Hands: that was what he remembered. Hands with hooked claws for nails, tugging at him as the anesthetic wore off, trying to pull him down to the place in which they lay; and above them the Hollow Men, soulless wraiths burning with rage at what had been done to them by Eldritch and his client, desperate to see him punished just as they were being punished. Later, once it was clear that the operation had been a complete success and he was out of danger, the surgeon had admitted to Eldritch that there had been a problem when the final stitches were being put in place. Strange, he had said: most patients emerged easily from the anesthetic as its effects wore off, but for almost two minutes it had seemed as if Eldritch were moving deeper into sleep, and they had feared that he was about to lapse into a coma. Then, in a startling reversal, his heart rate had increased to such a degree that they thought he might be about to go into cardiac arrest.
‘You gave us quite a scare,’ said the surgeon, patting Eldritch on the shoulder, and his touch had caused the old lawyer to tense with unease, for the pressure on his skin reminded him uncomfortably of those clawed fingers.
And throughout his period of recovery, both inside and outside the hospital, the Collector had kept watch over him, for Eldritch’s vulnerability was also his own, and their existences were mutually dependent. Eldritch would wake to find the Collector sitting in the soft light of the bedside lamp, his fingers twitching uneasily, his body temporarily deprived of the nicotine that seemed perpetually to fuel it. The lawyer was never entirely sure how the Collector managed to be omnipresent during those early days, for the hospital, so very private and so very expensive, still had certain rules about the appropriateness of visiting times. But in Eldritch’s experience people tended to avoid confrontations with the Collector. He trailed unease just as he trailed the stink and smoke of his cigarettes. That smell: how prevalent it was, how insidious, and how grateful they all should have been for it, for the foul nicotine taint masked a different odor. Even without the cigarettes, the Collector brought with him the smell of the charnel house.
Sometimes, Eldritch himself almost feared him. The Collector was entirely without mercy, entirely committed to his mission in this world. Eldritch was still human enough to have doubts; the Collector was not. There was no humanity left in him; Eldritch wondered if there ever had been. He suspected that the Collector had simply come into the world that way, and his true nature had become more obvious over time.
How strange, thought Eldritch, that a man should fear one to whom he was so closely bound: a client; a source of income; a protector.
A son.
Eldritch had come down to the basement for two reasons. The first was to check the fusebox: there had been two brief interruptions to the power supply that afternoon, and such occurrences were always a source of concern. There was so much information here, so much knowledge, and although it was well secured, there would always be concerns about potential vulnerabilities. Eldritch opened the box and checked it by the beam of a flashlight, but as far as he could tell all appeared to be well. Tomorrow, though, he would contact Bowden, who took care of such things for him. Eldritch trusted Bowden.
His movements on the basement floor had triggered the next set of overhead lights, illuminating shelf upon shelf of files. Some were so old that he was reluctant even to touch them for fear that they would crumble to dust, but the necessity of reaching for them rarely arose. For the most part, these were the closed cases. Judgement had been passed and they had been found wanting.
Someone had once pointed out to him a distinction, real or imagined, between ‘judgement’ and ‘judgment’, although to the old man it was largely a matter of preference, the former having more heft and substantiality in his view.
‘“Judgment”,’ the man had said, his voice booming in the confines of the parquet-floored Washington hotel room, ‘refers to human justice, but judgement with an ‘‘e’’ refers to the Divine,’ and he had leaned back and smiled in satisfaction, his teeth perfect and white against the flawless ebony beauty of his skin, his hands clasped upon his small belly, hands with so much hidden blood on them that Eldritch was convinced it might well show up under a combination of luminol and ultraviolet light. Before him lay a document detailing allegations of rape, torture, and mass murder, a product of years of investigation by a group of men who were themselves now dead, killed by this man’s agents, and in the fallen leader’s eyes Eldritch could see a similar fate being planned for him.
‘Really?’ Eldritch had replied. ‘That is fascinating, although my understanding is that the King James Bible favors “judgment”.’
‘This is not true,’ said the man, with the unalloyed confidence of the truly ignorant. ‘I tell you this so you will understand: I will not be judged by a human court but by the Lord God, and He will smile upon me for what I was forced to do to His enemies. They were animals. They were bad men.’
‘And women?’ added Eldritch. ‘And children? Were they all bad? How unfortunate for them.’
The man bristled.
‘I told you: I do recognize or accept these allegations. My enemies continue to spread lies about me, to vilify me, but I am not guilty of the accusations made against me. If I were, the International Court of Justice in the Hague would have taken action against me, but it has not. This tells the world that I have no case to answer.’
That was not entirely true. The International Court of Justice was in the process of assembling a dossier on this man, but its progress was being hampered by the ongoing deaths of crucial witnesses, both outside the nation in which he had conducted a genocidal guerilla war for over a decade, and within it, where there were those now in power who had utilized this man and his forces for their own ends, and would have preferred it if the more embarrassing details of the past were forgotten in the rush to embrace something like democracy. Even in the US, there were politicians who had embraced this butcher, this rapist, as an ally in the fight against Islamic terrorists. He was, in every way, an embarrassment and a disgrace: to his allies, to his enemies, and to the entire human race.
‘So you see, Mr Eldritch, I do not understand why you have chosen to believe the lies of these men, and to accept them as clients. What is this, this ‘‘civil case’’? I do not know what this means.’ He held up like a dead fish the sheaf of papers that Eldritch had brought with him, with its accounts of butchery and violation, and its names of the dead. ‘I agreed to meet you because you told my assistant you had information that might be of use to me in these ongoing attacks on my character, that you might be able to help me in my struggle against the blackening of my name. Instead, you side with these bad men, these fantastists. How can this be of help to me, uh? How?’
He was growing angry now, but Eldritch was not concerned.
‘If you were to admit your failings and your crimes, then you might yet save yourself,’ said Eldritch.
‘Save myself? From what?’
‘From damnation,’ said Eldritch.
The man looked at him in astonishment, then began to giggle.
‘Are you a preacher? Are you a man of God?’ The giggles turned to laughter. ‘I am a man of God. Look!’ He reached into his shirt and pulled out an ornate gold cross. ‘See? I am a Christian. That is why I fought God’s enemies in my country. That is why your government gave me money and guns. That is why men from the CIA advised me on tactics. We were all engaged in God’s work. Now, old man, go with God before you make me mad, and take your ridiculous papers with you.’
Eldritch stood. The window before him looked down on the busy street below. There the Collector waited, his black form like a smudge upon the glass.
‘Thank you for your time,’ said Eldritch. ‘I’m sorry that I couldn’t be of more help to you.’
He passed the Collector on the way out of the hotel, but they did not look at each other. The Collector disappeared into a crowd of conference delegates, and later that night the man of God in his high room learned for himself that there was no practical distinc
tion between ‘judgment’ and ‘judgement’.
His file, now closed, was somewhere in this basement. Eldritch could have placed a hand on it in an instant, but there was no need. His memory was perfect, and anyway he was unlikely to be required to recite chapter and verse of the circumstances of the fallen leader’s death, not in this life. Rarely did he trouble courtrooms these days, and he sometimes missed the cut and thrust of legal argument, the pleasure that lay in winning a difficult case, and the lessons to be learned by losing one.
At the same time, he no longer needed to be concerned by the distinction between law and justice. Like every lawyer, he had seen too many cases fail because justice was, in the end, subservient to the requirements of the law. Now he and the Collector were, in their way, restoring the natural order in the most extreme of cases, those from which any reasonable doubt had been excluded to the satisfaction of all but the law itself.
But there were some case files in the basement that were not closed. They were those that Eldritch chose to regard as ‘inconclusive’ or ‘difficult’, and for the most part no action had been taken against the individuals named within them. The files had simply increased in girth as more and more details were added, each another ounce of evidence that might yet tip the scales against those concerned.
One of these files concerned the detective, Charlie Parker, and the men who worked alongside him, their files connected to his both figuratively and literally by means of two lengths of black ribbon fed through holes in the top and bottom of each green folder. Eldritch had long counseled that the files should remain as they were: as mere records, not indicators of an intention to pursue a case. Ultimately he believed that Parker was engaged in the same struggle as they were, even if he might not have wanted to accept that it was so. The detective’s colleagues, and the ones named Angel and Louis in particular, were more problematical, especially the latter, but Eldritch was convinced that present actions could make up for past sins, even if he had not yet managed to inculcate a similar faith in the Collector. While they might have differed in this crucial aspect, common sense nevertheless dictated that Parker and his acolytes should be left alone insofar as was practical. To damn one would require damning all, or else the survivors would avenge themselves upon everyone involved, and neither age nor sex would be an impediment to their wrath.
But the question of Parker had become increasingly complex, for his name had been on the list sent to them by Barbara Kelly, though with no indication of a reason for its presence. Parker’s visit had been troubling to Eldritch. Parker knew of the existence of the list, and he knew that his name was on it, probably because the old Jew had shown it to him. Parker suspected, too, that Eldritch and the Collector had a copy of a similar list, and by coming to Eldritch’s office he had been sending a warning to them both: keep your distance from me. I will not be one of your victims.
Only certain conclusions could be drawn from this. Either Parker knew why his name was on the list, and his inclusion was therefore justified, in which case he was secretly in league with everything against which they were fighting, and was worthy of damnation; or he did not know why his name was on it, which opened up two further possibilities: his own nature was compromised, and he was polluted, although the pollution had not yet manifested itself fully; or someone, possibly Barbara Kelly or others known to her, had deliberately added his name to the list in the hope that it would cause his allies to turn against him, thereby ridding his enemies of an increasingly dangerous thorn in their side without risk to themselves.
But Kelly was now dead, killed, it seemed, by her own kind. Her medical records, accessed by Eldritch through his network of informants, confirmed that her body had been riddled with cancer. She was dying, and her efforts at repentance appeared genuine, if ultimately doomed. In a sense, it was apt that lymphoma should have been eating away at her, for she herself had been responsible for a steady, ceaseless corruption, insidiously metastasizing life after life, soul after soul. One act of defiance, born out of fear and desperation, would not have been enough to save her, whatever she might have hoped.
But then Eldritch was not God, and could not pretend to have any understanding of His works. He examined each case on its own merits, but simply from a lawyer’s viewpoint. Only the Collector, touched by something that might have been the Divine and transformed into a channel between realms, claimed to have an insight into a consciousness infinitely more complex than his own.
And, if he was to be believed, infinitely more merciless.
Eldritch did not doubt for a moment the veracity of the Collector’s claims. Eldritch had seen too much, and knew too much, to try to fool himself into believing that some conventional reason, one unconnected to the existence of a divinity and its opposite, could be found for all that he had learned or witnessed, and the Collector had insights into the matter that were far deeper than Eldritch’s. But now the Collector had instructed him to make Parker’s file active, even as he began killing the others on the list, and for the first time Eldritch found himself in serious conflict with his son.
Son.
As he stood before Parker’s file, his fingers hovering above it like the talons of an ancient predatory bird, a weariness swept over Eldritch. It was easier to think of his son as another: as Kushiel, as the Collector. Eldritch had long ceased wondering if some part of him or his wife had been responsible for the creation of this murderous presence in their lives. No, whatever had colonized his son’s spirit had come from outside themselves. A second dwelled within him, and the two were now indivisible, indistinguishable from each other.
But Parker was right: his son’s bloodlust was growing, his desire to collect tokens of lives ended becoming ever greater, and his actions with regard to the list represented their latest, and most disturbing, manifestation. There was insufficient proof of guilt to act against most of these people. Some had probably been corrupted without even knowing it, while others might simply have accepted money, or a piece of information that gave them an advantage over others, a small victory against the system which, although wrong in itself, was not enough to render them worthy of condemnation. If a single sin was enough to invite damnation, then the whole human race would roast.
Yet great evils were frequently the product of the slow accumulation of such small sins, and Eldritch knew that, when the time came for the people on the list to keep their side of the bargain they had made, the nature of the harm they would be required to do would be great. They were viruses incubating, according to the Collector’s view. They were cancer cells lying dormant. Should they not be eradicated or removed before they could begin to destroy healthy bodies? His son thought so, but to Eldritch these were not viruses, not cancers: these were people, flawed, compromised individuals, and thus no different from the great mass of humanity.
In doing this, thought Eldritch, in killing without just cause, we may well damn ourselves.
He removed Parker’s file, heavy because of the weight of the others it carried with it, heavy with the weight of their actions, both right and wrong, and slipped it under his arm. The lights went off behind him as he left the basement, and he ascended the stairs with more confidence than he had descended. Rarely did he take files home with him, but this was an exceptional case. He wanted to re-examine Parker’s file, checking every detail for one that he might previously have overlooked, one that would give him confirmation of the man’s true aims.
He waited in the hall while his secretary locked the office doors above, and watched as she lumbered down the stairs, the omnipresent cigarette in her mouth. Since the death of his wife nearly three decades before, she had been the sole constant presence in his life, the Collector flitting in and out of it as necessity required like a poisonous moth. Without this woman, he would be lost. He needed her, and at his age need and love were merely the same suitor wearing different coats.
Inside the front door was a locked alarm panel. He put Parker’s file on a shelf, opened the panel, and che
cked the exterior camera on the small embedded screen; there was no one nearby. He nodded at the woman, and she opened the door while he activated the alarm. There was a ten-second delay once it began to beep, which was sometimes barely sufficient for him to get out and lock the door, but on this occasion he managed with a second or two to spare.
He winced as they crossed the street to his car.
‘Your hip?’ she said.
‘Those basement stairs,’ he said. ‘They kill me.’
‘You should have let me go down.’
‘What do you know about fuses?’
‘More than you.’
Which was true, even if he chose not to admit it.
‘Well, I needed—’
He swore. He’d left Parker’s file on the shelf beside the alarm panel.
‘– the file,’ he finished. He lifted his empty hands to her, and she rolled her eyes.
‘I’ll go back,’ she said. ‘You stay here.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, and leaned against the car.
She looked at him with concern. ‘Are you sure that it’s nothing more serious?’
‘I’m fine, I’m fine. Just a little tired.’
But she knew otherwise. He had no secrets from her: not about the Collector, not about Parker, not about anything. He was worried. She could tell.
‘Let’s go for dinner,’ she said. ‘We’ll talk about it.’
‘The Blue Ox?’
‘Where else?’
‘My treat, then.’
‘You don’t pay me enough for it to be mine.’
Which was both true and untrue: he paid her a lot, but he could never pay her enough.
She waited until a car passed, then walked back to the office, her fingers fumbling in her huge purse for her keys. Eldritch looked around. So empty the streets tonight; barely a soul in sight except for themselves. His skin prickled. A man was approaching, his hands buried deep in the folds of a parka jacket, his head down. Eldritch gripped the key fob of his car, the index finger of his left hand poised over the alarm button while his right drifted to the pocket of his overcoat that contained the small derringer. He thought that the man might have glanced at him as he went by, but, if so, it was the slightest shift of his eyes, nothing more, and his head barely moved. Then he was gone, and he did not look back.
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