Frank Schätzing - Death and the Devil

Jacob retched. He stumbled backward out of the low-ceilinged room where Maria’s dreams had come to such a violent end. He backed into the wall, and still that one eye was looking at him, with a strangely reproachful expression, as if she were asking him why he hadn’t been there.

He tried to cross himself, but his arm refused to move.

From the taproom below came the clatter of mugs and the sound of Clemens eating.

“Come on, Maria,” he called. “Hurry up, before we’ve finished the lot. You don’t get something like this every day.”

The tension slackened. Jacob staggered, stumbled, and fell down the stairs. The women screeched. Clemens turned around ponderously.

“Jacob,” Wilhilde gasped, “you’re as white as a sheet.”

For one terrible moment he didn’t know what to do. He glanced feverishly from one to the other. A deep furrow appeared on Clemens’s brow. “What’s up, Jacob?” His eyes were drawn to the stairs. “Maria?” he shouted.

Jacob’s mind went blank. Without thinking, he was out the door and in the street.

“Maria?” He heard Clemens roar a second time.

He started running through Berlich. His mind was in chaos. All he could think was, Get away, away from here, away from Maria, away from that beautiful face with the one eye, still staring at him as he hurried across the Duck Ponds, etched forever on his mind. He ran until the pain in his side was unbearable, and still he kept running, afraid the reality behind would catch up with him. His feet were splashing through a ditch.

Then he fell, facedown in a puddle. Instinctively he rolled over on his back before he swallowed the foul water.

Above, almost close enough to touch, was the moon looking down at him. The moon was Maria’s eye. She was following him.

He sat up, turned away from the remorseless gaze, and threw up. Leaning on his elbows, he waited till the retching stopped. Then he felt slightly better, staggered to his feet, and trotted slowly on his way.

Maria killed. Why?

He tried to work out what to do. It was hopeless. His thoughts were whirling around inside his head. At the same time his eyelids were heavy with fatigue. He had to lie down, curl up, go to sleep, and dream. Some beautiful dream, of paradise, God and the angels, Christ and the saints, of a world without misery and evil. He stopped and crossed himself. Again and again. He found his lips were murmuring the Lord’s Prayer. It was the only prayer he knew.

Sleep. The Wall.

Automatically his legs set off through the orchards and between the willow trees lining Plackgasse. With any luck Tilman would have left a little room for him under the arch. Assuming he had taken up his offer. Which Jacob doubted.

Sleep.

Maria.

After a while he saw a large lump blocking the track. He came along here almost every day and certainly couldn’t remember a boulder of that size. And at the moment he didn’t care.

Something was trying to shake him out of his lethargy, to tell him it wasn’t a boulder. He ignored it.

Only when his toe bumped into it did he realize it was his coat spread over the thing. And that the thing was not a thing, but a person, crouched in a grotesque position.

His hat was on the ground—

Tilman.

Jacob’s mind cleared. Tilman must have collapsed before he even reached the Wall. The coat was still glistening with raindrops.

“Hey,” said Jacob. It came out as a vague croaking sound, as if he hadn’t spoken for years. He knelt down and stretched out a hand to shake Tilman.

Then he noticed the bolt. The same kind as—

With a shriek he was on his feet and running again. Now there were houses; he was approaching Weidengasse. He saw a man coming with a lantern and slipped into an entrance.

Suddenly his mind started working again, analyzing quickly, almost mechanically, as if a black cloth had been pulled away. He peeped cautiously out from his hiding place. He could still see the man. It wasn’t a tall shadow, just the night watchman heading toward Eigelstein.

Maria was dead. Tilman was dead. Both the people Jacob had talked to after coming back from the cathedral were dead. Both killed in the same way.

But why? Why Maria?

Why Tilman?

It struck him like a bolt from the blue.

Because with his coat and hat Tilman looked like Jacob the Fox. He was the intended victim. He was the one who should have died. And probably still should.

Very cautiously he stepped out from the doorway. Perhaps it would be best to keep out of sight for the next few days. Stay in his shack under the arch. He thought hard as he jogged along Weidengasse. He could see the arches clearly in front, a deeper black in the dark expanse of the great Wall. There was not enough light to tell if there was anyone there.

He stopped. Anyone? Who would that be?

Maria must have been killed after Tilman. Had the murderer talked to her? Did he realize his mistake?

He stared into the blackness.

The blackness moved. There was something there.

Waiting for him to come near.

Jacob turned tail and ran.

He was right. Whatever it was that had been waiting for him under the arch had given up trying to stay concealed. He could hear the other’s steps on the hard surface. Frighteningly rapid steps.

Which were getting closer.

The crossbow! Could Maria’s murderer aim while running?

Jacob began twisting and turning, even if that slowed him down. His pursuer had already demonstrated his prowess with the crossbow twice. Jacob’s only chance was to make it impossible for him to get a shot at him.

Where was that night watchman with his lantern? Nowhere to be seen, must have turned off somewhere.

The streets were deserted.

Ahead was the crossroads where Weidengasse joined with the lane from the Duck Ponds, then continued into Alter Graben leading down to the Rhine. Before that on the right were the ruins of the old Eigelstein Gate, through which he could get into Marzellenstraße. Three possible escape routes, ignoring the road to the left, which led back to the Wall.

But no time to think. His pursuer was catching up.

Jacob dashed between the towers of the old gate. On the left the spires of St. Machabei rose up above the jagged roofline. The houses seemed to be cowering before the power of the church.

Yes! Keep your head down!

Jacob kept his body low until he was almost scurrying along on all fours like a weasel. He could have laughed at the thought that now his pursuer could at most shoot him in the arse. How humiliating to die because your backside hurt so much you couldn’t run. Oddly enough, part of his mind was coolly going through the various ways you could be killed by a crossbow bolt, while he continued to run, stoically ignoring the stitch stabbing into his side like a harbinger of the bolt that would dispatch him.

No more feinting now. Just run as fast as you can.

He’d escaped the crowd in the market. So far he’d managed to shake off every pursuer. If he’d been asked who was the fastest runner in Cologne, he would have nominated himself without hesitation.

He was fast. But did he have the stamina?

The feet of his unknown pursuer were drumming on the cobbles of what had once been a Roman road in a regular, almost relaxed rhythm. As if running caused him not the least exertion, while Jacob’s lungs seemed about to burst.

Surely he could have killed me already, he thought. Why hasn’t he? Is he waiting for me to collapse? That’s it, he’s playing with me. He knows I can’t escape, so why bother to shoot. He’ll just keep after me until I’m so slow he can get a clean shot at me, the lazy, well-fed swine.

The next crossroad appeared in front, the right turn went up to the convent of the Ursulines, the left down to the Rhine. He could choose which street he wanted to die in, both were broad enough.