The Sketcher's Mark (Lara McBride Thrillers Book 1)

by Chris O'Neill

  Lara pulled out her cellphone and turned on the flashlight mode, then moved forward, careful to stay between the train cars, checking the areas beneath and the windows above with the light from her phone. She heard Jason behind her, feeling a little safer someone else was there. He had pulled out his phone and done the same, giving them more light on either side. The doors on the two train cars flanking them were closed. Lara tried one. Locked. They moved on to the next car, Lara looking for movements, silhouettes, anything. She could feel him in here, waiting patiently for them.

  Brouchard had moved on to the next row of train cars, shining the Maglite beam through the windows on either side of him. He kept moving, the old instincts of a beat cop coming back to him like sense memory- never stay in one place, moving targets were harder to hit and he knew he was a target right now. His heart was racing, a cocktail of excitement, fear, and determination. The rear door on the train car up ahead was open. He thought he saw movement inside but he couldn’t be sure, might have just been the way the shadows moved when he took the flashlight beam away. In the doorway, he smelled the musty odor of the train compartment. There were seats in neat rows on either side, muted light seeping through the windows. He stepped inside and moved sideways in to the shadows, his back pressed against the wall. He let his eyes adjust to the gloom and listened. He had learned that was the best way to find those who would hide in the dark. He heard nothing except his own heart pounding in his ears. Gripping the pistol tighter, he moved down through the train car until he found the door at the end. There was nobody in here. He hurried out, hoping Lara and the Englishman would have better luck.

  Jason followed Lara as they moved along the brick wall at the far end of the yard. They had already cleared one row.

  “Anything?” she asked.

  “I can’t see shit. And frankly, this is fucking terrifying.”

  “Man up,” Lara said. “You wanted to come and it’s too late to go home now.”

  They moved down to the next row, checking the doors on the train cars as they worked their way back up to the other side of the yard. An open door on the compartment up ahead caught Lara’s attention. Jason sensed what she was thinking and spoke first. “I’ll go to the other side. If he’s there I’ll push him back to you.”

  Before she could object, Jason was already running ahead. She cautiously approached the open door, sweeping the phone back and forth. She entered the train car, holding the pistol close so it couldn’t be easily taken from her. She looked down to the far end of the compartment and saw Jason walk in through the open door. She signaled for him to stop and he did, framed in the doorway. She moved methodically down the aisle, checking each row of seats, finding nothing but shadows and thick dust floating in the air. When she had cleared the car, she turned and called out to him in the gloom.

  “Keep moving,” she said, then hurried outside to the next train car.

  Jason began to follow her out, seeing her through the window moving over to the next car. He walked through the open compartment door and in to the night air, ready to jump down in to the dirt. He felt something cold and sharp coil around his neck from above, catching him as his feet were in midair. Guillotine looked down on the Englishman from his prone position on the roof as he pulled the cheese wire tight, Jason’s weight doing the rest of the work for him. He felt the muscles in his arms strain as he lifted the Englishman up and off his feet, the razor sharp wire slicing through his throat. The Englishman jerked and shuddered like bait on a hook. Arterial blood sprayed across the cold metal of the train. As the oxygen supply to his brain was cut off, Jason fell slack and hung in the cold night air, trails of steam coming from his neck where the hot blood was jetting out of his body and dousing his shirt. Guillotine released him, hearing the body thump down on the ground and sag like an abandoned rag doll. He cursed himself for not being more delicate, knew the noise would give away his position.

  Lara heard the noise and turned. She saw movement on the roof, the silhouette of a man scurrying back in to the dark like a spider running from a light. She fired a single shot, the bullet sparking off the metal roof. She ran over to the end of the car and saw Jason slumped in the dark. She bent down, reaching for his neck to check his pulse and pulled her hand back when she felt the mangled flesh and warm blood where his throat should have been. There was nothing she could do for him. He was already dead and she was struggling to contain her rage and guilt for allowing him to come with her. She pulled herself up on to the roof of the train compartment and saw Guillotine drawing himself up out of the dark to stand tall on the roof of the next train car. She aimed for his chest.

  “Don’t move!!”

  Guillotine put his hands in the air, the cheese wire still in one hand like a sick trophy, wet and gleaming from where it had done its work on Jason. He stared right at her, with that twisted jagged face, daring her to shoot him. He smiled, happy to see her.

  “You know you can’t shoot me,” Guillotine said. “How would you find your sister then?”

  “Stay right there!” Lara approached the edge of the compartment, saw the gap between the train cars was roughly eight feet. She would need a run up to make the jump. She looked around for Brouchard, couldn’t see him anywhere.

  “Brouchard!!!” she called. Guillotine watched her, almost out of pity. Then he simply turned and walked across the roof and leaped to the next the train car.

  Lara saw the beam of Brouchard’s flashlight slicing through the dark at the other side of the yard, the light dancing crazily back and forth as the Inspector was running in her direction.

  “He’s on the roof! Brouchard! Watch the rooftops!”

  Lara saw Guillotine was heading back towards the entrance- and his van- running up the row of train cars. He had six left to go. She lost her footing, rolled down on her shoulders and felt the breath knocked out of her. Gasping, she launched herself back on her feet and kept moving, tracking Guillotine, now two cars down. She kicked out in to the air as she sailed across the space between this car and the next, landing hard on the metal. She gathered herself, kept moving, couldn’t let him escape again.

  Brouchard’s had given his position away with his flashlight. Guillotine wasn’t surprised by the Policeman’s clumsiness, but he was pleased the situation had been tilted back in his favor. He pulled the knife from his pocket, honing in closer on the flashlight beam as it made its way towards him, roving over the roof tops ahead, trying to seek him out.

  The Inspector checked the top of the train cars to his left, still moving. He grasped the pistol in his hand, keeping it low and ready, unaware Guillotine was moving up fast behind and above him on the right side. He heard movement, footsteps thudding over the metal above. He moved the flashlight beam over and saw something coming at him from the dark. It was so fast, the motion so blurred, that he had little time to react. He pulled the pistol up, but not fast enough. The shape hit him square in the chest and he was on his back in the dirt, hearing the gun go off, a bullet hitting the train car beside him and suddenly he couldn’t breathe.

  Guillotine had taken the leap and slammed dead in to the Policeman’s chest. Now, the Inspector lay at his feet, at his mercy and Guillotine savored the feeling of power. The Inspector pulled the pistol up and Guillotine stepped on his wrist, breaking it. Another wild shot loosed off from the pistol and the Inspector howled in pain. He heard Lara McBride pounding across the roof of the train car behind him, closing in fast. He leaned down, grabbed the pistol and fired three shots in to Brouchard’s chest, turned and fired up at the roof top to slow Lara down. He didn’t want to kill her here. Then he took off back to his van, wiping the pistol clean of his prints, tossing the weapon under a train car as he ran.

  Lara dropped down from the compartment roof, saw Guillotine running out to the main gates. She tried to get him in her sights but he was gone behind the main building before she could get a good aim. She began to move after him- that’s when she saw the Inspector, laying in the dirt, gasping. S
he knelt by his side, pulled his coat open to reveal the body armour she had seen him put on in the muster room. But blood was blooming out through a small hole dead centre in his chest. One of the bullets had got through. How deep and how bad, she didn’t know, but there was blood. It would not have been anywhere near as deadly if the Inspector had not been wearing the armour. She unstrapped the Velcro holding the vest in place on either side of his chest, pulled it off him to expose the bleeding wound.

  “Shit,” she said. Brouchard was trying to get his breath back, winded.

  “Go...Lara. Get after him. Take my radio, tell the Tactical Team where you are. We didn’t come this far to let him go now.”

  She knew she had to get going or Guillotine would be gone forever. He handed her his car keys and she took the radio from his jacket pocket. He pulled himself up in to a sitting position, one hand holding his wound, the other pulling out his cellphone and speed dialing for an ambulance.

  “Go, Lara. Finish this.”

  She looked him in the eyes, his will burning through to her. She felt ashamed that she had no other choice but to abandon him here in this darkened train yard, sitting in the shadows, while his life potentially drained out of him. She would see to it that everything ended tonight.

  Lara hurried out to the main yard to see Guillotine backing the van up, smashing Brouchard’s sedan out of its way, giving him a clear path back to the street, where he wheeled the van round and took off. Lara could hear Police sirens closing in somewhere in the near distance as she got in the Inspector’s sedan. She keyed the engine and raced out of the train yard. Despite the damage Guillotine had done to the back of the car, it was in fine working order, just not as aesthetically pleasing to the eye as it had been just a few short moments ago.

  On the main boulevard, she could see the city through the window, away in the distance to her right. She doubted he would head that way, so she pulled the steering wheel left and darted through the traffic speeding out of the city. Up ahead, she caught sight of the van as it turned another corner, headed for the highway. She had to watch her distance, stay back and out of sight. They drove through the streets, finally easing on to the road that led out of Paris towards the countryside.

  An odd sensation came over her as the city lights disappeared behind them, melting in to the night, and all that lay ahead was the unlit countryside. She felt chills and her stomach cramped with nausea. She felt they were being drawn away from the light by a force beyond either of their control, spinning helplessly out in to the dark to a hell they would both share.

  Chapter Fifty Six

  Guillotine stopped the van outside the farmhouse and stretched. He was exhausted yet wired, excited that he would soon be unveiling his masterpiece to the world. He checked his watch. Not long now. Claude would be arriving soon. There was much to be done. He looked over at the entrance to the farmhouse. Marie and Madeleine stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the light glowing behind them through the window from inside the house. Their heads were down but he could feel their eyes on him, burning, judging. Their mourning hats seemed to be a part of them now, as though they had grown in to the skin and somehow become organic. The veils did little to hide the rotting flesh beneath. He glanced at them and felt a headache shoot through his skull, sharp and throbbing.

  He ignored them and approached the house, his Aunts silently stepped aside to let him in. He was hungry and needed to wash up before the unveiling could begin. Guillotine washed his face in the bathroom and thought about how he should start. He went to the computer and pulled up the website he had created. Nobody was logged in yet, though they would be very soon. The website showed six blank screens, relays from cameras that were wired in the barn and would display what he had in there as soon as he was ready to show it. He made sure the live feed was working and, when he was satisfied, he moved to the kitchen and allowed himself a piece of bread from a loaf and ate it while he stared out the window across the long dark fields in to the distance and the great dark beyond. He felt connected to it all now, a part of it, his very soul intertwined with the breeze and grass and the night itself. He was legion now. Marie and Madeleine were right behind him; he could see their reflections in the window and feel them just inches from his neck.

  “Show us,” Marie hissed.

  “Show us your masterpiece.” Madeleine demanded.

  “Soon,” he said.

  “Now,” Marie whispered.

  “Yes, now!” Madeline shrieked.

  Chapter Fifty Seven

  At the roadside, Lara watched the farmhouse from the trees. The stolen car was pulled off the road behind her, hidden by the trees and the dark. She had watched him go inside and put the lights on. Now she was planning the best approach to the house without being seen. Unless he had infra red cameras set up around the compound, which was possible, though she couldn’t see any mounted on the house itself, her best option was to run wide of the house and circle round the back. She checked the clip on her pistol, racked the slide, chambering a round, took a breath and ran for the house.

  She ran wide, sprinting as fast as she could over the uneven ground, counting on the light inside the farmhouse reflecting off the windows back inside to block his view of her should he happen to look out. She came around to the back of the house on an arc and dropped low as she approached a side window that gave a view in to the pantry. She could hear someone out in the kitchen, clattering plates, multiple voices. His voice was the loudest voice, arguing with what sounded like two older females.

  She approached the living room window and peered inside. She could see the sofa, cushions, and stone floor, a classically rustic interior. But no sign of him. She ducked under the window, crossing to the other side, allowing her to look the other way and get a line of sight to the kitchen.

  There he was, stood in the doorway, in profile to her, talking. She had no way of seeing who he was talking to, but from where he was looking it seemed as though the other two people were somewhere deeper inside the kitchen. Then a strange thing happened that she had never seen before and it shocked her in the sheer matter of fact manner in which it played out before her. She had to keep watching him to make sure her eyes had not played tricks. She heard the other two voices coming out of his mouth, low, feminine, and saw his head snap sideways and his body go rigid and taller as he spoke. The sheer fluidity of the change in him was disturbing to her. It happened mid breath as he was speaking, each voice flowing in to the next, his body adapting accordingly, like water flowing back and forth inside a trapped vessel. Even he did not seem to be aware of it, as though his body was a puppet under the control of somebody else.

  Guillotine was having a three way conversation with the two other voices coming out of his own mouth, people he thought he could see, people he thought he was talking to. She had seen actors rehearsing lines with themselves before, performing multiple parts, but this was different. He appeared to become the people he was talking to. His entire body seemed to change as he spoke, his head down, tilted to the side as the low female voices hissed from his lips. He slumped back to his regular posture and his own voice returned. She saw him rub his temple and stop talking. Then he walked further in to the kitchen and out of sight.

  She moved to the side of the house where the lights were off and it was completely dark. She saw the bedroom window, peered in and saw a simple bed, undisturbed. There was nothing remarkable about the home, there never was on the surface where predators lived. They always had a den, where they kept their dirty secrets and obscenities to the world. He wasn’t keeping his Angels in here, unless there was a basement. That left the barn. They had to be in the barn. She tried the window; it was closed and locked tight. Moving further down the side of the building she saw another door. She tried the handle and, to her surprise, it opened. She felt her heart skip and her throat tighten, then all the sound drained out of the world as she pushed the door open. She had never felt so unprepared. She stepped inside.

  The house was c
ool and quiet. There was a heavy air to the place, thick and cloying beneath its purposeful silence. She knew nothing good had ever come of this place, no matter how many years it had stood. Homes had a way of trapping the energy of the people who had lived and passed through them. This one had seen little of happiness. She found herself in a side room, a store room. There were painting supplies stacked on one side, the smell of paint and turpentine. There was a door ahead of her that lead out to the main area and she cracked it open and peered out. She was looking in to the half lit living room. She saw the doorway that led to the kitchen, which she had seen from the window outside. She stepped out of the store room, the gun trained on the kitchen doorway, ready for him to come out at her.

  She moved forward, checking the corners as she had been trained to do. She couldn’t hear the voices anymore. That terrified her, because now she had no idea where he was. This was his territory, he knew it better than her and had the advantage. Her heart slammed against her chest, the noise deafening in her ears and she took a breath to control her fear and the rush of adrenalin that was spiking through her right now.

  She moved to the kitchen with purpose, gun out, searching for her target. But the room was empty- he was already gone. Had he heard her? She thought she had been quiet enough to avoid detection. Shivers broke out down her arms and shoulders, not knowing where he was, not knowing if he had spotted her. She spun round, ready to see him coming at her from behind, but the living room was empty.