Stephen Leather - Nightshade - The Fourth Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thriller

He eased open the gate, slipped inside and closed it behind him, then walked carefully down the path, squeezed by the car and walked around the side of the house. He stopped and peered through the kitchen window until he was sure that there was no one there, then walked to the kitchen door. He tried the handle and wasn’t surprised to find that it was locked. He looked up at the back of the house. The curtains on the bedroom window had Hello Kittys on them, so he figured that was where Bella slept. There was a small window open in what was probably a bathroom and at a pinch he reckoned he could reach it by climbing the drainpipe. He squinted up at the window and tried to work out if he’d be able to slip through. He made his mind up that the window was out of the question when he tapped the drainpipe and discovered that it was plastic. He moved past the kitchen door. There was a large glass sliding door that led into the sitting room. The curtains were drawn but there was enough of a gap to see that the room was in darkness. He pulled on a pair of grey surgical gloves and took a screwdriver from his pocket. It took him only seconds to force the screwdriver into the gap between the door and the wall and pop the lock. He gently slid the door open, pushed the curtain aside and stepped into the sitting room. He stopped and listened for a full minute, then tiptoed across the sitting room and into the hallway, listened again, and then headed up the stairs, keeping close to the wall to minimise any squeaking boards.

When he reached the landing he stopped and listened again. There were four doors. There was one to the rear of the house, which he assumed was Bella’s bedroom. The door immediately to his left was open. The bathroom. He guessed that the bedroom facing the street would be the master bedroom, where Mr and Mrs Harper were sleeping. The door was open slightly and Nightingale tiptoed over to it, breathing shallowly.

He pushed it open. Mrs Harper was closest to him, sleeping on her side. Her husband was on his back, snoring softly. Nightingale took a handkerchief and a can of diethyl ether from his pocket, twisted the top off the can of ether and soaked the material with the fluid. He tiptoed across the carpet and held the ether-soaked handkerchief under the woman’s nose for the best part of a minute, then draped it over her face.

He prepared a second handkerchief and did the same to the husband.

When he was satisfied that they were both unconscious, he tiptoed out of the room and pulled the door closed behind him. His heart was racing and he stood where he was a for a full minute, composing himself, before soaking a third handkerchief with ether and pushing open the door to Bella’s bedroom.

She was lying on her back, breathing slowly and evenly. Her eyes were closed and her blonde hair was spread across her pillow. Her skin was as pale as porcelain, unlined and unblemished the way only a nine-year-old’s could be. Her hands were clasped together on top of the duvet as if she was praying. Nightingale closed the door quietly, wincing as the wood brushed against the carpet. When he turned back to the bed, Bella’s eyes were wide open and she was staring right at him.

‘You’re Jack Nightingale, aren’t you?’ she said.

Nightingale said nothing.

‘You’ve come to kill me, haven’t you?’

Nightingale stared at her in silence.

The girl smiled at him. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’ She slowly raised her hand and beckoned him to come closer. ‘I’ve a message for you,’ she said. ‘From Jesus.’

93

Nightingale took a step towards the bed. He had the ether-soaked handkerchief in his right hand. The girl continued to beckon him with her finger. Nightingale felt light-headed but wasn’t sure if it was the fumes or if the Shade was somehow making it hard for him to concentrate.

She was smiling angelically, her blonde hair glinting in the glow of the streetlight that shafted in through a break in the curtains. Her finger continued to beckon him forwards. Nightingale’s feet shuffled towards the bed as if they had a life on their own.

He worked the handkerchief in his hand, rolling it around his palm until it formed a tight ball.

He took another step. And another. He was at the side of the bed, looking down at the girl. Her smile widened and he wrinkled his nose at the foul stench that seemed to be coming from her mouth. ‘Come closer, Jack,’ she said. Her voice had grown deeper and more masculine and her eyes were no longer the eyes of a little girl, they were black and as hard as glass. ‘There’s a good boy. I have something to tell you.’

Nightingale sneered at her. ‘You can say anything you want, I can’t hear,’ he said.

‘You can hear me, Jack,’ she said. ‘And you going to do exactly as I say. Now lean forward and let me whisper to you.’

Nightingale stared at her as he moved his face closer to hers. She grinned in triumph and opened her mouth to speak. Nightingale moved quickly, jumping onto the bed and grabbing her wrists. He forced her arms down by her sides and then knelt over her, trapping her with his legs, his knees digging into the side of her chest. She took a deep breath, but just before she screamed he thrust the balled handkerchief between her teeth. He used his left hand to clamp her jaw shut as he pulled a roll of duct tape from his raincoat pocket. He used his teeth to pull a few inches of tape from the roll and then slapped it down over her mouth. She thrashed about, but he quickly wound tape around her head several times. The tape and handkerchief reduced her screams to muffled grunts and her eyes burned with hatred.

Nightingale wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his coat. He sat back on his heels and stared at her. ‘I’d like to say that this is going to hurt me more than you, but that’s probably not true,’ he said. He reached up with his hands and gently pulled out the yellow foam rubber earplugs that had stopped him hearing anything that the Shade had said to him.

The girl stopped thrashing around and her eyes narrowed. They were less human now, totally black and featureless.

Nightingale put the earplugs into his pocket and took out the leather roll that Mrs Steadman had given him. The girl began to thrash around as she realised what was happening. Nightingale ignored her and concentrated on undoing the braided strap. He flipped open the flap and pulled out the two shorter knives, one in each hand. He deftly swivelled them around so that the mesh spheres were in the palms of his hands and the blades were pointing down.

His heart was racing and his breath was coming in ragged gasps. He took a deep breath to steady himself, then raised his hands above his head. His felt a searing pain at the back of his head, as if someone had stuck a burning needle into his skull. He could hear words, not through his ears but from somewhere inside his head. ‘No, no, no, no!’

He ignored the voice in his head, steeled himself for a second, and then drove the knives down into the girl’s eyes. The blades had to be forced through and there were simultaneous loud pops as the eyeballs burst. Grey fluid squirted out and dribbled around the blades and down the girl’s cheeks. The body went into convulsions beneath him and he gripped tightly with his knees so that she couldn’t throw him off. He leaned forward and pushed down, wincing at the tearing sound that the knives made as they pushed through the skull behind the eyes and on into the brain.

Blood gushed out of the wounds as Nightingale used his full weight to drive the knives all the way in. He stopped when the mesh spheres were flush against the eyeballs and sat back, wiping his bloody hands on the duvet.

The Shade wasn’t screaming any more, it was making a whimpering moan muffled by the gag. Nightingale tried not to think about what he was doing. He fumbled for the third knife. The big one. He took it in both hands, the small figure of Christ protruding from the V formed by his crossed thumbs.