21

The Face Under the Pillow

ANDREW HOISTED HIS overnight bag and stepped into the lift the girl had indicated. It was a tiny box, a mechanized coffin, room for only one. Riding up in it, he felt lonelier than ever. He had been removed from school. No one except his housemaster and some random government official even knew where he was. And he had left Persephone alone in a hospital, coughing blood. In your love is comprised my existence here and hereafter. But those were Byron’s words, not his . . . no, they were Harness’s words. Andrew’s head swam. The hum of the elevator became a throb. The overhead light glared. The distance between floors could not be more than ten, fifteen feet, but Andrew felt like the ride had taken twenty minutes. He leaned against the wall and tried to breathe, but the air felt heavy, oppressive. Oh no, he thought. It’s that feeling

The doors opened and he staggered forward into a darkened, hazy corridor.

Why are the lights so low? I should tell the girl at the desk

Naturally he had expected to see more of the same décor he had found in the lobby. Pink paint, particleboard trim, fuzzy red carpet. Instead he saw

I know this place

a slender corridor with hardwood floors. Three or four wood-paneled doors along the passage, with handles of black molded tin. Whitewashed walls.

He turned to his left—and reared back. He nearly bumped into the back of someone standing there. Someone in a black coat.

I’m sorry, I didn’t see you

But the words were shoved back in his throat by some force, as if the hall were filled with water and would not admit breath or sound. In the density of the place, there seemed only room for Andrew to stand rigid and watch.

The figure remained in place.

Is he frozen too? Andrew wondered.

But no—he sensed that this person’s movements were unhindered. Yet the figure did not move, because he seemed to be resting. He leaned with one hand on the wall. The shoulders heaved, as if the figure were out of breath from having climbed

I know this place

a stairwell. Back behind him. A narrow stairwell, with a wooden railing. It had a sconce, holding a candle, at the landing.

Andrew had climbed it, in his dreams.

pulled himself up by the flimsy wooden railings like climbing a mountain

And with that realization several things happened at once.

First: the figure began to move forward, down the hall.

Second: Andrew could hear again. Sound poured into his senses. Shoes on wood. Creaking, clomping. The swish of the hand on the wall. Very faint. Then the noise he feared most. The wet, unnatural breathing of the consumptive.

Hrch . . . the exhale . . .

hrr hrr hrr hrr hrr . . . the inhale.

It accompanied Harness’s footsteps like the leer of a slow and deliberate monster. Andrew felt himself follow Harness, dragged along, as if he were attached to him by a rope. He felt, along with Harness—as if they were one

not Andrew and Persephone—Andrew and Harness!

the shooting thrill of fear and excitement as he

they

stood outside one of the doors.

Oh yes the moment has finally come I am ready

His breathing troubled him. Too much excitement.

Hrr . . . hrr hrr hrr . . . hrch . . .

Harness clutched his chest. Please, not now, remain in control. He leaned against the wall, rested his head back against its cool whitewashed surface, raised his eyes, calmed his breathing. He must put aside all doubt, about whether he had the physical strength, or the moral strength, to snuff out a life. He could hear the boy inside the room! The figure that had obsessed him, as a creature, as a figment, as a little flame of pure hate like the candle that lit his room; that boy was now so close he could hear him shuffle and snivel on the other side of the wall. That alone was a miracle so singular—Harness had done it, he had found him, even in his condition—that it shrank the other obstacles to nothing. Salvation lay at hand. He would murder his enemy. Then he would recline into glory with his lover, protected, coddled, cared for, nursed back to health in the luxury he had imagined. All it required was an act of will.

Harness reached out his hand. Touched the handle. Cool, smooth metal. The door pushed . . . open! The boy had been careless. Harness had been lucky.

And there was the young man. Alone. The room lay in a haze, lit only by daylight through the curtains. He was bent over, rummaging in an open trunk, looking for something. The door touched the wall with a light pock. The boy stood upright. He wore a cap. He had light brown hair and a small, pointed nose. He was indeed pretty. Large eyes, heavy lashes, a mouth of curved pink. A dainty frame. The clothes fit poorly. He was underfed, and he had rough hands with soiled, gnawed fingernails. Harness noted this with the eye of someone accustomed to closely judging other people’s social standing to see which levers he might pull. Would he affect the Harrow-Cambridge accent to put a challenger on the defensive? Or the tradesman’s simper? Or a gutter Cockney, to show his street smarts, to show he would not be bullied? He had all these voices at his fingertips.

Oo ’er you? the boy demanded.

A moment of doubt. Did he answer? Did he speak to him?

A cold cleverness came over Harness. He smiled, all friendliness. He closed the door behind him. The boy merely stared, puzzled. Harness turned back to him. He took a step toward the boy.

What’s this?

The boy’s passivity had given Harness an advantage. . . . He lunged.

He had surprise on his side. He wrapped his fingers around the boy’s throat. The boy was weaker even than Harness had hoped for, but he was spirited, and tried to kick over tables and call for help. They grappled in what seemed an interminable struggle. At last Harness—who for a brief, elated moment was freed of his shallow, swampy breathing; transported by the lightning flashes of adrenaline—grasped a pillow, forced it over the boy’s face, and pushed, and pushed, the snarl of triumph and satisfaction growing. Yes, yes, swallow it if you can, the words came out of his mouth (along with something else—slaver? Yes this felt good, deliciously good) and he held on, pushed, teeth gritted in a grin of pleasure, even after the boy’s body stopped kicking, because Harness savored the pure domination of it.

At last, he sat back, utterly spent. He closed his eyes. He wiped the liquid from his chin.

He opened his eyes again.

He had an idea.

He would tell his lover what he had done. Not with words. With a message. A symbol. With one exhausted hand, he tugged the ring he had been wearing on his left ring finger since the day before. Then he lifted the pudgy and soiled hand of his rival—still warm!—and screwed the ring on his ring finger. It would only go halfway down; it did not matter. It was better, in fact, if it looked unnatural. His lover would notice, and understand.

Smiling to himself, satisfied, Harness staggered to his feet. His body was slick with sweat. He began to cool. The adrenaline that had carried him (miles from London, in secret) began to drain away. The liquid from his chin annoyed him, felt sticky on his hand, between his fingers. He examined it now. Blood. His own. From a wound? No; from his own mouth. And the blood was the kind the doctors had warned him about; rich, red, sticky, wet. The rust-colored expectorate, the kind that looked older, scabbier, was better. This was arterial blood.

His elation rapidly ebbed. He swayed. Only one thing remained: to strip the pillow from the boy’s face and gaze on his dead enemy. To feel the full triumph.

He reached out for the pillow that still lay pressed over his rival’s face. He gripped one corner and tugged. The face. Yes, going livid; yes, mouth askew, a death in fear and struggle. But he scarcely noticed this. Because when the pillow pulled away, it pulled with it . . . tresses of hair.

A pin had stuck to the pillow. The pin was attached to hair. And now the pin, and pillow, dragged the hair loose; unspooling it in a foot-long strand.

Harness stared, uncomprehending.

Then he understood.

Woman’s hair.

The long hair had remained, up to now, successfully concealed by being tucked under the cap.

A woman. Harness had killed a woman.

He tossed aside the pillow. He gripped the corpse’s shirt, angrily, with his bloody hand. Popped the buttons. He saw bandages across the chest. He tugged these and saw them: breasts. Nipples, folds of flesh, squeezed and hidden by the displaced bandage. Confusion engulfed him. A woman? A girl, in disguise? Where was the boy he had heard of? Where was his rival? Who was this person he had murdered? Why was she here, now? Was this a thief? A stranger? A chambermaid? A female lover?

He stared at her and realized he had killed the wrong person. And—even more important—he knew he did not have the strength to kill again. He would die before that. He knew it now. Shock plunged into Harness’s chest like a pike. The adrenaline was gone. The slime in his lungs revived. Harness fell. There, on all fours, he began to cough, the worst he had ever experienced; it began in his hips and rolled forward like a wave until it reached his teeth—aagh, repulsive, he choked it back—but with the second wave it broke free, a splash of bloody vomit. He crawled through it, felt it slide under his knees. His coach was waiting. He had paid enough so that no questions would be asked—even about bloodstains. But would he make it back? He would have to crawl. Forcing himself, fighting for every inch, he raised one knee, gripped the hotel room molding, and stood. He caught his breath and began the journey back to the street . . . hurry. . . . A chill, and a childish terror of capture, and prison, now seized him. He wiped his face carefully with a handkerchief. . . .

Andrew stood in the hotel room. Silence throbbed there after the storm of violence. He was still in the vision. He was still in Harness’s world. His eyes were closed. Yet he knew what he would see if he opened his eyes. The body on the floor. The face of the victim.

You’re in the center of this, Dr. Kahn had told him. It’s right for you to lead the charge.

He did not want to lead the charge.

But you have to, he told himself. You’re here for a reason. If you don’t find out who Harness killed, your friends—innocent people—will die.

He opened his eyes.

That watery, oppressive world of the vision poured in on him again. The screaming began deep in his chest and rose up, screams of horror.

The face on the corpse was Persephone’s

It’s only the vision, it’s not real, keep telling yourself that

she’s not dead she’s not dead

coils of black hair tracing her features

that he could smell that he loved that he could feel tickling his face

her green eyes propped open by death.