The Watchers

by Jon Steele

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘What was your mother like?’

  Rochat thought about it.

  ‘She was soft.’

  ‘Soft … That’s a sweet thing to say. How old were you when she died?’

  ‘Ten years.’

  ‘You miss her, don’t you?’

  ‘I can see her in beforetimes.’

  ‘Yeah? What happens, when you see her?’

  ‘She teaches me to walk in the garden. She helps me with letters and numbers. She shows me places on the globe and tells me stories. She lights candles and makes shadows on the ceiling with her hands and tells me more stories and she says she’s going to a place where she can see me but I think she tells me that because I’m afraid. And she tells me I’m going to grow to be the bravest of them all because being brave is only standing up when you’re afraid. And she tells me an angel will come to the cathedral and I have to protect the angel like I protect the cathedral. And then she tells me how to go to beforetimes to see her so I can remember the things she tells me.’

  Katherine leaned against a timber. She pulled the candle close to her, picked at the melting wax along the side, mashed it between her fingers.

  ‘You know what I think? I think if your mother could see you now she’d be really proud. Because you did grow up to be very brave.’

  ‘I grew up crooked. There was an accident when I was born.’

  ‘Shhh, just listen to me, Marc.’

  Katherine rolled the wax into a small oblong shape. Rochat watched her shape it between her fingertips and stand it upright on the table.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside because anyone who knows you knows what a great guy you are on the inside. You’re honest and true. Frankly, you’re the kind of guy that makes a girl weak at the knees.’

  ‘I don’t know what that means.’

  ‘It means you’re the kind of guy a girl spends her whole life looking for, usually in all the wrong places.’

  ‘I don’t know what that means.’

  ‘Let’s put it this way. When I get home, I’m going to tell everyone the story of Marc Rochat and how he saved me from the bad shadows.’

  ‘Merci.’

  She broke off another piece of wax, rolled it in her fingers. Rochat watched her make another oblong shape.

  ‘This girl you’re going to meet at Christmas, what’s her name again?’

  ‘Her name is Emeline. She knows how to milk a cow.’

  ‘Emeline the Swiss cowgirl, that’s the one. I want you to promise me something.’

  She set the wax form on the table, a little taller than the other. Rochat watched her move them, side by side, on the table.

  ‘Promise me that one night you’ll bring Emeline to the cathedral and you’ll light all your candles and take her for a walk in the nave and tell her the story of all the lost angels hiding in the cathedral.’

  Rochat watched the two wax forms moving through candles on the table, watching their shadows swell and move like living things. Katherine moved the shapes closer to each other, gently touching them together.

  ‘D’accord.’

  ‘And promise me, when you’re walking with her, you’ll hold her hand. So she won’t be afraid.’

  Rochat thought about it.

  ‘Will she like to hold hands?’

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘What if I forget to take her for a walk and hold her hand? I’m very good at forgetting things.’

  Katherine set the bits of wax on the window sill, next to each other.

  ‘You won’t forget, because I’ll leave the two of you up here. And when you see them you’ll go to beforetimes and remember.’

  Rochat stared at the figures, his head tipping slowly from side to side.

  ‘The one on the left is me.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Because he’s a little crooked.’

  Katherine laughed.

  ‘Man, you are so one of a kind.’

  ‘Is that a good thing?’

  ‘It’s the best thing there is to steal a girl’s heart.’

  ‘Can I tell Emeline an angel gave me the idea about the candles?’

  Katherine took a thoughtful sip of wine.

  ‘Know what? I think she’d like that story a lot. Just leave out the part about looking through my windows with the binoculars. Or that I slept in your bed a few nights. And the hooker thing, leave out the whole hooker thing.’

  ‘Leave out the hooker thing.’

  ‘Yeah, trust me.’ She rubbed Rochat’s arm. ‘You feel better now?’

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘Good. Then let’s eat, the apple pie looks scrumptillyicious.’

  Rochat sat up straight, stared at the door of the loge.

  ‘I didn’t have my lantern.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Maybe I saw him but he couldn’t see me because it was dark and I didn’t have the lantern. Maybe he wasn’t an imagination and he needed the lantern to see things in the dark.’

  ‘That’s right, and when you call the hour, he’ll see your lantern from the belfry.’

  ‘And then he can find his way to the cathedral.’

  ‘Yeah, he’ll find his way. Don’t worry.’

  thirty-five

  Harper raised his head and tried to focus.

  Dimly lit room, dirty wood floor, mirrors on the walls.

  The smell of sweat and fear.

  He wasn’t alone.

  A woman on a bed in the centre of the room. Lolling trancelike on red sheets, her naked body covered with oil. Black scarf tied over her eyes, black scarves holding her wrists to the head posts. Table next to the bed, mortar and pestle, powders, oils.

  ‘You on the bed, can you hear me?’

  She didn’t answer. She wasn’t even on the same planet.

  Muffled sounds from the other side of the room. A man on a chair, burlap sack over his head. Stripped to his boxers, arms tied to the back of the chair, his whole body trembling.

  ‘You, tied to the chair, can you hear me?’

  The man twisted, searching for Harper’s voice.

  ‘Mmm, mmm!’

  ‘Stay calm, you’re filling the sack with carbon dioxide, it’s making you panic.’

  Shreds of black mist curled through the room, washed over the hooded man on the chair. The man felt the mist on his skin, jerked frantically to shake it off. Harper called to him.

  ‘They smell your fear, don’t move.’

  Two shadows shot from the mist and smashed dense as iron into Harper’s kidneys. He cringed with pain. A voice hissed throughout the room.

  ‘Never mind the skins, killer.’

  Then a powerful hammerlike blow smashed across his face.

  ‘Aw, bloody hell!’

  Forms emerged from the shadows. A tall reed of a man and a runt of beef with whiskers on his chin. Same forms described by the lad with the lantern, same creeps Harper had seen at LP’s Bar the night Katherine Taylor disappeared.

  ‘Jings, it’s the goon squad.’

  The tall one leaned down, eyeliner and a five o’clock shadow on his face, a razor-sharp killing knife in his hands.

  ‘Watch your mouth, killer, before I stick something in it.’

  ‘All right, what the fuck am I doing here?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’

  ‘That’s why I’m asking, dickface.’

  The small one grabbed Harper by the hair.

  ‘Name-calling isn’t polite.’

  ‘Wasn’t talking to you, squirt.’

  Double kicks slammed into Harper’s stomach and ribs, air rushed from his lungs. He felt himself blacking out, his eyes searching for something to hang on to. He saw his reflection in the mirrored wall the other side of the room. On his knees, stripped to his shirt and trousers. Chained at the wrists, arms stretched out to the walls. His face battered, blood dripping from his mouth and down his shirt. The small one hissed in Harper’s face.

  ‘Want some
more, killer?’

  Harper spat blood on the floor.

  ‘Fine for now, thanks. Who are the locals?’

  ‘Them? Just a pair of skins, friends of yours, don’t you know?’

  Harper’s eyes quickly scanned the woman on the bed and the hooded man on the chair. Whole room looking blurry as hell but he could tell it wasn’t Miss Taylor or the lad. Then who the fuck? He couldn’t think through the dullness in his brain. Couldn’t be partisans, they’d already be slaughtered, their souls fed to devourers. Then who? He looked at the half-breeds, shrugged as if he didn’t give a damn.

  ‘Take me to your leader because you two goons are dumb as soap. I don’t know these people.’

  The half-breeds pounded Harper’s stomach and back with rabbit punches. He buckled over, dangling by his chains. The small one cocked back for more, his fists held in place by a disembodied voice.

  ‘That will be sufficient.’

  The half-breeds parted like the waters as down a mirrored hall and into the room came a tall and elegant form. Black suit, black shirt. Long silver hair tied to the back of his head, dark round glasses over his eyes. His scent filling the room like something heavy and persistent. He stopped before Harper, bowed slightly.

  ‘Good evening. I am Komarovsky. I’m pleased you could attend our little soirée.’

  ‘Cheers, but I think there’s been some mistake.’

  ‘That would be most inconvenient.’ His hands swept towards the hooded man and the woman on the bed. ‘As you see, some of the guests have already arrived.’

  ‘Big party, is it?’

  ‘The rest will join us presently.’

  The half-breeds hauled Harper to his feet. He looked down, saw iron shackles and chains at his ankles. And next to his bare feet, ten hypodermics on the floor. Traces of dark liquid in the hypos. No wonder your skull feels three sizes too small for your brain, Harper thought, 60ccs of dead black potion in the veins. Half-breed narcotics manipulated from dark matter, gave the fuckers an insatiable appetite for death. Cranked them with an orgasmic rush every time they killed. Made them imagine slaughter was a sacrament of nothingness. And as the potion surged through Harper’s blood, he felt the dark matter absorbing the light in his eyes. They want to flip me, they want me to become one of their kind. Harper gave his shackles and chains a shake, they chinked like a pocketful of spare change.

  ‘In that case, how could I refuse your gracious invitation?’

  ‘You are too kind.’

  Harper looked at him, trying to see through the dark lenses, only seeing himself looking back.

  ‘Sorry, what was the name again?’

  ‘Komarovsky.’

  ‘Komarovsky, Komarovsky. Nope, can’t say it rings a bell.’

  ‘Do you expect us to be seduced by this ongoing pantomime? You, of all your kind, wandering the streets of Lausanne unaware, unawakened?’

  Harper looked at the woman on the bed, the half-breeds, the hooded man on his knees, the whole stinking charnel house of a room.

  ‘You call this awake? Looks more like a bad dream.’

  Komarovsky sniffed at Harper.

  ‘But to dream you must first know the sleep of men. You do not smell of sleep, you do not smell of dreams. You smell of an eternity born of the unremembered beginning.’

  ‘Now you’ve lost me completely.’

  Komarovsky held Harper’s chin, examining his face.

  ‘Your kind never learned to completely hide the light in your eyes. It made it so easy for us to spot you in the forms of men. Have they told you your kind are all but extinguished from the face of the earth? I suppose it is a sign of their desperation that they would bring you back in such a tattered form, haunted by feelings and emotions. No, you cannot hide. I spy the eyes before me to be those of the celestial warrior the legends of men call Michael.’

  Harper felt the dead black hitting his brain hard. He tried to snap to, sort the terrain.

  ‘Let’s see. Celestial warrior, legends of men, eternity. Right, all coming back to me now. I’m one of the good guys, and you’re one of the bad guys fucking up paradise with your half-breed goons.’

  The small one hammered hard into Harper’s side, the pain tearing through his guts.

  ‘Argh!’

  Harper wobbled. Komarovsky’s hand caught him by the throat and held him upright.

  ‘How dull your eternity must be. Sworn to the will of a creator that has all but abandoned his creation. Driven only by an urge to hunt and slaughter our children, our giants among men.’

  Harper pulled his neck from Komarovsky’s grip, gagged for breath, steadied himself on his feet.

  ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but you were sworn to the same will, once upon a time, remember?’

  ‘Once upon a time was so long ago. And times change.’

  Komarovsky turned away and walked to the hooded man in the chair, petted his covered head.

  ‘Tell me, good and noble warrior, do you feel nothing as you slaughter our children?’

  Harper felt the heart of his human form pound, blood rushing hot through his veins. Don’t give in, boyo, don’t give in.

  ‘Not really, it’s a job. Clock in and slaughter as many half-breeds as you can in a day, clock out and head to the nearest pub.’

  The tall one swooped in as fast as light, slashed the killing knife across Harper’s chest.

  ‘Aw, fuck!’

  Harper dropped to the knees, looked in the mirror. Shirt cut open, blood oozing from the hairline incision in his flesh. The tall one set the serrated blade at Harper’s throat.

  ‘Sliced or diced?’

  ‘How about you shove it up your arse instead?’

  The tall one kicked Harper in the ribs, driving him forward. The chains pulling his wrists, stretching his arms to the walls.

  ‘Christ!’

  Komarovsky studied Harper’s pose.

  ‘Indeed, you look very much like the Christ. Arms extended from your sides, cherishing the exquisite pain of salvation. But even Christ, for all his perfection, knew the taste of temptation in his final moments. I remember his voice: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani … My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” He questioned, he considered his place. And as we drove the spear into his heart to finish him, and the sky turned black, the four winds raged and we were moved to tears considering the perfect balance of flesh and spirit he had discovered in the form of a carpenter’s son. He was the best of your kind. It is fitting he is worshipped as a God.’

  ‘I hate to tell you this, but the word is he didn’t die in his form. And he’ll be back, and he’s mightily pissed off.’

  ‘So goes the legend of men.’

  ‘This why you dragged me here? Pump me full of dead black potion to talk about the legends of men?’

  ‘I invited you here that you, too, may find salvation, as did the Christ.’

  Harper looked at his out-strung arms.

  ‘You’re barking up the wrong cross, Komarovsky.’

  Komarovsky smiled.

  ‘Oh, ye of little faith.’

  Harper’s blurring eyes shot to the tall one leaning against the wall, cleaning his fingernails with the tip of his knife. And the small one, picking up a rusty hacksaw from the floor, wiping it on his sleeve, circling the hooded man tied to the chair. Harper felt sensations churn in his guts. He shook his head, the dead black wasn’t just sucking the light from his eyes, it was breaking down his resistance to emotions. I feel … I feel fear. Get a grip, boyo, get a fucking grip!

  ‘Look, I’ll make it easy for you. Whatever Yuriev took from Moscow, I don’t have it, I never did. I don’t even know what the hell it is.’

  ‘Of course not. You are an errand boy for your kind and nothing more. But the sacrifice of these skins will give you the chance to achieve so much more.’

  ‘What the hell do you really want? You want information, is that it? You want the locations of our partisan cells? What the fuck do you want?’

  ‘What I rea
lly want is your salvation.’

  Komarovsky raised his hands, pointed to the corners of the ceiling, small cameras panning from side to side. Down in one corner, a laptop computer with numbers streaming down the screen. They’re watching, Harper thought, slaughter at midnight, live on Goon TV.

  ‘You’re fucking up, Komarovsky. You didn’t hack into our SX traffic, you were let in. We’re tracking your communications right now. This stunt will lead us to the rest of the Two Hundred Club and every half-breed in the world. We’ll track them, we’ll kill them.’

  ‘Che sarà, sarà.’

  Komarovsky snapped his fingers, the small one threw a switch on the wall and bright light blasted through the room, red lights on the cameras kicked on. The tall one punched a few keys on the computer, the screen switched to the room, the tall one nodding everything was online.

  ‘Nearly a billion hits already.’

  Komarovsky smiled and opened his arms to the cameras.

  ‘Good evening and welcome to another entertainment presented by the Two Hundred Club. Tonight we players engage in an act of sacrifice for the sake of salvation. Who shall be sacrificed and who shall be saved? That is the question of the ages to be played on our humble stage.’

  Harper felt the dead black potion seeping deeper into his brain, the room began to warp out of shape, panic rising again as he watched Komarovsky drift over the woman on the bed, touching her stomach. The woman stiffening with excitement, her voice breathless.

  ‘Yes, my love, I want more. Please give me more.’

  Komarovsky looked at Harper.

  ‘So beautiful in their dreams, are they not? It was hiding in the shadows and watching them sleep, watching them dream, that first enchanted us and filled us with desire. We began to whisper to them as they slept, tell them secret things. Their bodies surrendered to us and they became the vessels of our loneliness and so we were made flesh.’

  ‘Such a poetic flourish for treason.’

  Komarovsky reached between the woman’s legs.

  ‘And you, good and noble warrior? Have you never desired such treason? To touch them, to let their bodies soothe the weight of your eternity, if only once?’

  The woman arched her back, took a sharp breath as Komarovsky pushed his fingers inside her. She cried with the joy of release, then she relaxed and slid back into her murmuring and whispering place.