‘As we thought it would look – empty.’ Kaleb was right. There were no people moving between buildings or crossing the roads, no cars passing through. Tylers Green had seemed eerie, but Kaleb had not seen it from above like this.
They followed the winding lane down until it started to level out. It was only then that it hit him. The image of the sculpture exploded into Kaleb’s mind and he fell on one knee holding his forehead.
‘Kaleb!’ Josie heard the dramatic shift of his body and stooped down. ‘Are you alright?’
He felt her touch. ‘Yeah – I mean, no.’ He shook himself from his daze, carefully rising to his feet. ‘I think Crowside could be a channel of communication.’
‘For what?’
‘We’re about to find out. Come on – I’m okay.’ Kaleb was certain now. The source of the signal was reaching out to him, reaching out from Crowside intent on delivering a message that could save everything he knew, and most importantly, the young woman walking by his side.
They were close enough to smell the burning, seeping out from every corner of the village. Another stench accompanied it – the same one they had encountered in the makeshift medical centre of Tylers Green. As they moved through the outskirts of the village, it was hard to tell the two places apart. Its rural silence reminded Kaleb of a novelty village you would find in a theme park. Most houses were burnt out, the flowerbeds trampled, the lawns reduced to nothing more than muddied footprints. A terrible, unstoppable force had pillaged every inch, robbing the village of its life and its character. There seemed to be no survivors, no sobbing children, nothing.
The first body they came across lay halfway out of an open door. Even up close, it was impossible to determine its gender. The flesh on the corpse was burnt to such a degree, it looked nothing more than a black, featureless mannequin. Kaleb saw another body up ahead, spread-eagled, face down on the tarmac. The man wasn’t burnt. A pool of blood and splintered glass had dried in almost a perfect circle underneath him. It was clear from the shattered upstairs window of his home that he had jumped, or was pushed with considerable force. The man’s neck was half-twisted around, broken when he’d met the ground. Death would have been instantaneous – the only crumb of comfort Kaleb could draw from such a dreadful contortion.
‘Do you feel drawn to any particular place?’ Josie asked. Kaleb did not reply. She reached out to him and discovered he was no longer by her side. ‘Kaleb?’
‘Shh – listen,’ he said. She heard it immediately. The haunting melody of children’s voices floated through the silence from the west end of the village. They were performing a familiar song, the same song on the sheet music at the school in Tylers Green.
‘It’s coming from the church.’ Kaleb took her hand and they walked to the tall arched doorway of the chapel. The door was unlocked, creaking open when he pushed it. The noise of their entry did not curtail the melody, and the children’s voices struck them with even more clarity. The harmonies were tragic and beautiful, echoed from memory.
‘Fre-re Jac-ques, Fre-re Jac-ques, dor-mez vous? Dor-mez vous? Son-nez Les ma-ti-nes! Son-nez les mat-ti-nes! Din, dan, don. Din-dan-don.’
There were sixteen children in total, forming two rows at the chapel’s altar. Backs turned, they faced the stained glass windows that depicted the Virgin Mary as a holy signifier of fullness. Mary held her hands aloft either side of her solemn face. Hovering above each of her palms was the head of a child, set inside six feathered wings.
Transfixed by the image, the children continued to sing, seemingly oblivious to Kaleb and Josie’s approach. Kaleb noticed their strange dress. The delicate frills of the girls clothing and the shorts and waistcoats of the boys suggested they belonged to a different century.
The children reached the end of their song, and in unison, pivoted on the spot to face them. Their faces were expressionless, their eyes cold and unfocussed. Before either Kaleb or Josie could speak, they began their haunting rendition again. The front row belted out the first line and the second row echoed an immediate response. ‘Fre-re Jac-ques, Fre-re Jac-ques, Dor-mez vous? Dor-mez vous?’
In the blink of an eye, Kaleb could see them transforming into something hideous. Their flesh browned and withered, just like the children of Tylers Green, and their bodies shrank. The limbs of each child were now sickeningly frail. Their full, vibrant hair turned white or disappeared completely. The faces of some were so eroded that they could see the bone underneath, but still they sang. ‘Son-nez les ma-ti-nes! Son-nez les ma-ti-nes!’
Kaleb stepped back, colliding with Josie. He just wanted to get out of the chapel as quickly as possible, but as he was about to grab hold of her hand, she snatched herself away from him, her face awash with terror.
‘Kaleb,’ she whimpered.
He could see that her gift had shown her something, something terrible, unthinkable. He reached out to try to reassure her, but a powerful force took hold of Josie, propelling her backwards through the air, along the aisle and crashing out through the doors of the chapel.
‘No!’ Kaleb turned back to the altar. The singing had stopped; the children were no longer there. He wondered how he could have been so foolish. It was clear they had been drawn back into the matterless. He sprinted down the aisle and out of the chapel, screaming out her name.
Aether
1
Briaridge Orchard, Bedfordshire
The harsh night was already getting to Evelyn. She dithered in the field next to the Manor, waiting for her flock to perform a pass above her. She took a deep breath, attempting to still her shaking body, then closed her eyes and heard the flapping of the bird’s wings. They were together, flying as one. She soon became one with them. Their sadness for Uriel lingered, and she wept in sympathy for her darlings, fearful that she might be on the verge of sending them straight into the waiting arms of Cradleworth. They spared Evelyn the burden of having to ask. Her Unkindness had already read her thoughts.
We will do as you ask.
Get her free of his web and come back to me. You are all I have left.
We will try.
Try hard, my dears – try hard. As she opened her eyes and watched them ascend into the clouds. She felt surrounded by a familiar embrace.
Evelyn.
‘Greg?’ It was him – not just some residual fragment left by the carriers. It was actually him.
I’ve missed you so much, my darling.
I’ve missed you too. More than I can say. Evelyn held her breath, fighting to stay focussed, in case she lost their signal to each other.
Now that your bond with the carriers has come to fruition, I can see you and I can hear you.
Greg, I never thought I’d—
You did. There was part of you that always did.
It was true; she had always known it was not the end for them. If only she hadn’t let her fears take hold and wasted so much time.
There is something you must know.
‘Do you see something?’
Cradleworth managed to find what he was looking for, or rather the shape-shifter found it for him.
‘What do you mean?’
There were two things he needed, two things that would allow him to fully enter and wage his war on earth. He needed the leader, the mind behind the rebellion on Kal Denon.
‘Dar-ex-ion.’
The only member of the order who ever had direct contact with the creator. Dar-ex-ion’s link to the Sentinal was power to be harnessed. Cradleworth had his conduit. Now, all he needed was a channel for it to pass through.
‘I don’t understand, my love. Help me understand.’
There is one place where the fabric of this world is irreversibly weakened, allowing the matterless to spill through – the only place where earth’s dimension has a tear on its outside. Don’t you see, it’s the point of entry. The first-born that entered me and now resides in you broke through all those years ago. I helped it to guide the others here.
‘The farm?’ Evelyn had v
isions of Tom and Grace present in the house when Cradleworth set his nightmares forth.
No Evelyn – have you forgotten. I wasn’t born there.
‘Wait, I remember. Your parents were visiting your aunt, and you arrived all of a sudden. She gave birth to you in that house in Buckinghamshire. What was the name of the village?’
Crowside, he replied.
2
Martha felt free again, released from the realms of the flesh. The carriers waited above, ready to guide her far beyond this world. She knew that she might not be coming back, to earth or anywhere else – a suicide mission with her soul in the balance. She had to see him one last time. She needed to discover if Cradleworth had got to him, so she could take her revenge into battle.
Instead of rising into the burning clouds, she travelled sideways. She found herself inside her mother’s trailer back in Cavity, Arizona – the ass end of the world. The place was no different to when she’d left it, dark and dingy. The drapes pulled as always. The pots and pans sat rotting in the washbasin. Light from the TV set danced around the flaking interior. Her mother was indulging in her favourite routine of trying to burn herself to death, a wreck on the sofa, the cigarette down to its butt, dangling between her raggedy fingers. The channel on the TV aired some shitty daytime game show repeat.
Down on the floor, peeping from behind the TV stand, Martha could see a white videocassette case. It stood out because Val had stopped using the VCR about twelve months ago, when Martha had brought home a DVD player, just to keep her quite for a while. Val didn’t throw the VCR away. Instead, she placed the DVD player on top of it.
A shaft of light from the game show hit the case to reveal the writing on its edge. It was a home movie. Its title, penned with a marker in her father’s hand. It said, BBQ – 1988.
Martha retained a memory of that day – a fragment – nothing more. She would have been four years old at the time. She remembered her parents talking about the hooded gas barbecue David senior had purchased from a workmate on the cheap. It was lightweight, portable, and came with its own stand. David was so excited about it. As soon as he got home, he tried firing it up. Nothing happened at first, until blue flames spewed out from under the grill, searing the surface of his exposed skin. When David ran back inside the trailer, dazed from his ordeal, she noticed his eyebrows were almost burnt away. Telling that story was the only time Martha could remember Val cracking a smile since her father had died.
The video case was empty, and she could make out the edge of the cassette through the dull plastic of the VCR front loader. It contained footage of a day in the sun. David’s cousin was the appointed cameraman. He moved around through the family gathering, asking each person to say something for the sake of posterity. Val kept Martha close to her that day, away from the flames and the fat of the barbecue. It was just about the only time in her life when her parents were relatively drug-free and happy. Val had never been a model mother, even back then, but she was a world away from the embittered old witch who now dangled precariously from the sofa.
Why did you watch it? What were you looking for? It was too late to ask questions. She looked upon her mother for what was certainly the last time, no longer filled with hate at the sound of her name or her wheezing breath. Her only feeling was pity, pity for her weakness. She wished there could have been fewer beatings and character assassinations, and more days in the sun in front of daddy’s gas barbecue.
She left Val sleeping and moved into hers and Davy’s bedroom. His bed was made and he was gone, just as she’d hoped.
As soon as she entered Taylor’s place it became apparent that he wasn’t there either, but neither were Taylor or her Buick. Martha could think of one place left to check.
The Buick was absent from Drake’s driveway and his house lay in darkness. She found evidence that the interior of the house had been turned over. Clothes were taken from Drake’s wardrobe and tossed on the bed. If he had abandoned the place, he’d done it in a hurry. She moved from the bedroom into the kitchen in the hope of finding some sign of Davy. On the sideboard next to the washbasin sat a large, half-chopped tomato, accompanied by an unopened packet of pasta. The tomato was still reasonably fresh. She could even see condensation sliding from its polished surface. The refrigerator door had a scrappy looking piece of paper pinned to it using a car-shaped fridge-magnet. Someone had scribbled a sentence. Martha, gone 2 find a safe place. She recognised Drake’s handwriting. However, the signature at the bottom was the enthusiastic scrawl of a boy meant to be her brother, but circumstance and love had changed that. She could only hope Drake had taken Davy and Taylor some place he knew to give them a fighting chance when the shit hit the fan.
The speed at which Martha rose through the clouds was incomprehensible. In what seemed like seconds, she had passed through the celestial body of the earth and beyond, into the void. The carriers joined her, guiding her away from Cradleworth’s net of dark matter, although she could only watch helplessly as Cradleworth’s long searching fingers touched three of the flock and sucked them into oblivion. The further they travelled, the more the net tightened, closing in around them. At each turn, they met a dead-end. Paths of escape were running out when they finally found an opening, a thread connected to a celestial line. Another carrier found itself caught in Cradleworth’s grasp before they were able to break free.
Martha connected to the celestial line and her soul propelled billions of light years through the cold reaches of space, passing the most primeval galaxies in existence. She hung in the blackness among the stars, waiting for some indication of what she was supposed to see. She felt more alone and more connected than she had ever felt before, existing on the cusp, the very edge of everything that was.
Her euphoria evaporated when she located the vast armada in the distance. There were thousands of ships – too many to calculate accurately. Each ship was ragged, travelling at the same distance apart in battle formation, and they lay in wait for something. She received a vague signature from the ships’ inhabitants. It reminded her of the place she had travelled to after the accident at the Switchblade – the same sense that came from the hordes of tortured creatures as they charged through the desert towards her. She focussed hard, hoping for some kind of sign from the carriers – none came. Her soul remained frozen in the silence of space.
3
Crowside, Buckinghamshire
Kaleb’s search for Josie was relentless. He combed every corner of every house in Crowside, breaking down doors where he had to. He would not give in, although he was overwhelmed by exhaustion. He sank to his haunches. With sweat dripping from his hairline and soaking through his clothes, he raised his head to see a house that he’d missed across the street. It looked old, made of stone and single-floored. The front door rocked on its hinges and a dim light within flickered incessantly. Amongst the shadows, Kaleb made out a ceremonial-like table. Josie’s tangled body lay upon it.
He stepped into the front room to discover it stripped bare down to its floorboards, save the table, a brass mirror, and a few candles dotted around. Josie remained absolutely still, but Kaleb could feel her. He was certain she wasn’t dead. He took another step forward, then stopped when he noticed a shape emerging from the shadows. The face that appeared was the same face he had averted his eyes from in Camden Market, one he knew he would see again.
‘Do you have any idea how precise the carriers have to be when they administer one soul to another?’ Cradleworth strolled out in front of the table, between Josie and Kaleb. ‘They have to substitute the first-born soul for the other at the very moment it is transferred to its host. There was no time to pick and choose where it would be best for you to go. Yet, in all of that chaos, you have emerged, each with your own unique talents and weaknesses – formidable. You will provide a fitting end to my conquests.’
‘So, is it time for you to claim your first victims?’ Kaleb muttered. He should have been mesmerised by Cradleworth’s menace, but his focus remaine
d with Josie’s limp body as he searched for the slightest twitch of her hand. He wanted her eyes to be the last thing he saw.
‘I have not come to claim both of you, not yet. I guided you here for other reasons, to usher in a new era for this world.’
‘You guided us here?’ Kaleb swallowed.
‘You really should not take everything that little girl says as gospel. You have all been so trusting of her, so responsive. Are you sure that you know who she really is? Who you are?’
‘More games. You may have the two of us, but you don’t have the others yet.’
‘Sean Drayson thought I was an angel, come to take him home. He was more than accommodating when I asked him to give you my message.’ Cradleworth’s eyes swirled into the black cavities that had stared Kaleb down before.
Kaleb fought the urge to cower away, standing strong. ‘The truth is, you can’t really take away unless you destroy. You have no more power than a murderous man.’
Cradleworth produced one of his sickly grins. ‘Oh, Kaleb – after all you have seen and felt, you still perceive yourself as one of them, a human. We weren’t sure which one you had found sanctuary within at first. I had my suspicions for Flynn, but I discovered I was mistaken when I used his girlfriend to lure him back to Walton. I was so pleased when the Ceron informed me that you were the one. I find human irony in the fact that you condemned your own people to suicide, and now you have returned as a healer.’
‘No–’
‘Welcome home, Dar.’ Cradleworth lifted his elegant cane, reaching up with his other hand to clasp it halfway down its shaft. He pulled the black cover away to reveal the slender blade underneath, running Kaleb through with it in one fluid motion.
Kaleb felt the steel crack into his breastbone and penetrate his chest. The pain was severe but brief. His body started to numb with shock and a blast of cold hit him, his blood turning to ice in his veins.
Infanticide (Fallen Gods Saga Book 2) Page 20