The Scarlet Gospels

by Clive Barker

  “Oh, you’re good,” Scummy said to the whore. “I mean really good. Better than my fucking brother-in-law.” He chuckled to himself.

  “That’s it,” Harry said, and he went down the remaining stairs, losing sight of both the light-attended doorway and the goat as he caught hold of Scummy’s jacket shoulder. Harry pulled his partner away, the girl dropping forward onto her hands as D’Amour dragged Scummy up the stairs.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded. “Does this mean you’re booking me?”

  “Shut up,” Harry said in a hushed tone. “You’re not getting booked. But if I ever see you on this block again—”

  There was a wretched shrieking from the goat at that moment, which lasted a full three seconds as it echoed in the preternaturally still night air. Then the sound abruptly ended, leaving them once more in silence.

  “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” Harry said.

  “What was that?” Scummy asked.

  “A goat.”

  “What? I didn’t see no goat—”

  “Scummy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “On three we’re going to make a run for the car, okay?”

  “O … kay. But—”

  Harry cut in, speaking with a hushed urgency. “There is no but, Scummy. You look at the car and you keep looking at the car till you’re in and we’re away. Anything else and we’re dead men.”

  “Harry, wha—?”

  “Trust me. Now come on.”

  “Ah, Christ, my zipper’s stuck.”

  “Forget your fucking zipper. Nobody’s going to be looking at your dick, I promise you that. Now move.”

  Scummy ran. Harry, following fast behind, looked down the street as he made his way silently to the car. The goat’s throat had been opened, but it was far from dead. Its robed slaughterer stood there, holding the thrashing animal by the legs, its head pulled back to make the partial throat cut gape and speed the flow of blood.

  The goat’s life force came out of it in spurts, like water from a faulty faucet. The goat and butcher were not the only presences in attendance, however. There was a third member of the party, his back to Harry. As Harry crossed the street toward the car, the third member turned to look back. Harry caught a glimpse of his face—a mangled smear of formless flesh like a hunk of discarded clay—before the man plunged his hands into the goat’s spurting blood.

  Scummy had made it halfway to the car, then, contrary to Harry’s instruction, looked at the unsightly tableau. It had stopped Scummy in his tracks. Harry transferred his gun from right hand to left and used the right to grab hold of Scummy’s arm.

  “Come on.”

  “You see that?”

  “Let it go, Scummy.”

  “That ain’t right, Harry.”

  “Neither is getting a blow job from a teenage runaway.”

  “That’s different. People can’t be slaughtering fuckin’ goats in the street. It’s fuckin’ disgusting.” Scummy took out his gun. “Hey, you two degenerates with the goat. Do not fuckin’ move. You’re both under arrest.”

  So saying, he started to walk toward them. Harry cursed under his breath and followed. Somewhere nearby, no more than two or three blocks over, the whooping of an ambulance siren reminded Harry that somehow the rational world was still a stone’s throw away from this wretched scene. But Harry knew it didn’t matter. These types of things, all pieces of one unknowable mystery, threw up veils around themselves that made seeing them clearly a difficult thing for ordinary eyes. If Scummy had been alone he would likely have driven past this grotesquerie without even registering its existence.

  It was only because Harry was with Scummy that he saw, and the knowledge of that was like a stone in Harry’s guts.

  “Hey, assholes,” Scummy hollered, his shouts echoing back and forth between the façades of the deserted buildings. “Stop that shit.”

  The two men did the worst possible thing in response: they obeyed. Harry sighed as the butcher let the goat drop to the ground, its black legs still twitching. And the clay-faced man who’d been washing his hands in the blood raised himself from his stoop and turned to face the two policemen.

  “Oh Christ alive,” Scummy murmured.

  Harry saw the reason for Scummy’s blasphemy; what had been an undefined gob of flesh two minutes ago was now organizing itself. The claylike matter that Harry had first seen had now shifted; there was almost a nose, almost a mouth, and two holes like thumbprints where the eyes should have been. The clay man started toward them, steam rising from his blood-soaked hands.

  Scummy stopped advancing and threw the briefest of looks at Harry, just long enough to catch Harry’s tiny nod back toward the car. In that time, the clay man’s protean features had finally settled on a mouth, which he now opened, and a low noise escaped him, like the warning growl of an angered animal.

  “Watch out!” Harry said, and the thing went from a walk to a run in two strides. “Go! Go!” Harry shouted, and, leveling his gun, shot at the thing once, twice, and then seeing the bullets slow the creature’s run to a stagger, his blood blooming on its shirt where he had been hit, Harry fired three more rounds: two to the torso and one to the head. The creature stood a moment in the middle of the street, looking down at his bloody shirt, his head slightly tilted as though in mild puzzlement.

  Behind him, Harry heard Scummy getting into the car and slamming the door. He gunned the engine, the wheels squealing as the car U-turned and pulled up to Harry.

  “Get in!” Scummy yelled.

  The creature was still examining his wounds. Harry had a moment’s grace, and he took it. Turning his back on the beast, Harry scrambled over the hood of the car, threw open the door, and flung himself into the passenger seat. Before he’d even closed the door, Scummy accelerated. Harry caught a glimpse of the creature as they raced past him and saw, as if Harry were perfectly still and able to take in every detail of the moment, the creature’s heavy head rise, showing two tiny dots of light burning in his thumbhole eyes. The beast was pronouncing a death sentence with his stare.

  “You gotta be fucking kidding,” Harry said.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Worse.”

  They were already almost a block past the creature, and for a few deceitful moments Harry thought perhaps he’d misread the look in the enemy’s gaze and they might actually be able to reach the safety of a busy street unharmed. But then Harry’s Itch returned, just in time for his partner to shout, “Jesus fuck!”

  Harry looked back to see that the enemy was giving chase and he was closing in on the speeding vehicle with every stride. The beast had raised his steaming bloodstained hands in front of his body, palms out, fingers spread freakishly wide. As he ran, his hands became brighter, like the dull embers of a fire woken by a sudden wind. Sparks were flying off his hands now, yellow-white, turning to smoke, darkening as they did so.

  Harry turned on the siren and emergency lights in the hopes that the creature was of the rare breed that could be felled by such tactics. But, far from dissuading the enemy from his pursuit, the alarms seemed instead to lend speed to his heels.

  “Fuck! It’s almost on us, Harry!”

  “Yeah.”

  “How many bullets did you put in that fuckin’ thing?”

  “Five.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Just keep driving.”

  “Fuck.”

  You know any prayers, Scummy?”

  “Not one.”

  “Fuck.”

  And then the beast was on them, slamming his burning hands down on the rear of the car with such strength that the front end kicked into the air. For a few seconds the wheels were off the ground, and by the time they hit the street again the enemy was smashing through the back window. The stink of frying goat’s blood filled the car.

  “Out!” Harry yelled.

  Scummy threw open his door. The car was still moving, but Scummy was out anyway. Harry felt the heat of the enemy’s hands behind his head and smelled the
hairs on his neck burn up. He had his door open—only an inch, but it was open. Then he grabbed the dashboard with his left hand to put some force behind his exit and threw himself against the door.

  Clean, cool air met him for a second; then so did the street. He tried to roll into the fall, failed, and landed on his head, rubbing the side of his face skinless on the cracked asphalt until he finally came to a halt. The adrenaline in his veins forgave his body its frailties, at least for a few seconds. He got up, wiping dirt and blood from his eyes, and looked for Scummy. Scummy was standing ten yards from Harry, half-hidden by the black smoke of the burning car. He had his gun pointed directly at Harry.

  “Scummy, what—”

  “Behind you!”

  Harry turned. The beast stood in the smoke-laced air, no more than two yards from where Harry was standing. His human garments had been largely burned away by the blaze he had started, and it gave Harry an unwelcome view of just how pleasurable the beast was finding all this madness. His penis was standing up in bliss, its mottled head unsheathed. The hair around its base was burning, so that the member seemed to rise from a thicket of flame. And if the rock-hard salute wasn’t proof enough of the beast’s contented condition, the smile on his face was.

  He raised his right hand. The flames were now out, leaving the hand black and smoking but otherwise undamaged. The only places where the memory of fire remained were in the lines of the monster’s palms, which were still bright with heat, the embers glowing brightest at the dead center of his hands. Harry wanted to pull his eyes away from the spot, but they wouldn’t come unglued, at least not until he’d watched the place in the center of the beast’s hand burn brighter still and finally issue a fleck of white fire that flew past Harry’s head, missing him by inches.

  He had time, in his stupefied state, to be thankful that the beast has missed his mark. Then Harry realized that of course the fiery fleck wasn’t meant for him. He turned, yelling to Scummy, but both the motion and the warning were slow—too slow, as though the air around him had the consistency of tar.

  Harry watched Scummy, standing a dozen yards away, watching with the same tar-trapped eyes, powerless to do anything as the fleck of white fire approached and struck him in the throat. Scummy slowly raised his free hand to brush it off, but before his hand could reach it the fleck burst and two bright lines of fire raced around his neck, one going left and the other right, circling fully ’round and meeting again at his Adam’s apple.

  For a moment, the air around Scummy’s head flared up, shivering and shimmering like a wave of heat over scorched earth. But before Scummy could utter a word, a sheath of flames sprang up and swallowed his face. His head was on fire, from his Adam’s apple to the bald spot he’d forever been combing his hair over. That’s when Scummy began screaming. Terrible gutteral cries like silverware being run through the garbage disposal.

  Time continued to unravel at the same indolent rhythm, obliging Harry to watch the heat at work on his partner’s flesh. Scummy’s skin grew redder and redder in the blaze, shiny beads of fat appearing from the pores and bursting as they ran over his face. Harry started to raise his hands to remove his jacket—his mind just clear enough to imagine he might still smother the flames before they did any real harm. But as Harry made to move, the beast grabbed Harry’s shoulder, spinning him around, and pulled him close. Now facing the wretched creature, Harry watched as the creature held his smoldering hand out and cupped it just below Harry’s chin.

  “Spit,” the creature said, his voice matching his misshapen appearance.

  Harry did nothing by way of reply.

  “Saliva or blood,” the beast warned.

  “That’s easy,” Harry said.

  Harry didn’t know why this thing needed anything from him, nor did he particularly like the idea of the creature owning a piece of him, but the proposed alternative was clearly worse. He did his best to summon a wad of spittle, but the offering he dropped into the beast’s hands was meager. The adrenaline had left Harry’s mouth as dry as a set of sun-bleached bones.

  “More,” the beast said.

  Harry went deep this time and brought up the good ripe stuff from every pocket of his throat and mouth, gathered it, rolled it, and spat it with gusto into the beast’s palm. It was a nice piece of work, no question. To judge by the crude, lipless smile on his face, the beast was well pleased.

  “Watch,” he said.

  Then he wrapped the hand into which Harry had spat around his erection.

  “Watch?” Harry said, glancing down in disgust.

  “No!” the creature said. “Him. You and me. We watch him.” As the beast spoke, he began to work his rod with long, leisurely strokes. His free hand still rested on Harry’s shoulder, and with overpowering force he turned Harry back toward his partner.

  Harry was appalled to see that the damage done in the few seconds Harry’s gaze had been averted had already rendered Scummy unrecognizable: his hair had burned away entirely, and his naked head was a bubbling ball of red and black; his eyes were virtually closed by the heat-swollen flesh, and his mouth hung open, burning tongue sticking out like an accusing finger.

  Harry tried to move, but the hand on his shoulder kept him from the job. He tried to close his eyes against the horror, but the creature, though he was standing behind Harry, somehow knew that he was disobeying his instruction. The beast pushed his thumb into the clenched muscle of Harry’s shoulder, penetrating it with the ease of a man pressing his thumb into an overripe pear.

  “Open!” the beast demanded.

  Harry did as he was told. The blistered meat of Scummy’s face had started to blacken, the swollen skin cracking open and curling back from the muscle.

  “God forgive me, Scummy. God fucking forgive me.”

  “Oh!” the beast gasped. “You dirty-mouthed whore!”

  Without warning, the beast unloaded. Then he gave a shuddering sigh and turned Harry to face him once more, the two lighted pinpoints of his eyes seeming to burrow into Harry’s head and scratch at the back of his skull.

  “Stay out of the Triangle,” he said. “Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Say it.”

  “I understand.”

  “Not that. The other thing. Say it, like you did before.”

  Harry gritted his teeth. There was a definitive point where his flight was overridden by his fight, and he was fast approaching it.

  “Say. It,” the beast said.

  “God forgive me,” Harry said through gritted teeth.

  “No. I want to have it in my head for later. Give me something good to work with.”

  Harry mustered the voice of entreaty as best he could, which, as it turned out, wasn’t very hard.

  “God. Forgive me.”

  3

  Harry woke around noon, the sound of his partner’s screams nearer than his liquor-soaked memories of the previous night’s birthday celebrations. The streets outside his room were gratifyingly quiet. All he heard was a bell, calling those who were still faithful to a Sunday mass. He ordered up some coffee and juice, which came while he was showering. The day was already humid, and by the time he’d dried himself he’d already started work on a fresh sweat.

  As he sipped his coffee, strong and sweet, he watched the people toing and froing in the street two stories below. The only pair in any hurry were a couple of tourists with a map; everyone else was going about their business at a nice mellow speed, pacing themselves for the long hot day and the long hot night that would surely follow.

  The phone rang. Harry picked it up.

  “Are you checking up on me, Norma?” he said, trying his best to sound human.

  “Got it in one, Detective,” Norma said. “And no. It wouldn’t do me much good, would it? You’re too good a liar, Harry D’Amour.”

  “You did teach me everything I know.”

  “Watch it, now. How was the birthday celebration?”

  “I got drunk—”

  “No s
urprise there.”

  “—and I started thinking about the past.”

  “Oh Lord, Harry. What have I told you about leaving that shit alone?”

  “I don’t invite the thoughts in.”

  Norma spat out a humorless laugh. “Honey, we both know you were born with an invitation stamped on your forehead.”

  Harry grimaced.

  “All I can say is what’s already been said,” Norma continued. “What’s done is done. The good and the bad both. So make peace with it or it’ll swallow you whole.”

  “Norma, I want to do what I came here to do and get out of this goddamn city.”

  “Harry—”

  But he had already gone.

  Norma pursed her lips and hung up the phone. She knew what to expect from Harry D’Amour, but that didn’t mean she was inured to his brooding, tortured façade. Yes, Otherness had a way of finding Harry wherever he went, but there were things that could be done about that—measures that could be taken if one was so inclined. Harry D’Amour never took those measures because, Norma knew, Harry D’Amour loved his job. More important, he was damn good at it, and, as long as that was the case, Norma would forgive him his transgressions.

  Norma Paine, black, blind, and admitting to being sixty-three (though the truth was probably closer to eighty or more), sat in her favorite chair by the window of her fifteenth-floor apartment. It was from this spot that she had spent twelve hours of every day for the last forty years talking to the dead. It was a service she offered to the recently deceased, who were, in Norma’s experience, often lost, confused, and frightened. She’d seen the departed in her mind’s eye since infancy.

  Norma had been born blind, and it had come as quite a shock to her when she first realized that the benign faces she could remember looking down at her in her cot were not those of her parents, but those of the curious departed. The way she saw it, she was lucky. She wasn’t really blind—she just saw a different world from most other folks, and that put her in a unique position to do some good in the world.

  Somehow if someone was dead and lost in New York, sooner or later they found their way to Norma. Some nights there were phantoms lined up half a block or more, sometimes just a dozen or so. And occasionally she would be so inundated with needy phantoms that she would have to turn all hundred and three televisions in her apartment on—all playing relatively low, but tuned to different channels, in a new Babel of game shows, soap operas, weather reports, scandal, tragedy, and banality—in order to drive them all away.