Angel of Darkness

by Charles de Lint

  “Jesus,” Jack murmured.

  He took a step back, started to turn.

  “You shouldn’t ask so much where we are,” a voice said from behind him, “as when.”

  Jack completed his turn so quickly, he almost fell. The .38 wavered, then its muzzle settled on the woman standing in the doorway.

  It was the angel he’d seen come floating out the side of Baker’s house—not Janet Rowe. Her voice licked at his ears like a honeycomb with a razor blade hidden in the wax. The showgirl’s body was barely covered with a filmy floor-length robe that clung to every curve. Her nipples were hard and dark behind the fabric. There were marks on her arms and legs and torso. Tattoos, he thought at first, then memories flickered inside him. Of the walls in Anna’s living room. On all the buildings in this dead place. Not tattoos—graffiti. Her long blond hair streamed down to her waist. Dark eyes regarded him un-blinkingly in that angel face.

  “Keep your distance,” Jack said, making a warning motion with the gun.

  Sultry lips shaped a perfect smile, but Jack could only remember—

  (a cloud of insects . . . music that was pain. . . . )

  “We are locked in a moment of time,” the angel said. “You and I.”

  The buzzing grew louder, riding the music, which also had increased in volume.

  “This moment became my world . . .”

  The stink of decaying meat thickened in the air. Buddy Dempsey, Jack thought. Rotting away.

  “. . . when I died. A moment I hold forever.”

  She was Janet Rowe, Jack thought. No matter what she looked like, that had to be what she was talking about. The things that had happened to her in Baker’s basement had changed her, letting her break loose. Whatever she’d become had made this place. The world gave her a raw deal, so now she was giving it one back. A piece at a time. Until the real world looked just like this place did.

  “Listen, Janet,” he said. “There are people who wanted to help you. Just because—”

  She wasn’t listening. “All time becomes one time,” she said.

  The music bit at his mind, making it hard to think clearly. His eyes were still stinging from whatever was in the air here. The stink of Dempsey’s corpse clogged in his nostrils.

  “A killing time,” she said.

  Her mouth opened wide. Wider than was physically possible. A nest of tongues wriggled like snakes in the back of her throat. She took a step toward him, and he fired.

  The bullet hit her in the shoulder, half turning her around, but she recovered almost immediately. As Jack started to fire again, a rotted hand came from behind him and struck his gun hand. The .38 hit the floor in a shower of maggots that included a rotted finger. The gun skittered across the floor. The maggots squirmed toward the finger.

  The music whined in his ears.

  Flies filled the air.

  Dempsey’s corpse gripped him from behind.

  The monstrous jaws of the horror that had been the angel opened wider, and Jack saw his death in that throat. Her dark eyes regarded him without mercy. Her breath was warm. Growing warmer. Hot.

  Now Jack knew just how Baker had died.

  {you’re going to die)

  It was just a dream, he tried to tell himself.

  (a killing time)

  People didn’t die in dreams.

  (Ron Coffey did)

  As she let loose with her fiery breath, Jack lunged to one side, dragging the corpse at his back around. The corpse lost its grip on him and stumbled drunkenly, striking the creature. The stink of cooking meat exploded in the air as her breath fried the corpse. She tossed it aside and turned to Jack.

  (you’re going to die)

  Jack scrabbled for his gun.

  9

  IT WASN’T THAT Ned didn’t trust Jack. They’d been friends before they joined the force, and when you work with a guy long enough, especially in the close-knit confines of a partnership as they had, there weren’t many surprises he could hand you. He’d seen that Jack was ready to quit, before Jack knew it himself. But trusting Jack as he did, it wasn’t until Ned was asleep and dreaming, walking the streets of the dead city, that his last doubts about its reality fled.

  He’d wasted no time at all when he first woke up in the ruin of his apartment. He’d been exhausted when he got home and had just lain down on the bed, not even bothering to undress. The first thing he saw was a scrawl of graffiti across the ceiling. Blood-red letters.

  OPF-ANNA FUCKED ’EM ALL.

  Sure. The whole Ottawa Police Force. He tired to ignore it— it was just there to piss him off. But even knowing that, he couldn’t stop the dull rage that was starting up in his chest.

  He got out of bed, glad that he was still dressed. But when he searched for his revolver, he couldn’t find it. He’d left it on the dresser with his sport jacket when he’d lain down. There was nothing there now. The dresser was in pieces. Somebody’d crapped on the rubble.

  Was this how it had been for Ron Coffey? Waking up— dressed in just his skivvies, or maybe sleeping nude? Putting on some of the rags he found lying around his place and then going outside, trying to figure out just what the fuck was going on?

  As if any of them knew. Though maybe Jack . . .

  He remembered what Jack had been saying about this place back in the squad room. It was—

  Someplace that lies side by side with our own world, only we just can’t see it.

  Except when you’re dreaming.

  What did you dream last night, Ned?

  He got out of the apartment and hit the streets. The city was just as Jack had described it. Empty. Dead. It wasn’t just the unnatural silence. The ruined buildings. The sky above looking like somebody’d thrown up their scrambled eggs. There was something lying under it all, a feeling of desolation, as if this were a place that was never meant to have people in it. Never meant to have any happiness at all. Nothing but an empty ache.

  He took his time, walking downtown from his apartment on Renfrew Avenue in the Glebe. The farther he went from home, the more the sense of isolation settled in him. Finally he just turned and retraced his steps.

  Go home, he told himself. Wake the fuck up before whatever took out Baker and Coffey catches on that you’re here and takes you down as well.

  He had nothing to protect himself with. No gun. No backup to call. He was just begging for trouble out here on the streets by himself. These streets. In this place.

  When he got back to his house, he saw what he’d missed on his way out. There was a caricature of Anna’s face drawn on the side of the building—the way he could tell it was supposed to be her was mostly from the way the hair was drawn. Black bangs coming down to the eyes, the rest of the hair shoulder length. Her lips were painted around a window, and a telephone pole had been thrust in through the broken glass, making it look like she was giving it a blow job. The words COP SUCKER were written on the pole.

  Ned clenched his fists, looking at it. That’s what this place wanted to do, he realized. It took whatever meant the most to you, then crapped on it. It wanted to bring everything down to its own foul level.

  He walked over to the pole and worked at getting it loose. He got a splinter in one hand for the effort but finally managed to drag it free enough that it fell from the window. He looked up and down the street. Nothing moved except for refuse, stirring in the wind.

  “Fuck you too,” he muttered as he went inside.

  He was on the landing just by the front door to his apartment when he heard a phone ring. Its sudden clangor lifted him almost a foot off the ground. Prickles of uneasiness went skittering up and down his spine as he walked into the apartment, following the sound to where his phone lay in the moldering ruin of his couch. He picked up the entire instrument and gave the cord a tug. The end of the cord was just a fray of wires, as though someone had pulled it from the wall.

  It continued to ring.

  His palm was sweaty as he reached for the receiver. When he pulled it free, he
had a sudden moment of vertigo. The apartment flickered. The ruin was gone. The apartment was back to how it had been before he fell asleep. The end of the long cord ran into the wall socket. Then he looked at his hand. It still hurt from where the telephone pole’s splinter had stabbed him. The skin was still broken. He walked over to the window and looked out on Renfrew Avenue. Everything was like it should be.

  Faintly, as if from a great distance, he could hear a voice calling to him. Then he realized it was coming from the phone. He lifted the receiver to his ear.

  “Yeah?”

  “Ned—is that you?”

  Slowly Ned sat down on the couch. “Yeah, it’s me, Anna.”

  (ANNA FUCKED ’EM ALL)

  He wondered about the dead city. Had he become suggestible to dreaming about it only because Jack had talked about it earlier? He’d like to believe that. Except his shoulders still ached from the effort expended in moving the telephone pole. And the skin of his hand was still broken from the splinter.

  “Are you all right?” Anna asked.

  (COP SUCKER)

  That was a cute play on words, wasn’t it just? When he caught the fucker who was playing these mind games, he’d—

  “Ned?”

  He forced himself to concentrate on the moment at hand. One thing at a time.

  “I’m here,” he said. “I’m just a little groggy.”

  “Oh, jeez. I woke you up, didn’t I?”

  “It’s okay. I was getting up, anyway. What’s up?”

  “It’s just. . . God, I feel so stupid now.”

  “One thing you’ll never be, Anna, and that’s stupid.”

  “Fat lot you know.” Her tone was light, but Ned could sense the tension in her voice.

  “I’m always here for you,” he said. “You know that. Talk to me.”

  “I know, Ned. It’s just that everything’s been a bit off today. I’ve been trying to get hold of Jack, but I haven’t been able to all day—not even through his answering service. They haven’t heard from him, either. He was acting weird—because of that business last night. And Beth’s disappeared. She left without locking up or taking her purse and never showed up at work. And we all had these weird dreams this morning—God, I just feel so mixed up and worried. . . .”

  “Dreams?”

  Anna gave a nervous laugh. “I guess I’m sounding a little flaky.”

  “What kind of dreams? And who was having them?”

  “Well, Cathy stayed over last night—you remember her, right? She had them. And so did Beth and I. We all had the same one. It was like something had happened to everybody in the city, and we’d be just wandering these empty streets . . .”

  “Did you talk to Jack about them?”

  “No. Why should—”

  “Where are you calling from, Anna?”

  “Home. But, Ned—”

  “Stay there. I’ll be right over.”

  “Ned, you’re beginning to scare me.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just—Look, I’ll tell you all about it when I see you. Just stay where you are. And, Anna, don’t go to sleep.”

  “Ned, you’re—”

  “Ten minutes, Anna.”

  He hung up and dialed his partner’s number, carrying the phone to the bedroom as it rang on the other end. He put it down on the dresser and shrugged into his sport jacket. Ernie Grier came on the phone as he was clipping his .38 onto his belt. Left side front, for quick access, instead of on the right, as he usually did.

  “Ernie? It’s Ned.”

  “This better be good, partner, because I am not having a good day. Judy’s acting like I’ve got AIDS or something, my kid comes home and she won’t even talk to me, and I’m lying here trying to rest but scared to sleep because of all this shit you’ve been laying on me. . . . I tell you, I’m not having a good time.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s getting worse. You remember where Jack’s sister lives?”

  “Anna? Sure. Right near that Baker guy’s place.”

  “Meet me there as soon as you can, okay?”

  “What’s this about, Ned?”

  “Just be there.”

  He hung up before Grier could answer. From under his socks he grabbed a box of extra bullets and headed out the door. He was on the stairs when the phone began to ring back in the apartment, but he didn’t stop to answer it. If it was Anna or Ernie, he’d be talking to them soon. If it was anyone else, he just didn’t have the time for them right now.

  10

  JACK GOT TO his gun before the creature let loose with a second fiery breath. He turned and fired point-blank, aiming for the torso, emptying the weapon of its four remaining shots. Every bullet hit, driving the creature back, but she didn’t go down. She swayed in the center of the store, wheezing for air. The wall behind her was sprayed with blood from the exiting bullets. Not waiting to see if she was breathing her last or just getting her wind back, Jack headed for the door and ran headlong into someone.

  It took three seconds for Jack to place him.

  John Paige. The uniform from Traffic that he’d met in Baker’s kitchen.

  Paige recovered first. “What the hell’s—”

  Jack gave him a push with his shoulder. “Get out of here!”

  Two more seconds went by. Jack was fumbling bullets from his jacket and reloading his gun. The music trilled painfully, high notes as sharp as razors, cutting at his eardrums.

  “This place . . .” Paige said.

  “Move it!” Jack cried.

  He could feel her coming up behind him. Her approach made the skin crawl up his back. Another three seconds had gone by. Paige’s features went slack, the blood draining from his skin. The music whined like amplified feedback. Jack bent low, dropping to one side while trying to push Paige out of the way.

  Too late.

  The blast caught Paige straight in the face, burning away the flesh from his head and shoulders. He made a grotesque figure, arms waving, legs buckling—dead on his feet, although the lower part of his body wasn’t aware of it yet. Then he started to fall.

  As his fleshless skull neared the ground, gray matter pouring out of the eyeholes and from under his jaw, the corpse began to disappear. It was as though it were falling out of sight around a corner, except there was no corner here.

  The corpse was returning to the world from which it had come.

  Bringing a nightmare to a quiet Ottawa street.

  Jack didn’t stay to watch the last of the corpse disappear. He bolted up the stairs leading from the recessed shops, making it to Elgin Street. Having only had time to reload three bullets, he turned at the top of the stairs and fired at the creature again. Three times. Point-blank. Not one miss.

  Again she stood there, swaying and wheezing. Jack took to his heels, reloading as he ran. Counting the seconds. It had taken her eleven to recover the last time. From four body shots. This time he’d hit her twice in the chest, and once straight in the face.

  Three seconds were already gone.

  He chanced a glance behind him. Her head lifted, half the face blown away from his last shot. The flesh of one cheek hung in bloody tatters. Tongues wriggled out the hole of her cheek now, as well as from her mouth. Her dark eyes settled their gaze on him.

  Two more seconds gone.

  The music screamed in Jack’s ears, like fingernails on a chalkboard, magnified a thousand times.

  She stepped up onto Elgin Street.

  I need my own frigging flamethrower, Jack thought.

  The seconds sped by.

  Jack finished reloading. The creature was floating down the street after him. He turned in the middle of the street to make his stand, assuming the Academy stance. Legs apart. Gun arm straight, supported at the wrist by his left hand.

  He knew he didn’t have a hope in hell, but he meant to go down trying.

  11

  I DON’T NEED this, Cathy thought.

  She’d fallen asleep on her couch after getting home from shopping at the Rideau Center
with Anna, only to wake up back in the same dream she’d had this morning. Except this time it was her own apartment that was trashed, not Anna’s.

  The place looked as though it had been vandalized while she was sleeping. No, she thought as she got up quickly from the couch. There were too many rotting smells and old refuse for the mess to be recent. She brushed at her clothes where moldering bits of the couch had stuck from where she was lying on it. This was what her place would look like if George Romero had decided to film something in her apartment, set a few years after they dropped the big ones.

  Graffiti on the wall caught her eye. A crudely drawn male figure with a meat cleaver was standing over the severed remains of an equally crudely drawn woman. Underneath it were the words: YOUR GONNA DIE SCREAMING.

  You get an F for spelling, she thought, trying to keep her mood light. But crudely drawn or not, the graffiti disturbed her, bringing a sour taste up into her throat. It seemed to be too much of a . . . promise.

  Time to wake up, she told herself.

  Time to get out of here.

  She closed her eyes and concentrated on waking, but it didn’t help. When she opened them again, everything was the same. Except the smell was worse. She tried pinching herself and succeeded only in raising a bruise.

  What did she have to do to get out of here?

  She couldn’t find an answer, so she left the apartment. There was worse graffiti in the hallways and the stairwell going down. Her high heels clicked hollowly on the stairs. Her short skirt was too tight. Not exactly exploring gear, she thought.

  Outside, she hugged herself, staring at the desolation around her. The streets were torn up. The church across the street had every vulgarity one could think of spray-painted across its walls. The skies were heavy with sickly yellow clouds, hanging down almost to the top floor of Le Marquis, her apartment building. It was so silent, she found herself straining to hear something. Anything. If only there were somebody else around. . . .