Pariah

by Thomas Emson

  He held his breath. Goosepimples raked his body. He stripped away the final layers of newspaper.

  He gawped at the treasure.

  A golden orb, just a little bigger than an egg. It glowed, a halo of light surrounding it. To the touch, it was soft—like silicone. Like the surgically enhanced breasts of that model he’d groped a few years back.

  Stacked from Stepney, he’d called her, though her real name was Stacie.

  Her boyfriend farmed cannabis in their flat. Wilks, heading the drugs team at the time, led the raid. The boyfriend got dragged off. The model got emotional. She begged Wilks to let her go.

  “If I get done for this, I’ll never get modeling work,” she’d said.

  He’d said, “We can come to an arrangement, darlin’.”

  And they did—and that’s what the golden object in his hand felt like.

  He didn’t know what the orbs were, but he knew now that he’d kept them for a reason.

  Jack was back. Jack was here. Jack had come for his treasures.

  And when Wilks delivered them, Jack would make him a king.

  He picked up the defrosting piece of cloth. It was his mask. He started to unfold it. It had been fashioned with straps and clips, made to keep a face clamped tightly. It was a mask made for an asylum. For a lunatic. For a madman. For a ripper.

  Chapter 102

  THE MARCH OF TORMENT

  He could hardly breathe. Desperately, he sucked in air. But his lungs felt like lead weights in his chest. And there seemed to be a lack of oxygen here. It was blisteringly hot. Molten rock formed the cavern. Lava dripped from them. Fires burned along the passageway ahead of him. Flames crackled, and he could hear shrieks. The smell of burning flesh filled the caves.

  Faultless knew where he was.

  Am I dead? he thought. Is this where it ends?

  Lew—or whoever Lew really was—had told him to climb into the abyss, and he’d obeyed. Faultless realized that many of the answers he sought lay down in the deep. He had to go down to find them.

  But now he thought everything after the beating by Wilks and his colleagues might have been a nightmare.

  The kicking he took must have killed him. Lew saying he was the second evil meant nothing. It was a dream, he kept telling himself, it was a dream.

  And he was actually dead.

  And he was in hell.

  Everyone has to pay.

  He remembered those words.

  Was this his payment? The last judgment? The ultimate punishment?

  He never believed in heaven or hell. But maybe he should have. Maybe Roy Hanbury had been right. He looked around and felt the heat, felt the agony of the place. Maybe this was hell.

  He walked on, clutching his chest. He was hot. His clothes stuck to his skin. Ash rained down. Screams tore through the passageways. He stumbled along. Fire lit his way. The walls were red hot. But as he walked, he noticed that parts of the stone were covered in art—murals depicting suffering.

  There were images of torture drawn in blood and soot. Messages had been scratched into the walls. Some of the languages were alien to him. Some were symbols and not words.

  Old languages, he thought. Ancient.

  Some of the messages he understood. He saw one in English. It had been scratched into the stone.

  Damned, I am damned. Forgive me, Heavenly Father. Save me from this torment. I beg, I beg, said the message.

  It was signed, George Whittaker, faithful servant of God, July 5th 1703 AD.

  There were more messages. Thousands of them in many languages. Some were dated. But dates meant nothing. Time was a human concept. AD was human. But writing went further back than that. And some of this writing stretched to the birth of humanity, Faultless was certain of it. He could sense the antiquity of the languages. He saw a message dated 912 AD, but the words—although he recognized some as English—were not understandable to him.

  As he stumbled along the passageway, the shrieking became louder. Desperate crying. And wailing. Howls of pain. Pleas for mercy.

  This chorus of anguish filled the caves now.

  He came to a dog-leg in the passageway. The noise was coming from around the corner.

  His heart thundered. His chest was tight. He was sweating. Adrenaline jetted through his veins.

  He was going to see something awful around that bend, so he steeled himself before striding ahead.

  He stopped dead.

  They filed through the caves ahead of him. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands. As far as he could see. They were winding down into the caverns, many columns of them trudging down the many passageways.

  They wore suits. They wore nightclothes. They wore uniforms. Some were naked. Some were old and others young. They were men and women and children.

  They were all weeping. They were begging and screaming. Faultless heard some of them say, “There’s been a mistake, please . . . I’m a good man.”

  He heard many begging in the same way. He heard different languages and guessed they were begging too.

  But despite their pleading, the figures overseeing this march of torment showed no mercy.

  The guards were huge. Some of them must have been nearly eight feet tall. They were dressed in chain mail. Dark stains covered their armor. On their heads, they wore helmets made of skulls. Faultless failed to recognize the animals the skulls had come from.

  The guards whipped the people if they slowed down or if they tried to escape.

  A man wearing a black suit stumbled out of the line. He was white-haired. He stood over six feet tall and sported a tan. He looked Mediterranean to Faultless. The man’s clothes were torn, and he was covered in dirt and ash. Stumbling forward, the man knelt before one of the guards and started pleading in Italian.

  Although Faultless couldn’t understand what he was saying, he heard the words, “ . . . Gianluca Folcci . . . Bruccino . . . ” and he was jabbing himself in the chest while he was saying this.

  Faultless looked at the man and narrowed his eyes.

  He was Gianluca Folcci, Godfather of the Bruccino family.

  Panic raced through Faultless. He remembered hearing that Folcci had died yesterday, shot by Italian police.

  This was confirmation.

  Faultless was in hell.

  Folcci begged. The guard glared down at him and then made a gesture. Three other guards rushed forward. They grabbed Folcci. They pinned him to the wall and spread out his arms. Taking metal spikes from their belts, they crucified Folcci to the wall of the cave. He screamed while they hammered the spikes through his wrists and his knees.

  While he writhed and shrieked, they stripped him naked, tearing away his clothes.

  The guards moved away, leaving Folcci to screech and bleed.

  But he’s dead, thought Faultless. How can he bleed? How can he be in pain?

  And then he knew.

  Eternal torment. Pain for the rest of time. Suffering without end.

  The line of damned souls trudged forward.

  Folcci was squealing now.

  Faultless imagined his anguish. But then he realized it was going to get worse. From the shadows around Folcci, things slithered. Faultless reared back, cringing. Creatures came out of the gloom. No bigger than squirrels, they had leathery brown skin and tails ridged with spikes. As they clambered all over Folcci, their talons ripped into his body.

  His screams intensified.

  The demons clawed at him. They bit him. They lashed at him with their vicious tails. They plucked out his eyes. They tore off his ears. One forced its hand into his mouth and yanked, ripping out his tongue.

  The Godfather moaned. Blood poured from his mouth. His face was a scarlet mask. His body had been pulped. He slumped. The spikes in his wrists tore at his skin and ligaments.

  One of the demons ripp
ed away Folcci’s scrotum.

  With their bloody trophies, the demons scuttled away into the shadows. But not before one of them stopped and turned and looked Faultless in the eye. The look froze Charlie’s bones.

  He took a step back, terrified he’d be assaulted in the same way. But the demon scuttled off, lashing its tail as it slipped into the shadows.

  Faultless stared at Folcci’s mutilated body. The man was still alive.

  How can he be alive if he’s dead? thought Faultless. But maybe we don’t die. Maybe we just suffer. We leave the earth and either come here or go to heaven, where we continue our lives.

  Faultless crept towards Folcci.

  The Italian moaned. His mouth opened and closed. He was a bloody mess—a pile of torn meat.

  Faultless stood in front of the Godfather.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” said a voice.

  Faultless’s bladder almost emptied there and then. He wheeled round.

  “You,” he said.

  “Who did you expect,” said Lew, “Satan?”

  “I think so.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “Is he dead?” said Faultless.

  “Gianluca Folcci left his human life at 11:58 pm, Greenwich Mean Time, on February 27, 2011, shot by Italian police. The moment he left that life, he began this one. His eternal life. His suffering has started, Charlie. It will never end. And what a beautiful agony, don’t you think?”

  “You are the Devil.”

  “Oh, I am everything, Charlie.”

  “Am I dead?”

  “No, you’re not dead.”

  “So is this a nightmare?”

  “I suppose it’s quite terrifying for you.”

  “Is it a nightmare or not?”

  “No it’s not.”

  “Then why am I here?”

  “For the same reason as everyone else—to suffer.”

  Chapter 103

  KINDRED OF CAIN

  “I was there at the beginning, and I am here at the last,” said Jack. “Hunted and stalked by you. By seers. Born of the angels of heaven and the women of earth. I terrorized the world before they came. I spilled blood and made men do what men love. But then you bastards came and corralled me. You were made to be my adversaries. But our maker gave you souls. The key to my freedom.”

  Tash had been weakened by her journey. She was sprawled on the bed. She felt wrecked and breathed heavily. Some of the images still tarnished her mind. They were there for good. She still saw them now.

  Brother killing brother. The fall of empires. Plagues destroying millions. Floods drowning cities. Nations going to war. Murderers stalking towns. Innocents savaged. Cruelty reigning. From genocide to back-street butchery. From the death of kings to the death of Mary Kelly.

  How can we be in the room where she died? thought Tash. It’s impossible.

  But she’d learnt over the past few days that nothing was impossible. She looked around the room. She recognized it because she’d seen the old photos in Jonas Troy’s suitcase. The photos that showed Mary’s disfigured body on the bed. Was it the same street outside? Had they gone back in time? Had they slipped through a gash in the universe? Was this place like the cavern where Jack had tried to murder Jasmine? Somewhere that existed, but just out of reach. Just beyond the minds of ordinary people. Somewhere you had to look for carefully.

  Jack spoke again.

  “When Jonas Troy chased me that night, I cursed him. I had been so close to being free. I was sucked down into the gutters, dragged through shit. I was a pariah. A lost soul. One that’s got no place in heaven or in hell. But why should I suffer? I was made this way. This is what I am. I am not made to be in pain, I am made to inflict it. Luckily, that stupid Spencer came along . . . ”

  Tash said nothing.

  Jack said, “I shall have your soul. My Ripper is coming home. My 21st century Abberline. He’s already paved the way. You know who killed your sister?”

  Tash gaped.

  “And do you know who killed the Faultless woman? Susan Murray? Nancy Sherwood? He did. My boy. My Ripper. He had so much evil in him. Such darkness in his heart that it was easy to speak to him. Easy to make him hear. We have chemistry, he and I. If I could love, I would love him.”

  Tash was terrified. “You . . . you killed my sister, you . . . ”

  “Didn’t you listen, you tart? Not me. My Ripper. Ripped her up.”

  Tash shuddered. She felt sick.

  Jack said, “I found a kindred of Cain. A descendent with the mark of evil on him. Better than Abberline. Better than all of them.”

  “Who is he?” The door opened. Hallam Buck entered. Tash stared at him. He looked away and trudged inside. He was pale and bloody, and his crotch was a mass of black fluid and hanging skin.

  Tash nearly puked.

  But then another figure loomed in the doorway. He stayed in the shadows for a moment so Tash was unable to see his face. But he stood tall and powerful. And then he entered, his face etched with hatred, a satchel slung over his shoulder.

  It was Don Wilks, the policeman.

  Tash threw up.

  Chapter 104

  MADE FOR A PURPOSE

  Faultless ripped off his shirt. He gasped for air. He clawed at his body.

  This place was a furnace.

  He staggered off, trying to find somewhere cool.

  Lew laughed. “I said you were here to suffer, Charlie.”

  Faultless headed for a dark corner, a patch of wall that wasn’t molten rock. He never took his eyes off the cool, gray stone till he got to it. Then he turned and pressed his back against it, and it was cold and wet.

  “Who am I, Lew?” he said. “What did you mean I’m the second evil?”

  “You don’t have kids, Charlie.”

  He said nothing.

  Lew went on. “Kids fight, you know. Brother kills brother. It happens all the time. Happens because that’s the way I made the world at the beginning. And it’s not like I can start over again. I get one crack at a creation.”

  For a moment Faultless was sure he saw despondency in the old man’s eyes. He started to say something, but no words came out. What could he say?

  “Course, that makes no difference to humans,” said Lew. “I made them. I put sin in them. I made them weak, easily tempted. But I’m not going to take the blame for that. No way. It’s them who are to blame. They kill each other. They lie. They cheat. They rape and ravage the planet I made for them. Bloody ungrateful species.”

  Faultless stared at the old man. His insides quaked. Was he looking at God? He couldn’t believe it. His mind was surely fraying. He wasn’t sane anymore. This encounter was taking place in the brain of a lunatic. It had to be. Everything he was experiencing just couldn’t be real.

  Lew said, “You realize who I am, don’t you, Charlie?”

  Faultless said nothing. He couldn’t speak. And he feared that if he tried, his words would come out in a jumble.

  “You think I’m the devil,” said Lew.

  Faultless stayed quiet and tried to master his body, which was shivering uncontrollably.

  Lew continued. “There is no devil. He’s just something men made up to excuse their sin. No devil. Only me.”

  Faultless heard the words, but they made no sense to him. He started to blink rapidly, trying to see if he’d wake up and find himself in bed next to Tash, with all this madness gone from his head.

  He didn’t. He was still here, no matter how many times he opened and shut his eyes. He was still in hell.

  “Once there were many gods,” said Lew. “We competed against each other for power. We battled. We created and we destroyed. Finally, I defeated all the others. And I won the right to forge a creation in my own image. I am the alpha and I am the omega. I am who I am. I made the world. Ev
erything in it. You are looking at the face of God, Charlie—and you’re alive.”

  Faultless tried to think of something else. In his head, he played out his life, hoping it would block out the insanity of what Lew was saying. But when images of his childhood sprang into his mind, they immediately reminded him that his life had been fake. He was not a boy from Barrowmore. He was not his mother’s son. He was a lie. He was an imposter. He even started to think that he might not exist, and the thirty-four years of his life had just been a few minutes in someone’s dream.

  “You know who you are, Charlie?” said Lew

  He still couldn’t speak, unable to put together words that could explain this situation.

  “You’re my son,” said Lew. “Made by me. Born in the very moment after your brother, the one named up-elo, the first evil . . . ”

  Faultless’s heart felt as if it were turning to stone. He grew very cold, even in this furnace. He was going into shock.

  Lew went on. “But a moment for me is a million years to man. I made you as a child. A newborn. I brought you down and left you with a seer. The Faultless woman whose child I’d taken a few months before. Her grief made her love you more, see.”

  Faultless suddenly felt fury rise up in him, bubbling like the lava that ran in rivers through the caves.

  Lew said, “I let you loose on that estate and watched you thrive. I watched your mother love you. And then I dropped you into the life of another seer family—ah, the lovely Rachel, the delicious Tash.”

  Faultless bunched his knuckles. His fingernails dug into his palms, drawing blood. He clenched his jaw so tightly he thought he’d break his teeth.

  The old man carried on talking. “Everything happens for a reason. You think life’s random? It’s not. There are patterns. You see, I knew Patricia Faultless and Rachel were going to die, because eventually they would cross his path. Since you had a role to play, I thought it was better that you play it with fury in your veins. And what better way to make you angry than to have your loved ones killed.”

  Faultless shook with fury.

  Lew continued. “You can be as pissed off as you like, Charlie. Think you can take it out on me? I lift my finger, and you’re dust, boy. I happily kill my children, Charlie. Always have. You have a destiny. You’re made for a purpose.”