Thicker Than Water

From somewhere, Gwillam found the strength to stand. He thrust his face into mine, his eyes wide and his face white with rage. ‘You persist in thinking that, don’t you, Castor? That the whole world is full of the waste products of other people’s mistakes? That your role in life is to clean them up, and take the thanks for it? But Asmodeus alone is proof enough to refute that.’

‘I’m all that’s keeping Asmodeus locked down,’ I pointed out, wiping a little spittle from my face.

Gwillam’s eyes narrowed. ‘You took that monster from a place where he was safely contained,’ he said. ‘Under control. Who knows what you’ve started? Or what we’ll have to do to stop it if it gets away from you. Because it will be us, Castor. It will be the soldiers of God - the ones with an actual vocation - who clear up after your mistakes. Just as it has been through the world, down through the ages. We watch, we weigh, we decide, and then we act. You simply cut out the first three stages of that process!’

As he spoke, something clicked into place. Watch? Weigh?

‘You had a tail on me,’ I said.

Gwillam gave a choking laugh. ‘Is that meant to be an accusation? Yes, we followed you - as soon as the Mulbridge woman deigned to alert us to what you’d done. If she’d called us at once - but there’s no point in repining after the fact. God works in his own way - and although you didn’t lead us to Rafael Ditko, you did lead us to the Salisbury, and to William Daniels. We don’t trawl the sink estates of the world looking for miracles. God made you an instrument of his light and truth. He does that, whether you like it or not.’

Gwillam smiled coldly. His composure was coming back to him at a steady trickle, bringing with it the unshakeable sense of his own rectitude.

‘The situation at the Salisbury,’ he said, ‘is one that a faithless man like you can’t understand. So there’s nothing to be gained by discussing it.’

By way of answer, I held up my right hand, fingers spread. The red, inflamed flesh in the centre of my palm was clearly visible.“leagn= Gwillam’s eyes widened as he stared at it.

‘And that’s after only a few hours on the estate,’ I said. ‘How holy do you think I’ll be if I rent a flat there?’

Gwillam started to speak, but I rode right over him. ‘You should have been like your namesake, Father Thomas, and looked for a little more proof before you threw up your hands and started singing hosannas. You find a boy with wounds in his hands and you think he’s a saint in waiting, right?’

‘I won’t discuss—’

‘Don’t waste my fucking time. You already said the boy’s name, and his mother told me you were there. She just couldn’t bring herself to tell me why, but then she was seeing Bic’s wounds as part and parcel of the other sick shit that was going on in his life. It must have stuck in her throat a bit when you told her it was good news from Heaven.’

Gwillam was silent for a moment, but he found his voice again soon enough. ‘The appearance of the stigmata is a miracle,’ he said. ‘One that recurs down the centuries, as a sign of Christ’s manifested blessing.’

‘Either that or hysteria,’ I said. ‘Only this time - this time, Gwillam, it isn’t either of those things. It’s a demon.’

He stared at me in amazement, and then in undisguised scorn.

‘A demon?’ he echoed.

‘Yeah.’ I nodded. ‘A demon that loves wounds. That seems to live in wounds, somehow. Some poor kid who was into self-harm summoned it. I think he did it without even meaning to, just by being on its wavelength. It makes people cut themselves, or other people. It fills their dreams and their waking minds with the eagerness to see blood spilled. And it makes blood well up from healthy flesh, as though there were wounds there. That’s what Bic has got. A curse, not a blessing. Unless Jesus has got a really fucked-up way of showing that he loves us.’

I took the thick wodge of Nicky’s printouts from my inside pocket and let them fall on the carpet in front of Gwillam. ‘Read it,’ I suggested, ‘and weep. And after that, go and fucking do something.’

I left him sitting there, visibly reassembling the armour of his righteousness. No way of telling whether he’d believe me or not, but if he did there were things he could do while I was away to stop the situation at the Salisbury from reaching a crisis point. It was better than nothing, anyway.

As we drove back into London, Juliet maintained a thoughtful silence. I did the same thing, for a while, but then I thought what the hell: we were already on rockier ground than we’d been at any time since she decided to live on Earth instead of killing me. What did I have to lose by pushing the boat out a little further?

‘Is this thing a friend of yours?’ I asked.

I didn’t look around, but I felt the pressure of her gaze o“e ofonn me.