A Tailor's Son (Valadfar) (15 page)

“
Hush, too much crying, too much noise from the darkness. Darkness
calls to me, calls for blood. It called for women, called for pets, and now for my altar
boy. Given everything to darkness, just like the dark skinned ones, soon to be blessed
by the dark god. The Rakta Ishvara will soon cure me. Make me well, make me a
god and then you’ll all stop crying. You’ll all stop screaming at me. You had to die,
you just had to, now, all be ushered in to the darkness. Leave me in peace.”
Paul
whimpered. He had often talked to the darkness as he called it. The
screams of his victims always rang in his ears like the tolls of the bell at
the top of the tower of Saint Anne’s.

The O’Brien brothers finally gave up their search for Harold
and decided to accept the request that the altar boy had given them, to
go and see the priest on Enwek morning, they made their way to Saint
Anne’s chapel where they would meet with Reverend Paul. It made
even two brutes like the O’Brien’s feel their skin crawl as they
clambered down into that darkness and into the sight of the makeshift
defences that Reverend Paul had built.

When they found him Paul was still chattering to himself in a
nervous rant. He had accepted in his own mind that he had lost his grip
on sanity, and in his brief lucid moments, even pondered if it was just
fear of being found out for what he had done, or a sickness that drove
him insane, had he perhaps caught scurvy from one of the brasses he
had brought in to experiment on.

In the cold darkness the two thugs kept a close eye on the
twitching vicar in front of them. His stance unnerved them and they
kept their backs close to the stairs that they just clambered down. Their
eyes darting back and forth wondering just what the hell was going on.

“
You called for us vicar.”
Ernest asked nervously, the sight of the
blood splattered across the floor making him nervous. Ernest wasn’t
squeamish around bodily fluids normally but he could sense something
wasn’t right here and there was the smell to. It smelt like death. It
reminded him of the time he’d found the sack washed up on the side of
the canals and decided to open it to find the poor helpless corpses of
some unwanted kittens. The smell was the same just stronger. There
were dead things close by, he just knew it.
“I did not think you would have
wanted to see us again after our little-”
He paused, taking his time to remove
his hat. “
Yes, our little chats in your confession box. You know that girl has still
not shown up. If this meeting is not of any benefit to us, maybe they can have a chat
about that and the money you lost us.
” Ernest continued, trying to take
command of the situation. Ernest was the clever one of the two
brothers and no matter how scared he really was, he would not show it.
With his father’s death it would be him that would go on to lead the
underworld of Neeskmouth’s vice.

“You dare come into the Lord’s sanctuary and threaten me? I know you
are blasphemers and rogues, I will not permit you to foul this place.”
Paul ranted,
not believing in the creator himself any more but still knowing the
power his words commanded even through his dementia. Ernest
looked back at the unearthed coffins they had clambered over.

“
What do you call that over there then, priest
?” He asked.
“Looks like
you are doing a good job at fouling this place yourself. What is that goddamn smell?
Something died down here?”
Ernest flicked his finger back towards the
bulwark as he asked the questions.

“It’s just a minor precaution.”
Paul said with a shrug. To his
twisted and sleep deprived mind at that time, having a pile of coffins
and leaves on the stairs was just a matter of necessity and made perfect
sense.

Ernest nervously flicked a coin between his fingers in his
pocket. He was a gambling man and knew it was his tell but he couldn’t
help it. He always fiddled with a coin when he was nervous and at that
moment he was very aware he was stuck in a room with two men who
were clearly insane. Neill had not even seemed fazed by the smell of
dead bodies or the fact he’d had to clamber over coffins to get into the
room, and busily dug at something stuck between his teeth.

“Let’s just get this over with. Why have you called us here?”
Ernest shot
Paul a look that could have carved through stone and he half hoped it
would. All the way to street level so they could get the hell out of there.
They’d taken many jobs from different people in their time and had
met people in all sorts of seedy places, hidden rooms, dark alleyways,
even the hull of a sunken boat along the coast once, but the foreboding
and devastated catacombs were a new low.

“I need you to kill someone
.” Paul stated unflinching. The room
fell silent. Neill had never been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but
even he realised this was not something a priest should be asking.

“
What is in it for us?”
Neill asked to break the silence. With the
small chunk of apple finally removed from his tooth and his mind free
to absorb his surroundings, even he wanted to be out of there and fast.

“
We are already short on time looking for the person that killed our old
man, we’s got to be picky what jobs we’s be taking.”
Ernest added, wishing that
he had not postponed his search for the meeting.

“
You see, this is where I can help you.”
Paul interrupted. The fear he
had once felt for these thugs had disappeared. He knew his time was
running short anyway. Either William or his affliction would kill him,
and soon. Smiling he continued.
“I want you to kill William Bailey. He was
the one responsible for the fire at your pub. Yes, William. Dark William, soulless
William, and a mistake he was but soon you’ll clear it up.”
Paul said without any
hint of humour. Ernest’s brow wrinkled with obvious confusion.

“He’s already dead, vicar. That maggot Harold already had us go looking
for him. Took us a few days to realise he was a dead man. Now if you tell us where
Harold is, that might buy you a few more days breathing.”
Ernest asked, realising
that if the priest was sending him after the same man Harold had, then
there must have been some connection between them.

“He is not dead. He should be, but he is not. You must find him, you must
kill him.”
Paul begged as he watched Ernest and Neill exchange a
glance. Oblivious to the insanity of his words, he wondered what the
two thugs were thinking. “
Wait, this Harold, who is he?”
Paul asked, and
with that question his story was tied too irreversibly to Paul’s. Ernest
told the vicar everything they knew about Harold. Paul did not want
anyone to know what he had done in the catacombs and although at
the time Harold still knew nothing, Paul’s fear of being found out
flooded over his already paranoid mind, like water over a weakened
dam. “
This Harold should be dealt with too. Though in any way, no need to stab the
chest, mortal men die easy. Sacellum made us weak. Ashamed of us, the creator was.”
Paul rambled.

“Just what is your involvement in all this, vicar? Why do you want them
both dead?”
Ernest asked. He was accustomed to people asking him to
‘
remove a problem’
but a vicar wanting two people dead was definitely an
unusual situation.

“Does it really matter to the likes of you?”
Paul asked bluntly.
Ernest shrugged his huge shoulders. It didn’t matter really, they wanted
him dead anyway, and it seems that William was at fault also. How he
faked his own death they had no idea but if he had then he really would
be eating worms in no time.

“What do you mean a wunner?”
Paul asked bemused. As crazy as
he had become, Paul had never been part of Neeskmouth’s shadier side
until very recently.

“Sacellum, you work in a church but can’t even speak Neeskmouthain.
I want a hundred, fifty a head.”
Ernest said smiling. It was an expensive
charge but he could tell the vicar was crazy and hoped this would mean
he was dumb too.

“I don’t have that kind of money.”
Paul replied, furious that the
goons would not do it for free. After all, so much rested on his work
did they not know what they could be part of?

“
Then it doesn’t get done, simple. Come on Neill let’s get out of this bloody
place. The smell is doing my nose in.”
Ernest said turning his back on Paul.
“
Wait.”
The Reverend exclaimed. “
Take the cross.”
He offered,
defeated. Paul needed someone to take care of William and if he had to
pay, then so be it. The solid gold cross was a symbol of the Sacellum
religion its four points marked the four ancient powers of the universe
that the creator used to make the world and its finish represented the
gold city in the skies. It was engraved with seven symbols each referring
to one of the locks put in place to keep the spirit realm separate from
the mortal realm and should have held value to Paul far more than it’s
worth in coin but he had long since lost his faith.
Ernest turned back to face Paul. He was sure he should have
understood what the priest had said but it didn’t make much sense as a
statement on its own.
“
What?”
Ernest asked as he looked towards Neill to see if he
had understood, it was a long shot at best and Neill just shrugged.
“What the hell are you on about now priest?”
Ernest added.
“Take the cross from upstairs, its gold. That will cover the cost and I won’t
tell the guard it’s even missing.”
It would only be days before someone
visited the church and noticed the cross was missing, but by the time
they did and called the constables it would be too late. The O’Brien’s
would have already found a buyer for the relic. With the fear of the
demon Rinwid sitting out by Briers Hill the nobles would pay a king’s
ransom for something meant to keep it at bay.
“Neill, you reckon you know anyone that would be interested in that?”
Ernest asked and Neill nodded.
“Well then vicar. You better start digging two
graves.”
Ernest said.

Unbeknown to them, Ernest and Neill left Paul alone in the
dark to face his worst fears. He knew that his time had run out. A
convulsion rattled through his aged and scrawny chest forcing him to
his knees as if to reinforce the conclusion. His bones clanged against
the cold cobble slabs and the sharp pain that flared through his
arthritis-ridden knee was nothing compared to the burn that engulfed
his lungs. He pressed deeply into the stone floor with his hands, both
for balance and to try to relieve some of the pressure growing inside
him. Suddenly, Paul began clasping his face as the source of the pain
erupted like a volcano charging for his mouth. The hacking cough that
escaped sliced at his throat, adding a third agonising discomfort.

Frozen in place while he wheezed for breath, Paul thought
back to a year ago when the doctors told him he had a pox on his chest.
They had told him that it was just a chemical imbalance, that they could
cure it. They had tried bloodletting, for which Paul still carried the scars
across his wrists and lower arms. When the knives had not cured it they
turned to leeches but it was useless and had not worked. The only other
choice offered to Paul from his low-paid practitioner was to cut the
sickness from him. Being no expert on biology, Paul still had enough
savvy to know that cutting his lungs to shreds would kill him. He had
begun to pray, spending almost every free hour at the chapel altar
begging for salvation. When it didn’t come, Paul had given up hope and
in his defeat he turned to the bishop asking to travel to colonies,
hoping that spreading God’s word might be his final salvation. His
wish granted, he had boarded a ship for The Dark Gulf. Instead of his
finding a new lease of life from his God, Paul found only more
heartache.

During his crusade through the colonies, his sickness began
to worsen. At first phlegm had been the main problem but that was
soon followed by a shortness of breath. He was so thankful that he had
found the secrets of the Rakta Ishvara while in the temple, and had left
the village as fast as he could, returning to the city of his birth to work
on a cure before this devil’s curse took his life. As Paul sat cradling
himself in his arms looking at the blood splattered floor, he knew that
his time was running out.

The work had been a failure to start with and was still not a
total success, with William wreaking havoc on the streets. Paul had
wanted to remove the need for feeding on fresh blood before he took
the leech to himself but he no longer had a choice. Snapped back to the
present by another minor chest murmur, Paul wiped his watering eyes,
forced himself to his feet and, ignoring the agony that twisted every
inch of his body, he made for the table. Because of his tests, Paul knew
that by digesting enough of the Abrus herb he could take the parasite
and have a few days before it took over completely. He just had to hope
that it would be enough time to find the cure. It would have to be as he
didn’t have enough time for doubts. He grasped the porcelain jar
containing the herb, and began to eat, sparing not a morsel. Once the
last of the Abrus leafs were forced down his sore throat, Paul took the
tongs and removed the little black Rakta which began to wriggle
excitedly at the promise of a new host. Paul closed his eyes tight and let
the leech sink its hooking claws into his skin. The pain was excruciating
and he soon slumped to the floor again, this time falling unconscious.
When he awoke a new beast would stalk the streets of Neeskmouth.