Ruin

  *

  The racket of the distant feast played upon the edge of audibility as Norman and Alex hurried from the infirmary. Far away they could see Lucian’s silhouette as he ran towards the mill, near the edge of the city, far away from Main Street. They changed course to intercept him, scurrying from the streetlights’ glow and onto darkened cobbles.

  “Did you hear what he said?” Norman said.

  Alex nodded with a grimace. “I heard him.”

  “Why would anybody be watching us?”

  Alexander took some moments to reply, “I don’t know.”

  Norman thought he might have seen a flicker in his eyes, but then they’d both broken into a run, and he had to turn his attention to navigating the cobbles without breaking his ankles.

  They caught up with Lucian as he approached the mill’s iron-gated garden, beside which was Rayford Hubble’s adjoining stone cottage. In the day, its thatched roof and lichen-strewn walls were made beautiful by an encircling row of lavender.

  At night, however, it was very different—almost foreboding, perched upon its foundations in profile only, crooked and cold, with only the river at its rear to lend it a sense of life. A single light was filtering out through the ground-floor window, but besides that lonely glow the mill was still and quiet.

  “Ray!” Lucian yelled, hammering on the door.

  They waited for an answer, but none came. The only sound emanating from within was the echoing creak of the water wheel, which jostled in the Stour’s current.

  “Maybe he’s asleep,” said Norman.

  “No, he’s up,” Lucian said. “Hubble never sleeps a wink after nightfall. The bastard’s been convinced people are sneaking into the city for years.” He hammered on the door once more, shaking it upon its hinges.

  Again, there was no answer.

  “Wasn’t he at the feast?”

  “Just his family,” Alex said, standing back to check the darkened upper windows. “He went on one of his patrols. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t hear me.”

  Lucian hammered on the door yet again.

  This time, he was answered: the clinking of glass came from somewhere inside.

  Norman’s gaze jerked to the door. There was something unsettling about that sound and the strained silence that followed.

  “Ray?” Lucian bellowed. “Are you alright?”

  No response.

  “Ray?” Lucian listened a moment further, then waved them back and threw his body against the door, shattering the wood at the handle and slamming it against the interior wall.

  Norman glimpsed a blackened hallway lined with flour sacks. Then sudden movement over by the staircase revealed a figure that had been hidden in shadow, rushing into the bowels of the house.

  Lucian surged forwards with a wordless howl, racing past the flour sacks and shards of wooden shrapnel, with Alexander following close behind.

  Norman froze for a moment, caught off guard, rooted to the spot. It was only with great effort that he surged after them, while the sound of smashing glass and overturning tables rattled out from within.

  “Ray, are you in here?” Lucian called, his voice overwhelmed by the rumble of boots on hard floors.

  Norman fought his way past toppled sacks, stumbling over spilt flour. As he did so, he caught a glance through the tiny kitchen to the back door, which blew in the wind, with only a single hinge anchoring it to the door frame. Dimly, he registered the heaps of mud that had been traipsed across the floor.

  The light filtering through the living-room doorway flickered as bodies passed between it and its source. By the time Norman staggered free, Lucian’s voice once again seemed loud amidst fresh silence. “Norman.”

  Norman whirled past the threshold, cracking glass underfoot. He stepped over a toppled chair, the legs of which lay splintered on the floor. He came to a stop just behind Alex and Lucian, laying eyes on what lay below.

  A heavy silence fell over the room and its shredded furnishings. The light they had seen through the window had come from an old oil lantern, which hung from a high peg near the ceiling. It was still alight, throwing the horror upon the rug into sharp relief.

  Ray was a huge man, with a head the size of Norman’s torso and arms like slabs of ham. Bald and bearded, he was dressed in a checked lumberjack shirt, covered by a moleskin jacket that would have reached his ankles if he’d been standing.

  Spread-eagled on the floor, his eyes were fixed on the crumbled ceiling, unseeing. He had come to rest wrapped around the edge of his tattered dining table, his legs bent and his skin white as snow. His throat had been slit from ear to ear, and a pool of his blood had stained the carpet scarlet.

  Norman stared at the fallen giant, open-mouthed, as Lucian struck the doorframe with his fist and hurried back into the street. The sound of his footsteps dissipated into the night, accompanied by a feral growl gurgling from deep in his throat.

  Norman and Alexander were left standing over the corpse. Alex crouched down beside Ray’s body and reached for his eyes. Under his fingers’ guidance, the lids rolled limply to a close, and Ray’s eyes were veiled from view forevermore.