Stolen Souls

by Stuart Neville

  Back when he was Edwin Paynter, he had worked hard on not being seen. He had often enjoyed following people, observing them from only a few feet away, while they were oblivious to his interest in them. Particularly women. He had taken tremendous pleasure in stalking young mothers as they toured the aisles of supermarkets, unaware that he followed their every move. Now and then the woman would pause, bring her fingers to the back of her neck, as if trying to brush away some irritant, and he would have to suppress a giggle.

  Once, he had tailed a woman in a business suit from the first aisle, all the way through the store, to the checkout, and out to her car. It had been one of those new Volkswagen Beetles. Many things crossed his mind when he realized she and he were alone in that corner of the car park. A dozen impulses fought for release as he watched her pack away her shopping, none stronger than the urge to save her, show her the way of the Lord. But his higher mind, the part that concerned itself with his own preservation, reminded him that if he acted in such a rash manner, all would be lost.

  That woman had no idea how thin a wall stood between her and the beast he held caged in his heart. Had he not been so strong, she would have felt the blessing of its rage.

  These people, he thought later that night, these aimless animals, they don’t know what watches them from the dark corners of their world. They only live because I, and the Lord I serve, allow it.

  He had taken three by that time, but they had been messy, risky enterprises. The second had been better than the first, and the third better yet, but the spell in prison had taught him to restrain himself until he could carry out his work with the skill it demanded. Then the Lord had guided him to this city, and to this house, and he knew then that he could begin his journey.

  But that was all over now.

  The big man was no burglar. He had not chosen this house at random. And if the big man had sought this place out, then there would be others.

  In the time it took for a window to shatter, Billy Crawford ceased to be. Edwin Paynter was reborn. And Edwin Paynter had prepared for a time such as this. A time when he would have to run.

  But first, the big man.

  And the girl.

  He switched the screwdriver from his left hand to his right and raised his fingertips to the light switch.

  58

  HERKUS STRUGGLED TO comprehend what he saw. It was the whore, all right, exactly as Darius had described her, and almost the woman in the passport photo the cop had shown him. But she was bruised and cut, as if she’d been kicked from here to Ukraine and back again. Blood caked her clothes. A towel had been rammed into her mouth, and her feet sat in a bowl of bloody water. Cable ties bound her hands to the chair, and a toothbrush and a pair of wire cutters lay on the floor by the bowl.

  And in spite of it all, he had never seen a girl look so joyous. God help her, did she think he had come to rescue her? He almost laughed, but closed his mouth tight lest anyone else hear. Who had done this to her? The man Rasa had drawn? If so, he was clearly sick in the head.

  And probably still in this house.

  Herkus considered his best course of action. The priorities were straightforward: Arturas wanted the whore dead, and he would want proof of such. The simplest option would be to use the Glock to put a bullet in her head and then take a picture with his phone to show to the boss.

  Simple was always best. Herkus did not believe in complicating matters unnecessarily. He drew the Glock from his waistband, chambered a round, and pressed the muzzle to her forehead.

  He had a second to watch the hope and joy in the whore’s eyes die away before the light went out and darkness fell upon him.

  59

  LENNON RECOGNIZED THE Mercedes as he pulled up behind it. He climbed out of his Audi and walked a circle around the Merc. Footprints led to and from its driver’s door, leaving a trail that ran around the side of the house.

  “Shit,” he said, leaving a puff of mist to hang in the air.

  The snow had stopped, but the cold bit harder and deeper than it had all day. He turned in a circle. How could a house in the city feel so isolated? What lay inside? What was Strazdas’s thug doing here?

  Lennon had no intention of going into this place alone. He grabbed his mobile from his pocket and called the duty officer at the station.

  “Have you got a car available near Cavehill Road?” he asked. “I’ve got a suspected break in, but I don’t fancy tackling this by myself.”

  “Most patrols are in the city center,” the duty officer said. “Keeping tabs on the drinkers. Shouldn’t be too busy yet, though. You want me to send one your way?”

  “Yes,” Lennon said, and gave him the address. “I’ll sit tight until—”

  The icy quiet shattered with a gunshot from inside the house, the echoes of it deadened by the snow that shrouded everything. Dogs barked their alarm in the surrounding streets.

  “Shot fired,” Lennon said. “Get that car here now. Tell them I’m in trouble.”

  60

  HERKUS HAD HIT the concrete floor hard, the air knocked from his lungs. He had tried to roll away, but the weight settled on his chest, depriving him of air. The Glock almost slipped from his fingers, but he tightened his grip, brought it up, squeezed the trigger blind.

  The muzzle flashed on a round moon face, its teeth bared, its eyes wide. Then the weight was gone and he could breathe again.

  He scrambled backward until he hit a wall. A high whine and a sensation of pressure in his ears disoriented him. His mind scrambled to piece together his surroundings from the fragments he’d noticed as he entered and found the whore. The madman’s hearing would be as dulled as his own, but he would be more familiar with the layout of the cellar.

  Herkus felt something as close to panic as he’d ever experienced. Should he move? Stay still? He swallowed hard to clear some of the pressure in his ears.

  He could tell the madman he only wanted the whore, that he’d take her and be on his way, and no harm need come to him. But how to reason with madness?

  Through the whine, he heard the whore’s choked breathing. It sounded close to the floor. Had she fallen?

  Herkus commanded himself to think, forced his mind to find some sort of order. True, the madman had the advantage of knowing his own dark cellar, but Herkus was armed. If the madman wanted Herkus, he would have to come to him.

  He crawled toward the sound, feeling the rough floor ahead, until he touched the whore’s soft skin. Exploring with his fingertips, he found her cheek, her nose, the rag forced into her mouth. His free hand gripped her throat while the other pressed the pistol’s muzzle to her temple.

  “You want the whore?” he demanded of the darkness. “You want me? You come.”

  He grabbed the chair back and dragged it away from the center of the room. She kicked and mewled as he hauled her across the floor. He stopped when he felt the cold hardness against his back once more.

  “You come,” he said.

  “No,” a small voice said.

  Herkus spun to his right, aimed the Glock in the direction of the word.

  “How did you find me?” the voice asked, now to the left.

  Herkus re-aimed, squeezed the trigger. The flash illuminated the madman watching from the opposite corner. Herkus swung the Glock in that direction, fired again into the darkness, the second flash showing nothing but empty air.

  The whore screamed, the sound muted by the rag in her mouth and the new layer of interference in Herkus’s hearing. He shook his head, swallowed, tried to shake the whistling away.

  “That gun is very loud,” the madman said, his accent odd to Herkus’s hearing, not like the other people from this city. “It hurts my ears. Don’t shoot it again or I’ll do something bad to you. How did you find me?”

  “I only come for the whore,” Herkus said.

  “She’s mine,” the madman said.

  “No,” Herkus said. “You steal her.”

  “The Lord delivered her to me.”

  H
erkus laughed. “My boss buy her. Aleksander deliver her. She not yours. She is ours.”

  “Do you doubt me?”

  The voice so close, Herkus swiped the Glock through the air, sure it would make contact with the madman’s head. It found nothing.

  Herkus blinked. His eyes began to distinguish shapes in the black, but none of them the form of a man. He returned his free hand to the whore’s throat and squeezed until she gagged.

  “I’ll kill her,” he said.

  “That would be a waste,” the madman said. “But if you must. There’ll be another. There’s always another. People like you bring them here to sell. No one knows who they are. They can’t be traced. If one of them disappears, who’ll report them missing? So the Lord brings them to me.”

  “You’re crazy,” Herkus said.

  “It might appear that way. But you’re wrong.”

  “You’re not crazy? Then listen to me. This whore belong to a bad man. She killed his brother. Now he want her dead. I take her away, it’s over. I don’t, this bad man, he come for you. Understand?”

  The madman laughed. “You can’t scare me. Don’t you see? I have the Lord Jesus Christ on my side. If an enemy comes to do me harm, He will strike them down.”

  “No,” Herkus said. “Jesus will not help you. He won’t strike my boss down.”

  “Yes He will,” the madman said. “Like this.”

  Something punched Herkus hard in his side, below his ribs, then a weight fell on him. He tried to bring the Glock around to fire at whatever was pushing him to the ground, but the gun was so heavy, his fingers unable to hold it any more. It clattered on the concrete.

  He smelled sour milk, felt a warmth spread across his abdomen.

  “Like this,” the madman said.

  The spike of burning heat withdrew from his side, leaving a deeper pain behind, but it came again in a new place.

  And again.

  And again.

  He reached for it, felt something long and thin and hard, slippery with wetness.

  Lips soft against his ear, teeth hard behind them. “Like this,” they said.

  61

  LENNON HEARD THE second shot as he lowered his feet from the kitchen sink to the tiled flooring. The third followed moments later.

  “You’re a fucking idiot,” he told himself again.

  An idiot for going in alone after he heard the first shot. An idiot for not turning around and getting out when he heard the next two. He had advised himself of his own stupidity several times in the last few minutes, yet his higher mind seemed unwilling or unable to accept guidance from his gut instincts.

  Jack Lennon was an idiot when he joined the police. He was an idiot when he refused to accept a commendation for saving the life of a fellow officer under fire. He was an idiot when he left his unborn daughter when she was still in the womb. He was an idiot when he drove a killer called Gerry Fegan across the border to settle a score.

  Lennon knew he had been an idiot all his life, but it never stopped him. He drew his pistol and made his way deeper into the house.

  62

  THE MAN WHO was now, as he was sure he always had been, Edwin Paynter applied upward pressure to the screwdriver’s handle, forcing its blade to dig its way through the foreigner’s innards. The foreigner screamed.

  Paynter eased the pressure on the handle and waited for the foreigner to stop writhing.

  “How did you find me?” he asked.

  “Taxi company,” the foreigner said, forcing the words between his teeth.

  “What taxi company?”

  “Maxie’s Taxis,” the foreigner said. “Rasa made a picture. I show it to the taxi boss. He find you for me.”

  “What picture?”

  “Rasa made it,” the foreigner said.

  “Who’s Rasa? Who made it?”

  “Rasa works for my boss. Looks after girls. She sees you with the whore, she makes a picture.”

  Paynter’s mind spun, searching for possibilities, answers, ways out. But all was lost. A picture of him had been circulated. There was nothing left now but to run.

  No, there was one more thing, and she lay beside him, choking on the towel he’d shoved in her mouth.

  Anger, white hot and glorious, burst in his chest.

  She had caused this. She had brought this intruder here, her girl scent drawing him like a bitch brings dogs from miles around.

  “Bitch,” he said. “Fucking bitch.”

  He clamped one wet hand to his mouth. Had he said that? Had he ever uttered such words before?

  She made him do it. She made him spew these hateful consonants and vowels. She was a devil, and before he could flee, he would have to cast her down with the rest of her kind beneath the cellar floor.

  He reached for the screwdriver’s handle, ready to pierce her temple with it, but the foreigner moaned as he withdrew it from his belly.

  Edwin Paynter took a breath, cooling himself from the heat of revelation. Calm, he thought. He knew what he had to do.

  “First things first,” he said.

  Paynter pushed the foreigner’s head back, felt for his exposed throat. He switched his grip on the screwdriver to overhand and raised it above his head.

  “There’s a cop,” the foreigner said.

  63

  HERKUS SUCKED AIR and leaked blood.

  “The cop, he knows about you,” he said.

  His mind grasped at this last shred of logic. Anything to make the madman stop, to buy him some time. It worked. The blade, whatever it was, did not penetrate his body again. “What cop?” the madman asked.

  Herkus searched through the pain and fog for a name. “Lennon,” he said. “Lennon. He knows your face.”

  A stinging mix of bile and blood bubbled up into his throat. He coughed, screamed at the fire that ignited in his belly.

  “How?” the madman asked.

  Herkus kicked out, tried to crawl away. The madman placed a knee on his stomach. Herkus screamed again.

  “Tell me how he knows my face?”

  “The picture,” Herkus said, squeezing the words between tortured gasps.

  “The same picture? What are you talking about?”

  Herkus wanted to answer, hoped to save his life with the knowledge, but the pain dragged his mind down, robbing him of speech.

  “Tell me,” the madman said, his breath hot on Herkus’s face. The darkness grew darker still. Herkus willed his tongue to move, air to charge his vocal cords, but there was nothing left but the fire that spread from his stomach to swallow his being.

  And the faces.

  So many faces, all of them waiting for him.

  Oh God, he thought, the words forming in his mind like bright stars above him.

  Oh God forgive me.

  And then something brighter pierced his throat, and he knew there was no forgiveness, only fire.

  64

  GALYA LAY ON her side, feeling the heat spread beneath her, the same metallic smell that had overwhelmed her just a day ago. She writhed, trying to pull her body away from the blood, but the chair held her in place. She worked her jaw and tongue until the towel fell from her lips.

  Behind her, the sound of something hard piercing flesh. One man breathed hard with each thrust, the other gurgled and gasped, until only animal grunts remained.

  She tried to force her weight forward. If she could turn on her front, onto her knees, maybe she could crawl away. The chair leaned and fell back again. She pulled once more, using her shoulders to twist the chair around. Again, it fell back.

  Galya shrieked with the effort. This time, the chair followed her and her knees hit the concrete. She swallowed the cry and pushed forward.

  Something pulled the chair back.

  “You did this,” he said.

  He turned the chair on its back, wrenching Galya’s arms. Her head struck the floor, and sparks ignited in her vision. She heard him step away, then return, his breathing coming in hard rasps.

  A light exploded
before her eyes, and she turned her head away.

  “Look at me,” he said.

  The torch beam found its way beneath her eyelids, no matter how hard she squeezed them shut.

  His wet palm struck her cheek. “Look at me.”

  Galya opened her eyes a fraction, saw the vague outline of his moon face by the burning light.

  “You caused this,” he said. “You brought him here. You made me kill him. Everything’s ruined because of you. I have to run because of you.”

  Galya could think of only a few words to say, all of them Russian, so she spoke them.

  “English,” he said.

  She repeated the words, the only sounds that meant anything to her.

  “I don’t know what you’re saying,” he said. He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

  He pointed the stained red blade of the screwdriver at her. “The Lord delivered you to me. So I will finish His work. I promised Him that. But you will suffer for what you’ve done. Beg forgiveness for your soul, for I will not spare you from the hell that’s waiting for you. But not here. It’s not safe here anymore because of you.”

  She heard the screwdriver drop to the floor, felt the cold bite of the wire cutters working at the cable tie that held her left wrist to the chair.

  Again, Galya spoke. Again, she said the only words that she could form.

  She said, “Please, Mama, take me home.”

  65

  FRAGMENTS OF SHATTERED glass crunched under Lennon’s feet as he made his way across the darkened kitchen, his Glock 17 drawn and ready. His breath misted as heat left the house through the empty window frame.

  As he moved into the hallway, a thin streak of light moved across the wall ahead of him. He tensed, brought his left hand up to support his right, pressure on the pistol’s trigger.