The Messenger

39

The pill bugs-Evan called them sow bugs-arrived during the morning, and in the afternoon an insect Daniel thought to be one of the most butt-ugly living creatures he had ever seen. When he dared to ask what it was, Adrian told him it was an ant lion, the larva of a dragonfly-like insect.

“They’re quite beautiful in the adult stage,” Adrian had said.

Daniel found that difficult to believe.

To his growing list of reasons for hating Adrian, he added ant lions.

Adrian was probably completely screwing up the environment, Daniel thought. Daniel wasn’t a scientist, but you didn’t need to be one to figure out that if a thousand of something got eaten up in the cellar, whatever usually ate that something was going hungry.

He was wondering if a thousand ant lions could be missed by anything or anyone when Adrian called Daniel and Evan to the basement.

He braced himself and followed Evan down the stairs. They were allowed to turn on the basement light now, but Daniel really wished they were back to the candle days. The only advantage was that they could now see what to avoid on the floor.

Adrian himself was worse than an ant lion. Far worse. Daniel knew that if they avoided looking at him, they would be punished, but the sight always turned his stomach.

Adrian had no skin. In some places-such as along the place where a man’s rib cage would be-he had something like an insect’s shell. His arms and legs were thin sticks, little more than muscle-covered bones. His feet were thin and long, and seemed almost too narrow to support him. His toes were fused together. His hands were pincers. Over his visible muscles, ligaments, and tendons, a thick mucus glistened.

Only his head seemed to be mostly human. He had no visible ears or nose, but he had dark eyes and hard, insect-shell eyelids now. Otherwise his mouth and other facial features seemed to be those of a man. A fleshless man.

The basement held a new odor, something like mustard, and although there was still an underlying scent of decay, the new stench masked it.

To Daniel’s relief, Adrian was focusing on Evan tonight.

“Do you know, Evan,” he said, “I had not realized previously what a handsome fellow you are…”

Evan blushed, but Daniel thought it was true that Evan was good looking, and what’s more, that Evan knew it. He had used those looks to get over on more than one woman. Evan wasn’t tops in the brains department, but women didn’t seem to mind.

Still, he didn’t blame Evan if it made him uneasy to hear Adrian talking like that.

“How old are you?” Adrian asked.

“Thirty-six, my lor-I mean, Mr. deVille.”

“Hmmm.”

Adrian’s eyelids make a clicking sound as he blinked, like the shutter of an old camera.

Adrian turned to Daniel.

“I have work for you to do.”

Daniel waited.

“It will be so much better when I have finished my transformation. I will be able to attend to these matters myself.” He sighed. “Evan tells me that Hawthorne’s lover may be back at her home. I want the two of you to make another trip there tonight, to confirm this. If it’s true, I want you to bring her to me.”

There was only one possible response, and Daniel made it. “Yes, sir.”