  

“What do you want?”  That was my mother.  Rude and to the point.  

“We’re here to arrest a certain ‘Dakota Lee’, who has been convicted of first degree murder- we have over five witnesses willing to testify.”  I bit down hard on my lip to keep from screaming.  What did he mean murder?  As my mother scrambled for an explanation, desperately trying to match up lies, I crept across the room and slid open the creaky back door.  It groaned as I forced it open, and the conversation outside ceased.  Crap.  I heard my mother’s breathy voice say,

“Oh, that must be Dakota- I’ll go get her.  She’ll explain- she’d never actually murder anyone, I sure- I mean, she is only fifteen-”  I breathed a sigh of relief for my mother’s long winded explanations and bolted out the door, into the back alley, away from the police, and away from my guilt.

I’d been wrong.  The police hadn’t come to question me about the boy’s murder- they’d come to accuse me of it.