Boudrie smiled too. Then, bluntly, he said, “Do you regret coming here?”
Devarre’s face went thoughtful. He filled the glasses again. “Quite simply, no. I could give you any number of reasons: the weather, the peace, the fact that I’m free to do what I love—even the light, pretentious as that may sound. But perhaps the real truth lies elsewhere; I’m not sure myself. Let me ask you the same question. If you were free to choose your own curacy, would you leave?”
Once again, they touched glasses.
“I have come to ask you a favor,” Boudrie said. His own voice sounded stiff, formal. “I’m on my way to visit Amalie Perrin. I thought perhaps—if you’re not too busy . . .”
“But of course. I’ve been meaning to look in on her again myself. The patients cramming the reception room will just have to wait.” He reached for his bag, scanned its contents, seemed satisfied. “It’s not raining?”
“Not when I came in.”
“Then I’ll trust to luck and leave my coat.”
“We can take my car,” Boudrie said, feeling a little magnanimous, a little self-conscious. Devarre drove a Citroen sedan.
Leaning forward into the rising wind, Boudrie led the way to the 2CV. The smell of moisture had come into the air. Perhaps, after all, it would rain.
** ** **
It might have been the gray afternoon light filtering into John McTell’s study, or the restless warm wind, or just the absence of another human being, that made the house seem so empty. Only the shrill yapping of Pepin the Short broke the silence, and even that seemed to underline the solitude. The dog was tied up outside the gardener’s shed; Linden and the guests had gone out for lunch and a drive. McTell supposed he could not blame Pepin, but that did not ease the irritation.
He had stayed home on the pretext of working on his book, but the truth, he admitted, was that he had wanted to be close to Alysse. She was gone now too, home to take care of her aunt, and perhaps that was the real reason he felt forlorn. At least he had had a precious hour alone with her, finding excuses to linger in the dining room while she went about her work—watching her, this shy slender girl with the strange flat nose, as he had watched her from the moment she had entered his sight, with a fascination that verged on obsession. It was best when she did not know he was there; she would skip about her chores, humming, occasionally breaking into a few steps of dance. At such moments her loveliness made his head light.
But it was not just her beauty. He had never been even slightly interested in the seduction of young girls, even if he had been fool enough to think she would be attracted to a man three times her age. It was the sense of connection, of sharing a mysterious bond deeper than the rational mind could grasp.
Did she sense this too? Had she seen his face during that instant when, through some inexplicable psychic warp, he had watched her stepping from her bath and their eyes had met? Had it even happened?
Above all, what impossible coincidence had brought her from his imagination into his life?
The need to know, to try to get some hint, had caused him to approach her. But careful though he had been to keep his demeanor easy, to maintain a physical distance, the barrier that sprang up was instant and impenetrable. Her face had darkened, her gaze dropped.
“How is your aunt?” he had asked.
A little shrug. “Not bad.” When he lingered, she added in a voice hardly above a whisper, “It is nothing. She will be better in a day or two.” With another apologetic shrug, she hurried back to her work, leaving him a touch annoyed. Her thoughts had been poisoned against the Americans by Mile. Perrin, he suspected, and he found himself thinking meanly that the old witch’s illness served her right.
And while his obsession was less with the girl herself than with her part in the inexplicable events that had pervaded the past days, he could not deny a moment or two of fantasy of having met Alysse years before under similar circumstances—of discovering that strange magical bond when he, too, was beginning his life.
How different it might have been.
At any rate, it was a relief to be free of Skip and Mona for a few hours. The sophisticated but empty conversation laced with Mona’s unending sexual innuendoes, the brittle company, and the aimless drinking had begun to get seriously on his nerves.
Pepin barked and paused, barked and paused, seeming to measure precisely the time it took McTell to forget about him before giving forth with a new burst of complaint. The sound had a particularly grating, aggravating quality, and he remembered, not for the first time, that Linden had agreed to keep the dog while the Talmadges continued their travels—which might be months. There was something to the notion that dogs reflected their owners, he thought wearily as he rose to shut the window. As if in response, the barking seemed to rise in volume.
He sat again, and went back to the translation of the grimoire of Guilhem de Courdeval, which was accumulating page by page on his desk. It was another reason why the afternoon and its solitude seemed oppressive.
Whether the events described were factual or the fantasies of an impossibly twisted mind, the cold-blooded clarity and viciousness of their telling had shaken McTell so badly that half a dozen times he had closed the book with the intention of never opening it again. Most of the rituals were ostensibly for the appeasement of beings whom Courdeval named; the means of pleasing them seemed to be the destruction of human life in various appalling ways. Here, too, was corroboration of the vampire legends. Blood had been consumed like wine. Perhaps worst of all, Courdeval seemed to have possessed a grotesque sense of humor. Three nuns, for example, were impaled upon stakes to which cross-members were added to fashion rough crucifixes.
But one ritual in particular stood out from the others. It involved a peasant, a widower, whom Courdeval had courted with bribes and favors, but then turned on and forced by some unspecified means to murder his only daughter. McTell had not elsewhere encountered this third-person aspect; Courdeval had apparently taken no part in the proceedings except to direct the man’s actions. Further, instead of his usual number of knight-attendants, he had been alone. The gruesome object was the young woman’s blood; this was then prepared by means of a crucial incantation, which, he made clear, was a secret he alone knew and with which nothing could cause him to part. It was not committed to writing in the grimoire.
When the ceremony was over, Courdeval announced with clear triumph that he had demonstrated beyond doubt that he no longer needed to fear death. With a display of his ferocious humor, he added that out of concern for the unlucky peasant’s grief, he had dispatched the man to join his daughter. But there was no further explanation of the event’s unusual features; the grimoire shifted to other doings. It seemed only that Courdeval, at the cost of two lives, had proved his immortality to his own satisfaction.
So you may have believed, my friend, McTell thought. But if there is a devil, he cheated you too; and while you boasted enough of your rewards, you neglected to mention the possibility of your punishment. And mercifully, your secret incantation died with you. No one else would ever be tempted to try such madness.
Grotesque though it all was, McTell could not deny a fascination—even a grudging admiration—for the man’s boldness, his twisted but enormous courage. He could almost see the grim one-eyed visage that was becoming fixed in his imagination, and this time even fancied he caught a glint of humor in it. But his reverie was shattered by a stream of wild, nerve-fraying yelps. He realized that the dog had literally barked itself hoarse. The hell of it was, there was nothing he could do; released, Pepin would run away, and McTell was damned if he would bring the dog into the house. He was simply stuck until Mona came home. His resentment flared. The idiot animal seemed a perfect emblem of the people who had invaded his life at this delicate time. What would Guilhem de Courdeval have thought of a man who could not keep his house free of annoying guests—even pets? No doubt he would have dispatched one of his unseen “servants” to take care of so trivial a matter; and for
a moment, McTell allowed himself to reflect on the substantial, if underhanded, satisfaction of being able to remove such a nuisance as a small, stupid, noisy dog simply by an act of will. If he could, he decided wryly, he would.
The afternoon light was deepening. A glance at his watch told him it was past six, time for a drink and a shower. With Alysse gone, they were on their own for dinner; Linden was bringing groceries. He stood, poured a little Scotch neat into a glass, and was raising it to his lips when he realized the barking had ceased. He cocked his head, listening, then hurried downstairs.
Outside, the gray early twilight spoke of the onset of fall. Pepin’s rope hung, broken, from where it was tied to the shed. The door was partly open. McTell glanced quickly around, then strode forward and stepped inside. In a few seconds his eyes adjusted to the fading light that came through the single dingy window; then he saw with relief that the dog was there, a small white blur crouched in the farthest comer. The other end of the rope still hung from his collar.
“Too dumb even to run away, huh?” McTell said. He set his drink on a shelf and started forward to pick up the rope.
A low hard growl rose in Pepin’s throat.
McTell stopped. The dog was not just crouched. It was backed into the corner as tightly as it could get—body arched, hackles standing on end—and staring at McTell with a beady-eyed intensity that raised the hair on his arms. “What in the hell,” he said. The growl continued, deep and steady. “Pepin,” he said sharply, and took a firm step forward.
The dog leaped at him, snapping savagely, spraying saliva, with a sound that was almost a scream. McTell sprang back. In the dim, musty little shed, man and animal glared at each other. The only sound was the dog’s frantic panting.
“All right,” McTell said softly.
He took a spade from its hook on the wall. Holding it before him like a sword, he advanced step by step. The dog’s sounds rose sharply in pitch; it flattened itself against the wall until McTell was nearly touching it with the spade.
Then it flung itself forward, teeth ripping at McTell’s calf. “You little bastard!” he yelled, flailing with the spade. But the dog was gone, a white streak of speed, rope streaming behind. McTell ran several steps, shouting hoarsely, realizing the futility of pursuit even before Pepin disappeared into the brush.
He stood still. Silence closed around him like a presence; then, tentatively, birdsongs started. He knelt to examine his leg, and saw with relief that the bite had not broken his skin—only torn a long rent in a fifty-dollar pair of slacks. He rose, walked slowly back to where his Scotch waited, and drank it off. His hand lifted the frayed end of the rope. It did not look chewed.
How had it broken?
Why had Pepin run back into the shed, instead of away?
What had gotten into the dog to make it behave with such obvious terror?
But the real question was one McTell did not want to consider: What had gotten into him? He picked up the spade and hung it on its hook.
As he walked to the house, an odd, high, mournful whistle rose in the distance, a sound like nothing he had ever heard. He waited, but it was not repeated. Children, perhaps; perhaps they would catch the dog. Or perhaps the rope would snag on something and hold Pepin. McTell scanned his surroundings; but he had had enough experience of this brush-choked terrain to know that even a daytime search would be difficult and likely fruitless, let alone with night coming on. Besides, the truth was that he would be quite content never to lay eyes on the little cur again. In short, he supposed that he was sorry—but not very.
Abruptly the twilight was ripped by a howl, perhaps a hundred yards off: the sound of an animal in terror or pain. It rose to a shriek, steady, unbearable, until McTell’s shaking hands clapped themselves over his ears.
Just as suddenly, it ceased.
He was still standing motionless, perhaps three minutes later, when the BMW pulled into the drive. Doors slammed, voices approached. With an effort, McTell composed himself and turned to face them. Linden was holding the car keys and a net sack of groceries. She looked a little weary—and the others, as if they had not stinted on the wine.
“Who do you have to suck off to get a drink around here?” Skip said jovially, and walked past McTell without pausing, headed for the bar.
“How about your wife?” Mona murmured. The words were slightly slurred.
But Linden was watching McTell’s face, and concern came into her own. “What happened?” she demanded.
McTell folded his arms and nodded toward the shed. The broken rope told the story. Mona took several half-running steps toward it, then stopped.
“When I came downstairs, he was already loose,” McTell said. “I tried to catch him. He attacked me.”
Mona whirled on him, fists clenched. “I’ll just bet he did,” she said harshly.
Stunned, McTell stared at her furious face.
“You hated that dog. You think I didn’t see? You turned him loose, didn’t you.”
McTell exhaled. “I don’t know where you came up with that little fantasy,” he said evenly. “But I wish you’d have the courtesy not to call me a liar”—he knelt, and elaborately displayed the rip in his trouser leg—“in my own house.”
Tears sprang into her eyes. She swiveled to face Linden and in a choked voice said, “Christ, how can you stand him?” She shoved her fists in her pockets and walked rapidly away.
Shoulders stiff, McTell turned and climbed the patio steps, leaving silence behind him: Linden uncertain which of them to follow, Bertie moving discreetly off into the garden. McTell ignored both, and Skip’s cheerful offer of a drink, as he crossed the living room.
The grimoire and translation were still on his desk. They were not things he wanted anyone else to see. He closed the study door behind him, got a fresh glass, and poured more Scotch. Then he went to the desk.
His hand stopped in midair.
The grimoire, on his typestand, had fallen open to the page titled Liber Viatoris, Book of the Pilgrim. He blinked, trying to remember turning to it. The passage he had been translating came many pages before.
But that was not all. There were, not one, but two sentences written on the page.
Slowly, in disbelief, he leaned forward. The line read: Liberatio parvuli viatori potentiam tribuit.
The room was deadly quiet. He straightened, took a step back, gazed aimlessly around. His gaze fell on his drink. He reached for it, but then glanced uneasily at the decanter, checking its level. Was that what was going on: had his drinking caused him to look right at the second sentence previously and not see it? He bent forward again and examined the text carefully. There was no doubt; only one page was titled Book of the Pilgrim, and the first sentence remained the one about “the witch’s misfortune.” He could have nudged the book open to that page, he supposed, in his haste to check on Pepin the Short. But the second sentence . . .
He read it again. Only the word parvuli was unfamiliar. He reached for the dictionary.
The little one’s release brings power to the pilgrim.
He put the grimoire and papers back into their drawer and, with creased forehead, walked down the hall to wash. The mark on his palm was not going away, and it had still not begun to hurt. If anything, it seemed to give a mildly pleasant sensation when touched, like an itch being scratched. Was that what it was, then? Poison oak, or an insect bite? He stared at it, imagining that its shape was becoming more clear.
But then, he seemed to be imagining a great many things these days. One thing he was not making up, however, was an angry and irrational sister-in-law. For a moment he paused while the scene replayed in his mind—the dark shed, the hard, solid feel of the spade in his hand, the panting dog’s fear—and beneath his guilt flared a tiny ember of triumph at having bested this insignificant but otherwise unassailable enemy.
But what was that shrieking he had heard in the woods?
Slowly, he walked downstairs, bracing himself for an evening of thinly disguised re
sentment and further obligatory half-truths.
** ** **
Boudrie drove slowly along the narrow potholed street. The row of housefronts was continuous, like a block-long masonry wall, yellowed with age, broken only by iron gates of uniform green that led into each small courtyard. The row was grim and silent, like the rest of the town, like the deepening afternoon. He parked and briefly closed his eyes, remembering with sudden terrible clarity how he had once hovered in this darkened doorway at night, blood surging with guilt and passion, waiting tensely for Celeste to let him in.
With the satchel that contained the tools of his trade—breviary, holy water, eucharist—he climbed out of the car. He wondered if Devarre could sense his reluctance, if perhaps, for reasons of his own, he even shared it. Without looking at each other, carrying bags that could almost have marked them as members of the same athletic team, they walked to the door.
The cousin who had come from Fayence to nurse, a Mme. Durtal, let them in. To have the doctor and priest both in the house flustered her; button-eyed, frumpy, she hurried around, arranging chairs and chattering. “Alysse is shopping, she’ll be back soon. I’ll make tea.”
“Perhaps,” Boudrie said. “First . . .” He nodded toward the stairs.
“You don’t want to wait for Alysse?” she said, surprised.
Only to get it over with, Boudrie thought. “The less it is brought to her mind, the better, I think.” Blood rose to his neck at the transparency of the excuse. Mme. Durtal only shrugged.
“As you wish, monsieur. She’s probably still sleeping.’* Her tone seemed to underlie the futility of the gesture.
“There’ll be no need to wake her,” he said too quickly.
Mme. Durtal led the way. Devarre, after a glance at Boudrie, followed. Boudrie waited in the dark, sparsely furnished room for the count of ten before he, too, stepped onto the stairs.
The bedroom was small and stern, with a squat, heavy dresser and chairs. The single touch of femininity was provided by a silver jewelry box that had belonged to Celeste. Several oval portraits were arranged around a mirror. One was of a woman perhaps in her early twenties, with rich chestnut hair, a straight fine nose, hollow cheeks, and the faintly haunted look that told of a despair which never entirely left her.
Next, After Lucifer Page 13
