Chapelwood (The Borden Dispatches #2)(64)

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My feet were cold, and they were hard to see. A dim gray haze laced with black filled the space between the sidewalk and my knees—a roiling, fluffy mass that moved thick as fog around my ankles.

If my heart stopped, it did so briefly enough that nothing else noticed, and my bodily processes continued at their usual rounds . . . but given a jolt of speed. My surprise and fear were shocking things, tandem things that set upon me like electricity.

I wanted to run, but could scarcely move. I wanted to scream, but could not open my mouth.

Yet I was not paralyzed, or held hostage by any weird mesmerism. I was only confused and frightened, or no . . . not confused. I knew precisely what the dark smoke meant: It meant I was marked.

But hadn’t I been marked already? Lo these many months?

No. Not like this. I had touched something on the other side, or in the middle distance, as Lorino put it. Yes, you touch these things and they touch you back—that’s the nature of everything, everywhere, I know. But this kind of mark?

I looked around the street and saw no one to consult, even with such a ridiculous question as, “Tell me, good sir, is there anything peculiar about my feet?” If anyone had been present, and if I had posed the query, it wouldn’t have mattered in the slightest—for I already knew the answer. I had known for ages that no one apart from myself could spy the sinister smoke.

I wondered if Lorino saw it.

Then, fast on the heels of that wondering, I wondered if Lorino had somehow caused the smoke—if this wasn’t his fault, in some regard. But no, that was a stupid thing to ask myself. Even if, in some roundabout way, the injured and hospitalized Italian had cast some spell upon me, pointing me out to the things on the other side of the veil . . . the blame came back around to me, anyway. Didn’t it?

But yes . . . yes, I think he saw it. Or he sensed it somehow, even before I was aware of it. His pity . . . that terrible pity in his eyes . . .

Oh, indeed—my task was drawing to a close. And indeed, it was better for me to cease my hacking ways now, before I came to enjoy them too much.

I felt a sharp stab of anger, and it must’ve come from the same place that provided my wicked, unconscionable pleasure at a job well done. It wasn’t fair. Not in the slightest. I was only doing what I was asked. I was only trying to save the world. And this would be my repayment? Death by some other instrument of the pattern, bringing balance around in his own way, driven by his own numbers—delivered in whatever fashion was particular to him.

Again I let my eyes dart around on the street. Again I saw nothing and no one to rouse any suspicion. There was no one to confront, no one to defend myself against. No one to attack, should that be called for.

It was the very opposite of being inside the hospital, where no one could see me.

I could feel my neck flushing, and my heart pounded loudly in my ears. How far was I from the safety of the flophouse room? Not a mile, I didn’t think. I looked at my feet again, and could scarcely see them; the smoke grew thicker, coiled tighter . . . or was it only in my mind? Were my legs any colder than when I’d first noticed the foul stuff’s presence? I started to run.

I took the back ways and the alleys when I could, for when people reappeared on the landscape I realized that I didn’t want their attention at all, and I very much preferred being invisible. I must have been quite a sight, in my pale blue cotton suit and everyday shoes—out for a dash around the streets of Birmingham. It must have been a thing to behold, this middle-aged man huffing and puffing, then finally running up the stairs and over to the door that signified safety.

I fumbled for my keys, found them, inserted the right one into the slot.

It turned. I twisted the knob. I pushed the door with my shoulder and flung myself inside—then leaned back against the door to shut it again, and to hold it closed against everything out there that might wish to do me harm.

But it was no good. The smoke had followed me, for one thing. And Reverend Davis was waiting for me, for another.


GRUESOME MURDER AT FIFTH STREET FLOPHOUSE

Birmingham Post October 1, 1921

Last night around ten p.m. at the Fifth Street flophouse sometimes known as Little Neil’s, a maintenance man discovered the body of a resident, Leonard Kincaid. Foul play is all but certain, as the corpse was discovered affixed to the wall in a mock crucifixion, his hands and feet nailed to the building’s studs. His death was actually brought about by blood loss, for he suffered significant head wounds and a gash at his side, in what was clearly some sacrilegious effort at a Christ-style pose. The coroner supposed that he’d been dead several hours by the time he was discovered, for his body was nearly cold and there’d been time enough for the neighbor downstairs to detect a spreading, dark stain upon his ceiling.

No motive has been proposed, for it would seem that Mr. Kincaid had neither friends nor family, nor foes to speak of, either. He had scarcely spoken to any of the other residents at the flophouse, and was orphaned some time ago. According to the building’s manager, no one knew him well enough to have an opinion of him.

No suspects have been named at this time, and if the police have any suspicions, they haven’t made them public. The new police chief, Thomas Shirley, has likewise declined to answer any questions as to whether this new and ghastly murder bears any relation to the hatchet killings of recent months. It would seem that little is known at this time, except that room 209 will not be rented out again anytime soon—and the police have yet another appalling death on their hands, likely produced by yet another creative killer.