Styx (33 page)

“Good-bye,” Styx whispered at last.

But he didn't disconnect the call. He was in horrible pain, and the killer's helpless voice at the other end of the line was a bandage for his wounds. He closed his eyes and relished the memory of rolling the Stuffer's unconscious body into the open grave he himself had almost fallen into.

“Don't say good-bye,” the Stuffer begged. “It's not too late. You can still save me.”

“I'd save my breath, if I were you.”

In his mind, Styx saw Vrancken stretched out in the open hole, his face exposed to the stars that peeked out from behind the storm clouds evaporating overhead.

It would have taken Styx five seconds to reload the shotgun, half a
second to pull the trigger, and—death penalty or no death penalty—Ostend would be free of the Stuffer's depredations at last.

But he couldn't do it.

The old Raphael Styx had many times taken the law into his own hands. But, zombie or no zombie, the new Styx was just a cop, not a judge, not an executioner.

So he tossed the phone he'd found in Vrancken's pocket with his keys into the hole with him, draped the square of canvas over him to keep the dirt out of his mouth and eyes and provide him with a pocket of air, and began to fill in the hole.

He would rescue Isabelle, he decided, and Vrancken could decide his fate for himself. He could turn himself in or suffer worse consequences.

Now Vrancken's voice roused him from his reverie.

“At least I didn't bury them alive,” he howled. “I showed them some compassion, you cocksucker! I didn't just abandon them to choke to death!”

“I bet your battery's almost dead. If you're gonna call the cops, Doc, now's the time.”

“Fuck you, you bastard!”

He heard the doctor's light, rapid panting and wondered what it must feel like to be buried alive, not even in a coffin, nothing but a thin layer of canvas protecting you from your fate.

“Hey,” Styx said, “I almost forgot. What does the S stand for?”

But there was no response.

He hung up and dialed Delacroix's number and told him where Isabelle was. He did
not
tell him about the Stuffer.

They'd find the body in a few hours, when the funeral party showed up at the churchyard and discovered that their loved one's grave was already in use.

It was not quite dawn. The man in the cap shambled along the side of the highway through a warm drizzle, supporting himself on an old walking stick with a grip in the shape of a fish.

There was little traffic at this hour. When he felt the headlights on his back and heard the crunch of tires slowing on the gravel shoulder, he turned into the glare.

The car stopped beside him, its motor still running. The window on the passenger's side slid down. Raindrops pattered on the roof.

Joachim Delacroix sat behind the wheel, dressed in Versace from head to foot. He leaned over and opened the passenger door. “Need a lift?”

Styx backed into the seat, used the walking stick as a lever to hoist
first one leg, then the other from the ground. Delacroix watched him without comment. When Styx was settled, he released the hand brake and rolled back out onto the road.

“Where is he?” Delacroix said.

“Who?”

“Jesus, you know who.”

“You'll find him,” Styx said. “Soon, I think. Probably within the next couple of hours. He won't give you any trouble.”

“So it
was
Vrancken, then?”

“What difference does it make? You'll find out when the time comes.”

“You don't want to know how she's doing?” asked Delacroix.

Styx didn't answer.

“Except for the shock,” the rookie said, “she's fine.”

“What did you find in Vrancken's office?”

“I have no idea. They were turning it upside down when I left to take Isabelle home.”

“It doesn't matter,” said Styx. “The case is closed. There won't be any more killings.”

They drove on.

“So why did Paul Delvaux put his penthouse up for sale and take off?” Styx asked.

“If he ever comes back, I'll ask him.”

“You're not still looking for him?”

“Why should we? He's a weirdo, but as far as we know he hasn't actually done anything
wrong
. You want my opinion, Ostend's better off without him.” Delacroix smiled. “Maybe
that's
why he ran off. Ostend's changed. Maybe he's gone off in search of the Ostend of a hundred years ago.”

A comfortable silence filled the space between them.

“So what now?” asked Delacroix at last.

“Just drive.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Away,” Styx said. “Out of Ostend. That's all I know right now.”

Delacroix drove on. The only sound in the car was the rhythmic swish of the wipers.

After a while, Styx spoke. “That Lord Byron guy?”

“The sapeur of the Romantics? What about him?”

“He spent his whole adult life on the run, moving from country to country, running away from his debts, from the women he betrayed. I think that might be
my
future, too.”

Delacroix turned inland, away from the sea and the faded glory of Ostend.

Raphael Styx sat beside him, staring straight ahead but not at the rain or the highway lights that flickered by. He was looking beyond an invisible wall to a new world he couldn't quite see, let alone understand.

Delacroix glanced at Styx.

He saw the shattered jaw, the pellet holes in the throat, the gaping chest wound. The liquefied eyes, the purge fluid leaking from nose and ears and mouth, the sloughing of the skin, the misshapen hands clasping and unclasping the handle of the battered old cane. He saw the sad, discolored face, a face that had seen things no one else had ever seen, things no one else should ever have to see.

When the silence grew impossible to stand, Delacroix switched on the car radio. Massive Attack's “Unfinished Sympathy” was playing, and it provided a soundtrack for the two men's completely different lines of thought.

Joachim Delacroix thought of Isabelle, while Raphael Styx could think of nothing but the terrible hunger that gnawed at his gut.

He tried to distract himself. Was Victor finished with his exams? How would Isabelle remember him? Would the old Rafe Styx ever have changed his ways, if he'd been given the chance?

But the hunger could not be denied. It grew more insistent with every passing mile. He could smell fresh meat beneath Delacroix's aftershave and deodorant, and feel his deepest, most inhuman instincts well up within him. He fought desperately to contain them, clenching his rotten teeth, almost biting his own tongue.

He turned away, saw his face reflected in the side-view mirror, lit briefly each time they passed beneath a lamppost.

It was a long and lonely ride on the highway. The rain intensified, hell's floodgates opening wide.

Delacroix asked him something, but Styx had just cranked up the stereo and couldn't hear the question beneath Massive Attack's hypnotic percussion and Shara Nelson's soulful vocals:

. . . a soul without a mind,

In a body without a heart,

I'm missing every part . . .

Styx
is a work of fiction, and the characters and incidents are the products of the authors' imaginations.

Paul Delvaux, James Ensor, René Magritte, and Léon Spilliaert were all real people, and all of them lived and worked in Ostend at various periods of their lives. Marvin Gaye was a real person, too, and he spent about a year in Ostend in the early 1980s.

© THOMAS VERFAILLE

BAVO DHOOGE
(born in Ghent, Belgium, 1973) is a filmmaker and a prolific writer. One of the most acclaimed crime novelists in Belgium, he has won the Shadow Prize, the Diamond Bullet, and the Hercule Poirot Prize.

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors' imaginations, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by Houtekiet and Bavo Dhooge

English language translation copyright © 2015 by Bavo Dhooge and Josh Pachter.

Originally published in 2014 in Flemish/Dutch by VBK Houtekiet of Antwerp, Belgium, as
Styx
by Bavo Dhooge. Published by agreement with the authors and VBK Houtekiet.

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Cover photograph “Medical Head” by David Jordan Williams

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-4767-8464-9

ISBN 978-1-4767-8466-3 (ebook)