Cabal (13 page)

Boone looked away from Decker to the speaker squatting on the tomb. His face was a mass of scar tissue.

‘Does he remember me?’ the man asked Boone.

‘I don’t know. Do you?’ Boone demanded of Decker. ‘His name’s Narcisse.’

Decker just stared.

‘Another of Midian’s tribe,’ Boone said.

‘I was never quite certain I belonged,’ Narcisse mused. ‘Not till I was picking the bullets from my face. Kept thinking I was dreaming it all.’

‘Afraid,’ said Boone.

‘I was. You know what they do to natural men.’

Boone nodded.

‘So kill him,’ Narcisse said. ‘Eat out his eyes or I’ll do it for you.’

‘Not till I get a confession from him.’

‘Confession –’ said Decker, his eyes widening at the thought of reprieve. ‘If that’s what you want, say the word.’

He began rummaging in his jacket, as if looking for a pen.

‘What the fuck’s the use of a confession?’ Narcisse said. ‘You think anybody’s ever gonna forgive you now? Look at yourself!’

He jumped down off the tomb.

‘Look,’ he whispered, ‘if Lylesburg knows I came up here he’ll have me out. Just give me his eyes, for old times’ sake. Then the rest’s yours.’

‘Don’t let him touch me,’ Decker begged Boone. ‘Anything you want … full confession … anything. But keep him off me!’

Too late; Narcisse was already reaching for him, with or without Boone’s permission. Boone attempted to keep him at bay with his free hand, but the man was too eager for revenge to be blocked. He forced himself between Boone and his prey.

‘Look your last,’ he grinned, raising his hooked thumbs.

But Decker’s rummaging hadn’t been all panic. As the hooks came at his eyes he drew the big knife out of hiding in his jacket and thrust it into his attacker’s belly. He’d made long and sober study of his craft. The cut he gave Narcisse was a disembowelling manoeuvre learnt from the Japanese: deep into the intestines and up towards the navel, drawing the blade two-handed against the weight of meat. Narcisse cried out – more in memory of pain than in pain itself.

In one smooth motion Decker pulled the big knife out, knowing from researches in the field that the well packed contents were bound to follow. He wasn’t wrong. Narcisse’s gut uncoiled, falling like a flesh apron to its owner’s knees. The wounding – which would have dropped a living man to the ground on the spot – merely made a clown of Narcisse. Howling in disgust at the sight of his innards, he clutched at Boone.

‘Help me,’ he hollered, ‘I’m coming undone.’

Decker took the moment. While Boone was held fast he fled towards the gates. There wasn’t much ground to cover. By the time Boone had struggled free of Narcisse the enemy was within sight of unconsecrated earth. Boone gave chase, but before he was even halfway to the gates he heard Decker’s car door slam and the engine rev. The doctor was away. Damn it,
away
!

‘What the fuck do I do with
this
?’ Boone heard Narcisse sob. He turned from the gates. The man had his guts looped between his hands like so much knitting.

‘Go below,’ Boone said flatly. It was useless to curse Narcisse for his interference. ‘Somebody’ll help you,’ he said.

‘I can’t. They’ll know I was up here.’

‘You think they don’t know already?’ Boone replied. ‘They know everything.’

He was no longer concerned about Narcisse. It was the body sprawled on the walkway that had claimed his attentions. In his hunger to terrorize Decker he’d forgotten Lori entirely.

‘They’ll throw us both out,’ Narcisse was saying.

‘Maybe,’ said Boone.

‘What will we do?’

‘Just go below,’ Boone said wearily. ‘Tell Mister Lylesburg I led you astray.’

‘You did?’ said Narcisse. Then, warming to the idea, ‘Yes, I think you did.’

Carrying his guts, he limped away.

Boone knelt beside Lori. Her scent made him dizzy; the softness of her skin beneath his palms was almost overpowering. She was still alive; her pulse strong despite the traumas she must have endured at Decker’s hand. Gazing on her gentle face the thought that she might wake and see him in the shape he’d inherited from Peloquin’s bite distressed him beyond measure. In Decker’s presence he’d been proud to call himself a
monster
: to parade his Nightbreed self. But now, looking at the woman he had loved, and had been loved by in return for his frailty and his humanity, he was ashamed.

He inhaled, his will making flesh smoke, which his lungs drew back into his body. It was a process as strange in its ease as its nature. How quickly he’d become accustomed to what he’d once have called miraculous.

But he was no wonder; not compared with this woman. The fact that she’d enough faith to come looking for him with death on her heels was more than any natural man could hope for; and, for one such as himself, the true miracle.

Her humanity made him proud: of what he’d been, and could still pretend to be.

So it was in human form he picked her up, and tenderly carried her underground.

L
ori listened to the fury of the voices.

‘You cheated us!’

The first was Lylesburg.

‘I had no choice!’

The second, Boone.

‘So Midian’s put at risk for your finer feelings
?’

‘Decker won’t tell anyone,’
Boone responded.
‘What’s he going to say? That he tried to kill a girl and a dead man stopped him
?
Talk sense.’

‘So suddenly you’re the expert. A few days here and you’re re-writing the law. Well do it somewhere else, Boone. Take the woman and leave.’

Lori wanted to open her eyes and go to Boone; calm him before his anger made him say or do something stupid. But her body was numb. Even the muscles of her face wouldn’t respond to instruction. All she could do was lie still, and listen as the argument raged.

‘I belong here,’
Boone said.
‘I’m Nightbreed now.’

‘Not any longer.’

‘I can’t live out there.’

‘We did. For generations we took our chances in the natural world, and it nearly extinguished us. Now you come along and damn near destroy our one hope of surviving. If Midian’s unearthed, you and the woman will be responsible. Think of that on your travels.’

There was a long silence. Then Boone said:

‘Let me make amends.’

‘Too late. The law makes no exceptions. The other one goes too.’

‘Narcisse
?
No. You’ll break his heart. He spent half his life waiting to come here.’

‘The decision’s made.’

‘Who by
?
You
?
Or Baphomet
?’

At the sound of that name Lori felt a chill. The word meant nothing to her, but clearly it did to others nearby. She heard whispers echoing around her; repeated phrases like words of worship.

‘I demand to speak with it,’
Boone said.

‘Out of the question.’

‘What are you afraid of
!
Losing your grip on your tribe
!
I want to see Baphomet. If you want to try and stop me, do it now.’

As Boone threw the challenge down, Lori’s eyes opened. There was a vaulted roof above her, where last there’d been sky. It was painted with stars; however, more fireworks than celestial bodies; Catherine wheels, throwing off sparks as they rolled across the stone heavens.

She inclined her head a little. She was in a crypt. There were sealed coffins on every side of her, upended against the walls. To her left a profusion of squat candles, their wax grimy, their flame as weak as she. To her right, Babette, sitting cross-legged on the floor, watching her intently. The child was dressed completely in black, her eyes catching the candlelight and steadying its flicker. She was not pretty. Her face was too solemn for prettiness. Even in the smile she offered Lori, seeing her wake, couldn’t mellow the sadness in her features. Lori did her best to return the welcoming look, but wasn’t certain her muscles were yet obeying her.

‘It was a bad hurt he did us,’ Babette said.

Lori assumed she meant Boone. But the child’s next words put her right.

‘Rachel made it clean. Now it doesn’t sting.’

She raised her right hand. It was bandaged with dark linen, around thumb and forefinger.

‘Nor you either.’

Mustering her will, Lori raised her own right hand from her side. It was bandaged identically.

‘Where … is Rachel?’ Lori asked, her voice barely audible to herself. Babette heard the question clearly however.

‘Somewhere near,’ she said.

‘Could you get her for me?’

Babette’s perpetual frown deepened.

‘Are you here forever?’ she asked.

‘No,’ came the reply, not from Lori but from Rachel, who had appeared at the door, ‘no she’s not. She’s going to be away very soon.’

‘Why?’ said Babette.

‘I heard Lylesburg,’ Lori murmured.

‘Mister
Lylesburg,’ Rachel said, crossing to where Lori lay. ‘Boone broke his word going overground to fetch you. He’s put us all in danger.’

Lori understood only a fraction of Midian’s story, but enough to know that the maxim she’d first heard from Lylesburg’s lips –
‘what’s below remains below’
was not some idle catchphrase. It was a law the inhabitants of Midian had sworn to live by or else forfeit their place here.

‘Can you help me?’ she asked. She felt vulnerable lying on the floor.

It wasn’t Rachel who came to her aid, however, but Babette, by laying her small, bandaged hand on Lori’s stomach. Her system responded instantly to the child’s touch, all trace of numbness leaving her body at once. She remembered the same sensation, or its like, from her last encounter with the girl: that feeling of transferred power that had moved through her when the beast had dissolved in her arms.

‘She’s formed quite a bond with you,’ Rachel said.

‘So it seems.’ Lori sat up. ‘Is she hurt?’

‘Why don’t you ask
me
?’ Babette said. ‘I’m here too.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Lori said, chastened. ‘Did you get cut too?’

‘No. But I felt your hurt.’

‘She’s empathic,’ Rachel said. ‘She feels what others feel; particularly if she has some emotional connection with them.’

‘I knew you were coming here,’ Babette said. ‘I saw through your eyes. And you can see through mine.’

‘Is that true?’ Lori asked Rachel.

‘Believe her,’ came the reply.

Lori wasn’t quite certain she was ready to get to her feet yet, but she decided to put her body to the test. It was easier than she’d expected. She stood up readily, her limbs strong, her head clear.

‘Will you take me to Boone?’ she requested.

‘If that’s what you want.’

‘He was here all along, wasn’t he?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘Who brought him?’

‘Brought him?’

‘To Midian.’

‘Nobody.’

‘He was almost dead,’ Lori said. ‘Somebody must have got him out of the mortuary.’

‘You still don’t understand, do you?’ said Rachel grimly.

‘About Midian? No; not really.’

‘Not just Midian. About Boone, and why he is here.’

‘He thinks he’s Nightbreed,’ Lori said.

‘He
was
, until he broke his word.’

‘So we’ll go,’ Lori replied. ‘That’s what Lylesburg wants, isn’t it? And I’ve got no wish to stay.’

‘Where will you go?’ Rachel asked.

‘I don’t know. Maybe back to Calgary. It shouldn’t be so hard to prove Decker’s the guilty man. Then we can start over.’

Rachel shook her head.

‘That won’t be possible,’ she said.

‘Why not? Have you got some prior claim on him?’

‘He came here because he’s one of us.’

‘
Us
. Meaning what?’ Lori replied sharply. She was tired of evasion and innuendo. ‘Who are you? Sick people living in the dark. Boone isn’t sick. He’s a sane man. A sane, healthy man.’

‘I suggest you ask him how healthy he feels,’ was Rachel’s retort.

‘Oh I will, when the time comes.’

Babette was not untouched by this exchange of contempt.

‘You mustn’t go,’ she said to Lori.

‘I have to.’

‘Not into the light.’ She took fierce hold of Lori’s sleeve. ‘I can’t come with you there.’

‘She has to go,’ Rachel said, reaching over to prise her child loose. ‘She doesn’t belong with us.’

Babette held fast.

‘You
can,’
she said, looking up at Lori. ‘It’s easy.’

‘She doesn’t want to,’ Rachel said.

Babette looked up at Lori.