Smoke hung so thick in the air that you
could almost grab hold of it. The Riders of the Apocalypse could have come
through the window and we might not have noticed. Though for all we knew, they
may have already been there.
The only lights were pale red or yellow,
and they could hardly worm their way through the smoke at all. Their only
purpose was to usher in the Ceremonials, who may as well have been part of the
smoke, as they slipped in between us. Nobody gave them much mind, but I could
see the little shivers they caused; the way that they stirred the air around
them, just by standing in it. But even they did not command much attention,
here.
They were making their way up to the
pulpit, where the huge painting of a discolored saint was looking down, with
cracks on his impressive hat. Less qualified hands had added a Swastika on his
bible, after-the-fact. Someone else had added a mustache to the saintly face
that could only have been Stalin’s.
Only
in Russia, I thought.
If I had had my way, I would not be on
the ground; I’d be up there, in those rafters, or watching from the ruinous
balcony. Now, only a few dared to walk those cobwebs of splintered wood and
velvet, and I didn’t want anything to do with them. Nobody did; that is, after
all, why they were up there.
Of course, if I had had my way, I would
not be here at all.
If I had had my way, Ichabod Crane would
not be in a coffin in an abandoned Siberian Cathedral. But I never got my way,
of course. Neither did Ichabod Crane. And I suppose, he had died to prove that.
I had no room to complain.
“By Mary’s head,” someone shouted at my
back, “Elio, is that you?”
I was hesitant to turn. He was not
hesitant to come around, in front of me, with that smile tearing his face like
a canyon. His elephantine ears were aimed at me as he thrust his hand forward.
“How are you, you old sneak-thief?”
Saul Unjoba had always liked me. I don’t
know why, exactly, considering I had tried, on more than one occasion, to land
him in prison for as many decades as they’d have him. But he had evaded me, and
either out of ignorance or some innate good-naturedness that I could not credit
him with, he still favored me.
“I’ve
been well, Saul,” I said quietly. “Well…” Looking back up at the altar. “Until
I heard about this.”
“Yes, yes,” Saul nodded and scratched his
chest. “It’s a shame about Crane.”
I looked around the crowd again, eying
all of their jabbering faces and staring eyes. “I doubt everyone feels that way,”
I said. “Only a handful are here to mourn him. The rest, I imagine, are here
just to make sure that he’s actually dead.”
He chuckled. “Oh, he’s dead, alright. I
was called in as part of the coroner’s tabernacle. Stake—chains—the whole nine
yards. They want to make sure he’s dead, and he stays dead. Everything but the
last drop; we wanted him to keep his head for the ceremony, open casket and
all.” He nudged me. “And we didn’t have any Frenchmen in the collective. That
made it easier.”
By then, something was happening. I was saved
from having to respond.
Someone had taken to the pulpit, and not
one of the ceremonials; they were all standing around in robes. He was standing
on the pulpit itself with two cigars in his left hand, and a smile that pierced
the smoke where nothing else could. His accent was thick and northern
European.
“Good evening, all of you embittered
souls, whether tossing on the throes of mourning or straddling the swell of
celebration. We have gathered here tonight to witness the final commemoration
of our deceased brethren, our very own, Ichabod Crane.”
Silence fell, though I felt like some
people wanted to clap. He reached into his coat and pulled out a dirty piece of
paper and flicked his cigars into the crowd. Several people flicked theirs back.
He read:
“Ichabod Crane; born to Sir William Crane
of The Royal Navy, and the princess Cathawaga of the Forebödn, in the year
sixteen-o-two. Those who knew him admired him; those who encountered him feared
him; those who angered him…” he looked up and smiled. “Of course, we’ve already
witnessed such funerals.”
There was some laughter, but not much,
and none from my side of the room. “Famed pirate and murderer, scarce loved by
members of his own Order, but loyal he lived to the sons of The Old. Call him
beastliest of beasts, call him the dearest of companions, we must farewell his
soul, now.”
He turned, raised his hand toward the
mustached saint, and bowed as though this, somehow, represented Ichabod. The
mood tightened, and I felt it already. I itched to escape. To fly through a
broken window. The nature of his tone became more obvious with every eager
word.
“Farewell, child of Cain,
slaughterer-of-brothers; you who stole the heads of your enemies, and let their
bodies rot without the fire to save them. Farewell, thief and murderer. To the
depths of hell may you descend! Down with the headless horseman! Rest in ruin,
Ichabod Crane!”
And then he stepped down, and disappeared
into the crowd. There was a rattling, in those rafters, everyone bristling but
no one speaking.
It
was the Ceremonials turn, and they were all lifting their hands. The chanting
started, and it knotted my stomach. I hated those words, but they crawled out
of my throat. The ceremonials said them in Latin; the rest of us in whatever
language we claimed. The clamor bled together like melting paint.
“Rage,
rage, fire and rage, loose the dragons from the cage. Fire, fire, rage and fire,
thousands heaped upon the pyre…”
The reek of gasoline reached me even as I
crept away. I was among those first people to move toward the door, and I was
out like a shadow. Saul was shouting my name behind me, urging me to stay, but
I kept moving. I didn’t look back at the cathedral, as I broke to a run and
sprinted like mad toward the hills.
Those shadowy creatures in the balcony
would be in the streets by now, and everyone else would be following. There
were precious few of us who had run, with the city behind us. The cathedral was
emptying, and sat like a huge beached ship in the dark.
Ichabod Crane would be in there, staring
at the ceiling in an open coffin. They would be dousing him with jet fuel, like
the saint with the mustache, like everything else.
I could still hear the Ceremonials,
rumbling in my ears; I would have had to run further than the hills to escape
them. “As Rome, Carthage, Paris, London, as the Caesars and gods of old, our
brothers burn with their ships and their riches, they burn into ashes, and
scatter to every corner. Dust to dust, rust to rust, all is rage and all is
crushed!”
I couldn’t help but watch, from there; it
started sooner than I expected. The fire crawled out of the mouth of the Cathedral
and rolled into the streets, bulging like a river, consuming everything in its
path. It was everywhere at once.
“Like
Rome,” I muttered quietly. “Like all the rest.” If Ichabod were not dead…if he
had gotten out of the coffin, if he had found his sword, opened his furious
eyes, they would not be so wild. Their black shapes would not be standing
around the city to stop anyone attempting flight.
If he would simply stand up…But I knew he
would not, even as I waited for that exact thing.
Soon, the cathedral collapsed with a
thunderous sound. The ceremonials had finished their work. Inside, I knew,
there would be no trace of Ichabod Crane ever having existed. But this city,
this scorch mark, his inheritance, was his gravestone. His last smudge on the
earth, like all the others. But those other smudges had served a purpose, I
thought; he had smeared out the filth. He had stolen the lives from monsters
like those in the balcony. He had filthied himself with their blood.
And now they buried him. I turned away
and started back down the hill, toward the parked car on the other side. They
saw me coming, and the headlights flicked on.
Ana was standing shakily. Orange light
reflected in her wide eyes, but I knew better than to meet them with mine. “Get
inside,” I said. “We have to leave.”
“He’s dead?” She asked. “Really?”
“We’re all dead,” I muttered, as I pushed
her into the middle, between the driver and myself. “And I’d rather not be
buried here, too.”
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