by Kim Newman
A three-storey flag with Jago’s face on it was gradually unfurling down the side of one monolith. Paul wanted to puke.
While Jago kissed Hazel, he was not paying attention to the fraying edges of his pretend Paradise.
With his tongue, Paul jostled a drawing pin into his jaw, point up, scraping against his broken tooth. He fixed Jago’s place in his mind, so he could walk up and shoot him with his eyes closed. The point of the pin slid into his cavity, nudging the nerve with a brisk shot of agony.
He had a glimpse of the attic as it was, dusty and cramped, tiles smashed away from the roof. It was sunset in the real world. The Brethren were crowded in, bent over, slumped in corners.
It was only a glimpse. The weight of the fantasy was too much. The pain would have to be incredible to give him enough time to get close. As incredible as the pain of a pin jabbed into an exposed dental nerve. Paul bit down on the drawing pin, hard.
* * *
The scream distracted Susan from her Heaven of forgiveness. It was a yell of pain and defiance, cutting through the cotton-wool fog that had descended, deadening her Talent. She came alive again, and was in a dark, hot room, with a lot of other bodies. Someone brushed past her purposefully, and his red-hot agony lanced into her.
OH JESUS OH GOD OH FUCK OH JESUS OH JESUS OH GOD OH GOD OH HAZEL OH FUCK OH GOD OH THE PAIN OH CHRIST OH LORD OH MAN OH KILL OH JESUS OH FUCK OH GOD OH HAZEL OH KILL KILL KILL OH HURT OH PAIN OH CHRIST OH LORD OH FUCK OH JESUS OH PAIN OH GOD OH HURT OH BLOOD OH AGONY OH FUCK OH JESUS OH LORD
A doubt troubled Allison, and the admirers melted away. Across the square, she saw Jenny. They were the only two real people at the party. The rest had been mannequins.
Someone was running towards Beloved, towards Jago.
‘Stop him,’ Jenny shouted.
* * *
Soldier ants eating his skin. Hot copper needles in his eyes. Crocodile clips shocking his scrotum. Football-size swellings in his bowels. Ground glass shifting under his foreskin. A hypodermic directly into his heart. Worms crawling tunnels through his brain. A rat burrowing into his entrails. Strips of flesh sloughing off. Vinegar rubbed into all his wounds. His nerves drawn out and plucked like harpstrings.
* * *
Jenny saw the last of the apostates run by her, sword in hand, intent upon doing Beloved harm. If his purpose were achieved, then the New Jerusalem would fall into the Pit, and the eternal night would descend.
* * *
The pain was so much that he didn’t see the reality it tore him back to. Eyes screwed shut, he stumbled across the floor. The pain had its nucleus in his tooth, but spread throughout his body, throbbing in his every atom. He held the gun so tight he was sure it had discharged.
* * *
Allison got to him first, and took hold of his arm. He was stronger than she’d thought. She was unable to prevent him lifting up his gun. The weapon went off, incredibly loud, under her collarbone, and she felt a used cartridge tapping her face like a hot coal. Jenny had him too, but he fought with the strength of the damned. A stab of pain pierced her, and she knew she’d been shot. The world revolved and Heaven shrank, darkened, pressing in, strangling her. She tasted blood in her mouth, and felt as if she were transfixed by a bar of white-hot iron.
* * *
The painwave broke, and he opened his eyes. Allison and Jenny were on him, tearing his face. He let them. The pain helped. He’d fired once, wild.
Above, perched on an old chair, Jago watched, unfeeling as a statue. Susan said he was dead anyway.
He got the gun up, fighting the full weight of Allison hanging on his arm, and had the barrel pointed at Jago’s face.
He thought his elbow would give way, and his arm would dangle useless. Allison would wrestle him to the floor. She was hurt, but the stronger for her pain. Pain brought her close enough to him to drag him down.
He began to pull the trigger. With a slowness that was beyond belief, the hammer eased back.
The pain in his mouth was subsiding, shrinking away. Behind Jago’s head, a halo grew. It spread, bringing with it the buildings of the city. He saw the Lord God’s heart glowing in his chest, radiating peace and harmony. Paul could not feel the hand holding the gun. Allison crawled along his arm, her grip fastening. There was blood on her chin and in her eyes.
Jago’s face, impassive until now, began to crack a smile. The thin line of his mouth curved, flashing teeth. The light grew, and the waves of gold washed around him…
* * *
Susan saw the struggle at the centre of the square, and tried to run towards it. Paul was in the middle, with Allison and Jenny on him. He had James’s gun. Jago was unconcerned, not part of the untidy scuffle, but something was getting through to Hazel.
* * *
She was tugged from her pedestal, pulled away from Beloved’s side. The assassin struggled with her handmaids. Allison had been hurt, but was soldiering on. Hazel raised a hand to strike him, to push him away from the Lord God. But she saw his face, a face she didn’t recognize, and could not land the blow. The ground beneath was snatched away, and she hung in space a million miles up, waiting for gravity to pull her to the jagged ground. The moment was drawn out, and she heard a voice from far away...
* * *
The warmth was all around, easing his pain. It would have been simple to go with the warmth, to allow the Spirit into his heart. The women holding him weren’t fighting now, but soothing, stroking his face. Allison picked at his fist, trying to free the gun from it. Jenny was speaking in his ear, trying to convince him that he was Loved, that the Lord was with him. Jago’s heart was a beacon in Paul’s darkness, lighting his way to salvation.
He looked along the sight and saw Jago’s smile, illuminated by the light from his heart. Without moving his hand, he looked to the side and saw Hazel. She was afraid, and shrank from him. At once, he bit down on the pin and pulled the trigger.
INTERLUDE ZERO
Hazel flew or fell through doomdark, kiss sweet on her lips, gunshot terrible in her skull. Cold rushed against her eyes as she followed Beloved. He was ahead of her, tumbling, head in flames. An umbilical ectoplasm stretched tight between their mouths. She touched Him, brushing the hem of His garment. The contact was a sparkshock, bursting Light into her head. Her hand found His, and fire spread to encompass them both. She screamed, but there was no noise. They had lost Heaven.
There were others in the dark, a school like fish, drawn towards a far point. Close to Beloved, Hazel was part of Him, at the centre of the school, warmed by His blazing heart. A greater part of the faithful were along with them. Allison and Jenny were near. Maybe Susan and Paul. They’d all been in the scuffling scrum an instant, an age, before.
A life flashed through her mind, from the kiss-shot towards youth, childhood, birth. She walked for ever backwards, aches massaged from her bones, semen gulped out of lovers with her penis, friends lost and made. She grew smaller, unlearned lessons, shrank into and out of children’s clothes, saw Mama rise from the dead. Then, squeezed between Mama’s knees, burrowing and kicking into the wombwarm.
This wasn’t her life. That was still in her mind, a fragile presence almost crowded out by explosions of alien memory. She was Hazel Chapel, she told herself. A life from London to Brighton, to Somerset. Her hands in clay. Paul, making her laugh without realizing why. She was a woman, not a man, not the Lord God.
Flame rose around them, blotting out the dark. The fire didn’t consume, didn’t even hurt. Together, they roller-coastered backwards, downwards, spiralling towards a tiny dot.
In her mind, He remembered…
* * *
While Jenny watched…
It was like coming home. Alder, the village was called. The name cool and familiar, enduring for ever. The house was perfect, just as he had known it would be. It made him think of Nana Mary and her stories of being ‘in service’. The fear that lived in the house couldn’t touch him. ‘This shall be our Canaan,’ he said. His path written d
own, it was his duty to follow. There was a little girl watching as the Chosen arrived. He saw her mind, a tiny fire burning on a plain of snow. The day was sharp and cold, and Sister Wendy was tiresomely solicitous. There was another little girl, just out of eyesight, her mind a pillar of ice in the desert. That night, taking his Sister-Love into his bed, he thought of the two girls, and knew they would grow up for him. Their presence confirmed it. The book was opened. This was the place, the place of Armageddon.
* * *
While Badmouth Ben died…
The Devil had come for him in Leeds, and he was cast down. But faith endured. He did not despair. He could always survive. The Chosen would soon come. He had his spot by the West Pier, opposite the poet who was coming around, and he could fix on minds about him. The hot summer had become oppressive. Knowing which would give him money before he asked, he approached only those. He still wore his dog collar, collected money in a bowl. He felt pity and desire from the women in their sweat-marked print dresses and floppy hats. Women—girls—were all around, in string-and-patch bikinis, browned flesh shimmering in heat haze. Again, he knew which to approach, which to leave alone. Mick Barlowe, the poet, envied his evening successes and joked uneasily, all the while following his own path towards belief, fighting each inch of the way. Under the pier, he took women who were surprised at themselves for surrendering. He opened their flesh, seeking in them a communion with the Lord who had abandoned him. With women in his arms, his flesh inside theirs, he realized the Lord had not truly left. He was the Lord.
* * *
While Susan vanished…
Beyond the altar, faces looked up, waiting, expectant. He reached inside for the words, but none came. His text coughed and died in his throat. A rustle of alarmed talk ran through the congregation. He felt a cluster of closed minds. Finally, he found his voice and began to speak, to pour forth the words that swelled from that dead spot inside his brain, the spot that whispered blasphemies. He spoke of fire and insects and the end of all things. He raged against the Lord, and as he raged, people were fixed to their pews, unable to leave. Windows cracked. He smelled brimstone. He felt the sea of despair before him, knowing that all assembled here were doomed. He spoke about death, and darkness gathered in the Church.
* * *
While Jack Boothe tippled…
All through the meeting, he felt JoAnne in his mind, replaying the things they had done. She had only told because he refused to come to her again. He must not give in to his flesh. His nana had taught him that young. The flesh was weak, but you must not surrender. JoAnne had been warm, coaxing and eager. She still was. From Mrs Critchley, he was getting an extraordinary mix of shame and envy, anger and desire. The women hurt his mind, tampered with his faith. He would be happier when they were gone and he was alone with placid, peaceful Jack. The vicar was a secure point in the maelstrom, a human embodiment of the faith that had brought him to the Church. While Jack and Mrs Critchley looked at each other, JoAnne looked at him and stuck out her tongue, moistening her upper lip.
* * *
While Maurice screamed…
His Nana Mary was proud because he would be going to the good school in autumn. He had passed his exam, when everyone else in the class had not. She had raised him by herself, and he owed her everything. He was not like the other children in Brixton, dirty and loud and dangerous. He went to Sunday school every week and paid attention, and he was careful of his appearance. When he thought secretly of Barbara, a girl two years older who lived on the bottom landing, he always punished himself afterwards. Nana Mary rarely needed to punish him any more. He would think of Barbara, who he imagined wore lipstick and kissed boys, for no more than a minute, and then hurt himself. He would take a penny with his thoughts until it was red hot, then pick it up and hold it with his fist. He had penny-size spots in both palms. Nana Mary was proud of him. Jesus was proud of him. After he thought of Barbara, he would try to think of Jesus. His nana would not forgive him his trespasses, but Jesus would.
* * *
While Pfc Harry Steyning witnessed murder…
‘He’s too young to understand, poor mite,’ Nana Mary said, looming over his crib, talking to her friends, ‘Mummy dead under a bomb, Daddy dead in the war, like his daddy’s daddy before him. He’s all alone in the world. Except for his nana. The Lord should love him. No one else will.’
* * *
While Catriona held hands…
He was a woman, and he was a little boy. Mary was afraid, with the witch woman in the parlour conjuring unholy spirits and the Lord knew what else. Billy was barely awake, mother dressing him in the dark, shoving arms into sleeves and legs into trousers. The Spirits had spoken to Mary, had mentioned her married name. Her husband, Tony, was dead in Flanders, but he would not speak through a witch. Mother was telling Billy they must run away, go to live in London where Father had come from. Mary knew the Bible said thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, and warned against false prophets. Only the Lord could decide life and death. When the witch spoke her name, she knew she must leave. There was a curse on her family in this place, a curse that had made her a fatherless shame. It was time to leave. Billy did not want to go to London. He liked the house. He liked Mr Winthrop and his friend, Miss Kaye. But he would go with Mother.
* * *
While Bannerman burned...
He was a girl, Alice, and he was Bannerman. And he was an angel, a burning angel, looking down upon Bannerman’s betrayed face. They were all in the clearing in the woods. Dancing around a bonfire, coupling in the warmth, a life—Mary—sparking in the girl. His own face, seen through flame. Burning, falling, leaving. Fainter, like a shadow, he was another girl and another man, somewhere else.
Beyond the bonfire, the dark tunnel stretched out for ever.
* * *
Hazel was part of Beloved now, along with Jenny and Allison and the others. It was hard to remember herself. She was almost squeezed out, what with Beloved and Mary and Billy and Alice and Bannerman and a growing fan of others, spreading back through centuries.
Throughout all, they were one figure, a burning angel, standing in the woods above Alder, seasons flickering by like shadows, the earth absorbing grass and trees. Clouds rolled backwards. Alder grew and shrank. The swamp encroached, turning village to island. People in old-fashioned clothes were glimpsed. Once, like a flash, the waters were covered with boats, and men with swords and shields battled for a mayfly moment. Before the flash, there was a floating red lake of dead men, afterwards withdrawing armies. Slowly, the island sank under waters, rushes sucked into the bottom mud. All life passed, and saltmarsh turned to sea. And Hazel shrank inside the angel, clinging to Beloved’s everlasting, comfortless Light.
Beloved’s kiss was bitter, and the gunshot reverberated, louder and louder. She thought of Paul, and was snagged on something, her flight or fall arrested suddenly.
Chapelet. That was her name. Not Chapel. Hazel Chapelet.
Something in her mind tore. The others continued the journey, but she was snatched back. She was, for a moment, her old self. The cord between her and Beloved parted, and she felt herself emptying through it, spilling into the dark to be lost for ever. Beloved hurtled away, dwindling to a spark in the blackness, never disappearing.
She drifted on a while, momentum carrying her, but then the drag at her ankles grew stronger. Behind her somewhere was her old life, its pull irresistible. As she fell backwards, she picked up speed.
PART
IX
Susan had never even thought of flying. She’d levitated objects as heavy as herself, but that always proved a skull-cracking strain and left her with a mental hernia. Now, inside the explosion, she had no choice. Flapping her arms was obviously not going to work, so she extended her mentacles, pushing the ground, hoping for a soft landing. She should do something for the other people in the shower of fire and debris. Sometimes, the weight of the world was on her.
What had happened?
It had
nothing to do with her. It was Paul, walking across the room in his armour of pain, James’s gun held up. The first shot had gone wild, into Allison. The second had done the job.
She’d been close enough to see the hole in Jago’s face. The bullet had been between his front teeth and the base of his nose, blasting apart his upper lip, punching into his skull. The crown of his head, where scalp was beginning to show, had come off in a grey-and-black lump…
…and there had been the explosion.
Jago could not still live, his Talent could not survive. David had established that the seat of the Talent was the seat of perception. The brain. Thanks to Paul, Jago no longer had a brain. There could be no more than the last scrapings of cranial tissue in Jago’s toby-jug head.
Beneath her, orange in sunset and the balloon of flame, were treetops. She slammed into a branch, losing her wind and her concentration. Gravity took over, and she fell. A branch broke under her, snapped end scraping.
The struggling clutch of people around Jago fell too, dropping past, plunging through her attempted mental blanket. She felt Paul’s mind, a blot of dental pain, zip by, and saw Hazel, almost floating.
They all came to earth in the clearing, slamming into and sliding along the shingles. Fire rained all around, but did not burn. Susan tried to think away the fire, to quell the heat. Paul’s pain slipped out of her mind, and she felt her own. Her ankle complained sharply. It had twisted under her as she came down hard on one foot.
Hopping, she held a low branch, and looked around. They’d been blown up the hill, several hundred yards away from the house. The fires were collected around Jago and those hanging on to him. His face was a hole with eyes, and the fire was inside him. She willed him dead, not sure whether she was exerting her Talent or praying for divine intervention. Paul lay draped over a bush, gun in his hand. Allison and Jenny were lumped against Jago’s legs, stunned or dead. Hazel was in Jago’s arms, someone’s blood in her eyes. Brick and tile fragments were raining down, pattering like hail against everything. Jago’s head had detonated like a bomb, blasting a hole in the side of the Manor House.