Cemetery Dance p-9 Page 19

  Her eyes flew open. A figure was crouching on the fire escape just outside her window — a grotesque figure, a monster: hair matted, pale skin crudely stitched up, its crabbed form covered by a bloody hospital gown sticky with bodily fluids and clotted blood. One bony hand gripped a truncheon.

  The face was puffy and malformed, and covered with dried clots of blood — yet it was still recognizable. Nora felt her throat close with utter horror: the monster was her husband, Bill Smithback.

  A strange sound filled the bedroom, a soft, high keening noise, and it took her a moment to realize it was coming from her own lips. She was filled with revulsion — and a sick longing. Bill — alive. Could it be? Could it possibly be him?

  The figure slowly shifted position, moving forward on crouched hams.

  White spots began to dance before her eyes and a sensation of heat bloomed throughout her body, as if she was about to faint, or her grip on sanity was loosening. He was gaunt, and his skin had a sickly pale cast — not unlike that of the thing that had chased her through the woods outside the Ville.

  Was that Bill? Was it even possible?

  The figure lurched forward again, still at a crouch, raised a hand, tapped one finger on the window.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  It — he — Bill — stared at her through rheumy, bloodshot eyes. The sagging mouth opened wider, the tongue lolled. Vague, half — formed sounds emerged.

  Is he trying to speak to me? Alive… is it possible?

  Tap, tap, tap.

  "Bill?" she croaked, her heart a jackhammer in her chest. The crouching form jerked. The eyes opened wider, rolling before fixing on her once again.

  "Can you talk to me?" she said.

  Another sound, half moan, half whine. The claw — like hands flexed and unflexed; the desperate eyes locked on hers imploringly. She stared at him, utterly paralyzed. He was repulsive, feral, barely human. And yet, beneath the caking of blood and the matted hair, she recognized a puffy caricature of her husband's features. This was the man whom she had loved like no other on earth, who had completed her. This was the man who, before her eyes, had killed Caitlyn Kidd.

  "Speak to me. Please."

  Fresh sounds issued from the ruined mouth now, sounds of increased urgency. The crouching figure brought its hands together, lifted them toward her in a beseeching gesture. Despite everything, Nora felt her heart break with the piteous gesture, with the deep longing and sorrow that overwhelmed her.

  "Oh, Bill," she said, as for the first time since the attack she began to weep openly. "What have they done to you?"

  The figure on the fire escape groaned. It sat for a moment, looking at her intently, motionless save for the spastic gestures that occasionally racked its frame. Then, very slowly, one of its claw — like hands reached out, grasping the lower edge of the window sash.

  And then lifted it.

  Nora watched, the sobs dying in her throat, as — slowly, slowly — the window inched up until it was half open. The figure bent low, easing itself beneath the frame. The hospital gown caught on a protruding nail and ripped with a sharp sound. Something about the unexpectedly sinuous movement reminded her of a wolverine sneaking into a rabbit's den. The head and shoulders were inside now. The mouth yawned wider again, a thin rope of saliva swinging from the lower lip. A hand reached for her.

  Instinctively — without conscious thought — Nora shrank away.

  The extended arm paused. Smithback looked up at her from his position half in, half out of the window. Another whine emerged from the muddy mouth. He lifted his arm again, more forcefully this time.

  At the gesture, a stench of the charnel house wafted toward Nora. Terror rose in her throat and she backed up on the bed, drawing her knees to her chin.

  The red — rimmed eyes narrowed. The whine turned to a low growl. And suddenly, with a violent thrust, the figure forced itself through the half — open window and into the room. There was a splintering of wood, a crash of glass. Nora fell back with a cry, tangling herself in the bedsheets and falling to the floor. Quickly, she struggled out of the sheets and rose. Bill was there with her, in the room.

  He gave a cry of rage, lurching toward her and swinging the truncheon.

  "No!" she cried. "It's me, Nora—"

  It was a clumsy move and she dodged it, backing up through the doorway into the living room. He followed, reeling forward and raising the truncheon again. Close up, his eyes were whitish, cloudy, their surface dry and wrinkled. His mouth opened wide again, the lips cracking, exhaling a dreadful reek that mingled with the sharp odor of formalin and methyl alcohol.

  Nnnngghhhhhaaaah!

  She kept backing up through the living room. He lurched toward her, one hand reaching out, fingers spastically jerking. Straining toward her, reaching, closer and closer.

  She took another step backward, felt her shoulder blades touch the wall. It was as if the figure was threatening and pleading with her at the same time, the left hand reaching out to touch her as the right hand raised the truncheon to strike. He threw his head back, exposing a neck with huge raw cuts sewn up with twine, the skin gray and dead.

  Nnnnggggghhhhhhaaaah!

  "No," she whispered. "No. Stay back."

  The hand reached out, trembling, touched her hair, caressed it. The smell of death enveloped her.

  "No," she croaked. "Please."

  The mouth opened wider, foul air streaming out.

  "Get away!" she said with a rising shriek.

  The twitching hand traced a dirty finger down her cheek to her lips, caressed them. She pressed her back against the wall.

  Nnngah…

  Nnngah…

  Nnngah…

  The figure began to pant as the convulsive, twitching finger rubbed her lips. Then the finger tried to push inside her mouth.

  She gagged, turning her head away. "No…"

  A pounding came at the door — her screams must have brought someone.

  "Nora!" came a muffled voice. "Hey, are you all right? Nora!"

  As if in reaction, the upraised hand clutching the truncheon began to shake.

  Nnngah! Nnngah! Nnngah!

  The panting turned into an urgent, lascivious grunting.

  Nora was paralyzed, speechless with horror.

  The right hand swept down in one spastic motion, the truncheon crashing onto her skull — and the world ended.

  Chapter 40

  D'Agosta sat in the passenger seat of the squad car, the black mood that had settled over him refusing to dissipate. If anything, it seemed to grow darker the closer they got to the Ville. At least he didn't have to sit in the back with the annoying little French Creole, or whatever the hell he was. He glanced at the man covertly in the rearview mirror, lips tightening in disapproval. There he was, perched on the seat, looking like an Upper East Side doorman in his swallowtail coat.

  The driver halted the cruiser where Indian Road turned into 214th, the crime — scene van following them coming to a rattling stop behind. D'Agosta glanced at his watch: three thirty. The driver popped the trunk and D'Agosta got out, hefted out the bolt cutters, and snapped the padlock, letting the chain drop to the ground. He chucked the bolt cutters back into the trunk, slammed it, and slid back into the car.

  "Motherfuckers," he said to no one in particular.

  The driver gunned the Crown Vic, the tires giving a little screech as the car lurched forward.

  "Driver," said Bertin, leaning forward, "watch those starts, if you please."

  The driver — a homicide detective named Perez — rolled his eyes.

  They halted again at the iron gate in the chain — link fence, and D'Agosta took another small joy in cutting off the lock and tossing it into the woods. Then, to make sure the job was done well, he cut through both sets of hinges, kicked the iron gate down, and dragged the two pieces off the road. He got back in the car, puffing slightly. "Public way," he said in explanation.

  Another screech of tires and the Crown Vic jerked forward,
jostling the passengers. It climbed, then descended, through a dark, twilight wood, ultimately nosing out into a dead field. The Ville rose up ahead, bathed in the crystalline light of a fall afternoon. Despite the sun, it looked dark and crooked, wreathed in shadow: a haphazard jumble of steeples and roofs like some nightmare village of Dr. Seuss. The entire construction had accreted around a monstrous, half — timbered church, impossibly old. The front part was surrounded by a tall wooden stockade fence, into which was set a single wooden door of oak, banded, plated, and riveted in iron.

  The vehicles pulled up to a dirt parking area beside the oak door. A few shabby cars were parked to one side, along with the panel truck that D'Agosta had seen earlier. Just the sight of it sent a fresh stab of anger through him.

  The place appeared to be deserted. D'Agosta looked around, then turned to Perez. "Bring the kayo and pro — bar. I'll carry the evidence locker."

  "Sure thing, Lieutenant."

  D'Agosta threw open the door again and stepped out. The van had pulled up behind and the animal control officer got out. He was a timid fellow with an unfortunate blond mustache, red — faced, thin arms, potbelly. Nervous as hell, never executed a warrant before. D'Agosta tried to dredge up his name. Pulchinski.

  "Did we call ahead?" Pulchinski asked in a quavering voice.

  "You don't 'call ahead' with a no — knock search warrant. The last thing you want to do is give someone time to destroy evidence." D'Agosta opened the trunk, pulled out the locker. "You got the papers in order?"

  Pulchinski patted a capacious pocket. The man was already sweating.

  D'Agosta turned to Perez. "Detective?"

  Perez hefted the kayo battering ram. "I'm on it."

  Meanwhile, Pendergast and his weird little sidekick Bertin had gotten out of the squad car. Pendergast was inscrutable as usual, his silvery eyes hooded and expressionless. Bertin — incredibly enough — was sniffing flowers. Literally.

  "By heaven," he exclaimed, "this is a splendid example of sand — plain gerardia, Agalinis acuta 'Pennell'! An endangered species! A whole field of them!" He cupped a flower in his hand, inhaled loudly.

  Perez, who was massive and compact, placed himself before the door; took tight hold of the battering ram's front and rear grips; balanced it a moment at hip level; swung it back; then heaved it forward with a grunt. The forty — pound ram slammed into the oaken door with a booming sound, the door shuddering in its frame.

  Bertin jumped like he had been shot. "What's this?" he shrilled.

  "We're executing a warrant," said D'Agosta.

  Bertin retreated hastily behind Pendergast, peering out like a Munchkin. "No one said there would be violence!"

  Boom!

  A second hit, then a third. The rivets on the old door began to work their way out.

  "Hold it." D'Agosta picked up the pro — bar and jammed the forked end under a rivet, leveraging it up. With a crack, the rivet popped out. He pulled out four more rivets and stepped back, nodding to the detective.

  Perez swung the ram again and again, the heavy door splitting with each blow. An iron band sprang loose and fell to the ground with a clank. A long vertical crack opened in the oak, splinters flying.

  "A few more should do it," D'Agosta said.

  Boom! Boom!

  Suddenly D'Agosta became aware of a presence behind them. He turned. A man stood watching them, ten paces back. He was a striking individual, dressed in a long gray cloak with a velvet collar, and a strange, soft medieval — style cap on his head with two flaps over his ears, his face in shadow. His long, bushy white hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He was very tall — at least six foot seven inches — about fifty years old, lean and muscular, with a disquieting stare. His skin was pale, almost as pale as Pendergast's, but the eyes were as black as coals, his face chiseled, nose thin and aquiline. D'Agosta recognized him immediately as the driver of the van.

  The man stared at D'Agosta with his marble — like eyes. Where he had come from, how he had approached without alerting them, was a mystery. Without saying a word, he dipped into his pocket and removed a large iron key.

  D'Agosta turned to Perez. "Looks like we got a key." The key disappeared back into the robe. "Show me your warrant first," the man said, approaching, his face impassive. But the voice was like honey, and it was the first time D'Agosta had heard anyone speak with an accent remotely like Pendergast's.

  "Of course," said Pulchinski hastily, dipping into his pocket and pulling out a mass of papers, which he began to sort through. "There you are."

  The man took it with a large hand. " Warrant of Search and Seizure," he read out loud, in his sonorous voice. The accentwas like Pendergast's, and yet it was also very different — with a trace of French and something else D'Agosta couldn't identify.

  The man looked at Pulchinski. "And you are?"

  "Morris Pulchinski, animal control." He nervously stuck out his hand, and then, when he was stared down, let it drop. "We've had reliable reports of animal cruelty, animal torture, perhaps even animal sacrifice up here, and that warrant allows us to search the premises and collect evidence."

  "Not the premises. The warrant specifies only the church proper. And these other people?"

  D'Agosta flashed his shield. "NYPD homicide. You got some ID?"

  "We do not carry identification cards," the man said, his voice like dry ice.

  "You'll have to identify yourself, mister, one way or another."

  "I am Étienne Bossong."

  "Spell it." D'Agosta took out his notebook, flipping the pages. The man spelled it slowly, dryly, enunciating each letter, as if to a child.

  D'Agosta wrote it down. "And your position here?"

  "I am the leader."

  "Of what?"

  "Of this community."

  "And what exactly is 'this community'?"

  A long silence followed, as Bossong stared at D'Agosta. "NYPD Homicide? For an animal control issue?"

  "We're tagging along for fun," said D'Agosta.

  "These other storm troopers haven't yet identified themselves."

  "Detective Perez, NYPD homicide," D'Agosta said. "Special Agent Pendergast, Federal Bureau of Investigation. And Mr. Bertin, FBI consultant."

  Everyone in turn flashed their shields, except for Bertin, who merely stared at Bossong, his eyes narrowing to slits. Bossong flinched, as if in recognition, then stared back equally hard. Something seemed to pass between the two: something electric. It made the hair on D'Agosta's neck stand on end.

  "Open the door," D'Agosta said.

  After a long, tense moment, Bossong broke off eye contact with Bertin. He took the massive iron key out of his pocket and fitted it into the iron lock. He turned it with a violent twist, the tumblers clacking loudly, and hauled open the mangled door.

  "We do not seek confrontation," he said.

  "Good."

  Beyond lay a narrow alleyway, curving around to the right. Small wooden structures lined both sides, the upper floors overhanging the lower. The buildings were so old they listed toward one another, the steeply pitched gables of their penthouse projections almost meeting above the alley. Dying autumn light filtered down, but the empty doorways and blown — glass windows remained shrouded in gloom.

  Bossong silently led the group along the alleyway. As they rounded the curve, D'Agosta saw the church itself rear up ahead of them: rambling, countless dependent structures fixed to its sides like limpets. Huge, ancient timbers spiked out from its flanks, attached to even heavier, fantastically carven vertical beams that were driven into the ground like primitive flying buttresses. Bossong led the way between two of the beams, opened a door in the outer wall of the church, and entered. As he did so, he called out something into the darkness in a language D'Agosta didn't recognize.

  D'Agosta hesitated on the threshold. The interior was in utter blackness. It exhaled a sour smell of dung, burned wood, candlewax, frankincense, fear, and unwashed people. An ominous creaking sound came from the timbers above,
as if the place was about to come down.

  "Turn on the lights," said D'Agosta.

  "There is no electricity," said Bossong from the darkness within. "We do not allow modern conveniences to defile the inner sanctuary."

  D'Agosta pulled out his Maglite, switched it on, aimed it inside. The place was cavernous. "Perez, bring up the portable halogen lamp from the van."

  "Sure thing, Lieutenant."

  He turned to the animal control officer. "Pulchinski, you know what you're looking for, right?"

  "To tell you the truth, Lieutenant—"

  "Just do your job, please."

  D'Agosta glanced over his shoulder. Pendergast was looking around with his own flashlight, Bertin at his side.

  Perez returned with a halogen light, connected by a coiled wire to a large battery in a canvas pouch on a sling.

  "Let me carry it." D'Agosta slung the battery over his shoulder. "I'll go first. The rest of you, follow me. Perez, bring the evidence locker. You understand the rules, right? We're here on ananimal control issue." His voice carried a heavy weight of irony.

  He stepped into the darkness, switched on the light.

  He almost jumped back. The walls were completely lined with people, silent, staring, all dressed in rough brown cloth.

  "What the fuck?"

  One of the men came forward. He was shorter than Bossong and just as thin, but unlike the others his brown robes were decorated with spirals and complex curlicues of white. His face was coarse and rough, as if shaped by a hatchet. He carried a heavy staff. "This is sacred ground," he said in a quavering preacher's voice. "Words of vulgar language will not be tolerated."

  "Who are you?" D'Agosta asked.

  "My name is Charrière." The man almost spit the words.

  "And who are these people?"

  "This is a sanctuary. This is our flock."

  "Oh, your flock? Remind me to skip the Kool — Aid after the service."

  Pendergast came gliding up behind D'Agosta and leaned over. "Vincent?" he murmured. "Mr. Charrière would seem to be ahungenikon priest. I would avoid antagonizing him — or these people — more than necessary."