John Connolly - The Wrath of Angels

He tightened the noose around Jackie’s neck once again, twisting it as he did so, and Jackie screamed briefly before the constriction reduced it to a pained gurgle.

‘You haven’t answered my question,’ I said. ‘Why you, and why now?’

The Collector ground the muzzle of his gun into Jackie’s skull.

‘No, it’s my turn for questions now, and I have only one: why did you send him? Why did you do it?’

I had no idea what he was talking about, and I told him. The Collector pressed his knee into Jackie’s back, contorting his body.

‘This one!’ said the Collector. ‘Why did you send him after my – after Eldritch? To destroy his records? To kill him? To kill me? Why? I want to know. Tell me! ’

And then I understood. ‘The explosion? I had nothing to do with it.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘I did not do it. On my life.’

‘It is on your life. It is on all your lives.’

I looked at Jackie. He was trying to talk.

‘Let him speak,’ I said. The Collector eased the pressure on the noose, and it hung from Jackie’s flesh by its hooks.

‘I didn’t know,’ said Jackie, so softly that we could barely hear him. ‘I swear, I didn’t know.’

‘Oh, Jackie,’ I said. ‘Jackie, what have you done?’

‘They told me there would be nobody in the building. They told me that nobody would get hurt.’

He spoke in a monotone. He was not pleading. He was confessing.

‘Who, Jackie? Who told you?’

‘It was a phone call. They knew about my mother. They knew that she was sick, and I didn’t have the money to help her. So I got a call offering me a job, and I was given a down payment in cash, a lot of cash, with the promise of more to come. All I had to do was cause an explosion. I didn’t ask any questions; I just took the money, and did the job. But I wanted to be sure that there was going to be nobody in the building when it happened, so I didn’t set a timer. I used a cell phone to detonate it instead. I made the call when I saw that the old man and the woman had left the office, but then the woman went back. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

Nobody spoke for a moment. There was nothing to say.

‘It seems that I misjudged you, Mr Parker,’ said the Collector, ‘although I must admit that I’m disappointed. I thought that I’d finally found an excuse to be rid of you.’

‘Don’t hurt him,’ I said at last. ‘There must be a way out of this.’

‘What will you do?’ asked the Collector. ‘Will you take his place? Will you hand him over to the law? You’re a hypocrite, Mr Parker. You’ve done bad things. You’ve used the ends to justify the means. There have even been times when I’ve considered you for my collection. Have you felt the urge to unburden yourself to the police, to tell them of bodies in swamps, of dead men in bus station restrooms? I do not trust you. I do not trust any of you.’

‘I’ll trade you,’ I said. ‘My friend for the list.’

‘The list? I have enough names in my head to last me a hundred lifetimes. If I killed one every hour it would still be no more than an echo of the greater reckoning to come. Your crusade is not mine. What I want is vengeance. What I want is blood, and I will have it. But take your friend, then. I release him. See?’

He lifted the end of the noose, and let it fall from his hand. Staying low, and still using Jackie as a shield, he began to retreat into the forest, his blackness becoming a part of the greater dark, until only his voice remained.

‘I warned you, Mr Parker. I told you that all those who stood by you would die. It has already begun. It continues now.’

There was the sound of a shot, and Jackie Garner’s chest spat a cloud of blood. Angel and Louis both began to move, but a second shot came, then a third, both exploding inches from my feet.

‘Stop!’ said the Collector. ‘Stop, or the girl is next.’

Liat was closer to him than any of us, but she couldn’t hear anything that he was saying. She was afraid to move, afraid of what might happen if she did.

So we stood, and we watched Jackie Garner die.

‘I can kill her now,’ came the shout from the forest. ‘I have her in my sights. Now walk toward me, Mr Parker, and throw the satchel up. No tricks, no short throws. I get the list, and you all live.’

I held the satchel high by its strap, and threw it hard, but not in the direction of the forest. Instead, I launched it into the dark pool. It seemed to rest on the black, viscous water for too long before disappearing soundlessly into its depths. I saw Liat’s eyes widen, and she stretched out her good hand as though somehow hoping to draw the bag back to her by sheer force of will.

I stood and waited for the final shot to come, but there was only that voice, fainter now as the Collector moved deeper into the forest. I heard a noise above my head, and saw a single raven separate itself from the crows and fly north.

‘That was a mistake,’ it said. ‘You know, Mr Parker, I don’t think that you and I are going to be friends any more . . .’

53

The boy did not know where he was going. He was angry, and grief-stricken. The woman who had been mother and more to him was lost, and he had seen again the face of the man who had briefly sent him into the void, into the pain of non-being. He wanted to kill him, but he wasn’t strong enough yet. He had not even properly regained the power of speech. The words were in his head but he could not form them with his lips or force his tongue to speak them.

So he ran through the woods, and he wept for the woman, and he plotted his revenge.

There was a buzzing in his head, the voice of the God of Wasps, the Reflected Man, but so lost was the boy in his rage and hurt that he was not able to understand it as a warning until he was already aware of being followed. There was a presence among the trees, shadowing him as he unwittingly ran further north. At first he feared that it might be Parker or one of those who stood by him, come to finish him off. He stopped at a copse of low cypress and crouched low behind them, watching and listening.

He glimpsed movement: a flicker of black on green, like burnt paper blown by the wind. He tried to recall if any of those at the plane had been dressed in black, and decided that they had not. Nevertheless, there was danger here: the voice told him so. His right hand searched the ground beside him and found a rock the size of his fist. He clutched it tightly. He would have only one chance to use it, and he would have to make it count. If he could hit his pursuer in the head, then the impact would give him time to pounce. He could use the same rock to beat him, or her, to death.

More movement, closer this time. The figure was small, only a little taller than himself. The boy was puzzled. Could it be an animal of some kind, even a dark wolf? Were there wolves in these woods? He did not know. The thought of being attacked by a carnivorous animal frightened him more than the threat posed by any human being. He feared unreasoning hunger, the sensation of teeth tearing at his flesh, of claws ripping his skin. He feared being consumed.

The girl appeared from behind a tree barely ten feet from where he lay. How she had moved so quickly without being seen he did not know, but he reacted instantly, firing the rock and watching with satisfaction as it struck the girl above her right eye, causing her to stumble but not lose her footing. He prepared to move on her, but the buzzing in his head rose to a crescendo, and he saw that no blood came from the wound in the girl’s head. He could discern clearly where the rock had impacted by the abrasion on her skin, but other than the initial shock of the blow she appeared untroubled by hurt. She did not even seem angry. She simply stared at the boy, then raised her right hand and silently beckoned him to her with a crook of a filthy index finger, its nail long gone.