by Mike Wild
"Do not be. Join the Eyes, Dr Brand."
The academic took the other half from Baarish-Shammon and stared at the two pieces he held in his hands. Gradually, he brought them together. Even before they touched he felt some ancient and unimaginable energy stir within them, numbing his grip. He connected the pieces, twisting to lock them into place, and the orbs on either end of the now marching-baton shaped object flared once and then dimmed.
[What? That's it? No heavenly chorus?]
"The Eyes are ready to see," the monk told her. Then he stared at the demoness intently, as if contemplating something. Brand's stare, however, was drawn to the fact that Patrick's flesh, now bereft of the artefact, had begun to peel slowly away. Six hundred years of natural decay were reasserting themselves, and in a few moments the monk would be gone. Somehow Brand knew that it was not his place to stay. Brother Patrick would prefer to pass alone.
"Go with God," the academic said softly, then turned to exit the small chamber.
[See ya, pops,] Baarish-Shammon added, snarling.
"Dr Brand, wait. There's something else."
Brand turned. The monk's eyes were sinking in their sockets, his face almost skeletal. But he smiled again nonetheless.
"The Eyes of the Angel," Brother Patrick said. "It bestows upon its bearer a gift. For a brief moment of time, it doesn't just allow you to see God - it allows you to see with the eyes of God."
"I don't underst-" Brand began.
"With the eyes of God," Patrick continued, "no truth can be buried, no secret hidden." The monk nodded at Baarish-Shammon, his meaning clear.
Brand faltered, his heartbeat accelerating. If the monk meant what he thought he meant, he would finally...
"Use the gift, Jonathan," Brother Patrick urged gently. As he spoke his final words, he clasped his hands once more in prayer, then bowed forward until all that could be seen of him was his robe. After a second it simply folded to nothing. "Use it... don't be afraid."
Brand stared, then almost mechanically raised the Eyes of the Angel vertically in front of him, holding it in both hands like the marching baton it resembled. He moved it in the direction of Baarish-Shammon, tensing his arms and staring in amazement as the orbs renewed their gentle glow.
Baarish-Shammon eyed the orbs warily and took the slightest of steps backwards.
[Keep that piece of shit away from me,] the she-demon growled.
Brand shook his head. His arms were beginning to tremble, and the orbs pulse.
[I'm warning you, little man. Keep it away!]
"No!" Brand shouted defiantly. "I will not."
Baarish-Shammon loosed a wave of power intended to fling Brand against the wall of the chamber, but though his hair and clothing were buffeted by her blastwave, Brand remained unmoved, standing steadfast amidst the demonic gale. The sinews in his arms stood out like cords now, and the orbs were turning brilliant white.
[YOU WILL DIE FOR THIS!] Baarish-Shammon cried out. [I SWEAR BY EVERYTHING UNHOLY, I WILL TEAR YOU APAR-]
A flash of silence. A moment of forever. And inside it, this world ceased to be.
Jenny Simmons collapsed to her knees in front of her fiancée, looked up slowly. "J-Jonathan?" she said weakly.
Jonathan Brand let out a choking sob that was half pure joy, half heartbreak. He staggered a step towards her, like a drunk. "Jen," he whispered, his breath catching. "Oh, God... My Jen."
Jennifer Simmons mouthed yes, laughing aloud at the same time as she began to cry. She reached out with trembling hands and lowered Brand down to his knees. As he stared at her in disbelief, she cupped his head in her palms and nodded again and again as tears streamed down her face. "It's me... I'm still here."
Jonathan Brand dropped the artefact and grabbed his fiancée to him, clinging as if he would never let go. Words poured from him. "I never doubted... oh God, I never doubted... believe me, Jen, please..."
"I know," Jenny said swiftly, soothingly. She ran her hands over his face. "I know, darling, I know."
And now I know, Jonathan Brand thought. I know you're here and I am going to do everything I can to bring you back. "Jenny, I promise you I-" he began, but in that moment realised their reunion had been oh-so-agonisingly brief - and staring at his fiancée he watched her die for a second time.
"Jonatha-" she said, and then her voice faded. [You'll what, lover boy? Stick it to me again?] Baarish-Shammon chuckled harshly and drew in a girlish breath. [Hey, who's in the rubber suit this time?]
Brand was suddenly suffused with absolute cold, absolute rage, and an absolute disregard for his own survival. He leapt for Baarish-Shammon and grabbed her by the neck, no longer caring if this was Jenny's body or not. All he wanted to do was kill this bitch who had fought back even against the Eyes themselves.
And as she stared wildly over his constricting hands, he realised he might succeed. She was as weak as a kitten after her ordeal.
But then he froze as the unmistakable feel of a gun barrel pressed against his temple.
"Please, Dr Brand, do not move an inch. We have each survived our lives spent in the pursuit of the paranormal and the supernatural, and truly I would hate to end yours by something as prosaic as a bullet from my Luger."
"Souvenir of the war?" Brand asked. He did not need to see her to know he was speaking to Helen Earth. "You lost, you know."
"Yes, indeed." There was a click as the pistol was cocked. "Give me the artefact, doctor."
Brand felt prickly sweat break out on his body, and his bowels began to butterfly. He released Baarish-Shammon, but any hope of help that might otherwise have come from the demoness was dashed as she clung weakly to the wall, her head slumped to her chest. Swallowing, Brand stooped to pick up the Eyes of the Angel and clutched it to him.
"I'm nobody's hero but I can't do that. Helen, don't you realise that the angel has no interest in your glorious Nazi resurgence, only in totally eradicating us all? There is too much at stake here; the end of our world."
Helen Earth sighed lengthily. "The end of your world," she said.
And shot Jonathan Brand in the head.
NINETEEN
The lights were on but Helen wasn't at home.
The sect leader had, it seemed, been updated to Jonathan Brand's whereabouts, and had departed in pursuit of the academic and the Eyes of the Angel, but before leaving had been considerate enough to light two of the wall-mounted, iron-bracketed, old-fashioned flickering torches that brightened her underground domain.
Unfortunately, they were the two that were ever so slowly burning away the ropes holding up Ness and Verse's iron cage, suspended as it was above the lake of the dead.
The situation had to be a throwback to the days of the monks, because no one in this day and age, not even Helen Earth, could possibly be that clichéd. But clichéd or not, they had maybe five minutes before they dropped into the rotting mass of decomposed bodies. Which was, incidentally, deep enough still for them to drown in the crap.
"Tell me again," Lawrence Verse said, "exactly why it was you decided to come and, er, rescue me."
"Moment o' weakness, pal. Trust me, ah willnae do it agin." In actual fact, the Glaswegian had been hoping to pull something out of his hat once in the main chamber, but the fact was, there were simply too many of the bastards to get a chance. "She used us, this bint. Threw in just enough of a physical challenge so's we wouldnae guess, but used us all the same. Every step o' the way."
Verse nodded. The priest had been inconsolably sullen since he'd seen the thing Hannah Chapter had become. "Used all of us to find the artefact so she could get shot of the one thing that could destroy her angel. Then suckered us all into her web where she can get shot of the few people in this country who have even the remotest chance of kicking its ass. But hey, what do you expect from a woman whose de Spina Investments buys up a whole town to use as an emergency larder. Or who opens a snuff centre to act as her pet's personal McDonald's. Or operates God knows how many other scams over the years to-"
/>
"There's always tha' other lot," Ness jumped in quickly. "Ta kick its arse, ah min. Challengers o' the Unknown. Or wha' aboot the Doom Patrol?"
Verse stared at him, said nothing.
"Ah shite. Ya gonna tell me they're jus' comic book characters, ah can tell."
"No. They're... in... America."
Michael Ness narrowed his eyes. He was still trying to work out whether Verse was serious when something more interesting occurred near to the suspended cage. Without warning, between two of the Sonderkommando Thule guards, a pair of arms appeared, and then, in a kind of calligraphic "W" motion that Ness had never seen in any textbooks, wrapped themselves around their necks and snapped both from the spine. Each of their brainstems severed, the raggedly uniformed bodies folded to the ground.
Somewhat acrobatically for one of the supposed soul-stripped, a white-skinned figure leapt onto the cage, rapidly picked its lock, and then flung open the door.
"You two coming, or what?" Hannah Chapter said.
Lawrence Verse simply stared. Despite obvious efforts to maintain his macho image, he couldn't keep the huge grin off his face. He cleared his throat. "Hey, girl," he said deeply. "You look like shit."
"Probably. But can't see a damn thing so don't give a toss. Got my spare specs?"
Verse tapped a breast pocket. "As ever."
Hannah allowed him to guide her hand, fingering the back of his gently as she did - good to see you - then slipped the glasses on. "Ta."
"Now you can see wha' we can see," Ness leered. "The only reason ah spotted ya earlier ridin' yer man was 'cause o' yer boney little arse."
Verse reddened with anger, but realised at the same time that Hannah was indeed naked. He took off his leather coat and handed it over. But as he did, what Ness had said struck him. "You were one of them ... God, girl, you tried to tear my throat out."
"I tried to shield your throat from the others trying to tear it out, moron. And it looks like I succeeded, so stop doubting me. And if you've got issues with my whitey-white skin," she added, "then I suggest you try the oldest thrill-ride to grace the Scratch Tor theme park. I call it the Razor Run."
"You've lost a lot of blood," Verse immediately recognised. "You should-"
"I'm okay. Bit dizzy, but okay."
"I really think you should-"
"I should have been soul-stripped," Hannah said angrily, suddenly. "It was my reward, I reckon, for surviving the big fall - like an I LOOPED THE LOOP badge. I guess our Helen figured if I could do that then I might be a worthy addition to her - no, sorry, strike that - to our not-so-feathery friend's elite army of the half-dead. The two of them tried to conscript me."
"Evidently it didn't work."
"Very bloody nearly, it did. Jesus, Verse, the thing is powerful. I don't know how I did it, but as I lay there with these other bastards pratting round me, I managed to claw my self back somehow, grab hold of the thread before it broke away for good. Maybe it's that old line about not joining any club that'll have me as a member, or maybe it's just like people always said, that I'm a-"
"Bleedin' awkward bitch?" Ness interjected.
Hannah glared at him. "Resistant." She looked up as the ropes holding the cage burned through and it crashed into the soup, sinking slowly into the mire. "Point is, we need to start kicking some ass around here, because if you haven't yet noticed, things are getting a mite threatening."
The three of them peered over rocks at the main part of the cavern, where things had definitely shifted up a gear. The thousands of bodies that lined its walls were dropping down quickly to the floor of the chamber, one by one swelling the ranks of the already vast throng gathered there. The chamber was filled with the sound of them all: a low, bass groan that resonated through the rock itself, vibrating the very depths. Amongst them, around them, over them, the white, spidery things, the controlling elite it seemed, leapt and pranced and prodded, harsh, sibilant hisses cutting through the air. There were so many of the creatures that they were already flooding out into the newly cleared passages, and their groans and hisses increased in volume as they sensed the outside world, the path out of their involuntary tomb at long, long last.
And there, at their heart, the angel.
Abaddon.
Breathing much more deeply, the thing seemed almost to throb, but the throbbing was much more than just a physical thing, it resonated deep in the psyche. Its old rallying cry, increasing in volume now with each repetition, and each of the repetitions coming faster, deeper, stronger than the last, over and over and over again, until its army roared.
SINS. SINS. SHOW ME YOUR SINS.
"Nothing like a pre-match pep talk," Ness said.
Onward Christian Soldiers, Verse thought darkly, Marching As To War. He wondered how far this psychic demand was spreading - probably out beyond Boswell, beyond the hills, to the places where other people lived, and had died, and whether any of them at all could possibly resist what was to come.
And it was only the beginning. Once this thing emerged from this cavern, there'd be no stopping it. Not unless Brand...
They simply had to help in any way they could.
Verse handed Hannah a pair of semi-automatics. "You'll be needing these."
Hannah racked the weapons. Then she bent down and picked up the machine guns from the two dead Sonderkommando Thule. "Thanks. And you two'll be needing these. Please try not to get yourself killed."
Verse raised an eyebrow. "Not joining us then? Other business?"
"Big boots? Small tits? Swastika?"
"Ah, yes."
"Tried to murder me. Pissed me off."
"Understood. Off you go."
Verse watched Hannah depart, racing through the throng and out of the cavern before the half-dead could even react, and then turned to Mikey Ness. The Scotsman ejected a clip from the machine-gun to inspect it, and rammed it solidly back home.
"Thin the ranks?" Verse said.
"Nowt better ta do. No' til this afternoon at any rate. Rangers is playin' this afternoon."
"You do realise we-"
"Aye. So are we gonna do these unholy fookers some damage or no'?"
Verse racked his own weapon. "On three..."
"Three," the Glaswegian said, and was gone.
"Shit."
Verse followed Ness over the top of their rocky hiding place, machine gun spewing bullets into the mass of soul-stripped before him. One thing he could be grateful for, at least, was that he didn't have to concern himself with B3 darts and any recent living victims - they were not needed inside the cavern now, only to engorge the force being summoned outside. That said, the freedom it granted him to mow down as many of the leaping and shambling things as he could was something of a double-edged sword. He had other weapons in his pockets, of course, as had Ness, but the ammo in all of them was limited while the targets just kept on coming.
Verse kept firing anyway.
Hundreds of the half-dead fell.
And inevitably his ammo ran out.
But during the melee, the ex-priest had spotted something. There was a way. But first he had to find Ness.
Physically beating his path through the hordes, Verse searched for the Scotsman and spotted him at last standing defiantly on a raised rock. The man was actually grinning despite his being surrounded and imminently overwhelmed.
"Wass that Jimmy Cagney film?" the Scot roared at him. Then he raised his hands in the air and bawled at the top of his voice, "Here I am, Ma - Bottom o' the world!"
A white claw slashed him across his momentarily exposed stomach. Three lines of blood - a lot of blood - began to seep through his shirt. And the stuff then quickly coalesced into a spreading red stain.
Ness emptied what remained of his machine gun's bullets through his assailant's head, and then through the heads of those who came behind. He then pulled a pistol - his last weapon - and held it between rapidly unsteadying but interclasped hands, continuing to grin to himself like a loon. He seemed wholly unaware that hi
s aim was already involuntarily dipping, or that he was swaying, or of the sheen of sweat that had coated his rapidly whitening face.
Oh bollocks, Verse thought. That stupid Scots bastard was in shock and he had to get him out of there right now. Collapsing the last of his own attackers with a brutal elbow ram to the temple, Verse barrelled in. He needed help to slice his way through, however, and so pulled out his usual weapon of last resort. This hybrid crucifix-cum-stake was, of course, at its most effective when used against vampires, but he hadn't come across a creepy-crawly yet who upon finding a rather big hole in its vitals had felt much like arguing the point. No pun, of course, was intended.
Verse chopped through the creatures surrounding the mad Glaswegian and pulled him off the rock, then half-staggered with him towards the exit tunnel. Encumbered as he was, however, it proved impossible to get far. Back to back, Verse and Ness turned slowly in a circle. The encroaching mass of soul-stripped kept their distance for the moment but that offered little hope to the two of them. The shuffling creatures were hundreds deep, not a single break in their circled ranks, and they were getting ready to spring.
"Ah dinnae suppose you got any brilliant ideas reet aboot now?" Ness said.
"Actually, yes," Verse replied. "I was hoping to get closer to the tunnel but this is going to have to do." He pointed up and Ness stared. At various points around the base of the rock flue small, metallic limpets had been attached. Each blinked with a red LED.
"Wha' the hell?" Ness said.
"Explosive charges," Verse told him. "Spotted them before. How else was Helen going to get the angel out of here? These days it's a bit big for the front door. I imagine that right now she's clutching a remote trigger, but she won't blow them until she's destroyed the artefact."
"And by virtue of the fact she hasnae-"
"The artefact is still in the game."
"So we bring down the roof on these bastards - that'll stop them leavin' - but wha' aboot the big lad? Department Q tried the same in '44 and look where tha' got us."
Verse looked at Ness. "Department Q tried to bury the angel, not release it prematurely."