World's end taom-1

by Mark Chadbourn

  Afterwards, they stared into the heart of the fire, trying to assimilate all the new information. "So," Ruth said, summing up, "the way I see it is this: for some reason we don't yet know, the doors between Otherworld and here were opened. The Danann were preparing to return when the Fomorii launched something called the Wish-Hex, which I imagine as a kind of nuclear bomb in their terms. When the blast swept out, it took the majority of the Danann to some place from where they can't return on their own. But some of the Danann were corrupted by this Wish-Hex radiation and, against their basic nature, fell under the control of the Fomorii. The Erl-King … Cernunnos … was one of them. And some of the other creatures of Otherworld must have been affected too. I think this explains the Fabulous Beast that attacked Church and I near Stonehenge. Obviously they're linked to the earth spirit, power, whatever, so they wouldn't have done the Fomorii's bidding against us unless they were forced."

  "And a few of the Danann escaped entirely," Church added. "Like the woman in the Watchtower. But she didn't tell me the doors between the two worlds were already open and the Danann were planning on coming through. She implied everything happened because the Fomorii broke the Covenant."

  "Maybe she was spinning you a line," Veitch said.

  Church shifted uncomfortably. Could they really trust a race that was so far beyond them that their motivations were almost incomprehensible? And what did that mean for the woman in the Watchtower's promise that his prize for success in freeing her people would be knowledge of Marianne's fate? He had a sudden image of cynical, educated western explorers conning indigenous people out of land and resources for a few paltry beads.

  "So it was like a first strike," Veitch continued. "The Fomorii tried to wipe out all the opposition in one swoop, leaving them free to do whatever horrible stuff they wanted once they got over here."

  "But what was he like?" Shavi asked shakily. He was in a sleeping bag, propped up by a pile of rucksacks. "Did you get a sense of something divine?"

  Ruth saw the excitement in his eyes, but it was an issue she didn't really want to face. °I don't believe in God," she replied, but her voice wavered enough that she knew he wouldn't let her leave it there. "Yes, I have tailored my beliefs a little. I couldn't be a humanist in the face of something like that. There is an existence beyond our own, and he was certainly unknowable. But divine? You might consider him a god. Others might call him an alien, or a higher being." She couldn't tell if it was Shavi's smile or her own unsureness after a lifetime of disbelief that irritated her the most.

  "But do you not see? This is the question. The thing we spend all our lives searching for-"

  "Oh, I don't know," she snapped.

  Church stepped in quickly. "This isn't the time for intense theological debate-"

  "No, it's the time for a party!" Veitch held out his arms in jubilation. "We won!"

  "That's poultry you're calculating," Laura snorted. She finally seemed to be coming out of the fearful mood that had gripped her since the encounter in the graveyard.

  "What do you mean?" Veitch threw a box of Elastoplast at her with a little more force than was necessary. "We've found all the talismans. The Hunt has gone for good. And we're all alive!"

  "As much as we ever were," Laura said coolly.

  "But we still don't know what to do with the talismans." Ruth turned to Tom. "When are you going to spill the beans?"

  "When we're nearly where we need to be and there's no chance of anything going wrong," he replied gruffly.

  "At least we're well under the wire on the deadline," Church said. "More than three weeks to go. I never thought we'd do it so quickly."

  Despite their certain knowledge that their trials were not over, they slept more easily than they had done in weeks. When they awoke to the sound of seagulls, the sun was already up and the fire had burned out. They all laughed when a man out walking his dog avoided them by a wide margin, realising they must look like dirty itinerants with their matted hair and crumpled clothes.

  The sea air was invigorating and by 8 a.m. they felt fully rested and ravenously hungry. Their supplies were low, so Veitch volunteered to walk up to the village to see if he could find something for breakfast. Church, Shavi and Tom said they wanted to come too, to stretch their legs, and once Ruth saw she would be left alone with Laura she opted to join them.

  "You lot are freaks," Laura gibed. "Choosing physical exercise when you can lounge around and chill?" Tom convinced her she should sit in the van to guard the talismans so she could drive away at the first sign of trouble. Church borrowed Laura's small knapsack and tucked the Wayfinder inside it. "I'm never letting this out of my sight again, whether we need it or not," he said with a grin.

  They strode up the leafy lane to the village with a lively step, despite the exertions of the night before.

  "You know what?" Veitch said to Church ahead of the others. "I never felt as alive as I do now."

  Church knew what he meant. "It's like you don't fully appreciate life until you've faced up to death. I know that's a real cliche-all those adrenalin junkies doing dangerous sports say it all the time. But I never thought for a moment it might be true."

  "Makes you think how bad we're leading our lives, with awful office jobs and poxy suburban houses." Veitch thought for a moment, then glanced at Church. "Maybe we're on the wrong side."

  "What do you mean?"

  "We're fighting to keep the things the way they always have been, right? What happens if that's not the best way? What if all this magic and shit is the way it really should be?"

  Church recalled a conversation he had with Ruth soon after they first met about his dismay at the way magic seemed to have drained out of life. "But what about all the death and suffering? People getting slaughtered, medical technology failing?"

  "Maybe that's all part and parcel of having a richer life. What's better-big highs and deep lows or a flatline?"

  Church smiled. "I never took you for a philosopher, Ryan. But it all sounds a little Nietzchean to me."

  "You what?"

  At that point Tom and Shavi caught up with them and introduced a vociferous religious debate. Veitch listened for a moment, then dropped back until he was walking just in front of Ruth. She eyed him contemptuously. "Don't even think of talking to me."

  "I just wanted to say that was a really brave thing you did last night. You saved us all."

  "Do you really think I need your validation?"

  Veitch went to reply, but her face was filled with such cold fury he knew it was pointless. He dropped back further and trailed behind them all.

  The village shop was just opening up for the morning. Church and Shavi both picked up wire baskets and loaded them up with essentials. Just before they reached the checkout, a short, ruddy-faced man in his fifties with white hair and a checked flat cap rushed in, leaving the door wide open.

  "Born in a barn, Rhys?" the woman behind the counter said.

  Ruth, who was nearest, saw that he wasn't in the mood to banter. His face was flushed and he was breathless, as if he'd run all the way there. "Did you hear about Dermott?" he gasped. The woman shook her head, suddenly intrigued. "Missing, he is. They found his bike and a shoe up near the old Pirate's Lantern. Edith is in a right old state. She expected to find him in bed after the night shift and when he wasn't there she called the police."

  The woman and the man launched into a lurid conversation about what might have happened to their friend, but Ruth was no longer listening. She knew what had happened to him. The Hunt had found their sacrificial soul. Feeling suddenly sick, she dashed out of the shop and sat on the pavement, her head in her hands. How many people who had crossed their path had suffered? she wondered.

  The others emerged soon after, laughing and joking, but she found it impossible to join in. Even when they won, there was a price to pay.

  The knock at the passenger door window came just as Laura had settled out in the back, mulling over whether or not she had fallen for Church, hating he
rself for it. It was brief, friendly; not at all insistent. Deciding it was kids playing or the part-time car park attendant wanting to check their ticket, she decided she couldn't be bothered to answer it. But when it came again thirty seconds later, she sighed irritably and then scrambled over the back of the passenger seat. She was surprised to see a man who looked like a tramp in his shabby black suit. Yet his red brocade waistcoat added a note of flamboyance, as did his swept-back silver hair and sparkling eyes, which suggested a rich, deep humour. His skin had that weathered, suntanned appearance that only came from a life on the road, but his smile was pleasant enough.

  Laura wound down the window. "I haven't got any spare change. I like to sharpen it to throw at authority figures."

  "An admirable pursuit, my dear," he said in a rich, theatrical voice. "But I am not seeking financial remuneration. Although I must say I am a little down on my luck at the moment. Travelling great distances can be an expensive business. But that is by-the-by. In actual fact, I am seeking young Mr. Churchill. Is he around, by any chance?"

  Laura laughed in surprise. "You know Church?"

  "We had a wonderful evening of great humour, fantastic storytelling and, frankly, serious inebriation at a Salisbury hostel. Why, your generous friend even allowed me to drink his health into the night on his hotel tab. A wonderful fellow, and no mistaking." Laura laughed at his faux dramatic persona, which seemed to have been culled from old films and older books, but his charm was unmistakable. "And, as is his genial nature, he asked me to look him up the next time I was in the vicinity. And here I am!" He suddenly clapped his hands into a praying posture and half buried his face between them. "Oh, forgive me! I have forgotten the very basis of good manners-the introduction. My name, my dear, is Callow."

  He held out his hand. Laura hesitated for a moment, then took it. "Laura DuSantiago," she said, aping his theatrical style.

  "And will you allow me to rest a while in your vehicle until young Mr. Churchill's return? I fear my legs are weary."

  Laura began to open the door, but then a thought jarred: Church didn't have the van when Callow would have met him, and there was no way he could have known they'd be there in an obscure Welsh village. She looked into his face suspiciously.

  Callow smiled, said nothing. He was still holding on to her hand and his grip was growing tighter. "Let go." Her voice was suddenly hard and frosty.

  She tried to drag her hand free, but Callow's strength belied his appearance. His smile now seemed grotesque. He forced his head through the open window and she was hit by a blast of foul breath. She realised he was trying to prevent anyone seeing what was happening. "You bastard-"

  Before she could say any more, Callow gently brushed his free hand across the back of her arm. She couldn't understand his action, until she saw a thin red line blossom where his fingers had passed. It seemed almost magical. She watched it in bemusement, trying to work out how he had done it. But the stinging shocked her alert and she caught hold of his wrist, forcing his hand up; a razor blade was surreptitiously lodged between his tightly held fingers. She had only a second to take it in when he suddenly let go of her hand and smashed his fist hard into her face. Laura saw stars, felt the explosion of pain, then pitched backwards across the seats in a daze. When she came around, Callow had the door open and was clambering in over her.

  She savagely kicked a foot towards his groin, but instead it slammed into his thigh. He winced, but the smile never left his lips. His eyes, no longer sparkling, were fixed on her face.

  Laura began to yell and struggle, but Callow made another pass with his hand, slashing the soft underside of her forearm, dangerously near to the exposed veins at her wrist. Before she could respond, he started sweeping his hand back and forth across her face. She threw her arms up to protect herself, feeling her flesh split and the wet warmth trickle down to her T-shirt. She yelled out, the agony of the moment multiplied by a sudden image of her mother showing her the bloodstained razor blade two years earlier. Not again, her mind roared.

  The seriousness of her predicament hit her like a train; no one was going to save her; Callow had forced her into a position where she couldn't fight back; and just as she decided her only hope was to scream until someone came run ning, he hit her in the face again, grabbed her by the hair and bundled her over the back of the seats.

  In her daze, she was vaguely aware of him dropping down beside her like a giant spider, and then he had gripped the razor blade between knuckle and thumb and was cutting into her in a frenzy. The last thing Laura saw before she blacked out was so horrible she couldn't tell if it was a hallucination brought on by the pain and the shock of her approaching death: his eyes seemed to be flooded with blood, as if every capillary in them had burst at once, and there was a subsequent movement under the skin around his orbits. As if something was crawling there.

  Church was the first to notice the rear doors of the van hanging raggedly open. There was nothing inherently sinister in the image-Laura might simply have opened them to get some air to the suffocating interior-but his intuition sent a flood of icewater through his system. And then he was running, leaving the others chatting obliviously behind him. Bloody footprints led away from the van. Anxiety spurred him on, driving all rational thought from his mind. When he reached the doors and glanced in, his stomach turned.

  The inside of the van looked like an abattoir. Blood was splattered up the walls and across the floor where Laura's pale, unmoving form lay. Her T-shirt was in tatters, the taunting legend Jesus Saves looming out at him, now appearing as if someone had attempted to scribble it out.

  And the crate containing the talismans was gone.

  The journey back to Tenby passed in a high-speed blur of madly overtaken vehicles, blaring horns and heart-stoppingly dangerous turns. They screamed into Accident amp; Emergency at the hospital on Trafalgar Road and Church ran in with Laura in his arms, her blood soaking through his shirt, leaving sickening spatter marks behind them like the spoor of some giant beast; despite his first impression, she was still alive, but in shock. If they had tried to deny it until then, the moment they saw the faces of the team of young doctors and nurses, they were left in no doubt as to the seriousness of her condition. She was whisked off behind flapping curtains, leaving them alone in an empty waiting room.

  "But we'd won!" Veitch pleaded, his staring expression revealing the shock that played across all their minds. "It's not fair." It sounded pathetic and spoilt, but it was all he could think to say.

  Ruth chewed her thumb knuckle. "God, I hope she's going to be okay." Church watched the regret and guilt play out on her face.

  "But we'd won!" Veitch repeated, as if saying it enough times would make it come true.

  "They selected the right time to attack," Shavi noted, "when our defences were down. Perfect, really."

  "She was attacked with a knife or a razor-you saw the cuts. That doesn't seem like the Fomorii," Church said. "Maybe it's just a random disaster-just some nut who crossed paths with us. The kind of thing that happens in life all the fucking time," he added bitterly.

  "Who specifically took the talismans?" Tom seemed more upset than Church would have expected. His eyes had been filled with tears from the moment they had discovered her; sometimes he could barely talk; at other times he shook with the ague which increasingly seemed to be afflicting him.

  "All that bleedin' struggle. For nothing!" Veitch buried his head in his hands.

  "This is probably not the best time to discuss it," Tom began, "but we need to get on the trail of the talismans. There's much more at stake here than-"

  "No!" Church stared at him angrily, but all he could see was Marianne. "Nothing is bigger than people! Individuals. People you love. They deserve your time and attention and passion. Not a world that couldn't care less if it went to hell in a handcart!"

  Tom made as if to argue, then looked away.

  "I don't care about anything else right now. I just want to see my friend pull through. If you h
aven't got friends, if you haven't got people you love, you've got nothing."

  Veitch stared at Church as if he was seeing him in a new light, then nodded thoughtfully.

  Just then Tom put his head in his hands and started to sob silently. The others stared at him in surprise. Ruth slid up next to him and put a comforting arm around his shoulders, but he seemed inconsolable.

  Veitch's shoulders were weighted with desolation. "What the hell are we going to do now?"

  They were allowed to see her at noon. Against the crisp white sheets of the bed she looked uncommonly frail, like a sickly child; they barely recognised her. Her dyed blonde hair was matted and unkempt, her skin like frost, her body somehow thinner and more angular than they remembered. Pads had been taped to the left side of her face. A couple of tubes snaked into her; she was dead to the world.

  "We sedated her," the doctor explained. "It was for the best, after the shock."

  "Is she going to be okay?" Church asked.

  The doctor didn't look too sure of his answer. "Physically, I suppose. We gave her some blood, stitched the deepest wounds, bound the others. But …"-he shrugged-"you know, a razor attack. It's sick, disgusting. When I see the mess it leaves, I can't understand how anybody could be so twisted as to carry it out." He paused, swallowed. "And her face … she's going to have some bad scarring on that left side. You saw her back, her arms. She looks like a jigsaw. The psychological scars will be the hardest to heal. I noticed the old scar tissue …" He looked from one face to the other, hoping for an explanation.

  "She's suffered before," Church said simply.

  The doctor nodded as if that was answer enough. "That makes it worse. She's been bitten twice, as it were."

  "When can we take her with us?" Tom asked tentatively. He succeeded in ignoring the others' annoyed stares.