Clive Barker - The Damnation Game

In the hallway Whitehead had sunk down onto his haunches, mouth gaga. The European moved in for the coup de grâce, but Carys interrupted.

"Leave him," she said.

Distracted, Mamoulian turned toward her. The blood on his cheek had traced a single line to his jaw. "You too," he murmured. "No limits." Carys backed off into the gaming room. The candle on the table had begun to flare. Energy was loose in the suite, and the spitting flame was fat and white on it. The European looked at Carys with hunger in his eyes. There was an appetite on him-an instinctive response to his blood loss-and all he could see in her was nourishment. Like the thief: hungry for another strawberry though his belly was full enough.

"I know what you are," Carys said, deflecting his gaze.

From the bathroom, Marty heard her ploy. Stupid, he thought, to tell him that.

"I know what you did."

The European's eyes widened, smoky.

"You're nobody," the girl started to say. "You're just a soldier who met a monk, and strangled him in his sleep. What have you got to be so proud of?" Her fury beat against his face. "You're nobody! Nobody and nothing!"

He reached to catch hold of her. She dodged him around the cardtable once, but he threw it over, the pack scattering, and caught her. His hold felt like a vast leech on her arm, taking blood from her and giving only the void, only purposeless dark. He was the Architect of her dreams again.

"God help me," she breathed. Her senses crumbled and grayness streamed in to take their place. He pulled her out of her body with one insolent wrench and took her into him, dropping her husk to the floor beside the overturned table. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked up at the evangelists. They were standing in the doorway staring at him. He felt sick with his greed. She was in him-all of her at once-and it was too much. And the Saints were making it worse, looking at him as though he were something loathsome, the dark one shaking his head. "You killed her," he said. "You killed her."

The European turned away from the accusations, his system boiling over, and leaned elbow and forearm on the wall like a drunk about to vomit. Her presence in him was a torment. It wouldn't be still, it raged and raged. And her turbulence unlocked so much more: Strauss piercing his bowels; the dogs at his heels, unleashing blood and smoke; and then back, back beyond these few terrible months to other ordeals: yards and snow and starlight and women and hunger, always hunger. And still at his back he felt the stare of the Christians.

One of them spoke; the blond boy whom once he might have lusted after. He, and she, and all.

"Is this all there is?" he demanded to know. "Is this all, you fucking liar? You promised us the Deluge."

The European pressed his hand over his mouth to stem the escaping smoke and pictured a wave curling over the hotel, over the city, descending to sweep Europe away.

"Don't tempt me," he said.

In the hallway Whitehead, his neck broken, became vaguely aware of a perfume in the air. He could see the landing outside the suite from where he was lying. Muranowski Square, with its fatal tree, had long since faded, leaving only the mirrors and the carpets. Now, as he sprawled beside the door, he heard somebody come up the stairs. He glimpsed a figure moving in the shadows; this was the perfumed one. The newcomer approached slowly, but doggedly; hesitating for only a moment at the threshold before stepping over Whitehead's crumpled form and making his way toward the room where the two men had played cards. There had been a while, as they'd chatted over the game, that the old man had fancied he might yet make a fresh covenant with the European; might escape for a few more years the inevitable catastrophe. But it had all gone wrong. They had rowed over some trivia, the way lovers do, and by some incomprehensible mathematic it had escalated to this: death.

He rolled himself over so that he could look the other way, down the corridor toward the gaming room. Carys was lying on the floor among the spilled cards. He could see her corpse through the open door. The European had devoured her.

Now the newcomer interrupted his view as he lurched to the door. From where he lay Whitehead hadn't been able to see the man's face. But he saw the shine on the machete at his side.

Tom caught sight of the Razor-Eater before Chad. His unruly stomach rebelled at the mingled stench of sandalwood and putrefaction, and he threw up on the old man's bed as Breer stepped into the room. He'd come a long way, and the miles had not been kind, but he was here.

Mamoulian stood upright from the wall and faced Breer.

He was not entirely surprised to see that rotted face, though he wasn't sure why. Was it that his mind had not quite relinquished its hold on the Razor-Eater, and that Breer was somehow here at his behest? Breer stared at Mamoulian through the bright air, as if awaiting a new instruction before he acted again. The muscles of his face were so deteriorated that each flicker of his eyeball threatened to tear the skin of its orbit. He looked, thought Chad-his mind high on cognac-like a man full to bursting with butterflies. Their wings beat against the confines of his anatomy; they powdered his bones in their fervor. Soon their relentless motion would split him open and the air would be full of them.

The European looked down at the machete Breer was carrying.

"Why did you come?" he wanted to know.

The Razor-Eater tried to reply, but his tongue rebelled against the duty. There was just a soft palate word that could have been "good," or "got" or "God," but was none of them.

"Have you come to be killed? Is that it?"

Breer shook his head. He had no such intention, and Mamoulian knew it. Death was the least of his problems. He raised the blade at his side to signal his intentions.

"I can wipe you out," Mamoulian said.

Again, Breer shook his head. "Egg," he said, which Mamoulian interpreted, and repeated as "Dead."

"Dead..." Chad mused. "God in Heaven. The man's dead."

The European murmured the affirmative.

Chad smiled. Maybe they were going to be cheated of the destroying wave. Perhaps the Reverend's calculations had been wrong, and the Deluge wouldn't be on them for a few more months. What did it matter? He had stories to tell-such stories. Even Bliss, with all his talk of the demons in the soul of the hemisphere, hadn't known about scenes like this. The Saint watched, licking his lips with anticipation.

In the hallway, Whitehead had managed to drag himself three or four yards away from the front door, and he could see Marty, who had managed to stand. Leaning on the lintel of the bathroom door, Marty felt the old man's eyes on him. Whitehead raised a beckoning hand. Groggily, Marty lurched into the hallway, his presence ignored by the actors in the gaming room. It was dark out here; the light in the gaming room, that livid candlelight, was all but sealed off by the partially closed door.

Marty knelt at Whitehead's side. The old man took hold of his shirt.

"You've got to fetch her," he said, the voice almost faded. His eyes bulged, there was blood in his beard, and more coming with each word, but his hold was strong. "Fetch her, Marty," he hissed.

"What are you talking about?"

"He has her," Whitehead said. "In him. Fetch her, for Christ's sake, or she'll be there forever, like the others." His eyes flicked in the direction of the landing, remembering the scourge of Muranowski Square. Was she there already? A prisoner under the tree, with Vasiliev's eager hands on her? The old man's lips began to tremble. "Can't... let him have her, boy," he said. "You hear me. Won't let him have her."

Marty had difficulty sewing the sense of this together. Was Whitehead suggesting that he should find his way into Mamoulian and retrieve Carys? It wasn't possible.