Nightshade: The Fourth Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thriller (38 page)

When he reached the landing he stopped and listened again. There were four doors. There was one to the rear of the house, which he assumed was Bella’s bedroom. The door immediately to his left was open. The bathroom. He guessed that the bedroom facing the street would be the master bedroom, where Mr and Mrs Harper were sleeping. The door was open slightly and Nightingale tiptoed over to it, breathing shallowly.

He pushed it open. Mrs Harper was closest to him, sleeping on her side. Her husband was on his back, snoring softly. Nightingale took a handkerchief and a can of diethyl ether from his pocket, twisted the top off the can of ether and soaked the material with the fluid. He tiptoed across the carpet and held the ether-soaked handkerchief under the woman’s nose for the best part of a minute, then draped it over her face.

He prepared a second handkerchief and did the same to the husband.

When he was satisfied that they were both unconscious, he tiptoed out of the room and pulled the door closed behind him. His heart was racing and he stood where he was a for a full minute, composing himself, before soaking a third handkerchief with ether and pushing open the door to Bella’s bedroom.

She was lying on her back, breathing slowly and evenly. Her eyes were closed and her blonde hair was spread across her pillow. Her skin was as pale as porcelain, unlined and unblemished the way only a nine-year-old’s could be. Her hands were clasped together on top of the duvet as if she was praying. Nightingale closed the door quietly, wincing as the wood brushed against the carpet. When he turned back to the bed, Bella’s eyes were wide open and she was staring right at him.

‘You’re Jack Nightingale, aren’t you?’ she said.

Nightingale said nothing.

‘You’ve come to kill me, haven’t you?’

Nightingale stared at her in silence.

The girl smiled at him. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’ She slowly raised her hand and beckoned him to come closer. ‘I’ve a message for you,’ she said. ‘From Jesus.’

N
ightingale took a step towards the bed. He had the ether-soaked handkerchief in his right hand. The girl continued to beckon him with her finger. Nightingale felt light-headed but wasn’t sure if it was the fumes or if the Shade was somehow making it hard for him to concentrate.

She was smiling angelically, her blonde hair glinting in the glow of the streetlight that shafted in through a break in the curtains. Her finger continued to beckon him forwards. Nightingale’s feet shuffled towards the bed as if they had a life on their own.

He worked the handkerchief in his hand, rolling it around his palm until it formed a tight ball.

He took another step. And another. He was at the side of the bed, looking down at the girl. Her smile widened and he wrinkled his nose at the foul stench that seemed to be coming from her mouth. ‘Come closer, Jack,’ she said. Her voice had grown deeper and more masculine and her eyes were no longer the eyes of a little girl, they were black and as hard as glass. ‘There’s a good boy. I have something to tell you.’

Nightingale sneered at her. ‘You can say anything you want, I can’t hear,’ he said.

‘You can hear me, Jack,’ she said. ‘And you going to do exactly as I say. Now lean forward and let me whisper to you.’

Nightingale stared at her as he moved his face closer to hers. She grinned in triumph and opened her mouth to speak. Nightingale moved quickly, jumping onto the bed and grabbing her wrists. He forced her arms down by her sides and then knelt over her, trapping her with his legs, his knees digging into the side of her chest. She took a deep breath, but just before she screamed he thrust the balled handkerchief between her teeth. He used his left hand to clamp her jaw shut as he pulled a roll of duct tape from his raincoat pocket. He used his teeth to pull a few inches of tape from the roll and then slapped it down over her mouth. She thrashed about, but he quickly wound tape around her head several times. The tape and handkerchief reduced her screams to muffled grunts and her eyes burned with hatred.

Nightingale wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his coat. He sat back on his heels and stared at her. ‘I’d like to say that this is going to hurt me more than you, but that’s probably not true,’ he said. He reached up with his hands and gently pulled out the yellow foam rubber earplugs that had stopped him hearing anything that the Shade had said to him.

The girl stopped thrashing around and her eyes narrowed. They were less human now, totally black and featureless.

Nightingale put the earplugs into his pocket and took out the leather roll that Mrs Steadman had given him. The girl began to thrash around as she realised what was happening. Nightingale ignored her and concentrated on undoing the braided strap. He flipped open the flap and pulled out the two shorter knives, one in each hand. He deftly swivelled them around so that the mesh spheres were in the palms of his hands and the blades were pointing down.

His heart was racing and his breath was coming in ragged gasps. He took a deep breath to steady himself, then raised his hands above his head. His felt a searing pain at the back of his head, as if someone had stuck a burning needle into his skull. He could hear words, not through his ears but from somewhere inside his head. ‘No, no, no, no!’

He ignored the voice in his head, steeled himself for a second, and then drove the knives down into the girl’s eyes. The blades had to be forced through and there were simultaneous loud pops as the eyeballs burst. Grey fluid squirted out and dribbled around the blades and down the girl’s cheeks. The body went into convulsions beneath him and he gripped tightly with his knees so that she couldn’t throw him off. He leaned forward and pushed down, wincing at the tearing sound that the knives made as they pushed through the skull behind the eyes and on into the brain.

Blood gushed out of the wounds as Nightingale used his full weight to drive the knives all the way in. He stopped when the mesh spheres were flush against the eyeballs and sat back, wiping his bloody hands on the duvet.

The Shade wasn’t screaming any more, it was making a whimpering moan muffled by the gag. Nightingale tried not to think about what he was doing. He fumbled for the third knife. The big one. He took it in both hands, the small figure of Christ protruding from the V formed by his crossed thumbs.

He looked down, trying to work out where the heart was. The angle was wrong, so he shuffled back, keeping his knees tight against her legs.

The moaning intensified and Nightingale wished that he’d left the earplugs in because the sound was painful, but it was too late to remedy that now. The headache had intensified and his brain felt as if it was expanding and pressing against his skull. He took a deep breath, steeling himself for the killing thrust.

The girl began to lift herself up, then she fell back, still moaning. She did it again and again, as if she was doing abdominal crunches, up and down, faster and faster. Her hair was sticky with blood and the grey stuff that had oozed from her ruptured eyeballs, and the gooey mess trickled down her face and over the duct tape. Nightingale forced himself to ignore the fact that it was a girl he was about to kill. Bella Harper was already dead. The being below him wasn’t a nine-year-old girl, it was an evil entity bent on destruction.

He raised the knife above his head, mentally rehearsed the Latin phrase that Mrs Steadman had given him, then brought the knife down, hard and fast. It pierced her skin and slid easily between the second and third rib, and then he felt resistance as it touched the heart. He spat out the words as he pushed the knife down, and he felt it pop through the heart muscle and blood squirted around the blade and soaked into the Hello Kitty nightdress. He pushed harder, still repeating the Latin incantation, then changed his grip and pushed down with the palms of his hands, driving the knife down as far as it would go.

As he finished the incantation, the girl went suddenly still. As Nightingale watched, her hands unclenched and an audible sigh escaped from between her lips. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. It was done. The Shade was dead. And so, finally, was Bella Harper.

N
ightingale let himself into his flat and hurried down the hallway to the kitchen. He knew that the best thing for stress was hot sweet tea, but what he wanted was alcohol to dull the pain, the purer the better. He had several bottles of Corona in his fridge but that wasn’t strong enough for what he wanted. There was a bottle of Russian vodka in the icebox and he took it out, unscrewed the top and drank from it. He took three gulps before it began to burn his throat and he gasped.

He half filled a tumbler with vodka then popped the tab of a can of Coke and poured that in. He took the tumbler, the Coke can and the vodka bottle into his sitting room and put them on the table by the window. The Ouija board was still there, surrounded by the five candles.

He took a long drink of vodka and Coke and began pacing around the room. His mind was whirling and he found it impossible to concentrate. All he could think about was the knives going into Bella’s eyes and the way her body had gone into convulsions when he’d thrust the final knife into her heart.

He wiped his forehead with his sleeve and then took another gulp of vodka and Coke. He wanted to get drunk, so drunk that he wouldn’t remember what he’d done. His stomach lurched and he fought the urge to vomit.

He pulled his mobile phone from his raincoat pocket. He wanted to talk to somebody. Jenny maybe. Or Robbie. But what he could tell them? And if he told them the truth, what would they say? He tossed the phone onto the sofa, then took off his raincoat and draped it over the back of a chair. He drained his glass and grabbed the vodka bottle for a refill.

As he sloshed vodka into the glass he noticed movement on the Ouija board. He frowned and stared down at the planchette. It was vibrating. He shook his head, wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him. But there was no doubt, the planchette was juddering. As he watched it began to move slowly across the board. Nightingale held his breath, the vodka bottle and glass forgotten. The planchette moved slowly but surely in a smooth motion until it reached the word GOODBYE. Then it stopped dead. Nightingale felt a cold breeze on the back of his neck and he shivered. ‘Goodbye, Bella,’ he whispered, then drained his glass in one.

N
ightingale came awake instantly from a dreamless sleep. He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling, listening to the sound of his own breathing. He heard a police siren far off in the distance, but that wasn’t what had woken him. Then he realised he wasn’t alone in the room.

He sat up and peered into the dark corner furthest away from the window. Proserpine was standing there, her black and white collie at her side. She was wearing a long black leather coat that almost brushed the carpet and knee-length black boots with stiletto heels. Her hair was loose around her face and she had a fringe that almost covered her eyes. She glared at Nightingale malevolently. ‘You lied to me, Nightingale,’ she said, her voice a low rasping whisper.

‘Not really,’ he said.

The dog growled menacingly and Proserpine jerked the chain to silence it. ‘I told you that you weren’t to go near Fairchild.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘I told you that you weren’t to kill him.’

‘And I didn’t.’

There was a deep growling sound and Nightingale couldn’t tell if it was her or the dog. ‘You think you can play games with me, Nightingale?’

Nightingale reached for his cigarettes and lit one before answering. ‘I think you choose your words carefully,’ he said. ‘And so did I. I didn’t go near Fairchild. I didn’t talk to him. And I didn’t kill him.’

‘You had him killed,’ she said quietly.

‘And that right there is why the choice of words is so darn important,’ he said. He tried to blow a smoke ring but failed miserably. ‘I had him killed. That’s not the same as killing him. So all bets are off.’

Proserpine glared at him. ‘You paid to have him killed, that’s the same as killing him.’

Nightingale shook his head. ‘I didn’t pay a penny. In fact I didn’t even ask for it to be done. I just talked to someone who hates nonces even more than I do.’

‘Perry Smith?’

‘Gangster of this parish. He gave me the gun that I was carrying that night you stopped me. I gave him the gun back and he asked why. I told him that I couldn’t kill Fairchild. Perry said that he’d do it in a heartbeat. His kid sister was abused when she was in a care home, so he’s got personal reasons for hating paedophiles.’

‘You told Smith that Fairchild was a paedophile?’

‘Which he was,’ said Nightingale. ‘I didn’t tell him about the Order of Nine Angles, of course. Or the whole devil-worship thing. That would have muddied the water, I figured. But like I said, he offered to kill Fairchild and I didn’t try to dissuade him. So it doesn’t affect our deal and I get to keep my soul.’

Proserpine and her dog stared at Nightingale for several seconds. ‘You think you’ve beaten me, do you?’ she said eventually.

‘I don’t think there are any winners or losers in this,’ said Nightingale. ‘The whole thing is a mess. But Fairchild can rot in Hell for all I care.’

‘He’ll be in Hell, but he won’t be rotting,’ said Proserpine. ‘He has earned his place in Hades.’

‘Fine,’ said Nightingale. ‘I hope you’ll all live happily ever after. Now can I get back to sleep, I’ve got a busy day ahead of me?’

‘You’re very sharp, Nightingale. You want to be careful you don’t end up cutting yourself.’

‘I’ll do that.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘You think you can trust Mrs Steadman, don’t you?’

‘I don’t know who I can trust these days,’ he said.

‘Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ she said. She looked down at her dog and smiled. ‘Come on, let’s go play catch.’ She jerked his chain and then the room folded in on itself and there was a deafening cracking sound and the smell of burned leather and she was gone. Nightingale stubbed out what was left of his cigarette and lay down. He stared up at the ceiling for the rest of the night, unable to sleep.