Infanticide (Fallen Gods Saga Book 2)

by T. W. Malpass

  Robert had had enough. ‘You seem more interested in this killer than my son, so if you have suspicions this man has abducted him, we would prefer it if you stopped ducking the obvious and tell us.’

  Morrow sat back in the chair. ‘Before I do, I want to make it clear that this information is by no means conclusive.’

  ‘Just get on with it,’ Robert snapped.

  ‘We can be absolutely certain that if our suspect forced Stuart to go somewhere against his will, he didn’t come into contact with him around here. We know of Mr Flynn’s whereabouts over the last week, and it would not have been possible for him to travel to Nottingham at the time of Stuart’s disappearance.’

  ‘You think he made contact with Stuart over the internet and lured him somewhere else?’ Robert asked.

  ‘We don’t know that for sure, sir.’

  ‘What do you know?’

  ‘We know that a few days ago, someone fitting Flynn’s description was seen at Northampton’s Castle station, boarding a train with a boy in a wheelchair resembling your son. A chocolate Labrador accompanied them.’

  Sue dipped her head as a wave of emotion washed over her. Robert put his arm around her, but she didn’t feel the pressure or the warmth of it.

  ‘And? Were they spotted getting off the train? Do you have any idea where they could have gone?’ Robert said.

  ‘Oh God, Robert,’ Sue gasped as if in pain. ‘They are talking about the train on the news.’

  A glance at the detectives told Robert his wife’s worst fears were correct.

  ‘I’m sorry – I really am. As I said, this is just based on witness descriptions. We haven’t a shred of physical evidence.’ As Morrow spoke, he could see the slabs of flesh splattered around the train cars. He conceded that even if he knew for certain their son had been on the train when it happened, it would be doubtful that his body could be identified.

  Sue began to weep. This time, there was no hope of tempering it. It was grief at its rawest and most cruel. Robert wrapped his arm more closely around her. ‘When will we know for certain?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s difficult to say. The coroners are working very hard. Someone will be in touch, either way. I’ll make sure you don’t have to wait any longer than is necessary.’ Morrow was cold by nature, but his heart wasn’t made of stone. The fate of a child hung in the balance – a child who had hardly been fortunate before this point.

  Robert shuffled and coughed uncomfortably. ‘I’m sure you both understand that my wife and I are not up to answering any more of your questions right now,’ he said, struggling to get his words out.

  ‘Of course. We will show ourselves out…Reeves?’ Morrow gestured to his partner to get up and leave. Reeves was mesmerised by the sense of loss pouring from the Mathersons. ‘Reeves?’ Morrow asked more forcefully, and this time Reeves responded, shaking himself and heading for the door to the living room.

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ Robert said, just as Morrow was about to follow. ‘He must have left to meet someone, because there’s no way he would run away from home. He was happier than he’d ever been. We’d started to become a family again.’

  ‘We’ll be in touch. Mr Matherson…Mrs Matherson.’ Morrow closed the door behind him and headed back to the car.

  Reeves already waited, clearly shaken by the experience, hands pressed against his head. ‘That wasn’t so good, sir.’

  ‘It doesn’t get any easier, Daniel, no matter how many times you do it,’ Morrow replied.

  ‘What’s worse, they’ve seen that train wreck on the tele, and now they know exactly what their son went through.’

  ‘You’re jumping to conclusions again. We have no proof of that yet.’ Morrow clicked his key-fob to unlock the car.

  ‘You’re convinced he’s alive, aren’t you – him and Flynn?’ Reeves said.

  Morrow shook his head. ‘It seems unbelievable, but what aspect of this case doesn’t?’ Silently, the two of them gazed up at the burning red gas in the sky.

  ‘So – where to now?’

  ‘Before we leave Nottingham, I want to speak to that boy.’ Morrow sifted through his notebook to the relevant page. ‘Cedric Atterby.’

  ‘What can he tell us?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but I have a feeling he might know more than he’s told the police.’

  Monuments Never Lie

  1

  Briaridge Orchard, Bedfordshire

  Kaleb came clean to the others about how he had let Jerrico leave. He didn’t have to worry about telling Celeste of course, she knew anyway. He sat in his mock-up studio, now so eerie, it almost felt uninhabitable. Every time he lifted his head to the warm light beams that crept in from the window, he noticed his most infamous creation looking back at him.

  The others couldn’t understand his actions with Jerrico – none of them. He didn’t even bother trying to explain. The only person who might have comprehended was the person he’d allowed to leave. I bet it felt like an escape when he got free of the grounds, Kaleb thought. He felt like a prisoner in the manor too. However, Celeste had provided them with the only explanation for their lives that had ever made sense, and he could feel her protective arm around him. In spite of that, a blanket of oppression hung over the manor, along its vast hallways and its winding staircases, in the woods surrounding it – something held them down, kept them at bay.

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in.’ Kaleb expected to see Josie’s head emerge from behind it, and he was about to tell her that he needed a while longer on his own, but it wasn’t her. It was Ashley’s face that greeted him – Celeste’s dutiful familiar.

  ‘She would like to see you, alone,’ she said.

  ‘That’s good because I want to see her alone too.’ Inside he was trembling at the thought, but there was no way he would show his hand to Ashley. Even after he’d witnessed the control Celeste wielded over her, the level of her culpability was still in question.

  ‘I know you’re only behaving defensively because you care, but you will understand soon where your real loyalty lies.’

  ‘Did she tell you to say that? Do you actually know what it means?’ Kaleb said. She blinked and he felt warmth exude from her.

  ‘I often wish I didn’t, if that makes you feel any better.’

  Kaleb stood up from the bed. ‘Let’s get on with it then,’ he said.

  2

  Although the otherworldly clouds had become a permanent fixture, night and day remained distinct from each other. The days were red, as though view through tinted sunglasses; and the nights were as black as Cradleworth’s eyes. Kaleb never wished to gaze into those terrible pits again.

  By the shadows cast across the hallways, he could tell that the day was moving close to dusk. In the time it took to reach Celeste’s room, the darkness had crept up all around them.

  Ashley moved to the sleeping girl’s bedside. She took Celeste’s hand in both of hers and waited for the spiritual intruder to break down the walls and enter.

  The sun was setting, and Kaleb noticed the red glow had turned a shade darker on the white walls of the bedroom. The dimmer light did nothing to curb his unease as Ashley stared at him with eyes of pure opal. The air went stale and dried his throat.

  ‘You took a colossal risk today, one based entirely on human emotion.’ Celeste’s voice came forth from Ashley, echoing around his mind like before, calm and collected. ‘You must understand that each time one of you makes a decision, all things will be affected. If Cradleworth chooses to take an equal risk and attempts to destroy Jerrico, he may well succeed. If Jerrico were to fall, Cradleworth would see nothing standing between him and his goal. What’s more, defeating Jerrico would convince him that he could destroy you and the others, together or not.’

  Kaleb decided he was more likely to get straight answers if he gave into Celeste and communicated by thought instead of speaking. It must be hard for you to understand why these futile human tendencies continue to hold us bac
k. Yes, we know the truth, your version, at least, but I guarantee you that none of us feel like gods. If you think a few days telepathically linked to you is going to change that, make us turn our backs on our families and all we know, I’m afraid you don’t know enough about human beings.

  ‘You are aligning yourselves with the human race, and you should not. It is just flesh.’

  And thought – emotion.

  ‘Illusions – necessary to facilitate a life in that vessel. If you take these frailties into battle with you, Cradleworth will turn the flesh you cling to so dearly into dust, and then he will feast on your soul.’

  Her words felt as if they were crushing him from the inside. If she was right, then everything had been for nothing; every moment shared with another, every aspiration, every hopeful glance into the sun. No. You will never get me to believe that, Kaleb thought.

  The red glow across the room dimmed once more. Kaleb fell into a stoop, hands on knees, never wanting to rise. The effort in linking with Celeste’s mind was tearing his own apart. He had to voice his thoughts now, if only to be closer to his human self. ‘Please, tell me this is a dream.’ Maybe he was asking God, or perhaps the other force that he had felt trying to reach out to him since arriving at the manor.

  ‘Your human life is a dream when compared to the rest of your existence – a mere blinking of an eye – one star in a sky of billions. You need this life to bind you to this place so you might defeat him, it is your only protection, but you must learn to conquer it. I do not pretend to feel your pain, but if you fail to rise above it, Cradleworth will wage war on your emotions before he attacks the flesh. This is a certainty – set into the molecules of his being.’

  ‘I know what you would have us do, Celeste – not flinch when he holds a blade to our loved ones’ throats – hide behind life on this planet, using it as a shield while we try and figure out how to bring him down.’

  ‘Why can you not see that there is only one choice to make?’

  ‘There is never only one choice to make,’ he replied defiantly. ‘You said we sacrificed ourselves on Kal Denon so we could go out into the universe in hope that we might find a means to stop him. How do you know that means does not lie within the human race?’ Kaleb watched Ashley as Celeste fell silent inside of her. Her featureless eyes were still fixed on him, but she didn’t move, except for her chest. Its rise and fall suggested she was hyperventilating, more evidence of the stress being placed on her body while being used as a host.

  ‘There is something you must do, away from here. You will only be allowed the company of one other. The rest are absolutely forbidden from leaving these grounds. We cannot afford to be any more scattered than that.’

  ‘What are you asking me?’

  ‘I have seen something through this darkness – a vision – my gift in this world. A monument to honour the fallen, a grey obelisk, standing in the centre of two sleeping angels, the words, we will never forget, engraved at its base.’

  ‘More riddles.’ Kaleb sighed.

  ‘I can only see what this world allows me to see. A moment ago, you would have argued that this is what contributes to the world’s beauty, and its essentialness.’

  ‘Why is this monument so important?’ Slumping forward slightly, Kaleb reached out, using Ashley’s shoulder to steady himself. He snatched his hand back the moment he regained his balance. She felt so cold and stiff, as though rigor mortis had set in.

  ‘It resides in a place not far from here, a place in which, I fear, Cradleworth has set something monstrous into motion. The only way to save human kind is to stop the spread of whatever he has unleashed in that place.’

  ‘I’m confused. Why are you permitting me to do this, after everything you’ve just said?’

  ‘Because you are right. There is a chance, however remote, that these life forms might provide you with the means to fight him.’

  ‘And if they don’t?’ Kaleb noticed a few extra wheezes from the respirator before an answer came.

  ‘Then at least you will have given the others a little more time.’

  Kaleb nodded, accepting the second scenario as a very probable outcome. ‘You’d already chosen me for this before Jerrico ran away, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied.

  ‘And Jerrico, what will happen to him now?’

  ‘That is unclear. However, if he continues to follow Cradleworth’s lead, there can only be one outcome.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Choose your companion wisely, in the knowledge that whoever you choose may not be coming back.’

  ‘We’ll be gone by morning,’ Kaleb said. He watched as Ashley slipped from her trance, placing her head down on the edge of the bed to rest. He said nothing to her, quietly making his way out through the door.

  3

  Evelyn stood in the field behind the manor where the blades of grass looked grey in the fading light. A chill arrived with the darkness, and she could see her own breath. A slow rush of air cut through the silence. Her unkindness had called her into the field and they circled above. Evelyn focussed on them, trying to tune into their collective consciousness. They swooped lower and she closed her eyes, listening to the beat of their wings. When she opened them again, the darkening sky made the flock seem almost wraithlike, as if they were flying so fast that their spirits had outrun their bodies.

  As surreal as her new companions were, she would much rather be with them than suffer the vindictiveness back at the house, where Heven, Martha and Vladimir were constantly bickering. They calmed her, allowed her to quieten her mind, close it off from everything else. Not even Cradleworth’s ghastly image could penetrate the walls they built around her. The unkindness were so close now, she could feel the breeze from their flight on her face. The moment her connection to them was complete, she sent her thoughts. Is there any news of Uriel?

  The circular flight pattern of the birds began to tighten until they formed a large black halo above her head. They answered back in one voice. He is reporting back to the high council.

  On Kel Denon? He travelled all the way back?

  We try to update the council whenever we can, but Cradleworth’s web is closing in. It is becoming even more dangerous to travel in celestial space. Uriel chose to go alone because he is the gifted one, the only one who has a chance of making the journey now.

  I thought there was nothing left of Kal Denon?’ Evelyn thought.

  There isn’t. Only the crumbling walls of Pariha remain. Some of your order still take sanctuary there, and have been trying to bridge the gap between themselves and the Sentinal, something that only two Denonians have ever been able to do. It seems that the order have organised a great and final attempt at communion, most adopting the same method as yourselves and the rest of Dar-ex-ion’s rebels.

  If they kill themselves, our race will die out. Something deep inside Evelyn acknowledged her comment with a terrible sadness.

  These are desperate times, Evelyn.

  She understood as much as was humanly possible, every world, all life was reaching a concurrent end. After the last ceremony, Uriel will travel back, hopefully with guidance from the Sentinal.

  A loud crack rang out across the sky. It did not sound like thunder at all. It came from whatever lurked behind the ominous clouds. He needs to hurry, Evelyn thought.

  We agree. It is a matter of days now, her unkindness replied.

  Do you know what is coming?

  The end.

  Suddenly, the flock broke their circle and shot away into the night.

  4

  Kaleb pulled Josie by her arm, leading her into the study. He looked both ways down the corridor before slowly closing the door shut behind them. Josie knew where they were without having to touch a thing. She could smell the must from the bookshelves. ‘What are we doing in here? And why all the secrecy?’ she asked.

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ Kaleb whispered back.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Ka
leb rubbed the top of her arm to reassure her, and moved over to the large table near the window, placing his hands on the hardback book he’d left there. He passed the book to Josie at an open page, so she could feel the texture of the old paper.

  ‘There’s a monument in this book – an obelisk, flanked by two sleeping angels. It’s a war memorial in a place called Tylers Green, about forty miles from here. According to our friend upstairs, this place could hold the key to finding out what Cradleworth has planned. I think I persuaded her that we can still save this planet before he gets around to us,’ Kaleb said.

  ‘She told you that? I think most of the others would prefer to do something, instead of being cooped up in here, me included.’

  ‘Most of the others aren’t coming,’ Kaleb replied. ‘She will let me and one other. I’ll be honest, Jose, she doesn’t hold out much hope of success, but there is a slight chance. Maybe we can save your family and mine. We have to try.’ Kaleb stepped to her, pressing his body against hers. The heat and the touch of his hands felt familiar to her already.

  ‘All I want is to see my family again,’ she said. She didn’t have to spell it out. Kaleb knew that she was as determined to give it a shot as he was.

  He reached up to trail his hand down the pale skin of her cheek. ‘The last thing I want is for you to come to harm, but I don’t think I could stand it if we were separated now,’ he said. For a moment, Kaleb felt as if she was actually gazing upon him, into his eyes.

  ‘There was never any doubt. I’m coming with you,’ she replied.

  A sense of relief flooded over him. He moved in closer and kissed her lips, hard, in case it was the last time.

  When they finally found the will to tear themselves apart, Josie let out a pleasured sigh. ‘I need to get a few things then we—’