Last Angel Read online

  “I’m sick,” he said to Father Joe. “Cancer’s inside me and its eating me up, chewing its way out.” He stared at the garbage bag head, hawked and spat again. “Like you give a fuck, right? Dead as a fucking doornail. Picked the wrong man to whinge to, didn’t I padre? Guess you think it’s funny, don’tcha? Me worrying about cancer when there’s a fuckin’ Jesus Demon hunting me like I was some wild fuckin’ rabbit. Yeah, I thought so. But the thing is, it’s just a fuckin’ race, right? See which death gets to me first, his or mine. I don’t wanna die, padre. That’s what bites. I really don’t wanna die. Don’t suppose you did either, did you?”

  He grabbed a beer off the counter and turned back to the television. “This is fuckin’ sick, don’tcha think, padre. Me watchin’ a fuckflick with a dead guy? I never thought I’d end up like this, I sure as Hell bet Ma never saw this in the tea leaves. I was gonna be the Lone Ranger, the masked man who saved the fuckin’ day. Some Super Hero, huh?” The Watcher popped the tab on the beer and chugged it down in one, foam and beer streaming out of both sides of his mouth as he opened his throat and swallowed. Down onto his shirt. Gasping, he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and slammed the can down. “I needed that. Man, don’t know about you, padre, but I’ve seen all the ass-fucking and ball sucking I can stomach. What say we kill the TV?”

  He walked across the small room and pulled the plug on the box.

  “Well, now what do we do for entertainment, padre? Not much of a talker are you? I guess we could listen to some music. What sort do you like? Jazz? Easy listening? Not that crap the kids are listening too? That’s one hundred percent fucking attitude, zero percent music. Okay, let’s see what we can find on the radio shall we?”

  He’d found a no-brand transistor radio in the cupboard a couple of days ago. A cheap orange plastic thing. He fumbled with the dial until the sound of a WQIV talk-in jingle came through the tinny speaker, loud enough to fill the motel room with its mind-numbing melody. “I guess this’ll have to do,” The Watcher said, slumping down against the wall, by a small stack of empty cans.

  The Shock-Jock’s voice dopplered down, some kind of clever radio effect meant to make it sound scary. The effect was eerie and undeniably effective for all of its cheapness.

  — First song of the night, The Monster Mash. Let’s kick the show off the old fashioned way. This is WQIV broadcasting into the heart of NYC. You’re tuned in to the Nite Owls. Tonight we’re going to be talking about ghoulies and ghosties and things that come bumping straight out of Wes Craven movies. For the next two and a half hours we’re going to be taking an off the wall look at all things supernatural. Vampires, werewolves and zombies. The denizens of the night. The switchboards are open, the lights are flashing already. Had a true life encounter with the paranormal? Feel like sharing it with us? Don’t be shy, we’re all friends here. Our number is 555 2314. This is going to be a good show, I can feel it. Okay, let’s do the Monster Mash…

  As the music cut over him, The Watcher reached for the phone, punched out the numbers and waited his turn. He smiled at Father Joe as the jingle cut in again and he heard:

  — Hello caller, you’re through to the Nite Owls. Through the phone five seconds before he heard it coming through the radio.

  “Hi, erm, look… I don’t usually listen to your show. Don’t much listen to the radio these days.”

  — No problem. We can forgive you right? You’re here now. Okay. So, first up, what’s your name and what do you want to talk about?

  “Right, I’d rather not say my name… You never know who could be listening, right?”

  A laugh, then — Okay, play it your way. We need something to call you though, pal. Told you this was gonna be a good night.

  “You can call me The Watcher. It’s what I do. I watch.”

  — Whatever keeps the old cucumber hard, my friend. Talk away, we’re listening.

  “I want to talk about The Trinity Killer.”

  — Think you got the wrong radio station, fella. This is the Monster Mash as in Bram Stoker and Anne Rice. Ain’t no room for sickos on these here airwaves. Good clean family entertainment.

  “Just shut the fuck up and listen to me. You might actually learn something.”

  Chapter Sixty

  Daniel Mannelli listened to the taped conversation, and then played it through again. The cold certainty in the man’s voice was sickening. He could make out everything. The regular sigh of the man’s breathing, his tongue catching on the wetness of his mouth. That wetness slowly drying out.

  It was like having death whisper directly into his soul.

  No. No, it was worse. This death was real. This death was tangible. Its chill was in the room with him, the sound of its voice like a shroud folding slowly over his soul.

  He sat at his desk, back turned to the door, toying with a pencil, rolling it, pinching it between thumb and forefinger and tapping it against the mahogany veneered arm rests of his chair then he broke it with his fingers. He turned the chair around. Carefully, Mannelli replaced both halves of the pencil on the blotter.

  Nik Lomas stood in the doorway, lurking like a Sicilian Cleaner in his cheap suit and Gucci loafers. He swallowed a mouthful of quasi-espresso from a Styrofoam cup, shaking his head.

  “The Police haven’t got a fuckin’ clue. He’s got them on the run. New York’s finest, my ass. They can’t see shit because they don’t want to. But me, I know. I’ve seen him with my own two eyes.”

  “—Woah there, big fella. Let’s just rewind that. You’ve seen the Trinity Killer? You know who he is? Is that what you’re trying to tell me? You know who he is and instead of going to the law you come on a fuckin’ radio show?”

  “Yes. I know who he is. I’ve seen him. I keep him in my sights. I watch him. It is what I do. I watch. I am The Watcher.”

  “—Okay, okay, okay… Look, we’ve got to run some adverts. Will you stick around?”

  “Play the adverts and I go. You won’t hear the truth, New York. I know the truth. I want to spread the word. Kill the Jesus Demon they call The Trinity Killer. It is time for The Watcher to stop watching. Time for me to shed the skin of The Watcher, time for the beautiful Actor to emerge, to grow and live and feed off the daylight. Metamorphosis. We watch, we learn, we grow. I am growing. Can you hear me? I am growing. I am The Actor and Death walks inside me.”

  In that last line the already guttural voice twisted itself, hardening as it rasped out an animalistic snarl. Mannelli pushed himself to his feet and paced the floor. There were hollows under his eyes; he was pinched, face gaunt. His eyes themselves seemed glassy, blurring his window onto the world and the world’s view of his soul. “You’re a fucking psycho’s what you are,” he said, half to himself, half to a voice that had no way of hearing him.

  “If you are out there, listening to this Jesus Demon, I am coming for you. I am walking in your footsteps, cleaning up the mess you leave behind.”

  “—Jesus Demon? You’re losing me.”

  “Jesus Demon’s what I call him. Saw him step down off a crucifix in St. Malachi’s… Saw it happen with my own fucking eyes, man. He ain’t no Jesus. Jesus was an angel compared to this, this thing…”

  “Right, Jesus was an angel… So, let me get this straight in my head… You’ve been cleaning up the Trinity Killer’s mess since then?”

  “That’s what I said. Cleaning up his mess. I have been taking care of his leftovers. Walking in his shadow. Driving a stake through the heart of darkness. I’ve been cleaning up his mess. Sortin’ them out so we don’t get a plague of the motherfuckers is what I’ve been doing. I’m a regular fuckin’ hero’s what I am! Do you understand me?”

  Lomas sank into a seat. He’d heard the tape through six times since the recording had come into his hands. The worst was yet to come and he knew it. They both did.

  Mannelli spooled the tape forward.

  “That’s right… The last one, I found the last one in a hole. The Jesus Demon had got to him before I
could stop him. It had his mark on its face. The mark of The Trinity. I had to cut its legs off with a hacksaw… Do you know what it sounds like when you draw a hacksaw across bone? Do you?” There were sounds in the background, something heavy being dragged, falling. “It sounds like this, doesn’t it Father Joe?” And there were more sounds now, the sounds of a saw cutting through flesh, meeting bone.

  “Doesn’t hurt does it, padre?” The voice was wheezing, out of breath. “I pulled its tongue out and cut out one of its eyes, too. Left it hanging on its cheek. Now that’s one mother that isn’t coming back, wouldn’t you agree, padre? I got another one of the bastards with my cheese wire. Pulled it so tight I could hear the windpipe ripping as the wire cut through its throat. Didn’t bleed none, though. There should have been jets of blood when the arteries were sliced, and gurgled screams as its throat filled with blood. Not this one. Didn’t make a sound, too far gone when I found it…

  “Only bone stopped me taking its head clean off. Couldn’t get the wire through… I had to do that with the hacksaw… Now I know it ain’t the same as a stake through the old ticker, but I ain’t heard no complaining about the way I do things… You should be glad, all of you… I got ‘em before they could get you, before they could come knocking at your door…”

  “Where the hell did you get this, Nik? I hope to God it didn’t go out on the air.” Mannelli shook his head, lost, as he snapped off the small pocket recorder and sank back into his chair.

  “A friend at WQIV. They pulled the plug on him. They record all of the shows as they go out. Got a time delay. Our friend here was replaced by an impromptu jingle and several words from happy sponsors. Was it right, what he said about the legs and stuff?”

  “I only wish it wasn’t, Nik. I only wish it wasn’t.”

  Chapter Sixty-one

  After Lomas left he played the tape through again, and again. His brow wrinkled as he tapped the end of the broken pencil against his teeth.

  Yessssssssssssssss… he thought, the single word drawn out like a death sentence in his mind. I know that voice from somewhere… I know I do… but where the hell do I know it from?

  Either someone had opened all of the windows in the squad room or something unnatural chilled him. Something about:

  The voice…

  “I’m a regular fucking hero’s what I am.”

  The voice…

  “A regular fucking psycho.”

  Where the hell do I know that voice from?

  Chapter Sixty-two

  “She has the answers to your questions, Star That Travels.”

  “But she’s dead,” Gabriel said, not for the first time, finding no comfort in the obvious. He scratched anxiously at the raven tattooed into his breastbone. The sweat was peppering his forehead, clinging to his skin. Even the air, it seemed, was difficult to breathe. He felt lightheaded, weak from the fast. First Father demanded two days without food before communion could be granted. Gabriel held the flat of his hand against his collarbone, craned his neck, trying to sup the moisture from the air, trying to taste it on his parched lips as he waited for the hallucinations to begin.

  “It is for you to seek the answers to your questions, to look beyond death. Seek her out on the Spirit Road. Seek out the dancing flame that is her spirit. Hear her call to you as you tread the fine line dividing existences. Your souls are twinned, intertwined. One cannot but be drawn to the other.” Red Fox Hunting offered Gabriel the gently smoking clay pipe in his hand. It smelled, not of tobacco, but of ginger and arrowroot. Scents to mask the true herbs tamped down in the pipe’s bowl.

  Gabriel drew deeply on the smoke, letting it leak out between tight lips. The taste was very different to the familiar bite of his licorice-skinned roll-ups. Sweeter. And it lingered even after he had passed the pipe on to Sky Dancer. Coils of smoke clinging to his taste buds. Languid lovers offering him taste after taste. Sweet faced succubae drawing him deeper into their sensual lair.

  They had talked themselves around in circles, the words mirroring the maze that was The Trinity Killer’s motif, first looking for answers then chasing down questions. All words led to one face. One body. One soul.

  Charlotte Annuci.

  Celine.

  And as he kept trying to tell them, she was dead. He’d laid the first rose on her grave himself. Traced the lines of her name with his fingertip. He pictured her face, her ink-stain eyes and the strings of black pearls woven into her hair. Streetwise beauty laced with a hint of savagery. Thinking about her brought the smell of her perfume, a ghost scent drawn to the back of his throat as —

  Something stretched taught across Celine’s mouth and nose… Her flattened lips paled… body bucked and thrashed about wildly under the weight but he rode her until there was nothing left… Her face cold and dead against his groin, where the whole erotic dance had started… Colours danced… glittered like the blade of a knife… cutting, cutting, cutting… carving the shape of a tree into her belly, opening her up lips to lips… unravelling her, laying the grey coils of intestine out like so many umbilical cords looping back to the tree of life… carving the image of a pregnant man on her left cheek, smeared the blood into a halo…

  — He began losing sense of himself, felt himself moving, spinning without moving as the colours flashed across his clouding eyes. Tasted fear as the bizarre dance gripped his soul. A rainbow dance of colours.

  “Feel the dirt beneath you, cling to it. It’s your way home.” Was it a voice that spoke to him? “Seek out her soul, she is the answer to your questions… seek out her flame. Listen, hear its call…hear its lament.”

  Gabriel’s mind danced with the impossibility of rainbows, butterflies or things like butterflies, fragments of dizzying colour that beat their insect-like wings and blinded him, lifted him, carried him into the music, the primordial drumbeat of The First Song, the eerie chanting of the dead, the joyous whisper of the yet-to-live, left him floating on a current of colour.

  He reached out with his hands, but had no hands, not in this place. Not when his sight tried to focus on the bulk of his body. He was light, a flame of pure silver light that danced to the music of life. He felt the presence of other soulflames drawing close to his light; Sky Dancer’s shimmering azure, Red Fox Hunting’s aura a brittle egg of cobalt, the shape of the old shaman’s body just visible within it. Gabriel tried to focus on the few memories he had of the sad faced Charlotte, the physical and the ephemeral. The faintest trace of rose scented shampoo came to him as he drew her face inside his mind’s eye, slowly painting in the ink stains of her eyes.

  His mind soared, his soulflame chasing towards those dark pools. His voice, when he called to her, was swallowed, drowned by the beautiful shimmering song that was eternity. As the notes chimed within his mind, each one like the birth of bright stars, the sparks of new soulflames burned into life.

  Beneath him, somehow, he felt the cold dirt on his skin, wanted to let go, to fly, fly in those eyes.

  “Feel the dirt beneath you,” the no-voice hissed. “Cling to it or we are all lost.” And that held him, anchored him.

  There were so many soulflames, so many hues and shades, subtle and bright, blinding and muted.

  Charlotte, he called out with his heart. Celine. Charlotte? And inside a fading flame he saw her —

  On her knees… a hand raised to her lips as if his semen has somehow burned her… laughter… harsh… braying laughter… as a hand snatches up a fistful of her hair… jerks her backwards… onto her back… kicks her legs out from under her… slaps her across the face… punches her in the throat… Hard… can’t breathe… gasping for air that isn’t there…

  — face twisting into a scream, an agony of blood ruining her beautiful eyes.

  He wished himself towards her, spirit drawn like a moth to her dying flame. The dizzy euphoria Gabriel had tasted only seconds before was gone now, the colours fading, first to die the blue of the summer sky, the gold of the sun, a forest of greens, as one after another the il
lusion of soulflames brutally burned out.

  Somewhere around him, near, inside him, Red Fox Hunting’s scream tore through the blackness.

  Gabriel was alone in the darkness.

  He reached out with his senses for the coldness of the dirt beneath his buttocks but it was gone.

  We’re the same, you and me…

  We’re the same…

  He felt himself floating on the sea of someone else’s agony, through the river of their hurts, the fast rushing waters of their life threatening to engulf him; Barbis’ cheap cologne, Father Joe smiling as he lit another candle, mom in tears, dad drunk himself into a coma, his hands pressing down, pressing down, Rosie Bossman’s dead eyes looking up through the suffocating pillow. The surge of memories kept coming; the lovers in his bed, the broken glass of the crack pipe, the crumpled notes and fake smiles. A silver web of souls, a tapestry of faces, carved in masks of death. Faces that belonged to them all, dead and alive and dying. He was losing himself. Had to struggle to break free. To twist and fight and throw off the memories before they were all he had left. And still they swallowed him; the car cruising the street, the unfortunate with her braids of pearls, her hands on his buckle, lips on his cock, taking him in.

  And he knew her, he knew her, he knew her…

  Charlotte, his spirit cried out, but she was gone, snatched from him. He was left staring at himself, at his reflection in the empty soulflame, and he was Lamenzo but he wasn’t, not completely. He was… he was… a name… a face… black bird… foot… Gabriel. He was Gabriel. He clung to that shred of identity knowing somehow it was all there was of him left in this world. In any world.

  Lamenzo’s face shimmered, losing definition, sharp edges.