The Grotesques (28 page)

AT FIRST LIGHT
Romain dug a grave between Brother Pierre’s favourite red and pink geraniums and laid his shrouded guardian to rest. With his idle hands beckoning intolerable grief, he collected deadwood. Prayers and memory sustained him while he fashioned a cross and angel to mark the grave. All the while, Genord came and went, not a word, not even a callous smile. Romain paid him no heed, watching instead a sparrow pecking the fresh dug earth.

When the sun started its descent, Romain entered the church. His legs weakened as he took in the bloodied bodies of squirrels, birds, and hares littering the floor. He reached for a pew to steady himself, wishing for the first time in his life that he did not share blood with Genord.

The forest yielded wood to tack into a cross on the door. He lost himself in despair as he carved a cross into each quadrant and others into the resultant squares. He carved until the door was covered in the symbol and his hands ached. He carved to the warble of the sparrow which swooped inside and perched on the chalice. Then he set to work on the door to the hut.

When golden afternoon shone upon his work, he returned to the church. The stone dog was lying against the left wall. One ear was chipped, the tip crumbled across the flagstones. Romain cradled it as he knelt before the cross. No life pulsed within its gravel though he turned its face to the light streaming through the window. He had killed it as sure as Genord had murdered the other beasts. The sparrow chirped a commiseration before it dunked its head in the wine.
The lifeblood
Brother Romain had called him. As he had called the consecrated wine. Romain gathered the dust of the earth, sprinkled it in the chalice, and chanted his prayers until the cross shone with the light of God. Until sundown he sang, when Genord returned, humming a funerary dirge. His brother’s footsteps stopped dead outside the church. The corpse of a squirrel thumped the window. Romain faltered at his prayers for Brother Pierre.

When footsteps marched away, he made the sign of the cross, collected chalice and crucifix, and rose to confront his brother one last time.

Genord was lurking beneath the heavy branches of a ponderous oak. “You will regret this,” he said, throwing a dead falcon at Romain’s feet. Romain refused to look at it. He would collect it later, another burial for another death. He should have known his indifference would goad his twin. Belting the strains of his ominous dirge, Genord lifted a poor rabbit by the ears.

Evil stirred, brooding and chill. Romain countered with a melodious chant. It rose on the breeze, gusting through the trees and swirling the clouds as the cross caught the dying rays of the sun. It called to God, and it called to the earth elementals, blending old magic and new into a formidable protection even Genord could not shatter. When light burst from the cross, Romain dipped his hand in the chalice and flicked the elixir upon the hare. He scooped handfuls and swept them over the sable fur. Its whiskers stopped waggling, its coat matted to brittle grey, and there in Genord’s hand was a perfect stone replica of the animal.

Genord dropped it. Its tail cracked. He stared but no spirit emerged.

“It lives,” Romain said. He tucked the cross into the crook of his arm, picked up the hare, and turned his back on Genord. He placed his precious artefacts on the back pew of the church and stood door in hand.

“You’ve changed, Romain.” Genord was a menacing silhouette beneath the trees. “Where is my fun-loving little brother? Where is the boy who is so eager to please?”

“You killed him,” Romain said, and closed the door.

It was an effort to scrape the grit from between the stones in the wall until his elixir was thick enough for him to mould a new tail on the hare but he smiled in sweet sadness when it was done, for he could sense the wild mind, its raw relief and timid thanks. He touched the tip of the cross to its nose and chanted. Brother Pierre would have condemned his words, the old mixed with the new. Even so, the stone heated in the light of the cross and the surface cracked into a thousand hairs. In the dark magic of the elements, a hare shivered to life.

Romain could have asked for no greater comfort than its warmth as it nestled in his arms.

ELLA TUMBLED AT
Romain’s feet, her teeth chattering, her eyes resting on her trembling human hands. Adam gathered her to him. At last, this wicked hallucination seemed to be taking a turn for the better. She tilted her head. And gulped. She was enclosed in the arms of the horned grotesque. The very alive horned grotesque. So much for bad dreams. She needed to get a grip, though, because the door clanged. Genord, one arm thrust to the side, stood at the top of the steps. She pulled herself out of Adam’s embrace and got to her feet. The psychopath’s eyes narrowed as he took in their predicament. Then he smiled.

“You can’t save them both, brother mine. Which one will you choose, I wonder?”

Romain slapped a hand on Adam. “Still, or die.”

“I thought so,” Genord said stepping down. “You are predictable, brother dear. I am so glad. I did promise Miss Jerome a gruesome end. Come, my dear. You will be the fifth.”

Ella bolted for the far end of the roof, threw herself over the inner ledge, and huddled against it. Footsteps paced toward her. She crawled along the channel, wincing at the soft scrape of her body over the stone.

“You can’t hide forever.”

Genord stepped onto the inner ledge. Below, a car engine started. Ella leapt for the outer ledge. “Help!” she called, leaning way over to make herself visible. Genord stepped down. For a dizzying moment, he looked like the vindictive boy in Brother Pierre’s church. She sidled to her right, throwing a beseeching glance at Romain. The mason squeaked and removed his hand from a melding blur of leather and stone. She jerked her head around, unsure if the no watching rule applied to someone who had been a grotesque. Genord grinned. She leaned over the wall and screamed at a policeman opening a car door.

“No!” Romain’s heavy frame slapped against the inner stone wall. Genord’s lithe body paced closer.

“HELP!”

Blue light flashed. A force clapped her in the middle of her back. It toppled her onto the ledge. Romain panted closer. She struggled to tilt her weight back. She wanted to cower behind the mason’s bulk, feel his cold sludge, become stone if it meant she could live. Her feet found the roof. She grazed a knee as she started to turn. The brothers were almost upon her. Another blow caught her between the shoulders. She tumbled over the edge head first. Dropped, screamed, hit her head on the wall, and jerked to a halt.

A sturdy hand gripped her ankle. Down in the carpark, police were causing a commotion as they called for assistance and ran to the huge gothic doors.

“Help.” Her whimper would not alert a mouse but she had nothing left to fight with. She reached for the wall, but there was nothing to grab onto. Nothing save that ill-placed dragon head gargoyle over the doors, far below.

“Hold on!” a voice cried.

The hand slipped, its palm sliding onto her heel. Ella twisted her head. Romain gaped down at her, terror widening his eyes.

“Adam,” she whispered. “Oh, Adam.”

“Adam safe.” But Romain turned his head. Blue light flickered behind him. A shudder passed through his body. Ella’s foot slipped a little further from his grasp. She reached down but the gargoyle was well beyond her reach, a menacing stone on which she would crack her head if Romain let go.

“Jump,” a perverted heckler called.

“No,” she wailed. But the gullible mason swung her away from the gargoyle and let go. She twisted as she plummeted. Expected a burst of agony as she splattered onto the ground. Instead, landed on her back on a blanket stretched between ten men. They lowered her to the ground, offering hands to help her up. Rob was pushing his way through. Flinging her arms around him, she pressed a cheek into his chest. Solid, dependable Rob.

“Are you all right?”

She nodded. “He tried to kill me.”

Rob turned to the milling officers. “Get that mason down here. Now.” He frowned at her. “Where were you? We’ve been searching for hours.” Irritable, demanding Rob.

She stared at him. “I don’t know, but—”

He turned away to supervise the arrest before she could correct his assumption about who she had been accusing.

“I need to get back to the roof,” she told the nearest policeman. She had to check if Adam had survived. The officer draped a blanket over her shoulder and led her to a car but when Romain loped through the front doors, she pulled away.

“Adam safe,” the mason said. She supposed it would do no good to convince the police back onto the roof. She wanted to travel with the mason to find out for sure, but his escort wouldn’t let him dally, and the officer was guiding her to a different vehicle. She sighed. Whether it was from relief or frustration she could not say. At least they were giving her time to concoct a story before what was sure to be a riveting interrogation.

BRODIE RAISED HIS
beer glass, slopping froth into the chick’s cleavage as he leaned close. She’d made a real effort to doll up tonight, with lipstick and that ass-hugging skirt. He wanted to score but she wasn’t relaxing, and now she slid off the stool before he could grope her breasts. He leered as she staggered out the front door. Wicked how she let a bat in. He swiped it while he checked out the rest of the booty in the rowdy pub. Just his luck beer sloshed onto counter, floor, and jacket. Wouldn’t be a worthwhile chick that wanted him now, ’specially if the bat kept hanging round. Broads didn’t dig cool stuff like that. He flicked a sodden paper to the floor. Could have sworn that bat had dropped it.

“It’s got your name on it, man,” his mate Ace said, bending to retrieve it.

“I’d have bailed that chick up if that thing hadn’t distracted me. Where’d it go, anyhow?”

Ace unrolled the paper and turned it over. “Who cares? She wasn’t interested.”

“So what?” Brodie swilled the remainder of his beer.

“Here, read it.” Ace passed the folded paper across. It had curled back up.

Brodie grunted and opened it, expecting a note from his father. It wasn’t. The handwriting was too toffy.

It will be worth your weight in gold—literally —

if you visit the Church of the Resurrection

undetected by the police on surveillance and

unbeknownst to your father.

Brodie snorted.
Unbeknownst
. Who talked like that? What did it even mean? Still, most of the chicks he didn’t know had left, and the ones he did either belonged to his father’s men or he could have any time. The night was too young for the fun to die. Hell, his day was just beginning. He clapped Ace on the arm.

“Let’s go have some fun.”

“Girls?” Ace said, peeling himself away from his beer.

“Nah. Cops.” Brodie leaned over a table where Jake, middle-aged and with a beer belly, was snogging his girl. “I need your gun, Jake.”

Jake finished his kiss. “What’s going down?” he said to his girl’s boobs.

“Taking care of a little business.”

“You need help?” Jake asked, fondling the blonde. From her sour expression, she was not about to give up her night’s entertainment.

“Nah. Ace and me got it covered.” If Jake got involved, his father was sure to learn what went down. Besides, Brodie’s idea of fun didn’t always mesh with Jake’s.

Jake fished out a semi-automatic weapon from under his black tee-shirt. Brodie had it in his jacket pocket before anyone noticed.

“You ain’t gonna get yourself into trouble now?”

“Who me?” Brodie grinned wickedly.

“I saw you with that girl. There’s half a dozen in here falling over themselves to get to you.”

“Yeah. Ain’t no sport.”

“Just remember what I taught you. About not getting caught.”

“Sure, Jake.” But Jake was already snogging again. “Let’s go,” Brodie said to Ace.

The fresh air was sobering. They got on their bikes. The bat was flapping around one of the spotlights, feeding on moths. Brodie took out the gun and pretended to fire.

“You gonna tell me what we’re really doing?” Ace asked.

“Yeah, but not here.”

They revved the engines and screeched off, gunning the throttle until they were twenty ks over the legal limit. As they turned a corner, Brodie would have sworn he saw the bat tailing them. He nearly skidded into a pavement, it made him that uneasy.

He pulled up in the Port Canal Shopping Centre car park and passed the gun to Ace. “I gotta get into the church. There’s cops watching it, so you gotta distract them.”

“You want me to shoot at cops? You off your rocker?” A very cool Ace thrust the gun back at him.

“I’m not asking you to kill ’em.”

Ace spat on the ground. “You’re nuts. Your old man’d kill you for this. And that church is where that girl disappeared from. Whatcha gotta get in there for?”

“Gonna get me my own business contact. And my old man’ll be sweet if—” Brodie broke off to track the flight of a bat across the lot toward the church. “If I get him information.”