Thy Fearful Symmetry

by Richard Wright

  Malachi had tried connecting to the past in this way before. As always, it felt strange to him, like a home movie of somebody else's life.

  Turning, he saw the reality. Stacey's long hair lay back from her face, and the unspoiled cheek and lips, the graceful eyebrow. She was perfect. On the left side of her face.

  Of the right side, little remained. The flesh had been ripped off during the attack, by the demon that had appeared to her. Though he had not been there, time had shaped the moment in his mind. Fingers hooked beneath the skin above her eye, taking firm hold and pulling down. Fats and muscle tore wetly, yanked across her eye, towards her chin, like mould-ridden wallpaper falling from a wall. Droplets of blood sprayed in its wake and filled the air with hot copper smells. Her eyelid, half of her nose, her lips, everything was torn neatly down the middle.

  Time had healed her as best it could. The recessed flesh would never grow back, and advanced cosmetic skin grafts were beyond his means, leaving her more scar tissue than muscle there. She scarcely had strength to twitch that side of her face. Her teeth were exposed, and had become discoloured through constant exposure to the air. Drool spilled down her chin. Nothing could be done about the loss of her eyelid, and she wore a patch most of the time to let her sleep when she wanted.

  Malachi imagined the patch gave her some relief from whatever images stayed with her of the attack. It was a desperate hope, but one he refused to relinquish. To believe otherwise would drive him mad.

  Kneeling by the bed, he crossed his arms on the duvet and, nestling his head in the crook of an elbow, gazed up at the woman he had loved for twelve years. Even knowing he might never see her again, he felt no urge to cry. Too much had happened since the days when he had wept every time he stepped into this room. That morning, he had crossed a final threshold. In his coat pocket, the knife and the blackjack were heavy weights. Despite the months of training, he had never killed another living being before. Few would blame him for starting with Orloch, but what of the man that demon had worn like a suit? What had he done to deserve so brutal a death? Had he felt every slash of the stainless steel blade across his flesh?

  Malachi found it curious that all he felt was longing. Not shame at having performed the act, but a deep, sorrowful yearning for the humanity that should have made his own deeds abhorrent to him. For many months he had mourned the fact that he had been away when Stacey was attacked. Now he realised he had been wrong, and his absence had spared him nothing.

  Self-pity pulled the long-absent tears to his eyes. “You got off lightly,” he whispered to her, and believed it. “You're the lucky one, after all.”

  Two hours later Malachi was on a train pulling out from Newcastle Central Station, heading north along the east coast line for Edinburgh, where he would change trains and cross Scotland's central belt to Glasgow in the west.

  Pandora was in Glasgow. Soon, he would be too. How long would it take to track her down? Days? Weeks? Not months. Demons were notoriously arrogant. Though they walked freely among humanity, pretending they were mortals, they rarely changed their names, or hid from sight. It was likely that a scan through the telephone book would be enough to give him a shortlist.

  Then there would be vengeance. It would be a warning to hellspawn across the country, if not the world, that humanity had been through enough, that they were tired of being pawns in whatever eternal game was being played at their expense.

  As the train passed through villages and towns on its way through Northumberland, he wondered how many demons there were. Even his own amateur attempts at investigation had tracked down two angels and a demon in or near Newcastle. That was just one city. Presumably they were in other cities too, and towns, and perhaps even the villages he sped past now. What of other countries? How many angels and demons walked the earth, interfering with the lives of men and woman, destroying and rebuilding on a whim? What would people see around them, if they opened their eyes?

  Malachi rubbed his temples, hunkering down in his seat. These were problems beyond his ability to deal with, almost beyond his ability to process at all. All he wanted was Pandora, and then he was done.

  Closing his eyes, he tried to sleep.

  In the next carriage along, Melissa was also hunkered into her seat, terrified that the man she once knew as Mr Jones, now simply Malachi, would see her if he made for the buffet car. With her head turned to the window, and her hair cut short, she doubted he would recognise her, but the risk was not worth taking, even if her back was killing her from sitting in so twisted a way.

  Getting on the train had been difficult, with Malachi standing moodily on the platform. Melissa had been forced to wait on the footbridge above the track until he had boarded, before sprinting to get on herself. The change of train at Edinburgh was going to be no less nerve-wracking.

  More than anything, she wanted to be at home, curled up in front of some reality television show, a mug of cocoa in hand. She had no choice though, and knew it. Some duties could not be ignored.

  Malachi deserved to have his vengeance. After tending Stacey for two years, Melissa knew this better than anyone.

  Unfortunately, Malachi was not the master of his own destiny, despite his belief otherwise. That he thought Pandora was a demon instead of an angel troubled her. It was manipulative on the part of whatever had set him on his task, and despite the importance of what he would do, she was not comfortable with it. Would he be so driven, if he knew the truth? Should she tell him, or propagate the lie? She knew the answer. Those that were guiding his life could not be denied. They were further up the food chain than he was. Much further.

  Melissa wondered if Malachi would be able to accept that, when he inevitably confronted the truth. If not, he would be swatted down like an irritating fly. The thought made her wince, deep inside, and she tried to push her own feelings aside.

  Even though she thought she might love him, she was going to keep lying to him, and would never get a chance to tell him how she felt.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Clive stared at his hands, trying to imagine the warm, tacky heat of the blood that had made them scarlet slick. In the dry gloom of the police cell he could almost picture it, just for a second, before denial took over. It couldn't be true.

  Rubbing his hands together gently, ignoring the muted pain from the cuts and bruises that covered them, he tried once again to fill in the blank place in his memory, which the police told him should contain the experience of trying to deliver the final quietus to Jamie Swann. There was a classroom full of witnesses, three of whom had torn him from the boy and held him down while others ran sobbing for the next classroom. Claire O'Hara, a teacher new to the school, had come through and taken over, though he had remained pinned to the floor by his pupils. If they had not done so, the police told him, he would have killed the boy.

  Clive's punched the thin mattress. The fornicating little bastards had set him up. School was finished for the day, and he was in no doubt that they had gathered together to celebrate on one of the estates, shooting up and drinking, fucking each other in a perverse victory orgy, boys on boys on girls on girls, and in the middle of the filth and depravity would be Claire O'Hara, giggling and cheering them on, lifting her skirt to anybody who came close enough to stick it in. The boys lusted after her, a young pretty thing with power over them, and most of the staff had commented on hands sneaking into pockets to shift aside bulging erections. Claire feigned embarrassment, but he knew she was sluttishly delighted, that she encouraged it, that...

  Clive put his head between his hands, and howled. What was wrong in his head, with his mind? None of this was him, none of it came from the Clive Huntley who had married Heather, and come to Scotland full of hope and good intentions.

  “I am a good man!” Pushed out through his teeth, the words sounded harsh and mad. Could he believe them? With thoughts such as those exploding unbidden in his mind, so vivid and real, could he seriously doubt that everything the police said was true? Again he started
to rub his hands together, and then stopped self-consciously, feeling like a poor second cousin to Macbeth. Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?

  He paced the small cell, back and forth, from the door with its sliding shutter, to the windowless rear wall. Although he had been in a daze after being interviewed by the Inspector on duty (whose name he could not remember), he vaguely recalled coming downstairs, so knew he was in a basement level.

  What was the sentence for unprovoked assault on a minor? How long would they ask him to expiate a crime he had no memory of committing? Ten years? Twenty? Even if he could prove he had not been in control of himself, he would probably end up confined to a psychiatric institution. Did they still do that?

  A long list of such questions queued up, to be met with bewildered ignorance. Clive wished he had been paying more attention during the interview, had thought to ask some of those questions to the redheaded Inspector who had been so perplexed by his prisoner. Now he would have to wait until he saw a solicitor. During the interview, he had waived the right to have one present.

  What had he been thinking?

  Clive punched the wall, regretting it as long knitting needles of pain jabbed through his knuckles and up the muscles of his forearm. Holding his fist between his thighs, he fought the urge to cry out. They already thought he was crazy, and he had given them more than enough ammunition to support the theory since he had been in the cell.

  Of all his questions, two stood out with particular clarity, and they were nothing a solicitor could help with. Least important was how he was going to explain this to Heather. Vastly outweighing that was how he was supposed to find Ambrose from the confines of a police cell?

  Clive strangled the urge to hurl himself repeatedly at the door, perhaps destroying it through force of will, so that he could be free for the hunt. Perhaps his friend would find out that Clive was in prison, would come out of hiding to help him. Perhaps the door would open any moment now, Ambrose would be there, and the police would understand that this was all a mistake and Clive didn't belong in jail at all.

  Ambrose's name and face blazed in Clive's head like a storm lantern, whiting out his lesser fears, and he collapsed back on to the mattress in exhaustion.

  Unable to find the energy to twitch his muscles back to life, he lay there, knowing sleep was not going to come, lambasting himself for his weakness, and the careening path fate had taken to leave him this impotent.

  Clive was pulled from his reverie by a tinny electrical hissing somewhere behind him. At first he tried to ignore it, but it persisted, grew in pitch, and finally he turned over.

  Nothing looked out of place. The door was still a hulking sentinel standing between his old life and his new, the red bricks of the wall looked as weary as he felt. The bulb in the corner, sealed behind shatterproof glass that spread and diffused the light...

  Was the only place the noise could feasibly be coming from. Staring hard, Clive was certain he could see a background cascade of sparks showering about like dancing fairies behind the frosted glare of the glass.

  Self-preservation cuffed his misery aside, and he rose warily from the mattress. Perhaps it was simply an electrical fault of some kind, but something didn't feel right, and he eased towards the opposite corner of the room, next to the stained aluminium toilet. Clive was suddenly aware of the cold. Had the chill been this penetrating when he had entered the cell? He didn't remember.

  I have lost my mind, Clive realised. What do I think is going to happen, exactly?

  The light blew up. Clive threw up his arms to protect his face from the glass too late, but his relief at being sprayed with gravel-like chunks of safety glass rather than razor sharp splinters lasted only until he saw what had punched through the cover.

  Moving silently, the ball of blue-white light streaked past his face. A sharp pain caused him to jerk his head back, and when his hand reached his cheek he was amazed to find it rimed with frost. Throwing himself against the back wall, thrusting aside the numb terror that would make him helpless if he succumbed to it, he drew back as the light, about the size of a tennis ball, bounced frantically off walls and door, leaving tiny, round patches of web-patterned frost where it hit. Moving so fast that Clive could only track it by the afterimage trail snaking behind it, the light took seconds to leave the room looking as though snowballing children had run riot through it.

  Clive's startled gasp aside, the only sound had been the shattering of the glass. Even with the ball of light streaming silently from surface to surface inches in front of him, the silence was soporific. Clive could smell his own sweat staining his shirt, could feel trickles of it running down his side and soaking into his pants. As the temperature dropped further, he could almost count each goose bump form, sculpting a tight Braille message of terror and chill across his arms.

  Too slowly, he remembered there was a panic alarm next to the bed. One quick lunge, and there would be officers with him in moments. Sluggish muscles tensed, his imagination painting snowman portraits of what might happen if that icy ball were to devote time to his flesh, and he twitched in anticipation of the leap across the cell.

  The ball stopped dead, and Clive jerked back at the suddenness of it. Floating there at chest height, it bobbed slightly, as though riding a gentle tide.

  Clive could not shake the notion that it was looking at him.

  “Help,” he said, but he knew that the squeak he managed through dry lips went unheard outside the cell.

  Before his bulging eyes, the ball started to change shape, expanding and deforming, rods extruding from the bottom and sides, a smaller ball pushing up from the top. The rods thickened, the ball gained definition. Larger and clearer the shape grew, even as its light dimmed, pulling darkness in towards it.

  Finally, though Clive could not place when the transition from a morphing shape to an identifiable form took place, Clive was looking at a man. In the icy blue light emanating from his body, he was beautiful. Naked, slender, sharp featured, haughty, seductive - Clive was reminded of Ambrose. Arousal and awe battled in him, even as he wondered at the back of his mind what the strange smell bunching at his nostrils might be. There was a faint, unpleasant hint of egg there, but his senses were so overwhelmed by the glory before him that he dismissed it.

  “Do you know who I am?” Clive relaxed as the man spoke, his soft, cultured tones wrapping him up like a blanket. There was something familiar about the voice, something that tried to ring alarm bells before being shot down by his stupefied need to venerate this being.

  What was he?

  What else could he be?

  “You're an angel.” Dropping to his knees, Clive stared in open wonder at the face above, absurdly pleased that his words had put a smile on the creature's face, not caring what was amusing.

  “You have a unique way of viewing the world, Clive Huntley.” Clive might have suspected he was being mocked, were it not for the sure and certain knowledge that a creature so radiant, a creature so obviously sent from the God he had not believed in five minutes ago, would not stoop so low. “I am certainly not mortal.”

  “What... why are you...”

  “I am here in search of one of my own. Your devotions drew me to your cell. You worship with surprising vigour, for a mortal.”

  “Worship... I...” Clive couldn't think, didn't want to waste his devotions on anything but the creature now exposed to him, and only the feeling that he was expected to fill in the blanks bullied his mind into sluggard motion. “Ambrose?” It made sense. Not bat wings, but great, sweeping angel wings. “Ambrose is one of you?”

  The angel dropped to his haunches, bringing his face level with Clive's. The cold stung his cheeks, but he refused to back away. “Yes, Ambrose is one of my fellows, a lesser creature, but serving the same master.”

  The cold grew too much, freezing Clive's flesh. Locking his neck, his lips peeling back in a grimace, he held his ground. “Lord,” he begged, “it's too much.” Raising arch
eyebrows, the angel stood again, stepping back so that the cold dropped down to bearable levels. As it retreated, the darkness crowded around Clive again, leaving the angel burning with pale fervour in the centre of the cell, like an ice beacon in the dark.

  “I didn't expect…” Clive stopped, almost unable to ask questions of this remarkable creature, but knowing he might never again be in this position. “You're so cold.”

  “I am, aren't I? The precise opposite of how good Christians imagine Hell, wouldn't you say?” Clive nodded. If Hell was hot, why should Heaven not be cold? The angel's eyes bore into him. “What of you, Clive Huntley? Are you a good Christian?”

  Shame plucked tears from Clive's eyes, and he lowered his face into his hands. Two days ago, he would have known the answer. Though he did not worship, he lived a good and generous life. Now those same hands that cradled his sobbing face were guilty of beating an innocent boy half to death.

  “Hush, Clive.” The words were immediately soothing, and he lifted his head again, scarcely aware of the tears freezing on his cheeks. “You have sinned, it is true, but my Master knows that it was a sin wrought of confusion and guilt. You are not an evil man. Thus, you are offered an opportunity.”

  Clive's face split in a pitifully grateful grin. “Yes, anything. I'll do anything.”

  “Be sure, mortal. There is always a moment of choice. This is yours. Do you commit to me?”

  Clive nodded, wanting to cry at the angel's doubts in him.

  “Then find him. Find Ambrose. Your friend is in grave danger. He has offended the battalions of Hell, and they nip at his heels. Should they catch him, he will be lost.”

  Clive's fear exploded afresh. Clutching himself, he felt urine dribble down his left leg, a streak of heat in the bitter chill.

  “You have to find him for me, Clive. I have looked, but he has hidden himself away. You must find him, and then you must summon me.”