The Butcher and the Butterfly (9 page)

‘I understand,
Watchman.’ He nodded and then within a heartbeat he ran off back
the way they had come leaving the Watchman alone with the crickets,
crows and long grass.

He walked further
down the path and counted to twenty until he came to a small wooden
gate hanging free on one hinge the garden it protected long since
left to die. Past the prickly bushes, overgrown grass, lavender and
devil stick was an old hut; it’s dark exterior a harsh contrast to
the white wash sky. Its wooden shell seemed to defy the notion of
time and that all things must come to an end. The windows were
boarded up and to the untrained eye, the hut could easily be
mistaken for a unused store house or at best; somewhere to store
animals during the hottest of days.

Stephen walked
past what was left of the front gate and as he closed in on the
front door he brushed past the lavender that thrived out in these
parts and its scent filled the air giving it a sickly sweet aroma.
It was an unsettling sensation; to be surrounded by decay and ruin
but to be filled with the smells better suited to one of the bath
houses back home. He reached the door and carefully rapped upon its
rotten centre and as he did the sky turned darker, the crickets
fell silent and far off in the distance he could hear the crows
screaming and they screamed and they screamed until the door
creaked open.

Tiny Clouds for
Scurrying Rats

1

She had been awake
since dawn. Sat opposite the door in her rocking chair, she went
back and forth surrounded by the gloom of her once bright home.
Cradling the orb in both hands her thoughts were as wild as the
garden she had left to rot many years ago. She had viewed the
Watchman walking from the town, helped by her little friend and now
her old chest heaved in and out as she waited with baited breath
for the knock at her door.

When the knock
came she glanced briefly at the door casting her ancient magic upon
its weary frame. The door opened.

‘Come in,
Watchman, if it would please ya.’ She croaked, her throat as dry as
her old womanhood.

Stephen entered
the hut tentatively, unsure of what he might find. The building was
rank, stinking of sweat, death, animals and old sex. The room he
walked into was large, once it had been a living, dining and
cooking area but now it was wretched, full of rubbish and decay.
His eyes scanned the woman sat in the chair opposite the main door
but she was hidden, her scrawny body in shadow, he could tell
though, that she was hiding something beneath her shawl and she was
holding whatever was under there tightly.

Patience knew what
he sensed and she raised her head, her eyes wide, and her mouth
showing the beginnings of smugness.

‘Thank you,
Patience. My name is Stephen, I am a…’

‘I know what you
are, Watchman.’ Patience interrupted, ‘I knew what you were going
to become even before you did.’ She stroked the ball hidden her lap
as she felt it pulse in her mind. Petra was waking up and sooner
rather than later she would need feeding.

Stephen, still
stood in her doorway like a whore waiting to be plucked by the next
payer, slid his small back pack from his side and dropped it onto
the floor. Small dust motes floated up; tiny clouds for the
scurrying rats and though he didn’t want to he turned to close the
door.

‘Leave it open, me
boy. Too dark for your pert eyes if you were to close that old
thing. Best it is left open.’

He turned his
attention to whatever she had hidden beneath her shawl. He was
reminded of the Sorcerer and how he had secrets hidden beneath his
own black cloak.

‘Better for whom?’
Stephen asked.

‘Ha!’ Patience
exclaimed. ‘You know who. I would offer ya a chair to rest yer
tired backside upon but as you can see this old house aint what it
used to be. So we shall dispense with all the bullshit, Watchman,
or whatever it is you are now and get down to business shall we?’
She leant back in her chair soaking up the atmosphere and confusion
she could see building in this traveller. He didn’t have a clue
what was going to happen to him. Much like she hadn’t all those
years ago, before the dark arts and before the lust for more took
her over.

‘Business?’ The
Watchman asked.

‘Aye, that’s
right. That old cunny Sorcerer sent you here to retrieve something
from me. He thought, much like you are thinking now, that you will
takes it from old Patience, the mad old cunt, without leaving her
with nothing but a bullet hole in her head. But you are wrong about
that.’ Patience smiled and blew a small breath of air toward the
Watchman.

The stinking
breath reached him and what was once a small breath turned into
what felt like an iron fist; smashing him hard in the chest. He
slumped to the floor, his arse hitting the boards hard causing him
to yell out in shock. The old boards creaked and groaned but they
didn’t give way.

Breathing deep,
gathering himself together, the Watchman slowly stood; patting the
dust from his trousers. In the darkness Patience’s eyes were a
blaze with joy. ‘But as you can see, Stephen, I aint some prissy
little slut you can wine and dine and poke with her mighty pink
stick. You is gonna have to pay up, or fuck off.’

There was a
momentary silence between the two; even the crickets had fallen
silent. It was a silence Stephen knew well; the great breath before
the plunge into chaos and ruin. Patience revelled in it, but was
somewhat disappointed in the man stood before her; not once had he
gone for his gun.

‘You’re wondering
why I haven’t gone for my gun, aren’t ya?’ Stephen asked stepping
further into the building his shadow overwhelming the old
witch.

Patience was
reminded of all the others that have been cocky around her. Fools
to the last and they never, ever learned. But this one would be
different. There was something about him; an aura surrounded him
unlike any others she had seen before. Well, maybe one, but he had
soon found his end.

‘What do you
want?’

‘I am here to
collect a weapon and then be on my way.’

‘I know.’

‘Then why ask?’
Stephen spat and Patience could see his regret as he braced himself
for another pounding.

But she wasn’t
going to that. ‘It’s out the back in the bedroom. Top of the
wardrobe, under an old sheet.’

Stephen walked
further into the gloom and headed through a small doorway at the
back of the large room the two of them had been occupying. The
bedroom was very dark, lit only by small slits in the wooden boards
that covered the windows. The smell of sweat and sex was worse in
here and Stephen felt his stomach turn as he thought what had gone
on in here to produce such a stink. He pictured Tommy and the witch
and then quickly pushed those images to one side. The bed wasn’t
made, clothes were strewn all over and what was visible of the
floor was as black as the night’s sky.

In her chair,
knowing what the Watchman was thinking, the old witch chuckled.
‘Age may take many thinks from ya, boy, but there are some itches
that always need scratching, if ya get me?’

Sadly Stephen did
get her, but he didn’t respond. Something else had caught his
attention.

2

He reached over
and shifted to one side the old dusty sheet that covered the
weapon. Dust flew in his eyes and he wiped at them quickly fighting
back the cough.

The room was
growing hot, the darkness somehow intensifying even though the sun
was still high. He was all of a sudden extremely self-aware and
overwhelmed with a feeling that he was surrounded by another being.
Not a man, not a woman but something ethereal, long dead but not
long gone. It was something that should have died millennia ago but
has clung on no matter what the cost. His hands became clammy and
his stubble itchy.

Stephen swallowed
hard as his eyes re-focused on the revolver that revealed it’s self
from the gloom. As he reached out to grab it, there was a feeling
as if the gun too was reaching out for him. When his hand met the
gun and the gun met his hand an ancient killer met a new killer and
the world would never be the same again.

3

‘What the fuck is
this?’ Stephen mumbled as he took hold of the gun and felt the
weight and the feel of the old piece.

‘That is Jonah. He
be one ancient cunt, mark my words He comes from a time where great
tubular hulks flew in the sky and men worked in glass towers that
reached high into the heavens.’ Patience voice seemed far off,
unimportant.

‘Is it alive?’

‘Aye.’

Stephen left the
bedroom and walked back into the main room. The light was better in
here and he could see the gun now. It was of typical design; wooden
grip, long barrelled. It had been converted at some point; the
traditional six cylinder casing had been replaced with a much
larger eight cylinder giving the whole gun a rather comical look.
The metal work was covered in old markings that Stephen could not
make out, however to his eyes they seemed to glow ever so slightly.
Surprisingly it weighed nothing. He span it a couple of times and
opened the cylinder to check the calibre.

‘Takes whatever
you put in it, Watchman.’ Patience remarked; her grip on the orb
becoming tighter.

Another voice
spoke to Stephen now, the words were quiet; almost nothing and he
couldn’t make them all out. The voice was that of a man, deep,
resonant like a far off rumble of thunder, it was practically
unintelligible.

‘You can hear him,
cant ya Watchman.’ She was excited now and leaning forward she
adjusted herself so that the orb between her legs was resting on
the chair.

‘Yes, but I can’t
make out what it is saying.’

‘You will, in
time. But now the price you must pay.’ Patience moved aside the
shawl revealing the orange orb that she had been keeping hidden.
The glow encompassed the room and made Stephen shield his eyes with
his free hand. It was like a second sun was rising.

‘You have Petra.’
Stephen squirmed as he felt another tug on his mind. But this tug
was not a man’s, it was a woman’s; it tugged at him, and then eased
back releasing its grip caressing him as it drifted back. The
orange light dimmed ever so slightly, enough for the two of them to
un-shield their eyes.

‘I have her; she
has me, who the fuck knows. What I do knows is that this girl gets
hungry and it aint no beef or pig that will keep her happy. She
graves what only I was once able to give her. But times have moved
on and old age has crept on me like a cat chasing a mouse. People
don’t come here no more. They fear what lives in the hut at the
edge of the desert.’

She covered the
orb back up with her shawl and eased herself up. Patience hobbled
over to the Watchman her eyes not leaving his. Stephen was shocked
at how small she was, how thin and frail and wretched a person
could become. As much as he wanted to though he didn’t back
away.

When the two were
as close as they could get she leaned up and grabbed hold of his
face with one of her dirty hands. The stench was almost
unbearable.

‘Jonah is her only
salvation now. Petra is the strongest of all the sisters. If ya
don’t keep her happy then she could end this world, and any others,
with but a single breath. When ya kill with that gun the soul
leaves the body and finds its way into Petra’s mouth. The more
kills the happier the Petra and the safer we all are. Kill enough
and the gun can fall silent, for a time. But the two are connected,
ya savvy? Cause and effect.’

Stephen pushed her
hand away, leaned over and picked up his small pack. Patience
scurried back to her chair and sat down hard.

‘That gun will
bring you everything you ever wanted and you won’t think twice
about pulling its archaic trigger once it takes a hold of ya. Even
when Petra has had her fill that metallic cunt wants to take more.
Nobody is safe. Not even yer precious Sorcerer and that reptile
Barnabas.’

Stephen wiped away
the sweat from his brow, looked once more at the weapon and quickly
placed it in his back pack. Jonah uttered something but Stephen
couldn’t make it out. It was like trying to hear a voice through
water.

‘Time to be
leaving, I think.’ Stephen uttered as he turned and walked through
the doorway.

‘Don’t deny him,
Stephen,’ Patience yelled, ‘Don’t try and hold him back. He will
seek out another and then you will be one of the souls Petra chews
on!’

4

Peering into the
orb, seeing futures that may or may not come to pass, Patience
spoke ugly things to her only companion left in her miserable
existence. Petra spoke back to her, softly, like a lover after the
act had been undertaken. It spoke of the girl, Susie and of what
the Watchman had left inside of her. It spoke of how she wanted the
little one, needed and then pleaded for Patience to get it.

It was the only
way to continue. We can’t trust the Watchman. It was the only way
to stop her turning the world red.

5

Stephen headed
back into Rockfall following the rough path he had been on a few
hours ago. He hurried at first, the vileness of the hut clinging to
him, but eventually the smell left his nostrils and the sickness in
his gut left.

We shall start off
slow

We shall start off
easy

Maybe one or
two

You can’t ignore
me forever, not if you want to live

He climbed a small
outcropping and headed down into a shallow valley. The heat was
easing now, the time seeming to run faster out in the wilds but it
was still hot. Ahead was a derelict shed slightly off the main path
but close enough that there was no chance of losing his way. The
main door, bleached the colour of bone was bolted shut, the lock
and chain as rusty as the water wells iron works but even with all
his strength he could bust it open. Instead he hunkered down in the
shade of the shed and placed his back pack between his legs.