The Black Angel

“One more down inside,” he said. “He heard the shot and came ru

The heat inside the ossuary was intense. At first I was afraid that I was about to experience a return of the nausea that I had felt the previous day, thus confirming Louis’s worst fears about me, but when I looked at Angel and Louis, they had both begun to sweat profusely. We were surrounded by the sound of dripping water, as rivulets ran from the ceilings and walls, dropping on the exposed bones and washing like tears down the white cheeks of the dead. The body of the alarm specialist lay inside the door, already speckled with moisture.

The crypt stone had been ejected from its resting place and lay to one side of the entrance, beside which a battery-powered lamp burned. We skirted the hole, trying not to expose ourselves to anyone waiting below. I thought I could detect, however faintly, the sound of voices, then stone moving upon stone. A flight of rough steps led down into the gloom, a trace of illumination visible from an unseen light source in the crypt itself.

Angel looked at me. I looked at Angel. Louis looked at both of us.

“Great,” whispered Angel. “Just great. We should be wearing targets on our chests.”

“You’re staying up here,” I told him. “Keep to the shadows by the door. We don’t need any more of them arriving and trapping us down there.”

Angel didn’t object. In his position, I wouldn’t have objected either. Louis and I stood just out of sight of the steps. One of us would have to go first.

“What’ll it be?” I said. “Age, or beauty?”

He stepped forward and placed his foot on the first step.

“Both,” he said.

I stayed a couple of steps behind him as he descended. The floor of the ossuary, which doubled as the crypt ceiling, was two feet thick, so we were almost halfway down before we could see anything, and even then half of the crypt remained in darkness. To our left was a series of niches, each occupied by a stone tomb. All were ornately carved with coats of arms or depictions of the resurrection. To our right was a similar arrangement of tombs, except that one of the stone coffins had been overturned and its occupant’s remains spilled across the flagged floor. The bones had long since disarticulated, but I thought I could faintly see traces of the shroud in which the body had been interred. The niche, now empty, revealed a rectangular opening previously concealed by the tomb, maybe four feet high and as many feet across. I could see light filtering through the gap from behind. The voices were louder now, and the temperature had risen noticeably. It was like standing at the mouth of a furnace, waiting to be consumed by the flames.

I felt a breath of slightly cooler air at my neck, and in the same instant spun to my right, pushing Louis to one side with as much force as I could muster before I hit the floor. Something sliced through the air and impacted on one of the columns supporting the vault. I smelled a hint of perfume as Miss Zahn grunted with the shock of the crowbar’s impact upon the stone. I struck out as hard as I could with my heel and caught her on the side of the knee. Her leg buckled, and I heard her scream, but she whipped the crowbar instinctively in my direction as I tried to rise, striking me on my right elbow and sending a shock wave through my arm that paralyzed it immediately. I dropped my gun and was forced to scramble backward before I felt the wall at my back and could raise myself using my left hand. I heard a shot fired, and even though it was suppressed it still echoed loudly in the enclosed space. I couldn’t tell where Louis was until I scrambled to my feet and saw him pressed against one of the tombs, locked in close combat with Sekula. The lawyer’s gun now lay on the floor, but with his left hand he was keeping Louis’s own gun away from him while his right scratched at Louis’s face, looking for soft tissue to damage. I couldn’t intervene. Despite her pain, Miss Zahn was limping around me, looking for another opportunity to strike. She had removed her jacket to allow herself some respite from the heat, and in the course of her attempts to strike me the buttons on her black shirt had popped. A shaft of light caught her, and I saw the tattoos upon her skin. They seemed to move in the lamplight, the faces twisting and contorting, the great eyes blinking, the pupils dilating. A mouth opened, revealing small, catlike teeth. A head turned, its pug nose flattening further, as though another living being inside her had pressed itself hard against her epidermis from below, trying to force itself through to the world outside. Her whole body was a teeming gallery of grotesques, and I could not seem to draw my eyes from them. The effect was almost hypnotic, and I wondered if that was how she subdued her victims before taking them, entrancing them as she moved in for the kill.

My right arm ached, and I felt as if all the moisture was being drained from my body by the heat. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t just shoot me. I stumbled backward as Miss Zahn feinted at me. I lost my footing, and then the crowbar was moving in a great arc toward my head when a voice said, “Hey, bitch!” and a booted foot caught Miss Zahn in the jaw, breaking it with a sharp, snapping sound. Her eyes squeezed shut in shock, and in the shadowy light I thought that the faces on her body responded in turn, the eyes briefly snapping closed, the mouths opening in silent roars of agony. Miss Zahn looked to where Angel lay sideways upon the stairs, just beneath the level of the ceiling. His right foot was still outstretched, and above it he held the.45.

Miss Zahn dropped the crowbar and raised her left hand. Angel fired, and the bullet tore through the palm. She slid down the wall, leaving a trail of dark matter behind. One eye remained open, but the other was a black and red wound. She blinked once, and again all the tattooed eyes on her skin seemed to blink in unison. Then her eye closed, the painted eyelids on her body drooping slowly in turn until at last all movement ceased.

As she died, the energy seemed to leave Sekula. He sagged, giving Louis the opening that he sought. He forced the muzzle of his gun upward into the soft flesh beneath Sekula’s chin and pulled the trigger. The noise of a shot reverberated around us once again, the sound finding material expression in the dark fountain that struck the vaulted ceiling. Louis released Sekula and allowed him to crumple to the floor.

“He stopped,” said Louis, indicating Sekula. “I was under his gun, and he stopped.”

He sounded puzzled.

“He told me that he didn’t think he could kill a man,” I said. “I guess he was right.”

I sagged against the damp wall of the crypt. My arm ached badly, but I didn’t think there were any bones broken. I nodded my thanks to Angel, and he returned to his post in the ossuary itself. Beyond us lay the opening in the wall.

“After you this time,” said Louis.

I looked at the remains of Miss Zahn and Sekula.

“At least I might see the next person who attacks us,” I said.

“She had a gun,” he said, pointing at the pistol tucked into Miss Zahn’s belt. “She could have just shot you.”

“She wanted me alive,” I said.

“Why? Your charm?”

I shook my head.

“She thought I was like her, and like Brightwell.”

I stooped and passed through the gap, Louis steps behind me. We were in a long tu