The Hellbound Heart (11 page)

"...make him confess himself. And maybe we won't tear your soul apart."

1

Rory stood in the hallway and stared at Julia, his Julia, the woman he had once sworn to have and to hold till death did them part. It had not seemed such a difficult promise to keep at the time. He had idolized her for as long as he could remember, dreaming of her by night and spending the days composing love poems of wild ineptitude to her. But things had changed, and he had learned, as he watched them change, that the greatest torments were often the subtlest. There had been times of late when he would have preferred a death by wild horses to the itch of suspicion that had so degraded his joy.

Now, as he looked at her standing at the bottom of the stairs, it was impossible for him to even remember how good things had once been. All was doubt and dirt.

One thing he was glad of: she looked troubled. Maybe that meant there was a confession in the air, indiscretions that she would pour out and that he would forgive her for in a welter of tears and understanding.

"You look sad," he said.

She hesitated, then said: "It's difficult, Rory."

"What is?"

She seemed to want to give up before she began.

"What is?" he pressed.

"I've so much to tell you."

Her hand, he saw, was grasping the banister so tightly the knuckles burned white. "I'm listening," he said. He would love her again, if she'd just be honest with him. "Tell me," he said.

"I think maybe...maybe it would be easier if I showed you..." she told him, and so saying, led him upstairs.

2

The wind that harried the streets was not warm, to judge by the way the pedestrians drew their collars up and their faces down. But Kirsty didn't feel the chill. Was it her invisible companion who kept the cold from her, cloaking her with that fire the Ancients had conjured to burn sinners in? Either that, or she was too frightened to feel anything.

But then that wasn't how she felt; she wasn't frightened. The feeling in her gut was far more ambiguous. She had opened a door-the same door Rory's brother had opened-and now she was walking with demons. And at the end of her travels, she would have her revenge. She would find the thing that had

torn her and tormented her, and make him feel the powerlessness that she had suffered. She would watch him squirm. More, she would enjoy it. Pain had made a sadist of her.

As she made her way along Lodovico Street, she looked round for a sign of the Cenobite, but he was nowhere to be seen. Undaunted, she approached the house. She had no plan in mind: there were too many variables to be juggled. For one, would Julia be there? And if so, how involved in all of this was she? Impossible to believe that she could be an innocent bystander, but perhaps she had acted out of terror of Frank; the next few minutes might furnish the answers. She rang the bell, and waited.

The door was answered by Julia. In her hand, a length of white lace.

"Kirsty," she said, apparently unfazed by her appearance. "It's late..."

"Where's Rory?" were Kirsty's first words. They hadn't been quite what she'd intended, but they came out unbidden.

"He's here," Julia replied calmly, as if seeking to soothe a manic child. "Is there something wrong?"

"I'd like to see him," Kirsty answered.

"Rory?"

"Yes..."

She stepped over the threshold without waiting for an invitation. Julia made no objection, but closed the door behind her.

Only now did Kirsty feel the chill. She stood in the hallway and shivered.

"You look terrible," said Julia plainly.

"I was here this afternoon," she blurted. "I saw what happened, Julia. I saw. "

"What was there to see?" came the reply; her poise was unassailed.

"You know."

"Truly I don't."

"I want to speak to Rory..."

"Of course," came the reply. "But take care with him, will you? He's not feeling very well."

She led Kirsty through to the dining room. Rory was sitting at the table; there was a glass of spirits at his hand, a bottle beside it. Laid across an adjacent chair was Julia's wedding dress. The sight of it prompted recognition of the lace swath in her hand: it was the bride's veil.

Rory looked much the worse for wear. There was dried blood on his face, and at his hairline. The smile he offered was warm, but fatigued.

"What happened...?" she asked him.

"It's all right now, Kirsty," he said. His voice barely aspired to a whisper. "Julia told me everything...and it's all right."

"No," she said, knowing that he couldn't possibly have the whole story.

"You came here this afternoon."

"That's right."

"That was unfortunate."

"You...you asked me..." She glanced at Julia, who was standing at the door, then back at Rory. "I did what I thought you wanted."

"Yes. I know. I know. I'm only sorry you were dragged into this terrible business."

"You know what your brother's done?" she said. "You know what he summoned?"

"I know enough," Rory replied. "The point is, it's over now."

"What do you mean?"

"Whatever he did to you, I'll make amends-"

"What do you mean, over?"

"He's dead, Kirsty."

("...deliver him alive, and maybe we won't tear your soul apart.')

"Dead?"

"We destroyed him, Julia and I. It wasn't so difficult. He thought he could trust me, you see, thought that blood was thicker than water. Well it isn't. I wouldn't suffer a man like that to live..."

She felt something twitch in her belly. Had the Cenobites got their hooks in her already, snagging the carpet of her bowels?

"You've been so kind, Kirsty. Risking so much, coming back here..."

(There was something at her shoulder. "Give me your souls " it said.)

"I'll go to the authorities, when I feel a little stronger. Try and find a way to make them understand..."

"You killed him?" she said.

"Yes."

"I don't believe it..." she muttered.

"Take her upstairs," Rory said to Julia. "Show her."

"Do you want to see?" Julia inquired.

Kirsty nodded and followed.

It was warmer on the landing than below, and the air greasy and gray, like filthy dishwater. The door to Frank's room was ajar. The thing that lay on the bare boards, in a tangle of torn bandaging, still steamed. His neck was clearly broken, head set askew on his shoulders. He was devoid of skin from head to foot.

Kirsty looked away, nauseated.

"Satisfied?" Julia asked.

Kirsty didn't reply, but left the room and stepped onto the landing. At her shoulder, the air was restless.

("You lost," something said, close by her.

"I know, " she murmured.)

The bell had begun to ring, tolling for her, surely; and a turmoil of wings nearby, a carnival of carrion birds. She hurried down the stairs, praying that she wouldn't be overtaken before she reached the door. If they tore her heart out, let Rory be spared the sight. Let him remember her strong, with laughter on her lips, not pleas.

Behind her, Julia said, "Where are you going?" When there was no reply forthcoming, she went on talking. "Don't say anything to anybody, Kirsty," she insisted. "We can deal with this, Rory and me-"

Her voice had stirred Rory from his drink. He appeared in the hallway. The wounds Frank had inflicted looked more severe than Kirsty had first thought. His face was bruised in a dozen places, and the skin at his neck plowed up. As she came abreast of him, he reached out and took her arm.

"Julia's right," he said. "Leave it to us to report, will you?"

There were so many things she wanted to tell him at that moment, but time left room for none. The bell was getting louder in her head. Someone had looped their entrails around her neck, and was pulling the knot tight.

"It's too late..." she murmured to Rory, and pressed his hand away.

"What do you mean?" he said to her, as she covered the yards to the door. "Don't go, Kirsty. Not yet. Tell me what you mean."

She couldn't help but offer him a backward glance, hoping that he would find in her face all the regrets she felt.

"It's all right," he said sweetly, still hoping to heal her. "Really it is." He opened his arms. "Come to

Daddy, " he said.

The phrase didn't sound right out of Rory's mouth. Some boys never grew to be daddies, however many children they sired.

Kirsty put out a hand to the wall to steady herself.

It wasn't Rory who was speaking to her. It was Frank. Somehow, it was Frank-

She held on to the thought through the mounting din of bells, so loud now that her skull seemed ready to crack open. Rory was still smiling at her, arms extended. He was talking too, but she could no longer hear what he said. The tender flesh of his face shaped the words, but the bells drowned them out. She was thankful for the fact; it made it easier to defy the evidence of her eyes.

"I know who you are..." she said suddenly, not certain of whether her words were audible or not, but unquenchably sure that they were true. Rory's corpse was upstairs, left to lie in Frank's shunned bandaging. The usurped skin was now wed to his brother's body, the marriage sealed with the letting of blood. Yes! That was it.

The coils around her throat were tightening; it could only be moments before they dragged her off. In desperation, she started back along the hallway toward the thing in Rory's face.

"It's you-" she said.

The face smiled at her, undismayed.

She reached out, and snatched at him. Startled, he took a step backward to avoid her touch, moving with graceful sloth, but somehow still managing to avoid her touch. The bells were intolerable; they were pulping her thoughts, tolling her brain tissue to dust. At the rim of her sanity, she reached again for him, and this time he did not quite avoid her. Her nails raked the flesh of his cheek, and the skin, so recently grafted, slid away like silk. The blood-buttered meat beneath came into horrid view.

Behind her, Julia screamed.

And suddenly the bells weren't in Kirsty's head any longer. They were in the house, in the world.

The hallway lights burned dazzlingly bright, and then-their filaments overloading-went out. There was a short period of total darkness, during which time she heard a whimpering that may or may not have come from her own lips. Then it was as if fireworks were spluttering into life in the walls and floor. The hallway danced. One moment an abattoir (the walls running scarlet); the next, a boudoir (powder blue, canary yellow); the moment following that, a ghost-train tunnel-all speed and sudden fire.

By one flaring light she saw Frank moving toward her, Rory's discarded face hanging from his jaw. She avoided his outstretched arm and ducked through into the front room. The hold on her throat had relaxed, she realized: the Cenobites had apparently seen the error of their ways. Soon they would intervene, surely, and bring an end to this farce of mistaken identities. She would not wait to see Frank claimed as she'd thought of doing; she'd had enough. Instead she'd flee the house by the back door and leave them to it.

Her optimism was short-lived. The fireworks in the hall threw some light ahead of her into the dining room, enough to see that it was already bewitched. There was something moving over the floor, like ash

before wind, and chains cavorting in the air. Innocent she might be, but the forces loose here were indifferent to such trivialities; she sensed that to take another step would invite atrocities.

Her hesitation put her back within Frank's reach, but as he snatched at her the fireworks in the hallway faltered, and she slipped away from him under cover of darkness. The respite was all too brief. New lights were already blooming in the hall-and he was after her afresh, blocking her route to the front door.

Why didn't they claim him, for God's sake? Hadn't she brought them here as she'd promised, and unmasked him?

Frank opened his jacket. In his belt was a bloodied knife-doubtless the flaying edge. He pulled it out, and pointed it at Kirsty.

"From now on," he said, as he stalked her, "I'm Rory." She had no choice but to back away from him, the door (escape, sanity) receding with every step. "Understand me? I'm Rory now. And nobody's ever going to know any better."

Her heel hit the bottom of the stair, and suddenly there were other hands on her, reaching through the banisters and seizing fistfuls of her hair. She twisted her head round and looked up. It was Julia, of course, face slack, all passion consumed. She wrenched Kirsty's head back, exposing her throat as Frank's knife gleamed toward it.

At the last moment Kirsty reached up above her head and snatched hold of Julia's arm, wrenching her from her perch on the third or fourth stair. Losing both her balance and her grip on her victim, Julia let out a shout and fell, her body coming between Kirsty and Frank's thrust. The blade was too close to be averted; it entered Julia's side to the hilt. She moaned, then she reeled away down the hall, the knife buried in her.

Frank scarcely seemed to notice. His eyes were on Kirsty once again, and they shone with horrendous appetite. She had nowhere to go but u¢. The fireworks still exploding, the bells still ringing, she started to mount the stairs.

Her tormentor was not coming in immediate pursuit, she saw. Julia's appeals for help had diverted him to where she lay, halfway between stairs and front door. He drew the knife from her side. She cried out in pain, and, as if to assist her, he went down on his haunches beside her body. She raised her arm to him, looking for tenderness. In response, he cupped his hand beneath her head, and drew her up toward him. As their faces came within inches of each other, Julia seemed to realize that Frank's intentions were far from honorable. She opened her mouth to scream, but he sealed her lips with his and began to feed. She kicked and scratched the air. All in vain.