Chapter 8

The Zone comprised an area of three square blocks, stretching from the distillery district to the west bank of Shooter’s Creek, and from the shore to the raised Gardiner Expressway on the north side. Law enforcement shunned The Zone; anarchy ruled.

The orange and black taxi rolled to a halt on the edge of The Zone. The driver, a young bearded Scot, twisted in his seat to regard his sole passenger sitting gazing out the windows at the surrounding office towers.

“This is as far as I go,” the driver said. “And I’d recommend it be as far as you go, too, lass.”

Psyche faced the driver. She certainly feared the daunting task ahead of her, but her resolve remained. She fished a red fifty from her small purse and passed it to the driver.

“Keep the change. Thank you for the ride,” she murmured. She reached for the door handle.

It costs nothing to be polite.

The cabbie fingered the bill, staring at it, as if it might bite him.

“I really should drive you out of here,” he said. “You don’t look like a druggie, if you don’t mind me saying so. What business have you in The Zone?”

Finding a lost soul? Switching worlds?

“I have to find a friend in there.”

“Lassie, The Zone ain’t no place for a girl like you.”

“Like me?”

The driver nodded wisely. “A pretty thing like you? Might disappear in there, never to return.”

Psyche sighed dully. The danger weighed deeply on her mind.

“I have no choice,” she remarked glumly.

No choice if I want to complete this journey. No choice if I want Cupid.

Nobody claimed rainbows paved these paths.

“Choices always exist.”

Psyche supposed so, but in this case, the alternative meant returning to a plush hotel room while Cupid remained somewhere in those three square blocks. She couldn’t live with that reality. Perhaps at one time in her life, she couldn’t risk her world; Walter would have forbidden it. Now, Walter mattered not and she couldn’t live with herself if she abandoned her quest.

“I’m choosing her,” Psyche said, determinedly.

The cabbie regarded her with a mixture of admiration and regret.

“Good luck to you, then.”

Psyche nodded, pulled the door handle and stepped into the humidity of the night. After closing the door, she watched the taxi fade into the night, an orange and black apparition. The stars twinkled in the heavens.

With deep trepidation, she crossed the street and entered The Zone.

Smoke clouded the air, burning her nose and throat with each inhalation. Strange cries floated towards her, sometimes sounding less than human. Clutching her purse closer to her body, she walked as quickly as her shaking legs would allow. In the distance, shadows shimmered, ghosts of abandoned streets. Somewhere ahead, eerie singing echoed from graffitied bricks. Psyche failed to locate even the direction of the singing, giving up as it abruptly ended.

From broken windows, Psyche sensed eyes crawling over her shadowy form, menacing and sinister. Her footfalls bounced, repeating like a ringing bell in her straining ears.

Ahead, a group of men huddled about a metal barrel, toxic dark smoke billowing. Angry words bantered and Psyche watched as two of the men brawled, bare knuckled, only grunts accompanying each blow. She crossed the street and faded into the shadows to avoid crossing their path.

Her heart hammered in her chest. She had left the cushy world of penthouse galas, entertaining executives, sweet caviar and frozen champagne without any regrets. This world, The Zone, represented a completely foreign world, frightening and dystopian. This world’s only currency: violence.

Where are you, Cupid?

The woman reminded Psyche of a concentration camp survivor, all skin and bones. She danced, like a macabre ballerina, across the deserted asphalt, singing nonsensically about a white rabbit. Performing a twirl with her arms above her head, she spotted Psyche as she completed the unsteady manoeuvre. Faint tracks lined her thin forearm. Her eyes unfocused.

“Pretty lady!” the ballerina squawked.

Psyche stopped mid-stride.

“You got any smack?”

Psyche shook her head emphatically.

“Bummer. You know where any is?”

“I do not.” While interacting with the addicts frightened her, Psyche gathered her courage. “I’m looking for a woman.”

“I’m a woman,” the dancer mentioned. Her body swayed to music only she could hear. “You’re pretty. I’d fuck you for some smack.”

Psyche bit her lip. “No, thank you,” she answered. The woman regarded her as if she understood none of Psyche’s words. Psyche continued. “She’s about my height. Long blonde hair. Aquamarine eyes. Cupid?”

The wasted woman swayed, her head bobbing unsteadily.

“Never seen her,” the woman intoned dully. “You got any smack?”

Without waiting for an answer, the woman twirled with a giggle and danced away, singing to herself into the night.

Psyche glanced around. Unseen eyes followed her; she felt them crawling her skin as surely as the humidity surrounded her.

Keep moving.

Cupid? Where are you? Please.

Trembling fingers touching her ankle startled her as she passed a shadowy doorway. An alarmed cry escaped her lips as she recoiled to the street, away from the questing fingers.

“You don’t belong here,” a male voice slurred. Psyche followed the sound of the voice, glancing downwards. Two feet, one encased in a threadbare gunny sack, the other dirty and bare, extended into the unsteady illumination of the streetlamp. The filthy bare foot lacked at least two toenails. The remainder of the person shrouded in the shadows.

Her voice trembled, her heart jackhammering in her ears.

“I’m looking for a woman. She’s my height. Long golden hair. Pretty smile. Cupid?”

“Fuck off,” the voice growled. “You don’t belong.”

Psyche couldn’t agree more. She didn’t belong here.

Turning from the unpleasant form in the archway, she obeyed the suggestion and continued walking deeper into The Zone.

A sudden gunshot rang out, the report echoing through the streets. Psyche ducked and crouched, her eyes searching to the source, but the sound bounced around so much, identifying the origin proved impossible, especially in the omnipresent dimness. She half-expected to hear police sirens; none approached. After her heart rate calmed to an acceptable level, she straightened and cautiously continued.

A pair of dishevelled teens necked, leaning up against a graffiti wall, his hands questing under her t-shirt. Together, they moaned like consummate lovers, despite their amateurish motions. For a crazy moment, Psyche could almost feel Cupid’s long-lost fingers caressing her nipples.

As she passed, she mumbled, “Cupid?”

The guy paused, removing his tongue from the girl’s mouth. His body swayed unsteadily, his eyes glassy and distant.

“The goddess?”

Psyche paused. Buttercup’s friends had complained about a girl claiming to be a goddess.

“Do you know where she is?”

She expected another fuck off, but instead of the typical brush-off, the teenager lifted one trembling arm and pointed down the street, towards a particularly graffiti-encrusted building missing every window and lacking an entrance door.

“Goddess, she’s fucking in there. She’s always fucking there.”

The girl tilted her head towards the guy, opening her mouth, her tongue wetting her lips. “Fuck her. Take me, Darren. Take me, now.”

With that, Darren bent his head, locking lips with the girl again, dismissing Psyche as if she’d never existed. Perhaps, she didn’t exist in this world.

“Thank you,” Psyche mumbled.

The building looked ominous and dark. Every fibre of her being rebelled at the thought of entering that portal to hell. As she glanced behind her, indistinct figures detached and stepped quickly into alcoves and shadows.

Are you in there, Cupid? Please? I want to go home.

Doggedly, Psyche stepped towards the building.

Psyche passed under the empty arch where a fancy door must have, at one time, hung on golden hinges. Now, the archway sported gang markings and what may have been spots of dried blood. As soon as her feet entered the shelter of the building, the scents of acrid decay, potent cannabis, and human perspiration assaulted her nostrils. Wrinkling her nose, she cautiously entered further into the gloom.

Somewhere, a high-pitched voice, barely human, repeated the same nonsensical phrase over and over again, the syllables piercing her ears like an ice pick.

“Burn, unbelievers. Atonement only brings pain. Fate outlasts us all. Burn, unbelievers...”

Atonement only brings pain.

Steeling her nerves, Psyche clenched her hands into fists and resolutely advanced into the dimness. A flickering bulb, only one working amongst many smashed, illuminated the first floor. Debris littered the narrow corridor: ancient moldy pizza boxes, a cracked boombox radio, a long bone large enough to perhaps be a femur. She hoped the bone didn’t formerly belong to a human.

“Cupid?” Psyche called, her voice barely above a whisper.

A male voice replied in irritation from the shadows to her left, almost a wail.

“Fuck. Off.”

But she couldn’t fuck off. Not until she’d found Cupid.

Shivering despite the oppressive heat, Psyche discovered a set of ominous stairs leading upwards where the flicking bulb failed to battle the darkness. The handrail dripped with a sticky substance. Psyche withdrew her hand immediately, cringing. Each riser screamed a tortured shriek as she ascended unsteadily. Behind her, she heard scurrying sounds, perhaps rats, perhaps creatures more frightening.

At the top of the stairs, a strung-out woman sat rocking and moaning on the scarred floorboard. Behind the seated woman, a scorched pattern upon the wall resembled the wings of an angel.

Psyche paused on the last step, regarding the rocking woman. Her unfamiliar features shimmered in the flickering light. Not Cupid.

“Cupid?” Psyche asked the woman.

In response, the woman turned her empty, baleful eyes to Psyche and merely grinned.

Fortifying her nerves once more, she stepped carefully around the rocking woman and advanced further into the building, every fibre of her body tingling in dismay. This place, this hell, bore no resemblance to her comfortable hotel suite. She prayed she might see her king bed again.

Cupid, where are you?

Like all the rooms she’d passed, this dingy room lacked a door. Inside, slightly less cluttered than the rest of the building, a threadbare mattress occupied a space on the floor beneath an empty hole in the bricks where panes of glass had once protected the interior from the elements.

A woman reclined unmoving on the mattress, on her back, glassy eyes staring up at the ceiling. For a moment, Psyche’s heart skipped a beat in her chest. Even through the grime, even with only starlight illuminating the chamber, the face, her face, sparked aching memories of insistent fingers and warm breath in a far-away hotel room.

“Cupid!” Psyche breathed.

Atonement only brings pain.

She ran to the mattress and lowered herself to her knees, uncaring of the grime indelibly grinding into the designer denim. A needle stared up at her accusingly from the far side of the makeshift bed, cast away carelessly. Reaching forward as if to check that the woman actually existed, her fingers traced the woman’s cheek.

Warm. Real.

“Cupid, what have you done to yourself?” she whispered.

At her touch and her words, Cupid turned her head, her eyes unfocused. Even through the drug haze, recognition flooded Cupid’s eyes. She stared at Psyche for long minutes.

“Psyche? You can’t be here.” Slurred.

“I am. I came for you.”

“She’ll destroy you.”

“Who?”

“Venus. You can’t be here.” Her voice weakened and slurred further.

The words made no sense, but clearly the woman on the mattress rode the edge of overdose.

“Why?” Psyche whispered. “Why?”

Cupid turned her head to stare back at the scorched ceiling. No fireflies danced there.

For a long time, she didn’t speak.

When her voice returned, an unexpected strength and purpose and torment filled the room.

“Because,” Cupid intoned, “I love you.” She paused, still staring at the ceiling. “And you have to go.”

“I’m not leaving you here,” Psyche replied vehemently. “Either we go together, or I stay here with you.”

To punctuate her point, she lowered herself to the mattress. A coil poked uncomfortably into her ribs. Throwing her arms about Cupid, she pressed her body against Cupid, absorbing every sensation.

“I searched so long for you. I left everything behind,” she whispered. “I’m not leaving without you.”

“You must. I can’t live with the consequences.”

Instead of responding verbally, Psyche pushed herself up to her elbow and gazed on Cupid’s glowing features. Even in this awful place. Even with dirt smudging her cheeks. Even with her eyes glassy and unfocused. She wanted her with every ounce of her soul. Relief flooded Psyche. Cupid lived. And she’d found her. Somehow.

Without thought, Psyche pressed her lips to Cupid’s.

It had been so long since she’d kissed her.

Sensation exploded through all her nerves. At first Cupid refused to return the kiss, but after a minute, her lips softened and suddenly, she kissed back fiercely.

Finally breaking the kiss, Psyche sought Cupid’s eyes. Clarity shone from Cupid’s eyes, the kiss reawakening her momentarily.

She is lost.

“Please?” Psyche begged. “Come with me? I can’t leave you here. You need a hospital.”

Cupid sighed. Then she reached for Psyche, pulling her lips back down. Psyche abandoned herself in the kiss again.

Cupid’s arm snaked heavily across her shoulders, like a yoke. Together, they stumbled out of the building. On the streets, woodsmoke continued to assault Psyche’s senses, but the oppressive scents and moans within the graffiti-decorated building mercifully released her. Each step echoed through the deserted streets of The Zone.

Psyche estimated they were perhaps a block from the Expressway on the northern edge of The Zone, when her skin crawled with unseen eyes. She tried to shuffle faster, but Cupid’s semi-conscious state hindered her progress.

A deep, lucid male voice drifted through the smoky air, startling her.