by Peter Oxley
“I wish that were the case,” muttered Andras.
We turned to look at him. “What you not tellin’?” asked Kate.
Andras sighed. “This turn of events is certainly not helpful,” he said, “but I’m afraid that those people are no more insane than the rest of you.”
I took a deep breath. “I really have neither the time nor the patience for another one of your protracted riddles,” I said, keeping my voice low and level. “Just tell us exactly what you mean.”
“I mean that the higher power that those people said they follow is in fact a very real one,” said Andras. “Certainly as real as I am.”
“You mean to say that they are worshipping one of your people? An Almadite?” asked Byron.
Andras nodded slowly. “And I think I know exactly which of my people.”
“The Four Kings?” asked Byron.
Andras nodded again.
“So we have another demon invasion on our hands,” said Kate. “I guess it’s that time of year already.”
I allowed myself a wry smile. “In which case, we should definitely make haste. You say that everyone is at Hughenden?”
“That’s right,” said Jones. “Disraeli, your brother and what’s left of the army and police. Plus a load of refugees we gathered up on the way.”
“You said that everyone had just sat down and given up?” asked Kate.
Jones nodded. “Certainly most people, at least at first. After a while, a lot seemed to snap out of it before it was too late. Them that didn’t…” The rest of his sentence hung in the air between us, the silence implying much more terrible things than words could ever portray.
I shuddered. “How many people…?”
Jones shook his head. “Impossible to say, sir. Based on what I’ve seen, I’d say thousands or even millions across England. If this is also happening around the rest of the world… well, it don’t bear thinking about.”
We huddled in the cover of a line of trees, looking out at the army of howling, screeching monsters before us. My heart sank as I contemplated the sheer numbers in our path.
“I have never seen so many Soul-less together in one place,” Pearce muttered.
“It appears that your Sergeant was correct in saying they have become emboldened by the changes up there,” said Andras, nodding towards the sky.
“What now?” asked Joshua from just behind us, as always hunched close to Lexie.
“There are too many of them for us to attack,” said Pearce. “Going round them would cost too much time and just opens us to the risk that we would be discovered.” He scratched his chin. “They never tend to spend more than a few hours in one place, they are probably just regrouping here before moving on. We will remain here for the time being and wait them out. Hopefully they should be gone by morning.”
I barked a short, mirthless laugh. “Morning?” I asked. “You still believe such a concept exists?” I nodded up at the blank canvas stretched above us.
“Fair point,” he said. “In any case, I think that discretion is the better part of valour right now, and in any case we could all do with a rest.”
“I second that,” said Byron, and we shuffled backwards away from the treeline. Pearce left a line of men to stand guard while we found a clearing to wait out the foul creatures.
The intention was for us to get some rest, which we all attempted with varying degrees of success. Gaap was tied to a tree and, after checking that his bindings and gag were secure, Andras retreated back towards the treeline. Gaap, for his part, very quickly closed his eyes and appeared to fall into peaceful sleep, as did Lexie. Joshua sat next to her and absentmindedly stroked her hair while he stared into the middle distance. Byron and I watched him from the other side of the clearing, sharing a collective unease as we tried to fathom what was going on in the head of this insanely powerful young man.
Kate had lain down under a rug that had been wrapped tenderly around her by Pearce, who had then gone back to guard duty. We sat in relative peace until suddenly Kate jerked awake with a shout.
She sat up, breathing hard and looking around her as though she expected to still be in whatever nightmare she had recently escaped. I rose to my feet and went over to her, sitting by her side and putting an awkward hand on her shoulder.
“It’s all right,” I said softly. “We’re here.”
She glared up at me, about to snap some flippant comment. Then her face softened and her shoulders slumped as she nodded. “Yeah, I know,” she said in a quivering voice. “Just can’t shake them bad thoughts.”
I looked at her. “How much sleep have you actually had since we rescued you?”
She shrugged. “A bit,” she said, a defensive tone creeping into her voice.
I resisted the urge to answer back, instead letting the silence stretch awkwardly between us as I stared at her. After few moments, she relented.
“All right,” she sighed. “It’s just… every time I close my eyes or things go quiet all I can see is that… thing and I can’t shake the feelin’ of something inside me growin’, trying to eat up everything in my body until there’s nothin’ left but some empty shell.” She shivered uncontrollably.
I hesitantly put an arm out and around her shoulders again, gently touching her body; not so firm that I could not snatch it away if she resisted, snapped at me or tried to strike me. Instead, she welcomed the embrace, folding into it and pressing herself against my arm and side. I felt my heart skip a beat as I realised that we had broken through some sort of invisible barrier that had always stood between the two of us; in spite of all our time living, working and fighting together we had never shown any form of physical intimacy towards each other until that moment.
I gently rubbed her arm. “It’s understandable, you know,” I said softly. “After all you’ve been through I’d be more worried if you didn’t show any ill effects.”
She chuckled. “You’re a physic now, are you?” She frowned and shook her head. “I don’t know. I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m damaged goods somehow.”
“What, even more than before?” I asked with a smile.
She playfully punched my leg. “You know what I mean. That thing was there inside my nut doing God knows what, and even though it’s cleared off I don’t know what it did, what it took away or what it changed. None of us do. I might be better off not being here at all. You all might be safer without me…”
I shook my head. “You know that’s not true; we need you. You’re the one true warrior among us. If anyone is going to beat what happens, then you will. We all need you: me, Max…” I took a deep breath before adding the final words, my heart almost fighting its utterance. “…Pearce.”
She looked up at me. “Is that a bit of jealousy I sense there, Augustus Potts?” she asked, a smile playing across her lips.
I shook my head far too quickly. “No, no, not at all. Nothing of the sort. I just… I have noted how he has been with you recently.”
“After all I’ve been through,” she said. “Fightin’ demon invasions, being kidnapped and possessed, then off to the spirit world to get cured, not to mention runnin’ all over the place trying desperately not to get killed. Do you really think I’d have had time to fit in romancing around all that?” She dug her elbow gently into my side.
I chuckled. “I suppose not.”
“What about him, though?” Kate asked, nodding at Joshua, whose face was a bliss of half-dozing contemplation as he toyed with the slumbering Lexie’s hair.
“That is an altogether different worry,” I said softly. “The power he has is quite breath-taking… and yet I have no idea what his motivations really are.”
“Come on, it’s obvious what he wants,” said Kate. “He just wants to play happy families, to have everything as it was before we all waded in and ruined his life.”
“I just worry about Lexie,” I said. “It’s astonishing that he’s got her back but everyone has been very clear that her being here is against the
natural order of things. What if she causes yet more damage without even realising it?”
Kate shrugged and I looked at her, noticing how tired she appeared. Her eyelids fluttered as though they were too heavy for her face to keep open and then they slid shut as she slipped into what I hoped was a dreamless sleep. I sat there for a while, gently holding her and enjoying the warmth of her body against mine before feeling self-conscious and deciding to get up and do something else.
Ignoring the knowing glances of the others around the clearing, I slowly extricated myself from around Kate, taking care to rest her head and shoulders gently down on the ground before covering her with the blanket again. I stood and stretched, looking around before deciding to venture over to the pickets stationed at the treeline to see if there had been any activity.
I joined Pearce and Andras, surprised to see them both kneeling almost companionably together. Squatting next to them I muttered: “Any change?”
Pearce shook his head. “The majority appear to be resting, as I suspected,” he said. “The others are either fighting among themselves or have been killed by their comrades.”
“That’s very obliging of them,” I said as I looked out at the mass in front of us. They truly were a barbaric bunch, reinforcing every prejudice I had had about the Soul-less. There appeared to be no leadership amongst them whatsoever, with the group instead seeming to have adopted a herd-like, almost animalistic mentality. My first thought was that they were akin to a mob of sheep but I revised that to the more suitable comparison of a pack of wolves. Each seemed concerned solely with his or her own status within the group—for there were women there as well as men. Those who slumbered had proven themselves worthy of whatever position they held within this weird social ranking, while the remainder sniped and snarled at each other to establish their relative standing, much like rival lions battling for supremacy over a pride.
It was hard to imagine that these creatures were, in most respects, no different to myself and my friends, for such was their savagery it was almost as though we were staring back thousands of years in time at an earlier state of humanity. With a flash I wondered if this was what the demons truly wanted of us; to send us back to a less threatening and cohesive state, so they could rule supreme over us.
“I did not realise there were so many of them still in existence,” I muttered.
“Nor did I,” said Pearce.
“I don’t think there were,” said Andras. When we both glanced quizzically at him, he added: “I would not be surprised if the phenomenon that has taken over the sky has had some bearing on the numbers here.” He pointed out a group of Soul-less close to us. “See how those ones seem to be dressed in relatively fresh clothing and are not as decayed as the others?”
I stared at where he was indicating. The group did look remarkably normal in comparison to the Soul-less, although such a thing was relative. Whatever turned a person from a human into one of these things, it degenerated their bodies as swiftly as their minds, with their muscles standing out in stark relief to their skeletal anatomy and their heads taking on an almost skull-like aspect. The creatures also seemed to care little for clothing, with naked Soul-less not an uncommon sight.
Those nearest to us, however, did not appear to be as far advanced in their transformation and could have been mistaken for normal, independently minded human beings. Save, that is, for the fact that they shared the same snarling mindless looks on their faces and were behaving towards each other like little more than rival dogs.
“Do you mean to say that they are more recent creations?” asked Pearce.
“But who could have created them?” I asked. “I thought the majority were a by-product of your—”
“Yes, yes,” Andras said quickly. “We don’t need to go over all that again. However I would wager that these creatures were either created by another like me, or, more likely, something inherent in the changes to the sky that has fundamentally affected humanity.”
“But then why have we not all been affected in the same way?” I asked.
Andras sneered at me. “You are always so keen to tell me how different you are to each other, so why should you all be uniformly affected? You heard from Sergeant Jones that some people were reduced to a near catatonic state shortly after the sky disappeared, whilst others started raving about worshipping Satan. It is sensible to assume that either or both of those states of mind were a precursor to ending up like this.” He waved his hand at the field before us.
I shuddered. “And yet we are fortunate enough to not be affected.”
“Maybe there was something that took place at the same time as the infection spread across our world,” said Pearce, “the infection that turned the sky this way. Perhaps as it spread it touched everyone in its path. We were in the Aether at that time, so it makes perfect sense that we would not have been affected.”
Andras chuckled. “Such perfect scientific reasoning. Maxwell would be proud of you, Captain.”
A thought struck me. “You created these creatures,” I said to Andras. “Could you cure them?”
Andras shook his head. “Maxwell and I tried on countless occasions while I was stuck as N’yotsu, but to no avail. As far as I can tell, the changes are irreversible.”
“Just like Kate’s changes were irreversible?” asked Pearce, staring straight ahead.
Andras raised an eyebrow at him. “To cure her we had to break through into the afterlife, bargain with the undead and in the process cause all of this. Probably. Just to cure one person. Imagine what we would have to do to cure thousands or perhaps millions of people.”
Pearce stared steadily ahead. “There must be a way.”
“The more pressing matter,” continued Andras, “is the question of what we do with our little undead hitch-hiker back there.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, staring at him.
“The creature that Joshua is deluding himself is his sister,” said Andras. “Surely I’m not the only one who can see it?”
“See what?” asked Pearce.
“Have you managed to have a conversation with her since he brought her back?” Andras asked.
I shrugged. “She answered my questions perfectly well.”
“That’s not what I meant,” said Andras. “I meant a real conversation; not just a few stock answers that she could have plucked from any one of our heads.”
I stared at the demon, trying to decide whether he was being sincere or just seizing on one more opportunity to divide us.
Andras shrugged back at me. “Just think about it,” he said.
I frowned, but my mind was already running over my interactions with Lexie. Joshua seemed not to have noticed, maybe because he was keen not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but she showed no curiosity at all in what had happened since she had been killed, or in her life before that point. Furthermore, she was unable to answer anything beyond the most basic of questions about her past. Could Andras be right? Was she constructing her responses and interactions with us from the contents of our own minds? And if so, what did that mean she really was? Indeed, was she actually real at all? Such a thing seemed ridiculous, but far more fantastical things had happened to us over the years.
Pearce rubbed his eyes and stretched.
“You should get some sleep,” I said to him. “We can keep watch here. I can’t see much happening for a while in any case.”
“I cannot sleep,” he said softly. “Not any more.” Under the weight of our combined stares he reluctantly continued: “Every time I close my eyes I can sense them, hear them pounding away at my skull. I daren’t try to sleep in case I never wake up.”
“That’s very common,” said Andras. “It’ll pass; nothing to worry about.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve possessed my fair share of people in the past, and suffered a good deal of exorcisms into the bargain. Don’t worry: it’s an all-or-nothing arrangement. There’s no part of the creatures left inside you, y
ou just need a bit of time to recover.”
“Time we don’t have.”
I sighed, thinking about our group of so-called heroes. Kate and Pearce were in danger of being incapacitated by the after-effects of their possessions. Joshua was displaying every sign of being unhinged while none of us were sure of what to make of his sister. That left me, Byron and Andras to defend humanity: and two of us definitely did not trust the third. My heart sank as I considered the prospect of this rag-tag bunch facing a real battle.
Chapter Eighteen
It felt like days passed under that unchanging sky before the Soul-less began to move away from their makeshift camp. At first the migration was barely perceptible, a few creatures deciding to wander off in a north-easterly direction. Then, after a few moments, more and more joined the flow, like leaves caught in a stream.
By this point we were gathered at the treeline, watching with bated breath as the creatures shuffled off, occasionally pausing to attack each other. We crouched with our hands on our weapons, watching for signs that any of them would decide to venture towards our hiding place. Thankfully none did, instead preferring the open spaces afforded by the fields and hills.
“Maybe they’re fed up with always being in hiding,” mused Kate. “If I were them, I’d take full advantage to parade around wherever I wanted.”
After around an hour only a handful of the creatures remained, excepting, of course, the bodies of those Soul-less strewn around the ground, abandoned where they had fallen or been murdered by their associates.
I glanced at the others, clearly sharing my unease at how reluctant these stragglers were to follow the horde. Pearce scanned the skyline to the east, where the bulk of the Soul-less had disappeared. Satisfied that none remained within seeing distance, he nodded to us. “If they won’t leave,” said Pearce, “then we should rid ourselves of them. With me!”
We followed him as he charged out from the undergrowth, his sabre whirling as he ran. Kate stayed behind, a gun trained on Gaap to ensure that he did not succumb to the temptation to run while we were distracted. As I ran I felt the runic sword sing in my hand as it welcomed the exercise, having spent far too long without being wielded in anger. The others followed suit, enjoying the opportunity to do something other than run or hide. None of us used guns or rifles in case they alerted the other Soul-less to our actions but even so the violence was over in a matter of moments, the creatures being no match for the ferocity of our attack or our numbers.