“We should stay in touch,” said Alex, “and organize something when you are back.”
“Definitely!” said Bernice. “Cheerio, stay safe!” And with that she rang off.
Alex thought about going off to bed. It was a shame that Bernice was going to go out of her life as quickly as she came in. She thought about her mate, and her mind drifted to Conner, and the horrible conversation she had had with this man who had tried to destroy him. And as she sat there, the thought that had been bothering her began to crystalize in her mind.
And in all of this, she did not hear her front door opening.
When had those horrible texts and calls to Conner started? Why had he said the person who was abusing him looked like she was crying? She shook her head, surely that wasn’t possible, surely this idea conjured up in her mind right now was nonsense.
She thought about her friend, Bernice, Bats Templeton, and she tried to remember her name, her full name.
If it were possible for God’s messengers to panic, Angel would have done so now.
It wasn’t the thoughts going through Alex’s mind that terrified him, it wasn’t even the boiling horde that were even now just a few metres away. It was their host, who had somehow broken free of the shackles that held him. Who knows what he might do next? And so Angel did the only thing he could do. He flung himself down, prostrate before his master and desperately interceded for the woman in his care, praying for her even as the Assassin moved with quiet grace across the hallway of her apartment.
Alex picked up the phone again, and dialled Caleb’s office number rather than his home number; she didn’t want to disturb him now, but she did want to leave him a message.
“Caleb,” she said, “I need to talk to you about this woman who abused Conner. I have a horrible suspicion that I might know who it is. Can you call me sometime tomorrow please? Thanks.”
She replaced the phone and put her face in her hands, overwhelmed by the sense of anger and hate that would have driven her friend to do these things. Alex shook her head, grieving for what had happened to Conner and for what her friend had become.
And all the while the Assassin watched and listened. Hearing the sobs, watching the shake of Alex’s body as she wrestled with this betrayal.
The legion formed and re-formed itself, spirits gathering and parting to make way for one single entity, which rose to the surface – a ravening monster.
“We are violence and the love of violence,” it hissed. “He comes here to do what must be done.” It indicated the man.
“You cannot harm her,” said Angel. “You are under authority before the living God, and you must not touch her.”
The whole legion recoiled, shivering at the mention of the Lord’s name; the man who hosted them seemed to twitch slightly.
“He comes,” said the voice from the host.
“Why?” said Angel. “Why did you bring him here?”
“The host does as he sees fit,” said the voice, and then it laughed and laughed as it sank back amongst its fellows – a manic, desperate sound, submerged in echoes of rage.
In her lounge Alex blew her nose and reached for her tea. She was so tired, so exhausted by all of this. She wished life didn’t have to be so hard, so full of loss and anger and disappointment. She sipped her tea and called out in her uncertainty.
“Oh God, is this really true?” she said aloud. “Is it Bernice, is this who she is now?”
“Yes, Miss Masters,” said a voice, “it is true, that’s what she is now.”
The voice of the Assassin made her jump and tea slopped over onto her pyjamas.
She felt the adrenaline launch in her; she could taste it even as she looked up to the door of her lounge to see a figure standing there.
The figure remained motionless for a few seconds, before he took a single step into her lounge and closed the door behind himself.
“Miss Masters,” said the Assassin, “I admire you. Our leader has consistently underestimated you.”
Unable to stop shaking, she slowly put the mug back on the table in front of her.
“Jesus, into your hands do I commit myself.” She tried to whisper it just to herself, but it came out too loud.
“Now there’s a dangerous prayer, Miss Masters,” said the Assassin taking another step forward. He looked at her, and then around the room, taking in the furniture, the ornaments, and the woman who was sitting in front of him, shivering with fear.
Alex stared back at him, this was the man who had come into her café; she recognized the voice, the scar, even the smell of him. And she believed she was going to die here, tonight, by his hand. She forgot about Lewis Ashbury and Conner and everyone else she loved. She felt breathless and nauseous, and lightheaded.
The Assassin closed his eyes and listened.
“Are we alone, Miss Masters?” he said.
“Yes,” she whispered.
While his gaze was away from her, Alex remembered the Lord’s Prayer and she started to whisper the words to herself, this time in silence.
“Our father, who art in heaven…”
He stepped forward so she could see his face more clearly in the light, the pale angry scar across the right cheek. She moved through the words of the prayer and he remained silent, waiting for her to finish.
His face remained expressionless but Alex could see some deep, deep sadness locked up inside him, suppressed. For a moment he looked to Alex as if he wasn’t sure why he was here. She looked at his face and his hands and she wondered at the sense of loss in his eyes. And at that moment she was amazed to find that she felt compassion for him.
“You poor man,” she said, when she had finished her prayer, and her voice sounded loud in the silence of the room.
He opened his eyes and stared at her.
“What did you say, Miss Masters?” His voice was calm, measured, and she tried to place the accent, Germanic, maybe.
This was the man who had killed Bridget, who taken part in the abuse of her brother.
“What did you say?” he said again.
She tried to answer but her voice would not work. Then she let out a murmur as he moved, in one stride, so that he stood almost directly over her.
“I am sorry,” she said and shut her own eyes, expecting the single blow that would snuff her out.
But the blow did not come and when she opened her eyes again he had moved away from her and was looking at the items on the mantelpiece. He had removed a gun from his pocket and seemed to be fixing something to the end of it, she had no experience of these things and she thought it might be a silencer.
Angel also watched, and if he could have cried he would have done so now. How could this man come here? How could he be permitted to simply finish this life, her precious life, which had delivered much and promised so much more? Where was the Lord in this?
Angel’s mind filled with a vast expanse of indignation and a deep sense of the offensiveness of it all. In his soul he cried out to his God, out of the anguish and the love that he felt for Alex Masters. And in his torment, the timeless, intimate voice of his God spoke to him:
“Why don’t you just worship me Angel? As she has done.”
And she was, he could see it, sense it.
In the perverse quietness Alex moved on from the Lord’s Prayer and now she found herself remembering words from her very earliest days in church; words that had become a comfort to her then, and maybe could comfort her now. She whispered them in her mind:
“Therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we proclaim your great and glorious name, forever praising you.”
The Assassin flicked on the torch and sent its beam around the room. He radiated such a deep sense of agitation that she could not look at him for more than a couple of seconds.
“…forever praising you, and saying…”
“You are praying to your God,” he said. He did not look up. The low, calm voice carried a menace with it. He looked down at his gun,
and pulled up the safety catch.
She didn’t answer him, she didn’t stop, and she felt herself move beyond fear. If this was it, then so be it.
“Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might…”
She wanted to keep saying the words, but now she faltered. Angel watched her as her lips went still, and silence filled the room. Then he looked away because he did not want to see a person that he loved die. As one final act for her, he took up the prayer, speaking out words of praise, acting in obedience to his Lord.
“…God of power and might…”
The Assassin raised the gun with a perfectly steady hand and looked her over once more, his victim. She really was quite terrified of him and he was pleased to see it. He watched her breast rise and fall beneath the gown, a steady rhythm. He considered the possibility of a little entertainment with her but he knew he would not violate her. She had shown compassion for him, and he could not remember the last time he had known such a thing, although he knew exactly where that compassion would have come from. Only his mother had shown him compassion, only she had offered him anything akin to love.
“…heaven and earth are full of your glory…”
He was intrigued by the fact that, even in this moment of crisis, the woman in front of him had found something in her heart for him.
He placed the torch on the mantelpiece behind him and as he did so something caught his eye. He studied the items there again, the carved elephants and the photograph of her parents, a painting of sunflowers on the wall.
“…Hosanna in the highest.”
* * *
Alex watched him as he studied the photograph of her parents. While he stared at it she was almost overcome with the urge to run, to get help, to do anything to get out of this situation, but the desire ebbed away as quickly as it had risen, and she recognized it for the foolishness that it was. The waves of nausea settled, she took a deep breath, and Angel watched as the spirit hovered over her, and with an inspiration not of her own making she spoke.
“Who are these people?” said the Assassin.
“Those were my parents,” she said, ”my father and my mother.”
“They are dead now,” said the Assassin as if such a thing were self-evident. She wasn’t sure whether this was a question or a statement, but his attention came back to her. His gaze was steady, motionless. The spirit hovered over her and she looked directly at him and said, “My parents died when I was ten.”
The Assassin frowned, as if he was trying to solve a riddle she had told him. The gun remained steady. She could taste the adrenaline in her mouth and her breath came in short bursts.
He turned back to the photograph and moved over to it, studying it intently.
“Your mother’s skin colour is darker than your father’s,” he said. “Please explain this.”
Alex found that she had lost her voice, and had to swallow a couple of times before she could speak.
“My mother was Indian, but my father was white British.”
“Your parents were of different nationalities.”
“Yes.”
“And your mother died when you were ten,” he said.
“Yes.”
She followed him as he picked up the photo and held it in the beam of torchlight. The gun glinted in the half-light beside him.
“Your mother died when you were ten,” he said again.
“Yes,” she said, “both of my parents died when I was ten.”
He placed the gun on the mantelpiece and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. He pulled out a slip of card, a photograph, and held it next to the photo of her parents.
She could just see that the photograph he’d pulled from his pocket was the image of a woman. The photo was in colour but faded, as if it had been exposed to the sun for too long.
“Your mother died when you were ten,” he repeated again, almost now in a whisper, still with his back to her.
“Yes,” she said. She said the word very quietly and he only just heard her over the sound of a car driving past on the road outside.
Angel looked on fascinated, horrified. The legion within this man were now restrained, withheld by some spiritual authority. It was a mysterious sight as they pushed and writhed, like excited dogs, straining at the leash.
* * *
Josef turned back to her. She was a beautiful woman, and he wished he had not seen her beauty. He wished he had not seen the photograph of her parents, and he wished he had not discovered that her mother had died when she was ten.
“How did your mother die?” he asked.
“She was killed in a car crash, a drunk driver hit the car my parents were travelling in.”
The Assassin nodded.
“Did the driver of the other vehicle survive?”
“Yes,” she said.
He was silent for a whole minute, maybe longer, and then he said, “Did you consider killing that person, out of revenge?”
She paused for just a moment.
“Yes,” she said finally, and he nodded.
“You are not so very different from me, Miss Masters,” he said, and sighed. “I think you may even understand me rather better than Darius Lench does.”
He looked down at her again. “I presume, you did not kill this person,” he continued, maintaining his calm tone, “because you would consider such an act to be immoral.”
She nodded and shivered. She wanted this to be over. She felt very tired and she needed to go to the bathroom.
At last he spoke again. “My mother also died when I was ten.” He placed the photo of her parents back on the mantelpiece and walked over to her and she shivered.
“Stop shaking, Miss Masters,” he said and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I have decided that I am not going to hurt you. Look at this please,” he said, handing her the photograph of his mother.
She stood up and took the faded Polaroid from his hand. In the picture she saw a woman with long blonde hair, standing on what might have been a quayside; she was wearing a short skirt and a skimpy top. The woman was smiling, and held a cigarette in her right hand.
“This is a photograph of my mother,” he said. “She was murdered. Like you, I considered revenge. Unlike you, I took that consideration through to action and killed the man who murdered her.”
Alex said nothing. Her eyes moved between the faded Polaroid and the eyes of the Assassin.
“Did you ever grieve for her loss?” she said. “Did you ever shed tears?”
“I do not cry, Miss Masters,” he said. “I do not mourn the dead.”
He reached out his hand and she gave the photograph back to him.
“And yet,” he said, as if still trying to solve a puzzle, “in this place I feel…”
He paused and his closed his eyes for a few moments and frowned, as if considering some complex puzzle.
“Please bear with me for a moment,” he said finally, and he sat down cross-legged on the carpet. He breathed deeply a couple of times, while she stood staring at him.
“Sit down and relax, Miss Masters,” he said. “I am nearly done with you.”
He looked again at his photograph and then placed it carefully on the table between them and stared at it, as if it was an icon he might pray to. He was silent for a few moments, completely ignoring her as she sat down on the sofa. Then, as she watched him, he let out a strained howling noise, like an animal in pain. This sound continued in regular bursts for perhaps three or four minutes; it wasn’t a loud noise, but Alex found it both pitiful and disturbing. As he released this noise, he rocked gently back and forth, shaking slightly.
He gradually became silent, and the rocking died away until he was perfectly still. Then with one graceful movement he rose to his feet, picking up the photograph as he did so, and placing it back in his pocket.
He turned around to the mantelpiece and took the gun and as he did so he placed a small item like a plastic counter where the gun had been.
He turned back to he
r.
“You are crying, Miss Masters,” he said, and she realized there were tears on her cheeks.
“For whom are you crying?” he said.
“For you, of course,” she replied without thinking.
“Do not waste your tears on me,” he said.
“But there is still hope, even for you there…” She faltered as he raised a finger to his lips.
“Hush,” he whispered, “hush, lest I change my mind.”
She stared at him in silence and he looked at her with an impassive gaze before he spoke again.
“That’s better,” he said, and he placed the gun in his pocket.
“Good evening, Miss Masters,” he said, “and goodbye.” He walked out of the door, closing it quietly behind him, and when he had gone, all was silent.
Alex looked around her room, wide-eyed and shivering. She shivered again, violently, extravagantly and then ran to her front door to make sure it was shut and locked, and then she went into her bathroom.
When the immediate crisis was over, she called Bernice. The phone rang, and rang, and then went to messages.
“I know who you are,” she said. “Leave me alone, leave us alone.”
She paused for a second, undecided, and then she said, “And listen, for your sake, this is important. A man has been here, the man of violence. He knows you, and he is angry at the moment, so be careful.”
She shut off the phone and let out a long, long sigh. She felt exhausted, and cold, and still frightened. She checked every lock in her apartment and then she went to her room and climbed into bed thinking she might rest for a few minutes, but within moments she was asleep.
19
A day later, Caleb Wicks had planned to have a bit of a lie-in and a relaxing day off work. But instead he lay in his bed, wide-awake, again, at a time when most civilized people were still asleep. He had hoped for an easy day, getting up at a leisurely pace and then spending a little time in the garden with Mrs Wicks. Instead he was unnaturally alert, his heart beating. He had been summoned again by the Lord.
Cain's Redemption Page 25
