Free The Unblemished by Conrad Williams

There's no time, no point in
suturing the hot, spurting wounds. Losh is transferring the three
grand into a money belt around his waist while Manser is losing
himself to the feel of her, slick and denuded, flapping around his hips.
'You want these leftovers, or what?' Losh asks.
    He encloses his hands around her stumps as he comes. If she's at
all conscious, he doesn't see, can't see. Losh is long gone by the time
he returns to the world. So is the girl, usually. Sometimes they cling
on for a while, as if something inside them was inspiring hope.
    He wants the Hickman bitch for his number four.
    Salavaria , he thought.
    Manser parked his S-Type at the leading edge of the deep forest. If
he listened hard he could hear the faint shush of traffic on the M1, a
mile or two south. He reached inside the car for a plastic lunch box
and a black leather document wallet. He put these in a rucksack and
slung it over his shoulders. He had collected the sandwiches from
Losh that morning, as he always did, once a week, on the day of his
visit to Fetter Woods. Six days' worth of photographs in the wallet
had all been printed directly from a memory stick the previous
evening. He set off into the trees.
    Salavaria.
    He was still impressed by his feats, achieved in a different decade,
a different century. Manser's murders were almost a by-product of
his intent, an unavoidable side effect of his need. Death was not the
goal for him, and it had been a surprise to discover that Gyorsi
Salavaria's crimes, in this way, were similar to his own.
    The monster's lair announces itself about two miles into a part of the
woods where the canopy is so dense there is permanent twilight. The
first indication is a single, lichen-covered block of stone in a clearing
that is really nothing of the sort. There are no well-established trees
here, just a swarming pile of shrubbery that looks as though it has
been dumped rather than rooted. Foundations are visible through the
moss. More stones. Move deeper and the stones find some kind of
form. They climb to a point where they create impressive shadows in
the dappled sunlight. They are enough to warrant a window frame,
albeit naked. Spiders' webs so thick they create the illusion of frosted
glass stretch across the gaps. A shattered doorway stands at the head
of a flight of steps turned green with lichen and time. Manser strides
up them, recognising his footprints from his previous visit, one week
before. The rucksack is hot now against his back despite the time of
year; he is aware of sweat ringing his neck, the waistband of his black
trousers.
    It is still a strange feeling for him, as used to this place as he is, to
walk a corridor that has no ceiling. It feels faintly ridiculous, and not
for the first time he has the peculiar sense that he has never before
been here, that there is nothing to see, that the ruins will turn back to
rubble as he proceeds, that the trees will take over once more, that
there will eventually be a road leading away.
    Insects cling to the walls like strange decoration, the dead
carapaces providing the only sounds as he strides forwards, crunching
underfoot.
    Out of the confusion of stone and creeping vegetation, he sees
faces where there are none, surging from the shadows like something
exuded. The walls develop greater height, and now parts of a ceiling
appear. Rooms suddenly stitch themselves out of the fabric of green
and black. Things skitter within them, either too blind and damaged
to reach the open doorways, or more preferring of the thick gloom.
He thinks he hears singing, but it is over almost before he can identify
it as such.
    At the end of the corridor, a windowless room with its door
hanging off the hinges. Out of the dark, one hand reaches to curl
around the splintered, rotting jamb. It grips so hard that the knuckles
whiten in an instant.
    Gyorsi Salavaria says, 'I like what you bring me, Malcolm.'
    He thought back to their first meeting, arranged after Salavaria had
written