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ring of listeners beside him, as the reader took up the
'. . . and over every living thing that moveth upon the
earth.''
Somewhere near, a beast was crying.
208
THE BOOK OF BLOOD
(A POSTCRIPT):
ON JERUSALEM
STREET
WYBURD LOOKED AT the book, and the book looked
back. Everything he'd ever been told about the boy
was true.
'How did you get in?' McNeal wanted to know. There
was neither anger nor trepidation in his voice; only casual
curiosity.
'Over the wall,' Wyburd told him.
The book nodded. 'Come to see if the rumours were
true?'
'Something like that.'
Amongst connoisseurs of the bizarre, McNeal's story
was told in reverential whispers. How the boy had passed
himself off as a medium, inventing stories on behalf of
the departed for his own profit; and how the dead had
finally tired of his mockery, and broken into the living
world to exact an immaculate revenge. They had written
209
tiny words. Though it was four years and more since the
ghosts had come for him, the flesh still looked tender, as
though the wounds would never entirely heal.
'Have you seen enough?' the boy asked. 'There's
more. He's covered from head to foot. Sometimes he
wonders if they didn't write on the inside as well.' He
sighed. 'Do you want a drink?'
Wyburd nodded. Maybe a throatful of spirits would
stop his hands from trembling.
McNeal poured himself a glass of vodka, took a slug
from it, then poured a second glass for his guest. As he
did so, Wyburd saw that the boy's nape was as densely
inscribed as his face and hands, the writing creeping up
into his hair. Not even his scalp had escaped the authors'
attentions, it seemed.
'Why do you talk about yourself in the third person?'
he asked McNeal, as the boy returned with the glass.
'Like you weren't here . . .?'
The boy?' McNeal said. 'He isn't here. He hasn't
been here in a long time.'
He sat down; drank. Wyburd began to feel more than
a little uneasy. Was the boy simply mad, or playing some
damn-fool game?
The boy swallowed another mouthful of vodka, then
asked, matter of factly: 'What's it worth to you?'
on his palm. 'The stories go on, night and day. Never
stop. They tell themselves, you see. They bleed and
bleed. You can never hush them; never heal them.'
He is mad, Wyburd thought, and somehow the reali-
sation made what he was about to do easier. Better to kill
a sick animal than a healthy one.
'There's a road, you know . . .' the boy was saying.
He wasn't even looking at his executioner. 'A road the
dead go down. He saw it. Dark, strange road, full of
people. Not a day gone by when he hasn't . . . hasn't
wanted to go back there.'
'Back?' said Wyburd, happy to keep the boy talking.
His hand went to his jacket pocket; to the knife. It
comforted him in the presence of this lunacy.
'Nothing's enough,' McNeal said. 'Not love. Not
music. Nothing.'
Clasping the knife, Wyburd drew it from his pocket.
The boy's eyes found the blade, and warmed to the
sight.
'You never told him how much it was worth,' he said.
'Two hundred thousand,' Wyburd replied.
'Anyone he knows?'
The assassin shook his head. 'An exile,' he replied.
'In Rio. A collector.'
'Of skins?'
the real labour was only just beginning. It took him two
hours to complete the flaying. When he was finished -
the skin folded in fresh linen, and locked in the suitcase
he'd brought for that very purpose - he was weary.
Tomorrow he would fly to Rio, he thought as he left
the house, and claim the rest of his payment. Then,
Florida.
He spent the evening in the small apartment he'd
rented for the tedious weeks of surveillance and planning
which had preceded this afternoon's work. He was glad
to be leaving. He had been lonely here, and anxious with
anticipation. Now the job was done, and he could put
the time behind him.
He slept well, lulled to sleep by the imagined scent of
orange groves.
It was not fruit he smelt when he woke, however,
but something savoury. The room was in darkness. He
reached to his right, and fumbled for the lamp-switch,
but it failed to come on.
Now he heard a heavy slopping sound from across the
room. He sat up in bed, narrowing his eyes against the
dark, but could see nothing. Swinging his legs over the
edge of the bed, he went to stand up.
His first thought was that he'd left the bathroom taps
on, and had flooded the apartment. He was knee-deep
help. His appeals went unanswered.
Now he turned back into the room, the hot tide
eddying about his thighs, and sought out the fountain-
head.
The suitcase. It sat where he had left it on the bureau,
and bled copiously from every seam; and from the locks;
and from around the hinges - as if a hundred atrocities
were being committed within its confines, and it could
not contain the flood these acts had unleashed.
He watched the blood pouring out in steaming abun-
dance. In the scant seconds since he'd stepped from the
bed the pool had deepened by several inches, and still the
deluge came.
He tried the bathroom door, but that too was locked
and keyless. He tried the windows, but the shutters were
immovable. The blood had reached his waist. Much of
the furniture was floating. Knowing he was lost unless
he attempted some direct action, he pressed through the
flood towards the case, and put his hands upon the lid in
the hope that he might yet stem the flow. It was a lost
cause. At his touch the blood seemed to come with fresh
eagerness, threatening to burst the seams.
The stories go on, the boy had said. They bleed and
bleed. And now he seemed to hear them in his head, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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