Darkwalker

CHAPTER 14

Lenoir followed Crears into a narrow alley on the eastern side of town, where a group of the constable’s men were gathered around the body. They were muttering to one another and there was some laughter, but they fell silent when they saw Crears approach. The constable would not approve of disrespectful banter, regardless of whom the victim was.

There was nothing remarkable about the way the body was situated. It lay near the intersection of two alleyways, angled in such a way as to suggest that the victim was attempting to flee around the corner of one alley into another as he fell. The man lay on his side, one knee drawn up toward his chest and both elbows tucked into his body, a little like a stabbing victim. But there was no blood anywhere, and no obvious wounds.

As though reading Lenoir’s thoughts, Crears said, “We haven’t figured out what killed him yet. I gave him a quick once-over, but I didn’t find anything.”

Lenoir grunted and glanced around. There were five watchmen standing over the body, including the two that had accompanied Crears to fetch Lenoir. “Which one of you found him?” Lenoir asked, and the tallest of the watchmen raised his hand. “The rest of you can go. This alley is too small for all of you to be here—you’ll contaminate the scene.”

The watchmen exchanged glances, but they did not move, looking instead to their commanding officer.

Crears colored slightly. “You heard the inspector! Go!” He turned apologetically to Lenoir. “I’m sorry, sir. . . .”

Lenoir waved his hand dismissively. “Do not concern yourself. It is only proper that your men should show such loyalty.” In fact, Lenoir was envious; he had a hard time believing Kody would demur over the orders of a superior. Not that Lenoir had done anything to earn the sergeant’s loyalty.

The alley was now empty save for Lenoir, Crears, and the watchman who had found the body, and Lenoir suddenly became conscious of the darkness of the place. The buildings that flanked the alley were three stories high, shading the body so that the skin appeared dark gray, as though the man had already begun to decompose.

“When did you come upon it?” Lenoir asked the watchman.

“Just over an hour ago. She showed me.” The man pointed to the far end of the alley, where a young woman with a flower cart stood pale-faced and trembling in the sunshine. “She’s been there the whole time,” the watchman added, his voice lowered. “I think she’s in shock.”

“And did you question her?”

“I did,” said Crears. “She says she didn’t see anything. Just walked past and saw him lying there. She could tell from his position that something wasn’t right, so she called the watch.”

Lenoir looked down at the corpse again. A feeling of dread was oozing from the center of his body into his extremities, like bile leaking out of his stomach. He did not want to examine the body, especially not in front of Crears.

“Did anyone else in the area see anything?” he asked, floundering for excuses to delay. “Did you question the passersby?”

Crears regarded him curiously. “Some of my men are doing it now. You might have seen them out in the street? I got them started on it before I came to find you.”

Of course he did. Damn him.

There was a stretch of silence. Crears looked uncomfortable. He started to speak, then glanced at the watchman and fell silent, scratching his beard. At length, however, when Lenoir still made no move, Crears chose duty over decorum and said, “Inspector, aren’t you going to take a look at the body?”

Lenoir nodded numbly and squatted. There was no getting around it.

The man’s shirt was already open, presumably from Crears’s initial inspection. There was no blood on the clothing, no bruising or cuts on the flesh. The skull appeared to be intact. Lenoir rolled the body onto its back. The corpse had not yet begun to stiffen, but the skin on one side was vaguely purple, in sharp contrast to the pallor of the rest of the body. The discoloration suggested that the body had been lying on its side for at least an hour. Crears had been right about the approximate time of death.

“Two hours at most,” Lenoir said.

“He was still warm when I found him,” said the watchman, “and no discoloration. Can’t be sure, but I think most of that two hours started from the time I went to get the constable.”

“But you did not see anyone suspicious?”

Lenoir did not have to look up to know the watchman was annoyed; it came through clearly in his voice. “I would have said so, Inspector.”

It was a stupid question, but Lenoir was just talking, his eyes skimming over the corpse as he tried not to notice the tear in the man’s trousers just below the knee. But the pale flesh peeking through the cloth snagged at the corners of his vision, holding his gaze. He could not bring himself to look directly at it, but neither could he look away. How he wished Crears and the watchman would leave.

“Constable!” someone called from the street, as if on cue. “I think you’d better come and hear this,” and to Lenoir’s tremendous relief, Crears turned and headed down the alley.

Seizing upon the opportunity, Lenoir looked up at the watchman. “Go with him.” The watchman frowned and opened his mouth to speak, but seeing Lenoir’s expression, he thought better of it and obeyed.

Lenoir reached for the corpse’s leg, but then he hesitated, his hand trembling as it hovered over the body. The trouser leg was torn in three places, leaving ribbons of cloth than ran more or less from the ankle to the knee. Steeling himself, Lenoir pushed it aside to expose the flesh.

The puncture marks were deep and angled, as though a great fanged beast had seized the limb in its jaws and tried to drag its victim away. Yet there was no blood—at least not fresh. The scratches that led into the puncture marks should have been livid and red, but instead they were a deep blue against flesh the color of slate. The capillaries were visible, a delicate inky web that crawled over the exposed part of the leg. It looked as though the blood was frozen beneath the skin, and suddenly Lenoir felt frozen too. The dread that had been leaking out of his stomach had seeped through his entire body; he was numb with it.

One of the corpse’s arms was now draped over its chest, having shifted position when Lenoir rolled the body onto its back. He saw that the fingertips were torn and bloodied, and he glanced instinctively at the flagstones near the head. He could picture it all so vividly: the man clawing at the stones in a vain attempt to drag himself away from his attacker, his leg clasped in the deadly embrace of the scourge. Lenoir’s chest tightened as he imagined the man’s panic, his inability to understand how all the strength had suddenly fled from his limbs. Lenoir’s own arms felt leaden, and the metallic taste of fear was in his mouth. His gaze fell to the corpse’s eyes, wide and staring at the sky. He saw himself reflected there, a pale face in a golden mirror. The sight transfixed him. It was as though he watched himself through the dead man’s eyes. He looked like a man marked for death. And so you are. Death has found you. It sees you. It will have you at last.

It felt like a dream, slow and surreal, so when Lenoir turned and saw the absinthe eyes glinting from the branching alleyway, he thought it was all in his mind. But then the dead flesh on his arm suddenly began to burn as though blood flowed through it for the first time in a decade, and Lenoir knew instantly that he did not dream.

The green-eyed man was there.

The spirit did not move at first. He merely regarded Lenoir silently, his pale face impassive. Lenoir did not move either, frozen in place by a terror more paralyzing than any he had ever felt. He was like a startled rabbit, hoping to go unnoticed, not daring to flee lest he provoke the predator. Perhaps the spirit would not recognize him; perhaps it had been too long, and there had been too many others marked for death for his face still to be familiar.

An eternity passed, a stretch of such profound stillness that time itself seemed to have stopped flowing. Lenoir held his breath until he felt his lungs must burst. When he could stand it no longer, he hauled himself up and tried to run.

He had not even got to his feet when the leather tongues of the scourge struck out, glancing off his boot and sending him tumbling to the flagstones. Lenoir braced himself for the killing blow that must surely follow—but it did not come. Instead the spirit approached, head tilted, curious. Like a cat toying with unfamiliar prey, the spirit had only used enough force to subdue his victim so that he might consider it more carefully. He seemed unresolved, as though he could not decide whether to attack—and for a brief, wonderful moment, Lenoir experienced a rush of hope.

But then the absinthe eyes narrowed a fraction. It was barely perceptible, yet it was the most expressive Lenoir had ever seen that face, and like a dam bursting, his breast flooded with fresh panic. The spirit knew him.

Again Lenoir scrambled to his feet, his gaze locked on the sunlit street ahead. But the spirit anticipated him; the scourge snapped around the corner, aimed for his head. Lenoir ducked, the cursed weapon missing him so narrowly that his hair was ruffled. When the whip struck the wall, the masonry was blasted apart as though hit by cannon fire. It was impossible that stone should yield to leather, but Lenoir had no time to ponder it; he pushed off the ground with all fours and sprinted in the opposite direction along the alley—away from the scourge, but also from the safety of the sunlight.

The part of Lenoir’s brain that was still capable of rational thought told him that it was pointless, that he could never outrun the green-eyed man. He had aged ten years since last he had fled this hunter, a decade of growing tired, of putting on weight. The spirit, however, had not changed, remaining eternally young—as though youth was a concept that mattered to the supernatural. The green-eyed man would never run out of breath; his limbs would never tire. Lenoir could hear his attacker giving chase, and he almost wanted to give up, to give himself over to the judgment he knew he deserved. But the instinct for survival was too powerful, and he ran with all the strength he had.

He reached the far end of the alley and shot a fleeting glance in either direction. He almost sobbed in despair at what he found: another alleyway ran perpendicular, the length of it cast in shadow by the looming buildings. Both directions led to still more alleyways—not to the street, not to the sunlight. Lenoir had the fleeting impression of a rat in a maze finding only dead ends, but for him the dead ends would be literal. After a moment’s hesitation, he lunged to the right, for the way seemed slightly shorter. He only realized how close the green-eyed man was when he heard the wall blast apart behind him. A stone glanced off the back of his skull. His vision flashed and he staggered forward, but he kept his feet and continued to run. He had to reach the sunlight. He was not even sure whether that would be enough to save him, but he had always believed that it had been the sunrise that delivered him from the green-eyed man ten years ago, and it was the only hope he had.

Pausing to wield the scourge had cost the spirit time, but he was closing in again. Lenoir did not dare look back. He kept pounding forward in spite of his lungs, in spite of his legs, in spite of his brain. He made it almost to the next T-intersection when someone came around the corner ahead of him, a man carrying firewood over his shoulder. Lenoir saw him in time to twist out of the way, nearly blundering into the wall in front of him before banking left and making for the street. A crash sounded behind him, followed by a string of oaths, and he knew the green-eyed man had collided with the villager. Some part of his mind registered that the spirit must be solid after all. Another, more basic, part of his mind told him that the collision would cost the spirit another few precious seconds. Perhaps it would be enough.

The street was just ahead. The sunshine that spilled across its flagstones looked to Lenoir like the very rays of Heaven. He could not move fast enough; he felt as though he were running through some sort of invisible, viscous fluid that impeded his movements, making his limbs maddeningly slow. He strained against it, pushing forward as every joint ached with the effort.

If he had not seen the sunlight ahead, had he not been so close to it, he would never have fought back when the scourge tripped him up again. He would have resigned himself to the inevitable, allowed the life to be sapped from him with only a twinge of regret. But the sun-drenched street gave him hope, and when the cobbled stone beneath his feet exploded and he was pitched onto his face, he wanted only to survive. He scrabbled forward on his knees and elbows like some wriggling lizard trying to escape a hawk. His upper body was in the street when he felt the flare of pain in his ankle. He was jerked backward, but he grabbed the corner of the nearest building just in time to prevent himself being pulled all the way into the alley. He braced his elbows against the side of the building, straining to keep the upper half of his body in the street. He could feel the barbs tugging and tearing at his flesh as the whip was drawn back like a fishing pole with a catch on the line. He hauled himself forward with all his might, but already he could feel his strength flagging. The burning chill began to seep out of his ankle. His veins bristled with frost, and a wave of nausea washed over him, though whether from pure terror or the sensation of his flesh dying he could not tell. An image flashed, unbidden, in his mind: the corpse lying in the alley nearby, his lower leg shredded, his fingertips torn and bloodied from his vain attempt to drag himself forward . . .

There was an angry shout from above, and Lenoir looked up to find a fast-moving carriage bearing down on him. For a moment he thought he had traded one death for another, but the driver managed to swerve the horses just enough to avoid running him over, the hooves of the nearest animal treading no more than a hand-span from Lenoir’s skull. As the carriage rattled past, the traces came within reach, and Lenoir seized on to the dangling leather, first with one hand, then with both.

He lurched forward. The pain was instant and intolerable; the flesh in his ankle tore more deeply and his arms felt as though they would be ripped from their sockets. He was forced to let go of the carriage. But the sudden, unexpected jolt of momentum had been enough to wrench the spirit forward into the street. Lenoir felt the scourge go slack. He wriggled free. Then he heard a scream, and he looked back, despite himself.

The spirit was on hands and knees in the street, a curtain of shining black hair covering his face. A woman on the opposite side of the street was pointing at him and shrieking, drawing looks from other passersby. Hands flew to mouths; people cursed and shouted. The woman was the first to flee, and others soon followed.

At first Lenoir thought he was imagining it: smoke appeared to be rising from the spirit’s body, from his hands and from the face Lenoir could not see. Then he realized that it was not his imagination. The spirit’s flesh was burning. The skin on the pale hands withered like thin paper put to flame, great holes opening up to reveal the tendon and bone beneath. The spirit staggered to his feet and turned to face Lenoir.

When he raised his head, Lenoir saw the most gruesome sight he would ever behold. The beautiful, marble-chiseled face was melting. The flesh of one cheek had dissolved entirely, leaving corded muscle the color of raw meat. The lips were gone; teeth shone through in a grisly mockery of a grin. The eyelids on one side were oozing away, uncovering a single white orb with an absinthe pupil. That pupil was fixed on Lenoir, and it carried a simple, unmistakable message:

This is not over.

The spirit stared at Lenoir for a long moment, seemingly oblivious to the screaming and crying that surrounded him. Then he turned dispassionately away and strode back into the alley.

Lenoir could not help himself. He got shakily to his feet and moved toward the alley. The street was virtually empty now, and Lenoir stood in the center of it, keeping well out of reach of the shadows. When the alley came into view, Lenoir was somehow not surprised by what he saw there.

The green-eyed man stood in the gloom near the entrance to the street. His face was virtually whole again, save for a patch of his cheek that was closing up even as Lenoir watched. His searing gaze bored into Lenoir, but he did not venture back into the light.

Any doubts Lenoir had harbored about this creature’s immortality vanished in that moment, along with any remaining hope that he could survive for long. He had manufactured no fewer than three escapes from the green-eyed man, miraculous escapes that he scarcely understood. No man deserved that kind of providence. Certainly Lenoir did not.

He turned away from the alley and headed back up the street to find Crears and the others. His limbs were shaking terribly, and his pant leg was shredded at the hem. His clothing was streaked with dirt from the street. He would need to think of an excuse to explain his disheveled appearance to Crears, but he had plenty of time to come up with something plausible. After all, he would be taking the long way round.