The Lamplighters (27 page)

A loud bang and a flash burst out from the darkness, causing Marla to shriek in surprise and crouch into a defensive position. Sparks and smoke from the service closet beneath the stairs. She tentatively peered inside, just to make doubly sure. An electrical fault, that was all. A further jolting, loud pop and a shower of sparks made her jump. It provided all the encouragement Marla needed to turn and ascend the stairs, her nerves in tatters.

The control room was eerily quiet and cold to the eye, swathed in a band of cool blue moonlight that reflected, frostlike, off every damp shiny surface in the room. Pietro’s body was nowhere to be seen, with only a dirty tangle of bedclothes suggesting he’d been there at all. She crossed the room, eyeing an upturned bucket curiously and following a water stain across the floor to where Vincent’s chair lay on its side. She righted the chair, an act of respect for the old man, and walked over to the pile of molding books and periodicals stacked nearest the little coffee stove. Vincent’s decaying library had been ransacked, that was for sure. Torn pages were scattered everywhere and broken-backed volumes had been left open where they had fallen, with some lying on their backs looking like fish out of water gasping for air. The mildew that covered the books was like lichen in a graveyard, a headstone for each of Vincent’s memories, each tome an epitaph for his stolen years in this island prison. A splash of vivid color caught her eye among the dull fusty books and Marla peered closer to find a pornographic magazine like the ones she’d seen in the basement of the Big House. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry, strangely afraid that these pages might be part of Vincent’s collection. And yet, why not? An old man alone for all these years, he would surely miss physicality with a woman. Perhaps his jailers thought it a joke to slip this filth in with his crossword puzzles, eager to get a rise out of a widower whose eyes had seen too much tragedy to care for such lusts. No, something had been here and defiled Vincent’s little world, she felt sure of it. Those sickly smells from the basement and the attic of the house were here with her in the room, bringing with them a flavor of decay, of wrongdoing. She suddenly felt more afraid for Vincent than for herself. Had that awful monster of a man been here? Had these high windows played dead witness to the sound of an old man’s neck cracking like a twig? She buried the thought, kicking the pages of the vile magazine beneath a pile of sodden encyclopedias. Then, out the window, she caught sight of first one then many of the tiny little lights. They were still adrift on the ocean. She dashed over to the windows, moving along their circle until she had a better view toward the lights. They were heading east, around the headland. If they continued on their course, they would be heading toward the houses, toward the security buildings—and the jetty.

Chapter Thirty

“Get the goddamn floodlights off. How long does it take? Jesus! I told you they like to dock in near-freaking-darkness, the arc lamps play havoc with their skin…”

Fowler’s men got to it. All around him a frenzy of black fatigues. Guy ropes were tightened up and tied off, the deck washed down, barrels and other storage containers removed and placed where they should have been days ago. Of all the times for an official visit, they had to pick now. Now, dammit. Fowler stood, his neck muscles tensed so much that they looked about to snap at any given moment, looking out to sea and those little firefly lights. They were a portent, flags heralding a doom about to unfurl in his tight little world. The chief did not like inconveniences of this magnitude. An unannounced visit from these little boats, and the people they carried onboard was the largest inconvenience he could imagine. He barked more orders to his men,
how many times did he have to tell them—all but the emergency lights
, throat sore from all the shouting. A nasty headache was forming from a splinter of pain behind his left ear. He knew it would only grow more painful as the night went on. Good. He needed his pain sometimes to better focus on who, and what, was most deserving of his wrath. The American bitch had started all this and he grimaced at the very thought of her. Without her antics with the laptop and the security network those little lights wouldn’t even
be
there—bobbing their way closer to his little empire to peer into the dark corners of his oversights, his ineptitude. Yeah, it was the American girl’s fault all right. She’d be put to task for all she’d cost him. If not for her, the old man would still be poring over crossword puzzles and sipping that foul brew he dared call coffee, impotent and insignificant in his rat-infested tower. But no, he’d seen fit to turn on the fucking lights. Christ! Fowler was sure the pilots of those boats had seen them, idling towards the beam for a while like moths to a very big, ugly flame before resuming their collective course to the jetty. The old man would pay for this, but right now he had to focus on the task in hand.

“I want this fucking jetty cleared of non-essential staff now!” he bellowed.

Several black-clad men scurried away into the shadows, quick as roaches under fluorescents, and the boats arrived noiselessly. Their sleek shapes glided into position around the jetty in the movement and formation as effortlessly elegant as dolphins might swim. Fowler could see the silhouettes of deckhands in the scant glow of the emergency lights as they readied their ropes then tossed them to his men, who tied them off efficiently and without greeting. The largest of the boats was directly in front of Fowler, its black hull reflecting the red glow of the emergency lights like angry eyes. He swallowed hard, dry grit in his throat. One by one they disembarked from their vessels and took their places on the jetty. Their knowing eyes commanded respect. Many of Fowler’s men had never even seen them before and lowered or otherwise averted their gazes, unable to make eye contact confidently. The eldest, and tallest, of their number disembarked last and made his way gracefully through the columns of his comrades until he was just a foot or two away from Fowler.

“Sir,” said Fowler, bowing his head with military stiffness. The address was loaded with reverence and a servility Fowler’s men had never until now heard in his voice. There was something else in his diction—guilt, embarrassment, and
inconvenience
.

The graceful man standing in front of him just smiled. White teeth and almost incandescent skin. Hair as lustrous, strong and white as a waterfall. He put a single fingertip to his lips then spoke in a soft, almost musical tone.

“Trouble, Chief?”

Fowler drew breath, ready to answer for all his oversights, all his fuck-ups.
Sentry Maiden
had intercepted an intruder, that was all. Perhaps he would neglect to mention the computer hacker, the Italian boy blown out of the water, Anders gone AWOL. The waves lapped against the jetty’s support beams far below his feet. It was a queasy sound and he felt seasick.
Get a hold of yourself, soldier
. Cold sweat began to spread like a sickness across the back of his neck. This was the effect these people had on him, on anyone crossing their path. He fought to gain control of himself, growing aware of a trapped nerve in his thigh as it made a
Saint Vitus’s dance
in his leg.

Fowler opened his mouth to speak. The waves lapped sickly on. Then a splash and a black sound from his flank. Everything went red. He clawed uselessly at his crotch. His head exploded.

Vincent stood next to Fowler and pulled the trigger again. Click. Again. Click. Again. Chamber empty, wild eyes staring. No one had even noticed him clamber out of the sea and onto the jetty, distracted by the arrival of these immaculate, shining people. He was sodden from head to toe. Fowler’s body fell to the floor, making a dull thud on the jetty as his skull leaked brain matter and blood onto the planks. Seawater dripped off the old man and trickled across the jetty, snaking like cold tongues intent on tasting the blood.

One of Fowler’s men took a few unsure steps towards Vincent, his eyes blinking from the aftershock of the murder. The tall man held a hand up, casually, as if placating a child. It was okay, he would handle this.

“Look who’s here to see you. Dear Vincent,” the musical voice soothed.

No sooner than he’d said it, one of the boarding party moved from the rear of the group. Vincent’s eyes filled with tears as he saw her beautiful lithe frame and golden hair. He fell to his knees, dropping the still smoking gun and folded himself into her embrace. She ran her fingers through his wet, thinning hair and kissed his forehead, a lullaby of whispers sighing from her perfect lips. Vincent sobbed, murmuring something over and over again through the pain of his injuries, of his decades here on the island and how he wanted to give The Man his bullet back.

After a few quiet breaths, Vincent stood and started walking away from the group as if in a trance. Nervously, one of the security guards stepped in to block his exit, but the shiny white-toothed man gave the instruction to let the old man pass.

“Let him go. Let him go home. Back to his lighthouse.”

He uttered the words like a kindness.

The guard twitched, then pulled his gun and aimed it at Vincent’s head, intent on blocking his path.

“I said let him go home.” The voice again, like music and starlight.

But the nervous employee stood his twitchy ground. He had seen the old man gun down his boss in cold blood. He was as shocked as the rest of the men. Much as he never liked the chief, the guy had always been on the level with them. He ran a tight ship. These guys had no business letting Vincent go. He explained as much, in exasperated tones. His comrades stood firm with him, an uprising of sorts. They were security; they would handle this. The blonde woman walked towards the nervous guard like a cat. Her gossamer-thin clothing fluttered in the breeze. Sweat licked at his brow as she moved intimately close to him as a lover. She was odorless, smelled of nothing, not like a woman smells. Perfume and product and sweet breath. There was nothing. He sighed involuntarily, a submissive sound, like the breeze at a window about to be shut. She fixed him with her eyes and gently sniffed at the film of perspiration on his neck. One by one, each guard was entwined with such a lover of his own, not all women. Two of the men found themselves in the embraces of men taller and stronger than they, not caring that their secrets were out. Each guard was utterly transfixed. Silence as thick as fog descended over the jetty. 

Then their necks snapped and their limp bodies toppled into cold black waters, useless as the weapons that slipped from their fingers and sank beneath the waves.

Stratum spinosum

He’d had to work the dark boy quickly. Too quickly, for shame. It seemed like an age since he’d performed a field procedure. But then the heat had taken him, reminded as he was of the old days in the forests when his craft was younger and more primitive rather like those it was visited upon. He’d been a god then and they had names for him that made children cry themselves to sleep and women cradle those children tightly as they writhed perspiring in the humidity of nightmares to come. The dark boy’s flesh had reminded him of those villagers and their supple ways.
Too quickly
. Working on the boy should have been a gift. It was a part of the calm after the storm, its opportunity a vital component of ritual. As he’d undressed the carcass, he’d rattled through the root of his base knowledge, tasting the words on his tongue like blood.

The skin is the largest organ in the human body. 

Cut
.

The skin is formed of three layers—epidermis, dermis, subcutaneous fat. 

Slice
.

The epidermis is the site of pigment production, melatonin, and keratin (which determines skin rigidity). 

Another incision, deeper this time
.

Dermis is divided into two areas—papillary dermis and reticular dermis—and contains blood vessels and nerves, gives skin elasticity, and produces collagen
. 

He carefully stretched out the flaps of skin, peeling back layer upon layer of mystery, pinning them out and making meaning there.

Subcutaneous fat protects the body from physical trauma and is the site of fat metabolism.

Then he’d seen the imperfection embedded into the dark boy’s skin. The tattoo was an affront to all his beliefs, a mockery of his labors. 

Protects the body from physical trauma.

He lost his patience. He tore the rest of the boy apart. 

Chapter Thirty-One

Marla cut around the perimeter of the cove, heading for the steep bank of rocks that afforded the quickest route to the jetty, and the boats. The clouds had left the sky, sharp moonlight bringing with it a drop in temperature. Wishing she had more layers to wear, Marla hugged herself and rubbed her arms. Then she saw two figures up ahead on the rocks, walking toward her. She stopped in her tracks, gripped by fear of the murderous giant, but these were no giants. One figure was much shorter than the other and she began to make out its juvenile form more clearly, realizing it must be the little boy who’d run away. Bent over the boy, using his shoulder as support, was a man in his twenties. He looked to be shivering and with good reason—he was dressed only in swimming shorts. His limping gait, and his reliance on the boy for support, told Marla he was injured. He wore a shock of tousled blond hair and an athletic physique. He looked like a surfer. The kid’s eyes widened in surprise as she called out to them, her voice echoing off the rocks. For a moment she thought the little one would abandon his burden and make a run for it again, like he did at the house, but he held firm and waited as she ran across the rocks to meet them.

A frenzy of words spilled from her lips, about danger, about the man at the house. The blond man looked delirious and was shivering like he was in a state of shock. He was covered in cuts and bruises, a slick of blood congealing around his ear. Marla could get nothing from the child about where he’d found him. He looked down at the ground, subdued and not speaking. She tried to get through to him, asking how he’d escaped from the house like that—trying to appeal to him with admonishments that he was a clever boy, a brave boy and everything would be all right. Taking the weight of the delirious swimmer onto her own shoulder, she asked the lad where he was headed. To this he did respond, holding out a lithe little arm and pointing inland where the rocks formed a v-shaped inlet. Marla saw a large circular opening there—what looked like an outlet pipe.