Chapter 7
The Stone Cold Killer
I GOT AMPLE confirmation of Kliener’s complete indifference to irony: when I mentioned the Angel, he looked up at me sharply – and blinked. Then, in case I hadn’t found that amusing and ironic enough, he did it some more. There was a nervous tick at the side of his eye too. I suspected he wasn’t especially delighted at the way I’d stolen his thunder. I was unrepentant – I think he’d stolen more than that in his time.
And thinking of time brought me back to the Angel, which I now knew from his reaction Kliener had hidden behind the curtain. Where no one could see it. God knows what it was doing – out of sight but not out of mind.
‘Where’s this going to end?’ I demanded while Kliener was failing to come up with a response. ‘Can’t you see what’s happening? The process is speeding up. It’s taking more energy as it gets stronger. And the stronger the Angel gets the more energy it takes which accelerates things still further. How long before she’s strong enough to escape?’
‘You know nothing,’ Kliener spat. And I use the word accurately.
‘I know more than you,’ I told him as I dabbed at my face with a hanky. However apparently tight and uncompromising one’s outfit always make sure you have a special handy space for a hanky. And lipstick.
‘So what if you do?’
‘Well, if I know more than you and I know nothing, then I suppose you know less than nothing. Is that right?’
He didn’t seem very interested in the mathematics of it. Instead he wobbled over to the curtain and yanked it aside.
I think even Kliener was surprised by what he revealed. The Angel was leaning forward, its chipped wings swept back as if it was moving at incredible speed. Its gnarled, clawed hands stretched out in front like the talons of an eagle reaching for its prey. The stone face was weathered and lined, but twisted into a hideous snarl of anger, rage, and hunger.
‘I am guessing,’ I said in my best told-you-so voice, ‘that it’s repairing itself. That’s what it does with all the energy – the potential life it rips away from your victims. And I do mean victims.’
‘Not another word out of you, Miss Blabbermouth,’ Kliener snapped.
I ignored this skilful quip. ‘It uses a fraction of that energy to shape the next Rock Railton or Giddy Semestre or Hank…’ I paused, momentarily thrown. ‘What’s your last name?’ I asked the nearest Hank.
‘Sissy,’ he said.
‘It was a fair question.’
‘Hank Sissy,’ the other gun-toting Hank said.
‘Seriously?’
‘No – Sissy.’
Time to move on. ‘Rock Railton, Giddy Semestre or Hank Sissy – it uses a fraction of the energy used to remould your victims to take on the memories and appearance of their templates. The rest of the life force it keeps, the rest of the unholy bargain it does with Time, goes to repairing itself. As you can see.’
Well, Kliener was looking, but he probably couldn’t see the truth. He didn’t want to. He had other things on his mind. In any case it was clear that Max Kliener and the truth had a rather arm’s length relationship.
I tried a different tack. ‘So how does the Angel wake your sleeping beauties?’
His smile was back, curled round his cigar. ‘How else? With a kiss.’
‘The kiss of an Angel?’
‘The merest touch will do it. But let’s call it a kiss. That seems appropriate.’
It would certainly work, and it did seem horribly appropriate. Horrible because it still looked like I was in line for the lips-of-death treatment myself.
This was rather confirmed as Kliener ordered the two armed Hanks to take me to the coffin-shaped device. The other two Hanks lifted the lid to reveal the dark interior. It looked worryingly like a coffin inside as well.
Sure enough, the two armed Hanks tucked their pistols away inside their jacket-stroke-blazer and each grabbed one of my arms. I was lifted from the ground and marched across to the tank, which was bad news for me.
The bad news for them was that, with my feet now off the ground, I could twist my legs enough to kick out. In a dazzlingly elegant display of athletic symmetry, I inserted one high heel into the most tender area within reach on each of my escorts. They both yelled and doubled over and each let go of me at the same moment, evidently having a similar interest in the symmetry of things.
All of which left me free to get my high heels back under the rest of me and make a rapid exit. My feet clacked on the hard floor like a frantic telegraph operator. SOS all the way to the door.
The door sprang open before I got there. Not good news. It was Mrs Make-Up returning. I caught a satisfying glimpse of her surprised face before I cannoned into it and sent her flying. Unfortunately, the impact sent me flying too.
By the time I got to my feet, I was surrounded by Hank. Just the one Hank, but he held me tight. Then another one jabbed a gun so close to my nose I could smell the cordite from its last shot. If I wasn’t careful, my final sensory experience would be the smell of the next one.
Without many options left, I allowed myself to be dragged back towards the coffin-tank. The Make-Up Woman seemed to have recovered from her ordeal, and was talking urgently to Max Kliener.
‘Julius can’t have it,’ Kliener growled. ‘Tell him to stop bothering me.’ He waved her away.
The woman scowled at me as she passed. I nodded back. But my blood froze as we approached the equipment. The Angel was still staring out from its alcove. Maybe it was a trick of the light, or maybe it was my imagination. But it seemed like the Angel’s expression had changed, just slightly.
It seemed like there was the ghost of a smile on its cracked stone lips.