John Connolly: The Black Angel

Suddenly, as though responding to an unanticipated impulse, Claudia Stern dropped the crowbar and thrust her hand into the hole.

It took a moment for me to notice the temperature rising again, for it was already so hot in the chamber, but I began to feel my skin prickle and burn, as though I were standing unprotected in intense sunlight. I looked at my skin, almost expecting it to begin reddening as I watched. The voice in my head was louder now, a torrent of whispers like the rushing of water at a great fall, its substance unintelligible but its meaning clear. Close to where Stern was standing, liquid began to drip through holes in the mortar, sliding slowly down the walls like droplets of mercury. I could see them steaming, and I could smell the dust burning. Whatever lay behind that wall, it was now melting, the silver falling away to reveal whatever lay concealed within. Stern looked at Brightwell, and I could see the surprise on her face. This was clearly beyond her expectations. All of the preparations that they had made indicated that they had intended to transport the statue back to New York, not to have it melt around their feet. I heard a sound from behind the wall, like the beating of a wing, and it brought me back to where I was, reminding me of what I had to do.

I pointed my gun at Brightwell.

“Stop her.”

Brightwell didn’t move.

“You won’t use it,” he said. “We’ll come back.”

Beside me, Louis seemed to jerk his head. His face contorted, as though in pain, and he raised his left hand to his ear. Then I heard it too: a chorus of voices, their words raised in a cacophony of pleading, all coming from somewhere deep within Brightwell.

The silver drops had become a series of streams, seeping out through cracks in the walls. I thought I heard more movement behind the stones, but there was so much noise in my head that I could not be certain.

“You’re a sick, deluded man,” I said.

“You know it’s true,” he said. “You sense it in yourself.”

I shook my head.

“No, you’re wrong.”

“There is no salvation for you, or for any of us,” said Brightwell. “God deprived you of your wife, your child. Now He’s going to take a second woman away from you, and a second child. He doesn’t care. Do you think He would have allowed them to suffer as they did if they really mattered to Him, if anyone really mattered to Him? Why, then, would you believe in Him, and not in us? Why do you continue to have hope in Him?”

I struggled to find my voice. It seemed as though my vocal cords were burning.

“Because with you,” I said, “there is no hope at all.”

I sighted carefully along the barrel.

“You won’t kill me,” said Brightwell once more, but there was now doubt in his voice.

Suddenly, he moved. All at once he was everywhere, and nowhere. I heard his voice in my ear, felt his hands on my skin. His mouth opened, revealing those slightly blunted teeth. They were biting me, and my blood was pooling in his mouth as he tore into me.

I fired three times, and the confusion stopped. Brightwell’s left foot was shattered at the ankle, and there was a second wound below his knee. The third shot had gone astray, I thought, then I saw the spreading stain upon his belly. A gun appeared in Brightwell’s hand. He tried to raise it, but Louis was already on top of him, pushing it away.

I moved past them both, making for Claudia Stern. Her attention was entirely focused on the wall before her, mesmerized by what was taking place before her eyes. The metal was already cooling upon the ground around her feet, and there was no longer any silver to be seen through the gap in the wall. Instead, I saw a pair of black ribs encased by a thin layer of skin, the exposed patch slowly increasing in dimension around the area where her hand remained in contact. I grasped the woman’s shoulder and pulled her away from the wall, breaking her contact with whatever was concealed within. She screamed in rage, and her voice was echoed by something deep within the walls. Her fingers scraped at my face, and her feet kicked at my shins. I caught a flash of metal in her left hand just before the blade sliced across my chest, opening a long wound from my left side all the way up to my collarbone. I struck her hard in the face, using the base of my hand, and as she stumbled away I hit her again, forcing her back until she was at the entrance to one of the cells. She tried to slash at me with the knife, but this time I kicked out at her, and she fell onto the stones. I followed her in, and removed the knife from her hand, placing my foot against her wrist first so that she could not strike out at me. She made an attempt to scramble past me, but I kicked her again, and I felt something crack beneat my foot. She let out an animal sound and stopped moving.

I backed out of the cell. The silver had stopped bleeding from the walls, and the heat seemed to dissipate slightly. The streams upon the floor and wall were growing hard, and I could no longer hear any sounds, real or imagined, from the presence behind the stones. I went to where Brightwell lay. Louis had torn away the front of his shirt, exposing his mottled belly. The wound was bleeding badly, but he was still alive.

“He’ll survive, if we get him to a hospital,” said Louis.

“It’s your choice,” I said. “Alice was part of you.”

Louis took a step backward and lowered his gun.

“No,” he said. “I don’t understand this, but you do.”

Brightwell’s voice was calm, but his face was contorted with pain.

“If you kill me, I’ll find you,” he said to me. “I found you once, and I’ll find you again, however long it may take. I will be God to you. I will destroy everything that you love, and I will force you to watch as I tear it apart. And then you and I will descend to a dark place, and I will be with you there. There will be no salvation for you, no repentance, no hope.”

He took a long, rasping breath. I could still hear that strange cacophony of voices, but now its pitch had changed. There was an expectancy to it, a rising joy.

“No forgiveness,” he whispered. “Above all, no forgiveness.”

His blood was spreading across the floor. It followed the gaps in the flagstones, gradually seeping in geometric patterns toward the cell in which Stern lay. She was conscious now, but weak and disoriented. She stretched a hand toward Brightwell, and he caught the movement and looked to her.

I raised the gun.

“I will come for you,” said Brightwell.

“Yes,” she said. “I know you will.”

Brightwell coughed and scraped at the wound in his belly.

“I will come for them all,” he said.

I shot him in the center of the forehead, and he ceased to be. A final breath emerged from his body. I felt a coolness upon my face, and smelled salt and clean air as the great choir was silenced at last.

Claudia Stern was crawling across the floor, trying to resume contact with the figure that still stood trapped behind the wall. I moved to stop her, but now there were footsteps approaching from the tunnel behind us. Louis and I turned and prepared to face them.

Bartek appeared in the doorway. Angel was with him, looking a little uncertain. Five or six others followed, men and women, and I understood finally why no one had responded to the shot on the street, why the alarm had not been replaced, and how a last crucial fragment of the map had found its way from France to Sedlec.

“You knew all along,” I said. “You baited them, then you waited for them to come.”

Four of those who had accompanied Bartek stepped around us and surrounded Claudia Stern, dragging her back to the open cell.

“Martin revealed its secrets to me,” said Bartek. “He said that you’d be there at the end. He had a lot of faith in you.”