Christ, not like this …
She felt powerful hands haul her to her knees, then a jagged blade across her throat. She looked up into the blackest eyes over a goatee.
‘You, no! Harper!’
‘Don’t bother calling, the killer’s busy being dead.’
Komarovsky swooped down on Rochat.
‘Do you hear? The warrior angel is no more. You are alone in the cathedral. He has abandoned you, as your mother abandoned you.’
‘
Non
, there was an accident when I was born. Maman died and sent me to live with Papa and Grandmaman where I could be safe from the bad shadows.’
Komarovsky gently stroked Rochat’s black mop of hair, as if calming a suffering child.
‘For too long you have been forced to bear an unjust cross for the sake of man. Come unto me and I will lift this burden from your crooked legs. I will make you whole and wise. Honoured by men, adored by women, loved by all. Imagine such wonderful things as these.’
Komarovsky opened his hand before Rochat’s eyes. And Rochat, enchanted by the imagined and wonderful things, watched the hand move till its fingers pointed to Katherine in the grip of the small one, a deadly blade set at her throat. Rochat felt a rush of frantic emotion. Hearing his heart pounding with the bells, seeing the woman who once pressed a kiss against a window.
‘She’s like the bells.’
‘And you love her as you love these singing bells. I will give her to you and she will bring you pleasure all your days. Together, you will rule Lausanne in my name, as king and queen. All this I will give to you, if you give me the lantern.’
Rochat saw tears well in Katherine’s eyes. Watched her lips move, read her words through the roar of the bells, ‘Please, Marc, let them kill me.’ He looked at Komarovsky, saw himself in the lenses of the dark glasses. The crooked and battered shape of Marc Rochat,
le guet de la cathédrale de Lausanne …
‘
Non
! You hurt her in beforetimes because you’re a bad shadow, that’s what you are. And you want to hurt the cathedral and the bells and steal my lantern because we found a secret fire. I won’t let you, I won’t let you!’
Komarovsky grabbed Rochat by the arms, yanked him from the ground.
‘You are alone, fool, you are abandoned.’
‘
Non
. There’s Otto the Brave Knight and the skeletons and the lost angels and teasing shadows. They’re alive in the cathedral because I can imagine them! And I can imagine the detectiveman too, you bad shadow. Because you didn’t kill him and he can kill you because that’s what detectivemen do!’
‘What?’
‘Look behind you, you big stupid!’
Komarovsky turned, saw Harper stumbling from the turret, spearlike rod in his hands, letting out a scream …
‘Rhhhaaahhh!’
… and ramming it into the back of the small one’s neck. The goon dropped his knife, let go of Katherine. His quivering hands clawing at the tip of the bloody rod poking from his throat. His silent squeal twisting his face into a grotesque grin. He fell to the flagstones forever dead.
Harper reached for the small one’s killing knife but a butchering pain brought him crashing down. Katherine crawled next to him, pressed her hands over the holes in his chest and back. Red blood seeped through her fingers.
‘Harper, Jesus!’
Komarovsky kicked Rochat aside and flew across the balcony and pushed Katherine away. He loomed over Harper.
‘Once more unto the breach, dear brother?’
Harper raised his head, smiled through bloodied teeth.
‘Sure, brother. Too bad you’ve run out of goons.’
‘Oh, ye of little faith.’
Komarovsky stomped on Harper’s shoulders, drove Harper’s head to the flagstones. He couldn’t move. He watched Komarovsky wave his hand and draw the tall one from the flagstones like a half-dead thing. A stringy mass of mangled tissue hung from the half-breed’s right wrist. Komarovsky pointed to Katherine and Rochat.
‘Set them alight! Let their burning flesh be the flame of destruction!’
The tall one stumbled to the carpentry, wiped his mangled hand against the timbers to absorb the fire potion. He stood over Marc and Katherine, squeezed the sticky goo over their heads and faces. He pulled a cigarette lighter from his pocket and opened the flame. He hoisted them to their feet and back to the balcony railings.
Komarovsky hauled Harper to his knees, forced his eyes to the sky.
‘Look out there, good and noble warrior. Look what awaits all the souls of the world if you do not give me the lantern. You are finished. Will it be your last act to condemn the world to perpetual darkness?’
Harper tried to focus.
The swirling mass of dark matter and shadows, ready to infect the world with mass death. Then a small shaft of light cutting through the liquid sky …
time wake shifting
… a flash of light from across Pont Bessières …
line of sight to the belfry
… he felt something under his ankles, a killing knife …
bloody hell, hold on
… Harper looked at Komarovsky.
‘No, don’t do it, please.’
‘Surrender the lantern.’
‘All right, all right.’ He nodded to Rochat and Katherine. ‘You’ll kill them, I know it. But I want their souls to have safe passage to the next life. I give them comfort before. Do that and you can have your bloody kingdom on earth.’
‘And you will kneel at my feet and worship me as the new creator of paradise?’
‘Anything. Just let their souls go in peace, I beg you.’
Komarovsky smiled.
‘Thy will be done.’
Rochat was watching them, reading their lips. He yelled through the roar of the bells.
‘
Non, monsieur
!’
Harper shook his head.
‘It’s over, mate!’
‘He’ll hurt the cathedral, he will!’
‘I can’t fight any more. Too weak. Save the two of you, all I can do. Hold Miss Taylor. Listen … my voice. My eyes … look.’
Rochat watched Harper’s eyes point to the killing knife poking from his ankles.
‘I understand, monsieur.’
‘Hold her. Don’t let go of her.’
Rochat put his arms around Katherine. She quivered with fear.
‘Harper?’
Harper drew a ragged breath.
‘It’s going to be all right, Miss Taylor, just look in my eyes, listen to my voice.’
Komarovsky yanked back Harper’s head.
‘The lantern first. Where is it?’
Harper nodded to the turret.
‘On the belfry roof … in the spire. Behind a small door on the south side.’
Komarovsky looked to the tall one.
‘Kill them and throw their souls to the devourers.’
Harper screamed:
‘No, you said I could give them comfort!’
‘Evil is as evil does, brother.’
Harper smiled …
‘That it fucking is, brother.’
… and shoved his weight back into Komarovsky, kicked the killing knife to Rochat.
‘Get her down, mate!’
Rochat grabbed Katherine and pulled her to the flagstones. He grabbed the knife and stabbed the tall one’s foot. The tall one barely shrieked before his head exploded in a spray of blood and brains, the burning lighter tumbling from his dead hand. Rochat sprang and whacked it with the killing knife and knocked it from the belfry.
‘Goawaybadthinggoaway!’
Komarovsky ducked into an archway. He looked out through the cracking-open sky. Across the bridge, open window of a top-floor flat above Rue Caroline. A sniper with a high-powered rifle braced across the sill. Cop in a cashmere coat next to him, binoculars at his face. Harper chuckled through the blood gathering in his throat.
‘Go ahead, brother, take a fucking bow. Your kingdom awaits.’
‘And it shall be the kingdom of darkness! Watch as I put an end to this cursed paradise, once and for all!’
He kicked Harper hard in the head, sent him skidding across the balcony to Katherine. She grabbed Harper’s hand, he didn’t move.
‘Harper! Harper!’
Komarovsky turned towards Rochat and screamed through the bells.
‘And you, you crippled fool! The world will never again hear the song of the bells!’
Rochat saw Komarovsky transmigrating into shadow, drifting away.
‘
Non
, I won’t let you!’
He rushed after Komarovsky with the killing knife, jumped at him and drove the blade into his back. Komarovsky shrieked, the dark glasses flew from his face. He spun around, his form becoming whole again. Rochat looked into Komarovsky’s silver eyes.
‘I know you. You’re the bad shadow from my nightmares. I imagined you killed Maman, I couldn’t stop you.’
Komarovsky flew across the balcony, slammed Rochat into the timbers.
‘Hear the truth before you die, fool. Once upon a time a shadow crawled in your mother’s womb as she slept. It was me who poisoned her with agony potions trapping the eternity of her being in a dying form. And it was me who wrapped the umbilical cord around your neck and pulled. I made you the crippled fool you are, to be abandoned by your mother.’
‘
Non
! You’re lying! Maman died!’
‘It was an empty box they put in the ground. She tried to hide to protect you, but I found her. And after the longest night of pain – oh, how she cried your name – I dined on her whoring flesh.’
‘
Non
, Maman was an angel, the detectiveman told me! And he said I’m the same as him too! That means if he can kill you, I can kill you!’
‘You want to kill?’ Komarovsky pulled his knife from his belt and rammed the blade deep into Rochat’s stomach. ‘This is how you kill.’
Rochat shuddered as the steel twisted through his guts. He turned his head, his eyes watching Marie-Madeleine swing from side to side, feeling her voice vibrate through the timbers and into his body.
‘Don’t cry, madame, it’s my duty.’
Komarovsky ripped the knife from Rochat’s guts.
‘Uhhh!’
Rochat collapsed to the flagstones. Komarovsky slowly raised the knife over Rochat’s neck for the death cut.
‘I bring you forever death!’
In the longest second of betweentimes, Rochat saw Katherine and the dying detectiveman next to her. Her arms reaching for him, her voice crying, ‘Marc!’
‘Be not afraid.’
He pushed down on his crooked legs and burst up from the floor and smashed his fists into Komarovsky’s throat. Forcing those silver and unbelieving eyes over the railings and into the sky.
And when he pushed the bad shadow away, he opened his arms like perfect wings. For a moment he was flying. Higher than the lake, higher than the mountains on the far shore, higher than all the world. And when he began to fall he saw the belfry of the cathedral against a clearing sky. He saw the woman he imagined to be a lost angel reaching for him still and he heard the seven bells calling out over Lausanne.
‘All is well, Rochat, all is …’
‘Marc, no! Marc!’
Harper opened his bloodied eyes. He watched Katherine sink to the flagstones as the bells slowed and quieted. The final chord hovering in the sky like something crying. He looked to the sky. The shadows of the devourers were gone. The time wake shifted again and evening stars were coming to light over the lake. He pulled himself up, sat against a pillar and looked down through the balcony railings.
Komarovsky was splayed on a long spire beneath the belfry tower as if run through by a brave knight’s lance, his entrails like bloody strings snapping in the wind. And out on the esplanade Harper saw the lad. On his back, arms to his sides, fingers of his right hand almost touching a floppy black hat nearby. Harper saw the lad looking up to the tower still. He saw a flicker of light in the lad’s eyes.
‘Miss … Tay … Miss Taylor.’
Katherine raised her face, her eyes flooded with disbelieving tears.
‘Tell me he isn’t dead, Harper, tell me he’s coming back, please.’
‘Have to hurry …’
‘Tell me he’s coming back.’
‘Listen … before sound fades.’
‘What?’
‘My eyes … too weak. Lantern … in loge … under bed.’
‘Lantern, Marc’s lantern?’
‘Get it.’
‘But you said it’s on the roof.’
Smiling, blood dripping from his lips.
‘We lied … Second lantern in case they got away … lad’s idea.’
She heard gurgling sounds in Harper’s throat.
‘Jesus, I’m going to get help.’
‘Lad … needs to see fire … my eyes, too weak.’
Katherine wiped blood from his lips.
‘Harper, you need a fucking doctor.’
He grabbed her hand, squeezed with a failing grip.
‘Needs to see the fire … find his way.’
‘Find his way? Where?’
‘Where he belongs.’
‘The cathedral? To the cathedral?’
‘Can’t explain … a billion years … one of those things.’
‘OK, Harper. Hang on, please hang on.’
Katherine ran to the loge and rushed to the bed. She pulled open the cabinet doors underneath and found the lantern. The most beautiful and delicate flame fluttering on a half-melted candle. She carefully removed the lantern, hurried back to Harper.
‘OK, I got it. What do I do?’
Harper drew a shallow breath.
‘Needs to see light, hear words.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Words … the lad’s words.
C’est le guet
… You know the rest.’
‘Yes, I know the words but …’
Harper shook with spasms, coughed up blood and water. Katherine wiped his face with her jumper.
‘Jesus, Harper, you’re dying.’
‘Doesn’t matter, the lad needs you … Call his name, say words … Needs to see light … before it’s too late.’
Katherine rushed to the south balcony, saw Rochat down on the esplanade. She fell to her knees and held the lantern out through the balcony railings.
‘Marc, Marc Rochat!
C’est le guet
, Marc!
Il a sonné l’heure
! Can you hear me?
C’est le guet! Il a sonné l’heure, il a sonné l’heure
!’
The flame in the lantern began to swell, growing brighter and brighter, burning Katherine’s eyes.
‘Do you see it, Marc, can you see me? It’s Katherine, I’m with you …
C’est le guet! Il a sonné l’heure
!’