The Watchers

by Jon Steele

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look behind you, you big stupid!’

  Komarovsky turned, saw Harper stumbling from the turret, spearlike rod in his hands, letting out a scream …

  ‘Rhhhaaahhh!’

  … and ramming it into the back of the small one’s neck. The goon dropped his knife, let go of Katherine. His quivering hands clawing at the tip of the bloody rod poking from his throat. His silent squeal twisting his face into a grotesque grin. He fell to the flagstones forever dead.

  Harper reached for the small one’s killing knife but a butchering pain brought him crashing down. Katherine crawled next to him, pressed her hands over the holes in his chest and back. Red blood seeped through her fingers.

  ‘Harper, Jesus!’

  Komarovsky kicked Rochat aside and flew across the balcony and pushed Katherine away. He loomed over Harper.

  ‘Once more unto the breach, dear brother?’

  Harper raised his head, smiled through bloodied teeth.

  ‘Sure, brother. Too bad you’ve run out of goons.’

  ‘Oh, ye of little faith.’

  Komarovsky stomped on Harper’s shoulders, drove Harper’s head to the flagstones. He couldn’t move. He watched Komarovsky wave his hand and draw the tall one from the flagstones like a half-dead thing. A stringy mass of mangled tissue hung from the half-breed’s right wrist. Komarovsky pointed to Katherine and Rochat.

  ‘Set them alight! Let their burning flesh be the flame of destruction!’

  The tall one stumbled to the carpentry, wiped his mangled hand against the timbers to absorb the fire potion. He stood over Marc and Katherine, squeezed the sticky goo over their heads and faces. He pulled a cigarette lighter from his pocket and opened the flame. He hoisted them to their feet and back to the balcony railings.

  Komarovsky hauled Harper to his knees, forced his eyes to the sky.

  ‘Look out there, good and noble warrior. Look what awaits all the souls of the world if you do not give me the lantern. You are finished. Will it be your last act to condemn the world to perpetual darkness?’

  Harper tried to focus.

  The swirling mass of dark matter and shadows, ready to infect the world with mass death. Then a small shaft of light cutting through the liquid sky … time wake shifting … a flash of light from across Pont Bessières … line of sight to the belfry … he felt something under his ankles, a killing knife … bloody hell, hold on … Harper looked at Komarovsky.

  ‘No, don’t do it, please.’

  ‘Surrender the lantern.’

  ‘All right, all right.’ He nodded to Rochat and Katherine. ‘You’ll kill them, I know it. But I want their souls to have safe passage to the next life. I give them comfort before. Do that and you can have your bloody kingdom on earth.’

  ‘And you will kneel at my feet and worship me as the new creator of paradise?’

  ‘Anything. Just let their souls go in peace, I beg you.’

  Komarovsky smiled.

  ‘Thy will be done.’

  Rochat was watching them, reading their lips. He yelled through the roar of the bells.

  ‘Non, monsieur!’

  Harper shook his head.

  ‘It’s over, mate!’

  ‘He’ll hurt the cathedral, he will!’

  ‘I can’t fight any more. Too weak. Save the two of you, all I can do. Hold Miss Taylor. Listen … my voice. My eyes … look.’

  Rochat watched Harper’s eyes point to the killing knife poking from his ankles.

  ‘I understand, monsieur.’

  ‘Hold her. Don’t let go of her.’

  Rochat put his arms around Katherine. She quivered with fear.

  ‘Harper?’

  Harper drew a ragged breath.

  ‘It’s going to be all right, Miss Taylor, just look in my eyes, listen to my voice.’

  Komarovsky yanked back Harper’s head.

  ‘The lantern first. Where is it?’

  Harper nodded to the turret.

  ‘On the belfry roof … in the spire. Behind a small door on the south side.’

  Komarovsky looked to the tall one.

  ‘Kill them and throw their souls to the devourers.’

  Harper screamed:

  ‘No, you said I could give them comfort!’

  ‘Evil is as evil does, brother.’

  Harper smiled …

  ‘That it fucking is, brother.’

  … and shoved his weight back into Komarovsky, kicked the killing knife to Rochat.

  ‘Get her down, mate!’

  Rochat grabbed Katherine and pulled her to the flagstones. He grabbed the knife and stabbed the tall one’s foot. The tall one barely shrieked before his head exploded in a spray of blood and brains, the burning lighter tumbling from his dead hand. Rochat sprang and whacked it with the killing knife and knocked it from the belfry.

  ‘Goawaybadthinggoaway!’

  Komarovsky ducked into an archway. He looked out through the cracking-open sky. Across the bridge, open window of a top-floor flat above Rue Caroline. A sniper with a high-powered rifle braced across the sill. Cop in a cashmere coat next to him, binoculars at his face. Harper chuckled through the blood gathering in his throat.

  ‘Go ahead, brother, take a fucking bow. Your kingdom awaits.’

  ‘And it shall be the kingdom of darkness! Watch as I put an end to this cursed paradise, once and for all!’

  He kicked Harper hard in the head, sent him skidding across the balcony to Katherine. She grabbed Harper’s hand, he didn’t move.

  ‘Harper! Harper!’

  Komarovsky turned towards Rochat and screamed through the bells.

  ‘And you, you crippled fool! The world will never again hear the song of the bells!’

  Rochat saw Komarovsky transmigrating into shadow, drifting away.

  ‘Non, I won’t let you!’

  He rushed after Komarovsky with the killing knife, jumped at him and drove the blade into his back. Komarovsky shrieked, the dark glasses flew from his face. He spun around, his form becoming whole again. Rochat looked into Komarovsky’s silver eyes.

  ‘I know you. You’re the bad shadow from my nightmares. I imagined you killed Maman, I couldn’t stop you.’

  Komarovsky flew across the balcony, slammed Rochat into the timbers.

  ‘Hear the truth before you die, fool. Once upon a time a shadow crawled in your mother’s womb as she slept. It was me who poisoned her with agony potions trapping the eternity of her being in a dying form. And it was me who wrapped the umbilical cord around your neck and pulled. I made you the crippled fool you are, to be abandoned by your mother.’

  ‘Non! You’re lying! Maman died!’

  ‘It was an empty box they put in the ground. She tried to hide to protect you, but I found her. And after the longest night of pain – oh, how she cried your name – I dined on her whoring flesh.’

  ‘Non, Maman was an angel, the detectiveman told me! And he said I’m the same as him too! That means if he can kill you, I can kill you!’

  ‘You want to kill?’ Komarovsky pulled his knife from his belt and rammed the blade deep into Rochat’s stomach. ‘This is how you kill.’

  Rochat shuddered as the steel twisted through his guts. He turned his head, his eyes watching Marie-Madeleine swing from side to side, feeling her voice vibrate through the timbers and into his body.

  ‘Don’t cry, madame, it’s my duty.’

  Komarovsky ripped the knife from Rochat’s guts.

  ‘Uhhh!’

  Rochat collapsed to the flagstones. Komarovsky slowly raised the knife over Rochat’s neck for the death cut.

  ‘I bring you forever death!’

  In the longest second of betweentimes, Rochat saw Katherine and the dying detectiveman next to her. Her arms reaching for him, her voice crying, ‘Marc!’

  ‘Be not afraid.’

  He pushed down on his crooked legs and burst up from the floor and smashed his fists into Komarovsky’s throat. Forcing those silv
er and unbelieving eyes over the railings and into the sky.

  And when he pushed the bad shadow away, he opened his arms like perfect wings. For a moment he was flying. Higher than the lake, higher than the mountains on the far shore, higher than all the world. And when he began to fall he saw the belfry of the cathedral against a clearing sky. He saw the woman he imagined to be a lost angel reaching for him still and he heard the seven bells calling out over Lausanne.

  ‘All is well, Rochat, all is …’

  ‘Marc, no! Marc!’

  Harper opened his bloodied eyes. He watched Katherine sink to the flagstones as the bells slowed and quieted. The final chord hovering in the sky like something crying. He looked to the sky. The shadows of the devourers were gone. The time wake shifted again and evening stars were coming to light over the lake. He pulled himself up, sat against a pillar and looked down through the balcony railings.

  Komarovsky was splayed on a long spire beneath the belfry tower as if run through by a brave knight’s lance, his entrails like bloody strings snapping in the wind. And out on the esplanade Harper saw the lad. On his back, arms to his sides, fingers of his right hand almost touching a floppy black hat nearby. Harper saw the lad looking up to the tower still. He saw a flicker of light in the lad’s eyes.

  ‘Miss … Tay … Miss Taylor.’

  Katherine raised her face, her eyes flooded with disbelieving tears.

  ‘Tell me he isn’t dead, Harper, tell me he’s coming back, please.’

  ‘Have to hurry …’

  ‘Tell me he’s coming back.’

  ‘Listen … before sound fades.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My eyes … too weak. Lantern … in loge … under bed.’

  ‘Lantern, Marc’s lantern?’

  ‘Get it.’

  ‘But you said it’s on the roof.’

  Smiling, blood dripping from his lips.

  ‘We lied … Second lantern in case they got away … lad’s idea.’

  She heard gurgling sounds in Harper’s throat.

  ‘Jesus, I’m going to get help.’

  ‘Lad … needs to see fire … my eyes, too weak.’

  Katherine wiped blood from his lips.

  ‘Harper, you need a fucking doctor.’

  He grabbed her hand, squeezed with a failing grip.

  ‘Needs to see the fire … find his way.’

  ‘Find his way? Where?’

  ‘Where he belongs.’

  ‘The cathedral? To the cathedral?’

  ‘Can’t explain … a billion years … one of those things.’

  ‘OK, Harper. Hang on, please hang on.’

  Katherine ran to the loge and rushed to the bed. She pulled open the cabinet doors underneath and found the lantern. The most beautiful and delicate flame fluttering on a half-melted candle. She carefully removed the lantern, hurried back to Harper.

  ‘OK, I got it. What do I do?’

  Harper drew a shallow breath.

  ‘Needs to see light, hear words.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Words … the lad’s words. C’est le guet … You know the rest.’

  ‘Yes, I know the words but …’

  Harper shook with spasms, coughed up blood and water. Katherine wiped his face with her jumper.

  ‘Jesus, Harper, you’re dying.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter, the lad needs you … Call his name, say words … Needs to see light … before it’s too late.’

  Katherine rushed to the south balcony, saw Rochat down on the esplanade. She fell to her knees and held the lantern out through the balcony railings.

  ‘Marc, Marc Rochat! C’est le guet, Marc! Il a sonné l’heure! Can you hear me? C’est le guet! Il a sonné l’heure, il a sonné l’heure!’

  The flame in the lantern began to swell, growing brighter and brighter, burning Katherine’s eyes.

  ‘Do you see it, Marc, can you see me? It’s Katherine, I’m with you … C’est le guet! Il a sonné l’heure!’

  Streams of brilliant light shot from the lantern and into the sky and burst into thousands of diamond-like sparks, burning bright and fluttering down towards the crooked form in the long black overcoat far below. The sparks touched him, then disappeared. The diamond-like light in the lantern faded into a delicate flame.

  ‘No, not yet. Oh, make it come back. Please, God, make it come back. C’est le guet! C’est le guet, please!’ She began to sink under the weight of tears, still holding the lantern through the railings. ‘Please, don’t go! C’est le guet, Marc!’

  Something took hold of her.

  She surrendered to gentle hands, watched them take the lantern from her, heard a kind voice.

  ‘It’s all right, Miss Taylor, he’ll be all right now.’

  She turned to a large man in a cashmere coat, saw more men running from the tower steps on to the balcony, rushing to Harper.

  ‘No, please, I have to help him, please. Marc has to find his way to the cathedral.’

  ‘It’s all right, Miss Taylor, you comforted him before he died. He saw the fire, he heard the words, he knew it was you.’

  She looked into the man’s face. She saw the softest light in his green eyes.

  ‘He did?’

  ‘Yes, he’s where he belongs now.’

  A young blonde woman knelt down, rolled up Katherine’s sleeve, tied off her arm with rubber tubing.

  ‘This is Officer Jannsen, Miss Taylor, she’s going to give you a sleeping potion.’

  The blonde woman pushed a needle into Katherine’s vein. Katherine felt something kind and warm as light, she heard the man in the cashmere coat whisper, ‘“Dulcis et alta quies placidaeque similima morti.”’ And as Katherine slipped deeper into the kindness, she saw the men around Harper stuffing bandages in his wounds and needles in his arms, connecting him to bags of fluids. The man in the cashmere coat holding the lantern over Harper’s eyes, his voice calling softly.

  ‘Look into my eyes, Mr Harper, listen to my voice. C’est le guet. Il a sonné l’heure, il a sonné l’heure.’

  Katherine tried to reach for him.

  ‘Harper’s dying … they’re all dying.’

  She felt something soft brush against her hands.

  She looked down, saw Monsieur Booty curling into a ball on her lap. The frightened beast looking up to her with sad-hearted eyes. She brought him close to her breasts.

  ‘It’s OK, Monsieur Booty. Marc’s safe now, he found his way. He’s in the cathedral with all the lost angels.’

  Mew.

  of a saturday evening three months later

  It hurt like hell but he did it anyway. Bracing his legs against the low stone wall, pulling his mackintosh over the sling on his left arm and leaning down to the stream of clear water pouring from the iron spout. He drank deep, straightened up, wiped dribble from his lips.

  A dark blue Merc coming up Rue Curtat and on to the esplanade as five bells rang from the belfry. Harper watched it circle beneath the façade of the cathedral and stop where he stood at the fountain under the trees. Sergeant Gauer emerged from the driver’s seat, circled the rear of the car and opened the passenger door. The cop in the cashmere coat stepped out.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Harper. Thank you for being prompt.’

  Harper looked down at his arm in the sling, saw the beat-up watch on his wrist ticking its way to five minutes before the hour, on the nose.

  ‘Inspector.’

  He leaned down for another drink.

  ‘I would’ve thought you’d had your fill of that water in hospital. You had poor Sergeant Gauer here running back and forth from the hospital like a pizza delivery man.’

  ‘Needed my ten glasses a day, Inspector.’

  ‘Yes, and very healthy it is. But you shouldn’t shy away from the canton’s wines. Our vineyards draw from the same underground source, you know. Mixes with the light in the grapes, very good for what ails you. Care for a stroll to the embankment, if it’s not too taxing?’
>
  Harper recced the fifteen steps to the view of Lac Léman, Lausanne, the snow-covered mountains above Évian.

  ‘Sure.’

  The Inspector walked slowly, Harper hobbled along with a cane in his right hand.

  ‘Good to see you up and about, Mr Harper. How are you feeling?’

  Harper raised his sling.

  ‘Like I’ve had my wings clipped.’

  ‘Very amusing. You did give us quite the scare, thought we’d lost you for ever that time.’

  They reached the embankment wall. Tin-throated bells from Place de la Palud rang the half-hour. The Inspector pulled out his cigarette case, offered Harper one of his gold-tipped smokes.

  ‘Care for one?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Are you quite sure?’

  ‘I’m well awake, Inspector.’

  ‘Happy to hear it. Though one should remember a dose of radiance now and then does help ease the weight of eternity.’

  ‘So the medics in Vevey keep telling me.’

  The Inspector lit up, took in the view.

  ‘Nice evening. A few more days like this and the chestnut trees will flower.’

  Harper looked at the branches of the trees, the tiny green pods on the smallest twigs. Then his eyes focused through the trees to the belfry of Lausanne Cathedral high overhead. He took a deep breath, it hurt. He dropped his eyes to the Swiss copper guarding the Inspector’s Merc.

  ‘I suppose I should thank Sergeant Gauer for that cracking head shot.’

  ‘Not at all. He was quite keen to test our new long-range rifle. He’s very pleased with the results. Says he had another hundred yards to spare. I must say, Mr Harper, you did leave quite the mess behind in the cathedral.’

  Harper gave the place a quick once-over. Looked like the same tumble-down pile of limestone rocks it always was, with new scaffolding on the walls.

  ‘Doesn’t appear the worse for wear.’

  ‘No, but it was a scramble. We managed to stabilize the time warp long enough to fix things up before the locals became too suspicious. The doors are battered and don’t quite fit properly, but I think it adds to the charm of the place. Other than that, new leaded glass in windows, rose window back together again, new chairs in the nave, skeletons tucked in their graves. Everything in its proper place.’