A Time of Torment (3 page)

Kushiel: when Eldritch had asked his son for his true name, that was the one he gave, but he did so with a crooked smile, as though this, too, were part of some great cosmic joke to which Eldritch was not privy.

Kushiel: Hell’s jailer.

But to those he hunted, he was the Collector.

Eldritch finished shaving and washed away the remains of the foam. Just as his son stank of nicotine from the cigarettes that had stained his fingers a deep ochre, so, too, could Eldritch smell his own mortality. His body odor had changed, and no matter how clean he kept himself, or how much cedarwood aftershave he used, he could still detect it. It was the stink of his physical form in decline. It was the reek of the mud in the bottom of the pond of existence, and flies buzzed around it. He wondered how much time he had left. Not long. He felt it in his bones.

He carefully turned the mirror, so that its reflective surface faced the wall. The Collector – let Eldritch think of his son as others did – was strict about this. He had a distrust of mirrors. He had once described them as ‘reflecting eyes’. Eldritch had thought it a superstition, until an incident involving a dead child killer named John Grady. The Collector had retrieved a mirror from Grady’s former home, and, just before he removed it from Eldritch’s presence, he had turned it toward the lawyer. Eldritch had seen his own features and, behind them, those of another: the terrified face of John Grady, who, in death, had somehow sequestered himself in a reflected version of his house, wandering through it with the ghosts of dead children, believing himself to be immune from justice until the Collector proved him wrong.

But Eldritch knew that the Collector had seen other faces looking back at him from polished surfaces, and one face in particular, for behind the surface of mirrors moved the Buried God, the God of Wasps, the one whom even the Collector feared. If God slept, the Buried God did not. The Buried God watched, and waited to be found.

Eldritch entered his bedroom and put on a clean shirt. He was going to see a movie, and later he would have a quiet dinner in one of the local bars that remained open. He was rereading Montaigne’s
Essays.
He found a kind of consolation in them.

He went downstairs and called from the open back door to say that he was leaving. He received only a slight wave of the hand in reply, but the Collector did not turn around. Even six months before, it would not have been possible for Eldritch to leave the house in this way, because the Collector would not have permitted it. They were being hunted by the detective named Charlie Parker and the men who stood with him, all of them seeking revenge for the death of one of their friends at the Collector’s hands. But a truce of kinds had been declared, and they were safer now, although Eldritch knew that the Collector remained wary of Parker.

Sometimes
, Eldritch thought,
I think he fears Parker almost as much as he fears the Buried God
.

Eldritch got in his car and drove onto the road, turning right for Rehoboth. He didn’t even know what movie he’d go see. They all started at the same time, more or less. And they were all the same, more or less. It would be enough just to sit in the darkness and forget, for a while.

The Collector took another drag on his cigarette, and listened to the sound of his father’s car fading away. There was a new moon in the sky. He tracked the progress of a dying insect, its flight erratic, until it finally fell by the feet of the man who was holding a gun on him.

‘I knew you’d come,’ he said, as Charlie Parker emerged from the shadows.

T
he Collector had not seen Parker in more than a year, and was astonished by the changes in him. It was not simply the physical alterations wrought by his suffering, although his injuries, and his ongoing recuperation from them, had left him thinner than before, and his hair was speckled with white where the shotgun pellets had torn paths through his scalp. No, this was a man transformed within as well as without, and the unease that the Collector had always sensed in Parker’s presence, a glowing ember of concern, suddenly exploded into flame. Parker had died three times in the hours following the shooting, and each time he had returned, like some biblical prophecy made real. Now he was no longer as he once was: he burned with conviction. The Collector could see it in his eyes, and feel it as surely as a static charge.

The Collector had never been in as much danger as he was at this moment.

‘Are your confederates with you?’ he asked.

He stared past the detective, expecting to witness the emergence of Angel and Louis, the men who walked with Parker, but the woods remained undisturbed.

‘I’m alone.’

‘How did you find me?’

‘I sniffed you out.’

The Collector’s right arm twitched once in response, for he understood that the detective’s reply contained a truth both literal and metaphorical. Somehow, he had tracked him down, and not through Internet searches or the words of informants. No, Parker had hunted him by following unseen trails. The Collector would never be able to hide from this man again, assuming he was permitted to survive this encounter.

‘They gave me their word,’ said the Collector. He had struck a bargain with Angel and Louis, although perhaps he had been naïve to expect it to be honored. ‘If I helped them find the ones who attacked you, then you would leave my father and me in peace.’

‘Had I been in a position to advise them, I’d have told them to kill you along with those who hurt me.’

Something remained unspoken.

‘But?’ asked the Collector.

‘It would have been a mistake.’

‘And why is that?’

‘Because I may have a use for you.’

The Collector managed to laugh.

‘You, use
me
?’ he said. ‘And what makes you think I would even countenance such an arrangement?’

Parker’s expression did not alter, and neither did the gun waver in his hand.

‘Because you’re a dog, and all dogs need a master. I’m about to bring you to heel.’

The cigarette in the Collector’s hand had burned down almost to his fingers. He let it drop, and carefully moved his right foot to crush the butt.

‘What did you see,’ he asked, ‘during your time between worlds?’

‘I saw a lake,’ the detective replied. ‘I spoke with my dead child, and the ghost of my wife whispered to me.’

‘And what did she say?’

A flicker of the eyes, caught by the Collector.

‘That’s none of your business. It’s enough for you to know that this world is altering, and your purpose will change along with it. And I’m tired of looking over my shoulder, tired of wondering if your blade is about to flash in the darkness.’

‘I have no intention of killing you. I don’t believe I ever had.’

‘Nevertheless, I don’t care much for you walking in my footsteps, or those of my friends. I’ve found you once, and I can find you again. You’ll come when I call, and you’ll do as I say.’

‘Or?’

But the word held no real defiance. It was the response of one who has already surrendered, and is simply seeking to salvage some dignity from the terms.

‘I’ll feed your father to the FBI as an accomplice to murder, and then I’ll help them to track you down. You’re a mystery to them, but they suspect your existence. I’ll confirm it. But it’ll be me who puts an end to you, and whatever you are, or whatever lives inside you, will wander in darkness. You won’t return. I guarantee it.’

‘You don’t have that kind of power.’

‘Don’t I?’

The Collector swallowed.

‘And if I agree?’

‘You can go about your work. I don’t have the time or inclination to chain you up in a yard just to feed you scraps, but you’ll come when I summon you.’

The Collector watched the scudding of clouds. He felt a tightness at his neck, as of a restored collar tightening.

‘May I have another cigarette?’

‘Go ahead.’

He moved his left hand very slowly to the pocket of his coat and retrieved the pack and his matches. He put a cigarette between his lips and lit it. He inhaled deeply, but it both smelt and tasted wrong. He removed the cigarette and looked at it in disappointment.

‘All this,’ he said, ‘because of a brush with death?’

‘No,’ said the detective. ‘All this because a god has awoken.’

He reached into one of his own pockets, withdrew a cell phone and tossed it to the Collector.

‘When it rings, you answer. When I call, you come.’

He lowered his gun. He had no more need of it that night. He turned his back on the Collector and returned to the shadows.

A
lthough he did not yet know it, Roger Ormsby’s current dilemma was a direct consequence of that confrontation at Rehoboth Beach, and of others less recent. Not that the revelation, when it came, would be of any comfort to him.

Quite the contrary, in fact.

For the moment, all he could do was pick up the empty sack from the trunk of his car, as though expecting some shrunken version of the child to be displayed beneath it. He then checked under the car, and found the space there unoccupied. The gap between the frozen garage door and the floor was too small to have permitted the girl to escape through it, and there were no hiding places in the garage itself, which meant she had to be somewhere in the house. In her situation, he would have made straight for the front door, so he must have passed her as he was returning after the conversation with the delivery man, probably as she was hiding in the kitchen, or in the interconnected living and dining rooms.

Ormsby grabbed a pistol from under his tool rack and hurried from the garage. He half expected to hear the sound of breaking glass: the front door was locked and the windows secured, so the only way the child could get out would be by shattering a pane. He glanced into the kitchen, but it was empty. He didn’t even bother checking the stairs, or consider the possibility that she might be in one of the upstairs rooms: it would make no sense for her to go up.

Ormsby paused at the door to the living room. The drapes were drawn, and it was dark inside. He didn’t want to risk having the child run at him. There was any number of heavy objects in the room – cut-glass vases, lamps, bronzes. Even a glancing blow from one of them might be enough to lay him flat on the ground, and once he was down he would be vulnerable to further attack.

‘Missy, are you in there?’ he called.

He received no reply, but he thought he could hear a small snuffling sound.

‘Look, I’m sorry I hurt you, but I did warn you, and I’m a man who keeps his word. I don’t want to cause you any more pain, honest I don’t.’

He tried to come up with some excuse for what was happening that might be acceptable and understandable to a child.

‘I need some money, that’s all,’ he said. ‘I’m going to send a message to your mom and dad, they’ll pay me what I want, and then I’ll let you go. They love you, right? If they love you, they’ll pay up, and pretty soon this will all be over. In the meantime, you can watch TV, and eat whatever you like. I’ve got a full larder, and all kinds of movies. There’s even a computer you can play games on. How about that? So you show yourself, then we can get you comfortable and set about returning you to your family. What do you say? We got a deal?’

Something cold touched the side of his neck. He didn’t have to see it to know it was a gun.

‘No,’ said a male voice, and Ormsby recognized it from the exchange at the front door only minutes earlier. ‘I don’t think that deal will be acceptable at all.’

Ormsby considered trying to bring his pistol into play, but it was in his right hand and the man was slightly to his left. Ormsby would be dead before he could use it. Still, he didn’t panic. The Gray Man wasn’t the kind to do so.

‘Are you police?’ he asked.

‘What do you think?’

‘If you’re police, then you’ve entered my home illegally.’

‘You a lawyer?’

‘No, but I know the law.’

‘Watch a lot of TV, huh?’

‘I read.’

‘Good for you.’

‘Don’t patronize me.’

The barrel of the gun nudged Ormsby gently.

‘Frankly, Mr Ormsby, I can do whatever I please, and you’ll do whatever I tell you to, beginning with dropping that gun in your hand.’

Ormsby did as he was told.

‘You’re no cop,’ he said.

‘Took you long enough to figure that out.’

‘So what do you want?’

‘You, Mr Ormsby. We want you.’

We?

A light went on in the living room, and the muzzle guided Ormsby inside. He saw the girl sitting in an armchair, wrapped in the big wool blanket that Ormsby sometimes used to keep out the cold. There was some bruising to her face, but she didn’t look frightened. Ormsby wondered why she wasn’t scared, until he saw the man standing behind her.

He was unshaven, and of indeterminate age, so that he might have been anywhere between forty and sixty. He wore a green combat jacket that was old and battered enough to have seen service in Vietnam. Ormsby’s first thought was that he looked like a homeless person, and therefore his house was in the process of being burgled. It led him to believe, however briefly, that he might yet be able to talk his way out of this. He had some valuables, and a little hard cash. Depending on how unscrupulous these men were, they could be reasoned with. If their tastes ran in a particular direction, he might even be in a position to offer them the girl herself. It didn’t matter much to Ormsby how she died, just
that
she died. He could deal with the men later, just as soon as he managed to get his hands on another weapon. He had plenty stored around the house, just in case.

Then Ormsby saw that the man’s left hand was hanging over the top of the armchair, and the girl was holding on to it with her right, so that their linked arms hung across her body like a protective shield. She appeared to be deriving strength and consolation from his presence. She trusted him. He was watching Ormsby with the dead gaze of a farmer about to behead a snake that has threatened one of his herd. If he was a burglar, then he wasn’t the kind to hurt a child. Ormsby felt some of his hope ebb. All was not yet lost, but he’d have to be clever. It did not even cross his mind that they might have come for the girl herself. He had been so careful for so long that he found it almost impossible to conceive of being caught; or, if such an eventuality ever troubled him, it always involved men in uniform, and detectives with badges, and these were neither.