by Bill Hussey
The day was warm. The trees crackled and the breeze bowed through the long grass. Overhead, the clatter of crows followed me through the branches. I paid them no heed. Finding a sheltered spot, I stayed hunkered down in the undergrowth all afternoon. From my vantage point, I could see the tree-tunnelled drive and the gate leading to the house. As I waited, the same questions echoed in my mind: Am I strong enough? What can I do to save him? What have I lost to the Yeager Library?
My heart burned. My nerves wound themselves ever tighter. I ploughed the earth with my hands, plied it with my fingers. Waited.
Footsteps on gravel. I plucked the rope from my pocket and wound it around my fists. I glimpsed a face moving between the trees. A satchel slung over a shoulder. Feet skipping down the avenue. Simon came into view.
I stifled my cry.
It was the body of a child: slight, narrow-shouldered, short legs, small hands. But settled upon that torso was the shrunken, wasted head of Elijah Mendicant. The crows cawed. The thing stopped, looked about itself. I burst through the undergrowth.
Mendicant (I will not call him Simon, as Simon was now lost to me) woke and struggled for breath. I had dragged him to the clearing and tethered him to the same tree on which he had been crucified almost twenty years before. I had bound the little hands so tight that the rope cut into them. Once or twice, I thought I would give way to grief and horror, but my heart was hardened, as the rite demanded it should be. I could not bring myself to gag him, however, it would mean touching that tiny, rotting face.
I stood outside the circle of crumbled wafer ringing the tree.
‘Father? What are you doing?’
It was Simon’s voice. I would not listen to it. I stepped forward, made the Sign of the Cross and dashed Holy Water over him.
‘Lord have mercy. God the Father in heaven. God, the Son, Redeemer of the World. God the Holy Spirit. Holy Trinity. One God …’
My head was bowed, but I heard the familiar ripple of laughter.
‘Pray to a new Trinity, Asher.’
‘Holy Mary, pray for us …’
My voice remained steady while my soul trembled. I recited the Litany of the Saints, the Lord’s Prayer, the fifty-third psalm.
‘… snatch from ruination and the clutches of the noonday devil this human being made in your image and likeness. Strike terror, Lord, into the Beast now laying waste to your vineyard …’
The afternoon wore on. During the latter stages of the exorcism, though the sun was at its zenith, the shade that it granted to the clearing made everything seem quite dark. When at last I looked up, I could not make out the face before me. Summoning whatever courage I could, I stepped into the circle and laid my stole upon the taut cheek. Shadows fell away and I saw a sardonic smile beaming up at me.
‘I’m still here, Father. I wonder why. Perhaps something burns less bright within you.’
‘I cast you out, unclean spirit, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Begone and stay far away from this creature of God …’
‘I see a tiny flame in a vast cavern. You see it now, don’t you, Asher?’
‘It is He who commands you. He who once stilled the wind and the sea and the storm …’
‘Imagine a hand reaching from the darkness. Reaching for the candle …’
‘… author of pain and sorrow …’
‘Two fingers reaching …’
‘Begone then, in the name of the Father and the Son …’
My hand was shaking so badly I could not make the final Sign of the Cross.
‘… snuffing out your candle.’
I stumbled back, kicking a path through the white circle as I went.
‘The light is gone, Father, and now it is my turn for a little fun.’
The knots around Mendicant’s wrists and ankles tugged themselves loose. He ran his hand across the bark of the tree.
‘Was this where I died? It seems a lifetime ago.’
He moved out of the circle. I knew that running was pointless. I must make my stand here. I must gather up the waning vestiges of my faith and truly believe the words of the rite. Now, however, for the first time since I had been a child, I felt alone. The candle, whipped by a cold wind, flickered one last time, hissed, burned to a point, and was extinguished. A sigh passed out of the clearing and through the forest. I mumbled my final entreaty, knowing it was wasted breath:
‘Lord God, heed my prayer. Please let my cry be heard by you … Please, Sweet Jesus.’
The changed child strode towards me. His face tightened. His pupils grew large and the whites of his eyes vanished. Like hollows, I thought. At a distance of ten feet, Mendicant stopped. His mouth fell open and a long, agonised cry tore its way out of his throat. It was Simon, screaming as if in great torment. It rang around the clearing, answered by the call of the crows that had gathered in the trees. Then those dark eyes cleared and fixed upon me. The boy’s spirit had been trammelled.
‘Do you have the courage to do more than speak pretty verse and canticles, Father?’ Mendicant asked. ‘Simon is alive inside. There is only one way to free him. You’ll find the answer in that bag behind you.’
I had thrown the school satchel aside when I dragged the unconscious boy into the clearing. Now I unclasped the bag and felt inside. Something sharp met my fingers. I drew out a long, thin piece of flint.
‘I knew you would come to do what you could. You will find that blade better than any mumbo jumbo,’ said Mendicant, pulling back his head and exposing his throat. ‘I will never let the boy go. He is bound to me now. The only thing you can do is kill him, as you killed James Rowbanks. Can you do it?’
The shaft of the flint dug deep into my palm. I grasped a fistful of hair, brought the blade to the beating artery. Child eyes looked up at me. They were not hollows.
‘Can you? The heat of his blood on your hands. Can you bear killing another child?’
The tip nicked. Blood trickled down the flint and touched my fingers. One final effort. The simplest movement: to slash or to press home. To release, to free, to murder … In my mind’s eye, I saw James Rowbanks’ head explode against the tree. I snatched the blade away and Mendicant laughed.
‘I was going to kill you,’ he said, ‘but to leave you with the agony of this memory is much better. You deserve pain, however, somewhat more visceral …’
Mendicant raised a balled hand, mirroring my own grasp on the flint. I tried to release it, but my fingers gripped tighter. The child winked and brought the fist down hard into his open palm. I could not resist. I drove the blade into my own hand. Roaring through the pain, I saw Mendicant roll his fist, as if he were working a pestle in a mortar. Small bones moved aside to accommodate the weapon as I ground the flint into my hand.
‘No reason to whimper, Asher. I am making you in His image.’
He then brought his fist level with his head and mimed little stabbing motions around his temple. I tore the flint free, flecking my face with blood. I could do nothing except mimic him. The tiny cuts ran fast. My eyes stung in the hot flow.
‘Perhaps if I make you suffer as He suffered, I will bring you back to Him …’ He held his fist at waist height, a foot or so from his body.
‘Dear God, no,’ I cried. ‘Please …’
‘But it’s the only way you’ll learn,’ the voice deepened. ‘Goodbye, Asher.’
The child’s hand thrust against its side. I saw the blade – the spearhead – puncture beneath my ribs. Then the flint was withdrawn, red and glinting in the sunlight. Mendicant collapsed to the ground, exhausted. Here was a final chance to finish it. I staggered towards him. My lung rasped as I tried to breathe. I felt the sac drain and flutter against bone. Falling to my knees, I rolled onto my back. My vision darkened and all I could hear was thin, child-like laughter.
Fifty-four
Dawn stood in the photocopier alcove at the end of the corridor. Two officers were collating files in a room nearby. She could not risk being seen and it being reported to Jarski. With ea
ch minute that ticked by she felt her chance slipping away. Finally, yawning and bleary-eyed, the officers slouched down the corridor.
‘Christ, what time is it?’
‘Just after ten. Fancy last orders at the Feathers?’
‘Mm-no. I think I’ll go home and spend some quality time with a Pot Noodle and a stack of pornography.’
Dawn waited until they stepped into the lifts. Then she hurried to Jarski’s office. The glow of the desk lamp fractured through the frosted glass. She tapped. No reply. The doctor must have popped out for coffee or a fag. It would mean awkward questions later, but if she went downstairs she might be able to persuade the duty officer that Jarski needed a file and had sent her to …
The lock clicked. The door opened. Jack peered through the crack and ushered her in.
‘Idiot forgot to take the spare key from his desk,’ he whispered.
She had rehearsed so many questions. All she could do now was stare at him. He smelled institutionally clean, his own warm scent lost beneath the odour of cheap soap. His hand was swathed in fresh bandages, but the cloth was already stained with blood. The wound was tied in her mind with Crow Haven and Malahyde and all the madness since that first morning. She felt his fingers brush her hand.
‘He told you. Mescher. He told you about the girl.’
He knows.
‘And you wonder how, if I touched her, anything I told you can be true … That first day, the day you came back, all day so near you. I had to touch. To feel human. But I didn’t touch her. Not as I touched you.’
‘I’m not sure I can believe that,’ she said. ‘And if I can’t, how can I believe any of it?’
‘Perhaps you don’t have to believe completely. Just entertain the slimmest possibility.’
‘I won’t validate your fantasy, Jack. If I do, you might always be lost.’
‘You found me. For a time. That’s the best I could ever have hoped for. Our little time of being together. I am lost.’
His voice stayed calm, but he was trembling.
‘Are you mad?’ she asked.
‘Perhaps. But not in the way they think.’
‘Then why the act?’
‘Because I stand more chance of escaping a hospital than from the cells downstairs. The end is coming. I have to be there to meet it.’
‘I could …’
She hesitated. Here was where the choice would be made. The sane, real world she had known, defined on her own concrete terms for thirty years, or his version of reality.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You have to go to Jamie. Please, Dawn, just go.’
‘Goodbye, Jack,’ she said, turning away from him.
‘Dawn? I want to say thank you. In case … well, just in case we don’t see each other again.’
She closed the door behind her.
The hallway of Tom Howard’s house was like a deep freeze. Brody shivered, and it was not just from the cold. He looked up at the figure that watched him from the landing.
Mendicant was exactly as Brody remembered. The hollow eyes, the sunken, undulating skull with its straw-like hair and tattered skin. Crows fluttered onto his shoulders. Beaks plucked at his face.
‘Where’s the boy?’ Brody asked.
‘Is that all you have to say to me after all these years?’ the Doctor asked, the melodic tones of his voice in counterpoint with the cawing of the birds. ‘After I had the good grace to leave you unmolested in your quaint Home for Rotting Flesh and Mind? You know, I was very tempted to pay you a visit. I had a special end in mind for you: something in the line of how St Peter was martyred. Yes indeed, I would have enjoyed seeing you strung up in the clearing, your body lashed to an inverted cross.’
‘But Simon and Peter proved more difficult to manage than you thought, didn’t they?’ Brody countered.
‘That is in the past. The wheel has turned and here we are again. You, older, frailer, but still admirably intractable.’
‘This time I am not alone.’
‘Jack Trent?’
Mendicant drew his lips over his stunted teeth. With that strange fluidity of movement, he came to the head of the stairs.
‘What do you imagine he can do?’
‘God has brought him to face you.’
‘I have brought him’ – the Doctor’s long fingers arched around the banister – ‘I have laid the trail and he has followed, blind as a mole sniffing worms. I have led my unwitting disciple into the mountain where I shall be transfigured.’
Mendicant descended.
‘Transfigured?’ Brody echoed. ‘Is this some new obsession? You see yourself as Saviour now? This is just the same filthy ritual you have performed countless times.’
‘Not quite. Tonight I shall unlock divine powers. I shall not simply be reborn, but reconfigured. Re-spiritualised. A new light shall shine from me.’
The door behind Brody opened. Out of the corner of his eye, the priest glimpsed the figure of an old man sprawled across the sitting room floor. The boy emerged from the gloom, stepping over his dead grandfather. He was holding something aloft. Before Brody could speak, he felt a bright pain splinter across his skull. He fell to his knees, clutching his head. His vision blurred, tunnelled and dimmed. He saw his fingers, huge and red, and the boy staring down between them.
‘Sleep well, old friend …’
Mendicant. Twin hollows. Unending blackness before his eyes.
‘Dream of signs and wonders.’
All ideas had run dry. She drove in blissful thoughtlessness. The tinted moon accompanied her homeward. Hooded by the clouds and rimmed by the flat fields, it stared across the earth like a great red eye.
She pulled into her father’s street and tucked the car into the driveway.
Not a blade of light shone between the curtains. Something was wrong. She got out of the car, fumbled for her latchkey, thrust it into the lock and pushed open the door.
At first it seemed as if there was nothing beyond the doorway. A breeze chased about her legs, whipped into the void and whistled out again, its tone anxious. Before her eyes began to adjust, Dawn thought of Jack: of that tear between worlds; of the creatures that had slithered from it and made a tiny principality in his mind. Then the darkness appeared less complete. She saw the hallway and the stairs. Then the old man, his face laced with blood.
‘The boy’s gone.’
There were no questions in her mind now. She stumbled into the house and clattered up the stairs. Wrenching open doors, pulling aside beds and furniture, she screamed for her son. The lights would not work and, at first, she did not notice the scratches on the sills, the shit dripping from the mirrors, the torn curtains and the feathers. She tried to rush past the old man, but he held her fast.
‘Please, Miss Howard. I don’t think you should look downstairs.’
‘Where is he? Tell me NOW.’
‘Taken.’
‘Where?’
‘Only one place. We must find Jack Trent.’
She managed to twist loose. She went to the kitchen, the study, the cubby-hole under the stairs, the sitting room …
‘Dad? Wake up. Please, Dad, wake up.’
She kicked the lifeless body.
‘He’s been dead some hours. I’m sorry.’
‘How?’ Falling to her knees, she cradled her father’s head in her lap. ‘How?’
‘Miss Howard, we must reach Jack Trent. Your son’s life depends upon …’
She was not listening. She just rocked back and forth, holding her father.
Silhouettes passed and re-passed across the glass. They whispered, but Jack caught the odd phrase here and there.
‘… Dr King’s been delayed by a spate of severe psychotic episodes …’ – the duty doctor – ‘… says they’re all acting up tonight … Halloween tomorrow, silly season for some …’
‘Bloody fruitloops,’ Jarski muttered.
The DCI pressed his nose against the glass. Jack froze. The Picasso face drew away.
‘… G
reylampton case … best officer in the department …’
‘… Dr King will be here soon …’
‘… always weird though …’
Jack started. Jarski’s words had not segued into muffled incomprehensibility. They just stopped, as if his voice was a recording cut short. Jack eased himself off the leather couch. He tiptoed to the door, inched it open, peered through. The corridor was deserted. Jarski and the doctor had vanished.
As Jack stepped out of the office, the lamp on Jarski’s desk exploded. Grains of glass showered papers, files and the DCI’s collection of stress balls. The lights in the corridor flickered and went out. From the end of the long hallway, illuminated lift buttons blinked at Jack. They looked very far away.
He started down the hall, checking the doors of the offices as he went. Each was locked. Everything, above and below, seemed unnaturally quiet. The sudden absence of background noise unnerved him. No rumble of traffic, no hum of conversation, not even the gasp and gurgle of a guttering toilet. And it was becoming very cold. He could see his breath now, and the glass in the doors he passed dripped with condensation. Where the hell was everyone? Jarski? The cretin doctor? The four hundred or more souls that routinely occupied this cavernous station?
A door slammed to. Jack turned. He could make out the shape of a man standing outside Jarski’s door. Its head was swaying rhythmically …
Jack ran. Reaching the bank of lifts, he jammed his finger on the call button.
Come on, come on, come on …
The doors trembled and opened. Jack sidestepped into the carriage and punched the ground floor button.
Jesus Christ, come on.
The doors jarred halfway, grumbled and started to meet again. Karen Carpenter, singing the opening line of ‘Rainy Days and Mondays’, looped through the speakers. Between the closing gap, Jack caught his last glimpse of the figure. Was it smiling?
The lift jolted and bore him down.
The wind came in waves through the rolled down passenger window and sent a dull ache through Brody’s ears. The needle dropped to forty as he drove Dawn’s Range Rover out of the countryside and into the city hinterland. They sped past a gang of kids carving a pumpkin on the pavement; impatient commuters and taxi drivers outside the railway station; the cathedral, robbed of its textures by the night, towering and cyclopean in the darkness. Brody noticed these things in passing, but his mind was on the road and on the woman beside him.