'What?' Hinch stared hard at him, tried to look hard, too — difficult with a man as sure of himself as Milan. Or as sure of his filthy money! But Hinch reckoned that for all his lousy millions, still Milan would be a cinch in a fight. Hinch was a powerful, brutal fighter, the victor of a dozen rough-house brawls. And Milan — he had the hands of a pianist, fingers like a girl! Hw^/Hinch would bet his life that Milan had never felt a bunch of knuckles bouncing off that ugly nose of his. And the thought never occurred to him that he had already bet his life.
Cocking his head a little on one side, Milan looked at him curiously, sighed and said, 'First it's my music, and then it's because you've had to work late into the night, and now… now it's personal, to the point that you insult me and even measure your physical strength against mine, like an opponent… as if you could ever be an opponent. Or is it all just jealousy?'
And suddenly it sank into Hinch's less than enormous brain that while he'd thought all of these things, he hadn't actually voiced any of them — not even about the music! Was he that easy to read?
But he was tired of all this, and so, changing the subject he said, 'What's that about the job not being finished? I mean, you wouldn't be trying to avoid paying me — would you?' And the threat in his words, the way he growled them, was obvious.
'Not at all,' Milan told him. 'Payment is most certainly, very definitely due. And you shall have it. But out there — on the outside of the dome, just a little to the left of this open window here — there's a spot you missed. And I suffer from this affliction: I can't deal with too much sunlight. My eyes and my skin are vulnerable. And so, you see, while sunshine may find my window, it must never find me. The work must be finished, to my satisfaction. That was our contract, Mr Hinch.'
God damn this weird bastard! Hinch thought, as he paced to the window, leaned out (but carefully,) and looked to the left. But: 'God?' said Milan, from close behind. 'Your god, Mr Hinch? Well, if there is such a Being — and if his sphere of influence is as extensive as you suppose — I think you may safely assume that he 'damned' me a very long time ago.'
'Eh?' said Hinch, looking back into the dome, surprised by and wondering at the sudden change in Milan's tone of voice. Milan moved or flowed closer; his slim fingers were strong where they came down on Hindi's hand, trapping it on the window sill. And leaning closer still, with his face just inches away, he smiled and hissed, 'You don't much care for heights, do you, Mr Hinch? In fact you care for them even less than you care for me, or for my music.'
'What the bloody…?' Hinch looked into eyes that were no longer black or feral but uniformly red, flaring like lamps.'
'Bloody?' the other repeated him, his voice a phlegmy gurgle now, full of lust, and his breath a hot, coppery stench in Hindi's face. 'Ah, yesssss! But not your blood, not this time, Mr Hinch. Your blood is unworthy. You are unworthy!'
'Jesus Christ!' Hinch gasped, choked, tried to draw away — and failed.
'Call on who or whatever you like.' Milan continued to pin him to the window ledge, and moved his free hand to the back of Hinch's thick neck. 'No one and nothing can help you now.'
'You're a fucking madman!' Hinch jerked and wriggled, but he couldn't pull free. The other's strength was unbelievable.
'And you… you are nothing!' Milan told him, continuing to smile, or at least doing something with his face.
Hinch saw it, but didn't believe it: the way Milan's lips curled back and away from his elongating jaws, the teeth curving up through his splitting gums, his ridged, convoluted nose flattening back, while his nostrils gaped and sniffed. And the red blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.
Then Milan freed Hinch's hand in order to clench his fist and
hit him in his ribs — such a blow that Hinch, burly as he was, was lifted from his feet. At the same time, Milan hoisted him by the scruff of the neck and tilted him forward; concerted movements designed to topple him into space.
And as the shrieking Hinch flipped out into the night, so the Thing that looked like a man released him.
Hinch fell, but only for a moment. Then his shriek became a gasp as he came down on his belly and cracked ribs across the safety rail of a painter's platform slung between twin gantries. From above, seven or eight feet to the open window, Hinch heard Milan's cursing. And struggling to his feet inside the platform he looked up — to see that hideous, livid face looking down on him!
Then, moving like liquid lightning, Milan was up onto the window ledge, and light as a feather came leaping to the bouncing, rocking platform. His intentions were unmistakable, and as he landed Hinch went to kick him in the groin. Milan caught his foot, twisted it until the ankle broke, then reached out with a long arm to grab the other's throat. And without pause, lifting Hinch bodily into the air, he thrust him out beyond the rim of the safety rail — and let him fall.
As Hinch fell — grasping at thin air and failing to catch it — he was aware that Milan was speaking to him one last time. But whether it was a physical voice he heard, a chuckling whisper in his head, or simply something imagined, he couldn't have said. And he certainly didn't have time to worry about it.
Paid in fully the crazed voice whispered. For your insults if not for your work. So be it!
And below, crashing down head first, Hinch was dead before the pain had time to register. Like an egg dropped on the floor, the contents of his skull splattered at first. But the grey was soon drowned in a thick, night- dark pool that formed around his shattered head.
While up above, that terrible face continued to smile down on him… for a little while, until Aristotle Milan's features melted back into a more acceptable form, and he gave a careless shrug, and grunted again, 'So be it!'
PART ONE
Then he returned to listening to his music, and no other's thoughts to disturb him now, in the solitude of a strange place in a strange land…
An 'unfortunate accident,' was how local newspapers would later report the matter. They also reported Milan's generous offer to pay all of the funeral expenses, and his very generous donation to Derek Hindi's widow…
The How Of It
CHAPTER ONE See The Creechur
It was hot as hell, and flies the size of Jake Cutter's little fingernails had been committing suicide on the vehicle's windscreen for more than a hundred and fifty miles now, ever since they'd left Wiluna and 'civilization' behind.
'Phew!' Jake said, sluicing sweat from his brow and out of the open window of their specially adapted Land Rover. The top was back and the windows wound down, yet the hot wind of passage that pushed their wide- brimmed Aussie hats back from their foreheads, tightened their chinstraps around their throats and ruffled their shirts still made it feel like they were driving headlong into a bonfire. And the 'road' ahead — which in fact was scarcely better than a track — wavered like a smoke-ghost in the heat haze of what appeared to be an empty, ever-expanding distance.
Behind the vehicle, a mile-long plume of dust and blue-grey exhaust fumes drifted low over the scrub and the wilderness.
'That's your fifth 'phew',' Liz Merrick told him. 'Feeling talkative today?'
'So what am I supposed to say?' He didn't even glance at her, though most men wouldn't have been able to resist it. 'Oh dear, isn't it hot? Christ, it must be ninety! 'Phew' is about all I'm up to, because if I do more than
