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  Rave Reviews for Tim Lebbon!

  “Lebbon is quite simply the most exciting new name in horror for years.”

  -SFX Magazine

  FACE

  “Intense and affecting, Face will seize and hold your attention from the opening paragraph to the end. A writer blessed with extraordinary gifts, Lebbon’s chief talents lie in exploring the darker moments of everyday life … A true disciple of the dark, Lebbon’s imagery wrings true fear from his audience.”

  -Hellnotes

  “Lebbon’s novel will reward the careful reader with insights as well as gooseflesh.”

  -Publishers Weekly

  THE NATURE OF BALANCE

  “Beautifully written and mysterious, The Nature of Balance will put some readers in the mind of the great Arthur Machen. But with more blood and guts.”

  -Richard Laymon, author of Darkness, Tell Us

  “Vibrant, exploding with imagery, Tim Lebbon takes you on a white-knuckle ride of uncompromising horror. This is storytelling at its best.”

  -Simon Clark, author of Vampyrrhic

  “As fascinating as his plot is, it’s the beauty of his prose that raises his work to a higher level.”

  -Gauntlet

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  FACE

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  HAUNTING THEIR NIGHTMARES

  Dan dreamed of Brand as well.

  They are in Bar None again, but this time the pool cue slips from his grip and hits Brady on the shoulder. It pierces him there and arterial blood sprays out across the room, giving fake cadavers new blood. Brand grins at him and grasps his throat, lifting him until his head touches the ceiling, shoving him up so that his skull cracks against a timber beam, again and again, and all the while the others in the bar-Brady gushing blood, Justin smiling in the corner, Norris the barman-are willing Brand on. He’s violent, he’s always so violent, they say of Dan, but as he goes to protest, Brand’s fingers close into his throat and his fingertips meet inside Dan’s flesh.

  He woke fighting Brand off, and in their dark bedroom in the middle of the night he was being punched and hit.

  Because Megan had been dreaming of spiders and birds and serpents, and when she jerked awake there were a dozen of them using the holes in her body, or making new ones. …

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  Other Leisure books by Tim Lebbon:

  THE NATURE OF BALANCE

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  TIM LEBBON

  FACE

  LEISURE BOOKS

  NEW YORK CITY

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  For Nan and Granddad, wherever you are. You did a good lot.

  A LEISURE BOOKŽ

  May 2003

  Published by

  Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  276 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10001

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Copyright Š2001 by Tim Lebbon

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  ISBN 0-8439-5195-8

  The name “Leisure Books” and the stylized “L” with design are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Visit us on the web at www.dorchesterpub.com.

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  FACE

  viii

  FACE

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  Chapter One

  Later, they would all wonder how they had not guessed the truth. He was waiting in the snow, but after climbing into the car he did not seem cold, his breath did not condense, he appeared calm and composed. He did not act like a man who needed help.

  As they first approached him he looked like a tree, struck by lightning decades ago and rotted down to a six-foot stump, standing proud of the snowbanks as if still striving for the sun. And then he turned his head and his shadow followed; maybe a split second later, maybe not. It was still snowing heavily, and the wind sent sheets of snowflakes waving across the road and into the darkness beyond. Perhaps this explained why the headlights had not picked him out very clearly at first. For an instant the space he

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  occupied in the world was a black hole, swallowing light and logic, disbelief and doubt.

  Minutes later they knew him as a human being and for a while they ignored the fleeting doubts, fears and concerns they had felt in those first few moments. They would return later, these fears, and the family-Dan and Megan and Nikki-would try to sort truth from lies. And they would come to know that hate misleads, fear distorts and love blinds.

  To begin with, they thought that they were safe.

  Some days all Nikki wanted was to be a little girl again.

  They’d been driving for four hours on what was normally a two-hour journey. She had begun to feel sick, she wanted to ask if they were nearly there yet, and she needed the toilet … but she knew her parents were in no mood for any of this. She was a teenager with a level of behavior to adhere to, after all. So she simply sat back and shut up, bit her tongue, wondered why she was feeling like this more and more. She thought that all the anger and angst were supposed to be left behind with puberty.

  Snow threw strange shadows across the window beside her, like shaky footage of nebulous creatures of the deep. Everything today was white. The radio had called it a whiteout, an expression she’d heard before on television, and only then from America or Switzerland or the Antarctic. Never had a whiteout in Britain, she was sure. And certainly not here in

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  Monmouthshire, of that she was positive. No, that would be just too exciting.

  She caught sight of something she recognized-a small gatehouse discernible only by shape, because the blizzard ate size and color-and she knew that they were only a few miles from home.

  Her dad was driving, a dark hunched shape dressed against the cold so that he looked like a chrysalis sitting in the driver’s seat. Nikki wondered what he would turn into, and she spent a few idle minutes speculating to divert her mind from her uncomfortably swollen bladder. Most of her ideas were bad. Dad would not be a butterfly, he would be a moth. Her mum said he had lost sight of his youth-the childlike wonder, the freshness, the miracles-many years ago. He collected those old books, but his interest in them was like a photograph of himself as a child; nostalgic rather than fresh. Often she thought of asking exactly when he had grown old, but she was too afraid to know. She was terrified it had happened the moment she was born.

  A forest emerged by the roadside. Beyond it their house and one other lay surrounded by woodland and mock-wild meadow. Boughs were loaded and ready to break. Nikki imagined different shapes dodging the headlights, silhouettes between the trees, fleeting glimpses of things never known. But there was only the snow. Silent and insistent, it buried the world she knew beneath its misleading shroud …

  Her mother sighed and her father shifted grumpily. This was no time or place for imagination to be let loose; it would be thwarted by

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  the emotionally staid, sterile atmosphere. So instead Nikki thought about The Rabids, wondered when they would secure their first gig, where it would be, and which record company spotters would be there to see them play.

  “Poor sod,” her father said.

  “It’s a tree,” her mum muttered.

  Nikki leaned between the front seats and tried to squint through the misted windscreen. A shadow app
eared out of the snow next to the road, a daring shape standing upright against the worst storm nature could muster, turning and staring at the car as it closed in. And in the early dusky twilight brought on by the blizzard, its eyes caught the headlights and fired them back.

  How romantic, Nikki thought, a stranger in the snow! Imagine him sitting in the car next to me, dripping and shivering but trying to sound polite and grateful for the lift. He’d be no more than a few inches away, his cold flesh tingling as blood circulation recovered, and if I shifted over just a little he’d feel my heat-

  -so how do I know it’s a he?

  “You just have to pick him up,” Nikki said.

  “He’s a hitchhiker,” her dad said.

  “For Christ’s sake, Dad-“

  “Nikki!”

  She tutted. “Sorry, Mum.” And thought, well, for fuck’s sake then.

  The Land Rover Freelander slowed as it approached the figure, her dad obviously keen for a glimpse of who would-or could-be out in this horrendous storm. The shape seemed to grow faster than perspective allowed, until by the

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  time the vehicle came to a halt it was standing right there in front of them, bare hands seeking the warmth of the bonnet, head thrown back and mouth open to catch snowflakes on a dry grey tongue.

  It was a him.

  His hair was long and black, shining like oilslicked leather in the poor light. His cheekbones were so high and pronounced that they caught a few flakes and held them there, frozen. His eyelids were shut and snow gathered there too, rough white pennies on the eyes of a cadaver.

  Holy shit, Nikki thought. He’s a fucking god!

  Then he opened his eyes and looked straight through the windscreen. Nikki heard her mother mutter something beneath her breath, and her dad gasped. Nikki could only nod to herself. A god.

  “Around here!” Her father waved to the man, motioning him to the passenger side of the Freelander. He turned in his seat and smiled quickly at Nikki. “Honey, open the door and let him in. Poor sod must be half frozen.”

  The shadow moved out of the headlights and passed Nikki’s mum’s window, walking slowly, dragging along the side of the car and snapping ice crystals from the paint work.

  “He should be dead,” her mum said.

  Nikki strained against her seatbelt and flipped open the door, letting in a waft of snow and startlingly cold air. She sat back and huddled into her corner, all fanciful notions of sharing warmth vanishing as the solid shape filled the doorway.

  “Help me, I need guidance,” a voice

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  whispered, and for a horrible moment Nikki thought it was her mother. Her mum was staring straight ahead not turned around in her seat to watch the stranger climb into the car. Her lips did not move but the voice came again.

  “Help me.” ?

  “Nikki, give him a hand in.

  Nikki’s dad nudged her shoulder. She glanced quickly at him, and then her mother turned around to see what was taking so long. She looked bored and tired, not frightened as Nikki had imagined. Of course the voice was not hers. How could it have been?

  This time she unclicked her seatbelt and shimmied across the seat. The man was trying to climb in but he appeared too weak to help himself. His right hand lay on the leather like a landed fish, twitching its life away. Nikki grabbed it and started to pull. It was warm, not cold as she had been expecting. And as soon as she curled her fingers around his she felt strength, not weakness.

  The man looked up and smiled in gratitude. His eyes shone. His skin was as white as candle wax but for the red flushed cheeks. Nikki remembered the scene in Ben Hur when Charlton Heston gave a cup of water to Christ, and Christ looked up at him. You never saw his face, you had to guess at his expression, the mystery made it all the more enigmatic … but now she would never need guess again.

  The man started climbing into the car and Nikki had to brace her feet on the floor She was sliding along the seat. He was big, heavy, and his

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  weight was pulling her out. She was about to shout-the panic was rising, a cold fear congealed from thoughts of abductions and rapes and all the things she read about in the papers every day-when the man sat in the seat, sighed, heaved the door shut behind him and rested his head back against the headrest.

  Trying to pull me out, she thought. Out into the snow.

  “It’s so cold tonight,” he gasped. “Thank you.” He was still holding onto Nikki’s hand.

  She loosened her grip and he let go a split second later. Her hand felt cold without his there to keep it warm.

  “What were you doing out there?” Her dad had turned fully and was flipping the top from his hip flask.

  “Waiting for a lift.”

  “Someone stood you up?”

  The man shook his head, leaving wet marks on the headrest where the snow in his hair was finally melting. “No, not yet.”

  “Hitchhiking in this weather?” He offered the stranger his flask.

  The man smiled and nodded, taking a long swig, closing his eyes and swallowing noisily. “Hmm … Jameson’s.” There was an uncomfortable silence as they waited for him to answer the question. He took one more sip from the flask and handed it back to Nikki’s dad. “Most grateful.” Then he turned and stared from his window.

  “How long have you been out there?” Nikki asked. She was still pressed against the door,

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  trying to shy away from this stranger who seemed to take up so much of the back seat. The Freelander was a big vehicle, but she could have easily reached out and touched his face from where she sat. Not that she wanted to. Not really.

  The man turned to look at her. The corner of his mouth furthest from her parents hitched into a wry smile. She saw the scar there, a thin white ridge running from his right cheek down to his chin. Dashing, like a duelling scar. Cool.

  “Long time,” he said. “Seems like forever.”

  “You don’t look so cold. You look … comfortable.”

  Nikki’s mum glanced around at this, looking at the man to see what her daughter was talking about. Nikki saw her eyes widen slightly, her nostrils flare, her posture change from tired to alert.

  The stranger shrugged. “I’m dressed for the weather. Where are we going?”

  “Home,” Nikki said.

  “Sounds like a good place to be.”

  Her dad turned back to the windscreen and the Freelander began creeping forward once more. “Where’s home for you?” he asked.

  “Nowhere and everywhere.”

  “Right. So, you want me to drop you where?”

  “Where.” The man had rested his head back and closed his eyes, but Nikki could see crow’s feet deepening and his scar flexing as he smiled to himself. In profile he looked very strong.

  Again, a loaded silence. Outside sounds were muted by the snow. Even the Freelander’s engine seemed quieter than usual. Inside, the atmosphere had turned strange. Any conversation not

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  following normal conventions can leave an odd feeling in the air, a sense of anticipation, an idea that someone will say something soon to tie up all the oddities being uttered. Loose ends, Nikki thought. None of us like loose ends. Already this stranger had created several, and they flailed at the heated air like snakes-maybe deadly snakes-just waiting for her or her parents to grab hold.

  “What do you want?” she asked, because she was sure he wanted something. A lift maybe, but something else too. It was obvious from the way he sat. He was just thinking of how to say it.

  The man glanced at her and smiled again, the twitch at the corner of his mouth which her father would never see in the rearview mirror, not unless he was really looking for it. And Nikki hoped his concentration was on the road.

  “Why thank you,” the man said.

  “What?” Nikki’s dad said.

  “What I want is, a moment of your time.” He seemed very pleased with himself. This time after speaking he did not close his eyes, but sat
there watching the family, his gaze moving from mother to father to Nikki, then back to his window as if seeking an answer from out there as well.

  I’ll bet he’d like The Rabids, Nikki thought.

  “Well, we’re not going anywhere.” It was the first time her mother had spoken. It did not sound very friendly, and neither was its meaning clear.

  “A moment of your time …” the man said.

  “What’s your name?” Nikki asked, suddenly

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  uncomfortable sitting next to someone who could have been anyone.

  “Brand,” the man said. “As in burn, mark, seal, scar of ownership. I have a brand, its meaning is one and all. Would you like to see?” He raised an eyebrow and moved his hand towards the front of his coat.

  “No thanks,” Nikki said. She wondered what he meant. A scar? A tattoo? And where was it, this brand, this seal on the pasty skin of the stranger who only wanted a moment of their time?

  “I think you should tell me where you want to go,” Nikki’s dad said, slowing the car even though there appeared to be no obstruction in the road ahead. “Really, we’re only a few miles from home, we’ve been travelling for hours, I don’t have time to divert that far… tell us where you want to go and I’ll see how near we can get.”

  “I want to go up your daughter.”

  “What!” Nikki pushed herself back against the door, certain she had heard him right. Doubt crept in straight away, however, because her parents did not react. He said it, she thought. He did! “What do you mean?”

  “I mean we don’t have time to go anywhere else,” her dad said impatiently. “So if Mr. Brand will tell us where he wants to go, we’ll see what we can do.”

  “Anywhere will be fine,” Brand said. He did not look at Nikki. She was sure he’d said it, she’d heard it so clearly … and she had felt a twinge

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  as he spoke, as if the words themselves could caress where they hinted at.

  “Look-” her dad began again.