Free The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker

answer. Wait and watch, watch and wait.
    The thunder rolled around for long hours, denying her sleep until nearly four. When, finally, she did sleep, it was the slumber of a watcher and waiter. Light, and full of sighs.
    2
    The storm made a ghost train of the house. Julia sat downstairs, and counted the beats between the flash and the fury that came on its heels. She had never liked thunder. She, a murderess; she, a consorter with the living dead. It was another paradox to add to the thousand she'd found at work in herself of late. She thought more than once of going upstairs, and taking some comfort with the prodigy, but knew that it would be unwise. Rory might return at any moment from his office party. He would be drunk, on past experience, and full of unwelcome fondness.
    The storm crept closer. She put on the television, to block out the din, which it scarcely did.
    At eleven. Rory came home, wreathed in smiles. He had good news. In the middle of the party his supervisor had taken him aside, commended him for his excellent work, and spoken of great things for the future. Julia listened to his retelling of the exchange, hoping that his inebriation would blind him to her indifference. At last, his news told, he threw off his jacket and sat down on the sofa beside her.
    "Poor you," he said. "You don't like the thunder."
    "I'm fine," she said.
    "Are you sure?"
    "Yes. Fine."
    He leaned across to her and nuzzled her ear.
    "You're sweaty," she said matter-of-factly. He didn't cease his overtures, however, unwilling to lower his baton now that he'd begun.
    "Please, Rory-" she said. "I don't want this."
    "Why not? What did I do?"
    "Nothing," she said, pretending some interest in the television. "You're fine."
    "Oh, is that right?" he said. "You're fine. I'm fine. Everybody's fucking fine."
    She stared at the flickering screen. The late evening news had just begun, the usual cup of sorrows full to brimming. Rory talked on, drowning out the newscaster's voice with his diatribe. She didn't much mind. What did the world have to tell her? Little enough. Whereas she, she had news for the world that it
    would reel to hear. About the condition of the damned; about love lost, and then found; about what despair and desire have in common.
    "Please, Julia"-Rory was saying-"just speak to me."
    The pleas demanded her attention. He looked, she thought, like the boy in the photographs-his body hirsute and bloated, his clothes those of an adult-but still, in essence, a boy, with his bewildered gaze and sulky mouth. She remembered Frank's question: "How could you ever have married such a dullard?" Thinking of it, a sour smile creased her lips. He looked at her, his puzzlement deepening.
    "What's so funny, damn you?"
    "Nothing."
    He shook his head, dull anger replacing the sulk. A peal of thunder followed the lightning with barely a beat intervening. As it came, there was a noise from the floor above. She turned her attention back to the television, to divert Rory's interest. But it was a vain attempt; he'd heard the sound.
    "What the fuck was that?"
    "Thunder."
    He stood up. "No," he said. "Something else." He was already at the door.
    A dozen options raced through her head, none of them practical. He wrestled drunkenly with the door handle.
    "Maybe I left a window open," she said and got up. "I'll go and see."
    "I can do it," he replied. "I'm not totally inept."
    "Nobody said-" she began, but he wasn't listening. As he stepped out into the hallway the
    lightning came with the thunder: loud and bright. As she went in pursuit of him another flash came fast upon the first, accompanied by a bowel-rocking crash. Rory was already halfway up the stairs.
    "It was nothing!" she shouted after him. He made no reply but climbed on to the top of the stairs. She followed.
    "Don't..." she said to him, in a lull between one peal and the next. He heard her this time. Or rather, chose to listen. When she reached the top of the stairs he was waiting.
    "Something