Alan couldn’t speak. He looked at the boys, their empty eyes.
“We wanted to have the courage to tell you to your face,” said Sam. “And to show you something.”
“What?”
“The price we demanded.”
The light behind the boys widened, to expose three men kneeling naked in the centre of the room. Their hands were lashed behind their backs, ankles tied together, ball gags in their mouths. On the left, a big, fat man with piggy eyes; on the right, a lean one with a craggy face and iron-grey hair. “Mr Fitton,” Alan whispered. “Father Sykes.”
“Yes,” Johnny said.
And in the middle–
“Walsh.”
“Yes. The policeman’s still alive. But we’ll take him soon. Tonight.”
“What about the Shrike?”
“He’s beyond reach,” said Mark. “He isn’t truly human. He’s nothing to do with this. Just something... that passed through.” He looked back down at Walsh, Sykes, Fitton. “This was our price. The power to take revenge. For you as well as us, Alan.”
Gideon slow-handclapped. “Deeply moving. Can we get on with this?”
Mark sighed. “Alright.”
What happened next took a moment and an eternity. The skin of the boys’ faces dried and stretched, grew woody and hard. The black slits of their eyes filled up with a livid red glow; their mouths stretched impossibly wide, their teeth growing triangular and serrated like a shark’s. Their hair fell out. They turned and advanced on Walsh, Fitton and Sykes. Walsh was whimpering; Fitton snarled curses through his gag, and Father Sykes seemed to be praying to a god who, if he’d ever existed, had abandoned the priest long ago.
The three dead boys raised their hands, which had now become long, reptilian claws. The light changed as they leapt, became a jagged flicker like a strobe. Walsh and his friends started screaming; it almost drowned out the gobbling snarls of what the boys had become. But not quite. Their shapes blurred, until there was no telling who was screaming in torment or snarling in bloody triumph. A jumble of faces; the flicker grew blinding, the light cut out and they were gone, leaving only a few last, fading screams.
The light returned, a steady pool; Gideon stepped back into it. “Now,” he said, “let’s begin.”
The light spread to fill the chamber.
The chamber was pentagonal in shape. The door they’d entered through was halfway along the base; the pentagon’s apex was straight ahead. Symbols covered the walls. Some – pentagrams, black suns – he recognised; others were beyond what little occult knowledge he’d ever had. At each corner was a stone plinth. The one ahead of him, at the apex, was empty. The others... weren’t.
On one side was a man in his twenties. His lower half was embedded in the plinth. The stone had grown into and through him; a spar of rock pushed out through the flesh of his cheek. He stared off to the side; his lips moved weakly, without sound. To the other side was a thin, dark-haired girl about the same age. The plinth’s mass had grown upwards over her belly and her right forearm; the other arm hung limp and twitching. Two stone fangs tore through the skin below her collarbones. Her head fell backwards and forwards; tears splashed on the tattered t-shirt whose remnants barely covered her meagre breasts.
“Go forward,” said Gideon, breath warm and rank on the back of Alan’s neck. Alan skirted the chamber’s exact centre, where lines of pale-coloured tiles ran from each corner to converge on a silver plate chased with symbols he couldn’t name, the focus of all Ash Fell’s suffering. A low, resonating chant began, coming from all around him.
Ahead and to the left was an Asian girl in her teens; she might have been pretty once. The part that appalled Alan was that she was still alive. The stone wasn’t swallowing her up like the others; at first glance she just seemed to be sitting on the plinth, but it was as if a spiky tree of stone had grown up through her body and sprouted in all directions. Long thin spines of rock emerged from her thighs and arms, her belly, breasts and back, her neck, her cheeks. The top of the tree came out of her mouth, forcing her head backwards; she stared up at the ceiling, tears dripping from the corners of her eyes.
But the worst – the worst was the last one. The child. How old? Two; Renwick had said something about it. It had been personal for her, anyone could see. Renwick was dead; better, perhaps, that she hadn’t lived to see this.
At least the physical damage was hidden. All he could see of the child was a head and weakly flailing arm; the rest was buried in the stone. But the dull, resigned anguish on the child’s face was bad enough.
And up ahead, the last plinth awaited him. The shadows beyond it teemed with motion. The Spindly Men moved forward to meet him; behind them other figures, malformed or rocking, twisted with lunacy, shuffled in their wake.
He turned, and any thought of escape died as Gideon stepped backwards, smiling, and more Spindly Men sealed off Alan’s retreat.
There was no point fighting, and Alan didn’t even try; he’d come here of his own free will, but he had none now. The boys’ betrayal had drained everything from him. And perhaps this was what he’d always really deserved. Clawlike hands guided him to the plinth. A last, bitter thought: he was ending as he’d begun, the unwilling means of another’s release.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE CORRIDOR WAS narrow; if Martyn stretched out both arms he could touch the sides. His feet were killing; it helped him carry on.
But there was light up ahead, and Eva’s voice was clearer than ever. With the last of his strength, Martyn stumbled on.
“ANNA, ARE YOU sure about this?”
“We’ve got to try it.”
“No, what we should be trying to do is get out of here, tell someone.”
Anna stuffed the Ash Fell plans back in her bag with Sir Charles’ diary and zipped it shut. “Number one, good luck convincing them. Number two, what makes you think we’ll be allowed to leave?”
“Allowed?”
“Sir Charles led us here. I’m guessing he wanted us to try and stop what’s happened.”
“Sod him. Let him stop it. It was his bloody idea.”
“Not this. Ash Fell’s not doing what he built it to anymore. He wanted to regenerate Britain, not turn it into the land of the dead.”
“This place won’t let us out.” Vera opened her mouth, closed it, sagged. Anna put both hands on her shoulders.
“If we can find the hidden chamber – that’s the focal point. Best chance of throwing a spanner in the works.”
“Find it how?”
“Well, we’re now at the exact centre of the Warbeck building.”
“So?”
“So the hidden chamber–” She wouldn’t say the Nexus Chamber “–should be directly underneath.”
“Should.”
“Should.”
“This place shifts about to suit itself.”
“Don’t see what alternatives we’ve got. Plus...”
“What?”
“According to the plans, there’s a secret passageway to the chamber from the director’s office.”
“Where?”
Anna crossed to a bookcase, pulled; she jumped back as it toppled, crashed to the floor, dust billowing up.
“Jesus!” Vera ran to the office door, peered through the glass, checking if anyone – anything – had heard.
Anna coughed, waved the dust away
“Can’t see anything,” Vera said. The walls were oak-panelled; there was no visible join.
“Keep watch.” Anna pushed the rest of the bookcase clear. When that was done, she felt around the oak panelling. There had to be a catch or join.
“Anna, someone’s coming. Anna!”
“Bar the door. Something. Wait–”
She found something; a join, and then a catch. She pushed it. A click, and a section of panelling swung out. The escaping air was cold and dank.
THE END OF the corridor; Martyn could see it. There was a door, ajar.
“Martyn. Baby. My big
bear.”
He staggered the last few steps to the end, fell against the doorway, stared through it into the room beyond.
There were rows of tables. Buckets and car batteries stood on them, and painted masks. Plaster casts on the wall. Shackleton Street must have been an outpost, a base of operations in the town; they’d fallen back here when it was discovered.
“Martyn. Baby. My big bear.”
“Eva?”
“Martyn. Baby. My big bear.”
The room was huge; he never seemed to get any farther along it, but maybe that was just exhaustion. He kept going, of course; wasn’t giving up this close to her.
The first woman was curled up on her side by one of the tables. He knew from the blonde hair that she wasn’t Eva, but he checked anyway, felt her throat for a pulse. Nothing, of course. He didn’t recognise her, but he’d only known a few of Eva’s mates from the class. Besides, Christ knew what a month here left you looking like. He closed her eyes. She was somebody’s sister, daughter, mother, wife. As he went on, he saw others, laid out on the floor.
“Martyn. Baby. My big bear.”
He went from body to body, checking each one. Young, old, fat, thin, blonde, brunette, redhead, grey-haired. None of them were Eva, but still she called.
“Martyn. Baby. My big bear.”
So. Real then. Alive. “Eva,” he mumbled. And stood up, and walked on.
SOMETHING SLAMMED AGAINST the office door.
“Shit.” Vera backed away.
“Vera, through here.”
“Hang on.” Vera applied a last trace of mascara.
“You’re touching up your makeup at a time like this?”
Vera patted her hair. “If I’m going to die, I at least want to look good.”
“Take my word for it. You do.”
A moment’s silence; they studied each other. Vera smiled. “Let’s go, then.”
“OK.”
Anna flashed her torch through the open door, down a flight of damp stone steps littered with brick and plaster. It was dark except where light glinted through holes in the wall. A steel rail was set into the wall. Anna went through; Vera followed and, as another blow hit the office door, dragged the hidden door shut behind them.
“MARTYN. BABY. MY big bear.”
The far end of the room. There was a door with a cracked frosted glass pane; through it he could see a spiral staircase. But there was a woman huddled against the wall. She was alive, and she was talking. But even without that, and even though her head hung forward, he knew who it was. He knew by the way her bell of auburn hair fell over her face, by the intricately worked silver ring on the little toe of her bare left foot.
“Eva,” he whispered. “Eva.” He said it as a Christian might say alleluia.
“Martyn. Baby. My big bear.”
He knelt beside her. “I’m here, love,” he said. “You’re safe now.” That wasn’t true, but he’d bloody make it so. “I’m gonna get you out of here.”
“Martyn. Baby. My big bear.”
“Yeah, love, it’s me. Eva, it’s me. Eva? Eva?”
“Martyn. Baby. My big bear.”
“Eva–”
When he tried to hold her she was like rock; rigid, wouldn’t budge. And when he managed to force her chin up, her eyes were staring sightlessly into forever, not knowing he was there or caring. She was talking to some other version of him, far beyond his reach.
HALFWAY DOWN THE steps she heard the screams. It took Anna a few seconds to make out the words, or rather word; a woman’s name, screamed over and over.
“Martyn–” The screaming came from nearby, almost next to her. And then she saw the hole in the wall inches from her. She looked through it and–
–and there was Martyn, kneeling, embracing a woman with reddish hair. Anna saw the woman’s face; Eva.
“Martyn!”
He looked up, blinked. She shouted him again, stuck her hand through the hole in the wall, and he saw her. “She’s gone,” he said; Anna saw Eva’s blank stare and the slackly, silently moving lips and understood.
The shadows behind him moved; tattered black cloaks swept the floor, elongated claws unfurled and the Spindly Men’s pitiless masks stared down. “Martyn–” She pointed.
Martyn saw them, but didn’t seem to care. He made a token effort to rise; he might have tried to run if he could have brought Eva with him, but she was immobile. He looked at her, then Anna, and sank back down. “Go.”
“Martyn–”
“Just bloody go,” he shouted, pulling Eva to him, burying his face in her shoulder. And then Vera was yanking her arm, shouting at Anna to move, and then she was running too.
HE MUST’VE KNOWN it all along, deep down; she couldn’t have survived. He’d never had a chance of finding the red-haired, blue-eyed girl who’d come down the church aisle in a cream dress and veil. She was gone; she’d been gone since the fire on Armistice Day, and ever since then he’d been on borrowed time. It was almost a relief, now he knew. He could stop now. He could just give up.
Martyn buried his face in her hair, breathed the sweet, lingering scent of her. Anna would look after Mary; this was where his life had always been. He had time to whisper Eva’s name once more before cold dead fingers touched his forehead; it was the closest he could come to a prayer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“COME ON.” ANNA scrambled down the steps. “There’s no time–”
“Anna, wait up–”
“No time.” Martyn. She wouldn’t think of him. She might feel something if she did, and that would be death here. She felt numb; that was best. Martyn. She had to get out, find Mary... Christ, she’d have to tell Mary. And what might he have told Mary about Eva? Martyn.
No, she mustn’t think of him. Had to focus on this place. The gates were opening, or about to. She had to try and stop it, if she could. And then? God knew.
“Come on!” Vera, at her heels. Did Vera think Anna was getting them out? Sorry, Vera, no. Had to keep going, do whatever could be done to stop this if there was a way. But Vera was following her, down the stairs. It was getting colder now; darker too. No more light coming in through the gaps in the walls. Below ground level. Basement, sub-basement, and the Nexus Chamber. The cold black dark and only the torch to probe it; it seemed every step would bring something monstrous lunging up to meet them. But it didn’t.
She held onto the rail as she went; suddenly it vibrated, thrummed like a live cable. She snatched her hand away, almost overbalanced. A low humming sound; threads of dust spidered down from above.
“What...?” said Vera. The steps shook; she swayed and nearly fell.
“Grab the rail,” Anna shouted, seizing hold. She glanced back to see the older woman clutching it two-handed. The humming became a full-throated roar; the building juddered. More dust rained down, tiny pebbles, fragments of concrete.
“Christ! The whole lot’s coming down!” Vera yelled.
Anna looked up at the concrete ceiling; if it fell, they wouldn’t have a prayer. The roar got louder still. She’d been to a heavy metal concert once at college, with Peter; when she’d stood too near to one of the speakers it had felt like this, a deafening blast of sound that shook your internal organs. Except this was much more powerful. Christ, if the building didn’t collapse this might kill her. She thought she heard someone screaming somewhere, but couldn’t be sure.
And then the building simply juddered to a stop, so abruptly she lost her balance, nearly pitching down the steps. The dust hissed down a few seconds longer, then stopped. A thin whine sounded in Anna’s ears.
“Anna? The fuck was that?”
She brushed dust from her hair. “I think it’s started. Come on. Got to try.”
The staircase opened out into a corridor. To their left, it ended in a brick wall. Anna blinked; for a moment she thought she saw a corridor extending into the distance, a figure in evening dress, but then it was gone. To the right, the corridor led to another wall, but this one ha
d a door in it.
“The Nexus Chamber, I’m guessing,” Vera muttered.
As they neared the door, a weak, relentless moaning came through the pitted wood. Her legs didn’t feel steady. She didn’t want to see whatever was behind it, but she knew she’d have to. Avenge Martyn. Stop whatever was happening. Most of all, protect Mary. Forget everything else, that last was her bottom line. She turned the handle.
The pentagonal room beyond was almost empty of the living. Someone knelt by the plinth at the opposite end, swaying back and forth, hands over his face. Anna could see the bowed head, the dark hair with its traces of silver.
“Allen.” Vera stumbled to him. As she did, Anna saw the other plinths, and the bodies fused into them. The boy in one corner. The girl in the other. And, flanking Allen, a teenaged girl and – Jesus – a toddler, little more than a baby.
They were all dead; their stillness, the lack of breath hanging like smoke in the cold air, the unblinking eyes all told her that. She didn’t need to seek a pulse, although she did. They were still warm, cheeks damp with tears. Each one someone’s child. And some of them would have had brothers and sisters. Like she’d had Martyn. White pain flared in her at the thought, but it was distant; there were other things she had to focus on now.
She didn’t know how, but she managed to close all their eyes, the child’s last of all. Renwick had been so determined to save her.
“Allen. Allen, let me see.”
Anna went over to her. “What’s wrong?”
“His face. Something.”
Maybe something had gone wrong; maybe he’d been hurt somehow defeating Ash Fell’s purpose at the last.
“Allen, let me see.”
Allen’s hands came away from his face; Vera cried out.
The face beneath wasn’t Allen’s; it was thinner, with a neat moustache, and immobile. Close to, you could see it wasn’t flesh and blood. Another prosthetic mask. There was blood on his hands, dripping out from under the mask.
The Faceless Page 27