Charles Grant - Night Songs

• Название: Night Songs
• Автор: Charles Grant
• Жанр: Ужасы и Мистика

SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT THEY ARE SINGING SONGS OF DEATH…

Colin Ross, twice thwarted in love, once abandoned, quit the mainland for Haven's End, a wounded soul on an idyllic island, seeking to heal his life.

But instead of peace, he is hurled into chaos. Some dark and ancient hatred, some evil force is unleashed, wreaking vengeance on the islanders, mangling the living and mutilating the dead.

And, as the piercing songs rise to meet the roaring wind, Colin Ross, against his will, is sucked into the raging storm.

---

She tilted her head to place his face between her eyes and the sun. "Well?"

"I'd rather we do it inside."

She shrugged and pulled her keys from her pocket, had the knob in her hand when she heard the car door slam. Cameron was right behind her and eased her over the threshold.

"Bob?"

Immediately behind them two men followed, and Cameron steered her directly back to the kitchen.

"Damn it, Bob!" But softly. An annoyed glance over her shoulder.

He sat at the round table unbidden, and as she blinked in a combination of undefined fear and annoyance, the others took seats and stared at her openly. Suddenly she was outraged, and an order to leave was hard at her lips when the man on her left-incredibly thin, blond, with a jaw that came to a nearly-perfect honed point-introduced himself as Michael Lombard. His hands were folded primly on the table, his back was straight.

"Mrs. Fletcher, I'm terribly sorry for the intrusion and this apparent mystery," he said with an apologetic smile. "And you shouldn't blame Bob here for all this rush. It's my fault, I'm afraid."

"Yes," she said, and waited. She avoided looking at the other one. She didn't like him. He was much heavier, ^his features flat from nose to cheeks, his striking blue shirt open two buttons down to expose a chest of dark hair and a jagged gray scar that reached up toward the hollow of his neck.

"Mrs. Fletcher, I work in Trenton," Lombard explained, "and it's my job for the governor to see that what the politicos call the undesirables are shown the first highway to the border." He smiled self-consciously. "That sounds like something out of a western, I know, but it's what I do."

She sensed what was coming and turned to the sink. A milk glass left over from breakfast lay near the drain. She picked it up and filled it with hot water. "Yes, so what does this have to do with me?"

"Your husband, Mrs. Fletcher. We have reason to believe the man or men who killed him are back in New Jersey. In fact-"

She cut him off with a harsh gesture without turning around, put the glass down, and began filling the kettle and sugar bowl while her mind found its gears. Jim was dead, and she had had all these years to bury the bitterness of both the impending divorce and the police's lack of success; all these years to put her life back on the track. Now, suddenly, like a tidal surge that flooded the beach without warning, this man from the capital was trying to bring it all back.

Amazed that her hands weren't trembling, she set the kettle on the stove, turned the burner on high, and kept her gaze on the flames curling up around the bottom. "Mr. Lombard," she said, her voice tight and direct. "I'm sorry if I seem callous or ungrateful, but I just don't care anymore."

There was a subtle shifting at the table. The second man coughed politely. "Mrs. Fletcher, we're only trying to warn you-"

"Against what?" she said sharply, spinning around so quickly that she caught Cameron's leering eye before it left the curve of her buttocks. "Against what?"

Lombard smiled-a professional smile, meaningless and quick. "Mrs. Fletcher, I understand how you must feel at this time, but you must also understand that we feel a certain-"

"Wait a minute," Cameron interrupted, one hand up and shaking. "Just a minute, please." He waited until she had reached for the squealing kettle, then rose quickly and helped her set the cups and saucers on the table. "Peg, these men are friends of mine, all right? They came here last night, and they want to be sure this guy, whoever it is, doesn't come back to Haven's End. I know you think it's impossible, and I know the police have been all over this place a hundred times, but you can't tell about these mob fellas, y'know? This guy, whoever he is, he might still have it in his head that Jim kept all his records here."

Peg gaped at him, and felt cold for the first time. "No," she said with a shake of her head. "No."

"Mrs. Fletcher," Lombard said quietly, soothingly, with a side glance to Cameron, "you know that and we know that, but he might not. And there's a good chance he'll try to contact you, perhaps try to lever you into revealing what he wants to know."

"But I don't know anything!" she said helplessly.

"Yes, yes," Cameron said, laying a hand on her shoulder and massaging it gently. She looked at him desperately, and he brought her to a chair. "I know, Peg, I know. It doesn't make any sense to ordinary people like you and me, but these gentlemen make their living at this. They know, Peg. They know how the criminal mind works."

She put her hands to her face and thought of Matt playing at the marina, Colin fumbling behind the counter, all the cartons of Jim's papers she had burned in the fireplace-thought of the not always peaceful years since the car had been reduced to black metal and black ash. And immediately the image of the automobile's destruction came to mind, she thought of Bob Cameron.

"Mrs. Fletcher, are you all right?" Solicitous, unctuous.

"Peg, can I get you anything?" Cameron, concerned.

Cameron. Would a man involved in her husband's violent death wait six full years before trying to discover if she were still hoarding incriminating evidence? Six years?

"Bob," she said, hands still covering her eyes, "I told you long ago I'd burned all Jim's things, what the police hadn't taken away. You know that." Her hands lowered and her eyes narrowed. She stared at Lombard and his companion. "Did he tell you that? Did he tell you I burned it all?"

"No," Lombard said after a long, annoyed silence.

Her gaze shifted to the second man, whose oversized hands were clasped as if in prayer. He shook his head.

"Who are you?" she asked softly. And without waiting for an answer she rose from her chair and backed to the sink. A glare to the doorway. "Bob, I don't want to talk to these gentlemen anymore. I'd appreciate your leaving."

Cameron didn't move for an interminable second. Then he heaved himself to his feet, the chair skidding away as he waited for the others to join him. "Peg, you're making a mistake here, believe me. A very big mistake. I… I don't want anything to happen that you'll regret later."

Her eyes widened in disbelief and her hands slapped on the table. "My God, are you threatening me, Robert Cameron, or just trying to scare me?"

He held up a fast palm. "Lord, no. I just want you to understand-"

"I understand nothing, and I've already asked you once to go. Now do it, please. I have a business to run and I've been away too long already."

Lombard shook his head once when Cameron, his face flushed, leaned forward to argue. Then he rose and nodded to her, reset the chair in its place and led the way out of the kitchen to the front door. After a brief hesitation he opened it, ushered Cameron through to the porch and turned to wait for his companion. Peg stayed in the hallway, watching, holding her breath, nearly bolting when the second man turned abruptly to face her.

"My name is Vincent," he said, looming above her and smiling so broadly she could see that his teeth were all black. "Theodore Vincent. You will remember it, please."

She couldn't help it-she nodded.

The door closed without a sound.

She stood a moment shivering in the hallway, trying to keep her legs from failing and her teeth from chattering, then she turned the bolt and peered through the glass pane in the-door. The car was gone; the street was empty. Her tongue pushed into her cheek, and she made a soft growling sound before heading for the study.

In one of the cabinets under the bookshelves was a small bottle of brandy her mother had given her for Christmas two years ago. It had been tapped only once, when Colin had come over for Matt's last birthday. She held the fat bottle in her hand now, a glass on the desk, and she took a deep inhalation of the sharp aroma before pouring herself a drink. A sip, then, and she waited until the fear had been replaced by a slow-burning rage.

Her house. Her womb. Her… she scowled and looked for another word. Then she emptied the glass in a swallow, brushed back the tears that flooded her eyes, and went for the phone. Matt; she had to check on Matt. Damn Mrs. Wooster for being in Philadelphia! What the hell's a housekeeper for if not to be here when she's needed. Three times she fumbled with Alex Fox's number, and when no one answered at the first ring she fell into her armchair and bit down on her lower lip.

She thought she tasted blood.

The second ring, the third, and Alex finally answered.

Yes, he told her, Matt was in the yard with his own kids. No, he hadn't seen anyone around all day what with his finishing a paint job in the workshop and securing boats against the storm they'd probably get by morning. And could Matt stay for dinner, he's such a good kid and Amy and Tommy would love it.

The urge to refuse politely was killed when she heard the distant joyous shrieks of children playing outside. Matt would be all right. If anyone on the island was suspicious of strangers, it was Alex Fox. As young as she, but with an old man's distrust of anyone he hadn't known for at least twenty years. Sadly, sometimes it seemed as if that included his wife.

The moment she rang off, she was back in her jacket and out the front door. An apprehensive glance at the empty street, and a puzzled one toward Bridge Road where a great deal of traffic seemed to be heading for the ferry, and she hurried back to the store, for the first time in her life not liking the way the houses rose above her, not liking the columns that held them up, not liking the twilight permanently snared between the pilings. She paused only once.

In the middle of Ocean Street something dark, something flickering, made her look down toward the school. It could have been a dog, a cat, even a low-darting bird. A shadow from the pines. Yet she could not shake the feeling that something or someone had been standing by the school, and when she had stopped it had fled.

Watching her. It was watching her.

The Doberman chained by the library started up its barking again, and again she greeted it with a smile and a wave, grateful this time for the distraction it provided. Friendly little beast, she thought sourly as she passed. It belonged to the librarian and usually lay on the grass, panting, watching, nudging the passing children for handouts and a scratching.

Today, however, it appeared to be reverting to the image of its breed-fierce, unpleasant, almost satanic. Though she tried, she couldn't remember the last time it had so much as even growled. If it didn't stop that noise, Hattie would be in trouble, if for no other reason than Reverend Otter was a stickler when it came to disturbances. He had once tried to have the school caution the students not to shout when they left for the day; his meditations were being disrupted, and God abhorred a poor sermon.

An image of the gangly minister standing on his porch and railing at the kids made her lips pull at the corners. She hadn't believed the story until she'd come to see Matt's teacher one day about his grades. And she hadn't made things better by laughing aloud.

Not exactly the reclusive widow, she thought as she reached the store and pushed inside. And if Colin gets his nerve up, a widow no longer.

He was at the back, leaning casually against the register and reading a magazine. She had to rap her knuckles twice on the counter to get his attention.

"I want you to assassinate Bob Cameron," she said when he looked up to smile.

* * *

Matt liked Amy and Tommy Fox. They were in the same grade, and they both hated his teacher as much as he did. Of course, Mrs. Adams wasn't all that bad, except that she limped and her husband was a janitor who always chased them from the playground as soon as school was over. But her breath smelled funny, and no one was surprised last Monday when they all walked in and found a substitute at the desk.

Amy said she was dying from a rare disease that struck only teachers, and you got it from rotten fish. Tommy said she carried a bottle of whiskey in her purse and drank from it at the water fountain in front of Mr. Ross' room.

But the best thing about them was they didn't make fun of the pictures he drew, and Tommy knew almost as much about James Bond as Matt did.

They were kneeling now at the end of the marina's last dock, dive-bombing tiny fish with gravel from the drive. Matt liked the way the stones seemed to curve as soon as they hit the water. Once in a while he would turn and pitch a stone lightly toward the half dozen gulls sailing above them waiting for the trawler.

Amy, whose face was round and heavily freckled, was a carrot-top with green eyes and a stub for a nose. She stuck the tip of her tongue between her lips and stared thoughtfully at the mound of pebbles shimmering under the water. "I think there's a Viking buried under there. He's come all the way across the ocean and he died in a battle with the pirates who used to live here."

Tommy, his sister's twin save for the lack of flesh on his bones, shook his head. "Nope, that's a place, a hole where they put missiles to kill the Russians."

"There aren't no missies under the water," she told him with disdain."

"Are too."

"Nope. There's a Viking down there," and she turned to Matt for collaboration.

"It's a fortress," he said, dropping another gravel bomb. "A guy's in there and he builds super lasers and things to shoot down planes when they fly over the island." He pointed to the shallows at the dock's other end. "He wants to get a whole lot of them along here, see, so no one can get here unless he says so."

"That's silly, it's a Viking," she insisted, her face puffed and pouting.

"Can't be. Vikings are dead."

"I said he was buried there."

Tommy jabbed an elbow in her side. "The fish ate him last week."

"They can't. Vikings are too tough."

"How do you know that, smarty?" her brother demanded.

"I saw it on TV. They wear bearskins and metal shirts and horns on their head."

Matt giggled. Tommy sneered, grabbed a handful of the gravel and threw it in as hard as he could. The splash drove them all back from the edge, Amy scrambling to her feet and nearly pitching off the other side.

"I'm gonna tell Daddy," she said when her balance recovered.

"I'm gonna tell Daddy," Tommy echoed. "But if you tell Daddy and he tells Mommy," he shouted after her as she started to march toward shore, "we're not getting any ice cream tonight."

She hesitated, turned to retort and clamped a hand to her mouth.

Tommy looked to Matt who was studying the water, then looked up to the trees that grew close to the workshop. "Matt," he whispered suddenly. "Matt, look!"

Matt looked up, and saw Lilla coming toward them. The gulls began screaming.

She wore a long black dress splattered with dried mud and sand, with long ragged tears at the hem and across one shoulder. Her feet were bare. Her hair was tangled-like bristles, he thought-and laced with torn blades of grass, grayed by sand as if she'd rolled in it all night. Her eyes were hidden, but he felt her staring at him, saw her lips parted and her tongue running slowly over her teeth. One hand clutched at a stiff fold of the dress, the other lay flat against her stomach as she walked.