The Killing Kind (42 page)

But it was the walls that drew the eye; every available space, every inch from corner to corner, ceiling to floor, had been illustrated. There were Kohn-like impressions of death upon a dark horse; images of war victims inspired by Dix and Goerg; cities crumbling in a fury of reds and yellows as in Meidner's apocalyptic landscapes. They overlapped one another, blurring at the edges into greens and blues where the pigments had mixed. Images taken from one artist recurred in the work of another, at once out of context yet still part of the greater vision. One of Goerg's demons fell upon the crowds fleeing Meidner's destruction; Kohn's horse wandered among Dix's battlefield corpses.

No wonder his kids were screwed up.

The next room was similarly decorated, although this time the images were medieval in origin and much more ornate. This room was larger than its neighbor, with two double beds on a linoleum floor, a slatted wood divider between them. There were books and magazines on rough shelves, two closets, and a small shower and toilet in one corner, separated from the main room by sliding glass doors. The only light came from a single bedside lamp standing on a table. Close by where I stood were two cardboard boxes filled with women's clothing and an open suitcase containing some men's suits and jackets. All of the clothes looked at least two decades out of date. The sheets had been removed from the beds and tied in two bundles. A vacuum cleaner stood in one corner, its dust bag removed and lying beside it. It seemed that all traces of the bunker's occupants were in the process of being removed.

A door stood half open at the entrance to the third room. I paused as a sound came from inside, a noise like the jangling of chains. I smelled blood on the air. I could sense no movement close to the doorway. Again the sound of metal on metal rang out. I pushed the door open with my foot and drew back against the wall, waiting for the shots. None came. I waited for a few seconds longer before glancing inside.

A butcher's block supported by four thick legs stood in the center of the stone floor. There was old, dried blood at its edges. Beyond it, against the far wall, was a stainless steel table with a sink attachment and a pipe leading from the drain to a sealed metal container below. There were surgical implements on the table, some recently used. I saw a bone saw, and two scalpels with blood on their blades. A cleaver hung from a hook on the stone wall behind. The whole room stank of meat.

It was only when I entered that I saw Angel. He was naked and attached to a metal rail above an iron tub, his arms held over the rail by a pair of handcuffs. He half stood, half knelt in the tub, its sides stained brown with dried blood. His body was twisted toward me, and his mouth had been taped shut. His torso was streaked with blood and sweat, and his eyes were half-open. They closed briefly as I moved to him, and he made a small sound from behind the tape. There was bruising on his face, and a long wound to his right leg; it looked like a knife slash, and had been left to bleed.

I was about to reach around his back to support him before releasing him when the mewling sound rose in pitch. I stepped back and turned his body slightly. A patch of skin, easily six inches square, had been cut from his back, and the exposed flesh pulsed redly. As I stared at the wound, Angel's legs began to shake and he started to sob. I found the keys to the cuffs hanging on a hook, then gripped him around the waist and released him, the full weight of him falling into my arms as I eased him from the tub and lowered him to the floor. I pulled the tape from his mouth as gently as I could, then took a plastic beaker from a shelf and filled it from the sink, the water sending the blood spiraling down into the drain. Angel took the cup and drank deeply, water spilling down his chin and onto his chest.

“Get me my pants,” were his first words.

“Who did this, Angel?”

“Get. Me. My. Damn. Pants. Please.”

His clothes lay in a pile by the tub. I found his chinos, then helped him into them as he sat on the floor, supporting himself as best he could on his weakened arms as he kept his back away from the wall.

“The old man,” he said as we hauled the pants up to his waist. Immediately, they stuck to the wound in his leg and a red stain spread across them. Every time he moved, his face creased with pain and he had to grit his teeth to keep from howling. “There was gunfire from outside, and when I looked around he was disappearing up those stairs. He left the oven open. I might need what's inside.”

He pointed behind me, to where a steel box with a temperature dial at the top stood against the wall. A thin sheet of what might have been paper hung within, assuming paper could bleed. I turned off the dryer, then flipped the door closed with my foot.

“You meet the other two?”

I nodded.

“They're his kids, Bird.”

“I know.”

“What a fuckin' family.” He nearly smiled. “You kill them?”

“I think so.”

“What does that mean?”

“The woman's dead. I fed Pudd to his pets.”

I left Angel and walked over to where a staircase led up from a small doorway at the back of the room. To the left of the first step was a room with another bed and a crucifix hanging from the ceiling. The walls here were covered with shelving, the weight of their books causing them to sag. Some had already been removed in preparation for flight, but many still remained; the arrival of Angel must have caused Faulkner to rearrange his priorities. I doubted that he had been allowed many live subjects on which to practice before. There was a workbench against one wall, inks, pens, knives, and nibs arrayed carefully in a metal carrying case on top of it. In an alcove opposite the bedroom, a generator hummed.

When I went back into Faulkner's preparation room, Angel had struggled to his feet and stood, slightly hunched over, at the wall, supporting himself with his hands, his injured leg raised slightly. His back had begun to bleed again.

“You think you can make it up?”

He nodded. I took his left arm, draped it around my shoulder, then held him carefully around the waist. Slowly, and with the agony etched clearly on his face, he made his way up the stone steps. He was almost at the top when his foot slipped and his back banged against the wall. It left a bright red streak as he briefly lost consciousness, and I had to carry him the rest of the way. The stairs ended in a kind of alcove where a steel door stood open. A sheet of thick plastic lay beside it, slapping in the wind. Beside it, a shape lay rolled up in a second sheet stained inside with blood. Part of Voisine's face was exposed. I recalled Pudd's anger at the wounds inflicted by Angel on his associate; it looked like Voisine had since died from them.

Angel came to as I laid him, facedown, on the floor. I removed the .38 from my holster and pressed it into his hand.

“You killed Voisine.”

His eyes focused blearily on me. “Good. Can I piss on his grave?”

“I'll make some calls, see what I can do.”

“Where are you going?”

“To find Faulkner.”

“You find him, you tell him I sent you.”

The rain fell relentlessly and the ground had turned to mud as I stepped carefully onto the grass. Some fifty feet behind me, the woman still lay where she had fallen and no sound came from inside Mr. Pudd's spider house. The lighthouse was at my back, and in front of me a grass verge sloped down to the boathouse. There, in a sheltered inlet, was a small floating jetty. The door to the boathouse stood open and a boat bobbed at the end of the concrete ramp. It was a little Cape Craft runabout, with an Evinrude outboard. A figure stood on the deck, pouring diesel into the engine's fuel hatch. The rain fell on its bare skull, on the long white hair plastered to its face and shoulders, on its black coat and black leather shoes. It must have sensed me approaching, for it looked up, the diesel spilling over the deck as its concentration lapsed.

And it smiled.

“Hello, sinner,” said the Reverend Faulkner. He went for the revolver tucked into his waistband and I fired once, the can falling from his hands as he stumbled back, his shattered right arm now hanging loosely by his side. The gun dropped from his fingers to the deck of the boat, but the smile stayed where it was, trembling slightly with the pain of the wound. I fired twice and holed the outboard. Diesel sprayed from the ruptured tank.

He was, I guessed, about six feet tall, with long, white, tapering fingers and pale, elongated features. In the light from the cabin his eyes were a deep, dark blue, verging on black. His nose was exceptionally long and thin and his Cupid's bow was tiny, his mouth seeming to begin just where his nostrils ended. His neck was scrawny and striated, and loose flesh hung in a wattle from beneath his chin.

At my feet lay a suitcase and a battered waterproof emergency pack. I kicked at it once.

“Going somewhere, Reverend?” I asked.

He ignored the question.

“How did you find us, sinner?”

“The Traveling Man led me here.”

The old man shook his head.

“An interesting individual. I was sorry when you killed him.”

“You were the only one. Your daughter's gone, Reverend, your son too. It's over.”

The old man spit into the sea and his eyes looked over my shoulder to where the woman lay dead in the rain. He betrayed no emotion.

“Step off the boat. You're going to stand trial for the deaths of your flock, for the killing of Jack Mercier and his wife and friends, for the murders of Curtis and Grace Peltier. You're going to answer for them all.”

He shook his head. “I have nothing to answer for. The Lord did not send demons to kill the firstborn of Egypt, Mr. Parker; he sent angels. We were angels engaged in the Lord's work, harvesting the sinners.”

“Killing women and children doesn't sound like God's work.”

Blood dripped from his fingers onto the timbers of the boat. Gently, he raised his injured arm, seemingly oblivious to the pain, and showed me the blood on his hand. “But the Lord kills women and children every day,” he said. “He took your wife and child. If he believed that they were worthy of salvation, then they would still be alive.”

My hand tightened on the gun and I felt the trigger shift slightly.

“God didn't kill my wife and child. A man tore them apart, a sick, violent man encouraged by you.”

“He didn't need encouragement in his work. He merely required a framework for his ideas, an added dimension.”

He didn't say anything more for some time. Instead he seemed to examine me, his head to one side.

“You see them, don't you?” he asked at last.

I didn't reply.

“You think you're the only one?” That smile came again. “I see them too. They talk to me. They tell me things. They're waiting for you, sinner, all of them. You think it ended with their deaths? It did not: they are all waiting for you.”

He leaned forward conspiratorially.

“And they fuck your whore while they wait,” he hissed. “They fuck both your whores.”

I was only a finger's pressure away from killing him. When I breathed out and felt the trigger move forward, he seemed almost disappointed.

“You're a liar, Faulkner,” I said. “Wherever my wife and child are, they're safe from you and all your kind. Now, for the last time, step off the boat.”

He still made no move.

“No earthly court will judge me, sinner. God will be my judge.”

“Eventually,” I replied.

“Good-bye, sinner,” said the Reverend Faulkner, and something struck me hard in the back, forcing me to my knees. A brown shoe stamped down hard on my fingers and the gun went off, sending a bullet into the jetty before it was kicked away from me. Then a huge weight seemed to fall upon me and my face was pressed hard into the mud. There were knees on my upper back, forcing the air from my lungs as my mouth and nostrils filled with dirt. I dug my toes into the soft earth, pressed my left arm against the ground and pushed upward as hard as I could, striking back with my right hand. I felt the blow connect and the weight on my back eased slightly. I tried to throw it off completely as I turned but hands closed on my neck and a knee struck me hard in the groin. I was forced flat on my back and found myself looking into the face of hell.

Mr. Pudd's features had swollen from the spider bites. His lips were huge and purple, as if they had been packed with collagen. The swelling had almost closed his nostrils, forcing him to breathe heavily through his mouth, his distended tongue hanging over his teeth. One eye was almost closed while the other had grown to twice its original size, so that it seemed about to burst. It was gray-white and partially filled with blood where the capillaries had ruptured. There were strands of silvery cobweb in his hair, and a black spider had become trapped between his shirt collar and his tumid neck, its legs flailing helplessly as it bit at him. I struck at his arms but he maintained his grip. Blood and saliva oozed from his mouth and dripped onto his chin as I reached up and dug the fingers of my right hand into his face, trying to strike at his injured eye.

From behind me, I heard the sound of the boat's engine starting and Pudd's grip shifted as his thumbs tried to crush my Adam's apple. I was tearing at his hands with my fingers, the pressure in my head increasing as my windpipe was slowly constricted. The outboard made a spluttering sound as it pulled away from the jetty, but I didn't care. My ears were filled with the roaring in my head and the labored, spit-flecked breaths of the man who was killing me. I felt a burning pain behind my eyes, a numbness spreading from my fingers. Desperately I raked at his face, but I was losing the feeling in my hands and my vision was blurring.

Then the top of Mr. Pudd's head exploded, showering me with blood and gray matter. He stayed upright for a moment, his jaw slackening and his ears and nose bleeding, then tumbled sideways into the mud. The pressure eased on my throat and I drew in long, painful rattling breaths as I kicked Pudd's body away from me. I got to my knees and spat dirt onto the ground.

At the top of the grass verge, Angel lay on his stomach, the .38 outstretched before him in his right hand while the left used the plastic sheet to shield his injured back. I looked to the sea as the sound came to me of the runabout moving away on the dark, choppy waters. It was only twenty or thirty feet from the shore, the white froth churning at the bow as Faulkner stood at the wheel, his white face contorted with rage and grief.