Cabal (10 page)

‘I won’t say anything,’ she told him.

‘I thank you,’ he said.

He drew on his cigarette again, and the dark smoke took his face from view.

‘What’s below …’ he said from behind the veil, ‘… remains below.’

Rachel sighed softly at this, gazing down at the child as she rocked it gently.

‘Come away,’ Lylesburg told her, and the shadows that concealed him moved off down the stairs.

‘I have to go,’ Rachel said, and turned to follow. ‘Forget you were ever here. There’s nothing you can do. You heard Mister Lylesburg. What’s below –’

‘– remains below. Yes, I heard.’

‘Midian’s for the Breed. There’s no-one here who needs you –’

‘Just tell me,’ Lori requested. ‘Is Boone here?’

Rachel was already at the top of the stairs, and now began to descend.

‘He is, isn’t he?’ Lori said, forsaking the safety of the open door and crossing the chamber towards Rachel. ‘You people stole the body!’

It made some terrible, macabre sense. These tomb-dwellers, this Nightbreed, keeping Boone from being laid to rest.

‘You
did! You stole him!’

Rachel paused and looked back up at Lori, her face barely visible in the blackness of the stairs.

‘We stole nothing,’ she said, her reply without rancour.

‘So where is he?’
Lori demanded.

Rachel turned away, and the shadows took her completely from view.

‘Tell me! Please God!’
Lori yelled down after her. Suddenly she was crying: in a turmoil of rage and fear and frustration.
‘Tell me, please!’

Desperation carried her down the stairs after Rachel, her shouts becoming appeals.

‘Wait … talk to me …’

She took three steps, then a fourth. On the fifth she stopped, or rather her body stopped, the muscles of her legs becoming rigid without her instruction, refusing to carry her another step into the darkness of the crypt. Her skin was suddenly crawling with gooseflesh; her pulse thumping in her ears. No force of will could overrule the animal imperative forbidding her to descend; all she could do was stand rooted to the spot, and stare into the depths. Even her tears had suddenly dried, and the spit gone from her mouth, so she could no more speak than walk. Not that she wanted to call down into the darkness now, for fear the forces there answered her summons. Though she could see nothing of them her gut knew they were more terrible by far than Rachel and her beast-child. Shape-shifting was almost a natural act beside the skills these others had to hand. She felt their perversity as a quality of the air. She breathed it in and out. It scoured her lungs and hurried her heart.

If they had Boone’s corpse as a plaything it was beyond reclamation. She would have to take comfort from the hope that his spirit was somewhere brighter.

Defeated, she took a step backwards. The shadows seemed unwilling to relinquish her, however. She felt them weave themselves into her blouse and hook themselves on her eyelashes, a thousand tiny holds upon her, slowing her retreat.

‘I won’t tell anyone,’ she murmured. ‘Please let me go.’

But the shadows held on, their power a promise of retribution if she defied them.

‘I promise,’ she said. ‘What more can I do?’

And suddenly, they capitulated. She hadn’t realized how strong their claim was until it was withdrawn. She stumbled backwards, falling up the stairs into the light of the antechamber. Turning her back on the crypt she fled for the door, and out into the sun.

It was too bright. She covered her eyes, holding herself upright by gripping the stone portico, so that she could accustom herself to its violence. It took several minutes, standing against the mausoleum, shaking and rigid by turn. Only when she felt able to see through half-closed eyes did she attempt to walk, her route back to the main gate a farrago of cul-de-sacs and missed turnings.

By the time she reached it, however, she’d more or less accustomed herself to the brutality of light and sky. Her body was still not back at her mind’s disposal however. Her legs refused to carry her more than a few paces up the hill to Midian without threatening to drop her to the ground. Her system, overdosed on adrenalin, was cavorting. But at least she was alive. For a short while there on the stairs it had been touch and go. The shadows that had held her by lash and thread could have taken her, she had no doubt of that. Claimed her for the Underworld and snuffed her out. Why had they released her? Perhaps because she’d saved the child; perhaps because she’d sworn silence and they’d trusted her. Neither, however, seemed the motives of monsters; and she had to believe that what lived beneath Midian’s cemetery deserved that name. Who other than monsters made their nests amongst the dead? They might call themselves the Nightbreed, but neither words nor gestures of good faith could disguise their true nature.

She had escaped demons – things of rot and wickedness – and she would have offered up a prayer of thanks for her deliverance if the sky had not been so wide and bright, and so plainly devoid of deities to hear.

‘… out on the town, with two skins. The leather and the flesh. Three if you count the fore. All out to be touched tonight, yessir. All ready to be rubbed and nuzzled and loved tonight, yessir.’

Charles Kyd
Hanging by a thread

D
riving back to Shere Neck, the radio turned up to a deafening level both to confirm her existence and keep it from straying, she became more certain by the mile that promises not withstanding she’d not be able to conceal the experience from Sheryl. How could it not be obvious, in her face, in her voice? Such fears proved groundless. Either she was better at concealment than she’d thought, or Sheryl was more insensitive. Either way, Sheryl asked only the most perfunctory questions about Lori’s return visit to Midian, before moving on to talk of Curtis.

‘I want you to meet him,’ she said, ‘just to be sure I’m not dreaming.’

‘I’m going to go home, Sheryl,’ Lori said.

‘Not tonight, surely. It’s too late.’

She was right; the day was too advanced for Lori to contemplate a homeward trip. Nor could she fabricate a reason for denying Sheryl’s request without offending.

‘You won’t feel like a lemon, I promise,’ Sheryl said. ‘He said he wanted to meet you. I’ve told him all about you. Well … not
all
. But enough, you know, about how we met.’ She made a forlorn face. ‘Say you’ll come,’ she said.

‘I’ll come.’

‘Fabulous! I’ll call him right now.’

While Sheryl went about making her call Lori took a shower. There was news of the night’s arrangements within two minutes.

‘He’ll meet us at this restaurant he knows, around eight,’ Sheryl hollered. ‘He’ll even find a friend for you –’

‘No, Sheryl –’

‘I think he was just kidding,’ came the reply. Sheryl appeared at the bathroom door. ‘He’s got a funny sense of humour,’ she said. ‘You know, when you’re not sure if someone’s making a joke or not? He’s like that.’

Great, Lori thought, a failed comedian. But there was something undeniably comforting about coming back to Sheryl and this girlish passion. Her endless talk of Curtis – none of which gave Lori more than a street artist’s portrait of the man: all surface and no insight – was the perfect distraction from thoughts of Midian and its revelations. The early evening was so filled with good humour, and the rituals of preparing for a night on the town, that on occasion Lori found herself wondering if all that had happened in the necropolis had not been a hallucination. But she had evidence that confirmed the memory: the cut beside her mouth from that wayward branch. It was little enough sign, but the sharp hurt of it kept her from doubting her sanity. She
had
been to Midian. She
had
held the shape-shifter in her arms, and stood on the crypt stairs gazing into a miasma so profound it could have rotted the faith of a saint.

Though the unholy world beneath the cemetery was as far from Sheryl and her whirlwind romances as night from day, it was no less real for that. In time she would have to address that reality; find a place for it, though it defied all sense, all logic. For now, she would keep it in mind, with the cut as its guardian, and enjoy the pleasures of the evening ahead.

‘It’s a joke,’ said Sheryl, as they stood outside the Hudson Bay Sunset. ‘Didn’t I tell you he had this weird sense of humour?’

The restaurant he’d named had been completely gutted by fire, several weeks ago to judge by the state of the timbers.

‘Are you sure you got the right address?’ Lori asked.

Sheryl laughed.

‘I tell you it’s one of his jokes,’ she said.

‘So we’ve laughed,’ said Lori. ‘When do we get to eat?’

‘He’s probably watching us,’ Sheryl said, her good humour slightly forced.

Lori looked around for some sign of the voyeur. Though there was nothing to fear on the streets of a town like this, even on a Saturday night, the neighbourhood was far from welcoming. Every other shop along the block was closed up – several of them permanently – and the sidewalks completely deserted in both directions. It was no place they wanted to linger.

‘I don’t see him,’ she said.

‘Neither do I.’

‘So what do we do now?’ Lori asked, doing her best to keep any trace of irritation from her voice. If this was Curtis the Beau’s idea of a good time Sheryl’s taste had to be in doubt; but then who was she to judge, who’d loved and lost a psycho in her time?

‘He’s got to be here somewhere,’ Sheryl said hopefully. ‘Curtis?’ she called out, pushing open the heat-blistered door.

‘Why don’t we wait for him out here, Sheryl?’

‘He’s probably inside.’

‘The place could be dangerous.’

Her appeal was ignored.

‘Sheryl.’

‘I hear you. I’m OK.’ She was already immersed in the darkness of the interior. The smell of burned wood and fabric stung Lori’s nostrils.

‘Curtis?’ she heard Sheryl call.

A car went past, its engine badly tuned. The passenger, a youth, prematurely balding, leaned out of the window.

‘Need any help?’

‘No thanks,’ Lori yelled back, not certain if the question was small town courtesy or a come-on. Probably the latter, she decided, as the car picked up speed and disappeared; people were the same all over. Her mood, which had improved by leaps and bounds since she’d been back in Sheryl’s company, was rapidly souring. She didn’t like being on this empty street, with what little was left of the day sliding towards extinction. The night, which had always been a place of promise, belonged too much to the Breed, who had taken its name for themselves. And why not? All darkness was one darkness in the end. Of heart or heavens; one darkness. Even now, in Midian, they’d be dragging back the doors of the mausoleums, knowing the starlight would not wither them. She shuddered at the thought.

Off down one of the streets she heard the car engine rev up, and roar, then a squeal of brakes. Were the Good Samaritans coming round for a second look?

‘Sheryl?’ she called out. ‘Where are you?’

The joke, if joke it had been and not Sheryl’s error – had long since lost what questionable humour it had. She wanted to get back into the car and
drive
, back to the hotel if necessary.

‘Sheryl? Are you there?’

There was laughter from the interior of the building; Sheryl’s gurgling laughter. Suspecting now her compliance in this fiasco, Lori stepped through the door in search of the tricksters.

The laughter came again, then broke off as Sheryl said:

‘Curtis,’
in a tone of mock indignation that decayed into further inane laughter. So the great lover
was
here. Lori half contemplated returning to the street, getting back into the car and leaving them to their damn fool games. But the thought of the evening alone in the hotel room, listening to more partying, spurred her on through an assault course of burnt furniture.

Had it not been for the brightness of the floor tiles, throwing the street light up towards the cage of ceiling beams, she might not have risked advancing far. But ahead she could dimly see the archways through which Sheryl’s laughter had floated. She made her way towards it. All sound had ceased. They were watching her every tentative step. She felt their scrutiny.

‘Come on, guys,’ she said. ‘Joke’s over. I’m hungry.’

There was no reply. Behind her, on the street, she heard the Samaritans yelling. Retreat was not advisable. She advanced, stepping through the archway.

Her first thought was: he only told half a lie; this
was
a restaurant. The exploration had taken her into a kitchen, where probably the fire had started. It too was tiled in white, surfaces smoke-stained but still bright enough to lend the whole interior, which was large, an odd luminescence. She stood in the doorway, and scanned the room. The largest of the cookers was placed in the centre, racks of shining utensils still hanging above it, truncating her view. The jokers had to be in hiding on the other side of the range; it was the only refuge the room offered.