He slid off the chain and opened the door.
‘Hello, my dear.’
The girl gazed up at him, eyes wary above cheeks inexpertly daubed with rouge.
‘Come in. Have you ever had champagne?’
She batted her eyelashes at him and then took out the gum she had been chewing. ‘Where shall I put this?’
Sir Andrew extended a hand to receive the sticky pink mass. ‘Come and sit down,’ he said, the nerves in his hand tingling as if he’d grasped a live wire.
The girl sat down on the sofa, her thin legs apart, and gazed at him impassively.
When the door was broken down ten minutes later, the knight of the realm was naked, as was his companion. Peter Sebastian and Arthur Bimsdale didn’t bother to conceal their disgust.
‘How can you be sure Apollyon took Rothmann with him?’ I asked as Sara drove down the deserted country road, her eye flicking on and off the location monitor. ‘He could easily have killed him in the forest.’
‘I killed his sister. He’s using Rothmann as bait to lure me out.’
‘So let him go.’
‘I can’t do that. I have a reputation to maintain.’ She glanced at me. ‘Don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of time for me to deal with you later. You’re not one of Rothmann’s pathetic devil-worshippers, are you?’
‘Your sister was into Satanism.’
That wasn’t such a smart thing to say. She gave me an armor-piercing look.
‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten what you did to Lauren,’ she said, her voice full of menace. ‘But she was my half sister, while my brother was the real thing.’
‘Who called himself the White Devil,’ I said, deciding I had nothing to lose. ‘And you call yourself the Soul Collector. You’re the pathetic devil worshippers, not me.’
There was a thud as she hit a raccoon that suddenly loomed up in the headlights.
‘I don’t worship anyone, Matt,’ Sara said, licking her lips as if there was blood on them. ‘I just terminate people for money.’
‘And gratification,’ I added, trying unsuccessfully to work some give into the rope on my wrists.
‘No,’ she said emphatically. ‘Not anymore. The excitement’s worn off.’ She looked at me. ‘Though in your case…’
I turned to the front. She had become even more frightening since I’d last seen her-stony and pale-faced, like a devil sickening on sin.
‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ Sara said, with false excitement. ‘You must have become a father again. Boy or girl?’
The words hit me like a sledgehammer. Bottling up the deaths of Karen and our son had been bad enough, but the idea of talking to my ex-lover about them was agonizing.
‘Come on,’ she said, blinking as if a large insect had just bitten her, ‘do tell.’
‘They’re dead.’
She hit the brake and the heavy vehicle screeched to a halt. ‘What did you say?’
I lowered my head. ‘You heard me.’
‘For God’s sake, what happened?’
I tried to keep silent, but I couldn’t. ‘Karen…she had to have an emergency Cesarean. They…neither of them made it.’ My eyes were damp, but I was determined I wouldn’t cry in front of Sara. ‘They think…you see, Karen and I were both…brainwashed by Rothmann and his sister. They think the drugs may have been behind what happened.’
Sara sat motionless, her hands on the wheel.
‘I’m sorry, Matt,’ she said, after a time. ‘I really am. Nobody deserves that.’
‘You fucking hypocrite. You’re going to kill me.’
‘I meant I’m sorry about Karen and the kid.’ She paused. ‘What was it, the child?’
‘A…a boy.’ I tried to remember the name we had chosen for him, but it was still gone.
She looked at me. ‘You’re going after Rothmann, too, aren’t you? They let you out of…wherever…to track the fucker down.’
I nodded, keeping my eyes off her. I felt sick. Telling my ex-lover about Karen and our son seemed the worst kind of betrayal, but I hadn’t been able to stop myself.
The Soul Collector slid the stick back into Drive and moved forward, checking the monitor. ‘Well, we’d better make sure our target doesn’t get too far ahead,’ she said, with what might once have been tenderness.
I didn’t know what to think. Working with Sara meant that Rothmann had no chance of escaping, no matter how deadly the man who had taken him was. But she had killed Quincy without an iota of compunction. After she’d dispatched Rothmann, she would treat me in exactly the same way.
At least that would send me down the shadowy road to join my named and nameless dead.
Twenty-Seven
The Master, whose wrists had been bound with rusty wire, watched the driver out of the corner of his eye. The bearded man was handling the pickup with relaxed movements, his eyes glinting in the light from the dashboard. There was a curious smell in the cab, something organic but decidedly unhealthy.
‘Where are you taking me?’
Apollyon glanced at him. ‘Need to know basis only. Don’t worry, you’ll be going to meet Lord Lucifer soon enough.’
Heinz Rothmann thought about that. When he had revived the Antichurch, he had been completely cynical about it-who worshipped the Devil in the 21st century other than needy degenerates? But gradually he had come to understand the attraction of occult knowledge, despite the fact that Adolf Hitler had ultimately discounted its power. It seemed, as in many things, that Heinrich Himmler had more imagination than his Fuhrer, with his deep interest in Teutonic lore and symbols. Since the failure of the plot against the President, Rothmann had found the Antichurch a more pressing interest than the militia of conditioned subjects he and his sister had set up.
‘I am ready to meet Our Lord whenever he desires that,’ he said devoutly.
Apollyon gave a hollow laugh. ‘Don’t be too hasty, asshole. My sister was a Mistress of Lucifer. What kind of a welcome do you think she’s preparing for you in Hell?’
Rothmann saw a way to exert pressure. ‘You shared power with a woman? There is no sanction for that in the Antigospel.’
‘Not even in the one you rewrote so your sister could wear the gargoyle mask?’
The Master wondered how Apollyon knew about that. Security in his organization had been tight until the meddler Matt Wells had intervened. Where was he now? Had the female assassin dealt with him as she had Apollyon’s sister and the negro? That would be a pity. He had hopes for the Englishman, hopes that could still be fulfilled, whatever Apollyon did.
The bearded man jabbed his elbow into Rothmann’s ribs. ‘I’m not hearing your answer, Kraut.’
‘My sister…’ Rothmann fought the pain. ‘My sister and I were twins.’
‘As if that makes a difference.’
The Master needed to divert his captor to more fertile ground. ‘Do you know who the blonde woman is?’
‘The Soul Collector? Sure I do. She kills for money.’ The bearded man turned to him. ‘Like me.’
Rothmann decided to twist the knife. ‘So she killed your sister to reduce the competition?’
Apollyon reduced speed behind an eighteen-wheeler. ‘Don’t get cute with me, shithead. You heard what the blonde bitch said-she saw Abaddon in Maine.’
‘That doesn’t seem like a reason to blow her head apart.’
‘What are you trying to say, asshole?’
‘Simply this. The Soul Collector used to be the Englishman Matt Wells’s lover. It can hardly be a coincidence that they both turned up at the barns.’
Apollyon hit the horn as the eighteen-wheeler slowed to a crawl. ‘They’re in this together?’
Rothmann kept as cool as he could. He knew that survival depended on sowing doubt in his captor’s mind. ‘Of course. This whole thing is a trap. Someone engineered it so that you and your sister would be neutralized.’ He paused. ‘Do you have any enemies, Apollyon?’
The bearded man swerved to the left and floored the gas pedal. Rothmann pressed back in his seat as he saw headlights approaching fast. At the last moment, Apollyon wrenched the wheel to the right. There was a horn blare from the other vehicle.
‘I’ve been a gun for hire for eleven years,’ the bearded man said. ‘I’ve got more enemies than your false Antichurch has got followers.’