John Connolly - The Black Angel

My right arm ached, and I felt as if all the moisture was being drained from my body by the heat. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t just shoot me. I stumbled backward as Miss Zahn feinted at me. I lost my footing, and then the crowbar was moving in a great arc toward my head when a voice said, “Hey, bitch!” and a booted foot caught Miss Zahn in the jaw, breaking it with a sharp, snapping sound. Her eyes squeezed shut in shock, and in the shadowy light I thought that the faces on her body responded in turn, the eyes briefly snapping closed, the mouths opening in silent roars of agony. Miss Zahn looked to where Angel lay sideways upon the stairs, just beneath the level of the ceiling. His right foot was still outstretched, and above it he held the.45.

Miss Zahn dropped the crowbar and raised her left hand. Angel fired, and the bullet tore through the palm. She slid down the wall, leaving a trail of dark matter behind. One eye remained open, but the other was a black and red wound. She blinked once, and again all the tattooed eyes on her skin seemed to blink in unison. Then her eye closed, the painted eyelids on her body drooping slowly in turn until at last all movement ceased.

As she died, the energy seemed to leave Sekula. He sagged, giving Louis the opening that he sought. He forced the muzzle of his gun upward into the soft flesh beneath Sekula’s chin and pulled the trigger. The noise of a shot reverberated around us once again, the sound finding material expression in the dark fountain that struck the vaulted ceiling. Louis released Sekula and allowed him to crumple to the floor.

“He stopped,” said Louis, indicating Sekula. “I was under his gun, and he stopped.”

He sounded puzzled.

“He told me that he didn’t think he could kill a man,” I said. “I guess he was right.”

I sagged against the damp wall of the crypt. My arm ached badly, but I didn’t think there were any bones broken. I nodded my thanks to Angel, and he returned to his post in the ossuary itself. Beyond us lay the opening in the wall.

“After you this time,” said Louis.

I looked at the remains of Miss Zahn and Sekula.

“At least I might see the next person who attacks us,” I said.

“She had a gun,” he said, pointing at the pistol tucked into Miss Zahn’s belt. “She could have just shot you.”

“She wanted me alive,” I said.

“Why? Your charm?”

I shook my head.

“She thought I was like her, and like Brightwell.”

I stooped and passed through the gap, Louis steps behind me. We were in a long tunnel, with a ceiling barely six feet in height that prevented Louis from standing up straight. The tunnel stretched ahead into the darkness, curving gently to the right as it went. On either side were alcoves or cells, most of which appeared to contain nothing more than stone beds, although some had broken bowls and old empty wine bottles on the floor, indicating that they had been occupied at one point. Each had a kind of portcullis arrangement to close it off, the barred gate capable of being raised and lowered through a pulley and chain system outside each alcove. In nearly every case, the alcoves were unbarred, but we came to one on the right upon which the gate had been lowered. Inside, my flashlight picked out clothed human remains. The skull still retained some of its hair, and the clothing was relatively intact. The stench was foul from within.

“What is this place?” said Louis.

“It looks like a jail.”

“Seems like they forgot they had a guest down here.”

Something rustled in the closed cell. A rat, I thought. It’s only a rat. It has to be. Whoever was lying in that cell was long dead. It was tattered skin and yellowed bone, nothing more.

And then the man inside moved on his stone cot. His fingernails dragged across the stone, his right leg stretched almost imperceptibly, and his head shifted slightly where it rested. The effort it took was clearly enormous. I could see every wasted muscle working on his desiccated arms, and every tendon straining in his face as he tried to speak. His features were buried deep in his skull, as though they were slowly being sucked inside. The eyes were like rotted fruits in the hollows of the sockets, barely visible behind his emaciated hand as he sought to shield himself from the light while simultaneously trying to see those that lay behind it.

Louis took a step back.

“How can he still be alive?” he said. He could not keep the shock from his voice. I had never heard him speak like that before.

Like the half-life of an isotope: that remained the only way I could fathom it. The process of dying, but with the inevitable end delayed beyond imagining. Perhaps, like Kittim, this unknown man was proof of that belief.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Leave him.”

I saw Louis raise his pistol. The action surprised me. He was not a man known for conventional mercies. I laid my hand on the barrel of the gun, forcing it gently down.

“No,” I said.

The being on the stone slab tried to speak. I could see the desperation in its eyes, and I almost felt something of Louis’s pity for it. I turned away, and heard Louis follow.

By now we were deep beneath the ground, and far from the cemetery. From the direction in which we were heading, I believed that we were somewhere between the ossuary and the site of the former monastery nearby. There were more cells here, many with the portcullises lowered, but I glanced only in one or two as I went by. Those who had been incarcerated in them were now clearly dead, their bones long separated. They probably made mistakes along the way, I thought. It was like the old witch trials: if the suspects died, they were innocent. If they survived, then they were guilty.

The heat grew more and more intense. The walls were hot to the touch, and our clothing became so burdensome that we were forced to shed our jackets and coats along the way. There was a rushing sound in my head. Threaded through it, I thought, I could discern words, except they were no longer fragments of an old incantation spoken in madness. These had purpose and intent. They were calling, urging.

There was light ahead of us. We saw a circular room, lined with open cells, and a trio of lanterns at its center. Beyond them stood the obese figure of Brightwell. He was working at a blank wall, trying to free a brick at the level of his head, using a crowbar. Beside him was the hooded, jacketed figure, its head lowered. Brightwell registered our presence first, because he turned suddenly, the crowbar still in his hands. I expected him to reach for a gun, but he did not. Instead, he seemed almost pleased. His mouth was disfigured, his lower lip crisscrossed with black stitches where Reid had bitten him during his final struggle.

“I knew,” he said. “I knew that you’d come.”

The figure to his right lowered its hood. I saw a woman’s gray hair hanging loose, then her face was exposed. In the lanternlight, Claudia Stern’s fine bone structure had taken on a thin, hungry aspect. Her skin was pale and dry, and when she opened her mouth to speak I thought that her teeth seemed longer than before, as though her gums were receding. There was a white mote in her right eye, previously hidden by some form of concealing lens. Brightwell handed the crowbar to her, but he made no attempt to move toward us or to threaten us in any way.

“Nearly done,” he said. “It’s good that you should be here for this.”

Claudia Stern inserted the crowbar into the gap Brightwell had made, and strained. I saw the stone shift in its place. She repositioned the bar, then pushed hard. The stone moved some thirty degrees, until it was perpendicular to the wall. In the gap revealed, I thought I saw something shine. With a final effort, she forced the stone away. It fell to the floor as she continued to work at the bricks, forcing them apart more easily now that the first breach had been made. I should have stopped her, but I did not. I realized that I, too, wanted to know what lay behind the wall. I wanted to see the Black Angel. A large square patch of silver was now clearly visible through the hole. I could pick out the shape of a rib, and the edge of what might have been an arm. The figure was rough and unfinished, with droplets of hardened silver fixed upon it like frozen tears.