Descent

DESCENT

Chapter One

A hacking, violent wretch pierced the cold Bulgaria morning, as liquid vomit spattered across the white porcelain. On the bathroom floor-tiles of a cheap Sofiya hotel, the new winter light was harsh and stark, as the young aristocrat ran a damaged hand through his white-blond hair, smearing a trail of blood across his clammy forehead.

He collapsed backwards, gasping to breathe again, resting his weary, sweaty, agonised head against the flaking white radiator.

His grey eyes strayed to the tiny bathroom window above him, where he could see the bleak sky and icy clouds outside.

How low we have become.

Lucius grasped the sink and hauled himself to his feet. Seeing himself in the cracked glass caused that familiar surge of self-hatred, so he concentrated on unwrapping the bandage stuck to his hand with dried blood.

It hurt when he started to peel it off, so he viciously yanked it harder, making it sear.

New blood coursed down to the plug, and the tap squeaked as he turned it until freezing water washed away the pain, at least for now.

The nausea was retaliating, hand in hand with a powerful headache, raging full-force into his skull.

He splashed ice water onto his face, and sighed, vaguely wishing it was his last breath.

No such sanctuary.

He turned and wrenched open the door into the hotel bedroom, where a mass of deep-plum hair was spread over one of the pillows in the large bed.

A pair of green eyes watched him gather his things, and root for his wallet. Lucius scanned the worn carpet, and was relieved to spot the used contraceptive on the floor beside the empty vodka bottle.

Choking nausea seized him again, and he hurried to throw too much Bulgarian Leva to cover the cost of the room onto the table. The woman in the bed sat up, clutching a sheet to her chest.

'Lucius Malfoy. Will I see you again?' A husky plea in a Bulgarian accent.

But Malfoy had already turned from her and headed toward the door, filled with disgust and vicious self-loathing.

'You'd better hope you don't.'

*

The black, dead trees in silhouette against the deepest blue night stood unmoved by the occasional gusts that soared over the shadowed landscape.

The only effect was the rippling of the young man's black cloak, as he stood in front of his parents' almost deserted London house, the resonance of his Apparation lost in the howls of the wind.

He approached the door and pushed it open with a trembling hand.

When the malevolence of the night had been safely locked out behind him, Regulus turned in the candlelit hallway. His black gloves dropped to the ground. His wand fell with a rosewood thud. Next his cloak, discarded in crumpled abandon. And finally the Death Eater mask, staring up at him to crown the pile.

He stared back at it, hating it. Those hollow eyes had seen his every sin but never did they offer salvation.

He tried to steady the quiver in his hands.

A sound from the top of the stairs made him look up. Maybe there was salvation...

A thin, white-blonde figure stood motionless, her pallid-blue gaze settling on him. Regulus forced a smile which she never returned.

'Come upstairs,' she commanded.

He nodded up at her before she disappeared from sight. He could hear her moving across the floorboards in the bedroom.

The young Death Eater rushed to the kitchen, and hurried to pour out a generous measure of malt whisky into a goblet. It shook violently in his hands as he downed the spirit in one.

The whisky would have to help construct a new façade, and fast. Because he was about to relive it all again, because the only thing he could do to make his Narcissa happy was to tell her every final detail of the absolute terror, death and agonising cruelty that the Death Eaters had inflicted tonight.

Regulus moved back down the hall and hesitated at the foot of the staircase. He stooped and picked up the bundle and the mask, before heading upstairs to the only reason all this was worthwhile.

*

Narcissa opened a tired eye to the cold morning, and manoeuvred free of the annoyance of Regulus's arm. She wrapped herself tight in the soft blankets, so no part of him remained touching her as he slept silently behind her.

The tenderness between her thighs served as an unforgiving reminder of another night spent trying to lose herself in her cousin's frantic grasp.

She flinched, her mind sick and her heart hollow. Blurred memories of last night stabbed at her consciousness...

...'Tell me, Regulus,' she says, sultrily. 'Tell me and I'll let you.' She towers above him in a small skirt and knee-high boots while he kneels before her on the bedroom floor.

She unfastens the last button on her shirt and flicks the expensive garment aside, standing statuesque in a delicate deep-crimson and black bra, never breaking her eye contact with the Death Eater.

He murmurs something. She notices he is quivering. She smirks, as power surges inside her chest.

'Louder, Regulus,' she demands, stalking slowly towards him and stopping right in front of him.

He reaches forward to touch her thigh under her skirt, but she catches his hand mid-air and pushed it roughly away.

'Two brothers.' He quakes. 'Central Somerset.'

'I'm not interested in geography,' she snaps, circling him slowly.

'OK...I...'

'Come on!' she hisses dangerously, and slams her knee hard into his chest, so he falls back onto the floor.

He stares up at her through a haze of infatuated awe, aroused beyond return.

'The older one saw Bellatrix and he knew...he knew he was going to die...'

'Did he beg to live? Did he beg?'

'Begged and cried...' Regulus pushes himself upright again.

'And what then...'

'Bellatrix...hit the guy's brother instead...with Avada...'

Narcissa moves a hand under her skirt so Regulus can see the deep red and black satin of her underwear. His eyes flicker there, and he finds new resolve. 'The guy started sobbing...pleading to be spared...crawling on the floor amongst the filth where he belonged...'

Narcissa smiles malevolently and allows him to kiss her stomach, still from his kneeling position before her.

He takes her hand and pulls her down in front of him. He kisses her throat, his hand moving to her breasts, but again she grabs his forearm before it makes contact.

She leans forward and traps him in a hard kiss; he feels her soft tongue as her grip tightens around the Dark Mark. She wrenches away from him.

'And what did you do, Regulus?' she murmurs into his ear, taking a wisp of his black hair gently between her fingers. He is breathless but has to continue.

'I made him scream with my Cruciatus,' he lies, 'and then he didn't want to live anymore. He begged to die instead.'

Narcissa's eyes sparkle. Her hand is painfully tight around his forearm, but for the moment she is appeased, and finally allows him to touch her...

Narcissa shivered and made herself as small as she could under the sheets, trying to kill the mess of lust and revulsion that fought inside her every day.

Regulus. The deluded fool.

He thought she slept with him because she was in love with him, like he so obviously and pathetically was with her. He thought she wanted to hear every tiny thing about the Death Eaters because she was so proud of him, just like his parents were.

He was wrong.

All he was doing was providing her with a window into the life of a person far away, someone who had left two years ago, and someone she was failing to both forget and replace.

*

The Bulgarian night lit up with intermittent flashes of green as Antonin Dolohov ran back through the bushes trying to remember which way he had come from. He tried to head for the area underneath the green light, but, sweaty and panicking, it was far more difficult than he had imagined.

He looked back, and could see the small army of approaching Aurors. He veered to the right in the long grasses, and narrowly avoided falling as he stumbled over a tree root. He rounded the next corner, dishevelled and gasping, and found the clearing.

Shouts pierced the air accompanied by screams of pain and wails of misery. The ground was littered with Muggle bodies and Dolohov had to leap over them to get to the middle of the shadowy glade where the Death Eaters were standing.

Malfoy, always so strict about security, had a Muggle man by the throat, but wore no hood or mask to conceal his identity.

Karkaroff was screaming at him to put his cloak back on as Dolohov approached.

'Malfoy, for God's sake! Here! He hasn't time to be Obliviated!'

'Avada Kedavra!' yelled Malfoy, hitting the man square with the curse that killed him instantly. 'Had time to die though, didn't he?' he sneered.

'No, look!' gasped Karkaroff, pointing behind Dolohov. 'Aurors!'

Dolohov gasped as he arrived in front of Malfoy.

'Aurors...gotta...go...now!' he panted.

Karkaroff Disapparated in panic, but Malfoy strode over to the last Muggle, who lay cowering in terror in the grass to one side.

'We leave when the job is done' he growled, seizing the teenage boy and squeezing his throat hard.

Dolohov whirled round.

'Malfoy! Come on!' he shouted, as he grabbed Lucius's arm and tried to pull him from the Muggle. But Malfoy turned and glared at Dolohov, who let go immediately, seeing the searing evil in Malfoy's intense grey eyes.

'Touch me again and you're next.'

Dolohov backed away, and saw a flash of silver as Malfoy took something from his pocket. The next moment, the Muggle was bleeding and convulsing in the grass as Malfoy stepped over the body and held his arms up to Dolohov as he walked towards him, so he could see the filthy impure blood all over his gloveless hands.

Dolohov stared at Malfoy as he approached, feeling a thrill of fear at the maniacal look in his eyes, and marvelling at how far Malfoy was going on each mission to outdo the last. Tonight's simple Muggle-torture expedition had resulted in sixteen murders.

Dolohov grabbed Malfoy and pulled him into the bushes as the group of Aurors rounded the corner, staring in disbelief at what they found.

'Disapparate, Malfoy! Now!'

'No. Wait!' He mumbled something and a huge green jet surged into the air, before the two disappeared with a loud cracking sound.

The Dark Mark cast deep shadows over the terrified Aurors as they gazed skyward among the slaughter, quaking and useless under the malevolent glare.

*

It had been getting clearer all day. He had tried to ignore it, hoping it was just his increasingly paranoid imagination, but by early evening, Regulus was back in the bathroom, hunched shivering over the searing shape on his left forearm.

He had dressed tentatively, and that night, appeared in the doorway of the dimly lit living room. He was pale, nauseous and terrified, and when he saw Narcissa had fallen asleep on the sofa, he felt relief that she wouldn't witness him like this.

Regulus knelt down beside his cousin where she slept. The back of his quivering hand softly stroked her delicate white cheek.

What choice did he have? If he didn't keep this up, he might face life without her. And he'd rather keep facing death.

He remembered back when they were at school, accidentally coming across her and him, in the common room one night. His Narcissa, sitting on that slimy Durmstrang transfer student. She had her back to her cousin, she was kissing Lucius Malfoy, and Malfoy had opened a grey eye, and smirked mockingly at Regulus, who had rushed from the room in revulsion and humiliation.

He remembered afterwards, standing alone, shivering in that chilled Slytherin bathroom, just a thin, dark seventeen-year-old staring into his own reflection. The agony he was feeling shone undiluted from his bright blue stare.

Regulus had closed his eyes as tight as he could, but still could see, nothing but white-blonde hair and pureblood beauty.

He hated, envied, their mutual obsession, mutual narcissism...Malfoy looked in a mirror, saw himself, saw Narcissa, Narcissa looked in the same glass, saw herself, and Lucius.

Regulus surveyed his own mirror...what did he see?

No one. Nothing. Just him. Alone. No blond. Just Black.

He slammed his fist into the reflection, smashing the image into sharp shards. His dark blood dribbled slow rivers down the polished glass and gathered eventually in a crimson pool of jealousy, obsession and pain.

How could he go back to that? He leaned forward and closed his eyes, resting his face close to Narcissa's as she silently slept.

When he opened his eyes again, the decision had been made. He kissed her on the cheek and rose slowly to his feet. He grabbed the Death Eater mask and black gloves from the table.

The Dark Mark was burning and he had to go.

*

Later, in the very small hours, when dawn had not yet begun to stir, Regulus stumbled back into the house, wrenching his cloak to the ground, casting the gloves off and hurling the mask against the wall, not noticing how it cracked when it bounced off the hard marble.

He struggled upstairs, trying to swallow away the sour taste of vomit that lingered in the back of his throat.

He crept past the four-poster and hurried into the adjoining bathroom as silently as he could, but reached the sink only just in time before the choking sickness seized him once again.

When it was over, he splashed water onto his pallid, clammy face, and washed his hands over and over and over again.

And then he stopped, and could fight the visions of evil no longer. He crumpled slowly to the cold floor, where he started to sob, his pitiful head sinking into his hands, his mind sinking into despair.

As strangled sounds of sorrow carried through the night into the comfort of the moonlit bedchamber, Narcissa's pale eyes opened in the darkness.