Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 159050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 795(@200wpm)___ 636(@250wpm)___ 530(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 795(@200wpm)___ 636(@250wpm)___ 530(@300wpm)
The large speakers strategically attached to the walls blew heavy metal so loudly it felt as if the walls shook with each low sound. Elliot was hardly used to this kind of racket, but he withstood the desire to cover his ears and watched the huge crowd of people move in one rhythm, like a colony of wasps buzzing away their life in a drug-induced trance. Standing on a floor that was heavily littered with cigarette butts and bottles he feared for his historical replica shoes.
The air was so thick with smoke and the smell of all kinds of perfume mixing into a sweet odor he felt like it choked him, and inevitably Elliot loosened his neckcloth to breathe more freely. Leaning against the trembling wall, in the ever-changing lights he watched two women who wore barely anything twist around poles on either side of the stage. The scene was unreal, hypnotizing in its exorbitance, and so he watched in fascination as the leader of the band put a champagne bottle between his legs, only to uncork it and spray the alcoholic foam all over the front of the audience in a parody of ejaculation.
Elliot buckled his knees a bit to hide his tall form in the crowd. He stood out in his historical outfit, but with the lights above the stage changing feverishly, even he was able to melt into the masses. His heart beat to the rhythm of the melodic noise when the double doors became his sole focus. Step by step, he neared the gateway that could lead him to his goal, but out of fear that the exit was under some kind of surveillance, he simply hung out close to it and joined a large group of people as they poured out of the main room.
Nobody even noticed his intrusion, too caught up in themselves. One of the girls laughed so hard she stumbled forward and spilled most of her drink on the floor, making it so slippery one of her companions needed to rescue her from a fall. Two members of the crew, a couple who clearly couldn’t keep their hands off one another, tried several doors before one budged and they disappeared inside the room, locking it with a final-sounding clang. Elliot stayed behind with the sound thudding from behind the double doors in a strangely muted fashion, as if he had water in his ears and couldn’t hear right.
The corridor stretched both ways from where Elliot stood, and he had to quickly assess which way William’s mansion would have been. Judging by the sickly color of the paint peeling off the walls, Elliot was still far away from the grace of early nineteenth century elegance, still in what was left of the mental institution that the building once housed.
As he started walking, his footsteps resonated between the walls, but it wasn’t like this area was silent anyway. The music still blasted so powerfully his body could sense the rhythm through the floor, and as he walked along the seemingly endless passage, voices came from the sequence of doors on both sides of him.
His heart beat faster when through an open door he saw two naked girls and two guys fooling around on a mattress laid out on the bare floor, too caught up in sex to even notice they were being watched. He swallowed hard and quickly made his way farther along the rows of doors. The hallway was plain, with no frills, like one would expect from a former hospital, but the closer he was to another set of double doors at the very end, the heavier his feet were and the more his stomach twisted.
Curiosity pulled him in, toward the thick, delicious honey that was William Fane’s home hidden away in the ugly guise of the club. Being spotted beyond the parts of the building accessible to the public might mean suffering so many stings he would never recover. And yet he kept walking toward the doors marked with red letters as the entrance to an area restricted only to members of the motorcycle club, because there was no guarantee that he would ever get a chance like this again.
He didn’t have the intention to steal anything, or to spy on the undoubtedly illegal activities of the Kings of Hell. All he wanted was to walk the corridors William once walked and brush his fingers along the walls within which William had lived. Was that really so much to ask? He just wanted a glimpse, nothing more.
Elliot ran the last few paces, urged on by a sense of time passing all-too-quickly, but when he pushed on the doors, they turned out to be locked. Of course.
Elliot groaned and banged his forehead against the painted metal.
The endless thudding of music didn’t help in keeping focused, but as he opened his eyes, his gaze grazed an open door to his right. The room behind it was dark, but in the white glow of the overhead lamps in the hallway Elliot saw that the small space wasn’t furnished. There was trash littering the floor, but the sight of a narrow window across from the door filled Elliot’s heart with hope once more.