by Paul Starkey
He blundered into the wall, head striking a window, then tumbled to the floor, letting out one shocked gasp of pain as he struck, then a second as she fell on top of him. Heat and smoke pursued, washing over them like a tidal wave, and the tears in his eyes stung, and breath died in his throat as the very air he was trying to breathe burned.
Then sudden darkness, and with it deep cold that made him almost pine for the flames. This is what hell must really be like, temperatures so low they burnt you are surely as fire.
The lights came back up, but the flames didn’t come with them. Tyrell opened his eyes, they were still raw, but already the discomfort was easing. Chalice was still on top of him, and his right cheek was flush with the carpet. His head was at an angle that he could see back the way they’d come, see the room they’d so narrowly escaped from.
The doorframe was singed, blackened, and inside he caught a glimpse of tattered curtains, little more than rags now, fluttering against the windows. No flames though, no smoke. The room looked like it had been badly burned, but like the damage had been done days before.
He was about to ask her if she was ok, but before he could speak a commotion sounded towards the end of the corridor; a door opening, then the sound of something heavy striking the wall, or maybe the floor.
Lacking time to be delicate, Tyrell heaved and rolled Chalice off his back, wincing as he heard her softly moan in pain. He fought his concern down, knowing if there was a threat he needed to face it.
The pistol was still clutched in his hand, he’d held onto it throughout their ordeal inside the blazing room, barely realising it at the time. It wouldn’t pose any threat to the ghostly environs of this house, yet somehow he took comfort in its presence. How ironic, that he’d been so terrified of taking it from her just a few short hours before, yet now he wouldn’t let go for all the money in the world, all the tea in China as his mum would have said.
More noise, and he realised he wasn’t moving quickly enough. His chest burned, and it took an effort to drag in enough air to fill his lungs, but with a grunt he pushed himself to his knees, then reached up to grip a windowsill and hauled himself the rest of the way.
He lent an elbow against the sill to steady himself, which had the useful by-product of steadying his aim as he looked down the corridor.
There, just a few yards away, he saw Ibex stagger to his feet in a weird parody of how he must have done it, even down to gripping the windowsill closest to him. It was like looking in a funhouse mirror, only one that delayed the reflection, so you were always seeing yourself a few seconds in the past.
The American looked a mess; His left arm hung dead by his side as he leaned against the sill, his sleeve drenched in what he at first took for dirt, but quickly realised was blood, and blood was smeared across his face as well. His glasses were gone, and his hair had finally begun to work its way out of his ponytail. Now uneven bangs framed his face, and several strands of hair hung over one eye. He was deathly pale, unsurprising if he’d lost that much blood.
But he was conscious, there was resolution in his eyes, and there was a gun in his right hand that he raised to point at Tyrell the moment he saw him.
Tyrell returned the favour, leaning his side against the sill as he removed his elbow so that he didn’t fall. “Stop!” he yelled down the corridor. “Drop the gun, Quintus.”
The other man’s blue lips turned up in a smile. “Ibex, John,” he said. “You always called me Ibex. That’s who I am really, codenames hold so much more meaning than those given us by our parents.” He cocked his head to one side. “Ibex; mountain goat, a creature that shouldn’t be able to survive in harsh conditions yet does. Appearing harmless, yet a born survivor. Sound about right?”
“The Russians called you Yablonya,” Tyrell reminded him. “Apple tree doesn’t seem as threatening as a goat…”
Ibex shuffled a few inches closer. Judging by the way he winced it hurt him to do so, but he didn’t cry out, merely chuckled. “Know what your codename was, John? Not the one you had back in the day, back when you were Mr Clean. Oh no, the one you took with you to Afghanistan, Algeria, Jordan…”
“I don’t…”
“Cuckoo,” said Ibex, and chuckled. The sound ended in a wracking cough, but the humour didn’t leave his face. “Cuckoo, cuckoo,” he repeated, almost singing the words.
Tyrell clutched the pistol tighter in his hand. He knew codenames were randomly assigned, had known a man lumbered with the moniker of Josephine once, but somehow he couldn’t help but see significance in the word.
“The bird that makes it home in other birds’ nests,” said Ibex. “Just like you, John, living in other men’s shadows. Sam Harris, me, Sir George.” He moved again, taking another step towards him, not moving his shoulder from where it rested, so his bloody arm was dragged along the wall. Another wince, but it didn’t stop him talking. “Didn’t you take your wife from another man too? You are sure your daughter really is yours?” His smile broadened. There was blood in his mouth, and Tyrell should have taken heart in that, but rather than making him seem weak it curiously made him more threatening, he looked less like a dying man, more like a vampire, an un-dead fiend that couldn’t be stopped.
“Nothing to say, John?”
He felt his hand start to tremble, a gentle shudder for the moment, but he knew it would only get worse. His skin prickled, his heart had begun to pump faster, and he had to fight to urge to start taking quick, deep breaths, knowing that path led to hyperventilation. His eyesight was going too; the world seemed to be getting darker, as if the darkness inside Ibex was rearing up around him, cloaking him in shadow.
“Drop the gun,” he said again, trying to inject menace into the words, even though the threat was hollow.
Ibex shook his head. “I don’t think so, John. You’re not a killer. Oh you became a killer, that’s for sure, but that hasn’t happened to you yet, the killer John Tyrell was a man, you’re something else, a boy, a naïf.” He practically spat the word. “Cuckoo would have shot me already. Cuckoo wouldn’t have hesitated, wouldn’t still be hesitating.” Another step closer, they were barely half a dozen yards apart now, and he suddenly realised why the American hadn’t already shot him, he was getting as close as he could to make sure of the kill.
Pull the trigger, a voice said in his head. PULL THE TRIGGER! But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. “Put the gun down,” he said again.
Ibex sighed, a disappointed noise that whistled through clenched teeth, loosing droplets of bloody spittle into the air. “Ah, John. That line’s gettin’ real old.” He grinned. “Just like you. You might as well drop your gun, because you sure as hell ain’t gonna use it. Cuckoo would have, but Cuckoo had a lot of deaths under his belt. The IRA kid was the first, wasn’t he, self-defence, or so you thought.”
“I don’t remember that,” he stammered. His hand started to shake a little more.
“Course not, which is a shame. First kill is always the hardest.”
Tyrell saw a potential chink in the other man’s armour. “Was Douglas Nunn hard then?” He dredged up a triumphant smile from somewhere.
It faded when Ibex laughed. “Oh what a naïve idiot you are. I killed Dougy Boy, course I did, but he wasn’t the first. Knew I was gonna have to kill him though, knew it would be a challenge, knew I couldn’t afford to fuck it up, so I practiced; Took me three tries before I could actually bring myself to do it.”
“Wh…who?” He didn’t want to know, and yet he had to.
Ibex shrugged. “Didn’t know her name, a whore off the streets.” Another step closer. “She was young though,” he goaded. “Sixteen, maybe younger.” He smiled, and finally there was a flare of some emotion in those dead eyes. Pride. “Figured if I could do a woman, a kid, then a grown man would be easy.” He nodded. “And he was. The girl though, oh she struggled, called out for her mommy until I tightened my hands round her…”
Tyrell clasped his left hand over his right now, the gun gripped tig
ht in both hands. He straightened his aim.
“Still can’t do it though, can you? I’m a killer, a child killer, but you still can’t bring yourself to pull the trigger. First kill’s the hardest, but you had the benefit of adrenaline back then.” His eyes almost sparkled. “Not now.”
“I’ll…I’ll shoot you.” He had to concentrate, just a little bit of pressure and the American would be dead.
“You’re not a killer, John.”
It took his messed up brain several seconds to realise that it had been Chalice who’d said the words, not Ibex.
He wanted to look down at her, wanted to check she was ok, but that would entail taking his eyes off of Ibex, and he wasn’t about to do that. As things stood right now, even if he couldn’t bring himself to shoot the American, he at least had his gun aimed in the right direction, and if Quintus took a shot, irrespective of the fact he’d kill him, Tyrell knew there was a fair chance his own gun would discharge…although reflexes were a funny thing. Unpredictable.
Ibex’s eyes flickered to the floor momentarily. “You should listen to her, John.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
Ibex sneered. “Tell you what, Mr Hero, why don’t I make it easier for you.” And suddenly he was no longer pointing Tom’s SIG at him. Tyrell almost relaxed, until he realised, slowly, stupidly, that all Ibex had done was shifted his aim towards Chalice. “Even if you did have the guts to shoot me, chances are I’ll shoot her, and you have that puppy dog look in your eyes that says you’d rather not see the pretty girl get hurt.” He’d been smiling, but now the smile faded, and despite how pale he looked, still his countenance seemed to darken.
Or maybe it was just a side effect of the cloak of blackness that had risen up behind him, his evil finally revealing itself.
“Drop your gun, John, and you have my word I won’t waste a second, or a bullet, on either of you.”
“And I trust you, you?” Tyrell shook his head. “No deal.”
Ibex sighed. “Well what are we going to do then, hmm? Just stand here till me, her, and Tommy downstairs bleed to death?”
Without even thinking what he was doing, Tyrell looked down. Chalice was at his feet, in a half crouch, right palm down on the floor steadying her, left hand pressed tightly to her lower back, despite the angle, despite the increasing gloom, he saw fluid leaking between her fingers.
She looked up at him with sadness in her eyes. “Drop the gun, John.”
He shook his head again, turned his attention back towards Ibex. The other man hadn’t moved; Tyrell was surprised, he’d almost expected him to be another few steps closer. “No, I won’t put the gun down, I can’t” It was a hollow assertion, because if he wasn’t about to drop the gun then he needed an alternative plan.
Ibex sighed. Now he did take another step forward, and somehow he seemed to drag the darkness behind him along with him. “I’m tired, and I’m bleeding to death,” he said. “So no more fucking second chances. I’m counting to three, on three I shoot the bitch, then you.” He paused. “Then the Chinaman downstairs, then that little prick Felix if I can find him.”
“Don’t…”
“One!”
“Don’t do it, I will shoot you!”
“Two!”
His heart was racing faster now, hands shaking but he knew what he had to do. “I won’t let you hurt her.”
“Do it John, drop the gun, please,” she begged from the floor. He should have felt anger that she was putting her own safety first, but he understood, pain and fear were demons precious few people could really fight against.
Ibex started to say the word ‘three’. Tyrell started to pull the trigger.
Even as the hammer fell, a hand grabbed his arm and pulled, dragging the both arms and the gun with it, so that when the SIG discharged, it did so harmlessly, the bullet digging into the carpet, probably through the floorboards and maybe even the ceiling below.
The jarring shock of firing the gun broke the spell that had seem him cling to it so tightly, his fingers spasmed, splayed, let the gun fall to the floor. It landed soundlessly on the carpet.
The fingers that had gripped his arm, released now, he looked down to see Chalice fall back to the floor, letting out an almost childlike cry of pain as she did so, and realised she’d somehow raised herself up in time to grab his arm.
Her eyes were open, and she stared imploringly at him, begging for forgiveness for what she’d done. Her skin was sallow and waxy now, and he imagined he could almost see the life leeching out of her.
A wet chuckle reminded him that they were not alone.
He looked up. Ibex was another step closer. His gun was no longer aimed at Chalice, instead the dark maw had resumed targeting him. As he continued to laugh, the American dripped bloody spittle onto his shirt.
“I’m guessing this is it?”
Ibex nodded. “Sorry, John. I’d like to say it was nothing personal but…” he shrugged, grinned.
And John Tyrell knew he was about to die. Part of him didn’t want to see it coming, wanted to close his eyes, but he fought this weakness down, in his final moments he wanted to at least pretend he was still a man.
And then something calmly stepped out of the darkness behind Ibex, the slight figure of a woman, flesh almost blue, long hair hanging raggedly in front of her face. Even as the breath caught in his throat Tyrell was glad he couldn’t see Lucy Parrish’s face.
Triumph became surprise, became terror, on Ibex’s face as the corpse placed her hands on his shoulders. Tyrell shivered, imagining how cold her fingers must be.
Ibex was a big man, and Lucy, for all her vicious cold hearted psychopathy, had been a waif of a thing, but as her fingers dug into the American’s flesh, Tyrell saw pain widen in his eyes. Ibex’s legs buckled and he dropped to his knees, shrieking in agony as he fell.
He kept hold of the gun though, and despite Lucy’s vice like grip he managed to lift his arm, awkwardly he twisted it so that the gun was aiming behind him. He fired; once, twice. The bullets were wild, missed their target completely. Tyrell saw agony on Ibex’s face as he stretched his tendons as much as he could, until the barrel of his gun was flush against the top of Lucy’s head. Another explosion of flame and sound and fury followed, and even though he knew she was dead, and could feel no more pain, still Tyrell winced as the top of the young woman’s skull exploded.
Her grip relaxed, and he saw Ibex smile through gritted, bloody teeth as he shoved the gun against her head again and prepared to fire.
Another shot, and for a moment Tyrell was confused when he didn’t see Lucy’s body react, saw no evidence of another chunk of her head being blown away. And then he realised that the flare of light hadn’t come from in front of him, but from below, and the sound had been a lighter bark than that made by Ibex’s gun.
The final clue was a smoking hole that had appeared in the American’s stomach. Ibex looked down, as if not quite believing he’d been shot. The pistol tumbled from his fingers. He continued to stare at the bullet wound, even as the corpse’s hands resumed their grip upon him. Only then did he look up. His eyes met Tyrell’s and for once there was emotion there. Surprise, desperation. He began to moan as the dead woman’s talons dug further into his flesh, and he continued to cry out as she stood and began to drag him back the way she had come, back into the darkness.
Ibex struggled, but there was little strength left in him, and it seemed all he could do was moan, kick his heels uselessly, and look pleadingly at Tyrell.
There was no way John Tyrell would have obliged, even if he’d thought there was a way to save Ibex from this un-dead creature, but he resisted the urge to smile, to wave the man off to his death. Instead he continued to watch Ibex’s incredulous eyes, until the corpse and the American vanished into the gloom that still hung further along the corridor.
And he continued to watch, even after they’d disappeared from view, listening to Ibex’s cries; pitiful whimpering—and the rustle as his body was dragged alon
g the floor.
Then the sound of movement ceased. A second after that Ibex’s cries stopped as well. For a moment Tyrell thought it was all over, but then a single, piercing scream echoed out of the darkness. The bloodcurdling cry ended abruptly, and the silence that followed it was almost palpable.
And Tyrell knew that Quintus Armstrong was dead.
Chapter Fifty three
The gun dropped almost the instant after she fired it, as the flare of strength that had enabled her to lift it failed her. She kept hold of it, so the SIG took her hand with it when it dropped to the carpet.
It didn’t matter, even though she’d wanted to plant a bullet through Ibex’s brain, the shot to his gut had been enough to make him drop his gun, enough to allow what had once been Lucy Parrish to resume her assault.
Chalice was sprawled out on the floor, one hand—the one with the gun—limp on the floor, the other still clasped to her back where she imagined one—or maybe more—of the Uzi’s wild bullets had lodged. Her fingers felt wet and sticky, and despite the pressure she was trying to exert there, she couldn’t seem to stem the bleeding. She was just grateful the bullet had struck to the left side of her spine, another few inches and she wouldn’t have been able to pick the gun up and shoot Ibex, wouldn’t have been able to stop Tyrell from killing the American.
She hoped she’d been right in doing that.
It took an effort to keep her head raised, but she held it long enough to see Ibex disappear into the darkness, and when she heard his final scream she knew the bastard was finally dead, and then she fell forwards, head banging against the floor. The thump hurt, even with the carpet softening the blow, even with the greater pains wracking her body.
She didn’t care. Ibex was gone, she could relax now, let herself drift off into a sleep where no pain would follow, a sleep that she’d never awake from.