by Paul Crilley
‘I . . . I do not know.’
‘If they find him, what happens?’
‘It . . . depends what they want to do. He is asleep you see, the sins held in his dreams.’
‘What if he wakes?’
Stefan shrugs. ‘The sins might . . . leak out, infect his surroundings. Corrupt the world. He is utterly mad, you see. Only in his dreams can he control them. If he wakes . . . who knows what will happen.’
‘And if he dies?’
‘Then the sins return to God. I am . . . not sure how he will react to that. He does not remember these sins. He has no knowledge, no memory of the evil he did. The angels will have made sure of this. Can you imagine how he will react if those sins return to him? If he suddenly remembers what he has done. If he remembers why he did it? He will do what he failed to do last time. Destroy the world.’
Lilith’s revenge. How Night becomes Day. She doesn’t even have to do anything. Just kill the Sinwalker and God will do the rest. Wipe out most of humanity.
The smell of smoke is getting stronger. I turn to the door and see it curling underneath. Time’s up.
‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’
‘No. That is all I know. Now please. Help me. Help me escape.’
‘Help yourself.’
I hurry to the door, pull it open and jerk back as the heat slaps me in the face. Smoke and flames are crawling across the ceiling. The stairs leading down are a wall of fire. I can’t see ten feet down the corridor. Shit. Have to go up.
I take the stairs to the top floor. The walls are starting to smoke up here. I can feel the heat through the soles of my shoes. I move fast, find what I’m looking for at the end of the corridor. A small door with cramped stairs leading up.
I take them two at a time and emerge onto the roof of the manor house. The sky is choked with orange-tinged smoke. I can hear screams and shouts from down below.
I cover my mouth with my sleeve, skirt around the perimeter of the roof in search of a ladder, some way of getting down. I make a complete circuit before realizing with a sinking heart that there isn’t one.
I hurry back across the roof. I need to find another way down. I open the door and a surge of flames leaps out, enveloping me in a wall of heat.
I shove the door closed. Stagger away, squinting through the smoke. I look around desperately. There has to be another way.
Then I see something odd. One section of the smoke is moving oddly. I frown, moving towards the edge of the roof. The smoke is swirling in little vortexes, and as I draw closer I see why.
Michael.
He’s hanging in the air about ten feet away from the house, wings flapping slowly as he watches the scene unfolding below him. I peer over the edge and can just make out the lines of cars on fire, the guests streaming from the burning house.
-Dog? Where are you?-
-With Armitage. She just finished getting everyone out. Fuck, London, did you see—?-
-Later. Tell Armitage to get the car round to the fountain. I’ll be there in a minute.-
Michael hasn’t noticed me yet. I stare at him, feeling the heat on my back, pulsing up from below. The arrogant bastard is just hanging in the air, watching the tragedy unfold beneath him. Doing absolutely nothing.
I ready my gun, climb up onto the lip of the roof. I teeter there, waving my arms for balance. Thank Christ the smoke obscures most of the ground. I’m really not good with heights.
I watch Michael, trying to judge the distance. It’s going to be close. There’s a good chance I won’t make it.
And the thing is, I don’t really care. I’m tired. Tired of us. Tired of them. Tired of the powerful taking advantage of the weak. I’m tired of the entire fucking human race. If I die now, so what? I’ll join Cally, wherever she is. Or I won’t. Either way, it won’t make a lick of difference.
I crouch down, then throw myself forward. The smoke whips past my face. Michael senses something, starts to turn. I grab hold of his wing with my free hand. We lurch to the side, my weight throwing him off balance.
‘What are you doing?’ he shouts.
He rights himself and flaps his wings. They hit me in the face but I hold on tight. He’s starting to rise. That’s not what I want.
I shoot him in the face.
He screams. We drop, but his wings are still flapping. He’s not dead. I didn’t think he would be. But he’s hurt. He tries to control the descent as much as he can but we hit the ground hard and I’m thrown aside. I roll, come to a stop. My breath has been knocked out of me. I lay on the grass, wheezing for air. Michael is off to my right, sobbing in horror.
‘What . . . have you done to my face?’ His words are mumbled, broken, but I understand them well enough.
I wince, feeling for broken ribs. ‘Better watch out for that vanity,’ I croak.
I push myself to my knees, then to my feet. My side is throbbing, hot flashes of pain stabbing through me. I stagger off to find Armitage, leaving Michael on all fours behind me.
‘Have you seen my teeth?’ he says. ‘I can’t find my teeth.’
I search frantically for my gun. Find it in the grass a few feet away. Eject the clip. Load a new one, point it at Michael.
But he’s not coming for me. He’s limping in the opposite direction, heading for the trees. When he’s halfway there his wings start flapping and he rises jerkily into the sky, looking like an old Harryhausen stop-motion monster.
I put my gun away. There will be a reckoning there, I’m sure. Add another name to the list of creatures who want to kill me.
I look around. I’m at the rear of the house. The cars are all ablaze. I can smell burning rubber and fuel. There are clumps of guests milling around, staring at the cars in horror, wondering how they’re going to get home.
I take out my cell phone and dial 10111.
‘Police, what’s your emergency.’
‘There’s a huge fire out at . . .’ What’s the place called again? ‘. . . Ainsley Manor,’ I say, remembering. ‘Lots of people dead. You better send everyone you can. Fire. Police. Everyone.’
I hang up, take a picture of the burning house, then forward it to the press contacts I have in my address book. I give them the address and title the email, ‘Sex party goes wrong’. That will get them here.
But even as I send the email I wonder if it will make any difference. The people at this party are the ones who own the papers. They’d never let this story go to press.
But I have to try.
I can feel the heat even from this distance. The flames have taken hold of everything now. Pouring up out the windows, crawling up the outside walls like they’re alive. I squint and think I see movement in the flames. Fire demons called up by the pain and suffering that went on here.
The front of the house is a scene of utter chaos. The guests are running around like headless chickens, crying, sobbing. Pointing at the house in horror. Yeah, cry me a river, fuckers.
I see a flash of headlights beyond the fountain.
-Dog. That you in the car?-
-It’s us.-
I jog towards them, climb into the passenger side. I check the back and see the little girl, mesmerized by the fire, watching the figures silhouetted against the bright flames. I follow her gaze. A portion of roof suddenly caves in, accompanied by a terrific crunching, splintering sound. The flames reach higher, climbing into the night.
‘London?’ Armitage, prompting.
I don’t take my gaze from the flame. I’m transfixed, caught in the moment.
So she drives, and finds the nearest hospital. Armitage takes the girl inside, saying she found her wandering around on the street. Armitage lays a hand on the girl’s head. I feel the shinecraft from the car as Armitage cancels the glamour and wipes out her memory too. No need for her to remember what went on tonight.
The girl immediately turns and looks at me. Armitage ducks back through the doors and into the car. She starts the engine.
The little girl li
fts a hand slightly in goodbye.
I lift mine in response, then Armitage pulls back into the street.
‘Where to?’ she asks.
‘Back to Durban.’
Chapter 17
I don’t talk during the trip back to Durban. I can’t. All I’m seeing are images – flashes of what happened back at the house, things I hadn’t even been aware of seeing at the time. Jagged bursts of red and white. Of blood and bone. Of hunger glinting behind masks, of the terrified screams of the dying, the triumphant, animalistic howls of the killers.
I’m struggling to come to terms with it. It was as if a hundred thousand years of progress was simply . . . stripped away in an instant. As if society was nothing more than a feeble veneer, a group lie that we all hide behind so we can think we’re better than we are. More advanced.
But we’re not advanced. Lurking inside every single one of us is the animal, all fangs and hunger, waiting to be let off its chains.
It’s making me feel sick. More than anything because I recognize that animal in myself. Every time I think about Cally I hear the snarling, raging beast, locked away in its cage, howling to be let loose, a force for revenge that will destroy everything before it if I just gave in. If I just opened the door.
But I can’t. Because I know that if I let it out, it would devour me whole. That I wouldn’t be able to come back from it.
I shiver, watch the tail lights of the car ahead of us. They look like glowing red eyes, watching me.
Waiting.
Armitage drops me back at the shopping centre where I left my car. It’s about four in the morning. I’m exhausted. I feel beaten down, defeated.
‘You given any thought about what you want to do next?’ Armitage asks as I open the back door for the dog.
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Because those SSA fellas are still going to be after us.’
‘I know.’
‘So—’
‘Christ, Armitage. I don’t. Know. I told you what Stefan told me. You figure it out.’
She stares at me for a second. ‘No need to be a dick about it,’ she says, and pulls out of the parking bay. The back door slams shut with her momentum.
I sigh and unlock the Land Rover. The dog hops in.
‘You OK?’ he asks as I drive out of the parking lot.
‘No.’
‘You . . . I don’t know . . . Wanna talk?’
‘No.’
‘Thank Christ for that,’ says the dog, relief plain in his voice.
I head back into town, trying to avoid the streets I know have working CCTV cameras. (Not many.) I get back to the beachfront twenty minutes later and park about a couple of hundred yards from my flat. It’s possible the SSA spooks still have it under observation. Don’t reckon they will, though. They’ve probably just instructed Ranson to detain me if I turn up at Delphic Division. Still. Better safe than sorry.
The streets are empty this time of night. A calmness has stolen over the city. A lie. When the night crawlers have passed out and the early morning joggers haven’t managed to drag themselves smugly out of bed yet. A stray cat crosses my path. Pauses once and glares at the dog before walking calmly on, unafraid. The waves are a soft susurration to my left, their presence calming.
The thought comes to my mind unbidden. This would actually be a nice world if it wasn’t for us.
I walk up a side street that takes me off the esplanade and into a dirty alleyway running along the back of the beachfront buildings. Fast food wrappers and carrier bags pile up against the sidewalk kerb. I can smell urine, vomit. It’s dark back here.
We pass the service entrance to one of the hotels, a pile of cigarette butts showing where the employees take their breaks. Past another hotel, then across a wider street and I’m behind my building. I use my keys to unlock the reinforced door at the rear. All residents have one so we can bring our garbage down to the metal dumpster outside. Although, judging by the mess on the road, it looks like some of my neighbours just drop their shit out their window and hope for the best.
Up the stairs and I pause before my door. It’s been kicked in, the lock destroyed, then sealed shut with a hastily attached clasp and padlock.
I rip the clasp straight from the wood and push the door open. Light from the hall spills past me into the flat, revealing a scene of devastation. The SSA have been here all right.
I step inside, pushing the door shut behind me. I make sure the blinds are all down before turning on the light and looking around.
‘Fuck me,’ says the dog.
They’ve destroyed everything. Glasses and plates smashed, food and drink in the kitchen emptied and thrown across the floor. The sofa’s been upended and ripped to shreds. Books torn to pieces. My comics in tattered ribbons. Even the DVDs. They’ve snapped every single one.
I head into my room, flick the light switch. Glass crunches underfoot. I look down. My photographs of Cally and Becca, from when we were a family. They’ve all been ripped from the wall and ground beneath heavy boots.
I carefully pick them up, shaking the glass fragments away. I right the bedside table and lay the photographs down, attempting to smooth out the creases. Cally smiles at me. Becca is winking, her hand behind Cally’s head doing rabbit ears.
I stare at it for a while, then blink, look around. I pull the mattress back onto the bed. It’s been shredded, foam and springs jutting through knife gashes.
I lie down and close my eyes. I feel numb. I want to get away. To hide away from life.
I don’t get a chance. My phone rings half an hour later. I pick it up and check the number. I recognize it instantly.
Becca.
I swing my feet onto the floor and answer. ‘Becca?’
Silence. Some heavy, laboured breathing. Something else— something brushing against the phone?
Then a man, shouting in pain, but in the distance. Far away.
‘Becca?’ I say.
The shouting is cut off. The breathing in the phone increases. I can hear the panic.
‘Gideon.’ A whisper. Filled with fear. Anger. ‘Someone’s—’
Sudden noises, like a tussle or a fight. Grunts of pain. Something heavy falling.
Then the phone goes dead.
I’m out the house and running towards the car before I realise I’ve left the dog behind. No time to go back. I pull out into the street, narrowly avoiding crashing into an early morning taxi, and speed off into town.
The number on my cell was Becca’s landline. She was back at home. Back? Had she even left? I told her to get to safety, but did she listen to me? I punch the steering wheel over and over. I should have checked! I should have fucking checked on her!
The trip to her house passes at a frantic crawl. I’m hoping a cop car sees me, tries to pull me over for speeding. Just so I can lead them to the house. To stop . . . to help . . .
I slam on the brakes outside Becca’s house, mount the kerb, slide across her front lawn.
Then I’m out, my sweaty fingers curled around the Glock. I stand at the bottom of the garden, breathing heavily, watching. The house is dark. No sounds except the sleepy chirping of birds starting to wake up. The sky is grey on the horizon.
I move forward. The automatic gates have been forced, lifted from their tracks and shoved aside. I hurry up the driveway, watching the house all the time.
The front door is standing open. I feel like I’m going to throw up. I push it slowly with my foot. It creaks slightly, the noise sounding like a scream to my frayed nerves.
I enter the house. It’s silent. It feels . . . empty. That feeling when you know nobody’s home. A glass door to my right opens into the lounge. There’s been a fight. Pillows strewn everywhere. Glass coffee table smashed. LCD television lying on the floor. I move down the passage, heading towards the kitchen.
I flick the light switch. The fluorescent strip light glints and glares on teracotta tiles covered in blood, pooling from behind the kitchen table. I step inside, gri
pping the table. Peer over the edge and almost collapse with relief.
It’s not Becca.
A man, slightly overweight, sightless eyes staring up at the ceiling. Her boyfriend? Bullet holes in his forehead and chest. Double-tap. To make sure.
No one else in here. I climb the stairs, check through the first door. A spare room. Next one a study. That only leaves one possibility. I approach slowly, push the door open.
She’s lying on the floor next to the bed, her face turned away from me. I don’t move. I shake my head in denial. No. No, please no.
I take a step. Then another. Skirting the body, moving around to the other side.
I fall to my knees when I see the bullet hole in her forehead. A sound of horror escapes me, a howling moan of rage and pain, of hatred and loneliness.
Her eyes stare at me accusingly. Look what you brought to my door.
I gather her up, grip her to me. I rock back and forth. My mind has switched off. All that exists is this moment of pain and agony. I’ve lost her. I’ve lost them both. I will her to be alive. I find myself stopping suddenly, holding my breath, staring hard at her chest, convinced I’d felt a movement. Even though I know it’s impossible, my mind keeps saying she’s just sleeping. Watch. She’ll get up. She’ll move. It’ll be all right.
But she doesn’t.
And it isn’t.
It takes a while for the sirens to filter through my grief. I look to the bedroom window, see the blue lights flashing outside.
I blink. Look around. Down at Becca. She looks angry.
You’re always told people look peaceful in death. That was one of the first illusions to shatter when I became a cop. They don’t look peaceful. Most look terrified. Or furious. Or surprised.
Rarely peaceful.
I hear footsteps on the stairs. I don’t look up. Because I know once I do, once I leave this house, I’ve lost her forever.
‘You!’ someone shouts. ‘Hands in the air!’
I finally look up. See a cop standing in the doorway with his gun pointed at me.
I shake my head. Not to say no, just to say this isn’t me. I’m not the killer.
But my mouth isn’t working properly. More police enter the room. More guns trained on me. Lots of screaming. Shouted commands. Then hands on my shoulders, my arms, pulling me away. Throwing me to the floor. Someone’s knee digging into my spine. My arms are yanked behind my back, cuffed tightly.