by Mike Carey
The piano wire tightened around my throat, and the church exploded.
Twenty-two
THE NOISE WAS LIKE NOTHING I CAN DESCRIBE. IF YOU could imagine a full brass band had packed their instruments with TNT and blown themselves to hell on the final bar of The Floral Dance, then youd be off to a good start. But that was just background noise: the film canisters being ripped into red-hot gobbets that ricocheted off the walls and scythed over our heads as the ignited film spools gushed out a geyser of flame and gas that expanded too fast for them to get out of its way.
It was Asmodeuss scream that really made the moment special.
Dennis Peace had tried to describe it to me when he told me about what had gone down at the meeting house, but he didnt do it justice. It was as though you were hearing it through every inch of your skin, on a pitch that made your internal organs vibrate and scream in sympathy: as though youd become a taut membrane on which broken glass was showering down, playing notes by tearing random holes in you.
I held my hand in the flame for a second or so longer, until the pain became too great to bear. Then I lurched back, which should have been the end of mebut the woman with the piano wire had lost the plot, too, slamming her hands unavailingly to her ears. The wooden chocks on either end of the wire fell free, and their weight made the wire bite a little more deeply into my throat, but the sensation was drowned out in the all-over-body migraine effect of Asmodeuss bellowed pain and rage.
Fanke was still standing his ground on the far side of the circle, and his mouth was open as if he was yelling something. There was no sign of Abbie: I wasnt sure exactly when shed winked out, but she was no longer wrapped around his clenched fist. Everyone else was collapsing to their knees or trying to run on suddenly rubberized legs. A gout of oily black smoke erupted up the center aisle, creeping low along the ground at first but rising and opening out as though it was alive and hungry, flickers of flame winking on and off within it like eyes.
I looked up at AsmodeusI mean, at the clotted shadow thing that was condensing over our heads. In a different way, I knew, the whole building was Asmodeus. The thing was spasming arrhythmically, the veinlike tendrils drawn in to the heart and then spat out again in whiplash curves, tightening on themselves with audible cracks. That meant my ears were working again, at least: in the initial shock after the movie canisters blew, I was afraid my eardrums had burst.
First things first. I shrugged off the piano wire, feeling it pull and then give, releasing a shower of blood droplets where it had been partially embedded in the flesh of my throat. Letting it fall, I leaned forward across the magic circle and hauled off with a punch that hit Fanke full in the face. It sent a thrill of agony through my burned fingers, but it also sent him flailing backward into the altar rail. Jumping over the circle, I followed up with a low blow that doubled him up and made him drop Abbies locket. Good enough. I snatched the little golden heart up off the flags, and as I straightened again I brought my knee up into the bridge of Fankes nose for good measure. That should give him plenty to think about while I took care of Pen and Juliet.
Of course, how I was going to carry two women out of a burning building was a question that I hadnt really thought through to any firm conclusions. But turning around with the locket clasped in my injured left hand, I discovered that it was unlikely to become an issue. In spite of the flames billowing up toward the ceiling at the back of the church, and the filaments of smoke crawling forward along the aisles, Fankes followers had rallied and were running to the defense of their master. The first reached me just as I turned, throwing a clumsy punch that I clumsily blocked. I caught him on the rebound with a head butt that he didnt see coming. The second had a knife, and he stepped in around his injured colleague so that he could use it. But a couple of other robed figures surging up behind him knocked him off balance, and I was able to do a step-and-roll over the altar rail and back away from the charge.
They scrambled after me, fanning out along the length of the rail so that there was nowhere I could run to. This was the last place any of us wanted to be if the fire spread to cut us off from the main doors, but Fankes acolytes obviously cared more about completing the ritual than they did about their own safety. Thats what Ive never been able to get about religion: that charmless combination of altruism and insanity. Give me a cynical, self-interested bastard any day of the week; at least you can play chicken with him and know hell stick to the rules.
I sprinted for the altar, but only because there was nowhere else to sprint. It was a lousy place for a last stand, as the crucified Christ had already discovered. I tried to vault up onto it, but since my left hand was out of action I had to use my right, which as a southpaw Im a lot less handy with. I didnt quite clear the marble top of the altar, which projected out about six inches from the base all around: instead I caught it with my knee, slipped, and fell back to the floor in a sprawling heap.
The satanists converged on me, too many to fight and too damn stupid to scare. Then, amazingly, instead of trampling me down and tearing me apart in the time-honored way of religious zealots everywhere, they hesitated and came to a stumbling halt, staring past me across the altar. I saw why a moment later, as something scratched and skittered along its upper surface, and a set of long, slender talons gripped the stone rim just above my head.
Then the thing that was up there jumped into the midst of the satanists. It looked like a greyhound at firstbut that was because the two overriding impressions were of gray fur and emaciated slenderness. It was nothing like a greyhound in the way it moved: it arced like a striking snake, mewled like a cat, swiping out to left and right with hands from which claws bristled like racks of scalpels lovingly ranged by size. One of the satanists screamed, but the scream was cut short as blood plumed from his severed throat. Another staggered back clutching both hands to his face, purple gouts welling up between his splayed fingers. A third had a gun already in his hand, and fired, but the shot went wide and broke one arm off the Christ above the altar. It crashed down behind me, unheeded.
The satanists broke to either side, the gray thing dancing like a dervish between them. I saw its face, and that was a horror with its own special resonance, even in the midst of this symphony of horrors: partly because of the misshapen snout forced into an insane grin by canines too large for it to contain, but mainly because it was Zuckers face, and I saw the man within the beast.
I tightened my grip on the locket, but my charred fingers wouldnt close all the way, and the loup-garous eyes had already been drawn to the flash of incongruous gold from my blackened hand. He tensed to jump, but then the man with the gun fired again, and one of the beasts legs gave way under it. Zucker made a squalling shriek, turning to face the new threat. It had already been dealt with, as Poin human formstrode forward out of the smoke, took the gunmans head in both of his hands and twisted it until it faced the wrong way on his neck.
I followed the example of most of the surviving satanists and ran for it. Unfortunately, we were running into a storm: Fankes followers fell like threshed wheat as the sound of gunfire spread across the church. They seemed to prefer gunfire to what was behind them; several of them drew guns of their own and fired back. Dimly, through the spreading smoke, I saw black-robed figures moving up from the back of the church, skirting around the ceiling-high pyre in the center where the film cans had exploded. Then a bullet whanged past on my left-hand side, knocking a fist-size hole in the back of a pew, and I hit the deck.
I considered the merits of staying there until the whole thing played itself out. Fanke couldnt do anything without the locket, and that was still safe in my fire-blackened hand. But Gwillams church commandos were after the same thing, and if they got it theyd exorcise Abbie without a second thought. I didnt want to give them that chance. Admittedly, it was my fault they were here at all: the note Id left stuffed into Salliss pants back at the South Bank Centre had invited them to join me here for an inform
al chat and a little light jihad. Id hoped that their arrivalor Basquiatsmight come at a point where I needed a diversion. The age-old game of lets you and him fight is one Ive always liked.
But this was getting too hot for my likingin the literal sense as well as the other. Pen and Juliet were still out in the open, where a stray bullet could hit them at any moment, and even without that, the thickening smoke suggested that the fire was taking hold and spreading. Whatever happened, I didnt have the luxury of just staying put.
At least the smoke would give me a little cover: it was also choking me, making my eyes water and my lungs ache and spasm with each breath, but you cant have everything. I crawled on hands and knees to the end of the pew and then sprinted across to the outer aisle, where a line of pillars provided something more solid to hide behind. I snaked forward from one to the next, making for the open area in front of the altar rail where Pen and Juliet were lying.
The smoke was thick enough now so that I didnt have to worry too much about hiding: gunfire was still echoing and re-echoing through the church, but if a bullet hit me it would only be by accident. Nobody could target through this, even by night-sight: on a night scope, the church would be one large splodge of undifferentiated red, like spilled blood.
I found Pen first. She was unconscious, which didnt surprise me. Hooking my hands under her shoulders, I hauled her toward where I remembered the doors were. I was out by a few yards, but there was a clear corridor right up against the outer wall, caused by some freakish thermocline, so once I got there I could see where I was going. I dragged her along to the narthexa lobby area barely ten feet acrossand inside, relaxing in spite of myself to be in such a relatively small space after the terrible exposure of the church proper.
If Id been thinking about it, of course, Id have realized that someone on Gwillams team had to be watching the doors. It would be out of character for him to miss a trick like that. As I laid Pen down with her head right up against the doors, where clean, breathable air was filtering in from outside, Po lumbered out of the roiling blackness, backlit by the fires of hell, effectively barring my way back into the nave. He was no longer even remotely human: He was the hyena thing that Id seen at the Thames Collective and then again at the Whittington, his front limbs twice as long as his back ones so that he stood almost like an ape.
He loped toward me, grinning. It wasnt a grin of amusement: it was more a question of unsheathing his main weaponry, which jutted from his jaws like steak knives. I watched him closely, tensing to jump when he did, but there wasnt enough room in the narrow narthex to do much more than duck. Wherever I went, there wasnt anywhere that was out of his reach.
Then a second figure appeared at his shoulder, walking unhurriedly toward him out of the growing inferno. She lookedwell, right then she looked so good I would have cried, if I hadnt already been crying because of the smoke.
You should have woken me, Castor, Juliet said reproachfully, a harsh rasp in back of her voice. I almost missed this.
Po turned and jumped in one movement, giving out a terrifying roar. He hit Juliet like a fanged and clawed meteorite, his muscular back limbs raking up from below to disembowel her even as his jaws fastened around her head.
That was the plan, anyway. She bent under him, sinuous and graceful, caught him on her hands, and threw him, using his own momentum, into the nearest row of pews. He was up again in an instant, but Juliet was quicker. As he advanced on her again she lifted up one of the pews, judging the balance perfectly and completely untroubled by the weight. She brought it down across his head and shoulders so fast it blurred.
Amazingly, there was still some fight in him: I suspect there might have been more, if it hadnt been for what he was breathing. He closed with her and they both went down together as a gust of smoke and flame hid them from my sight.
I left Juliet to look after herself, knowing that she could. With the collapse of the ritual, Asmodeus seemed to have loosed whatever hold he had on her. I suspected there was nothing left of him in the church at all now. If there was, he certainly wasnt on fighting form right then.
I went back to Pen, kicked the main doors of the church open, and dragged her out onto the cobbles outside. Then I slumped to my knees beside her, sucking in the cool air as if it was wine. Like wine, it made my head spin and a feeling of almost unbearable lightness expand inside my tortured chest.
The bubble burst as a gun muzzle was laid alongside my head.
Give me the locket, Fanke wheezed, his voice all the more terrifying for the bubbling sound of organic damage at the back of it. Even without turning to look at him, I could tell that this was a man with very little left to lose.
I havent got it, I said.
Stand up. Spread your arms. Now, Castor!
Maybe Im just paranoid, but it seemed to me right then that my life expectancy was exactly as long as I could keep Fanke guessing. Once he had the locket, hed be wanting to deal out some payback for his ruined ritual and his lost good looks. I took a gamble on his line of sight, letting the locket slide out of my hand into the space between Pens arm and body. Then I stood, very slowly, putting out my arms to either side, fingers spread.
Fankes hands patted down my pockets. His breathing was painful to hear: an uneven, drawn-out skirl with that liquid undertow which suggested vital fluids leaking into places where they werent meant to be. He went through my coat, then my trousers. When he came up empty, he pressed the gun a little more tightly against my cheek.
Where is it? he demanded.
I think I left it inside, I suggested. On the altar.
The gun scraped against my cheekbone as Fanke thumbed off the safety. Then I think youre dead, he growled.
Certainly one of us was. There was a sound like someone ripping a silk scarf, and the gun clattered to the cobbles. Twisting my head I saw Fanke stiffen, his eyes wide in surprise, and take a step backward. He looked down at his stomach. His red robes hid the stains well, but blood began to patter and then to pour from out underneath them, pooling and then running in the gaps between the cobblestones to make a spreading grid pattern of red on black. Fanke touched his left side with a trembling hand; his robes seemed to be torn there, in several parallel slashes. They seemed to have just appeared there, as if by some magical agency, but the blood gave away the truth: theyd just been made from behind, passing straight through his body.
Fanke gave a sound that was like an incredulous laugh, and then his lips parted as he murmured something that reached me only as a formless sigh: maybe it was the satanist equivalent of father, into thy hands . . . He folded up on himself like an accordionalthough thats a lousy image because when you fold an accordion it doesnt leak dark, arterial red from every infold. He fell forward onto the cobbles, his head hitting the stones with enough force to shatter bone, but that didnt matter much anymore.
Zucker, still in animal form, limped around the body, staring at me with mad eyes. He could only use one of his front paws: the other was bent back against his chest. He must have sat on his haunches when he took that swipe at Fanke from behindcutting right through the mans torso below the ribs and turning his internal organs into rough-chopped chuck.
I took a step to the right, leading Zucker away from Pen. He followed, a trickle of drool hanging from his jaw. He was in a bad way, and it wasnt just the bullet wound. His claws, so terrifying in a fight, slid on the cobbles as if he was having trouble staying upright. But he snarled deep in his throat as he advanced on me, and his eyes narrowed on some image of sweet murder.
I kept on backing, kept on shifting ground so he had to turn as he advanced to keep me in sight. His movements were getting slower and more uncoordinated. His chest rose and fell like a sheet cracking in the wind, but with barely any sound apart from a creak as though his jaws were grinding against each other at the corners.
You know which company is the biggest co
nsumer of silver in the whole world? I asked him conversationally. He didnt answer. His good front leg buckled under him and he sank to the ground as if he were bowing to me.
Eastman Kodak, I said gently. Thats what youve been breathing.
His eyes closed, but his chest kept pumping prodigiously. He might even ride the poison out, but he was finished as far as this fight was concerned.
I went back to Pen. I had to kneel again, fighting off a wave of blackness that came out of nowhere. I was still in that position, just starting to struggle with the layers of duct tape around Pens wrists, when Juliet came out of the church. At a distance behind her and on either side came two of Gwillams men. They had automatic rifles leveled at her, but they didnt make any attempt to use them. They must have seen what shed done to Po, and if they had then they almost certainly didnt fancy their own chances against her very much.