Angel of Darkness

by Charles de Lint

  He caught a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye and turned quickly in that direction.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “You, there, in that building!”

  There was no response, except that what he’d thought was the moaning of the wind coming through the buildings around him was really a kind of music. He drew his gun from its holster under his jacket.

  “Police!” he cried, taking a few steps toward the building. “Come on out of there—hands in the air where I can see them.”

  Still no response.

  Where the hell was that music coming from? It grated on his nerves worse than the crap the kids had pounding out of their frigging boom boxes.

  Gun held out before him, he approached the building into which he’d seen the figure dart. With his free hand he wiped the sweat from his brow.

  Fear.

  That unfamiliar emotion was back again, had him by the balls and wasn’t letting go.

  But he’d put that away long ago, hadn’t he? When his old man used to beat him, when the thing in the closet used to stare out at him from between his hanging clothes, when the kids used to gang up on him in the school yard . . .

  He’d shown them all, hadn’t he? He’d shown them who could be tough. He’d shown them he wasn’t afraid of anything. He was a fucking hardass, wasn’t he? That’s what the guys called him, because they knew he was a man. He wasn’t some limp-wristed little fuck looking for a handout from the world. He wanted something, he took it. It was just that easy. He wasn’t—

  (Jesus fuck, he was—)

  White with fear. So scared, his goddamned hand shook like he had palsy.

  “You . . . you get out of there!” he called out to the building, shocked at how his voice cracked.

  “Hardass.”

  The response, when it finally came, lifted the hairs at the nape of his neck.

  Because it came from behind him.

  He turned slowly, gun held out before him, to find himself ringed in by a half circle of ghostly pale women and teenagers, They didn’t seem quite real—more like semitransparent images superimposed on the film of the street they were standing on. He could almost see right through them.

  “Who ... ?”

  But he didn’t have to ask who they were. He recognized a face here, a face there, finally realized he recognized them all.

  “You took pieces from us, Hardass.”

  The unearthly music continued to whisper all around him, a maddening grating sound.

  “That’s all we are.”

  Hardass looked at the woman who spoke and remembered her. A welfare case. Her husband used to beat on her until she finally got up the nerve to call the cops and got him delivered to her doorstep instead. It was so easy to play on her fear. So easy to scare her into doing anything he wanted, into not saying a thing or he’d be back, and she didn’t want him back, now did she?

  “The pieces you took from us.”

  A young girl—fifteen, tops—spoke this time. And Hardass remembered her as well. Bunch of kids got her drugged up and gang-banged her. By the time he got to her, she didn’t know up from down, so he had a little fun himself before he brought her in.

  “Now we’re going to take—”

  A child of eight was speaking—he remembered laughing off her claim that her father was abusing her.

  “—pieces from you.”

  A boy of twelve was speaking—he remembered telling him that if his uncle was screwing him, well, it was because he was a fag, wasn’t he, so didn’t he deserve what he got?

  The music continued to whine in his ears.

  The half circle closed in on him, backing him against the building.

  “Look, I . . .”

  He waved his gun at them, but it didn’t slow them down for a moment.

  “I. . . I’m just dreaming.”

  The voices whispered around him.

  “Just dreaming.”

  “Bad dreams.”

  “You make your own bad dreams.”

  A thirteen-year-old girl stepped forward, her forearms mottled with bruises.

  “Isn’t that what you told me?” she asked. “That I make my own bad dreams?”

  She pulled open her blouse to show a thin chest. There were more bruises here, larger ones that ran into each other and were scarred with cigarette burns.

  “This is what my bad dreams did to me after you went away and left me with him.”

  “I . . . I didn’t mean . . .”

  The music soared, painfully shrill.

  “Hardass.”

  The word hissed from their lips as they closed in, riding the whining chords of the music.

  He leveled his gun at point-blank range. “B-back off. . .”

  They merely came nearer.

  He fired, round after round, until the weapon was empty.

  It didn’t stop their advance.

  When their cool hands touched him, the gun fell from his fingers. He screamed as they tore at his clothes. They were all over him. Chewing at his fingers, his face.

  And they weren’t real. He goddamned knew they weren’t real. They were just garbage that he’d been carrying around inside him, that he’d brought with him to this place—whatever this place was. They weren’t real.

  But they were killing him all the same.

  Howling, he fought them until he felt something inside himself just let go. A shrill pain traveled up his left arm. His chest closed in on itself. His mouth opened and closed convulsively.

  Dying, his body crossed over from the dead city to the living one. Shoppers in the Market screamed as he appeared in their midst, clutching his chest. He staggered, his suit in tatters, bleeding from a hundred small wounds, then dropped to the pavement, striking his head on the curb. But he never felt a thing.

  He was dead before the impact.

  There were those who’d say he’d been dead a long time before that.

  4

  JACK WAS DEAD.

  Anna sat in a corner of the General Assignment squad room, oblivious to her surroundings. Her sense of balance was gone. She couldn’t have stood if she’d wanted to. She could barely keep her seat in the chair. Her mind was numb. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Her nerves were shot, her body limp.

  Voices rose and fell around her as the detectives discussed the case. Dimly she realized that she wasn’t just here on sufferance—because she was Jack’s sister, Ned’s friend. She was here for her own protection. Or so they thought. Only how they expected to protect her when she fell asleep and crossed over...

  Jack was dead.

  No one understood where the bodies had come from, popping out in the middle of Elgin Street, charred beyond recognition. But the ID unit lifted prints and quickly identified the two men. It was Anna who’d recognized what was left of Cathy. Cathy. Still wearing the same clothes that she had when they were shopping. Dead now. The flesh of her face and upper torso burned away to the bone. Just like Constable Paige. And Jack ...

  “It’s spreading like a disease,” Ned had said, but only she and his partner had understood what he meant at the time. But that’s exactly what it was. A virus. Giving you an awareness of that other place. Giving you the ability to cross over to it when you slept.

  A curse.

  Ned was still in conference with the brass, trying to explain it to them, while Anna sat in the squad room waiting for him. It felt like he’d been gone forever. Knowing what he’d be trying to explain, forever might come and go long before he got anyone to understand. She needed him right now.

  “...right here in the station,” one of the detectives was saying.

  “Just like Coffey.”

  “Poor fucker.”

  “They’re trying to track down Shouldice now.”

  “It got Alec too?”

  “And Hardass. Word just came in from the Market patrol.”

  “Burned?”

  “No, but he popped in out of nowhere, all cut to shit.”

  “No big loss.”<
br />
  “Yeah? And when you’re next?”

  “What the fuck’s going on—that’s what I want to know.”

  Jack was dead.

  Anna couldn’t imagine a world without Jack in it. He’d always been there. The big brother. Her best friend. He was there to share the good times. To help her when things got rough. The bleakness that lay inside her, knowing he was gone, grew into a bottomless pit, dragging her down.

  Her head sagged against her chest. She stared at the floor between her legs. There was a buzz in the back of her head.

  Flicker.

  The clean carpeting changed as she stared at it. Now it was blue with mold. There was a rotting smell in the room. The air was too close. The silence absolute. She looked up to find herself alone in the squad room. The walls were defaced with graffiti and smeared excrement. The desks and chairs were broken like kindling, heaped in one corner. A skeleton lay on the floor beside it—black, charred bones splayed across the rotted carpet.

  Anna’s eyes widened. A sick taste rose in her throat.

  Flicker.

  The squad room was back the way it should be. The sudden return of conversation and ambient sound was almost deafening. Anna hugged herself tightly.

  That other place. It was so close. The membrane separating them from it so fragile. Was Beth still there? They hadn’t found her yet, but she might have reappeared anywhere.

  Then Anna remembered last night. Beth. The figure floating out of her house. Drifting down the street. Her chasing it. Finding herself in yet another place. The dead plains. Where there was nothing at all, not even the ruined remnants of the city.

  The empty feeling inside her reached out to that memory as though greeting an old friend. Those plains. Where despair ruled.

  Cathy was dead.

  Jack was dead.

  Beth was gone.

  The world she’d always embraced with delight had become an empty, inhospitable place. Bleak as the dead plains. Despair ruling here as well. She trembled in her seat, wishing Ned would return.

  5

  THEY WOULDN’T TAKE him seriously, and Ned couldn’t blame them. He’d tried to keep it simple, but no matter how it came out, it sounded like he was a primo candidate to eat his gun. It just wasn’t something you could explain—you had to be there. You had to feel that other place flickering at the edges of your mind, consciousness only barely keeping it at bay. How the fuck did you explain something like that? When you barely understood it yourself. When the guy who used to be your partner and was still one of your best friends lay dead in the street. When you had his sister with you, freaking as the positive ID was made. When the world was falling to pieces around you.

  But nobody laughed.

  No matter how wacked out it sounded, nobody could deny that something was happening. Something that couldn’t be explained. The growing death count couldn’t be put aside. Nor the dozens of eyewitness reports swearing to how the bodies just fell in out of nowhere.

  The brass wasn’t ready to accept his explanation, but they weren’t ruling it out completely, either. That’s how freaked they were. They’d brought in everyone connected to the case—even the coroner—and were temporarily putting them up in the gym. They let Ned warn the various officers about falling asleep, and then they convened this meeting. Now all they had to do was figure out what the fuck was going on. And how to stop it.

  Ned listened to them argue. Everybody was here in the briefing room. The chief. The deputy chiefs. The staff superintendents. Inspectors from Police Intelligence, the ID unit, the Tactical squad, and Staff Operations. Ernie shifted uncomfortably beside him, and Ned knew just how he was feeling.

  “Look,” he said suddenly when a break came in the conversation. Like his partner, he felt intimidated, confronting all the brass like this, but he knew there was no more time to stall. “I’ve got a simple way to prove this.”

  Everyone waited for the chief to speak. Bernard Gauthier fixed Ned with a considering look.

  “What’s that, Sergeant?” he asked.

  “Put me in one of the interrogation rooms with a cot and something to help me get to sleep. You watch me through the glass. Simple.”

  “Not alone,” Grier said.

  The chief shook his head. “I appreciate the strain you’ve been under, Sergeant, but I don’t think—”

  “What’ve you got to lose? We can talk about this forever, but it’s getting dick-all done. Put me in the room and watch me. You can keep discussing it all you want while you wait, but if we don’t do something soon, the shit’s really going to hit the fan.”

  “You’re out of line, Meehan.”

  Ned turned to John Bohay, Deputy Chief of Operations, who was ultimately in charge of Ned’s section.

  “I don’t think so, sir. If we don’t—”

  “I said you’re out of—”

  “Gentlemen!”

  All heads turned to the chief. He studied Ned carefully, his fingers tapping the files in front of him.

  “You’re convinced of the validity of your argument, Sergeant?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir. I am.”

  The chief looked up and down the long table, then came to a decision.

  “Go see to it,” he said.

  Grier stood quickly with Ned. “Sir. . .” he began.

  “Both of you,” the chief said. “Get whatever you need from the Quartermaster and have someone call us as soon as you’re ready.”

  As they closed the door to the briefing room behind them, they heard voices raised in sudden argument. Ned gave his partner a wan smile.

  “It’s time for us to put up or shut up, Ernie,” he said.

  Grier nodded. Returning to the squad room, they sent out men to get the cots. Ned asked for two shotguns and extra shells for the standard-issue .38s. While Grier saw about getting something to help them get to sleep, Ned brought a chair over to where Anna was sitting.

  “How’re you holding up?” he asked softly.

  Anna took his hand. “Not... not very good. It... How did it go in there?”

  “About like we expected.”

  Christ, it hurt him to see her like this. Every bit of color and vitality had been drawn out of her features. She sat white and pale in the chair, almost a stranger. Her hand trembled in his

  Grip.

  “What happens now, Ned?”

  He didn’t want to tell her, but he didn’t see how he could

  keep it from her. Not and be fair. He explained briefly.

  “You can’t!” she cried, fingers tightening around his.

  “Someone’s got to do it, Anna. We know the danger’s real. Now we’ve got to prove that we know what it is so that we can do something about it. And we’ll be careful. We’ll be ready for. . . whatever’s in there.”

  “Don’t you . . . don’t you think . . . Jack was ready?”

  Ned remembered what they’d found on Jack’s corpse. Canteen. Compass. Hunting knife. Unregistered gun. Beef jerky. Jack had gone in hunting bear. Trouble was, the bear found him first.

  “We’ll be ready,” he repeated quietly. “It’s got to be done.”

  “If I lose you too . . .”

  “Anna, listen to me. We’re not doing this to show how macho we are or anything. It’s our job. Do you want more people to . . . to be hurt?”

  “No. But—”

  “Maybe we’ll find Beth. . . .”

  Anna looked at him.

  For that one moment she was the woman he’d always known. There was strength in her gaze. In her grip. Understanding.

  “Promise me you’ll come back,” she said.

  “I promise I’ll do my damnedest, Anna.”

  She nodded and slumped back into the chair, drawing into herself again. Ned wanted just to hold her, to take her away from here to someplace safe, but there was no place safe that he knew of, and then Ernie was back and it was time to go. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. She raised a hand to touch his face.

  “I love y
ou,” she said as he drew away.

  Ned nodded, his throat constricted with emotion. “I love you too,” he said, his voice husky.

  When he stood up to go, Anna’s head slumped back against her chest. Ned turned at the door to look at her. He stood there unmoving until Ernie finally touched his arm, then he took the shotgun his partner held out to him and followed Ernie down the hall.

  6

  WALT’ SOLD CHEVY shuddered at every pothole it hit on the narrow dirt road leading into the cottage from the highway. The place belonged to a friend of Ted’s who was still away in Florida—a guy named Charlie Thornton. Ted liked to make out that Charlie was into some heavy deals in Miami, part of the Quebec crowd that did half their business down in the land of sun, but Walt knew better. Charlie was just a cheap thug who made a good buck doing a bodyguard gig with the Pellier family in Montréal. When the Pelliers went south, Charlie went with them. No big deal.

  The Chevy hit a monster pothole that tilted the car in toward the close-hanging trees on the left until Walt dragged it back on course with a quick twist of the wheel.

  Christ, Walt thought. The shit a guy’d go through for his woman.

  The thing of it was, Walt knew that Beth didn’t want to get away from him. That was just her lesbian friends talking. Women’s rights. Jesus. All they were was a bunch of dykes who couldn’t get it on with a man if they wanted to. Not the way they looked. Oh, they had some hot little numbers, sure. Dumb little sluts like Beth who got sucked into their game. But when you stripped all the good-looking babes away, all you had was a bunch of ugly broads looking to get back at something—anything!—for the bum deal the world had laid on them. Dog faces and bodies like men.

  A good-looking woman needed a good-looking man. Like Beth needed him. Without him she was nothing. No surprise there. So she needed a few smacks to keep her in line. It wasn’t like he’d really hurt her or anything.

  A menace to society.

  That’s what her hotshot lawyer had called him. Not just a danger to Beth but a fucking menace to society. “Would you give me a break?” he’d told the court. He didn’t hit the streets beating on women. He just wanted to keep his own wife in line. That was all. No big deal. To have and to hold. Goddamned vows meant something to him.