house, one she secretly hated for its memories, and now here he stood with his glowering tone as if their father had come back to life.
He moved to the staircase. Since their relocation from Montreal he could not remember a time when an unsolicited courier visited their doorstep. His officer manager Frederick Burlington had strict orders to direct all personal correspondence through the office. He knew well the fickle tides of social commerce, and he chose not to invite them into his own home.
Someone knows .
Halfway downstairs he felt the thrashing body of the acolyte he had killed in Lisbon, felt his soft flesh in his mouth, tasted the boy’s coppery blood. All at once he tasted countless throats like filth boiling from a drain—the slick stones of back alleys and moist grass from nameless wilderness, the bells of old churches and the stink of immigrant ghettoes, gunshots and shouting, rushing scents and wet muck beneath his naked palms, the stink of peppermint blood screaming in his throat and the taste, the taste , between his teeth. Most fragments came so sudden, so bitterly, he nearly collapsed with shaking.
Not true not true not true.
They were real, and he was damned, dripping with darkness, the heavy weight of sin choking until he thought he might die. When he felt this way—more often than not—the pain came so palatable he thought he might scoop it from his belly and smear it across a wall.
He remembered the funeral for the Portuguese acolyte in Lisbon. Friends and members of the young man’s family wept upon the coffin, each draped in various shades of grief. Some rubbed ashes on their faces, commanding damnation against the devil responsible for his death. He had sat in the back row, terrified, supplicating no God other than his fear. He was there only because Savoy, seated beside him, said it would serve to see the results of his behavior—as if it might convince his rational mind to command the beast to stay away. He doubted it. If the mourners understood who sat on the back row, he who was responsible for that day, they would hang him from a tree and burn his carcass. More likely, he feared, he would stand and announce himself and get exactly what he deserved.
One woman sat frail and shrouded on the front row. She placed a briar rose upon the coffin and drifted down the aisle toward them. She paused only once, staring at Reynard—not a random glance—and whispered:
Lobis-homems queimadura no inferno .
Man-wolf burn in hell.
She knew.
Then came Bill’s smiling throat with his pink and bloated face, glazed, white eyes rolled back into his head.
Go away .
He remembered.
How can— ?
He stumbled to the bottom of the stairs.
How can anyone know?
Last of all came the memory of his sister’s face. She shrieked at the monster, at him —the terrible thing that leapt from the shadows. She shrieked as he sank its teeth into her nanny’s face—
Lasha .
— If someone knows …
Not her. Not her. Never her.
He flung open the front door and leaned over the porch rail. He retched once, kept it down. He retched again and spewed vodka and acid in a great, choking cough.
6
Excerpt, Artémius Savoy’s Journal:
Friday, October 10, 7:35 p.m.
Interview with the chief coroner at Charity Hospital. He accepted my credentials and permitted a brief, firsthand examination of the post-autopsied bodies. The old fellow was glad to have an ear listen to his adequate, if incomplete, findings.
Bill Tourney and Paul Rabeaux died as a result of massive trauma to the neck between the mandible and upper clavicle. On Bill, subcutaneous tissue shredded, jugulars and sternohyoid cut. Would account for the extreme loss of blood—curious not much found at scene.
Mister Rabeaux deliberately emasculated. Femoral severed on both legs. Spinal damage (intervertebral, between third and fourth cervical) consistent with a neck broken by sufficient force. Why the throat was also shredded is beyond my
He moved to the staircase. Since their relocation from Montreal he could not remember a time when an unsolicited courier visited their doorstep. His officer manager Frederick Burlington had strict orders to direct all personal correspondence through the office. He knew well the fickle tides of social commerce, and he chose not to invite them into his own home.
Someone knows .
Halfway downstairs he felt the thrashing body of the acolyte he had killed in Lisbon, felt his soft flesh in his mouth, tasted the boy’s coppery blood. All at once he tasted countless throats like filth boiling from a drain—the slick stones of back alleys and moist grass from nameless wilderness, the bells of old churches and the stink of immigrant ghettoes, gunshots and shouting, rushing scents and wet muck beneath his naked palms, the stink of peppermint blood screaming in his throat and the taste, the taste , between his teeth. Most fragments came so sudden, so bitterly, he nearly collapsed with shaking.
Not true not true not true.
They were real, and he was damned, dripping with darkness, the heavy weight of sin choking until he thought he might die. When he felt this way—more often than not—the pain came so palatable he thought he might scoop it from his belly and smear it across a wall.
He remembered the funeral for the Portuguese acolyte in Lisbon. Friends and members of the young man’s family wept upon the coffin, each draped in various shades of grief. Some rubbed ashes on their faces, commanding damnation against the devil responsible for his death. He had sat in the back row, terrified, supplicating no God other than his fear. He was there only because Savoy, seated beside him, said it would serve to see the results of his behavior—as if it might convince his rational mind to command the beast to stay away. He doubted it. If the mourners understood who sat on the back row, he who was responsible for that day, they would hang him from a tree and burn his carcass. More likely, he feared, he would stand and announce himself and get exactly what he deserved.
One woman sat frail and shrouded on the front row. She placed a briar rose upon the coffin and drifted down the aisle toward them. She paused only once, staring at Reynard—not a random glance—and whispered:
Lobis-homems queimadura no inferno .
Man-wolf burn in hell.
She knew.
Then came Bill’s smiling throat with his pink and bloated face, glazed, white eyes rolled back into his head.
Go away .
He remembered.
How can— ?
He stumbled to the bottom of the stairs.
How can anyone know?
Last of all came the memory of his sister’s face. She shrieked at the monster, at him —the terrible thing that leapt from the shadows. She shrieked as he sank its teeth into her nanny’s face—
Lasha .
— If someone knows …
Not her. Not her. Never her.
He flung open the front door and leaned over the porch rail. He retched once, kept it down. He retched again and spewed vodka and acid in a great, choking cough.
6
Excerpt, Artémius Savoy’s Journal:
Friday, October 10, 7:35 p.m.
Interview with the chief coroner at Charity Hospital. He accepted my credentials and permitted a brief, firsthand examination of the post-autopsied bodies. The old fellow was glad to have an ear listen to his adequate, if incomplete, findings.
Bill Tourney and Paul Rabeaux died as a result of massive trauma to the neck between the mandible and upper clavicle. On Bill, subcutaneous tissue shredded, jugulars and sternohyoid cut. Would account for the extreme loss of blood—curious not much found at scene.
Mister Rabeaux deliberately emasculated. Femoral severed on both legs. Spinal damage (intervertebral, between third and fourth cervical) consistent with a neck broken by sufficient force. Why the throat was also shredded is beyond my
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