John Connolly - The Killing Kind

I LAY WITH RACHEL and listened to the rising wheeps of a flycatcher from high in the trees. His stay in New England would be short; he had probably arrived in the past week, and would be gone by the end of September, but if he managed to avoid the hawks and the owls, then his little yellow belly would soon be filled with a smorgasbord of insects as the bug population exploded. Already the first of the horseflies were circling, their large green eyes glittering hungrily. They would quickly be joined by greenheads and locusts, ticks and deerflies. At Scarborough Marsh, clouds of golden saltmarsh mosquitoes would converge, the males sipping on plant juices while the females scoured the waters and the roadsides for meatier pickings.

And the insects would feed, and the spiders would grow fat upon them.

Beside me, Rachel murmured softly in her sleep, and I felt the warmth of her back against my stomach, the line of her spine beneath her pale skin like a stone path blanketed by new fallen snow. I raised myself gently to look at her face. Strands of red hair had caught between her lips, and carefully, I brushed them away. She smiled, her eyes still closed, and her fingers softly grazed my thigh. I kissed her gently behind the ear and she leaned her head into the pillow, exposing her neck to me as I followed its lines down to her shoulder and the small hollow at her throat. Her body arched as she pressed herself against me, and all other thoughts were lost in sunlight and birdsong.

It was almost 1 P.M. when I left Rachel singing in the bathroom while I went out for bagels and milk, conscious still of the weight of the Smith amp; Wesson in its holster beneath my arm. It made me uneasy how quickly I had slipped back into the old routine of arming myself before I left the house, even for something as simple as a trip to the store.

It was, by then, late in the morning, but today I hoped to find Marcy Becker. Circumstances had forced me to postpone the hunt for her, but more and more I was convinced that she was the key to what had taken place on the night Grace Peltier died, one more piece of a greater picture whose dimensions I was only now beginning to understand. Faulkner, or something of him, had survived. He, in collusion with others, had slaughtered the Aroostook Baptists and his own wife, then disappeared, eventually reemerging veiled by the organization known as the Fellowship. Paragon had merely been a front, a dupe. The real Fellowship, the substance behind the shadow, was Faulkner, and Pudd was his sword.

I parked the car and took the bag of groceries from the front seat. I was still rearranging my thoughts, shifting possibilities, as I reached the kitchen door. I pushed it open and something white lifted from the floor and tumbled in the air, carried upward by the draft.

It was a sugar wrapper.

Rachel was standing at the entrance to the hallway, Pudd at her shoulder pushing her into the kitchen. She was gagged with a scarf, and her arms were secured at her back.

Behind her, Pudd froze.

I dropped the bag and reached for my gun. Simultaneously, Rachel twisted in Pudd's grip and slammed her head back into his face, connecting with the bridge of his nose. He staggered backward, swiping at Rachel with the back of his hand. My fingers were already brushing the grip of the Smith amp; Wesson when something struck me hard on the side of the head and I went down, bright white pain erupting in my brain. I felt hands at my side and then my gun was gone and red droplets were exploding like sunbursts in the spilled milk. I tried to get up, but my hands slipped on the wet floor and my legs felt heavy and awkward. I raised my face to see Pudd's fist raining down blows on Rachel's head as she sank to the floor. There was blood on his face and palm. Then a second impact connected with my head, followed by a third, and I didn't feel anything else for what seemed like a very long time.

I came to in slow, arduous steps, as if I were struggling through deep red water. I was vaguely conscious of Rachel sitting on a kitchen chair by the table, still wearing her white cotton robe. Her teeth were visible where the scarf had been pulled tightly into her open mouth, and her hands were tied behind her back. There was bruising to her cheek and left eye, and blood on her forehead. Some of it had run down to stain the gag. She looked at me wide-eyed and her eyes flicked frantically to my right, but when I tried to move my head I was struck again and everything went black.

I drifted in and out like that for a while. My arms had been tied separately, each wrist bound to one of the struts of the chair by what felt like cable ties. They bit into my skin when I tried to move. My head ached badly, and there was blood in my eyes. Through the mists I heard a voice say:

“So this is the man.”

It was an old man's voice, faded and scratched like a recording heard through an old radio. I tried to lift my head and saw something move in the shadows in the hallway of the house: a slightly hunched figure, wrapped in black. Another, taller shape moved beside it, and I thought that it might be a woman.

“I think that perhaps you should leave now,” said a male voice. I recognized the careful, composed rhythms of Mr. Pudd's speech.

“I would prefer to stay,” came the reply as the voice drew closer to me. “You know how I like to watch you work.”

I felt fingers on my chin as the old man spoke, and smelled salt water and leather. The stench of internal decay was on his breath. I made an effort to open my eyes fully but the room was spinning and I was conscious only of his presence, of the way his fingers clutched at my flesh, testing the bone structure beneath my skin. His hand moved to my shoulder, then my arms and my fingers.

“No,” said Pudd. “It was unwise of you to come at all, on this of all days. You must leave.”

I heard a weary exhalation of air. “He sees them, you know,” said the old voice. “I can feel it from him. He is an unusual man, a tormented man.”

“I will put him out of his misery.”

“And ours,” said the voice. “He has strong bones. Don't damage-his fingers or his arms. I want them.”

“And the woman?”

“Do what you have to do, but a promise to spare her might encourage her lover to be more cooperative.”

“But if she dies…?”

“She has beautiful skin. I can use it.”

“How much of it?” asked Pudd.

There was a pause.

“All of it,” said the old man.

I heard footsteps on the kitchen floor beside me. The red film over my eyes was fading now as I blinked away the blood. I saw the strange, nameless woman with the scarred neck staring down at me with narrow, hateful eyes. She touched my cheek with her fingers, and I shuddered.

“Leave now,” said Pudd. She stayed beside me for another moment or two, then moved away almost regretfully. I saw her blend into the shadows, and then two figures moved through the half-open front door and into the yard. I tried to keep them in sight until a slap to my cheek brought me back and someone else moved into my line of vision, a woman dressed in a blue sweater and pants, her hair loose on her shoulders.

“Ms. Torrance,” I said, my mouth dry. “I hope you got a reference from Paragon before he died.”

She hit me on the back of my head. It wasn't a hard slap. It didn't have to be. She caught me right on the spot where the earlier blows had landed. The pain was almost visible to me, like lightning flashes in the night sky, and I grew nauseous with pain. I let my head hang down, my chin on my chest, and tried to keep myself from retching. From the front of the house came the sound of a car pulling away, and then there was movement ahead of me and a pair of brown shoes appeared at the kitchen door. I followed the shoes up to the cuffs of the brown pants, then the slightly stretched waistband, the brown check jacket, and finally, the dark, hooded eyes of Mr. Pudd.