Angels Bleed (Fallen Angels Book 1)

by Max Hardy

  Saul didn’t say a thing, he just held her anguished gaze as he sat down on the floor next to her and wrapped an arm around her back, pulling her close into his chest. The second he touched her, the timorous whimpers coming from her quivering lips turned into deep, shaking sobs emanating from the pit of her stomach, wracking her body as she willingly sank into his embrace, consumed by the wails of her lamentation.

  They sat in that position for more than ten minutes, the only movement the stuttering of Sarah’s body as she cried and Saul rhythmically running a hand through her hair, over and over again. Eventually, her sobs began to subside.

  ‘You stink of piss.’ Sarah said, her words quivering and phlegmy.

  ‘Run in with a dog. It chewed my trousers.’ Saul replied, moving the offending leg slightly to show her.

  ‘Should have chewed your fucking cock off.’ she answered, a slight bit of bite in her delivery.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Saul answered, simply. Sarah stiffened as he said the words, and lifted her head out of his chest, pulling back from their embrace. She sat up next to him, grabbed the bottle of wine and took a long deep swig.

  ‘Sorry for what, exactly John.’ she asked, wiping her sodden mouth with the arm of her dressing gown. She didn’t let him answer.

  ‘Sorry for missing out wedding anniversary. Happy Anniversary by the way, dear!’ she spat the last word sarcastically.

  ‘Sorry for fucking another woman. Sorry for having an affair. No, scratch that. Sorry for having an affair for more than two years! Sorry for wanting to kill our son!’ she shouted, leaning forward right into his face, glaring ferociously into his eyes.

  His glistening eyes didn’t flinch, not even when the spittle from her screams peppered them, just forlornly returned her glare. ‘I’m sorry I broke our promise, and didn’t have the guts to be honest with you.’ he replied quietly, his words resonating with remorse.

  Sarah sagged back, the fury that had quickly built up being knocked out of her by what he said. ‘Now, you can read me again.’ she said with an ironic laugh. ‘When we are broken beyond repair, that promise of honesty betrayed, you start to read me again.’

  Saul reached over and tenderly placed a hand on each of Sarah’s tear stained cheeks, gently rubbing their salty coarseness with his thumb, holding her head steady and looking deep into her eyes. ‘I never stopped reading you Sarah. I just couldn’t cope with what I saw and I didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘What did you see John, what did you see that was so hard to cope with.’ she asked, wide eyed, challenging.

  ‘Guilt. All I ever saw, from the day Jacob was born, was guilt. It’s there now.’ he answered, holding his gaze steady as she quickly looked away and pulled his hands off her face, startled.

  ‘Well,’ she started, taking another swig of wine as she did. ‘Perhaps I had lot to feel guilty about. But what I feel now, well, to be honest, that just isn’t your concern any more. I think on the guilt stakes, lately, you have been racking up a crime or two more than me. Do you feel guilty at all about having an affair? Do you feel even the slightest amount of remorse over wanting to kill our son?’ she vehemently asked, fire in her movement once again.

  Saul returned her glare for a moment, anger rising through his previously solemn façade. He stood up abruptly and grabbed one of Sarah’s arms, yanking her up too. ‘Come with me.’ he instructed, striding out of Jacob’s room and across the corridor, opening the door to his studio, Sarah sidling behind him, taking another gulp of wine.

  There were paintings and sketches all around the walls, of every type of scene, some still life, some landscape, some portrait, all done with skill, craft and dexterity. There were a number of easels in the room, none of them with pictures on. Underneath a window on the far wall was a set of deep drawers on top of which were dozens of paints, brushes, charcoals, pencils, crayons and chalks. Saul headed for the drawers, opened the top one, and pulled out an A2 size portfolio binder. He unzipped it and took a large pile of papers from within, placing one on the nearest empty easel and then circling the room to fill each easel with a picture. He threw the remainder on the floor and stomped back to the first one he had placed.

  ‘What do you see Sarah?’ he asked her, his tone frustrated, his actions animated as he poked a finger at the picture.

  She looked at the picture, then to Saul, bemused. ‘Nothing John, it’s just black.’

  ‘Exactly.’ he pronounced, moving on to the next easel, stabbing the picture. ‘And this one, what do you see?’

  ‘It’s the same. Nothing.’ Sarah said, confused.

  ‘Nothing, precisely nothing.’ Saul replayed, moving around to the next and poking it. ‘And on this one there’s nothing.’ Before moving onto the next. ‘Just as this one, is of nothing.’ he continued, walking to the middle of the room and scuffing his shoes over the ones he had dropped on the floor. ‘Just like all of these. Nothing, nothing, nothing!’ he screamed, eyes bulging from his head as stared at a terrified Sarah.

  ‘And do you know what all this nothing is, Sarah? Do you?’ he whispered angrily, coming close and standing by hear ear.

  Sarah was quivering again, this time in obvious fear. ‘No.’ she replied, timidly.

  ‘It’s what I read, when I look into Jacob’s eyes. It’s what I fear, every single moment of the day, his life is like. It’s what I feel is his suffering: utter, absolute, nothing.’

  4:45 pm

  ‘Sir,’ shouted Reynolds excitedly across the MIU room, turning in his seat to face Strange, who was updating notes on the whiteboard. ‘We have decrypted one of the video feeds.’

  Strange turned from the board and came up behind Reynolds, placing his hands on his shoulders as he did. ‘Great work Steven. Now, what does that mean for us?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, first off, we will be able to see where the video is being streamed to.’ Reynolds answered, frantically tapping on the keyboard in front of him. ‘The IP is 10.203.56.123 which is registered to,’ he continued, bringing up another webpage and launching Whois.net. ‘The First C…Church of The Latter Day Saints, C…Clareville, Wyoming.’ He finished, the initial excitement ebbing from his tone.

  ‘I take it that’s not good news?’ Strange asked, picking up on the tone.

  ‘Not brilliant Sir. But not bad. It just means that they have hacked another c…computer and are using it as a video relay. It doesn’t give us a smoking gun as to where the images are really being viewed from. I would guess, now I know the address, I will be able to get to the image via any standard web browser.’ Reynolds answered, putting the address into Internet Explorer.

  ‘There you go.’ Reynolds said, as an image of the Drawing Room and the inside of the crate appeared on the screen in front of him. ‘Now, what we might be able to see in the packet information, are any c…control c…commands being sent to the c…camera.’ he finished, opening up a screen of hexadecimal coding down one side, with plain text interpretation on the other.

  ‘What could we use that for?’ Strange asked, inquisitively.

  ‘Well Sir, if the c…camera is movable, we might be able to reposition it to show who is in the c…crate. There!’ he pronounced, the excitement back in his voice once again as he pointed to a nondescript piece of text on the screen. ‘Now, if I append this bit of c…code to the end of the web address URL like this,’ he continued, carrying out the action as he talked. ‘The c…camera should move to the left.’

  On the screen in front of them, the image started to move, showing more of the forearm of the crate’s occupant.

  ‘Steven, you are a genius.’ Strange said with enthusiasm, squeezing Reynolds shoulders and shaking them with an obvious excitement. He moved to the side of Reynolds and sat down in a seat next to him, getting a closer view of the screen. ‘Now, can you move it up to where the head should be?’

  ‘I should be able to Sir, the last instruction was to move it ten c…centimetres to the left. I think if we move it another fifty c…centimetres, we should be roug
hly where the head should be.’ Reynolds answered, changing a figure at the end of the URL and pressing enter again.

  ‘Excellent.’ Strange said, smiling as the image started to pan further up the arm.

  ‘It looks like they are wearing a T-Shirt.’ Strange commented as a ring of material appeared around the scrawny, still, bicep of the occupant.

  The camera panned still further, exposing the shoulders and neck of the occupant.

  ‘Definitely a V neck t-shirt. The thin neck and arms and hairless smooth skin suggest to me that they are young.’ Strange added, tracing the movement of the camera with his finger as more of the occupant came into view.

  The head slowly started to appear from the left of the screen, first a chin, then thin, slightly parted lips, and a slight button nose. Strange’s finger stopped moving on the screen at the same moment the occupants closed, lash-less eyes came into view. His own eyes opened wide in surprise, his body moving back involuntarily with a startled shock. ‘Jesus H fucking Christ.’ he blasphemed, mouth agape in astonishment, his body prone for a moment.

  ‘What is it Sir?’ asked Reynolds, concerned. ‘Do you recognise who it is?’

  ‘Leigh!’ he shouted, standing up quickly and awkwardly, banging his leg as he turned back to the table where she was sitting. ‘Get John on the phone.’ he ordered abruptly. ‘Get John on the phone now!’

  4:55 pm

  Sarah walked up to one of the easels and ran her fingers over the black painting sitting on it. Momentarily, they started to trace out a line, a form in the darkness.

  ‘It’s not utter nothingness.’ she said quietly, taking a step back from the easel and looking around to Saul, beckoning him. ‘Come and look.’

  Saul was still fuming, his fists clenched as he came along side Sarah. ‘It’s nothing Sarah, the emptiness of forever.’

  ‘Not quite.’ she said, taking his hand and teasing out a finger, raising it and running it over the painting in front of them. ‘Do you feel that?’ she asked.

  It was Saul’s turn to look bemused now as his finger traced the same journey Sarah’s had moments earlier.

  ‘Do you feel the indentation? Take a step back.’ Sarah instructed, taking the step with him. ‘Look at it. Can you see it in the nothing, the original outline of your sketch?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I can.’ Saul replied, all the anger leaving his countenance instantly, to be replaced by a wistful, tentative grin. ‘He’s got his bum in the air, kicking his legs and wriggling his arms. He’s lying on your chest having Tummy Time.’ His eyes were filling with tears as he replayed the image to Sarah. She still held his hand and walked him around to the next easel.

  ‘And this one?’ she asked.

  ‘You are sitting on the floor against his cot, your knees pulled up and Jacob is lying against your knees, his feet tickling your stomach. You are doing ‘Round and round the garden’ on his stomach and he is smiling. My god is he smiling.’ His voice broke on the last words as a sob escaped with them, a solitary tear tricking down his cheek.

  Sarah squeezed his hand tightly, reached up and kissed away the tear. ‘I am pleased you got angry.’ she said. ‘I had a horrendous feeling you had given up on him.’

  He was still looking at the outline in the darkness of the picture in front of him and shook his head. ‘I may have given up on us, but I will never give up on Jacob. I don’t want to kill him. I just want us to think about what we would do if we knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was suffering. Some days. Most days,’ he corrected. ‘When I feel his emptiness, I struggle so, so much. I just feel so inadequate, so powerless to help him. I am sorry that I even thought about it. It’s not what I want for him. I want to try and help find some kind of way for him to…just be a little boy.’

  ‘I know you do.’ she said softly, joining him in silence for a moment, taking in the image.

  ‘Did I tell you that we are trying controlled dilation now?’ she asked, after the brief contemplative silence.

  ‘No. What does that mean? Sounds like a birthing technique.’ he asked inquisitively.

  Sarah smiled. ‘No, it’s an optical technique. Jacob’s eyes react to light normally, which suggests the iris dilator muscles are working. If you train these muscles, you can control their contraction. Rob is trying to teach Jacob how to do it.’

  ‘How is he training him?’ Saul asked.

  ‘Just talking to him, over and over again, suggesting the things Jacob needs to do to control the movement. It’s something to do with using the parasympathetic rather than the sympathetic or enteric nervous systems, which are the ones that don’t work in Jacob.’

  ‘Shit.’ she added, before Saul had a chance to respond further. ‘I have something to tell you, and not because I am trying to make you jealous, but because I, for one, believed in our promise. I made a pass at Rob last night.’ she said with a pained look of embarrassment on her face.

  ‘I don’t think I have any right to judge you for that, after what I have done.’ Saul answered sadly. ‘Do you like him?’

  ‘I like him, but I don’t know how I feel about him. My emotions have been erratic for a long time now. You know that. From the day Jacob was born. You’re right, I feel guilty.’ she said, lifting the nearly empty wine bottle she still held in her left hand to her mouth and taking a sip. She offered it to Saul, who accepted on this occasion, taking a swig himself.

  ‘Allie is my barometer to normality. She grounds me. She asked me earlier to consider if I thought you jumped or were pushed, figuratively speaking, into having an affair.’ Sarah continued, sadness injected into the inflection.

  ‘Sarah.’ Saul interjected, turning to face her as he spoke. ‘Me having an affair is not your doing. It is my doing.’

  ‘No John, listen, please. You have to know that I understand. I am mightily pissed off that you didn’t tell me, but I do understand.’ she raised a hand, the one with the taggie tied to the fingers, and stroked his cheek with it. She cast her forlorn gaze between Saul and the Taggie as she spoke. ‘There are things that happened in my past, things I don’t think I will ever come to terms with. They still haunt me now and they have always cast a shadow over you and I. They cast an even longer shadow over Jacob. It’s why I will always feel guilty, no matter what.’

  ‘Now it’s me who doesn’t understand. Why are you being so understanding?’

  ‘Oh John, you silly bugger. It’s because, despite all the fucking shit you are putting me through, despite not liking you much at the moment, I still love you. It’s because I want you to be happy. I know I can’t give you that. I know I have already pushed you away from my broken heart. It’s a relief. I don’t have to pretend anymore, I can drop the pretence of the dutiful wife. I can focus on Jacob. There is no point in making either of us suffer any more. I am happy to get divorced. I am happy that you have found someone else and I am happy that you are in love. Are you in love?’

  ‘I am.’

  She smiled a huge wide grin, tears flowing from her eyes as she leant forward and kissed him fully on the lips, pressing hard and firm for second after second, until she parted, smiling once more. ‘That’s what I want for you.’

  She took a step back from him, letting her hand slide out of his, playing with the taggie as she did, casting a wistful look around the room at the hidden images of Jacob in the darkness of Saul’s creativity.

  ‘Shit,’ she announced. ‘What time is it?’ she asked, her eyes suddenly animated and alarmed.

  Saul took his phone out of his pocket and looked at the clock. ‘It’s 5:30. What time are you due to pick Jacob up?’

  ‘Right about now.’ she said, scrambling in her dressing gown pocket for her own phone. She found it, quickly flicked to the hospice number and called it.

  Saul looked at his own phone again, noticing the twenty one missed calls and fifteen voicemail massages. He dialled the voicemail while Sarah was on the phone.

  ‘Hi Amy, it’s Sarah here. Really sorry, but I’m going to be ab
out twenty minutes late picking Jacob up. I’ve got until six, right?’ Sarah began.

  Saul started listening to his first voicemail. ‘John, it’s Strange. I need you to call me back urgently. We know who the person in the crate is. I don’t know how to tell you this,’ the message started. Saul was distracted as he listened, Sarah suddenly raising her voice.

  ‘What do you mean he’s not there? He was dropped off last night. Dr Adams dropped him off last night.’ she said, her face full of concern as she looked at Saul.

  ‘So I am just going to have to call it straight.’ continued Strange on the voicemail. ‘It’s Jacob. The person in the crate is Jacob.’

  5:45 pm

  Rebecca slowly, sleepily began to open her eyes. Through a drowsy fug she started to focus on the soft plump pillow her head was resting in, breathing in the crisp aroma of freshly laundered cotton. She stretched out, the floral cotton quilt covering her shifting topology moving, but still cocooning her in comfort. She raised her torso up on her elbows, peeking out over the cover of the quilt to take in the room she was in.

  It was a bedroom. Her waking eyes started a slow scan of her surroundings. There was a small bedside table to her left, a glass of sparkling water and some headache tablets sitting on its surface. On the wall behind it was a long, low dressing table, with a large mirror in the middle. On top of the dressing table were baskets with numerous bottles and tops of cosmetic containers sticking out of them. There were three dummy heads, different colour wigs sitting on each. On the wall opposite where she was lying there was the closed door of the room and beside that a white, rattan chair. Dr Hanlon was sitting in it, smiling at her. She gave a dozy smile back, her eyes still scanning. Above his head was a Cezanne painting, ‘Nature Morte’, with a Compotier, Pitcher and different fruits laying on a table covered in a white table cloth. On the wall to her right, against which the bed was resting, was another large mirror reflecting the room, giving it an added sense of depth.