Marina. Part 13

'It's not a toy, be careful. Keep fooling around and a bullet will blow your head open like a watermelon.'

The door gave way. The stink that issued from inside was indescribable. We took a few steps back, fighting our nausea.

'What the h.e.l.l is in there?' cried Florian.

He pulled out a handkerchief and covered his mouth and nose with it. I handed him the gun and held the torch. Florian kicked the door open and I shone the light on what lay behind it. The atmosphere was so thick you could barely see anything. Florian c.o.c.ked the gun and walked towards the open door.

'Stay there,' he ordered.

I ignored his words and advanced towards the entrance to the chamber.

'Dear G.o.d . . .' I heard Florian whisper.

I found it hard to breathe. It was impossible to accept the sight that lay before our eyes. Trapped in the darkness, hanging from rusty hooks, were dozens of bodies, lifeless and incomplete. Two large tables were covered in a chaotic mess of strange tools: bits of metal, cogs and mechanisms made of wood and steel. A gla.s.s cabinet on the wall held a collection of phials, a set of hypodermic syringes and a ma.s.s of dirty, blackened surgical instruments.

'What in h.e.l.l is this?' muttered Florian, visibly scared.

On one of the tables lay a sinister figure made of wood, leather, metal and bone, like an unfinished toy: a boy with round snake-like eyes and a forked tongue showing through black lips. Branded onto the boy's forehead, the b.u.t.terfly symbol was clearly visible.

'It's his workshop . . . This is where he creates them . . .' I let slip audibly.

And then the eyes of that h.e.l.lish doll moved. It turned its head. Its guts made a clicking sound like a clock being set. I felt its black reptilian pupils settling on mine. The forked tongue licked the doll's lips. It was smiling at us.

'Let's get out of here,' said Florian. 'Now!'

We rushed back into the chamber and closed the metal door behind us. Florian was breathing with difficulty. I couldn't even speak. He took the torch from my shaking hands and inspected the tunnel. As he did so, I saw a drop fall through the beam of light. And another, and yet another. Bright scarlet drops. Blood. We stared at each other in silence. Something was dripping from the ceiling. Florian signalled to me to move back a few steps and pointed the light up. I saw Florian's face grow pale and his firm hand start to shake.

'Run,' was all he said to me. 'Get out of here!'

He raised the revolver after casting me one last look. In his eyes I saw first terror and then the realisation of certain death. He opened his lips to say something else, but no sound ever emerged from his mouth. A dark figure hurled itself at Florian, striking him before he was able to move a single muscle. I heard a gunshot, a deafening explosion that bounced off the walls. The torch ended up in a stream of water. Florian's body was flung against the wall with such force that it made an indent the shape of a cross in the blackened tiles. I was sure he was dead before he peeled off the wall and fell inert on the floor.

I started to run, looking desperately for the way back. An animal howl inundated the tunnels. I turned around. About a dozen figures were crawling from every direction. I ran as I'd never run in my life, listening to the invisible pack howling behind my back, stumbling as I ran with the image of Florian's body embedded in the wall still fixed in my mind.

I was nearing the exit when a figure leaped out before me, just a few metres ahead, barring me from the steps to the street. I stopped dead in my tracks. The light filtering through from above revealed the face of a harlequin. Two diamond shapes covered its gla.s.sy eyes, and steel fangs protruded from its lips of polished wood. I took a step back. Two hands rested on my shoulders. Nails tore my clothes. Something viscous and cold surrounded my neck. I felt the knot tightening, choking me. My sight began to fail. Then something grabbed me by the ankles. The harlequin knelt down in front of me and stretched its hands towards my face. I thought I was going to pa.s.s out. I prayed for that to happen. A second later the head made of wood, leather and metal burst into pieces.

The shot came from my right. The explosion drilled through my eardrums and the smell of gunpowder filled the air. The harlequin collapsed at my feet. I heard a second gunshot. The pressure on my throat had gone and I fell flat on my face. I was only aware of the intense smell of the gunpowder. Then I noticed that someone was pulling me; I opened my eyes and I thought I could see a man leaning over and lifting me up.

Suddenly I saw daylight and my lungs filled with clean air. Then I lost consciousness. I remember dreaming about the sound of horses' hoofs while bells rang endlessly.

CHAPTER 21.

THE ROOM IN WHICH I AWOKE LOOKED FAMILIAR. The windows were closed and a bright light seeped through the shutters. A figure stood by my side, quietly watching me. Marina.

'Welcome to the world of the living.'

I sat up with a jerk. Suddenly my vision was blurred and I felt as if needles of ice were boring through my skull. Marina held me while the pain gradually abated.

'Careful . . .' she whispered.

'How did I get here?'

'Someone brought you at dawn. In a carriage. He didn't say who he was.'

'Claret,' I murmured as the pieces began to fall into place in my mind.

It was Claret who had got me out of the tunnels and had brought me back to the Sarria mansion. I realised that I owed him my life.

'You gave me one h.e.l.l of a fright. Where have you been? I've spent all night waiting for you. Don't ever do anything like that to me again, do you hear?'

My entire body ached, even moving my head to nod. Marina brought a gla.s.s of cold water to my lips. I drank it in one go.

'You want more?'

I closed my eyes and heard her pouring another gla.s.sful.

'Where's German?'

'In his studio. He was worried about you. I told him something you ate didn't agree with you.'

'He believed you?'

'My father believes everything I tell him,' said Marina with no malice.

She handed me the gla.s.s of water.

'What does he do in his studio for hours on end if he no longer paints?'

Marina held my wrist and felt my pulse.

'My father is an artist,' she said after a minute. 'Artists live in the future or in the past, rarely in the present. German lives from his memories. It's all he's got.'

'He's got you.'

'I'm his biggest memory,' she said, looking straight into my eyes. 'I've brought you something to eat. You've got to get your strength back.'

I waved a hand in refusal. The very idea of eating made me feel sick. Marina put a hand round the back of my neck and supported me while I drank again. The clean cold water tasted like a blessing.

'What's the time?'

'It's mid-afternoon. You've slept for almost eight hours.'

She placed a hand on my forehead and left it there for a few seconds.

'At least your fever has gone.'

I opened my eyes and smiled. Marina looked pale as she gazed at me.

'You were delirious. You were talking in your sleep . . .'

'What did I say?

'Nonsense.'

I felt my throat. It hurt.

'Don't touch it,' said Marina, pulling my hand away. 'You've got quite a wound on your neck. And cuts on your shoulders and back. Who did this to you?'

'I don't know.'

Marina sighed impatiently.

'You scared me to death. I didn't know what to do. I went to a telephone booth to call Florian, but I was told by the barman that you'd just called and the inspector had left without saying where he was going. I rang again shortly before daybreak and he still hadn't returned.'

'Florian is dead.' I noticed my voice breaking as I mentioned the poor inspector's name. 'Last night I returned to the cemetery-' I began.

'You're mad,' Marina interrupted.

She was probably right. Without a word, she offered me a third gla.s.s of water. I gulped it down. Afterwards I slowly recounted what had happened the night before. When I finished my account, Marina just stared at me in silence. It seemed as if there was something else worrying her, something that had nothing to do with what I'd told her. She urged me to eat what she'd brought for me, whether I was hungry or not. She offered me some bread and chocolate and didn't take her eyes off me until I'd swallowed almost half a chocolate bar and a roll the size of a taxi. The sugar rush soon revived me.

'While you slept, I've also been playing detective,' said Marina, pointing to a thick leather-bound volume on the bedside table.

I read the t.i.tle on the spine.

'Are you interested in entomology?'

'Bugs,' Marina clarified. 'I've found our friend, the black b.u.t.terfly.'

'Teufel . . .'

'An adorable creature. It lives in tunnels and bas.e.m.e.nts, far from the light. It has a life cycle of fourteen days. Before dying, it buries its body among rubble and, three days later, a new larva emerges from it.'

'It resurrects?'

'That's one way of putting it.'

'And what does it feed on?' I asked. 'There aren't any flowers or pollen in tunnels . . .'

'It feeds off its young,' Marina explained. 'It's all there. The exemplary lives of our cousins the insects.'

Marina walked over to the window and drew back the curtains. Sunlight flooded the room. She stayed there, looking pensive. I could almost hear the cogs turning in her head.

'What's the point of attacking you to recover the photograph alb.u.m only to abandon it later?'

'Probably whoever attacked me was looking for something specific in the alb.u.m.'

'But whatever that was, it wasn't there any more . . .' Marina added.

'Dr Sh.e.l.ley . . .' I said, suddenly remembering.

Marina looked at me questioningly.

'When we went to see him, we showed him the picture in which he appeared in the surgery,' I said.

'And he kept it!'

'Not only that. As we were leaving I saw him throw it into the fire.'

'Why would Sh.e.l.ley destroy that photograph?'

'Perhaps it revealed something he didn't want anyone to see . . .' I suggested, jumping out of bed.

'Where do you think you're going?'

'To see Lluis Claret,' I replied. 'He's the person who holds the key to all this business.'

'You're not leaving this house for the next twenty-four hours,' Marina objected, leaning against the door. 'Inspector Florian gave his life so that you could have a chance to escape.'

'In twenty-four hours whatever is hiding in those tunnels will have come to get us unless we do something to stop it,' I said. 'The least Florian deserves is that we do him justice.'

'Sh.e.l.ley said death cares little about justice,' Marina reminded me. 'Maybe he was right.'

'Maybe,' I admitted. 'But we care.'

As we approached the Raval quarter, mist spread through the alleyways, tinted by the lights from shabby dives and taverns. We'd left behind the friendly bustle of the Ramblas. Soon there wasn't a tourist or any other casual pedestrian in sight. Furtive glances followed us from stinking doorways, from windows cut into crumbling facades. The echo of voices and old radios rose through these canyons of poverty, but only as far as the rooftops. The voice of the Raval never reaches heaven.

Soon, through gaps between grime-covered buildings, we caught sight of the dark monumental outline of the Gran Teatro Real ruins. Crowning the very top of the skylight dome, silhouetted against the sky, was a weather vane in the shape of a black-winged b.u.t.terfly. We stopped to stare at the ghostly sight. What had once been the most fantastic building ever erected in Barcelona was now decomposing like a corpse floating in a swamp.

Marina pointed at the lit-up windows on the third floor of the adjoining building. I recognised the entrance to the stables. That was Claret's home. We walked up to the main door. The bottom of the stairwell was still flooded after last night's downpour. We began to climb the worn dark steps.

'What if he won't see us?' asked Marina anxiously.

'He's probably waiting for us,' it occurred to me.

When we reached the second floor I noticed that Marina was breathing heavily and with difficulty. I stopped and saw that she was turning pale.

'Are you all right?'

'A bit tired,' she replied with an unconvincing smile. 'You walk too fast for me.'

I took her hand and helped her up to the third floor, a step at a time. We stopped outside Claret's door. Marina took a deep breath. Her chest trembled as she did so.