Authors: John Connolly
The only events to have roused him from his sufferings were those taking place far to the north in Boreas, Maine. During the hour or so each day when he was semi-cogent – Cambion tended to be more alert in the morning – he would ask Edmund to show him the newspapers on a laptop computer, the reports magnified to such a degree that just a sentence or two filled the screen. When even seeing these grew beyond him, the news stories were read aloud to him, though the space allotted to them grew smaller and smaller as progress in the investigation slowed, then stopped.
That very afternoon, Edmund had heard Cambion – half-awake, half asleep – talking with one of his specters. This time, it was Earl Steiger.
‘You came up against the wrong man, Earl,’ Cambion was saying. ‘This one has the breath of God upon him. This one bleeds from the palms of his hands …’
But now Cambion was silent. The bedroom stood at the back of the house, on the first floor. It had a single small window, which Edmund had nailed shut. The only ventilation came from a grating in a corner. The room stank, but it remained reasonably secure.
Edmund could see that Cambion was already half gone from this world, with one foot in the beyond. It would not be long now. He sat by his master’s bed, and gently bathed his brow with a damp cloth. Cambion was no longer eating, but Edmund forced him to take water mixed with a little protein powder. Sometimes Cambion managed to keep it down.
Edmund and the woman had fitted Cambion with a catheter. A plastic sheet placed on the bed made it easier to clean him when he soiled himself, and prevented the sheets and mattress from being ruined. It was Edmund who wiped him, and Edmund who fed him. The woman kept her distance unless it was absolutely necessary to approach him. Her hatred for Cambion added a further pollutant to the atmosphere of the room. For a time Edmund had wondered why she had even agreed to take him in. Initially he thought her need for money was so desperate that she could not bring herself to refuse, but he had come to recognize the pleasure she derived from bearing witness to Cambion’s final sufferings, a pleasure complicated still further by the memory of the love she once bore for him. In a terrible way, she now shared his torments.
None of this was spoken aloud by Edmund. He was not mute: he had simply made a decision not to speak, for no words could describe what he had seen during his years with Cambion. He had not killed for him, but he had watched others do so, although in later years he had refused even to do this. He would transport Cambion to wherever he needed to go – an opulent bedroom, a quiet basement, a disused garage – and leave him to his pleasures or, as his condition worsened, to live vicariously through the pleasures of others. Sometimes Edmund would still be able to hear what was happening, so he grew to be a connoisseur of noise-canceling headphones, which helped. He disliked listening to music to disguise the sound of suffering and dying, though. He found that the melodies became tainted by the knowledge of what they had been used to obscure. Slowly, surely, he began to speak less and less, until eventually he did not speak at all. He feared that if he tried to do so, the only sound to emerge would be a scream.
Yet, like the woman who hovered in the background, waiting for this man to die, he had a kind of love for Cambion, and a deep loyalty. He loved him because it was too easy to hate him. He was loyal to him because there was so much to betray.
Edmund used the cloth to wipe Cambion’s mouth. It came away with blood on it, and the water turned pink when he dropped the cloth in the bowl. He set it aside, found the balm, and used it to moisten Cambion’s dry lips. At no point did Cambion open his eyes.
Edmund walked to the bathroom and emptied the bloody water down the sink, then refilled the bowl. His eyes itched. He suffered from lagophthalmos, a partial facial paralysis that prevented his eyelids from closing, depriving the eyes of effective lubrication. He tilted his head back and tipped some drops into them. His vision had just cleared when he heard a sound at the front door of the house – the squeak of the handle being tested.
He put down the bowl, drew his gun, and moved into the hallway. Only a lamp burned there. He stayed very still, watching the door. The handle did not move. Still, he was certain of what he had heard.
Then Cambion cried out in alarm.
Edmund rushed to the bedroom. Cambion’s eyes were open, and one ruined hand was pointing toward the window.
‘Something there,’ said Cambion. ‘Something bad.’
Edmund stepped carefully to the drapes, and pulled them away from the wall at one side. It gave him only a peripheral view, but it was enough.
A face stared back at him. It reminded Edmund of a piece of gray, rotting fruit that had decayed almost to white, an impression strengthened by the wrinkles around its mouth and at the edges of its empty eye sockets. Then it retreated, and he might have begun to doubt that he had ever seen it were it not for what happened next.
A cigarette burned briefly in the yard next door. The house was empty and boarded up, the lawn a wasteland of trash and weeds, but now a man stood among them. In the glow of the cigarette, Edmund glimpsed his lank receding hair, and a white shirt buttoned to the neck.
The Collector, the claimer of souls, had found them: the Collector, and the empty husks who walked with him.
And Edmund was afraid.
‘Edmund,’ said Cambion, and when the giant looked to him he saw his own fear reflected in Cambion’s eyes, but also a depth of awareness that had not been present in them for many months, like the last flaring of a candle before its flame dies out forever. Cambion knew who – and what – was out there.
‘The phone,’ said Cambion. ‘I want you to dial a number for me, then put me on speaker.’
A cheap, untraceable burner phone lay on the bedside locker. Only Earl Steiger had used it to call, but now Earl Steiger was dead. Cambion dredged up the number from memory. It never changed, and few had it.
Louis answered on the second ring.
‘Who is this?’
‘A dead man,’ said Cambion. ‘Do you know me?’
‘Yes,’ said Louis. ‘I know you.’
‘The Collector has found me.’
‘Good,’ said Louis.
Cambion coughed. It took Edmund a moment to realize that it was the ghost of a laugh.
‘I think you may have fed me to him.’
‘I tried, but you slipped the noose. Looks like he didn’t give up.’
‘He is persistent. It’s almost admirable.’
Cambion’s mouth was drying up. He gestured for water. Edmund placed a straw between his lips and squeezed the liquid into his mouth from the plastic bottle.
‘Are you calling to say goodbye?’ asked Louis. ‘If so, consider it done.’
‘I’m calling to give you a gift,’ said Cambion.
‘You’ve got nothing I want.’
‘I have information.’
There was silence on the other end of the phone, then Louis said, ‘Earl Steiger. He was one of yours.’
‘Very good. But he was more than one of mine: he was the last.’
‘And Charlie Parker buried him.’
‘No, God buried him.’
‘I didn’t think you believed in God.’
‘I feel His presence. I stand at the crossing of worlds. I await His judgment.’
‘You’re raving.’
‘No, I am offering a trade.’
‘To me?’
‘To God. I’m asking Him to decide what a soul is worth, what
my
soul is worth.’
‘I can tell you that in nickels and dimes.’
‘It’s not for you to determine.’
‘So you’re trying to save yourself? You’re deluded.’
‘No, I see with absolute clarity. Here it is, my parting gift to you: Earl Steiger was hired by a preacher named Werner to kill Ruth Winter and Lenny and Pegi Tedesco. It wasn’t the first time that Werner had used him. Werner’s nature is corrupt. He is a fanatic.’
‘Why did Werner hire him?’
‘I didn’t ask. I rarely do. Steiger told me a little of him. Werner is a neo-Nazi, but the ones he guards are the real thing.’
‘Did Werner kill the Wilde family?’
‘Yes, according to Steiger. He was also holding the boy, Oran, but he’s certainly dead by now. Werner was the one who tortured Perlman, before he went into the sea. He kills to protect.’
‘Do you have proof? Without proof—’
Again came that hacked laugh.
‘Now you know where to look,’ said Cambion. ‘The proof you’ll have to find for yourself. Goodbye, Louis. You were right to decline my offer of employment. I think you would have turned on me in the end.’
‘This won’t save you,’ said Louis. ‘You think you’re going to avoid damnation with one phone call?’
‘Not damnation,’ said Cambion. ‘Just a form of it.’
He nodded at Edmund, who killed the connection. The light was already fading from Cambion’s eyes, to be replaced by the pure terror of the final darkness. He stared at the closed drapes, as though he could pierce through to what waited for him beyond them. Edmund heard a scratching at the glass, as of nails picking at the window, and from the hall came the low creak of the doorknob being tried again. The woman screamed from somewhere upstairs. Perhaps they were already in the house.
‘There is still money in the bag,’ said Cambion. His gaze lit briefly on a brown satchel lying at the top of the bedroom closet. ‘Some jewels too, I think, and a handful of Swiss gold francs. Take it.’
Gently, Edmund lifted a pillow from beneath Cambion’s head. The old man’s eyes turned to him, lost in his distorted flesh.
‘I am grateful to you,’ said Cambion. ‘For all that you have done.’
Edmund placed the pillow over his master’s face, and held it there until his struggles ceased. Then he went to the closet and took down the satchel. He searched inside, and his fingers found the cloth bag of gold coins. He removed two, and laid them on Cambion’s eyes.
The woman was waiting outside the bedroom. She was crouched in a corner, seemingly frozen in place, her face raised to the stairs. Edmund heard movement above his head. He walked past her to the front door, paused for a second, then unlocked it.
The Collector stood on the doorstep. His cigarette was gone, and in its place he held a filleting knife. Edmund stared at him. He was still carrying the gun, but he dropped it at the sight of the Collector, and held up the empty hand. Shapes drifted past the woman in the hall, wraiths with pits for eyes, as the Hollow Men converged on Cambion.
The Collector sniffed the air. He bared his yellow teeth as his face was transformed by rage.
‘I wanted him alive!’ he said.
Edmund found the first words that he had spoken in years.
‘Too bad,’ he replied.
And then the Collector was on him, the thin, curved blade thrusting into Edmund again and again in a blur of frustrated wrath, and the giant had never felt such pain.
At last the Collector was sated. He took a step back, his right hand red to the wrist. He barely glanced at Edmund as he slumped to the floor and the last of the life gushed from him, but the Collector did find it in himself to impart some final words to the giant.
‘It was not enough to block your ears,’ he said. ‘It was not enough to do nothing. You should have known that we would come for you as well.’
Edmund shuddered, and the flow of blood began to slow as he died. The Collector looked beyond him to where the woman was now curled into a ball in the hallway. The noises from above had ceased. She was alone in the house. Her eyes traveled to the blade in the Collector’s hand, but she did not plead or cry out. She was too far gone for that.
The Collector wiped his knife clean on Edmund’s bright yellow jacket, now bibbed with scarlet, and restored it to the sheath on his belt. He picked up the satchel and examined its contents. He took one of the Swiss francs and dropped it into a pocket of his coat. It would suffice for his collection. He wanted nothing more from Cambion, or from anyone else in this place. He tossed the satchel to the woman, and left her.
67
P
arker stood by the shoreline, near hypnotized by the waves, lost in their rhythm, the ascending moon his witness. Although he had long resided by Scarborough’s tidal marshes, and had grown to love their intricate silver tracery, he understood why those who lived their lives within sight and sound of the sea found themselves unsettled when they were away from the ocean, salt calling to salt.
Despite his injuries, he had managed to walk farther than he had previously done, even though his bag of stones had disappeared and he had been forced to guess the distance. It was more progress, and progress was all that mattered, although the pain in his side said otherwise. A single white earphone was inserted in his right ear. The other hung loose over his shoulder.
He did not hear the footsteps on the soft sand until they were almost upon him. He turned slowly, his hands outstretched, Christ waiting to be taken. Werner stood before him. He was not wearing his clerical garb, but instead was dressed in paint-flecked jeans and a baggy sweater, and his white sneakers were so old that they had turned to gray. Disposable clothes, Parker thought: Werner would burn them when he was done. The gun in his right hand shone a cold blue in the moonlight.
‘Pastor,’ said Parker.
‘You don’t seem surprised.’
‘I knew that someone would come, eventually. You, or another – it makes no difference. Now that it’s come down to it, I’m glad you came yourself. But then Steiger is dead, and I don’t think you have anyone left to call upon for help.’
Werner looked puzzled.
‘I’ve been watching you for a while,’ said Werner. ‘You were like a statue by the sea.’
‘I hadn’t realized how much I loved it.’
‘The tide will soon be coming in,’ said Werner. ‘It’ll cleanse this place of all trace of you.’
‘Will you send me out with it, or did you learn from your mistake with Perlman?’
‘I’m not here to answer your questions, Mr Parker. That only happens in the movies. I’m here to kill you.’
‘That’s a pity,’ said Parker. ‘I had a lot of questions.’
Werner raised the gun, and slowly, almost sadly, Parker closed his fists. He heard the shot at the same moment that the left side of Werner’s head spat a cloud of blood, bone, and tissue as the bullet exited. There was hardly any wind. The evening dimness apart, it had probably been an easy shot. Parker’s only regret was that Werner wouldn’t talk. He had seen it in his eyes. He knew from the moment it had begun.