The Sketcher's Mark (Lara McBride Thrillers Book 1) (27 page)

Guillotine had taken the leap and slammed dead in to the Policeman’s chest.  Now, the Inspector lay at his feet, at his mercy and Guillotine savored the feeling of power.  The Inspector pulled the pistol up and Guillotine stepped on his wrist, breaking it.  Another wild shot loosed off from the pistol and the Inspector howled in pain.  He heard Lara McBride pounding across the roof of the train car behind him, closing in fast.  He leaned down, grabbed the pistol and fired three shots in to Brouchard’s chest, turned and fired up at the roof top to slow Lara down.  He didn’t want to kill her here.  Then he took off back to his van, wiping the pistol clean of his prints, tossing the weapon under a train car as he ran.

Lara dropped down from the compartment roof, saw Guillotine running out to the main gates.  She tried to get him in her sights but he was gone behind the main building before she could get a good aim.  She began to move after him- that’s when she saw the Inspector, laying in the dirt, gasping.  She knelt by his side, pulled his coat open to reveal the body armour she had seen him put on in the muster room.  But blood was blooming out through a small hole dead centre in his chest.  One of the bullets had got through.  How deep and how bad, she didn’t know, but there was blood.  It would not have been anywhere near as deadly if the Inspector had not been wearing the armour.  She unstrapped the Velcro holding the vest in place on either side of his chest, pulled it off him to expose the bleeding wound. 

“Shit,” she said.  Brouchard was trying to get his breath back, winded.

“Go...Lara.  Get after him.  Take my radio, tell the Tactical Team where you are.  We didn’t come this far to let him go now.”

She knew she had to get going or Guillotine would be gone forever.  He handed her his car keys and she took the radio from his jacket pocket.  He pulled himself up in to a sitting position, one hand holding his wound, the other pulling out his cellphone and speed dialing for an ambulance.

“Go, Lara. Finish this.”

She looked him in the eyes, his will burning through to her.  She felt ashamed that she had no other choice but to abandon him here in this darkened train yard, sitting in the shadows, while his life potentially drained out of him.  She would see to it that everything ended tonight.

Lara hurried out to the main yard to see Guillotine backing the van up, smashing Brouchard’s sedan out of its way, giving him a clear path back to the street, where he wheeled the van round and took off.  Lara could hear Police sirens closing in somewhere in the near distance as she got in the Inspector’s sedan.  She keyed the engine and raced out of the train yard. Despite the damage Guillotine had done to the back of the car, it was in fine working order, just not as aesthetically pleasing to the eye as it had been just a few short moments ago. 

On the main boulevard, she could see the city through the window, away in the distance to her right.  She doubted he would head that way, so she pulled the steering wheel left and darted through the traffic speeding out of the city.  Up ahead, she caught sight of the van as it turned another corner, headed for the highway.  She had to watch her distance, stay back and out of sight.  They drove through the streets, finally easing on to the road that led out of Paris towards the countryside.

An odd sensation came over her as the city lights disappeared behind them, melting in to the night, and all that lay ahead was the unlit countryside. She felt chills and her stomach cramped with nausea.  She felt they were being drawn away from the light by a force beyond either of their control, spinning helplessly out in to the dark to a hell they would both share.

Chapter Fifty Six

Guillotine stopped the van outside the farmhouse and stretched.  He was exhausted yet wired, excited that he would soon be unveiling his masterpiece to the world.  He checked his watch.  Not long now.    Claude would be arriving soon.  There was much to be done.  He looked over at the entrance to the farmhouse.  Marie and Madeleine stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the light glowing behind them through the window from inside the house.  Their heads were down but he could feel their eyes on him, burning, judging.  Their mourning hats seemed to be a part of them now, as though they had grown in to the skin and somehow become organic. The veils did little to hide the rotting flesh beneath. He glanced at them and felt a headache shoot through his skull, sharp and throbbing.

He ignored them and approached the house, his Aunts silently stepped aside to let him in.  He was hungry and needed to wash up before the unveiling could begin. Guillotine washed his face in the bathroom and thought about how he should start.  He went to the computer and pulled up the website he had created.  Nobody was logged in yet, though they would be very soon.  The website showed six blank screens, relays from cameras that were wired in the barn and would display what he had in there as soon as he was ready to show it.  He made sure the live feed was working and, when he was satisfied, he moved to the kitchen and allowed himself a piece of bread from a loaf and ate it while he stared out the window across the long dark fields in to the distance and the great dark beyond.  He felt connected to it all now, a part of it, his very soul intertwined with the breeze and grass and the night itself.  He was legion now.  Marie and Madeleine were right behind him; he could see their reflections in the window and feel them just inches from his neck.

“Show us,” Marie hissed.

“Show us your masterpiece.” Madeleine demanded.

“Soon,” he said.

“Now,” Marie whispered.

“Yes, now!” Madeline shrieked.

Chapter Fifty Seven

At the roadside, Lara watched the farmhouse from the trees. The stolen car was pulled off the road behind her, hidden by the trees and the dark. She had watched him go inside and put the lights on. Now she was planning the best approach to the house without being seen. Unless he had infra red cameras set up around the compound, which was possible, though she couldn’t see any mounted on the house itself, her best option was to run wide of the house and circle round the back.  She checked the clip on her pistol, racked the slide, chambering a round, took a breath and ran for the house.

She ran wide, sprinting as fast as she could over the uneven ground, counting on the light inside the farmhouse reflecting off the windows back inside to block his view of her should he happen to look out.  She came around to the back of the house on an arc and dropped low as she approached a side window that gave a view in to the pantry. She could hear someone out in the kitchen, clattering plates, multiple voices. His voice was the loudest voice, arguing with what sounded like two older females.

She approached the living room window and peered inside.  She could see the sofa, cushions, and stone floor, a classically rustic interior.  But no sign of him.  She ducked under the window, crossing to the other side, allowing her to look the other way and get a line of sight to the kitchen. 

There he was, stood in the doorway, in profile to her, talking.  She had no way of seeing who he was talking to, but from where he was looking it seemed as though the other two people were somewhere deeper inside the kitchen.  Then a strange thing happened that she had never seen before and it shocked her in the sheer matter of fact manner in which it played out before her.  She had to keep watching him to make sure her eyes had not played tricks.  She heard the other two voices coming out of his mouth, low, feminine, and saw his head snap sideways and his body go rigid and taller as he spoke.  The sheer fluidity of the change in him was disturbing to her.  It happened mid breath as he was speaking, each voice flowing in to the next, his body adapting accordingly, like water flowing back and forth inside a trapped vessel.  Even he did not seem to be aware of it, as though his body was a puppet under the control of somebody else. 

Guillotine was having a three way conversation with the two other voices coming out of his own mouth, people he thought he could see, people he thought he was talking to.  She had seen actors rehearsing lines with themselves before, performing multiple parts, but this was different.  He appeared to
become
the people he was talking to.  His entire body seemed to change as he spoke, his head down, tilted to the side as the low female voices hissed from his lips.  He slumped back to his regular posture and his own voice returned.  She saw him rub his temple and stop talking.  Then he walked further in to the kitchen and out of sight.

She moved to the side of the house where the lights were off and it was completely dark.  She saw the bedroom window, peered in and saw a simple bed, undisturbed.  There was nothing remarkable about the home, there never was on the surface where predators lived.  They always had a den, where they kept their dirty secrets and obscenities to the world. He wasn’t keeping his Angels in here, unless there was a basement. That left the barn.  They
had
to be in the barn.    She tried the window; it was closed and locked tight.  Moving further down the side of the building she saw another door.  She tried the handle and, to her surprise, it opened.  She felt her heart skip and her throat tighten, then all the sound drained out of the world as she pushed the door open.  She had never felt so unprepared.  She stepped inside.

The house was cool and quiet.  There was a heavy air to the place, thick and cloying beneath its purposeful silence. She knew nothing good had ever come of this place, no matter how many years it had stood.  Homes had a way of trapping the energy of the people who had lived and passed through them. This one had seen little of happiness. She found herself in a side room, a store room.  There were painting supplies stacked on one side, the smell of paint and turpentine.  There was a door ahead of her that lead out to the main area and she cracked it open and peered out.  She was looking in to the half lit living room. She saw the doorway that led to the kitchen, which she had seen from the window outside.  She stepped out of the store room, the gun trained on the kitchen doorway, ready for him to come out at her. 

She moved forward, checking the corners as she had been trained to do.  She couldn’t hear the voices anymore.  That terrified her, because now she had no idea where he was.  This was his territory, he knew it better than her and had the advantage.  Her heart slammed against her chest, the noise deafening in her ears and she took a breath to control her fear and the rush of adrenalin that was spiking through her right now. 

She moved to the kitchen with purpose, gun out, searching for her target.  But the room was empty- he was already gone.  Had he heard her?  She thought she had been quiet enough to avoid detection.  Shivers broke out down her arms and shoulders, not knowing where he was, not knowing if he had spotted her.  She spun round, ready to see him coming at her from behind, but the living room was empty.

Through the kitchen window she saw the headlights of a car approaching up the driveway.  She moved softly to the other side of the kitchen that led to the hallway and saw the front door was wide open.  Guillotine was stood outside on the grass, waiting to greet the car as it pulled up to the house.  She was about to move on him, but she stopped and considered the situation.  She had no idea how many people were in that car or who they were. She was about to be outnumbered and that tilted the playing field in his favor.  She decided against a straight on attack and retreated to the living room to look for a phone, let the Police trace the call back here and send everything they had.  She could use that time to find out who else was here and whether she could deal with them on her own. 

Chapter Fifty Eight

Guillotine watched as Claude got out of his car. For the first time he could remember, he was actually happy to see the little troll.

“My god, I had no idea it was such a long ride out here,” Claude marveled, dabbing sweat dramatically from his forehead with that tasteless purple handkerchief.  “May I have something to drink?”

“Don’t you want to see it first? Or are you prepared to wait some more?”  Guillotine teased, amusing himself.

“It’s ready now?” Claude’s excitement made his voice high pitched like a child’s.  Guillotine saw the man hop with delight and felt vomit shoot up in to the back of his throat.  He was anxious to get to the barn and begin. 

“You will be the first to see it.  Come with me.”

Guillotine began to walk across the field to the barn.  Claude followed excitedly.  As he trotted behind his client, he saw Guillotine reach in to his pocket and produce a remote control and point it towards the barn ahead of them.  Floodlights bloomed off the roof of the barn, lighting up the field and the farmhouse behind them as though god had shone a spotlight.  Claude gasped and held his hand up to shade his eyes from the light. 

It was not a long walk to the barn.  Not as long as the walk he had made when he had broken out of it all those years ago.  When he could barely stand or walk from malnutrition.  But, back then, as now, he had found strength with every step.  He had felt the transformation happening inside of him.  He reflected now that he had moved in to a second phase, a mental chrysalis in which he had felt warm and fat, growing with every year, feeding on his work and his Angels.  As he walked over the grass now, going back to the place of his true birth, he felt the third and final stage of his own evolution take hold.  Every part of him felt alive, glowing brighter than the floodlights that drenched them now, as though his skin had been shorn and he had burst in to the world as atoms greater and more powerful than any other human.  He felt taller, free of every Earthly burden.  Marie and Madeleine were gone now; he felt that, surely and completely.  He had stripped himself of them.  Killed them in death as he had done in life by ascending to the next step in his great metamorphosis.