First and Only

by Flannery, Peter

  Steve could only stare at the farmer.

  ‘Do me a favour,’ he said. ‘Call the police and tell them to get some people round there straight away.’

  ‘Is something wrong?’ asked the farmer.

  ‘Please, just do it,’ said Steve as he kicked the bike into gear. ‘Tell them Steve Brennus told you to call.’

  And with that he took off down the track like a man possessed. Indeed he was a man possessed; possessed of new-found hope.

  ‘Hang on Psimon,’ he implored. ‘Hang on.’

  Chapter 31

  Lucifer removed the wire gag and waited to see if the witness would wake unaided. He needed to be conscious before he could confess. He looked down at the pathetic figure lying on the flagstones before the altar… the battered flesh, the broken skin, the bright blood flowing from the ghostly whiteness of his body.

  There was something of beauty in that at least.

  He went over to the font, drew some water in the great bowl of his hands and returned to stand over the witness once more.

  ‘Or don't you know,’ he whispered quietly. ‘That all who are baptised here are baptised into death?’

  The chorus approved of his words, the reference to scripture.

  Lucifer basked in the music of it as he let the water fall. It was fitting that he should rouse the witness with an act of aspersion.

  *

  Psimon gasped with the sudden shock of cold. The pain that had been dulled by stupor now assaulted him once more, streaming in wave after wave from his ravaged nerves. Through swollen eyes he looked up into the face of death as the killer reached down towards him.

  *

  Lucifer took the witness by his arms and lifted him to his knees. The weakling was too feeble to bear his weight at first but Lucifer took a fistful of his sodden hair and held him up until he found his strength. Then he nodded and went to bring the bucket and the aspergillum.

  *

  Psimon could not stop shaking, shaking from the cold and the pain but more so from the fear. He knew what was coming next. With desperate eyes he watched the killer, he could not look away. The killer, in his altar clothes, his filthy bloodstained altar clothes, a mockery of service to the church. He watched him and he could not look away. And when the killer turned, the silver bucket and the holy water sprinkler in his hand, Psimon began to weep.

  How many times had he felt this before? How many times had he screamed his confession before the acid fell? Screamed it and meant it and believed that he had sinned, and prayed that he would be believed, that he might be spared the pain.

  But now that he was here he wept. He wept because he knew he could not do it. He could not willingly confess, he could not lie; not in the face of such abhorrent lies. He could not give them credence. He would not; not while any strength of will remained.

  God give him strength, he wished he could.

  But he could not.

  *

  Lucifer returned to stand before the witness, and when he spoke it seemed to be in answer to some unheard question.

  ‘With the sin of heresy,’ he said. ‘And with questioning the authority of those in dominion…’

  He dipped the aspergillum and raised it to one side, the vitriolic fluid falling on the stone and burning it away.

  ‘He has dismissed the sublime rapture of the chorus, and must confess…’

  Lucifer looked down at the witness. And the witness met his gaze.

  The arrogance remained; there was defiance in him yet. But Lucifer watched as it melted away, running in rivulets from his eyes.

  ‘You will learn humility and you will die,’ thought Lucifer as he cleared his mind to pray.

  ‘Do you confess to those in dominion?’ he began.

  ‘And to these my brothers and sisters,

  ‘That you have sinned,

  ‘In your thoughts and in your words,

  ‘In what you have done and in what you have failed to do?

  ‘And do you ask the blessed chorus, ever present,

  ‘And all the angels and saints,

  ‘And these my brothers and sisters,

  ‘To pray for you to those in dominion.

  ‘That the almighty might have mercy on you,

  ‘Forgive you your sins,

  ‘And bring you to everlasting truth.

  ‘Amen.’

  The tears flooded down Psimon’s face and every fibre of his being screamed at him to confess; to do whatever it took to escape the pain. But man is more than fibre and he found that he could not. He drew a ragged, sobbing breath and…

  ‘No, he softly said.

  The killer frowned and let the cleansing vial fall.

  Psimon screamed a sinew-snapping scream, a scream to shred his lungs. The splashes of acid ate away his skin, devoured his flesh and fizzed against his bones. Burning worse than any fire. Pain enough to drive one mad. He collapsed onto his side writhing and thrashing in agony.

  ‘YES!’ he screamed. ‘YES! I CONFESS!’

  Lucifer smiled.

  The cleansing had begun.

  *

  Steve did not take the farmer’s advice. He did not go up to the roundabout. He crossed straight over to the other side of the road hugging the verge as he sped the wrong way down the inside lane of the dual carriageway.

  Coming from this direction he was not sure which the ‘third turning on the left’ would be, so he looked instead for an entrance with a ‘big pylon’ beside it. And there it was, just a few hundred metres ahead, a big electricity pylon beside yet another private road.

  Steve turned into the drive, skidding and bouncing along the poorly maintained driveway. The Kawasaki was not suited to such terrain and he had to fight to keep it upright, finally a deep pothole proved too much and the bike slid out from under him. He was sent sprawling across the road but he scrambled up immediately running back to the bike and heaving it upright. He made several attempts to get it started but the engine would not bite.

  ‘Shit!’ thought Steve, letting the bike fall back down.

  In the darkness ahead he could make out the shape of buildings. Better just to run.

  *

  The witness lay moaning in his own filth, his head resting on the flagstones, blood and drool hanging from his mouth and nose.

  Lucifer was disgusted.

  There was no defiance now, no vanity of self. The witness was broken. A witless corpse too lost in pain to know that it was dead. There remained just one thing left to do, to shroud the witness in his funeral garb and to take from him the breath of life, the breath that had given voice to his lies.

  Lucifer went and brought a shroud but when the witness saw it he found the strength to recoil in a final gesture of horror. His eyes stared and he squirmed away like something that lived in the earth. But Lucifer took a step and knelt beside him and placed the shroud over his head pulling it down the length of his body until he was enclosed.

  *

  Steve slowed as he approached the buildings. There were no lights on in the house, no sign of life at all, and no sign of the black Mercedes van.

  Could he have got it wrong?

  Could there be more than one house with a large pylon standing beside the drive?

  ‘Please, God,’ he thought. ‘Please, God.’

  He padded into the yard, house to the left, a large barn straight ahead and several stone-built outhouses to the right. This had once been a working farm.

  Steve looked around.

  But for the light of a gibbous moon it would have been too dark to see. He approached the barn but it was locked. He tried to peer in through cracks in the side but the moon’s light did not extend that far. The sense of despair returned as the fear that he might be at the wrong place took hold.

  ‘This has to be the place,’ he told himself. ‘It has to be.’

  He started towards the house. But just as he turned away from the barn something caught his attention. The trees surrounding the outhouses seemed to be faintly illu
minated by something other than the pale light of the moon. There was another source of light.

  Steve started towards the stone buildings to the right. Two of them were simple sheds but one of them looked like an old grain store, a large circular building built from undressed stone. Something in Steve’s memory pricked up at this; something that Psimon had said, something about an old stone church with circular walls. Steve’s heart rate quickened as he approached the peculiar old building. And when he reached the arched wooden door he knew.

  There was a large black cross in the door and a thin crack of light at its base.

  Someone was inside.

  In the pallid gloom Steve looked to see if there was a lock. There was but he could see, by the way the door was lying, that the lock was not engaged. Steve put his eye to the keyhole… church pews in candlelight, an altar, and wait… someone crouching down before it, a priest or an altar boy dressed in a black robe and filthy white surcoat. But this was no priest or servant of the church. The figure stood and in so doing revealed itself in all its size. Few men cut such a form at such a scale.

  Steve had found the killer but was Psimon still alive?

  *

  Psimon was utterly helpless. Panic fluttered in his mind like the wings of a trapped bird, while his heart beat out the meter of his death.

  ‘No,’ he thought. ‘Not yet… you can’t. Please no…’

  But he had no breath for words, only breath for fear; fear in panting gasps that drew the plastic against his face and blew it away in a transparent misty veil.

  *

  Lucifer stood up from the witness and went to get the hose. He bent to make sure that one end was properly attached to the pump then he grabbed the other and took a plastic tie to secure the shroud.

  He did not hear the tiny click of iron as a latch was raised with utmost care.

  He returned to the witness and pushed the hose up into the shroud.

  He did not hear the slow scrape of wood on stone or the faint complaint of a rusty hinge.

  He gathered the shroud together around the witness’s ankles and secured it with the plastic tie.

  He did not hear the stealthy footfalls on the flagstones of the chapel.

  But when he stood he felt the movement in the air.

  And when he turned he saw the angel standing there.

  *

  Steve froze as the killer’s eyes fell upon him. But he did not shrink in fear. He met the malice in those dead black eyes and when he spoke his voice was calm and steady and weighted with the promise of violence.

  ‘Where is he?’ Steve demanded.

  By way of an answer the killer looked down at his feet, and when he looked up he raised his arms as if to say ‘behold’.

  Steve looked down to the shape lying at the killer’s feet; a large, clear polythene bag with something pale inside. At first he did not see it for what it was but then, feeling suddenly sick, he did.

  ‘Psimon!’ he cried, taking an involuntary step forwards down the aisle.

  The killer stepped over Psimon’s body, coming to stand protectively before his prize.

  Steve’s eyes flicked from the killer to the obscene shape of Psimon’s naked body in the bag.

  ‘He’s dead…Oh, God he’s dead!’

  But then the bag moved and Steve heard a quiet, pitiful moan.

  ‘Alive!’ Thought Steve, the relief sweeping through his mind. ‘He’s alive.’

  But for how long?

  The bag was tied around his ankles and Steve knew that he could not survive for long on the air that remained inside the bag. He had to get him out and quick. But first he had to get past the killer.

  Steve looked up at the killer and saw his eyes shift to the side of the chapel, to what looked like a small generator or pump. There was a black hose connected to the pump and Steve’s eyes followed it as it snaked across the floor. The other end had been pushed between Psimon’s feet up into the bag. Steve frowned at the killer’s depravity then looked up at him once more.

  For a second the two men held each other’s gaze and then, as if at some unspoken command, they started towards each other. Steve moved in slow measured steps, while the killer came on more quickly enraged that the angel was here in this most sacred place.

  Steve let him come, this mountain of a man. And when he reached for him Steve moved with lightening speed. He caught the killer’s arm, took a handful of his dirty robes and swivelled at the waist, using the killer’s own momentum as he threw him over his hip. The killer’s feet crashed into the wooden pews as Steve slammed him down against the hard stone floor. With his left hand he kept hold of the killer’s robes holding him down while he punched him in the face. It was like punching a boulder but he did it again and again, searching for that perfect blow that would do some real damage. But the killer was not so easily subdued. He let out an animal growl and grabbed hold of Steve’s clothes and Steve witnessed his terrible strength as he was hurled aside.

  The killer came quickly to his feet but Steve was quicker. Before the killer had risen fully to his feet Steve launched a scissor-kick and rammed his heel into the killer’s jaw. The hefty kick rocked the killer and he swayed on one knee, unable to stand. Steve closed quickly, broke his nose with a solid punch, then hammered his elbow into the killer’s face. The killer’s arms reached out blindly for Steve, blood pouring from his nose, his mouth and a cut above his eye, then his eyes rolled back and he collapsed heavily to one side.

  Steve raced to Psimon’s side.

  ‘Not too late!’ he prayed. ‘Please, not too late!’

  He knelt down beside his friend and paused for just an instant at the awful sight. Psimon’s body was covered in blood and bruises, his face misshapen, his eyes flickering as the air in the bag turned bad, poisoned by his own exhalations. Steve went to his ankles, tried to break the plastic tie and tug the plastic free. He could do neither. He grabbed the bag near Psimon’s face and tried to tear it with his hands but it was industrial strength polythene and simply would not tear. He pulled out the hose and tugged at the bag, drawing air through the narrow gaps at Psimon’s ankles and he saw Psimon gulping down a breath as the small amount of air in the bag was replenished.

  ‘Hang on, Psimon,’ he said. ‘Hang on. I’ll get you out of there.’

  Steve looked round for something to cut or tear the heavy plastic.

  He did not see the warning look in Psimon’s eyes.

  He did not see the vast shape of a man rising from the chapel floor.

  Steve put his teeth to the polythene but still it proved too strong. Then…

  ‘Car keys,’ he thought.

  He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out his keys. He had just managed to single out the sharp metal rod of the car key when the killer fell upon him.

  Steve felt like he had been hit by a falling tree as the killer brought a massive fist down across his back. He collapsed onto the floor beside Psimon, winded and dazed. Then he was lifted from the stone as the killer kicked him in the side. The kick cracked several of Steve’s ribs and he groaned with the pain as he got up on his hands and knees. Then the killer strode up next to him and kicked Steve in the face sending him flailing back against the altar.

  Stars and black blotches swam in Steve’s vision as he clawed at the great marble altar trying in vain to stand but the killer came up behind him and punched him in the small of his back then hammered a massive fist down at the base of Steve’s neck.

  This would have been enough to finish most men but Steve Brennus was not ‘most men’ and he tried again to stand. With a sneer of disdain the killer reached down and took hold of the smaller man. He hooked one of Steve’s arms in the crook of his elbow and placed his huge hands behind Steve’s head, then he began to squeeze.

  Steve grunted as the killer lifted him from the floor. His left arm was pinned and he thought his neck would break with the force of the killer’s hold. He flailed about with his free arm but there was no way of reaching back at the
killer. Then, looking down, he saw a small push-knife on the altar. The knife was out of reach but not so a large brass candlestick. As his breathing grew ever more constrained Steve reached out and grabbed hold of the candlestick. The thick candle fell away and Steve used the empty stick to try and reach the knife. He got the lip of the candlestick behind it and drew it closer, and closer yet but just as he was about to pull it within reach the killer jerked him up. The knife was sent clattering away to the foot of the altar.

  Rage and frustration surged through Steve and with a final effort he lifted his feet, placed them against the altar, and shoved with all his might. The killer stumbled back, taking Steve with him. He lost his footing on the small step at the base of the altar and the two men came crashing down into the pews at the front of the chapel.

  The corner of a pew caught Steve squarely on the temple and knocked him out cold.

  *

  Lucifer rose unsteadily to his feet. He wiped the blood from his shattered nose and looked down at the body of the angel. He was not dead but he soon would be.

  They both would.

  The angel and the witness.

  Lucifer spat a bloody mouthful across his fallen adversary. He bent down over the witness and pushed the hose back into the bag. Then walked somewhat drunkenly to the side of the church. He lifted the thick brass crosier from the stand and moved along to the pump. It was time to take back the breath of life from the witness.

  Mindful of the ceremony that was not yet concluded Lucifer offered up the briefest of prayers before he flicked the switch.

  *

  Steve tried to blink his vision into focus. Psimon lay before him; the polythene bag misted with condensation. He was still alive, just. As if in a dream Steve raised himself up and crawled towards Psimon fumbling at the polythene, trying to work a few more mouthfuls of breathable air into the bag. His senses were dulled, his mind foggy with concussion but when Steve saw the push-knife, lying not three feet away, his body found the strength to make a final lunge.

  Steve’s fist closed on the handle of the knife and he settled it in his palm. But when he turned back to look at Psimon he was horrified to see the polythene bag shrinking in against him, the slick material drawing tight around his body as all the air was sucked from it.