The windows in the room were covered with sheets of metal riveted to the walls, preventing any natural light from entering. There were pieces of bone on a workbench: ribs, a radius and ulnae, sections of skull. A smell of urine added a sharp, unpleasant character to the stale air in the room. Beneath the bench were four or five wooden packing crates containing straw and paper. Against the far wall, to the right of the blacked-out windows, was a console table. At each end rested more skulls, all missing their lower jaw, with what appeared to be a bone from the upper arm clasped beneath the upper mandible. A hole had been made in the tops of the skulls, into which candles had been inserted. They flickered, illuminating the figure that hovered behind them.
It was black, about two feet in height, and appeared to be made from a combination of human and animal remains. The wing of a large bird had been carefully stripped of its skin and feathers, and the bones skillfully fixed in place so that the wing stood outstretched, as though the creature to which it belonged were about to take flight. The wing was fixed to a section of spine from which a small rib cage also curled. It might have belonged to a child or a monkey, but I couldn’t tell which. To the left of the spine there was, instead of a second wing, a skeletal arm, with all of the bones in place, down to the tiny fingers. The arm was raised, the fingers grasping. They ended in small sharp nails. The right leg looked like the back leg of a cat or dog, judging by the angle of the joint. The left was clearly closer to that of a human, but was unfinished, the wire frame visible from the ankle down.
The fusion of animal and man was clearest, though, in the head, which was slightly out of proportion to the rest of the figure. Whoever had crafted it possessed an artistry to match his disturbed vision. A multiplicity of different creatures had been used to create it, and I had to look closely to find the lines where one ended and another began: half of a primate’s jaw was carefully attached to that of a child, while the upper part of the facial area between jaws and forehead had been formed using sections of white bone and bird heads. Finally, horns emerged from the top of a human skull, one barely visible and resembling the node on the head of an immature deer, the other ramlike and curling around the back of the skull, almost touching the statue’s small clavicle.
“If this guy is subletting, he’s in a shitload of trouble,” said Angel.
Louis was examining one of the skulls upon the workbench, his face barely inches from its empty sockets.
“They look old,” I said, answering a question that had not been asked.
He nodded, then left the room. I heard him moving boxes around, searching for some clue as to the whereabouts of Alice.
I followed the smell of urine to the bathroom. The tub contained more bones, all soaking in yellow liquid. The stink of ammonia made my eyes water. I made a cursory search of the cabinets, a handkerchief pressed to my nose and mouth, then closed the door behind me. Angel was still examining the bone statue, apparently fascinated by it. I wasn’t surprised. The creation looked like it belonged in an art gallery or a museum. It was repugnant, but breathtaking in its artistry and in the fluidity with which one creature’s remains flowed into the next.
“I just can’t figure out what the hell this is supposed to be,” he asked. “It looks like a man changing into a bird, or a bird changing into a man.”
“You see a lot of birds with horns?” I said.
Angel reached out a finger to touch the protuberances on the skull, then thought better of it.
“I guess it’s not a bird, then.”
“I guess not.”
I took a piece of newspaper from the floor and used it to lift one of the skull candlesticks from the table, then shined my mini Maglite inside. There were serial numbers of some kind etched into the bone. I examined the others and all had similar markings, except for one that was adorned with the symbol of a two-pronged fork and rested on a pelvic bone. I took one of the numbered skulls and placed it in a tea chest, then carefully added the forked skull and the statue. I took the box into the next room, where Louis was kneeling on the floor. Before him stood an open suitcase. It contained tools, among them scalpels, files, and small bone saws, all carefully packed away in canvas pockets, and a pair of videocassettes. Each was labeled along the side with a long line of initials, and dates.
“He was getting ready to leave,” said Louis.
“Looks like it.”
He gestured at the chest in my hands.
“You found something?”
“Maybe. There are marks on these skulls. I’d like someone to take a look at them, perhaps at the statue too.”
Louis removed one of the cassettes from the case, placed it in the VCR, then turned on the TV. There was nothing to be seen for a time except static, then the picture cleared. It showed an area of yellow sand and stone, across which the camera panned jerkily before coming to rest upon the partially clothed body of a young woman. She lay facedown upon the ground, and there was blood upon her back, her legs, and the once-white shorts that she wore. Her dark hair was spread across the sand like tendrils of ink in dirty water.
The young woman stirred. A male voice spoke in what sounded like Spanish.
“I think he said that she’s still alive,” said Louis.
A figure appeared in front of the camera. The cameraman moved slightly to get a better shot. A pair of expensive black boots came into view.
“No,” said another voice, in English.
The camera was pushed away, preventing it from getting a clear view of the man or the girl. It picked up a sound like a coconut cracking. Someone laughed. The cameraman recovered himself and focused once again on the girl. There was blood flowing across the sand around her head.
“Puta.” It was the first voice again.
Whore.
The tape went blank for a moment, then resumed. This time, the girl had yellow highlights in her dark hair, but the surroundings were similar: sand and rocks. A bug stalked across a smear of blood close by her mouth, the only part of her face that was visible beneath her hair. A hand reached out, sweeping the hair back so that the cameraman could get a better view of her, then that section ended, and a new one began, with another dead girl, this one naked on a rock.
Louis fast-forwarded the tape. I lost track of the number of women. When he was done, he inserted the second cassette and did the same. Once or twice, a girl with darker skin appeared, and he stopped the image, examining it closely before moving on. All of the women were Hispanic.
“I’m going to call the cops,” I told him.
“Not yet. This guy ain’t gonna leave this shit here for just anyone to find. He’ll come back for it, and soon. If you’re right about being watched in the alley, then whoever lives here could be outside right now. I say we wait.”
I thought about what I was going to say to him before I opened my mouth. Rachel, had she been present to witness it, might have considered this progress on my part.
“Louis, we don’t have time to wait around. The cops can do surveillance better than we can. This guy is a link, but maybe we can pick up the chain farther on. The longer we stay still, the more the chances diminish of finding Alice before something bad happens to her.”
I’ve seen people, even experienced cops, fall into the trap of using the past tense when talking about a missing person. That’s why, sometimes, it pays to work out in your head what you’re planning to say before the words start spilling out of your mouth.
I gently lifted the box I was holding. “Stay here for a while longer, see what else you can find. If I can’t get back here first, I’ll call you and give you time to get out before I talk to the cops.”
∗ ∗ ∗
Garcia sat in his car, a yellow Toyota, and watched the men enter his apartment. He guessed that the pimp was smarter than he had appeared to be, because there was no other way that they could have found his base so quickly. The pimp had followed someone to Garcia, probably in an effort to gain some room for maneuver in case his betrayal of the girl rebounded on him. Garcia was furious. A day or two later and the apartment would have been empty, its occupant gone. There was much in those rooms that was valuable to Garcia. He wanted it back. Yet Brightwell’s instructions had been clear: follow them and find out where they go, but don’t hurt them or attempt to engage them. If they separated, he was to stay with the man in the leather jacket, the one who had lingered in the alleyway as though aware of their presence. The fat man had appeared distracted as he left Garcia, but also strangely excited. Garcia knew better than to ask him why.
Don’t hurt them.
But that was before Brightwell knew where they were going. Now they were in Garcia’s place, and close to what they were seeking, although they might not recognize it if they saw it. Nevertheless, if they called the police, then Garcia would become a marked man in this country just as he was back home, and he might also be at risk from the very people who were sheltering him if his exposure threatened to bring down trouble on their heads. Garcia tried to recall if there was any way of connecting Brightwell to him through whatever remained in the apartment. He didn’t believe so, but he had watched some of the cop shows on TV, and sometimes it seemed like they could perform miracles using only dust and dirt. Then he considered all of his hard work in recent months, the great effort of construction for which he had been brought to the city. This too was threatened by the presence of the visitors. If they discovered it, or decided to report whatever they found in Garcia’s apartment, then all would be undone. Garcia was proud of what had been built; it was worthy to stand alongside the Capuchin church in Rome, the church behind the Farnese Palace, even Sedlec itself.
Garcia took out his cell. Brightwell’s number was to be called only in an emergency, but Garcia figured that this qualified. He entered the digits and waited.
“They’re at my place,” he said, once the fat man answered.
“What remains?”
“Tools,” said Garcia. “Materials.”
“Anything that I should be concerned about?”
Garcia considered his options, then made his decision.
“No,” he lied.
“Then walk away.”
“I will,” Garcia lied again.
When I’m done.
He touched his fingers to the small relic that hung from a silver chain amid the hairs of his chest. It was a shard of bone, taken from the body of the woman for whom these men were searching, these trespassers on Garcia’s sacred place. Garcia had dedicated the relic to his guardian, to Santa Muerte, and now it was imbued with her spirit, her essence.
“Muertecita,” he whispered, as his anger grew. “Reza por mi.”
∗ ∗ ∗
Sarah Yeates was one of those people you needed in your life. Apart from being smart and funny, she was also a treasure trove of esoteric information, a status that was due at least in part to her work in the library of the Museum of Natural History. She was dark-haired, looked about ten years younger than her age, and had the kind of personality that scared off dumb men and forced the smart ones to think fast on their feet. I wasn’t sure what category I fell into where Sarah was concerned. I hoped I was in the second group, but I sometimes suspected that I might be included by default, and Sarah was just waiting for a vacancy to open up in the first group so she could file me there instead.
I called her at home. It took her a few rings to answer, and when she did her voice was foggy with sleep.
“Huh?” she said.
“Hello to you too.”
“Who is this?”
“Charlie Parker. Am I calling at a bad time?”
“You are if you’re trying to be funny. You do know what time it is, right?”
“Late.”
“Yeah, which is what you’ll be if you don’t have a good reason for calling me.”
“It’s important. I need to pick your brain about something.”
I heard her sigh and sink back into her pillow.
“Go on.”
“I have some items that I’ve found in an apartment. They’re human bones. Some have been made into candlesticks. There’s also a statue of some kind, constructed from human and animal remains mixed together. I found a bath of urine with bones in it, so I think someone was treating them for some reason. Pretty soon I’m going to have to call the cops and tell them what I’ve found, so I don’t have long. You’re the first person I’ve woken over this, but I expect to wake others before the night is through. Is there anyone in the museum, or even outside it, who might be able to tell me something I can use?”
Sarah was quiet for so long that I thought she’d fallen asleep again.
“Sarah?” I said.
“Jeez, you’re impatient,” she said. “Give a girl time to think.”
There were noises from the other end of the line as she got out of bed, told me to hold on, then put the phone down. I waited, hearing drawers opening and closing in the background. Eventually she came back.
“I’m not going to give you the names of anyone at the museum, because I’d kind of like to keep my job. It pays my rent, you know, and enables me to keep a telephone so dipshits who don’t even remember to send a Christmas card can call me in the dead of night asking for my help.”
“I didn’t know you were religious.”
“That’s not the point. I like presents.”
“I’ll make it up to you this year.”
“You’d better. Okay, if this runs dry, I’ll arrange for you to talk to some people in the morning, but this is the guy you need to meet anyway. You got a pen? Right, well you also have a namesake. His name is Neddo, Charles Neddo. He’s got a place down in Cortlandt Alley. The plate beside his door says he’s an antique dealer, but the front of the store is full of junk. He wouldn’t make enough out of it to feed flies if it weren’t for his sidelines.”
“Which are?”
“He deals in what collectors term ‘esoterica.’ Occult stuff, mainly, but he’s been known to sell artifacts that you don’t generally find outside of museum basements. He keeps that merchandise in a locked room behind a curtain at the back of the store. I’ve been in there, once or twice, so I know what I’m talking about. I seem to recall seeing items similar to the ones you’re talking about, although Neddo’s equivalents would be pretty old. He’s the place to start, though. He lives above the store. Go wake him up and let me get back to sleep.”
“Will he cooperate with a stranger?”
“He will if the stranger offers him something in return. Just be sure to bring along your finds. If they’re interesting to him, then you’ll learn something.”
“Thanks, Sarah.”
“Yeah, whatever. I hear you found a girlfriend. How’d that happen?”
“Good luck.”
“Yours, I think, not hers. Don’t forget my present.”
Then she hung up.
∗ ∗ ∗
Louis moved through the unfinished floor, framed by doorways and lit by moonlight, until he came at last to the window. The window did not look onto the street. Instead, it showed Louis the dimly lit interior of a white-tiled room. In the center of the room, over a drain in the sloped floor, a chair had been fixed. There were leather restraints on the arms and the legs.
Louis opened the door and entered the white room. A shape moved to his left, and he almost fired at it before he saw his own reflection in the two-way glass. He knelt down by the drain. The floor, the drain, all were clean. Even the chair had been scrubbed, the grain cleansed of any trace of those who had occupied it. He smelled disinfectant and bleach. His gloved fingers touched the wood of the armrest, then gripped it tightly.
Not here, he thought. Don’t let her life have ended here.
∗ ∗ ∗
Cortlandt Alley was a monkey puzzle of fire escapes and hanging wires. Neddo’s storefront was black, and the only clue to his business was a small brass plate on the brickwork with the words NEDDO ANTIQUES. A black cast-iron screen protected the glass, but the interior was concealed by gray drapes that had not been moved in a very long time, and the whole storefront looked like it had recently been sprayed with dust. To the left of the glass was a black steel door with an intercom beside it, inset with a camera lens. The windows above were all dark.
I had seen no trace of anyone watching the apartment building when I left. Angel covered me from the door as I went to my car, and I took the most circuitous route that I could to Manhattan. Once or twice, I thought I saw a beat-up yellow Toyota a couple of cars behind me, but it was gone by the time I got to Cortlandt Alley.
I pressed the button on the intercom. It was answered within seconds by a man, and he didn’t sound like he’d just been woken up.
“I’m looking for Charles Neddo,” I said.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Parker. I’m a private investigator.”
“It’s a little late to be calling, isn’t it?”
“It’s important.”
“How important?”
The alley was empty, and I could see no one on the street. I took the statue from the bag and, carefully holding it by its plinth, displayed it before the lens.
“This important,” I said.
I juggled the statue, found my wallet, and flipped it open.
Nothing happened for a time, then the voice said: “Wait there.”
He took his time. Any longer and I could have put down roots. Eventually, I heard the sound of a key in the lock and bolts being drawn back. The door opened and a man stood before me, segmented by a series of strong security chains. He was late middle-aged, with pointed tufts of gray hair sticking up from his skull that gave him the appearance of an ageing punk. His eyes were very small and round, and his mouth was set in a plump scowl. He wore a bright green robe that seemed to have trouble stretching all the way around his body. Beneath it I could see black trousers and a white shirt, wrinkled but clean.
“Your identification again, please,” he said. “I want to be sure.”
I handed him my license.
“Maine,” he said. “There are some good stores in Maine.”
“You mean L.L. Bean?”
The scowl deepened.
“I was talking about antiques. Well, I suppose you’d better come in. We can’t have you standing around in the dead of night.”
He partially closed the door, undid the chains, then stepped aside to let me enter. Inside, a flight of worn steps led up to what I assumed were Neddo’s living quarters, while to the right a door gave access to the store itself. It was through this door that Neddo led me, past glass display cases filled with antique silver, between rows of battered chairs and scuffed tables, until we came to a small back room furnished with a telephone, a huge gray filing cabinet that looked like it belonged in a Soviet bureaucrat’s office, and a desk lit by a lamp with an adjustable arm and a magnifying glass fitted halfway down its length. A curtain at the rear of the office had been pulled across almost far enough to conceal the door behind it.
Neddo sat down at the desk and removed a pair of glasses from the pocket of his dressing gown.
“Give it to me,” he said.
I placed the statue on a plinth, then removed the skulls and laid them at either side of it. Neddo barely glanced at the skulls. Instead, his attention was focused on the bone sculpture. He didn’t touch it directly, instead using the plinth to turn it while employing a large magnifying glass to peruse it in great detail. He did not speak throughout his examination. At last he pushed it away and removed his glasses.
“What made you think I’d be interested in this?” he said. He was trying very hard to remain poker-faced, but his hands were trembling.
“Shouldn’t you have asked me that before you invited me in? The fact that I’m here in your office kind of answers your question for you.”
Neddo grunted. “Let me rephrase it, then: who led you to believe that I might be interested in such an item?”
“Sarah Yeates. She works at the Museum of Natural History.”
“The librarian? A bright girl. I greatly enjoyed her occasional visits.”
The scowl on Neddo’s face relaxed slightly, and his little eyes grew animated. Judging by his words, it was clear that Sarah didn’t come around so much anymore, and from the expression on his face—one of mingled lust and regret—I was pretty sure why Sarah now kept her distance from him.
“Do you always work so late?” he said.
“I could ask you the same question.”
“I don’t sleep very much. I am troubled by insomnia.”
He slipped on a pair of plastic gloves and turned his attention to the skulls. I noticed that he handled them delicately, almost respectfully, as though fearing to commit some desecration on the remains. It was hard to think of anything worse than what had already been done, but then I was no expert. The pelvic bone upon which the skull rested jutted out slightly from beneath the jaw, like an ossified tongue. Neddo laid it on a piece of black velvet and adjusted the lamp so that the skull shone.
“Where did you get these?”
“In an apartment.”
“There were others like this?”
I didn’t know how much to tell him. My hesitation gave me away.
“I’m guessing that there were, since you seem reluctant to answer. Never mind. Tell me, how exactly were these skulls placed when you found them?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Were they arranged in a particular way? Were they resting on anything else?”
I thought about the question.
“There were four bones to one side of the statue and between the skulls, piled one on top of the other. They were curved. They looked like sections of hip. Behind it was a length of vertebrae, probably from the base of a spine.”
Neddo nodded.
“It was incomplete.”
“You’ve seen something like this before?”
Neddo lifted the skull and gazed into the empty sockets of its eyes.
“Oh yes,” he said softly.
He turned to me.
“Don’t you think that there’s something beautiful about it, Mr. Parker? Don’t you find edifying the idea that someone would take bones and use them to create a piece of art?”
“No,” I said, with more force than I should have used.
Neddo looked at me over the tops of his glasses.
“And why is that?”
“I’ve met people before who tried to make art out of bone and blood. I didn’t much care for them.”
Neddo waved a hand in dismissal. “Nonsense,” he said. “I don’t know what manner of men you’re speaking of but—”
“Faulkner,” I said.
Neddo stopped talking. It was a guess, nothing more, but anyone who was interested in such matters could not help but know of the Reverend Faulkner, and perhaps also of others whom I had encountered. I needed Neddo’s help, and if that meant dangling the promise of revelations before him, then I was content to do that.
“Yes,” he said, after a time, and now he seemed to be looking at me with renewed interest. “Yes, the Reverend Faulkner was such an individual. You met him? Wait, wait, you’re the one, aren’t you? You’re the detective who found him? Yes, I remember now. Faulkner vanished.”
“So they say.”
Neddo was now rigid with excitement.
“Then you saw it? You saw the book?”
“I saw it. There was no beauty to it. He made it from skin and bone. People died for its creation.”
Neddo shook his head. “Still, I would give a great deal to look upon it. Whatever you may say or feel about him, he was a part of a tradition. The book did not exist in isolation. There were others like it: not so ornate, perhaps, or so ambitious in their construction, but the raw materials remain the same, and such anthropodermic bindings are sought after items among collectors of a certain mien.”
“Anthropodermic?”
“Bindings made of human skin,” said Neddo, matter-of-factly. “The Library of Congress holds a copy of the Scrutinium Scripturarum, printed in Strasbourg some time before 1470. It was presented to the library by one Dr. Vollbehr, who noted that its wooden boards had been covered in human skin during the nineteenth century. It is claimed also that the Harvard Law Library’s second volume of Juan Gutierrez’s Practicarum Quaestionum Circa Leges Regias Hispaniae Liber Secundus from the seventeenth century is similarly bound with the skin of one Jonas Wright, although the identity of the gentleman remains in question. Then there is the Boston Athenaeum’s copy of The Highwayman by James Allen, or George Walton, as the scoundrel was also known. A most unusual item. Upon Allen’s death, a section of his epidermis was removed and tanned to look like deerskin, then used to bind a copy of his own book, which was then presented to one John Fenno Jr., who had narrowly escaped death at Allen’s hands during a robbery. That I have seen, although I can’t vouch for any of the others. I seem to recall that it had a most unusual smell. . . .
“So you see that, regardless of any feelings of disgust or animosity you may have for the Reverend Faulkner, he was by no means unique in his efforts. Unpleasant, perhaps, and probably homicidal, but an artist of sorts nevertheless. Which brings us to this item.”
He placed it back upon the velvet once again.
“The person who made this was also working in a tradition: that of using human remains as ornamentation, or memento mori, if you prefer. You know what ‘mem—’ ”
He stopped. He looked almost embarrassed.
“Of course you do. I’m sorry. Now that you’ve mentioned Faulkner, I recall the rest, and the other one. Terrible, just terrible.”
And yet, beneath the veneer of sympathy, I could see his fascination bubble, and I knew that, if he could, he would have asked me about it all: Faulkner, the book, the Traveling Man. The chance would never come his way again, and his frustration was almost palpable.
“Where was I?” he said. “Yes, bones as ornamentation . . .”
And so Neddo began to speak, and I listened and learned from him.
∗ ∗ ∗
In medieval times, the word “church” referred not merely to the building itself, but to the area around it, including the “chimiter” or cemetery. Processions and services were sometimes held within the courtyard, or atrium, of the church, and similarly, when it came to the disposal of the bodies of the dead, people were buried within the main building, against its walls, even under the rain spouts, or sub stillicidio as it was termed, as the rainwater was adjudged to have received the sanctity of the church while running down its roof and walls. “Cemetery” usually meant the outer church area, the atrium in Latin, or aitre in French. But the French also had another word for aitre: the charnier, or charnel house. It came to mean a particular part of the cemetery, namely the galleries along the churchyard, above which were placed ossuaries.
Thus, as Neddo explained it, a churchyard in the Middle Ages typically had four sides, of which the church itself generally formed one, with the three remaining walls decorated with arcades or porticoes in which the bodies of the dead were placed, rather like the cloisters of a monastery (which themselves served as cemeteries for the monks). Above the porticoes, the skulls and limbs of the dead would be stored once they had dried out sufficiently, frequently arranged in artistic compositions. Most of the bones came from the fosses aux pauvres, the great common graves of the poor in the center of the atrium. These were little more than ditches, thirty feet deep and fifteen or twenty feet across, into which the dead were cast sewn up in their shrouds, sometimes as many as fifteen hundred in a single pit covered by a thin layer of dirt, their remains easy prey for wolves and the grave robbers who supplied the anatomists. The soil was so putrefying that bodies quickly rotted, and it was said of some common graves, such as Les Innocents in Paris and Alyscamps in the Alps, that they could consume a body in as few as nine days, a quality regarded as miraculous. As one ditch filled, another, older one was opened up and emptied of its bones, which were then put to use in the ossuaries. Even the remains of the wealthy were pressed into service, although they were first buried in the church building, typically interred in the dirt beneath its flagstones. Up to the seventeenth century, it mattered little to most people where their bones ended up just as long as they remained in the vicinity of the church, so it was common to see human remains in the galleries of the charnels, or the church porch, even in small chapels specially designed for the purpose.
“Churches and crypts decorated in such a manner were thus not uncommon,” concluded Neddo, “but the model for this construction is most particular, I think: Sedlec, in the Czech Republic.”
His fingers traced the contours of the skull, then inserted themselves into the gap at the base of the head so that he could touch the cavity within. As I watched, his body grew tense. He stole a glance at me, but I pretended not to notice. I picked up a silver scalpel with a bone handle and proceeded to examine it, watching in the blade as Neddo turned the skull upside down and allowed the lamplight to illuminate what was inside. While his attention was distracted, I drew aside the curtain at the back of the office.
“You have to go now,” I heard him say, and his tone had changed. Interest and curiosity had been replaced by alarm.
The door behind the curtain was closed, but not locked. I opened it. From behind me I heard Neddo give a shout, but he was too late. I was already inside.
The room was tiny, barely the size of a closet, and lit by a pair of red bulbs inset into the wall. Four skulls sat in a neat line beside a sink that smelled strongly of cleaning products. There were more bones on shelves lining the room, sorted according to size and the area of the skeleton from which they had come. I saw pieces of flesh suspended in glass jars: hands, feet, lungs, a heart. Seven containers of yellowing liquid stood in a small glass cabinet, apparently specially constructed to hold them. Each held a fetus in varying stages of development, the last jar exhibiting a child that appeared fully formed to my eye.
Elsewhere there were picture frames made from femurs; an array of flutes of different sizes constructed from hollowed-out bones; even a chair built from human remains, with a red velvet cushion at its heart like a slab of raw meat. I saw crude candlesticks and crosses, and a deformed skull made monstrous by some terrible disorder of the body that had caused cauliflowerlike growths to explode from the forehead.
“You must leave,” said Neddo. He was panicked, although I didn’t know whether that was due to the fact that I had entered his storeroom or because of what he had felt and seen in the interior of the skull. “You shouldn’t be here. There’s nothing more that I can tell you.”
“You haven’t told me anything at all,” I said.
“Take everything to the museum in the morning. Take all of it to the police, if you wish, but I can’t help you any further.”
I picked up one of the skulls from beside the sink.
“Put that down,” said Neddo.
I turned the skull in my hand. It had a neat hole low down, close to where the vertebrae would once have connected to it. I could see similar holes in the other skulls. They were execution shots.
“You must do well when there are revivals of Hamlet,” I said.
I let the skull rest on my palm.
“Alas, Poor Yorick. A fellow of infinite jest, as long as you understood a little Chinese.”
I showed him the hole in the skull.
“China is where these skulls came from, right? There aren’t too many other places where people get executed so neatly. Who do you think paid for the bullet, Mr. Neddo? Isn’t that how it works in China? You get driven in a truck to a football stadium, then someone shoots you in the head and sends the bill to your relatives? Except these poor souls probably didn’t have any relatives to claim them, so some enterprising individuals took it upon themselves to sell their remains. Maybe they first harvested the liver, the kidneys, even the heart, then stripped the flesh from the bones and offered the rest to you, or someone like you. There must be a law against trading in the remains of executed prisoners, don’t you think?”
Neddo took the skull from my hand and returned it to its place beside the others.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. It sounded hollow.
“Tell me about what I brought, or I’ll inform some people of what you have here,” I said. “Your life will become very difficult as a result, I guarantee it.”
Neddo stepped out of the closet doorway and returned to his desk.
“You knew it was there, didn’t you, the mark inside the skull?” he said.
“I felt it with my fingertips, just like you did. What is it?”
Neddo appeared to be growing smaller as I watched, deflating in his chair. Even his robe suddenly seemed to fit him less snugly.
“The numbers inside the first skull indicate that its origins were recorded,” he said. “It may have come from a body donated to medical science, or from an old museum display. In any event, it was originally legitimately acquired. The second skull bears no such number, only the mark. There are others who can tell you more than I can about it. I do know that it is very inadvisable to become involved with the individuals responsible for making it. They call themselves ‘Believers.’ ”
“Why was it marked?”
He answered my question with another.
“How old do you think that skull is, Mr. Parker?”
I drew closer to the desk. The skull looked battered and slightly yellowed.
“I don’t know. Decades, maybe?”
Neddo shook his head.
“Months, perhaps even weeks. It has been artificially aged, run through dirt and sand, then soaked in a preparation of urine. You can probably smell it on your fingers.”
I decided not to check.
“Where did it come from?”
He shrugged. “It looks Caucasian, probably male. There are no obvious signs of injury, but that means little. It could have come from a mortuary, I suppose, or a hospital, except that, as you seem to have surmised from the additions to my storeroom, human remains are hard to acquire in this country. Most of them, apart from the ones donated to medical science, have to be purchased from elsewhere. Eastern Europe was a good source, for a time, but it is now more difficult to obtain unregistered cadavers in such countries. China, as you’ve gathered, is less particular, but there are problems with the provenance of such remains, and they are expensive to obtain. There are few other options, apart from the obvious.”
“Such as supplying your own.”
“Yes.”
“Killing.”
“Yes.”
“Is that what that mark means?”
“I believe so.”
I asked if he had a camera, and he produced a dusty Kodak instant from a drawer in his desk. I took about five photographs of the outside of the skull, and three or four of its interior, adjusting the distance each time in the hope that the mark would come out clearly in at least one of them. In the end, I got two good images, once the photographs had developed on the desk before us.
“Have you ever met any of these ‘Believers’?” I said.
Neddo squirmed in his seat. “I meet a great many distinctive people in the course of my business. One might go so far as to say that some of them are sinister, even actively unpleasant. So, yes, I have met Believers.”
“How do you know?”
Neddo pointed at the sleeve of his gown, about an inch above his wrist.
“They bear the grapnel mark here.”
“A tattoo?”
“No,” said Neddo. “They burn it into their flesh.”
“Did you get any names?”
“No.”
“Don’t they have names?”
Neddo looked positively ill.
“Oh, they all have names, the worst of them anyway.”
His words seemed familiar to me. I tried to remember where I had heard them before.
They all have names.
But Neddo had already moved on.
“Others have asked about them, though, in the relatively recent past. I was visited by an agent of the FBI, perhaps a year ago. He wanted to know if I’d received any suspicious or unusual orders relating to arcana, particularly bones or bone sculpture, or ornate vellum. I told him that all such orders were unusual, and he threatened me in much the same way that you have just done. A raid upon my premises by government agents would have been both inconvenient and embarrassing to me, and potentially ruinous if it led to criminal charges. I told him what I told you. He was unsatisfied, but I remain in business.”
“Do you remember the agent’s name?”
“Bosworth. Philip Bosworth. To be honest, had he not shown me his identification, I would have taken him for an accountant, or a clerk in a law office. He looked a little fragile for an FBI man. Nevertheless, the range of his knowledge was most impressive. He returned to clarify some details on another occasion, and I confess I enjoyed the process of mutual discovery that ensued.”
Once again, I was aware of an undertone to Neddo’s words, an almost sexual pleasure in the exploration of such subjects and material. The “process of mutual discovery”? I just hoped that Bosworth had bought him dinner first, and that the encounters with Neddo had brought him more satisfaction than my own. Neddo was as slippery as an eel in a bucket of Vaseline, and every useful word that he spoke came wrapped in layers of obfuscation. It was clear that he knew more than he was telling, but he would only answer a direct question, and the replies came unadorned with any additional information.
“Tell me about the statue,” I said.
Neddo’s hands began to tremble again.
“An interesting construction. I should like more time to study it.”
“You want me to leave it here? I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Neddo shrugged and sighed. “No matter. It is worthless, a copy of something far more ancient.”
“Go on.”
“It is a version of a larger bone sculpture, reputedly eight or nine feet in height. The original has been lost for a very long time, although it was created in Sedlec in the fifteenth century, crafted from bones contained in its ossuary.”
“You said that the bone candleholders were also replicas of originals from Sedlec. It sounds like someone has a fixation.”
“Sedlec is an unusual place, and the original bone statue is an unusual piece, assuming it exists at all and is not simply a myth. Since no one has ever seen it, its precise nature is open to speculation, but most interested parties are in agreement on its appearance. The statue you have brought with you is probably as accurate a representation as I have ever seen. I have examined only sketches and illustrations before, and a great deal of effort has gone into this piece. I should like to meet whoever is responsible for its construction.”
“So would I,” I said. “What was the purpose of the original? Why was it made?”
“Versions upon versions,” said Neddo. “Your sculpture is a miniature of another, also made in bone. That larger bone statue, though, is itself a representation, although the model for its construction is made of silver, and thus extremely valuable. Like this one, it is a depiction of a metamorphosis. It is known as the Black Angel.”
“A metamorphosis of what kind?”
“A transformation from man to angel, or man to demon to be more accurate, which brings us to the point upon which opinions differ. Clearly, the Black Angel would be a considerable boon to any private collection simply for its intrinsic value, but that is not why it has been so avidly sought. There are those who believe that the silver original is, in effect, a kind of prison, that it is not a depiction of a being transforming, but the thing itself; that a monk named Erdric confronted Immael, a fallen angel in human form, at Sedlec, and that in the course of the conflict between them Immael fell into a vat of molten silver just as his true form was in the process of being revealed. Silver is supposedly the bane of such beings, and Immael was unable to free himself from it once he had become immersed. Erdric ordered that the silver be slowly cooled, and the residue poured from the vat. What remained was the Black Angel: Immael’s form, shrouded in silver. The monks hid it, unable to destroy what lay within but fearful of allowing the statue to fall into the hands of those who might wish to free the thing inside, or use it to draw evil men to themselves. Since then, it has remained hidden, having been moved from Sedlec shortly before the monastery’s destruction in the fifteenth century. Its whereabouts were concealed in a series of coded references contained in a map. The map was then torn into fragments, and dispersed to Cistercian monasteries throughout Europe.
“Since then, myth, speculation, superstition, and perhaps even a grain of truth have all combined to create an object that has become increasingly fascinating over the space of half a millennium. The bone version of the statue was created almost contemporaneously, although why I cannot say. It was, perhaps, merely a way of reminding the community of Sedlec of what had occurred, and of the reality of evil in this world. It went missing at the same time as the silver statue, presumably to save it from the depredations of war, for Sedlec was attacked and destroyed early in the fifteenth century.”
“The Believers, are they among those searching for it?”
“Yes, more than any others.”
“You seem to know a lot about it.”
“And I don’t even consider myself to be an expert.”
“Then who is?”
“There is an auction house in Boston, the House of Stern, run by a woman named Claudia Stern. She specializes in the sale of arcana and has a particular knowledge of the Black Angel and the myths associated with it.”
“And why is that?”
“Because she claims to be in possession of one of the map fragments, and is due to auction it next week. The object is controversial. It is believed to have been uncovered by a treasure seeker named Mordant, who found it beneath a flagstone in Sedlec some weeks ago. Mordant died in the church, apparently while trying to flee with the fragment.
“Or, more precisely, I suspect, while trying to flee from someone.”
∗ ∗ ∗
What if?
The words had haunted Mordant for so long. He was cleverer than many of his breed, and warier too. He was constantly seeking the greater glory, the finer prize, disdaining even to trouble himself with the search for meaner rewards. Laws meant little to him: laws were for the living, and Mordant dealt exclusively with the dead. To this end, he had spent many years contemplating the mystery of Sedlec, poring again and again over myths of dark places, and of what might once have been concealed within them. As was, so yet might be.
What if?
Now he was within the ossuary itself, its alarm system overridden using a pair of clips and a length of wire, the air impossibly cold as he descended the stairs into the heart of the construct. He was surrounded by bones, by the partial remains of thousands of human beings, but this did not trouble him as much as it might have disturbed a more sensitive soul. Mordant was not a superstitious man, yet even he had to admit to a nagging sense of transgression in this place. Curiously, it was the sight of his exhalations made visible that made him uneasy, as though a presence were drawing his very life force from him, draining him slowly, breath by breath.
What if?
He walked between pyramids of skulls, beneath great traceries of vertebrae and garlands of fibulae, until he came to the small altar. He dropped a black canvas bag onto the floor. It jangled weightily when it landed. He withdrew a heavy, pointed hammer from within, and set to work on the edges of a stone built into the floor, the shadow of the crucifix above falling upon him as moonlight filtered through the window behind.
What if?
He broke through the mortar, and saw that a few more taps would expose a gap large enough to accommodate the crowbar. So lost was he is in his work that he did not hear the approach from behind, and it was not until a faint musty smell came to his nostrils that he paused and turned, still on his knees. He looked up, and he was no longer alone.
What if?
Mordant raised himself slightly, almost apologetically, as though to indicate that there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for his presence in this place, and for the desecration he was committing, but as soon as he felt certain of his leverage he pushed himself forward and struck out with the flat of the hammer. He missed his target, but managed to clear himself a space through which he could see the steps. Hands grasped for him, but he was slick and fast and determined to escape. His blows were connecting now. He was almost clear. He reached the steps and ascended, his sight fixed on the door.
Mordant registered the presence to his right just a second too late. It emerged from the shadows, striking a blow that caught Mordant on the Adam’s apple and pushed him back to the very edge of the stairway. For a moment, he teetered on the edge of the top step, his arms swaying in an effort to steady himself, before he fell backward, tumbling head over heels.
What if . . . ?
And Mordant’s neck broke on the last step.
∗ ∗ ∗
It was always cold in the ossuary at Sedlec, which was why the old woman had wrapped herself up warm. A ring of keys dangled from her right hand as she followed the path to Santini-Aichel’s door. The care of this place had been in her family for generations, and its upkeep was supported by the books and cards sold from a small table by the door, and by the admission charge levied on those visitors who made the effort to come there. Now, as she approached, she saw that the door was ajar. There was a smear of blood upon the first of the stones within. Her hand rose to her mouth, and she halted at the periphery. Such a thing as this had never been known before: the ossuary was a sacred place, and had been left untouched for centuries.
She entered slowly, fearful of what she was about to see. A man’s body lay splayed before the altar, his head tilted at an unnatural angle. One of the stones beneath the crucifix had been entirely removed, and something gleamed dully in the early-morning light. The shards of one of the beautiful skull candleholders congregated at the dead man’s feet. Curiously, her first concern was not for him, but for the damage that had been caused to the ossuary. How could someone do this? Did they not realize that these were once people like them, or that there was a beauty to what had been created from their remains? She lifted a piece of the skull from the floor, rubbing it gently between her fingers, before her attention was distracted by another new addition to the ossuary.
She reached for the small silver box by the dead man’s hand. The box was unlocked. Carefully, she raised the lid. There was vellum contained within, the rolled document apparently uncorrupted. She touched it with her fingers. It felt smooth, almost slick. She lifted it out and began to unroll it. In the corner was a coat of arms: it depicted a battle-ax against the backdrop of an open book. She did not recognize it. She saw symbols, and architectural drawings, then horns, and part of an inhuman face contorted in agony. The drawing was immensely detailed, although it ended at the neck, but the old woman wanted to see no more than she had been given to witness. It was already too horrific for her eyes. She replaced the vellum in the box and rushed to get help, barely noticing that the ossuary was slightly warmer than it should have been, and that the heat was coming from the stones beneath her feet.
And in the darkness far to the west, two eyes opened suddenly in an opulent room, twin fires ignited in the night. And at the heart of one pupil, a white mote flickered with the memory of the Divine.
∗ ∗ ∗
Neddo was almost finished.
“Sometime between the discovery of the body and its removal following the arrival of the police, the fragment, which was contained in a silver box, disappeared,” he said. “Now, a similar fragment has been offered for sale through Claudia Stern. There’s no way of telling if it is the Sedlec fragment, but the Cistercian order has made clear its objections to the sale. Nevertheless, it appears to be going ahead. There will be a great deal of interest, although the auction itself will be a very private affair. Collectors of such material tend to be, um, reclusive and somewhat secretive. Their fascinations can be open to misunderstanding.”
I looked at the ephemera gathered in Neddo’s dingy store: human remains reduced to the status of ornaments. I felt an overpowering urge to be gone from this place.
“I may have more questions for you,” I said.
I took a business card from my wallet and laid it on the desk. Neddo glanced at it, but didn’t pick it up.
“I’m always here,” he replied. “Naturally, I’m curious to see where your inquiries lead you. Feel free to contact me, day or night.”
He smiled thinly.
“In fact, night is probably best.”
∗ ∗ ∗
Garcia watched the building, growing increasingly uneasy as one hour rolled by, then another. He had tried to follow the man who was of such concern to Brightwell, but he was not yet familiar with the streets of this huge city and had lost him within minutes. He believed that the man would return to his friends, and they were now Garcia’s most pressing concern, as they were still in his apartment. He had expected the police to come, but they had not. At first, it gave him hope, but now he was not so sure. They must have seen what was there. Perhaps they had even watched some of the tapes in his collection. What kind of men did not call the police in such a situation?
Garcia wanted his possessions back, and one in particular. It was important to him, but it was also one of the few items that could connect him, and the others, to the girl. Without it, the trail would be almost impossible to find.
A car pulled up, and the man got out and rang the bell to Garcia’s building. Garcia was relieved to see that he had the large wooden box in his hands. He only hoped that whatever he had removed from the apartment was still contained within it.
Minutes later, the door opened, and the Negro and his smaller companion left. Now there was only one man in the apartment, alone.
Garcia uncloaked himself from the shadows and moved toward the doorway.
∗ ∗ ∗
I made one last search of the rooms. Louis and Angel had been through the apartment again, but I wanted to be sure that nothing had been missed. When I was done with the occupied areas, I went to the white-tiled room that Louis had discovered. Its purpose was clear. While it had been thoroughly cleaned, I wondered how much work had gone into removing evidence from the pipes. They were probably new, since the room was a recent addition. If someone had bled into the drain, traces might remain.
Tins of paint, and old paintbrushes, their bristles now entirely hardened, stood on a trestle table by the far wall, alongside a pile of old paint-spattered sheets. I pulled at the pile, raising a little cloud of red dust. I examined the residue, then swept the sheets from the table. There was more brick dust on the wood, and on the floor below. I tested the wall with my hand and felt brick scrape against brick. I looked more closely and saw the brickwork was not quite even around the edges of a section perhaps eighteen inches in height. Using my fingers, I gripped the exposed edge and began moving it from left to right, shifting it until I was able to pull it forward entirely. It fell to the table, still in one piece, leaving a hole exposed. I could make out a shape inside. I knelt down and shined the flashlight upon it.
It was a human skull, mounted upon a pillar of bones around which a red velvet cloth had been partially tied. A gold-sequinned scarf covered the head, leaving only the eye sockets, the nasal cavity, and the mouth exposed. At the base of the pillar, finger bones had been placed in an approximation of the pattern of two hands, the bones adorned with cheap rings. Beside them, offerings had been placed: chocolate, and cigarettes, and a shot glass containing an amber liquid that smelled like whiskey.
A locket gleamed in the flashlight’s beam, silver against the white of the bone pillar. I used a rag to take it in my hand, then flipped open the catch. Inside there were pictures of two women. The first I did not recognize. The second was the woman named Martha, who had come to my house in search of hope for her child.
Suddenly, there was an explosion of light and sound. Wood and stone splintered close to my right arm, shards of it striking my face and blinding me in my right eye. I dropped the flashlight and fell to the floor as a small, bulky figure was briefly silhouetted in the doorless entrance before ducking back out of sight. I heard the terrible twin clicks as another round was jacked into the shotgun’s chamber and the man’s voice uttering the same words over and over again. It sounded like a prayer.
“Santa Muerte, reza por mi. Santa Muerte, reza por mi . . .”
Faintly, just above his words, I caught the sound of footsteps on the stairs below as Angel and Louis ascended, closing the trap. The gunman heard them too, because the volume of his prayers increased. I heard Louis’s voice shout, “Don’t kill him!” And then the gunman appeared again, and the shotgun roared. I was already moving when the trestle table disintegrated, one of its legs collapsing as the shooter entered the room, screaming his prayer over and over again as he came, jacking, firing, jacking, firing, the noise and the dust filling the room, clouding my nose and my eyes, creating a filthy mist that obscured details, leaving only indistinct shapes. Through my blurred vision, I saw a squat, dark form. A cloud of light and metal ignited before it, and I fired.