Page 52 of The Angel Maker

They both turned around, aiming their flashlights into the darkness at the far end of the room.

In the far corner of the room, strips of charred, soot-stained wallpaper still clung to parts of the stone wall. The brickwork there was shattered, the surrounding plaster scorched and bubbled by the fire that had ripped through this room decades before. The ceiling above and part of the wall were open—the source of the breeze. A span of charred timber formed thick, blacker lines across the dark sky above, and the rain was pouring in past them.

Laurence froze slightly. This was the room in which Alan Hobbes had kept his macabre collection.

But it had once been something else.

The rain spattered down, tapping incessantly against the item that still rested by the base of the wall.

The half-melted metal frame of what had once been a child’s bed.

Bolted tightly to the stone floor.

Nineteen

Edward Leland approached the door.

His father had taught him many things as a child, and one of his most important lessons was this: every man should have a private place in their house. A space that was solely theirs, in which the contents of their hearts could be hung up on open display.

And this was his.

He unlocked the door and stepped forward into the dark. The room was large and almost entirely empty. He stood a little way past the threshold. The light from the corridor behind cast his shadow over the polished wooden floor but failed to reach the blackness at the far end. There was a window there, but it was boarded over with planks. It had been a long time since this room had seen daylight.

Almost swallowed by the dark, a large plasma screen was mounted about halfway along the wall, surrounded on either side by rows of shelves. The shelves contained his personal collection, amassed over many years. It spanned decades and was probably the largest of its particular kind in the world. There were old reels of film here; spools of slides; VHS tapes; CDs and DVDs in clear plastic cases. The footage they contained had been gathered from war zones and security cameras and police lockers.

And some of it, he had created himself.

He closed the door behind him. The room became black, and he stood still for a few seconds, enjoying the dark and the silence. The sensation was like being in a void. Closing his eyes made no difference, and his body felt weightless and unreal, more spirit than flesh. He walked across, his shoes tapping on the floor, taking precisely measured steps that left him close enough to the screen that, when he reached down, his hand found the controller on the floor by his feet.

A press of one soft button and the screen came to life.

He put the controller down again, turned around, and walked toward the center of the room. The footage behind him was silent and grainy, but bright enough to cast a deformed shadow against the opposite wall. He stopped in the center, then turned to face the screen. Flickering light played over his face, as though the images were being projected directly onto his skin. In his head—either despite the quiet or because of it—Leland imagined he could hear the same rattle of old film that sometimes accompanied the nightmare about Nathaniel.

After a moment, he held his left hand up before him, then reached forward with his right, turning it at the elbow, as though to cup a ghost standing before him. He took a long, slow breath. And then he moved.

Left foot stepping a short, elegant distance forward.

Right following it, but out to the side.

Left sliding in to join the right.

In the absence of music to guide him, he counted the beats in his head.One, two, three.Then he switched his weight, sliding his right foot back and reversing the process—one, two, three—his body moving gently up and down with the motion, keeping his elbows up and maintaining the frame that held his invisible partner.

He had learned to dance when he was young. Due to Giles Leland’s wealth and standing—the circles he moved in—it was something that had been expected of Edward, alongside the usual piano lessons, tutorials on the correct use of cutlery, and all those other matters of meaningless socialetiquette. He remembered the childhood sessions with the private tutors Giles Leland had paid for. The women who had avoided his gaze and always felt stiff in his arms, as though he frightened them in some way.

The angels he had danced with in the years since.

But mostly, he danced alone.

Left foot forward again.

He kept the plasma screen as his line of focus for several repetitions, and then began waltzing slowly and methodically around the empty room, his feet sweeping over the floor, the light from the screen flickering across him.

One, two, three.

And then, as he turns once more, the darkness of the room swirls into ribbons of golden light, and he feels a presence in his arms.

It is July 3, 1976.

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