‘Do you even know who it is that you serve?’ he said.
‘Do you?’
One corner of the Collector’s mouth raised itself in a smile. ‘I settle accounts. I collect debts.’
‘But for whom?’
‘I will not name Him here, in the presence of this… thing.’
His fingers unfolded themselves as he indicated the box. He reached into a pocket and produced a gunmetal cigarette case and a matchbook. ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s a shame. It seems that I am set to impose still further on your hospitality.’
The Collector put a cigarette between his lips, and struck the match. Soon, a foul-smelling gray smoke curled toward the ceiling. Herod’s face tightened in distaste.
‘I have them specially made,’ said the Collector. ‘I used to smoke generic brands, but I found their ubiquity crass. If I’m going to poison myself, I’d prefer to do so with a modicum of class.’
‘How admirable,’ said Herod. ‘Do you mind if I ask where you plan to put the ash?’
‘Oh, these are slow burning,’ said the Collector. ‘By the time it becomes an issue, you’ll already be dead.’
The atmosphere in the room changed. Some of the oxygen seemed to be sucked from it, and I heard a high-pitched whine in my head.
‘By your hand, or by your friend’s?’ said Herod softly.
‘Neither.’
Herod looked puzzled, but before he could pursue the matter further the Collector spoke again.
‘What name does he go by, the one whom you serve?’
Herod shifted slightly in his chair.
‘I know him as the Captain,’ he replied, ‘but he has many names.’
‘I’m sure. The Captain. The One Who Waits Behind the Glass. Mr. Goodkind. It hardly matters, does it? He is so old that he has no name of his own. They are all the constructs of others.’
The Collector’s right hand moved gently, taking in the room, smoke trailing from his fingers.
‘No mirrors here. No reflective surfaces. One might think you were tiring of his presence. It must be wearying, I admit. All of that anger, all of that need. To work with it in your head would be next to impossible.’ He leaned forward and tapped the box. ‘And now he wants this opened, to add a little more chaos to an already troubled world. Well, no sense in disappointing him, is there?’
The Collector rose. He placed his cigarette carefully on the arm of the chair, then leaned over the desk and began moving his fingers along the locking mechanisms, the tips dexterously exploring the spider legs, the twisted bodies, the gaping mouths. He did not look at the box as he did so. Instead, his eyes never left Herod’s.
‘What are you doing?’ said Herod. ‘These are complex mechanisms. They need to be examined. Their order needs to be established…’
But even as he spoke, a series of clicks and whirrs began to sound inside the box. Still the Collector’s fingers moved, and as they did so the mechanical noises were drowned out by another. It was a whispering that seemed to fill the room, rising in terrible joy, voices clambering over one another like insects in a nest. One lid opened, then another and another. A shadow appeared against one of the bookcases, hunched and horned, and quickly it was joined by two others, a prelude to what was about to be revealed.
‘Stop!’ I said. ‘You can’t do this!’ I moved to my right, so that the Collector could see me, and I shifted the muzzle of the gun from Herod to him. ‘Don’t open that box.’
The Collector lifted his hands in the air, not in a gesture of surrender, but of display, like a magician at the end of a particularly fine conjuring act.
‘Too late,’ he said.
And the final lid sprang open.
For a moment, all was still in the room. The shadows on the wall ceased to move, and what had for so long been without substance assumed concrete form. The Collector remained standing, his hands still raised, a conductor waiting for the baton to be placed between his fingers so that the symphony might begin. Herod stared into the box, and his face was illuminated by a cold white light, like sunlight reflected from snow. His expression changed, altering from fear to wonder at what was revealed to him, but concealed from the Collector, and from me.
And then Herod understood, and he was lost.
The Collector spun away, diving toward me in the same movement, forcing me to the ground, yet I was compelled to look. I saw a black back curved like a bow, its skin distorted and torn by the eruption of sharp spinal bones. I saw a head that was too large for the torso that supported it, the neck lost in folds of flesh, the top of its skull a fantasy of twisted yellow bones like the roots of an ancient tree stripped of bark. I saw yellow eyes glitter. I saw dark nails. I saw sharp teeth. One head became two, then three. Two descended on Herod, but one turned to me-
Then the Collector’s fingers were pressing into the back of my head, forcing my face to the floor.
‘Don’t look,’ he said. ‘Close your eyes. Close your eyes, and pray.’
There was no sound from Herod. That was what struck me most. He was silent as they worked on him, and though I was tempted to look again, I did not, not even when the Collector’s grip upon me eased, and I felt him stand. I heard a series of mechanical clicks, and the Collector said, ‘It is done.’
Only then did I open my eyes.
Herod sat slumped in his chair, his head tilted back, his eyes and mouth open. He was dead, but appeared uninjured except for a thin trickle of blood that ran from his left ear, and the fact that every capillary in his eyes had exploded, turning his corneas red. The box on his desk was closed once more, and I heard the whispering return, now filled with rage like a hive of bees shaken by an outside force.
The Collector picked up his cigarette from the arm of his chair. A long finger of ash hung from the tip, like a building about to fall. He tapped it into Herod’s open mouth, then returned the cigarette to his own mouth and drew lengthily upon it.
‘If you’re going to taunt the dogs, always check the length of the chain,’ he said. He picked up the box and tucked it under his arm.
‘You’re taking it?’ I said.
‘Temporarily. It’s not mine to keep.’
He wandered over to one of the shelves and removed a tiny ivory statue of a female demon. It looked oriental, but I was no expert.
‘A souvenir,’ he said, ‘to add to my collection. Now, I have one more task to accomplish. Let me introduce you to someone…’
We stood in front of the ornate mirror outside Herod’s study. At first, there was only my reflection and that of the Collector, but in time we were joined by a third. Initially, it seemed little more than a blur, dark gray absences where eyes and a mouth should have been, but then it formed itself into recognizable features.
It was the face of Susan, my dead wife, but with holes burnt into her skin where her eyes once were. Then, like a rattle being shaken, the face blurred again, and it was Jennifer, my murdered daughter, but also eyeless, her mouth filled with biting insects. More faces now, enemies from the past, changing faster and faster: the Traveling Man, the one who had torn Susan and Jennifer apart; the killer of women, Caleb Kyle; Pudd, his face wreathed in old spider webs; and Brightwelclass="underline" the demon Brightwell, the goiter on his neck swollen like a great womb of blood.
For he was in all of them, and they were all of him.
Finally, there was just the figure of a man, one in his early forties, of a little more than average height. There was gray seeping into his dark hair, and his eyes were troubled and sad. Beside him was his twin, and next to him was the Collector. Then the Collector stepped away, the two reflections became one, and I stared back only at myself.
‘What did you feel?’ asked the Collector, and there was an uncertainty to his voice that I had not heard before. ‘What did you feel when you looked upon it?’