Clive Barker - Sacrament

The admission was enough to banish the horror. The tide retreated, and a moment later was gone entirely, leaving Will hanging in the darkness again.

'Isn't this a finer place?' Steep said. 'In a hush like this we might have a hope of knowing who we are. There's no error here. No imperfection. Nothing to distract us from God.'

'This is the way you want the world?' Will murmured. 'Empty?'

'Not empty. Cleansed.'

'Ready to begin again?'

'Oh no.'

'But it will, Steep. You might drive things into hiding for a while, but there'll always be some mudfiat you missed, some rock you didn't lift. And life will come back. Maybe not human life. Maybe something better. But life, Jacob. You can't kill the world.'

'I'll reduce it to a petal,' Jacob replied, lightly. Will could hear the smile in the man's voice as he spoke. 'And God'll be there. Plain. I'll see Him, plain. And I'll understand why I was made.' His face was starting to congeal again. There was the wide, pale brow, sheltering that deep, troubled gaze; the fine nose, the finer mouth.

'Suppose you're wrong,' Will said. 'Suppose God wanted the world to be filled? Ten thousand kinds of buttercup? A million kinds of beetle? No two of anything alike. Just suppose. Suppose you're the enemy of God, Jacob. Suppose ... you're the Devil and you don't know it?'

'I'd know. Though I can't see Him yet, God moves in me.'

'Well,' said Will, 'He moves in me too.' And the words, though he'd never thought he'd hear them from his own tongue, were true. God was in him now. Always had been. Steep had the rage of some Judgmental Father in his eye, but the divinity Will had in him was no less a Lord, though He talked through the mouth of a fox and loved life more than Will had supposed life could be loved. A Lord who'd come before him in innumerable shapes over the years. Some pitiful, to be sure, triumphant. A blind polar bear on a rubbish heap; two children in painted masks; Patrick sleeping, Patrick smiling, Patrick speaking love. Camellias on a window-sill and the skies of Africa. His Lord was there, everywhere, inviting him to see the soul of things.

Sensing the certainty moving in Will, Steep countered in the only way he knew how.

'I put the hunger for death in you,' he said. 'That makes you mine. We might both regret it, but it's the truth.'

How could Will deny it, while that knife was still in his hand? Taking his gaze from Steep's face, he sought the weapon out, following the form of the man's shoulder, along his arm to the fist that was still gripping the blade, and down, down to his own hand, which still grasped the hilt.

Then, seeing it, he let it go. It was so simple to do. The sum of the blade's harms would not be swelled by his wielding of it; not by a single wound.

The consequence of his letting go was instantaneous. The darkness was instantly extinguished, and the solid world sprang up around him: the hallway, the body, the staircase that led up to the open roof, through which straight beams of sun were coming.

And in front of him, Steep; staring at him with a curious look on his face. Then he shuddered, and his fingers opened just enough to allow the blade to slide from his grip. It had opened his palm, deeply, and the wound was seeping. It wasn't blood that came, however. It was the same stuff that had seeped from Rosa's body; finer threads from a smaller wound, but the same bright liquor. Fragments of it curled lazily around his fingers, and without thinking what he was doing, Will reached out to touch it. The threads sensed him, and came to meet his hand. He heard Steep tell him no, but it was too late. Contact had been made. Once again, he felt the matter pass into him and through him. This time, however, he was prepared to watch for its revelation, and he wasn't disappointed. The face before him unveiled itself, its flesh confessing the mystery that lay beneath. He knew it already. The same strange beauty he'd seen lurking in Rosa was here in Steep too: the form of the Nilotic, like something carved from the eternal.

'What did Rukenau do to you two?' Will said softly.

The flesh inside Steep's flesh stared out at him like a prisoner, despairing of release. 'Tell me,' Will pressed. Still it said nothing. Yet it wanted to speak; Will could see the desire to do so in its eyes; how it wanted to tell its story. He leaned a little closer to it. 'Try,' he said.

It inclined its head towards him, until their mouths were only three or four inches apart. No sound escaped it; nor could, Will suspected. The prisoner had been mute too long to find its voice again so quickly. But while they were so close, gaze meeting gaze, he could not waste its proximity. He leaned another inch towards it, and the Nilotic, knowing what was coming, smiled. Then Will kissed it, lightly, reverently, on the lips. The creature returned his kiss, pressing its cool mouth against his.

The next moment, as had happened with Rosa, the thread of light burned itself out in him, and was gone. The veil fell instantly, obscuring what lay beneath, and the face Will was kissing was Steep's face. Jacob pushed him away with a shout of disgust, as though he'd momentarily shared Will's trance and only now realized what the power inside him had sanctioned. Then he fell back against the wall, clenching his wounded hand tight closed to be certain no more of this traitorous fluid escaped, and with the back of his other hand, wiped his lips clean. He scoured every trace of gentility from his face as he did so. All perplexity, all doubt, were gone. Fixing Will with a rabid gaze, he reached down and picked up the knife that lay between them. There was no room for further exchange, Will knew. Steep wasn't going to be talking about God or forgiveness any longer. All he wanted to do was kill the man who'd just kissed him.

Even though he knew there was no hope of peace now, Will took his time as he retreated to the door, studying Steep. When next they met, it would be death for one of them; this would most likely be his last opportunity to look at the man whose brotherhood he had so passionately wanted to share. A kiss such as they'd exchanged was nothing to a man who was certain of himself. But Steep was not certain; never had been. Like so many of the men Will had watched and wanted in his life, he lived in fear of his manhood being seen for what it was, a murderous figment; a trick of spit and swagger that concealed a far stranger spirit.

He could watch no longer; another five seconds and the knife would be at his throat. He turned, and took himself off across the threshold, down the path and out into the street. Steep didn't follow. He would brood a while, Will guessed, putting his thoughts in murderous order before he began his final pursuit. And pursue he would. Will had kissed the spirit in him, and that was a crime the figment would never forgive. It would come, knife in hand. Nothing was more certain.

He Enters The House Of The World

Will emerged from the Donnelly house in a daze and remained that way for the next hour or so. He was aware of getting into Frannie's car, Rosa half-lying across the seat behind him, and their taking off out of the village as though they had a horde of fallen angels on their heels; but he was monosyllabic in his responses to Frannie's enquiries, resenting her attempts to snap him out of his fugue. Was he hurt? she wanted to know. He told her no. And Steep; what about Steep? Alive, he told her. Hurt? she asked. Yes, he told her. Badly enough to kill him? she asked. He told her no. Pity, she said.

A little while later, they stopped at a garage and Frannie got out to use the phone. He didn't care why. But she told him anyway when she got back into the driver's seat. She'd called the police, to tell them where to find Sherwood's body. She was stupid not to have done it earlier, she said. Maybe they would have caught Steep. 'Never,' he said.