Cabal by Clive Barker Read Free Book Online

Boone could see clearly now, bore no visible clue to the lunacy beneath. Who would have doubted, seeing the bloodied man and the clean, which was the lunatic and which his healer? But appearances deceived. It was only the monster, the child of Midian, who actually altered its flesh to parade its true self. The rest hid behind their calm, and plotted the deaths of children.
    Decker drew a gun from the inside of his jacket.
    ‘They armed me,’ he said. ‘In case you lost control.’
    His hand trembled, but at such a distance he could scarcely miss. In moments it would all be over. The bullet would fly and he’d be dead, with so many mysteries unsolved. The wound; Midian; Decker. So many questions that he’d never answer.
    There was no other moment but now. Flinging the cloth he still held at Decker, he threw himself aside behind it. Decker fired, the shot filling the room with sound and light. By the time the cloth hit the ground Boone was at the door. As he came within a yard of it the gun’s light came again. And an instant after, the sound. And with the sound a blow to Boone’s back that threw him forward, out through the door and onto the stoop.
    Decker’s shout came with him.
    ‘He’s armed!’
    Boone heard the shadows prepare to bring him down. He raised his arms in sign of surrender; opened his mouth to protest his innocence.
    The men gathered behind their cars saw only his bloodied hands; guilt enough. They fired.
    Boone heard the bullets coming his way – two from the left, three from the right, and one from straight ahead, aimed at his heart. He had time to wonder at how slow they were, and how musical. Then they struck him: upper thigh, groin, spleen, shoulder, cheek and heart. He stood upright for several seconds; then somebody fired again, and nervous trigger fingers unleashed a second volley. Two of these shots went wide. The rest hit home: abdomen, knee, two to the chest, one to the temple. This time he fell.
    As he hit the ground he felt the wound Peloquin had given him convulse like a second heart, its presence curiously comforting in his dwindling moments.
    Somewhere nearby he heard Decker’s voice, and his footsteps approaching as he emerged from the house to peruse the body.
    ‘Got the bastard,’ somebody said.
    ‘He’s dead,’ Decker said.
    ‘No I’m not,’ Boone thought.
    Then thought no more.

PART TWO

DEATH’S A BITCH
    ‘The miraculous too is born, has its season, and dies …’
    Carmel Sands
Orthodoxies

VII

Rough Roads
1
    K nowing Boone was gone from her was bad enough, but what came after was so much worse. First, of course, there’d been that telephone call. She’d met Philip Decker only once, and didn’t recognize his voice until he identified himself.
    ‘I’ve got some bad news I’m afraid.’
    ‘You’ve found Boone.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘He’s hurt?’
    There was a pause. She knew before the silence was broken what came next.
    ‘I’m afraid he’s dead, Lori.’
    There it was, the news she’d half known was coming, because she’d been too happy, and it couldn’t last. Boone had changed her life out of all recognition. His death would do the same.
    She thanked the doctor for the kindness of telling her himself, rather than leaving the duty to the police. Then she put the phone down, and waited to believe it.
    There were those amongst her peers who said she’d never have been courted by a man like Boone if he’d been sane, meaning not that his illness made him choose blindly but that a face like his, which inspired such fawning in those susceptible to faces, would have been in the company of like beauty had the mind behind it not been unbalanced. These remarks bit deep, because in her heart of hearts she thought them true. Boone had little by way of possessions, but his face was his glory, demanding a devotion to its study that embarrassed and discomfited him. It gave him no pleasure to be stared at. Indeed Lori had more than once feared he’d scar himself in