Sentimental fool,laton said.
Listen, Father, after what I did today I’m entitled to show some sentiment,camilla retorted. Quinn would have ripped her apart. There’s no need for that kind of bloodshed any more. We have achieved what we set out to do.
Well, now this idiot priest is heading out to be a hero. Do you intend to save him as well?
No. He’s an adult. He makes his own choices.
Very well. The loss of Supervisor Manani is vexing, though. I was relying on him to eradicate the rest of the Ivets.
Do you want me to shoot them?
No, the hunting party is returning, they will find the horse soon enough, and the trail Quinn Dexter has left. They would wonder what killed them. There must be no hint of our existence. Though Jay—
Nobody will believe her.
Possibly.
So what are you going to do about Dexter? Our original scenario didn’t envisage him surviving this long.
Quinn Dexter will come to me now, there is nowhere else he can go. The sheriffs will assume he has run off into the wilderness, never to be seen again. Not quite the perfect solution, but no battle plan survives the opening shot. And Ann’s ova will be a welcome addition to our genetic resources.
Is my provocateur duty over now?
Yes, I don’t believe the situation requires further intervention on our part. We can monitor events through the servitor scouts.
Good. I’m on my way home; have a bath and a tall drink waiting, it’s been a long day.
Quinn looked down at Powel Manani. The naked supervisor had regained consciousness again now they had finished lashing his badly crushed legs to the mayope’s trunk. His head hung a few centimetres from the ground; cheeks puffed out from all the fluid that was building up in the facial tissue. They had spread his arms wide, tying his hands to small stakes in the ground. The inverted cross.
Powel Manani moaned dazedly.
Quinn held out his hands for silence. “The Night grows strong. Welcome to our world, Powel.”
“Dickhead,” Powel grunted.
Quinn flicked on a pocket-sized thermal inducer, and pressed it against Powel’s broken shin. He groaned, and jerked about feebly.
“Why did you do it, Powel? Why did you drown Leslie and Tony? Why did you kill Kay? Why did you send Vorix after Douglas?”
“And the others,” Powel wheezed. “Don’t forget them.”
Quinn stiffened. “Others?”
“You’re all that’s left, Quinn. And tomorrow there won’t even be you.”
The thermal inducer was applied to his leg again.
“Why?” Quinn asked.
“Carter McBride. Why do you think? You’re fucking animals, all of you. Just animals. No human could do that to another. He was ten years old!”
Quinn frowned, turning off the thermal inducer. “What happened to Carter McBride?”
“This! You dickhead. You strung him up, you and your Light Brother bastards. You split him in half!”
“Quinn?” Jackson Gael asked uncertainly.
Quinn gestured him quiet with a wave. “We never touched Carter. How could we? We were out at the Skibbow homestead.”
Powel pulled at the vines holding his hands. “And Gwyn Lawes, and Roger Chadwick, and the Hoffmans? What about them? You got alibis for them, too?”
“Ah, well now I have to admit, you have a point there. But how did you know we followed the Light Brother?”
“Elwes, he told us.”
“Yes, I should have realized a priest would know what was going down. Not that it matters now.” He took his fission blade from his dungarees pocket.
“Quinn,” Jackson said hotly. “This is weird, man. Who snuffed out Carter if we didn’t?”
Quinn held the blade up in front of his face, regarding it in a virtual trance. “What happened after Carter was found?”
“What do you mean?” Jackson yelled. “What are you talking about? Shit, Quinn, snap out of it, man. We’re gonna die if we don’t move.”
“That’s right. We’re gonna die. We’ve been set up.” The blade came alive, radiating a spectral yellow light that gave his face a phosphene hue. He smiled.
Jackson Gael felt a deadly frost settle around his heart. He hadn’t realized how insane Quinn was before this; nutty, sure, a psycho streak thrown in. But this—God’s Brother, Quinn was actually enjoying himself, he believed he was the Night’s disciple.
The other Ivets were giving each other very edgy glances.
Quinn didn’t notice. He leaned closer to Powel Manani. The supervisor sagged, giving up the struggle.
“We are the princes of the Night,” Quinn intoned.
“We are the princes of the Night,” the Ivets chanted with numb obedience.
Camilla, get back there now. Eliminate all of them immediately. I’m dispatching the incorporated to help you clear away the bodies. If the hunting party arrive first, use a thermal grenade to obliterate the scene. It’s hardly elegant, but it will have to suffice. Quinn Dexter must not be allowed to divulge our existence.
I’m on my way, Father.
The Ly-cilph moved its identity focus between Quinn Dexter and Powel Manani, extending its perception field around all the people in the cramped jungle clearing. It couldn’t quite read individual thoughts, not yet, the complexity of human synaptic discharges would take some time to unravel and catalogue, but their brains’ emotional content was plain enough.
The emotional polarity between Quinn Dexter and Powel Manani was enormous; one triumphant and elated, life loving; the other defeated and withdrawn, willing death to come quickly. It mirrored their religious traits, the diametric opposition.
Right out on the fringe of awareness, the Ly-cilph could detect a minute transmission of energy from Powel Manani into Quinn Dexter. It came from the basic energistic force which pervaded every living cell. This kind of transference was extraordinarily rare in corporeal entities. And Quinn Dexter seemed to be aware of it at some fundamental level, he possessed an energistic sense far superior to that of the priest. To Quinn Dexter the black mass sacrifices were a lot more than an empty ritual of worship, they generated a weighty expectation in his mind, confirming his belief. The Ly-cilph watched the sensation growing inside him, and waited with every perceptive faculty extended eagerly to record the phenomenon.
“When the false lord leads his legions away into oblivion, we will be here,” Quinn said.
“We will be here,” the Ivets repeated.
“When You bring light into the darkness, we will be here.”
“We will be here.”
“When time ends, and space collapses into itself, we will be here.”
“We will be here.”
Quinn reached out with the fission blade. He pushed the tip into Powel Manani’s groin, just above the root of his penis. Skin sizzled as the blade sank in, pubic hair singed and shrivelled. Powel clenched his teeth, neck muscles bulging out like ropes as he struggled against the scream. Quinn began to saw the blade down through the supervisor’s abdomen.
“This is our sacrament to You, Lord,” Quinn said. “We have freed our serpents, we are the beast we were made. We are real. Accept this life as a token of our love and devotion.” The knife reached Powel’s navel, ribbons of blood were pouring out of the wound. Quinn watched the scarlet liquid mat the man’s thick body hair, experiencing a fierce delight. “Give us Your strength, Lord, help us defeat Your enemies.” The dark joy of the serpent beast had never been so good before; he felt intoxicated. Every cell in his body vibrated with euphoria. “Show us, Lord!” he cried. “Speak to us!”
Powel Manani was dying. The Ly-cilph observed the swirl of energistic patterns raging throughout his body. A small discharge crackled into Quinn, where it was hungrily absorbed, raising the Ivet’s mental rapture to greater heights. The remainder of Powel’s life energy dwindled, but its dissipation wasn’t entirely entropic, a minute fraction flowed away through some kind of arcane dimensional twist. The L
y-cilph was fascinated, this ceremony was releasing an incredible wealth of knowledge; it had never attuned itself to an entity’s death so pervasively before in all its terrible length of being.
It inserted itself into the energy flow from Manani’s cells, tracing it between the neat folds of quantum reality, and finding itself emerging in a continuum it had no prior conception of: an energistic vacuum. A void as daunting to it as space was to a naked human. Retaining cohesion in such an environment was inordinately difficult, it had to contract its density to prevent flares of self-energy from streaming away like cometary volatiles. Once it had stabilized its internal structure, the Ly-cilph opened its perception field wide. It wasn’t alone.
Ill-focused swirls of information raced through this foreign void, similar in nature to the Ly-cilph’s own memory facility. They were separate entities, it was sure, though they continually mingled themselves, interpenetrating then diverging. The Ly-cilph observed the alien mentalities cluster around the boundary zone of its identity focus. Delicate wisps of radiation stroked it, bringing a multitude of impossibly jumbled images. It assembled a standardized identity and interpretation message and broadcast it on the same radiation bands they were using. Horrifyingly, instead of responding, the aliens penetrated its boundary.
The Ly-cilph fought to retain its fundamental integrity as its thought routines were violated and subsumed by the incursive alien mentalities. But there were too many of them to block. It started to lose control of its functions; the perception field contracted, access to the vast repository of stored knowledge began to falter, it was unable to move. They began to alter its internal energy structure, opening a wide channel between their empty continuum and spacetime. Patterns started to surge back through the dimensional twist, strands of raw memory using the Ly-cilph as a conduit, seeking a specific physical matrix in which they could operate.
It was a monstrous usurpation, one which contravened the Ly-cilph’s most intrinsic nature. The alien mentalities were forcing it to participate in the flux of events which ordered the universe, to interfere. There was only one option left. It stored itself. Thought processes and immediate memory were loaded into the macro-data lattice. The active functions ceased to exist.
The Ly-cilph would hang in stasis between the two variant continua until it was discovered and re-animated by one of its own kind. The chance of that discovery before the universe ended was infinitesimal, but time was of no consequence to a Ly-cilph. It had done all it could.
Thirty metres away from the Ivets and Powel Manani, Horst Elwes crept through the undergrowth, drawn by the low chanting voices. The trail of broken vines and torn leaves leading away from the dead horse had been absurdly easy to follow even in the last flickers of fading sunlight. It was as though Quinn didn’t care who found them.
Night had fallen with bewildering suddenness after Horst left the track, and the jungle had constricted ominously around him. Blackness assumed the quality of a thin liquid. He was drowning in it.
Then he heard the grating voices, the truculent incantation. The voices of frightened people.
A spark of yellow light bobbed between the trees ahead of him. He pressed himself against a big qualtook trunk, and peered round. Quinn sank the fission blade into Powel Manani’s prostrate body.
Horst gasped, and crossed himself. “Lord, receive Your son—”
The demon sprite flared like a miniature nova between Quinn and Powel, turning the jungle to a lurid crimson all around. It was pulsing in a mockery of organic life. Incandescent webs of vermilion light crawled over Quinn like icy flames.
Horst clung to the tree, beyond both terror and hope. None of the Ivets had even noticed the manifestation. Except for Quinn. Quinn was smiling with orgasmic joy.
When the rapture reached an almost unbearable peak, Quinn heard the voices. They came from inside his head, similar to the fractured whispers which dream chimeras uttered. But these grew louder, entire words rising out of the clamorous babble. He saw light arise before him, a scarlet aureole that cloaked Powel’s body. Right at the heart there was a crevice of absolute darkness.
Quinn stretched out his arms towards the empty tear in space. “My Lord! You are come!”
The multitude of voices came together. “Is the darkness what you crave, Quinn?” they asked in unison.
“Yes, oh yes.”
“We are of the dark, Quinn. Aeons we have spent here, seeking one such as you.”
“I am yours, Lord.”
“Welcome us, Quinn.”
“I do. Bring me the Night, Lord.”
Seething tendrils of spectral two-dimensional lightning burst out of Powel Manani’s corpse with an ear-puncturing screech. They reached directly for Quinn like an avaricious succubus. Jackson Gael staggered backwards yelling in shock, shielding his eyes from the blinding purple-white light. Beside him, Ann clung to a slender tree trunk as though caught in the blast of a hurricane, her hair whipping about, eyes squeezed shut. The flat lightning strands were coiling relentlessly around Quinn. His limbs danced about in spastic reflex. Mad shadows flickered across the little clearing. The stench of burning meat filled the air. Powel’s body was smouldering.
“You are the chosen one, Quinn,” the unified voices called inside his skull.
He felt them emerging out of the shadows, out of Night so profound it was perpetual torment. His heart filled with glory at their presence, they were kindred, serpent beasts. He offered himself to them and they rushed into his mind like a psychic gale. Darkness engulfed him, the world of light and colour falling away at tremendous speed.
Alone in his cherished Night, Quinn Dexter waited for the coming of the Light Brother.
Horst Elwes saw the red demon light wink out. The ungodly lightning blazed in its place, arcing through the air, stray ribbons raking around the clearing. Things seemed to be swimming down the incandescent strands, slender, turbid shadows, like the negative image of a shooting star. Leaves and vine creepers flapped and shook as air rushed by.
The Ivets were screaming, flailing about in panic. Horst saw Irley being struck by a wild quivering lightning bolt; the lad was flung two metres through the air to land stunned and twitching.
Quinn stood fast at the centre of the storm, his body shaking, yet always remaining upright. An incredulous smile on his face.
The lightning cut off.
He turned slowly, uncertainly, as though he was unacquainted with his own body, testing his musculature. Horst realized he could see him perfectly even though it was now pitch black. The other Ivets were near-invisible shadows. Quinn’s beatific gaze swept round them all.
“You as well,” he said gently.
Lightning streamed out of him, slender bucking threads that flashed unerringly at his five companions. Screams laced the air.
“Our Father, Who art in Heaven—” Horst said. He was waiting for the lightning to seek him out. “Hallowed be Thy name—” The Ivets’ cries were fading. “Forgive us our trespass—”
The terrible surging light vanished. Silence descended.
Horst peeked round the tree. All six Ivets were standing in the clearing. Each had their own nimbus of light.
Like angels, he thought, so handsome with their youthfully splendid bodies. What a cruel deceiver nature is.
As he watched they began to dim. Jackson Gael turned and looked straight at him. Horst’s heart froze.
“A priest,” Jackson laughed. “How wonderful. Well, we don’t require your services, padre. But we do need your body.” He took a step forwards.
“Up there,” Ann cried. She pointed deeper into the jungle.
Camilla had arrived right at the end of the sacrifice ceremony, just in time to see the lightning writhe around the clearing. She used the chameleon suit’s takpads to climb up a big tree, and crouched in the fork of a bough, looking down on them.
I don’t know what the hell that lightning is,laton said. It can’t be electrical, they’d be dead.
Does it matter?she d
emanded. adrenalin was tingling inside her veins. Whatever is causing it isn’t working for us.
True. But look how they are staying visible. It’s like a holographic effect.
Where’s it coming from?
I have no idea. Somebody must be projecting it.
But the scouts haven’t seen anything.
Ann called out and pointed. The other Ivets swiveled round.
Camilla knew what fear was for the first time in her life. Shit, they can see me!she brought her maser rifle up.
Don’t!laton called.
The chameleon suit ignited. Bright white flame engulfed her completely. She felt her skin burning and screamed. The plastic fabric melted rapidly, flaming droplets raining down out of the tree. She squirmed about, beating at herself frantically with her arms. She fell from her perch, a tumbling fireball, flames streaming out behind her. By then she had no air left in her lungs to scream with. She hit the ground with a dull whoomp , flinging out a wreath of flame. The temperature of the internecine fire increased, burning like a magnesium flare, consuming muscles, organs, and bone alike.
The Ivets gathered round as the last flames sputtered and died. All that remained was a blackened outline of scorched earth scattered with glowing clinker-like ashes. They crackled sharply as they cooled.
“What a waste,” Jackson Gael said.
They turned as one to look for Horst Elwes. But he had fled long ago.
Ruth Hilton and the other remaining adult villagers were grouped around the community hall in a defensive ring. The children were all inside it. Nobody knew quite what to make of Jay’s story, but there was no disputing she had seen Quinn Dexter.
Torchlight sliced round the empty cabins and muddy paths. The wooden slat walls shone a pale grey in the beams. Those whose rifles were equipped with nightsights were scanning the surrounding jungle.
“Christ, how much longer before the hunting party gets back?” Skyba Molvi complained. “They’ve got enough fire-power to blow out an army of Ivets.”
“Won’t be long,” Ruth muttered tightly.
“I see him!” someone bellowed.
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