Downfall

  Chapter 13: Sacrifice

  At home I tied a jacket around my waist to hide the blood stains on my thighs. It was only nine in the morning but the house was empty and quiet. Relieved, I made an effort to scrub the rust-colored marks out of my jeans before shoving them into the machine. I hadn’t eaten anything since early the night before but still couldn’t face the thought of food. I went to lie down. Although exhausted, I couldn’t sleep. The events ran through my mind over and over again; a looping video.

  I kept coming back to the fact that Cain hadn’t seen any visions since he’d met me. Was the vision of this man dying―a vision Owen saw too late―supposed to be Cain’s vision? Perhaps if he hadn’t been outside, being earthly with me in the courtyard, he would have had time to intervene and save the guy. Now I’d seen firsthand how their visions worked, I understood the disastrous effect of my presence in the group. I’d upset Jude so much he wanted to get in a fight and I was distracting Cain from his calling. He had a place among the saints and had work to do, but when I was around he couldn’t do that work properly.

  The knowledge sat in front of me like an unscalable brick wall. I couldn’t explain this to Cain. He would declare it all wrong, all down to religious guilt or the hyperactive sense of responsibility Albion always accused me of. Cain’s whole purpose was to protect people from pain and I had no doubt he’d try that on me. But I wasn’t going to let him do that because this pain was mine. I chose it. It was almost a relief to feel it stabbing through my shock and numbness. At least the pain meant I was in control ... an oddly consoling thought. If I couldn’t stop this weird situation from winding itself around me I could still be in charge of how I dealt with it.

  The front door opened. Albion. I rolled over and faked sleep but he paused at my doorway and came into the room when he saw me.

  “Well.” His voice was sarcastic. “Nice to see you.” I opened one eye and glared at him. What was wrong with him? Couldn’t he see I was trying to sleep? “You obviously didn’t wish to grace me with your presence this morning.”

  “I can stay out if I like.”

  “Of course you can, and far be it from me to interfere with your social life, but a phone call would have been appreciated. Just to stop me waiting around here for you this morning, and so I could maybe find a friend who would spend some time with me when you clearly didn’t want to.”

  I opened both my eyes and frowned at him. Then I remembered. “Oh, the market! Alby, I’m sorry. I completely forgot!” He looked at me doubtfully. “Really!” I insisted.

  “Hmph.”

  “For real, Alby. I ... had too much to drink ...”

  “Yeah, right, Frankie,” he said. “Give me some credit.”

  He stomped away to the kitchen. Oh, well. Another stuff up. Hardly in the same league as what happened last night. I didn’t even really feel bad. Sleep eluded me so I abandoned my bed and lay on the lounge for hours, just thinking. Was it possible the drunk man had not died? It was a wonderful thought but also a terrible one because it gave me hope. Probably fruitless hope. I trawled some news sites. Yes, he was definitely dead. Then I stayed home a little later than usual to trawl the sites again, checking how far the police investigation had gone. As far as I could tell, there was very little progress but that didn’t reassure me. Had they made up those identikit pictures Nadine had talked about? Maybe Jude would have to cut and dye his hair, or something.

  Jude. Every time my phone buzzed I jumped to answer it. Had they been obliged to take him to hospital yet? He’d looked bad last night and no better this morning. Liz’s warning about hematoma kept floating back to me. I pictured Cain trying to monitor Jude’s condition. He may be divine―a saint―but he was no doctor. Would he even realize if something was amiss? What if Jude ...

  I stopped myself from thinking the word but couldn’t stop myself from wondering what they would do about it. Take him to hospital? Abandon him somewhere? Bury the body? I shuddered, nauseated, and then prayed. We’d never needed one of Cain’s miracles so badly.

  I got ready to go back to Gaunt House but, just to punch me in the guts, one of the cheaply-made Don Carver Are You the One? tour ads came on the television as I put on my shoes. I’d booked the damn thing myself, negotiating with the regional television station to get a good price on a block of ads to run during the first two months of his tour. So, in a weird way, I’d put this ad in front of myself tonight. I made myself watch it: my dad’s sweaty face on stage, eyes closed, a hand raised up to the heavens, while the crowd―mostly women―worked itself into a howling frenzy. Good God, he was like a righteous version of a rock star. As it finished, Albion came into the lounge room and sat beside me. He reluctantly broke his own silence.

  “What are you still doing here at this time of night?”

  “Getting ready.” I knew an interrogation was coming and it annoyed me pre-emptively.

  “Where did you stay last night?”

  “At a friend’s place.” I could almost lie on autopilot these days.

  “What’s going on, Frankie,” he said. “I don’t know what’s happening in your life and it concerns me, especially since it seems to be getting darker and darker.”

  I stared at the television, willing him silently to leave me alone.

  “Francesca?”

  Tears came to my eyes but I ignored Albion’s tenderly concerned face. Pathetic. An inch of sympathy and I wanted to blurt out the entire story to him. I was disgusted with myself. Where was my self-control?

  “I know you don’t want me to ask but I’ve got to know,” Albion said. “What happened that night at that old ruin? Why―?”

  I put my hand on his arm to quieten him. A large, double-chinned woman with bleached hair had appeared on the nightly newscast, glancing awkwardly at the camera as her interviewer spoke. “Mrs. Lyons, we’re so sorry for your loss. Will you tell us what you know about the circumstances of your husband’s death?”

  She dabbed at her eyes with a crumpled tissue. “Mark went out for a drink as he sometimes does on a Saturday night. Seems some young bloke picked a fight. Last time the barman saw him he was stepping outside to sort it out. They found him just around the corner, left for dead.” She broke into sobs.

  “Your husband got into a fight with this young man?”

  “Mark was a good man, not violent. The man who murdered my husband was a coward.” She sniffed. “Apparently he was bigger and stronger than Mark, too, and had a gang of people with him.”

  The audio continued as the picture changed to a series of snapshots. My heart sank to see Mark, the pale-armed, red-faced man, holding a beer can and grinning. Mark and his missus at a barbecue, both holding cans of bourbon and cola pre-mix. Mark carrying a small boy on his shoulders, shorts drooping under the beer belly, legs freckled and white. I battled a mental image of shining, dead eyes, irrationally afraid that Albion could read my thoughts. The news story ended with a comment from a police sergeant saying they urged anyone with information to come forward and they would leave no stone unturned when seeking out the perpetrator. Albion gave me a puzzled look.

  “Did you know him?”

  “No,” I choked.

  “Well, don’t worry. The cops will catch the guy. It’s Augur’s Well, not New York City.”

  My gaze dropped. “Could have been an accident. Self-defense.”

  “Doesn’t sound like an accident. But anyway, whoever did it still killed someone. You can’t get off scot-free.” He leaned over, shaking me by the shoulders. “Don’t change the subject! What happened at that ruin?”

  “Please, please, please stop, Albion,” I begged.

  He put his hands up. “Whoa! Okay! Backing off right now.” Albion watched me, alarmed. “Are you on drugs or something, Caravaggio?”