John Connolly: The Black Angel

He was reflected clearly in the glass now, as the night drew in. His face hung in the air, and perhaps it was a flaw in the glass that duplicated his reflection, or maybe it was something more, but a second presence seemed suspended in the darkening air behind him, its features indistinguishable, and the stars were shining through its eyes.

“I hear her at night. I thought at the start that it was someone in the building, but when I went outside the apartment to check, I couldn’t hear her no more. It was only inside. I only hear her when there’s nobody else around. It’s her voice, except it’s not alone. There are other voices with it, so many of them, and they’re all calling different names. She calls mine. It’s hard to understand her, because someone doesn’t want her calling out. It didn’t matter to him at first, because he thought nobody cared about her, but now he knows better. He wants her to stay quiet. She’s dead, but she keeps calling out, like she’s got no peace. She cries all the time. She’s afraid. They’re all afraid.

“And I knew then that maybe it was no coincidence that you found Angel and me either, or that we found you. I don’t understand everything that goes on with you, but I do know this: whatever happened was meant to come to pass, and we’re all involved. It’s always been waiting in the shadows, and none of us can walk away from it. There’s no blame to be laid at your door. I know that now. Sure, there are other women who could have been taken, but what then? They’d have disappeared, and it would be their voices calling, but there would be no one to hear them, and no one would care. This way, we heard, and we came.”

At last, he turned back to me, and the woman in the night faded away.

“I want her to stop crying,” he said, and I could see clearly the lines upon his face and the tiredness in his eyes. “I want them all to stop crying.”

Walter Cole called me on my cell that night. I had spoken to him before we left, and had told him as much as I knew.

“You sound a million miles away,” he said, “and if I were you, I’d keep it that way. Just about everyone you’ve ever talked to on this thing is dead, and pretty soon people are going to start looking for you to answer some questions. Some of this you may not want to hear. Neddo’s dead. Someone cut him up badly. It might have been torture in order to gain information, except there was a rag stuffed in his mouth, so even if he had something to give up, he wouldn’t have been able to speak. That’s not the worst of it, either. Reid, the monk who spoke with you, was stabbed to death outside a bar in Hartford. The other monk phoned it in, then disappeared. Cops want to talk to him too, but either his order is protecting him or they really don’t know where he is.”

“Do the cops think he did it? If they do, they’re wrong.”

“They just want to talk to him. There was blood on Reid’s mouth, and it wasn’t his own. Unless it matches Bartek’s, then he’s probably in the clear. It looks like Reid bit whoever killed him. The blood sample has been fast-tracked to a private lab. They’ll get the results in a day or two.”

I already knew what they would find: old, corrupted DNA. And I wondered if Reid’s voice had now joined Alice’s in that dark place from which Brightwell’s victims called out for release. I thanked Walter, then hung up and returned to my vigil upon the ossuary.

Sekula arrived on the morning of the second day. He didn’t come alone. There was a driver who waited behind the wheel of the gray Audi, and Sekula entered the ossuary in the company of a small man in jeans and a sailor’s coat. After thirty minutes, they came out and took the stairs up to the chapel. They didn’t stay there long.

“Checking out the alarm,” said Angel, as we watched them from the hotel. “The little guy is probably the expert.”

“How good is it?” I asked.

“I took a look at it yesterday. Not good enough to keep them out. Doesn’t even look like it’s been upgraded since the last break-in.”

The two men emerged from the chapel and walked around the perimeter of the building, then headed back to the Audi and drove away.

“We could have followed them,” said Louis.

“We could,” I said, “but what would have been the point? They have to come back.”

Angel was pulling at his lower lip.

“How soon?” I asked.

“Me, I’d get it done as soon as possible if the alarm wasn’t a problem. Tonight, maybe.”

It felt right. They would come, and we would know everything.

There was a small courtyard beside the U Balanu store across the street from the ossuary that doubled as an outdoor area for the restaurant during the summer. It was an easy matter to gain entry to it, and that was where Louis took up position shortly after dusk the following evening. I was in the hotel room, where I could get a good overview of all that was taking place. Louis and I had agreed that we would make no move alone. Angel was in the cemetery. There was a small shed with a red-tiled roof to the left of the ossuary. Its windows were broken, but guarded by black steel grates. At one time it might have functioned as the gravedigger’s cottage, but it now contained just slates, bricks, planks of wood, and one very cold New Yorker.

My cell phone was switched to vibrate. All was silence, apart from the distant growl of passing cars. And so we waited.

The gray Audi arrived shortly after nine. It made one full circuit of the block, then parked on Starosedlecka. It was followed minutes later by a second, black Audi and a nondescript green truck, its tires thick with accumulated mud and the gold lettering along its body faded and unreadable. Sekula got out of the first car, accompanied by the little alarm specialist and a second figure wearing black trousers and a calf-length hooded coat. The hood was up, for the temperature had dropped considerably that day. Even Sekula was identifiable only by his height, as a scarf covered his mouth, and he wore a black knitted cap on his head.

Three people emerged from the second vehicle. One was the charming Miss Zahn. She didn’t seem troubled by the cold. Her coat was open and her head was uncovered. Given the temperature of what was running in her veins, the night probably felt a little balmy to her. The second person was a white-haired man whom I did not recognize. He had a gun in his hand. The third was Brightwell. He was still wearing the same beige clothes. Like Miss Zahn, the cold didn’t appear to bother him unduly. He walked back to the truck and spoke to one of the two men inside. It looked like they were planning to transport the statue if they found it.

The two men climbed down from the cab and followed Brightwell to the back of the truck. Once the door was opened, two more men climbed out, swaddled in layers of clothing for the cold journey in the unheated rear. Then, after a brief consultation, Brightwell led Miss Zahn, Sekula, the unknown individual in the hooded coat, and the alarm specialist to the cemetery gate. One of the hired hands followed them. Angel had locked the gate behind him when he was making his way to the hut, but Brightwell simply cut the chain and the group entered the grounds of the ossuary.

I took a brief head count. Outside we had the driver of the Audi and three of the truck crew. Inside the grounds there were six more. I buzzed Louis.

“What can you see?” I said.

“One guy now at the ossuary door, inside the grounds,” he said quietly. “The driver, standing at the passenger door, back to me.”

I heard him shift position.

“Two amateurs from the truck at either corner, keeping watch on the main road. One more at the gate.”

I thought about it.

“Give me five minutes. I’ll come around from behind the truck and take the corner guys. You have the driver and the man at the gate. Tell Angel he has the door. I’ll buzz you when I’m ready to move.”