‘You can’t give up.’ Lauren’s voice. ‘You can’t.’ Now she speaks in my head. (You’re the hero.)
‘I’m not,’ I say. ‘This is all my fault.’
‘We don’t have time for this, Stanly,’ says Connor. ‘We need you strong. We can get through this if we—’
My mind is starting to drift. Something is dawning, truly dawning. This is the end. It’s the end. And I should be with Kloe. There’s nothing I can do.
But I have to fight . . .
Fight what?
It’s just going to keep coming.
Something else explodes, as though shown on TV far away. Screaming isn’t really screaming now. Gunfire? A distant, half-hearted drumbeat. And now I hear the sound of mighty footfalls, something new. I look out across the city towards the source. The air is clogged with smoke and flame and rain, but through it I can see an enormous shape moving, bigger than Big Ben. ‘There’s nothing I can do,’ I say. ‘I’m going to Kloe and Tara.’
‘You can’t,’ says Connor.
‘I’m sorry.’ I let go of Leon and start to walk away, just as a curtain of white and blue is drawn across the air in front of me. A monster steps out, tall and spindly with pincers and a long tail. I immediately think break and it bends unnaturally and moans like a pig with a mouth full of cotton wool, then I think down and it falls, and I keep walking but Connor grabs me, whirls me around. His face is furious, stained with tears, blood, dirt.
‘Oh, no!’ he yells. ‘You are not just going to leave us. You can’t!’
‘This is it! IT! The end! I’m going to find Kloe and spend it with her. I’m—’
‘What would Eddie say?’ Connor is bellowing, angrier than I’ve ever seen him. ‘If he saw you giving up now? Walking away from this mess? Away from us? Is that any way to honour him?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
He loses it. Throws a punch. I stop it . . . except no, I don’t. I was going to let it come, but someone else stops it. I look past him. It’s Lauren. She’s stopping him. I look back at Connor. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Say it again,’ he says. ‘Say it doesn’t matter. Say Eddie doesn’t matter. Say the rest of us don’t matter. You dragged us into it. You were so desperate to be the superhero, to fight the bad guys, to use these powers. Well, here we are. The big fight. We’re in this because of you. Don’t you dare walk away.’
He’s right.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, because I am going to go, even though I know he’s right.
No.
You have to stay.
Can’t go.
I am going to—
(Stanly.)
I jump. Connor frowns. ‘What?’
‘Freeman,’ I say. ‘He’s talking to me. In my head.’ I turn around, as though he’s going to be there, and I think and shout at the same time. ‘Where the hell are you, you son of a bitch? I’ll kill you—’
(You’ll do no such thing. You can stop what’s happening. The world was never meant to end, not properly. Come to the Kulich Gallery. Remember the pictures. I’ll be waiting for you.) And he’s gone. I know that he’s gone. I look around, at Connor, at Lauren, at Sharon, at Skank, at Eddie. The broken soldier. My brother.
‘Stanly,’ says Sharon. ‘What—’
‘I have to go,’ I say.
‘Oh,’ says Connor, ‘so you are going. Running—’
‘I’m not running away,’ I say. ‘I’m going to find Freeman. He says that this, all this, it can be stopped. He was the one who had the plan B in the first place.’
‘Plan B?’ asks Skank.
‘I don’t know what it is,’ I say, ‘but it’s the only . . . I can’t think of anything else. I’ll go. And if I can stop it, I’ll stop it. And then I’ll kill him.’
‘He lied to us,’ says Connor, ‘this whole time, he was lying. Everything he’s ever said, to any of us. How do you know—’
‘I don’t. But if there’s a chance that I can stop what’s happening, I have to go.’
‘Then we’re coming with you,’ says Sharon.
‘No,’ I say. ‘You all stay here. Help people. Try and contain the monsters as much as you can. You’re all as capable as me. I’ll go and see what . . . I’ll come back when it’s done.’
‘What if you don’t?’ says Lauren.
‘I will.’ I look at Connor. ‘I’m sorry.’ He doesn’t answer. I look at everyone, and I say it again, and the words mean nothing. Or maybe they do. I don’t know. They just seem like what I should say. I look at Leon. ‘Kill as many as you can.’ He nods. Sharon moves towards me, like she’s going to try and hug me, but I can’t do it. I step back, shake my head. ‘Sorry. I . . . I’m sorry. I can’t. I’ll . . . I’ll be back.’
And before she can say anything I fly up into the acid sky, over the crumbling buildings, set on what I have to do. A black pterodactyl-like apparition swoops towards me, clacking wickedly sharp mandibles, and I think my cousin’s name at it, spelled out in fire, tearing a wing clean off. Down it goes. Ahead, a tall flat-faced ogre lumbers down a street, kicking cars aside, bearing down on a small group of people. They’re boxed in by the wreck of a lorry, cowering, screaming. I slow, think that name again, think a net made of it, Eddie, and I throw it around the monster’s head and yank it hard to the left, straight into the side of a building. Glass explodes, masonry crumbles and the monster lets loose a low, almost plaintive roar. It’s the kind of noise that something sentient might make, something that feels. Feels pain.
You shouldn’t be here, then.
By the time I’ve finished bashing its head against the building, said head is barely a head any more, and said building looks like it’s had an encounter with several bazookas. I let the dead giant topple, then flick the lorry aside so the people can run, and on I fly.
‘Stanly!’
Leave me alone, brain. Stop messing.
‘STANLY!’
Wait . . . what . . .
I look to my right, because there is a voice, a real voice, one that I recognise. Racing across the rooftops parallel to me is a blur of feet and white fur, calling my name. ‘All right kid?’ Daryl yells. ‘How about a lift? My feet are killing me!’
Poor choice of words.
But by Christ I’m glad to see you.
I reach out with my mind and scoop him up. Just in time, too, because there’s a gap between buildings up ahead and I’m not sure even this dog could jump it. I bring him in, not slowing down, and keep him in the air beside me. ‘Fancy meeting you here,’ Daryl says. ‘Of all the bits of sky in all the apocalypses in all the world . . .’
‘Yeah.’
‘It’s all a bit much, really, isn’t it?’
I nod.
‘And there I was, two days from retirement . . .’ The dog seems to notice me properly for the first time, and his tone changes. ‘What’s wrong? Apart from everything?’
‘Eddie’s dead.’
The beagle closes his eyes. ‘God. Shit. Oh, man. I’m so sorry.’
Can’t talk about this now. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Looking for Freeman. Then for you.’
‘He played us all,’ I say. ‘The Angel Group were—’
‘Trying to close the gaps,’ says Daryl. ‘Yeah. I had a hunch that might be the case. And I was all like, “well done, hunch, maybe you could have made yourself known before everything skipped the handcart and went straight to hell”.’
‘Yeah. Well. It’s done.’ A gash opens in the sky ahead of us and something falls out, but it has no wings and it just keeps falling, splatting against the pavement below. It’s almost funny.
‘So where are you heading?’ asks Daryl.
‘Going after Freeman. Isn’t that where you’re going?’
The beagle shakes his head. ‘Nope. Was trying to find you. Only just manage
d to pick up your scent. Fair few distracting odours around, as I’m sure you can imagine. Like trying to pick out the scent of one human hair from a mountain of Satanic potpourri.’
I want to laugh at that, but I can’t. ‘Freeman said there might be a way of stopping what’s happening.’
‘Really? How?’
‘You don’t know?’
Daryl frowns. ‘No. Why would I?’
‘You worked with him for years. You were passing him information the whole time I knew you.’ This seems as good a time as any for this conversation, flying through a sky racked by a supernatural storm above a burning city.
‘I swear,’ says Daryl, ‘he never told me his plans. I didn’t have the faintest inkling. You really think I’d have let all this happen? Really?’
‘No . . . but . . .’
‘But what? Jesus, when I met up with you that night – after saving you from that dog I might add – I hadn’t spoken to the bastard for over a year! I thought he was dead!’
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘But back home. In Tref-y-Celwyn. Didn’t he send you to spy on me?’
‘No! I told you what happened. I told you the truth. I ran away from the Angel Group, lived with a boring old man for ages, and then found you. Made friends. Then your powers appeared.’
‘And you knew what they were.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you didn’t tell me.’
‘I couldn’t! I . . .’ Daryl shakes his head. ‘When I was with the Angel Group, I helped Freeman find people with powers. I can sense it in humans.’
‘You what?’ My head spins. ‘So . . . the empowered they plugged into the machines. You found them? You tracked them down?’
‘I helped, yes. I didn’t know that was where they were going, but . . . yeah.’
A memory shines in my head with unusual clarity, considering how numb I’ve felt since . . . since lately. Maguire asking Daryl why he wanted to fight the Angel Group. Reasons, the beagle had said. ‘You wanted to rescue them,’ I say. ‘That’s why you were on board with Maguire’s plan.’
‘That’s one reason,’ says Daryl. ‘Like I said, I had no idea about the machines when I was with the Group, I didn’t know what was happening. I thought we were helping them. Taking them to safe places, giving them counselling . . . and yeah, you don’t need to say the word naïve. Sometimes we believe what we want to believe. We go with what information we have.’ His voice is heavy with guilt. It’s not a shade I’ve known him wear very often. It’s odd. ‘I knew what the power was when you got it, but I ignored it,’ he says, ‘because you were my friend, and because I wanted . . . normality. For both of us. Then bam. You’re developing faster than anyone I’d ever encountered. Freaked me out. So I contacted Freeman for advice, because he was the only person I knew.’
‘You trusted him.’ I can’t keep the contempt from my voice, contempt that he doesn’t deserve, that I have no right to feel.
‘Yes,’ says Daryl, more firmly than I’m expecting. ‘Stanly . . . it’s hard to explain. Maybe some time we can sit down and I can tell you about working with him, but . . . we were partners for a long time. And in all that time, he never screwed me over. Not once. He had my back. He saved my life several times. He screwed other people over, sure – trust me, the dude did plenty that scared me. But he was always on the level with me. And maybe that makes me naïve, but . . . I don’t know. I guess I just assumed he was one of those people you want as a friend, but definitely not as an enemy. So who else was I going to go to for advice?’
I don’t answer. I want to chew him out for being so stupid, for being naïve, for letting the scumbag get in his head.
Might be more than a touch hypocritical.
‘At first I didn’t give him any specifics,’ says the beagle, ‘and he just gave me advice. Tips to help you develop smoothly. I’ve seen people’s powers mess them up in a big way and I didn’t want that to happen to you . . . look, the majority of empowered that I met before you, their abilities took years to develop to even half your strength. There were the odd few who were different, but mostly . . . anyway. Suddenly, in less than a few months, you had them down. Not exactly super-duper powerful, but your level of control was beyond anything I’d seen. So I contacted Freeman again and he managed to wheedle details out of me. And then . . . then we came to London, where he was based, and . . . well, you can guess.’ He looks straight at me. ‘I never betrayed you like you thought I did. I swear. I never knew what Freeman was really like. And I have no idea what his plan is. When Pandora killed him, I thought that was that. I ran away. Then suddenly there he is, out of the blue, alive.’
I nod. ‘I believe you.’
‘Thanks. I . . . I wanted that straight. Between us. In case . . .’
In case we die. ‘Yeah.’ I feel like I should smile at him, but I doubt my face is going to be into that. ‘Pandora was working with him,’ I say. ‘This whole plan to release the monsters, she was in on it.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me. I never trusted that woman.’
‘She’s dead now.’
‘Oh.’ A pause. ‘Can’t say I’ll be losing much sleep over that.’
‘We might be sleeping for a very long time if we don’t stop this.’
‘Thanks for that.’
‘You literally just brought up the possibility of us dying.’
‘Yeah, as a subtle hint that I left hanging in the air.’
‘OK. Sorry. Hard to be positive about all this, though.’ I gesture at the city formerly known as London. We’re nearing the Kulich, and I can see something wrapped around Big Ben, a great leathery red octopus-looking creature. It seems to have punched its way through the clock face and is hugging the spire with its tentacles. I think towards it, yank it from its perch, send it wriggling towards the river, trailing shards of shattered clock.
‘Point taken,’ says Daryl. He’s looking down at the streets, where war is blazing. Soldiers and civilians and so many monsters, misshapen, furious. Lightning strikes the ground, tearing through the concrete, and as we fly over the river I see the Millennium Bridge crack in half and tumble into the water, fire and smoke rising. Nearby, on Southwark Bridge, two massive monsters stand on a carpet of ruined cars. One is red and black with five legs and a head like a lion drawn by a psychopath, the other is bipedal, hunched and asymmetrical, with wrecking balls for fists, and they’re smacking the hell out of one another, causing the whole bridge to buckle. ‘They’re fighting each other!’ I say.
‘Jesus,’ says Daryl. ‘That’s . . . good. I suppose. Is it?’
‘I guess woah—’
Something comes screeching out of the water and arcs right over the bridge. It’s the triangular mouth thing from before, only now I can see that the mouth is attached to a long, thick, sinuous yellow body. It grabs the ball-fisted monster in its jaws and drags it over the other side of the bridge, disappearing back into the river with a huge splash. The red and black creature bawls like a demonic gorilla and jumps over the edge of the bridge in pursuit, as if angry that its opponent has been stolen. ‘Well fuck me sideways,’ says Daryl.
‘Quite.’ We clear the river and keep flying. Almost there. ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘One other thing . . . you know I said Tara was my daughter?’
‘Yeah, still reeling from that—’
‘Well, I don’t think she is, actually.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah. I think she might be Smith’s.’
‘Morter Smith?’
There’s a part of my brain that wants to be sarcastic and say no, the other Smith we’ve been talking about lots lately, but it’s like a different language, one I don’t know how to use any more, so I just say, ‘Yeah’.
‘Blimey,’ says Daryl.
‘Yeah.’
We lapse into silence, and minutes later I see it. The Jonathan Kulich Gallery. A big white cube
of a building with only a few very small windows, surrounded by what looks like an electrified fence, although a good portion of it has been ripped away. There are so many signs bearing variations on the words NO ENTRY that about half of them seem redundant. No soldiers, though. I take us over the fence and we land and look up at the building. Its face gives nothing away. ‘He said to meet here?’ asks Daryl.
I nod. I can’t help but feel wary of the place. After all, the last time I was inside I was beaten up and killed. That would be enough to put anyone off, and I wasn’t keen on this particular building even before it became the scene of my death . . . and now I’m here to meet the mastermind of the end of all things. Eddie’s lifeless face momentarily flickers in my mind and my chest burns, molten with grief. I blink hard, trying to quell it. It won’t do anyone any good.
‘Hey!’ We both turn and see a girl of about fifteen running towards us. She has a crowbar in one hand and a young child hanging off the other. His face is wet with tears and snot, she is filthy and determined-looking.
‘Are you all right?’ I ask.
‘OK,’ she says. ‘We . . . our house was destroyed. Our parents are . . . I don’t know where they are.’
I glance at Daryl. ‘I . . . um. I don’t know what to . . . can I help you?’
‘You were flying,’ she says.
‘No, I . . .’ Why lie? ‘Yes I was.’
‘You’re the one who was in that video.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you were on TV.’
‘Was I?’
‘They said you’re a terrorist.’
That actually makes me laugh, although the laugh is cracked and cynical and uncomfortable in my mouth. ‘I’m not a terrorist. Check out my uniform.’
She shrugs. ‘I figured it was stolen. But I’m not really worried about terrorists now, anyway, what with the monsters and all. What are you doing?’
‘I’m trying to help,’ I say. ‘Honestly.’
‘How come you can fly?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘It just kind of . . . happened.’
‘Can we come with you?’ she asks. ‘I haven’t got a clue what to do. My brother . . .’
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