The Doorkeepers (41 page)

Josh waited until the door was closed and locked. Then he set his breakfast plate down on the floor. “Abraxas? Come and get it.”

Abraxas shuffled out from under the bed and wolfed down the entire plateful in less than twenty seconds. “Now, get back under there and grab yourself some zees,” Josh told him. “I can't take you out for a walk, not just yet, so you'll have to hold it.”

The Hooded Men came for him at five after twelve. There were five of them, with three dog-handlers and two drummers. As they escorted him along the corridors, the drummers let out an intermittent
bang!-bang!-bang!
that almost pierced his eardrums.

They went down the main staircase and across the hallway. Ahead of them stood two huge double doors, clad in polished copper. Two of the Hooded Men produced keys, and unlocked them. Two more pushed them open.

“Come on, now. This is your time,” said one of the Hooded
Men, pushing Josh forward. They marched him down a long corridor, lit only by dim greenish skylights. Josh could feel a faint draft blowing along it, and the draft carried with it the pungent smell of camphor, mingled with the dry aroma of herbs. It reminded him of hiding in his grandmother's closet when he was very small, and how he had once been accidentally locked inside it for a whole afternoon, crying and calling out for help.

They reached another pair of double doors, and swung these open, too. Inside, it was darker still, and it took Josh over half a minute for his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. He looked around and saw that they were standing in the entrance to a Victorian operating theater, with a hexagonal floor, and tiers of balconies rising up on three sides. Right at the very top, there were six clerestory windows, but they were glazed with dark blue glass, so that only the inkiest of lights could penetrate the theater itself.

As his eyesight improved, Josh saw that the balconies were occupied by Hooded Men, with their Puritan hats and their black tunics; and by other men in Puritan costume, their pale faces gleaming in the darkness like Hallowe'en lanterns. There was a murmur of conversation and a thick rustle of clothing, as well as the clank of scabbards.

The theater must have been very poorly ventilated. Apart from the smell of camphor and herbs, there was an overwhelming smell of stale sweat and tobacco. Josh found it suffocating, and had to steeple his hands in front of his nose.

Out of the shadows, Frank Mordant came forward, dressed in a black double-breasted suit with dandruff specking his shoulders. “The moment of truth,” he grinned. “I don't know whether you're going to enjoy this very much, but it's going to be an experience like you've never had before, I promise you.”

“Where's Nancy, you bastard?”

“Oh, she'll be here in a minute, don't you fret about that. In fact – look – here she comes now.”

Two doors at the rear of the theater opened up, and a high surgical trolley was wheeled in by two hospital orderlies. A
figure lay on it, draped in a white sheet, one arm dangling. As it was wheeled nearer, Josh saw that it was Nancy, very pale, her hair tied back and covered by a white surgical cap. She looked like Saint Joan, on her way to be martyred.

Josh tried to step forward, but one of the Hooded Men immediately grasped his arm with a gloved hand that felt like a bag full of crushed bones. “Stay here and observe,” the Hooded Man breathed. “Your turn will come soon enough.”

Now the two surgeons entered the theater, Mr Leggett and Mr Crane, both of them dressed in white surgical robes. There was a spattering of applause, but they stayed in the background.

One of the Hooded Men raised his arm and called out, “Pray silence for Master Gordon Spire!”

The theater became suddenly hushed. A thin man in Puritan costume descended from his place on the tiers, and stalked stiff-legged into the center of the theater. He had a sharp, ratlike face, with a hairy wart next to his nose, and when he took off his hat he revealed a mane of steel-gray hair, curled up at the back.

“What we have come here to do today is historical,” he said, in a sharp, penetrating voice. “We have come here to judge, yes. We have come here to punish, yes. We have come here to uphold the law. But we have also come here to perpetuate the consciousness that gives us rule and dominance over every manifestation of our Lord's creation.

“This man that stands before you, Joshua Winward, stands accused of heresy, conspiracy, subversion and murder. We have deliberated and found him guilty. This woman who lies here, Nancy Andersen, is similarly accused of heresy, conspiracy, subversion of the Commonwealth, and deception. We have deliberated, and we have found her guilty as charged.”

“On what evidence?” Josh shouted out. “Where are your witnesses? Where is your proof? You didn't even give us a chance to speak in our defense!”

The Hooded Man gripped his upper arm even tighter. “Quiet,” he insisted. “This is a court of law.”

“This isn't any goddamned court of law! Where's our
defense? Where's the goddamned jury? This is a total travesty, and you know it!”

“Quiet”
ordered the Hooded Man, and crushed his arm harder.

Now Mr Leggett stepped forward. He paused for a moment, for effect, and then he said, “What you will witness here today will be a miracle of modern surgery. Out of justice, comes perpetual life. This woman who lies here on this trolley is convicted of mortal offenses against the Commonwealth. But now she will have the opportunity to give the greatest contribution possible to its welfare and its survival.”

“What's he talking about?” Josh wanted to know. “What the hell's he talking about?”

“Shh,” said Frank Mordant, lifting one finger to his lips.

Mr Leggett said, “The six doors which we all have sworn to protect for all eternity were created by one woman. Out of this one woman's mind, out of this one woman's consciousness – a flame that has been kept alight for two thousand years.

“She has outlived kings and emperors, uprisings and rebellions, invasions and conquests. She has survived so long because of the pharmacological skills of the Druids, and by mystical influences which we still cannot fully understand, even today, for all of our scientific advances. For century after century, she has been cared for by the finest doctors and surgeons and herbalists – still conscious today, where she is sustained by the latest in surgical techniques.

“This, gentlemen, will guarantee her survival through this new millennium, and into the next, and probably for ever. The six doors will never close!”

Josh tried to pull himself free, but another Hooded Man grasped his other arm, and all he could do was kick and twist.

Mr Leggett turned to Mr Crane, and said, “Shall we begin?” Then he looked around at the audience in the theater and shouted out, “What you are about to see now is a miracle! Praise the Lord!”

The doors at the back of the theater opened again, and a paler blue light suffused the auditorium.

“Gentlemen,” said Mr Leggett, his voice cracking with emotion. “I give you the queen of all queens. I give you Boudicca.”

Six hospital orderlies slowly pushed a black-draped carriage in to the center of the operating theater. It looked like a moving tent, because it was completely covered, so that only the lower half of its wheels were visible.

After the tent came a stainless-steel trolley, laid out with dozens of surgical instruments – saws, clips, scalpels, and some extraordinary devices which Josh had never seen before, and whose purpose he couldn't even begin to guess.

The theater fell completely silent as one of the orderlies pushed Nancy closer to the tent-like affair. Then, like a waiter whipping off a tablecloth, he removed the sheet that covered her. Josh struggled again, but the Hooded Men were holding him far too tight for him to break free. Nancy was completely naked, her pale skin shining blue in the light from the clerestory windows. The orderly secured her wrists and ankles with leather straps, and tightened them.

Now – on a signal from Mr Leggett – another orderly tugged a string at the side of the black tent. It resisted for a moment, but then it abruptly dropped to the floor. Josh looked at what was underneath, and felt a prickling sensation of utter horror, like centipedes running up his back.

The carriage was an elaborate construction of slings and pulleys and supports. Suspended on all of these slings were layer upon layer of coarse dried-looking fabric, the color of rotten linen. Out of these layers hung scores of gnarled sticks, hundreds of them, like the legs of long-dead spiders crushed between the pages of an ancient book.

At first, Josh couldn't understand what he was looking at, but gradually he realized that the layers of fabric formed a pattern, like a huge dead chrysanthemum. Toward the center of the chrysanthemum, the layers appeared to be thicker, and paler, and the sticks much less gnarled. Josh peered at them more intently, and then he saw that they weren't sticks at all, but human arms, their skin dried out, their flesh desiccated.
Between them, there was a distorted, twisted torso, thick with ribbons of scar tissue, and another torso attached to it, at an angle, and a third torso beneath them.

This enormous flower was nothing less than the mummified bodies of literally hundreds of people, all sewn together to form a single, immense being. And most terrifying of all was the face that lay in the very center of it. A woman's face, as white as if she had been powdered with flour, her red-rimmed eyes staring out of this concatenation of arms and legs and bodies as if she were right on the point of screaming. Yet the minutes passed, and she didn't scream.

She blinked, and that frightened Josh even more, because that meant that she was alive. She was actually alive, in the middle of all of these layers of atrophied skin and time-brittled bone.

There was no smell of decay, only a haunting mustiness. As each new organ was attached to her body, she must have drained it of all of its blood and all of its mucus, until it became nothing more than human paper. So this is why Julia had been emptied; and why all of the girls that Frank Mordant had murdered before her had been selectively dismembered. Their mutilations had depended entirely on this creature's particular needs. New heart, new lungs, new stomach – whichever had been drained of all of its nourishment, and started to fail her.

Her face was both alarming and remarkable. It wasn't the face of a modern woman at all. It was broad, with a heavy jaw, and the faintest trace of freckles across the bridge of a small, straight nose. A wide black band of cloth had been tied around her forehead, but underneath it Josh could still see traces of reddish-gray hair.

Mr Leggett stepped forward and raised his hand for attention. “Today you will witness the removal of the donor's legs, arms and head, and the attachment of her entire body to the queen. At the moment, the queen is breathing with only one lung, the other having been misplaced during her most recent transplant. Today's operation will strengthen her respiration, her digestion – and something more.

“We have been planning for over a year to give her reproductive capabilities. Ovaries, and a womb. Today we are going to attempt to make it possible for her to have a child. It is possible that – if she can do this – her child will eventually be able to carry on her conscious existence in her place. In other words, she will have an heir to keep the six doors open for her.”

“You're crazy!” Josh shouted at him. “All of you! You're all fucking crazy! How can you think of killing anybody to keep that thing alive? How can you do it? And you call yourselves men of God!”

One of the Hooded Men clamped his hand over Josh's mouth. Josh tried to bite into his glove, but it was too thick, and it tasted of sour, untanned leather.

“We will commence by removing the donor's legs,” said Mr Leggett. “You will remember that this is a punishment as well as a surgical operation, so it is the law's requirement that this young lady should suffer as much pain as possible. If she screams and begs for mercy from the Lord, then you will know that Master Spire's judgement was true.”

Mr Crane handed him a black surgical crayon and he drew circles around Nancy's upper thighs, as close to her pelvis as possible. Josh wrenched himself from side to side, almost blind with anger and fear, and with the Hooded Man's glove clamped so tight over his mouth that he could scarcely breathe. This was a nightmare. It had to be a nightmare. He felt that he must have gone mad, and that he was hallucinating that he was here in this operating theater, with all of these faceless men and this grotesque thing that was lying in front of him, staring out at nothing with her death-white face.

Josh dropped to his knees, but the Hooded Men heaved him upright again. He tried to turn his head away so that he wouldn't have to watch what Mr Leggett was doing, but they seized his hair and made him look straight toward the operating trolley.

Nancy herself said nothing at all – just lay on the trolley making no attempt to struggle. Josh guessed that she had put herself into a medicine-trance, which badly-wounded Modocs used to do to numb their agony. Whether it would be enough
to anesthetize her when Mr Leggett started to saw through her thighbones, he couldn't tell.
God, please help her,
he said to himself, with tears in his eyes.
This one time, God, please help her.

Mr Leggett held out his hand and Mr Crane slapped a scalpel into it. “Now,” said Mr Leggett, “you should watch this closely. It's always fascinating how quickly the human body protects itself against massive injury – how rapidly the bleeding stops of its own accord.”

He leaned over Nancy and started to cut. A thin rivulet of blood ran across her thigh. Because of the dim blue light, it looked almost purple. Nancy shuddered, but she didn't cry out.

Josh raised his eyes to the tiers surrounding the operating theater. He couldn't watch any more, even if the Hooded Men were gripping his hair. He saw tier after tier of faces, the Masters of Religious Observance, and apart from the hessian hoods with their torn-open eyes, all he could see were lit-up expressions of ghoulish curiosity, almost a sexual excitement.