Ruth was at his side, her arm around his waist. "She did that for us? God, I feel so guilty!" She appeared honestly shaken by what she had witnessed.
Church looked down at Ruth in growing dismay as the repercussions of Niamh's actions slowly fell into place. They had been given another chance; now he couldn't simply let things run their course to a bitter end. He had to take whatever action was necessary to ensure their success, and that meant dealing with Ruth when she attempted to betray them. What would he do? Kill her? He had faced that terror when she had been a host to Balor, but that was before he had realised the true depth of the feelings they had for each other.
Ruth grabbed his hand. "Look at you-you're shaking," she whispered. "Don't worry, we're all scared."
"This is like Ten Little Indians," Laura said morosely. "Bags not being next." She looked round and fixed on the Bone Inspector. "Oldest first, I say."
He gave a dark, triumphant smile. "Ah, but I'm not going in there. That's your job."
In his sly way, he had pointed them back on track. They turned as one and stared at the door, then looked to Church.
"Okay," he said. "Let's do it."
As they collected the artefacts in silence, they were constantly aware of the door, like a sentient creature watching them malignantly.
"What's the plan?" Veitch asked Church.
"We have to use the talismans as soon as we get in there."
"That's a plan?"
"We might not even get a chance," Ruth said. "He's so powerful he could strike us down in a second."
"The talismans should offer us some protection." Church was aware he had to sound as positive as possible. "Individually, they're powerful. Together they'll be incredible. And with the head, the Luck of the Land ..." He shrugged.
"So, we're winging it, right?" Laura's grin eased the mood a little.
"Just remember the legends," Church said. "He was always described as having a single eye-if he turned it on you it would cause death in an instant. I don't know if that's for real or symbolism, but there's a reason it was passed down the years. Keep it in mind."
"So what's it like in the land of the dead, Shav-ster?" Laura asked.
"It's like Jamaica, but with free drink."
"Really?"
"No."
"You could have lied, you know."
As they turned to face the door, Veitch stepped in close to Church and said quietly, "I'm glad I'm with you, boss. You've done right by us all the way down the line."
His face had the same childlike innocence that had made Church warm to him in the first place; for all his flaws, and there were many, that saved him.
"I'm okay, you know," he continued. "About you and Ruth."
Church winced.
"I feel like I've been stabbed in the gut, but that's not important. I want her to be happy. And I want you to be happy. Whatever happens here, I'm going to be a winner. For the kind of life I've had, that's the only thing that matters to me. And I've got you to thank for it, mate." He took Church's hand and shook it forcefully, hesitated a second, then stepped in and gave him a stiff hug. The others pretended not to notice.
"Will you lot get a move on." The Bone Inspector marched around anxiously. "The gates will be open any moment, and then it will all be-"
"Make sure you cheer loudly so we can hear you from way back here," Laura said acidly.
Finally, it was time. Church gripped the door handle. Before he swung it open, he cast an eye on Ruth. Her move would undoubtedly be made at the worst possible moment. But could he face up to Balor and watch for an attack from the back as well?
The answer would come soon enough. He opened the door in one swift movement and stepped over the threshold.
The room was as silent and still as night. Darkness clustered on every side, but the sapphire glow from the talismans gave them enough light to see by. The pounding of the blood in their head drowned out all thoughts and sensations for the first few seconds before everything fell into stark relief.
They each had their own idea of what monstrous form Balor would take, so they were all left floundering around when their eyes fell on a small boy, standing with his arms behind his back in the centre of the huge, empty chamber. A shock of black hair tumbled around an innocent, smiling face. His clothes were Sunday School-best, his posture polite and upright like a dutiful Victorian son.
"If I'd known we could just have spanked him, I wouldn't have got so worked up," Laura said breathlessly.
"A boy, right?" Church said. "We're all seeing a boy? You know that's only the form our own perception is putting on it."
"But why a boy?" Ruth's voice had an edge of dismay to it.
It was only then that the finer detail of what they were seeing broke through. Unimaginable dread pressed like a boulder on their chests, choking the air in their throats. A deep, primal part of their subconscious recognised what lay beyond the physical: a race memory of unbearable evil that demanded they flee or lose not only their lives, but also their souls. And then they saw his eyes were completely black, as immeasurable as the void.
The shock of the image kept them rooted for a second too long; they had already missed the opportunity to act. Something was happening to the boy. A horizontal crack opened slowly in his face. The top and bottom folded back gradually to reveal a twisting geometric shape made of brilliant red light so complex their minds couldn't make sense of it.
"The eye!"
They scattered at the sound of Church's voice; he was the head, they were the vital, component parts of the body, the reason why they worked so well together. In the instant the face opened completely they felt something as dank and chill as the grave brush past them. Church saw Shavi turn white, fight to control himself before moving off. He dabbed at his own ears and found blood on his fingers.
The thing with the body of a boy was already turning to focus on them.
"Keep moving!" Church shouted.
They scattered amongst the shadows just as death swept through them again. It whispered by a hair's-breadth away. An ache sprang up deep in Church's bones. The thing was too fast, too powerful; they wouldn't have an instant to lay out the talismans. The worst thing was that Church knew it was using only a fraction of its power. Most of it was maintaining the integrity of the tower, overseeing the Fomorii forces, preparing for the gates to open. They were a distraction, nothing more.
They ran back and forth as the boy turned this way and that. Each time the icy, whispering wind rushed out it came a little closer to them. Laura appeared to have lost the use of her left arm. Veitch was bleeding from his nose.
Yet there was a moment between attacks when the eye needed to focus, and in that time Ruth snatched up the Spear. It was the kind of smart, brave move he would have expected of her, but all he felt was panic. This is it! he thought.
Ruth hurled the weapon, but not at him. It shot like an arrow, much faster and stronger than she could have propelled it herself. It would have driven through the eye, but at the last instant, the boy folded like a paper figure. Instead, it rammed through his chest. White light exploded across the room like gouts of molten metal and there was a shrieking that came from everywhere at once.
Laura was already crouching, her good hand resting on the floor before her. Vegetation sprouted madly along a rapid path between her and the boy. Thorns of the hardest wood burst through its legs, vines and brambles snapping round and round like steel wire.
Church seized the moment. He turned for the talismans, but Shavi was already scrambling to lay them out. Church dived in to help him, aware of the agonies Balor was going through behind him, knowing how futile it really was. It was a shock to feel the talismans writhe and twist beneath his fingers, subtly forcing him to put them in the right place. The head sat in the centre of the array, its mouth opening and closing as if it were barking orders. Yet Church didn't feel scared by it; there was a deeply comforting warmth rolling off the objects.
Finally the five talismans they
still had were laid out. Instantly they began to change. No longer were they a Sword, a Stone, a Cauldron, a Lantern or a severed head, but something that Church couldn't begin to get a fix on, yet they were undoubtedly one thing, unified, beating powerfully; it was like he was staring at a storm cloud through a heat haze.
One part was still missing; he could feel that intensely. He had to retrieve the Spear. All he needed was Veitch to launch one of his brutal attacks to keep Balor off balance and he would be able to do it.
Shavi was already moving towards the Heart of Shadows, but Church pulled him back; it was his responsibility, his risk. Secure in the knowledge that Veitch would instinctively know what to do as his exquisite strategic skills came into play, he ran towards the creature that no longer resembled a boy, now as unknowable as the talismans, growing and changing all the time.
Laura was still drawing the greenery out of nothing, swathing Balor in bark and leaf, but as his form changed he was rising above, sucking in the true power that he had dissipated throughout the tower, perhaps even throughout London. And from the corner of his eye Church saw Ruth utilising all the power Cernunnos had gifted her to attack Balor, and he wondered why, at the end, she had turned away from betraying them.
And then he was within Balor's sphere, sickened by the power and the evil, his thoughts fragmenting with the chaos that swept around him. Somehow he managed to grab the Spear; it squirmed in his fingers as he dragged it out.
White-hot pain exploded in his side. The shock snapped him away from the Spear as his mind struggled to understand what was happening.
Ruth?
He staggered backwards, blood flooding into his clothes. Scarlet flashes burst across his mind. In the madness that engulfed him, the world seesawed sharply: he saw Balor looking down on him dispassionately, its attention already moving elsewhere; and he saw Ruth, her face torn with anguish.
Somehow he found himself on the floor near the talismans, and Shavi was over him, desperately trying to staunch the wound. He tried to strain towards Ruth, but all he could see was Laura continuing her attack on Balor, her face as white as the moon. Slowly the Beast was driving her back.
Veitch drifted into his fractured frame of vision, and the maelstrom of insanity grew infinitely worse. His silver hand was dripping blood. Church's blood. Veitch stared at the prosthetic dismally as it clenched and unclenched, seemingly beyond his control. Suddenly it lashed out of its own accord, smashing with the force of a hammer into the side of Shavi's head. Shavi flew across the floor, droplets of blood trailing behind him. Blood, everywhere. More on Witch's face, trickling from his nose, mingling with the streaming tears. The blood that did not come from an injury inflicted by Balor, as Church had thought, but was the mark of a Caraprix in action.
"Bastard!" Veitch hammered his fists against his temple, his face scarlet with the strain. "Bastard, bastard, bastard!" He bucked at the waist as the rage consumed him.
Church looked down hazily; the pool of blood around him was so large! He never dreamed he had so much blood in him. The blue light streaming off the talismans was reflected in it, as he watched those tracers in the dark he had a moment of clarity. Witch's anger, always so close to the surface, so terrible when unleashed, was the product of his subconscious continually struggling against the subtle influence of the Caraprix. They had judged him by that anger, all of them, and they had been so wrong.
"Fight it, Ryan." Church's voice cracked; cold spread along his side. "I know they stuck one of those things in your head."
"Not one! Two!" His nails tore deep furrows in the sides of his head. A scream ripped from his throat. "I didn't know! I knew! But I didn't know!" He jackknifed at the waist again, still fighting. "Those golden bastards stuck one in first so I'd do all their dirty business to get us all together!" A sob; more tears. "I'm sorry!" He threw his head back and howled. "I'm sorry! Church, for Marianne! Oh Christ, I'm sorry! The others, Shavi, mate! Shavi!" And then he was crying uncontrollably.
Horrific images shimmered across Church's mind: Veitch bludgeoning Shavi's boyfriend to death in a South London street; Veitch murdering Laura's mother while Laura lay unconscious on the floor; Veitch gunning down Ruth's uncle in the building society rage.
And then he was back in the sequence the Walpurgis had played over and over in his head. The flat, comfortable with a woman's presence. The acid jazz CD playing. Marianne humming as she moved into the bathroom. Dread surged through Church; he didn't want to imagine anymore. But just as it had with the Walpurgis, the images came thick and fast: the gentle click of the front door that Marianne never heard. His heart boomed. The strange smell he now knew was the Caraprix at work on Veitch; the familiar shadow. Veitch slipping through the flat like a shadow, his eyes glassy. The knife glinting in his hand. Her voice, as clear as day: "Church? Is that you?" And then Witch in like thunder. A merciful blur of limbs and steel and blood ...
"Ryan ..." Church felt he was swimming away from the world.
"Then those Fomorii bastards did it too! You didn't even think it through!" Witch's voice had the shattering pain of a child who had been failed by a parent. "They dragged Tom off and stuck one in his head when we were in those cells under Dartmoor! And I was there first-why shouldn't they have done it to me?"
Church felt sick; he had never considered it for even a moment. He had failed him, failed them all.
Laura and Ruth fell back as Balor grew; to Church's warped perception the Beast appeared to be filling the entire room.
Veitch was sobbing now. "The Queen-that witch that screwed Tom-she kicked me out because she found out I was tainted. Useless. Just thrown away. Too much of a loser to fight back. Doing everything they made me do. Useless! A part of me always knew that shit was in my head, and I couldn't tell anybody! Couldn't even tell the part of me that did the thinking!"
There was a noise like metal sheets being torn in two. Behind Balor, a doorway had opened in the air presenting a vista on to shimmering stars hanging in the cold void. Streams of sparkling dust began to drift out of it into Balor; the final power he needed.
"Not fair." Veitch was on his knees, whimpering. "Not fair."
"The gates are open, Ryan. You can stop it." Church felt like he was calling up from the bottom of a well.
"I can't do it. I'm too weak. I've always been too weak."
"No, you're not. You've just got to see yourself. Have faith in yourself."
Veitch shook his head, blood splattering from his nose. He was still fighting it, but his heart wasn't in it; he'd already given up.
Anger flashed across his face. Against his will, he lifted the silver hand to drive it into Church's chest.
A long, low moan emanated from the glowing head of Bran the Blessed. Light flowed from it into Church's mouth, soothing, invigorating; whispers crackled across his head; the god was telling him the secrets of the infinite. A word that was not a word was branded in sapphire letters on his mind. A word of power from a language before language. A symbol that could change reality with a single utterance.
Church fumbled to one side. Caledfwlch jumped into his hand of its own accord. With a tremendous effort, he drove himself up and forward. The Sword punched through Veitch's gut, ripped upwards. For one moment they were locked together, in body and in thought.
Veitch retreated into the depths of his head. In the end he had amounted to nothing; despite all his hopes and dreams, he hadn't wished hard enough. Briefly, his eyes flickered towards Ruth, as beautiful as the first time he had seen her. He remembered them making love in a warm room, recalled the way her hair reminded him of the liquorice sticks he had as a child; the way she made him feel he was more than what he was; the deep peace she had given him in his soul for the first time in his life. Through all the violence and bitterness and despair, he could hold on to that sparkling moment of transcendence.
Life gushed from him; the room grew slowly dim. And then he was in a slow boat drifting to an island off the Welsh coast, watching a mermaid swim in the
waters beneath him, seeing her wave at him and smile. And he was lying on the warm ground looking up at tiny, golden figures flitting through the trees on gossamer wings; one of them coming down to see him; to say he wasn't so bad after all.
Life filled with wonder. Moments of peace he could count on one hand.
If only ... If only ...
Shavi watched his friend's face grow pale. His heart broke in two. Laura stared, wishing it was her. And Ruth cried gently, tried to catch his eye to give him some affection to take with him, to say he was forgiven his sins; to say he was a good man and a hero. But he didn't see her.
Church saw the despair flare in Witch's face, saw his dreams shatter and fall into nothing. There was one instant when life flickered in his pupils, an instant later there was nothing. He slumped to the floor, dead.
Church could barely see for his own tears. He was aware of the sucking power of the gate, and Balor rising up, ready to usher in the End of Everything. And it was the End; for him.
With the last of his strength, he ran forward. The word of power burst from his throat and the whole of existence turned inside out. Blue Fire leapt from the artefacts to each of the five-including the prone form of Veitch. Tom had been right; there had to be five, the final element in a spell as old as time. The energy rose up in a column in the space amongst them and then rushed towards the Heart of Shadows. For the briefest instant, Balor was drained of every shred of dark power. Church seized the moment. Caledfwlch, known as Excalibur, known as the Sword of Righteousness, drove straight into the Beast. Church saw terror etched on a boy's face, saw a sharp-suited man recoil in horror, saw a general roll his eyes in despair. And still he pressed on, driving Balor back towards the gate.
The effort was too great, but then they passed a certain point and the dreadful vertiginous pull of the beyond took over. The flesh felt like it was being ripped from Church's body. Balor went first, his form compressing as the power was sucked back out of it; and then he was folding becoming nothing, less than a child, less than the enormous black insect he resembled for a fleeting moment, and then he plunged into the gate, blocking its pull briefly.
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