Darren Shan - Hell's Horizon

Ali stared at me. “You know I cannot desert my post.”

“You’re not a soldier, Ali.”

“Still…”

“Trust me.” I grasped his shoulder and squeezed softly. “You don’t want to be here. You don’t want to get involved.”

His eyes swiveled upward, as if he could see through the ceiling. When he looked back at me, he wasn’t any the wiser, but he nodded. He didn’t know what I was going to do, but he knew I wouldn’t ask him to leave unless it was bad.

“I will go for a walk,” he decided. “I could do with the exercise, yes?”

I clapped his back and helped him lock up the store.

“I will be seeing you soon?” he asked as I resumed my climb.

“Maybe,” I lied.

As I turned the key, I remembered I had left my gun with Priscilla. I glanced at my feet, collected my wits, opened the door. “I’m back!” I called out.

“You’re home early,” she welcomed me, stepping through from the kitchen. She stood on her tiptoes for a kiss. I took her in my arms and obliged. She squinted at me, puzzled, when I let go abruptly.

“You look very enigmatic,” she remarked. “What’s up?”

“I’ve got a lead.” I gazed around the apartment, searching for the gun. “I have to go out again. Can I have my gun back? I might need it.”

“You think you’ve found the killer?” she asked, a slight tremor to her voice.

“No, just a lead. I probably won’t need the gun, but if you don’t mind letting me have it for a while…”

“Of course not. It’s in the kitchen. Wait here and I’ll fetch it.” She trotted off like a lamb. Good enough to eat. She came back moments later and pressed the pistol into my hand.

“Thanks,” I said, holding it by the barrel.

“So, where are you—?” she began.

I slammed the butt of the gun into her face, smashing her nose. She reeled away, stunned. I followed after her and clubbed the back of her head. She fell to the floor, where I pinned her and cuffed her wrists behind her waist. Then I turned her over.

I’d been expecting a torrent of abuse but she only laughed at me, spitting blood out the side of her mouth.

“You found out!” she howled gleefully.

“Bitch!” I slapped her face with the gun. “Murdering whore!” Grabbed her hair and yanked her head forward, ramming the gun up under her chin. “ Why ?”

“Why not?” she giggled, then added as I started to shake, “Get a grip. You’ll topple over from a heart attack if you carry on like this. Deep breaths, lover.”

I sat back and regarded her contemptuously. “You killed Nic and Ellen?”

“Guilty. Valerie finished off Nic, but I did most of the damage. I handled Ellen on my own. She was easier. Weaker.”

“You were their lover. Valerie, Nic, Ellen. You fucked them and killed them.”

“It wasn’t hard. Even Ellen. She’d never been with a woman before, but once I set my tongue in action, she lapped it up.” A wicked chuckle. “So to speak.”

I grinned in spite of myself, the grin of a lion with a keeper trapped in its cage. “You played me for a fool,” I whispered. “I was suspicious of you at the start, but you convinced me of your innocence. I cut you out of the investigation. Took you into my life, my bed, my apartment, and never guessed, not once.”

She smirked. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. I did a bit of acting in my earlier days. Could have gone into the movies if Daddy hadn’t been so set against it. But I never gave a performance this good. This was my pièce de résistance .”

“Why waste it on me?” I asked.

“Why not?” she replied again.

“It’s as simple as that? You picked my name out of a book?”

“Not quite. I was following orders.”

“Whose?”

“The sun god’s.”

I cocked the gun. “Don’t fuck with me,” I growled.

“I’m through fucking,” she said. “Nic was a sacrifice. She knew what was up. She didn’t know she was to be killed, but once things got under way she played along, making the most of a bad lot. She always was a good sport.”

“Ziegler said he didn’t know she was going to be murdered.”

“He didn’t. We brought Rudi along to read the necessary passages. When he went home, Jinks and I carved her up and carted her to the Skylight. I thought she was dead, but she was still alive when Valerie checked later. Not for long though.” She sang the last line.

“You killed Nic to appease a fucking sun god,” I muttered, thinking quickly. “But why leave the body at the Skylight?”

“Orders.”

“The sun god’s?”

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you to fuck up my life as well?”

“Sure did.”

“You’ve got a direct line to him?” I sneered.

“He spoke to me through his earthly agent. Told me to spin a web and draw you in. I don’t know why he bothered with a sap like you, but you don’t question the god of the sun. You obey his word or burn.”

“Did he tell you to kill Ellen?”

“Yes. But through his priests this time. I ran into Ellen a couple of days after our encounter in Cafran’s. An impartial observer might say it was coincidence, but I’m sure it was destiny. I saw she was attracted to me and lured her on. I told my agent and suggested killing her but he vetoed the idea. Then the villacs said to proceed. I’m not sure how they knew about us, but I was glad they did. I got a real buzz out of killing her.”

The priests had told a half-truth when I met them in the underground cavern — they hadn’t murdered Ellen directly, but they had sanctioned it. I’d make the bastards pay if I could.

“Why kill Ellen?” I asked.

“To destroy you. The villacs said it was important. I don’t know why. I just followed orders and used my initiative when the opportunity arose.” She started humming.

“You’re crazy as a coyote,” I muttered.

“Who are you to judge?” she retorted. “What do you think you look like to the god of the sun? Have you any idea how insignificant you are? How tiny? How—”

I gagged her. I’d heard all I needed to hear. There was still Bill to ask about but that could come later, when I’d loosened her lips. Right now I wanted to focus on the payback. I thought of all the tools in the apartment that I could use. I had a small Bunsen burner. A hacksaw. Pliers. A hammer. A drill. Lots of knives.

Once I’d gathered my implements, I laid them on the floor where she could see them. There was fear in her eyes, which excited me. Unlike Valerie, she hadn’t inured herself to pain. She could be hurt.

I took the smallest finger of her left hand — the same digit she’d cut off Bill — and wedged it between the pliers. I gave a gentle squeeze and her body stiffened as she yelped into the gag. I stood there a moment and thought about what I was doing. Could I justify this? Revenge was one thing, but torture? Could I inflict pain on a woman I’d thought I might be in love with less than an hour ago?

I thought about Paucar Wami and the tainted blood running through my veins. Ellen in the Skylight, cut to ribbons, short life cruelly ended, hair plastered across the pillows.

My hands tightened. I saw the flesh of her finger start to whiten. A thin stream of blood trickled from the cut. She was made of weak stuff. One good wrench and the finger would be off. One sudden burst of energy and…

I let the pliers drop. Seconds later I dropped beside them. Tears rolled down my cheeks and my chest heaved with sobs.

I couldn’t do it. I had every reason to, but something held me back and wouldn’t let me take the last, damning step that would separate me from all that had once defined my humanity.

I removed the gag from Priscilla’s mouth.