We ran, following the few people who seemed actually concerned about the bombers, and soon found ourselves dragged into a shelter. We talked in pitch darkness. We'd all reached the same conclusion. Either we were all drugged at the exhibition and suffering the same hallucinations, or we were in hell. And the way the others were talking, they didn't seem to find that very surprising. Jared said he deserved to be there. Jim talked about some kind of deal he'd made. I couldn't think of any reason why I'd deserve to be in hell. But then, I don't know what the rules are.
By now I'd at least got some idea of what might be happening. Marielle Dubois was trying to raise Vaquelin from the dead by sacrificing her husband. What all the other stuff was I don't know, but she would have to open the gates to the underworld to bring him through. And that would explain how we ended up there.
I didn't want to stay there in the dark, contemplating what sins I might have committed. The bombers were gone, so we went back outside. Visiting the cathedral, or basilica, or whatever we'd seen in the distance might have answers, we figured. There was some kind of procession outside, heading in that direction, all wearing white masks. Jim grabbed a mask that had fallen to the ground and put it on. Jared took my hand and we danced along behind them.
The building looked like it was made of bone. The procession stopped outside, as if all the people had been frozen in time. I could hear Jim screaming as he took off the mask, and Jared let go of me and started trying to dance with the frozen people. I was left standing there alone, surrounded by these people in faceless white masks, and ended up crying on the floor until Jim helped me up again.
I was sure there had to be a way out, because that place wasn't made for us. Jared was still sure he belonged there, but I was sure we must be in Vaquelin's own personal hell. Ezra knew a bit about Vaquelin and I was sure he'd mentioned he'd lived in Paris at some point. And whatever the others had done, we didn't belong in someone else's hell.
Mentioning Vaquelin got a response from the frozen people. Jim told them to give us directions to find him, and they all turned to face the basilica.
There were figures of death on either side of the door, mounted on horses and wielding scythes. Somehow we all had the same thought about them, and made a run for the door. For a moment I could feel bony fingers touching my back, but then we were inside. But we were inside a small apartment, with graffiti covered walls and rats in the kitchen. Two doors, one with the sound of feminine moaning coming from it, and the other with the sound of rattling chains.
Jared went to investigate the moaning sound. I followed Jim to the sound of chains. Through the door we found a mass of crumpled sketches and torn canvases, and in the middle of it was Guy Vaquelin, naked with iron chains hooked into his flesh. And there was a man dressed as a barrister, pulling on the chains and swearing in French, telling him that he was a miserable failure and not worthy to be his son.
I don't think I've ever empathised with someone as hard as I did with Guy Vaquelin in that moment. There was so much I wanted to say to him. But I didn't get the chance, as Jared suddenly appeared behind us, saying that some fathers needed killing. And when he went for Vaquelin's father, I wanted him to do it.
I tried to pull the chains out of his hands while Jared had him distracted, but he just pulled back harder, and in a moment he had the chains wrapped around my neck, strangling me. Even as I managed to get untangled and breathe again, Vaquelin went for me as well, trying to strangle me. I can see I'm going to be having a very long talk with Dr Lana about all of this.
It was Jim who managed to save us really, shouting at Vaquelin that he's a great artist, so much so that Marielle wanted to bring him back from the dead. Jared told us that he'd killed his own father, and by that point I was past finding that shocking. I asked Vaquelin if his father hadn't wanted him to be an artist, not that I needed to hear the answer. I already know that story far too well.
What we said worked. Vaquelin freed himself from his chains, crushed what was left of his father, and ran off. We chased after him, with Jim in the lead, but somehow the main room of the apartment was now a long dark corridor, and there semed to be some kind of time dilation going on as we couldn't keep up with Vaquelin. Then there was a blinding light, the two death statues looked as us, and then a door closed.
Jared is going to take me up on my offer of a therapist referral if we ever get home. I hope Dr Lana is ready for someone with even worse parental relationship issues than me.
We weren't in 1950s France any more. I could hear gunfire, and shouting in what I was pretty sure was Italian. Vaquelin moved to Milan after Paris, so we figured we must be visiting stages in his life. We were in a large piazza, with dead bodies strewn about, and the stink of smoke in the air. In the middle was a deep pit smelling of decay, and a fountain of blood.
A crowd of people ran past us, and a grenade rolled into their midst and exploded, but instead of body parts there was a shower of red flyers about bringing down the government. So, the 1960s. One thing I remember from art school, a bombing in Milan that affected artists across Europe. Police officers were appearing, and molotov cocktails were being thrown, and I saw burning hands attempting to claw their way out of that pit. Off to one side was a set of gallows with hanged bodies dangling from them. As we ran past, for a moment they no longer resembled gallows, but a representation of a skull and a clock, with time moving forward as a body struggled and swung. It all seemed like the setup for a painting. Maybe one of the paintings from the exhibition, that I saw in the few moments before everything went to hell.
The image seemed to speak to something in Jim, who pulled out a sketchpad and started drawing. Then something weird happened which I can't make sense of, with some kind of robed figure that erased everything it touched getting closer to us. But he stopped before it got to us because there was a beggar at his feet who offered to take him to Vaquelin. We followed him through a maze of side streets, with that robed figure still following. Finally we reached a bank with a damaged facade, and he kicked open the door in a cloud of dust and smoke. I went inside. Jim waited a moment to pay the beggar, but then the beggar cut Jim's ear off and ran away.
I loaned him a hankerchief. I couldn't think what else to do.
There were sketches inside the bank, that looked like practice runs for some of those paintings in the exhibition. Fool's Wisdom and the Tears of Djeraba. I could hear a scratching, scuttling noise, and papers were falling to the ground. While Jim set the two pictures on fire, I followed the noise.
Upstairs in some kind of mezzanine, there was a loud commotion with things being thrown. There seemed to be some kind of pattern to it, and it suddenly occurred to me that I really shouldn't be alone. I ran back downstairs, to find the others with the paintings well alight, but with the flames seeming to do nothing to them. Jim started talking to one of the paintings. It seemed to be a conversation that we were only hearing half of. He asked if it was blood or death it wanted. I don't think I want to know the answer.
I told everyone we needed to stick together, and we all went upstairs, picking up some liquor bottles out of a crate on the way. The paintings still burned, but something seemed to have changed about Fool's Wisdom. A shadow I don't remember seeing before.
I was leaning over the ledge, trying to work out where the sounds were coming from when suddenly Jared pulled me away and a man starting screaming at Jim about putting ideas in his head. He'd been inches away from pushing me over the edge. I grabbed hold of him to try to restrain him from attacking Jim, but somehow he twisted in my grasp and then I was dangling over the edge. A moment later we were falling.
Of course it was Vaquelin. He recognised me on the way down, but by then I'd managed to twist round so he would break my fall. When his head hit the fountain I heard a snap. He was dead. That could have been me. No time to think about that though, with fire engulfing the room. We made a run for the door, and once again that time dilation thing seemed to be happening. And that robed figure from outside was watching us again.
No comments:
Post a Comment