Demons of Ghent

by Helen Grant

  The sound is brutally, shockingly loud, strident as a burglar alarm, advertising their presence to the person below. If Veerle was anxious before, now terror hits her like a tidal wave; it feels as though it will knock her off her feet. She struggles to get the phone out of her jacket pocket, but suddenly she is all fingers and thumbs, and still the wretched thing keeps ringing and ringing like a klaxon, blaring out I’m here, come and get me.

  Bram, she thinks through a fog of panic. Why did he have to ring back now?

  She doesn’t even bother to check; she just stabs the red OFF icon. The phone is silenced abruptly but it is way beyond too late; all three of them can hear that the beat of the footsteps coming up the stairs has accelerated. Before, he was stumping up the stairs like a troll moving ponderously up a zigzagging mountain path; now he is pounding up them with a speed that would be wonderful in someone of his age if it were not powered by murderous intent.

  Veerle looks down the corridor in the dark, and in her mind it telescopes to an impossible extent, until the room at the end is a hundred metres – two hundred metres – a kilometre away. They can’t reach it before the old man reaches the last flight of stairs. If they manage to get inside it he will know where they are; they will be trapped. There are three of them and only one of him, but he has the knife and the murderous obsession that is the spark to the powder keg. If he attacks, they won’t get away, all three, and who wants to be the sacrifice? No one.

  Veerle has to make a decision. She snaps on the torch and chases its beam up the short flight of stairs to the door that leads to the roof. If it is unlocked it is a doorway out into a kind of landscape that she knows: a jagged vista of metal plains and brick outcrops, of steep slopes made of tiles, and smooth tarns made of glass. Veerle thinks she can vanish into a landscape like that; with her as their guide, Kris and Hommel can do it too – at least she is bargaining that they can.

  She throws herself at the door, not really expecting it to open but hoping all the same, and it bursts outwards, spilling her onto a flat expanse of roof. She staggers and rights herself, dark hair flipping back and forth as her head turns, scanning the rooftop for escape.

  It is nowhere near nightfall yet but the sky is overcast. The downpour has stopped, but still the heavens look angry. Thick dark clouds press down like fists; in the chinks between them the sky has a strange lurid tint. The flat roof is wet with fallen rain, and reflected in its surface those same clouds strain up to meet themselves, as though the space between is a narrowing gap that Veerle must run through or be crushed.

  She looks left and sees walls; the building on that side is taller than this one. It is probably possible to climb those walls, but it will take time, and time is one thing she doesn’t have. She looks to the right, searching for something easier, and sees a tiled ridge, the angle shallow enough to scale. No time to debate the matter; she hares across the rooftop, the reflected sky shivering into a mosaic under her feet.

  She glances back, and Hommel is behind her but Kris has stopped to try to secure the door.

  ‘Kris!’ she screams, and when his head comes up she gestures frantically. Hurry.

  Any minute now the old man is going to burst out of that doorway like a greyhound out of a trap. Kris is younger and stronger but the old man is single-minded and relentless and he has nothing to lose. He will not hesitate to cut down anyone who stands in his way.

  ‘Kris!’ she screams again, and now he is running towards her across the rooftop, and behind him the unsecured door is as ominous as the gaping mouth of a tomb.

  Veerle begins to scale the tiled roof. It should be easy. The tiles are weathered and the slope is not particularly steep, but the need to escape, to RunRunRun, is too strong; she scrabbles uselessly in her haste and slides back. She looks over her shoulder, wide-eyed, like someone sliding down a muddy bank into the water where a crocodile waits, fanged jaws agape. Then she makes herself think, makes herself slow down a little, and now she manages it – she is able to lunge far enough up the slope to grasp the ridge of tiles at the apex of the roof and pull herself up. She turns and puts out a hand to Hommel, who is struggling even more than Veerle did; Veerle has boots with a profiled sole but Hommel’s have shiny leather ones and she cannot get a purchase.

  Hommel slithers down the other side of the roof, into a gully created by an adjoining wall. Veerle watches Kris racing towards her but her gaze keeps flickering towards that doorway, to the strip of blackness at the right-hand side of it where it stands open. To anyone inside the building that narrow strip will appear as a photographic negative of itself, light against the darkness. The old man can’t help but notice it, but the question is: did he reach the top of the stairs in time to see where they went?

  Her question is answered a split second later. The door opens, but it does not burst open as she thought it would; it opens slowly and the old man in the long dark coat steps out onto the roof.

  Veerle stares at him from her perch on the roof ridge, even though she knows she should be ducking down the other side. She cannot help herself staring, even as prickles of cold apprehension sparkle up and down her spine.

  The old man isn’t running; he isn’t raging. He looks unhurried, calm even.

  Why?

  The answer bobs up to the surface of her mind, repellent as a drowned thing.

  Because he knows he doesn’t have to.

  Veerle glances around, and she cannot see the extent of the rooftop landscape on which she is perched like one of the very demons that supposedly haunt the city. It looks as though she and the others could keep running for ever, as long as they have the strength to climb and jump and slide. The old man doesn’t think so, though; he thinks he has them trapped – he knows he has the advantage. He begins his unhurried progress across the wet roof, and because he does not run, like Veerle did, his reflection accompanies him so that he appears like a figure on a playing card, mirroring himself.

  Kris reaches the tiled roof and launches himself up it. He is not a climber like Veerle but he has a longer reach, so he manages it without too much difficulty and slides down the other side. Veerle sees him glance to the right, to the place where the gully they are now standing in ends in thin air. Kris does not like heights. She hopes this is not going to be a problem. Veerle is not afraid of heights but she is very afraid of the old man; she feels terror unfurling inside her like tremendous dark wings.

  She turns to the left instead and lopes along the gully to its other end, where it terminates in a short drop onto a metal roof. She wants to get out of the gully; it makes her feel trapped, and trapped is not a good thing to be, especially not when you do not know what the person pursuing you might hurl down after you. She jumps down onto the metal roof and hears it ring dully under her feet; at any other time she would have tried not to make a sound up here, but now she hopes someone below her will hear it; she hopes they will be outraged and call the police – that they will pick up the phone and do it this very instant. She isn’t optimistic, though.

  She glances left, and it is as though she has been punched in the chest; all the air seems to drain out of her. He is standing there on top of a wall, the dark coat clinging about him like the folded wings of a bat, the wrinkled face impassive. He knows another way across this stretch of rooftop, and he has shortened the distance between them and himself. A hand with the grainy texture of papyrus drifts towards a pocket, as though dreaming of what lies within.

  Fear multiplies like a virus, spreading itself exponentially, colonizing every part of Veerle’s consciousness. It makes her feverish with the need to keep moving; barely time to think about where. She cannot go left because he is there; she cannot go straight ahead because she sees that the roof there is made of glass. It cannot be trusted to take the weight of one person, let alone three. Instead she goes right, Kris and Hommel at her heels. Behind them the metal roof clangs ominously under a sudden descent.

  At the other side of the roof they have to climb a wall but it seems t
heir luck is in: it is less than two metres high and easily scaled. Veerle follows Kris up the wall, and while he is hauling Hommel up after him she looks down the other side and sees the remains of a roof garden below her. She jumps down into it. The garden was probably beautiful once; someone sat up here amongst the potted trees and ceramic planters full of bright flowers, enjoying the sunshine. Now it is neglected, probably has been for years: there are plants, all right, but they are all black and shrivelled like mummies, and the plastic sun lounger reclining under the oppressive sky is faded and speckled with mould. When Veerle moves across the open space something soft gives unpleasantly under her feet.

  There is a door leading into the building and she tries it but it is very firmly locked. It doesn’t budge a millimetre when she pushes against it with her shoulder, using all her weight. Kris might be able to kick it down but she isn’t confident and there isn’t time to waste on the impossible. Instead she heads for the far end of the garden with the others following her, and her eyes begin to widen because she can see very clearly that we have a problem.

  It isn’t a problem for Veerle – at least not for the old Veerle, the one who cheerfully scaled the fronts of buildings, as comfortable with the height as a bird. This might make the new, unimproved Veerle think twice, not that she really has a choice because there is only one way to go. But Kris is not going to like it, and she can’t see Hommel going for it, either.

  Directly ahead of them is a triangular wall, the side of a peaked roof. You can’t go up it, or through it, and you can’t go to the left of it because there is another chunk of wall, smooth, high and unscaleable, blocking the way. The only way to go is to the right, along a metal gutter that runs the length of the roof. It is wide enough to walk along – that is not the problem. The problem is the parapet, which is not much more than ankle height, and the drop to the street below.

  Is this why he didn’t bother hurrying? He knows he’s trapped us here?

  Veerle looks at the parapet, at how small it is, how low. She remembers how she felt the time she and Bram had to walk along that gutter to find Marnix’s body – how paralysingly afraid she was, in spite of all her experience of climbing. She looks back at Kris and Hommel, at the blank non-comprehension on their faces; they think they have run out of options. She looks beyond them and sees the old man climbing down into the roof garden. His feet touch the spongy ground and he feels in his pocket, carefully, taking his time.

  Veerle turns to Kris. ‘We have to go along there.’ She points at the metal gutter, at the pitiful protection of the parapet.

  Kris looks, and when his face turns back to her it has that strange unreadable look on it that she has seen once before, the time they had to climb down from Tante Bernadette’s apartment in Brussels.

  ‘No,’ he says, and his voice sounds strange too.

  Hommel begins to protest as well, but Veerle isn’t really tuning in to her.

  ‘You have to,’ she says to Kris.

  ‘I can take him,’ says Kris, meaning the old man.

  ‘It’s too risky,’ says Veerle. She glances the length of the garden; she sees what the old man draws out of his pocket, sees him unsheathe it. Light hits it, and suddenly the knife seems to be made of it, a pure triangle of white light. It only lasts a second and then the blade no longer looks ethereal; it looks horribly, brutally, real.

  Veerle sees this, and suddenly the terrible fear that has been seething through her like a fever dream rolls back like a tide and calm descends on her. She knows that the old man is coming but she looks Kris in the eye.

  She says, ‘He will kill Hommel if he can. He won’t care what it takes to get past you or me. And if he does, she’s dead. You have to go along there. You have to go now.’

  ‘What?’ shrieks Hommel incredulously before Kris can reply. ‘You’re insane. I’m not going up there.’

  Veerle doesn’t look at her, doesn’t even glance her way. She keeps looking at Kris, fixing him with her gaze.

  ‘You have to,’ she says again.

  ‘You go first,’ says Kris.

  Veerle pauses for a moment. The idea has occurred to her; how could it not occur to her, when her deepest animal instincts are telling her to run, regardless of anything or anyone else? She could negotiate that gutter easily; that is not to say that she would like it, but she could do it; she has done things just as bad before. The gutter she negotiated that time with Bram was worse: it was narrower than this one.

  But if she does that, she will be the only one who escapes. Kris and Hommel aren’t going to run along that gutter like squirrels; they are going to creep along it, fear acting like a drag anchor. They may refuse to attempt it altogether. Veerle may reach the other end and turn round in time to see them cut down, one or both of them. She has to make them do it; she has to buy them time or the old man will overtake them and the terrible thing he is carrying will open up great rents in them and let the reflected light in.

  ‘No, you have to go first,’ Veerle tells Kris very firmly. ‘You have to make sure she goes. You have to make her keep moving.’

  ‘I . . .’ Kris hesitates.

  ‘I know,’ says Veerle. ‘Look, it’s perfectly safe. If it were ten centimetres off the ground you wouldn’t think twice. You can do it.’

  She says this steadfastly, as though she believes it one hundred per cent.

  ‘What about you?’ demands Kris.

  Veerle darts a glance sideways and sees that the old man has covered half the length of the garden. He moves more fluidly than you would ever expect from someone his age, but he does not make any attempt at speed. He doesn’t have to, after all.

  ‘I think I know how to hold him off,’ says Veerle. She is amazed at the conviction in her own voice; what she really means is, I have a desperate idea that might hold him up for half a minute. ‘I can follow you when you’re over there. It won’t take me as long – I’m used to climbing stuff.’ She glares at Kris. ‘Go on. Now, before it’s too late.’

  Hommel starts to protest again: she can’t go up there, she won’t go up there, it is insane even to try. Her voice rises, shrill as a bird’s, and it catches the old man’s attention. He pauses in his cat-like approach, and when he speaks he says one word, clearly and calmly.

  ‘Eva.’

  Hommel gives a start; now she knows what is coming. Finally she begins to move.

  Veerle is close enough to pick up his tone; she hears a grim significance in it. She hits Kris on the shoulder.

  ‘Go,’ she says, and he does.

  Veerle puts her back to Kris and Hommel. Now she keeps her gaze on the old man and the thing in his hand. It is Hommel he wants, but she has no illusions about her own safety. She hears scuffling behind her as Kris and Hommel climb up into the gutter. Hommel gives a wavering cry, a kind of wail, as she looks at the drop.

  Don’t look down, thinks Veerle almost absently: nearly all her attention is fixed on the old man, this strange, withered, terrible creature who survived a war and then lost himself in a painting.

  She tries not to look at the knife. She says, ‘Joos Vijdt.’

  The old man stops in his tracks. He is perhaps three metres away from Veerle. He looks at her with fathomless eyes. Something moves like the dart of a fish in the murky depths of that gaze. Recognition. He knows her.

  ‘Joos Vijdt,’ she says again, challenging him.

  ‘Yes,’ says the old man in that smoky voice she heard in the cathedral.

  So she is right; he does believe he is Joos Vijdt. Veerle’s mouth is dry; there is an unpleasant silvery feeling at the back of her throat.

  ‘What are you?’ he says. ‘You told me you were not one of them, but you stand in my way.’

  ‘You must stop,’ Veerle tells him as firmly as she can.

  ‘No,’ he says, shaking his head. The hood is back, showing a corona of grey hair surrounding his ancient features. ‘It is time for Eva to die.’

  ‘She’s not Eva,’ says Veerle. ‘Her name is Els
Lievens.’ Her heart is thudding.

  She curls her hands into fists, the nails digging into her palms so hard that her hands tremble. She makes herself continue, tries to show him that Hommel is human, a person. ‘Her friends call her Hommel. She’s not Eva.’

  Veerle dares not look round but she is praying that Kris and Hommel have started along the side of the roof. She watches for any sign that the old man is going to move towards her; especially she watches for white lightning in the air between them, the sign that the blade is swooping towards her.

  The old man says, ‘You wish to stop me.’

  There is a movement at his side, a brief flash of light. He holds his right arm loosely but the hand twitches and the blade draws tiny shapes on the air.

  ‘I don’t . . .’ Veerle swallows. She can hardly get the words out. ‘I don’t want you to make a mistake. She’s just a girl from Vlaams-Brabant. She’s not the one you’re looking for.’

  The old man’s mouth works, as though he is champing on something, as though he would like to bite her, tigerishly. He says, ‘You are lying.’

  ‘No.’ Veerle shakes her head emphatically.

  ‘Devil.’

  He takes a step towards her, and Veerle automatically takes a step back.

  She tries one last time, desperately.

  ‘You know I’m not. I crossed the salt – in the cathedral.’

  ‘Satan has strengthened you.’

  Veerle’s eyes widen; her face is a frozen mask of terror. No matter what she says, he won’t believe her. Now it is a matter of when he will strike, whether Kris and Hommel have had enough of a head start, whether she can follow them in time.

  Veerle backs up another step, and now she has wall at her back. She risks a glance behind her even though she is afraid that the old man will lunge at her when her head is turned. Kris is halfway along the front of the roof. Hommel must be on the other side of him but Veerle can’t see her clearly from here, not in that one brief glance. What she does see is that Kris has frozen; he has his hands on the sloping roof and his head down. There is an ugly, stiff look to his posture, as though his whole body is wincing with fear, which she supposes it is.