Chapter 60

A GIFT, A CURSE

WHITECHAPEL—11:59 PM, NOVEMBER 12, 1977

He came down among the people and brought something for them. A child wrapped in the wings of murdered angels. Their blood still stained the feathers. But he had no other swaddling for the child. And the baby cared nothing for flesh and blood. It was sleeping in the softness and the warmth of white feathers.

He came to a place where he could leave the child. Cradling the baby in his arms, he gazed around. He listened. Music boomed. Car horns blared. People shouted.

The middle of the night, he thought, and this place is still alive.

But behind the noises, he heard other sounds. Past voices calling out. Forgotten stories begging to be told. Old wounds opening up. Ancient hatreds rising again.

This place had a memory, and it was screaming to be heard.

He smelled the air, and all the earth’s odors came to him—death, decay, blood, pain . . .

They filled him, and he loved them all, including the great evil that lay buried under the concrete, the steel, the asphalt, and the glass.

In fact, he adored that evil more than anything.

Thinking of it warmed him. It made him feel love.

But even love dies.

A father must sacrifice his son.

There has to be a judgment, in the end.

And that end was getting closer.

There had been too much savagery. The game was tedious by now. The rules had to be changed.

He looked at the baby and touched its lips. The infant snorted. It slept deeply, swathed in blood-soaked, heavenly feathers.

He walked towards the door of the flat and crouched. As he eased the baby on to the concrete, he said, “One day I’ll be back for you, and then you’ll be ready. I will come for you in your darkest place. I will salvage you and give you a chance to save yourself for I am the redeemer and the judge.”

Gently, he removed the angel-skin wrapping from the child and left it naked on the doorstep. The cold made the baby writhe. It started to come awake. Already, its pink flesh took on a blue tint. The infant whimpered.

The one who had brought the child bundled up the angels’ wings and tucked them under his arm.

He gazed at the wriggling baby and smiled.

The baby opened its eyes and started to cry, suffering in the low temperatures.

By then his deliverer was leaving and going further and further away. But however great the distance between them, he could still see into the baby’s newly opened eyes, one brown, one blue, both staring up towards his departing father.

 

WHITECHAPEL—12:01 AM, FEBRUARY 28, 2011

Charlie Faultless came awake quickly. His eyes snapped open, and he sat up. He looked around, his gaze skimming the surroundings. He was lying on someone’s doorstep, on cold, hard concrete. He was naked and shivering. He tried to remember how he got there, and at first thought he’d been out and got drunk. But then it all came back to him. And it made him want to scream.