Pariah
Page 34
Chapter 120
RUINS
WHITECHAPEL, LONDON–9:22 PM, MARCH 6, 2011
Everything had gone into the chasm. Virtually the whole of Whitechapel. All of Jack the Rippers haunt.
It had all gone.
All of it apart from one tower.
Monsell House stood alone in a wasteland that stretched from Stepney Green in the east to Bishopsgate in the west.
Even beyond those points, there was destruction.
As far west as Acton, people had died, and buildings had collapsed. In the east, Barking and Dagenham had been flattened. Westminster was a wreck. Big Ben toppled, and the Houses of Parliament had been razed. South of the river, Lambeth, Deptford, Greenwich, and Brixton were rubble.
The earthquake had savaged the city and killed more than eighty thousand.
Emergency crews picked through the obliterated city, searching for survivors, looking for answers.
Foreign aid trickled in. Soldiers kept the starving, desperate population at bay while the assistance was distributed fairly. The government, what was left of it, moved to Birmingham. The prime minister survived because he’d been on a trip to China at the time. But he was one of only a few politicians to be left alive after the disaster.
In what was once Barrowmore, there was now only one human being.
Tash Hanbury sat cross-legged on the roof of Monsell House. She wore a red hooded top under a long man’s overcoat. Her gloved hands were tucked into the deep pockets. On her head she wore a Russian hat, the muffs drawn down over her ears. Her jeans were dirty, and her motorcycle boots stained with blood. Over the past few days, she’d had to walk through a lot of human remains.
She’d sent Jasmine with Spencer to safety. There were shelters in Enfield, Bromley, Twickenham, and Wembley.
Then, Tash had returned to Monsell House. Amazingly it stood. She knew it was meant to be. There was no way it could have survived the annihilation unless someone—or something—had a hand in it. The other towers were piles of rubble. The rest of the estate was gone.
Monsell House was here for a reason.
It was here for her.
So she made her way to the roof, climbing up the stairs crammed with dead bodies.
On the roof, she waited.
She drank water and ate stale bread.
And still she waited.
The days were cold, and the nights were even colder.
But she waited.
He would come, she knew it. Whatever he was now, he still, surely, felt something for her. There was still human in him. There was still love.
The wind picked up. Tash looked up. The sky was pitch black. No stars. And then she heard the noise. Like wind beating at a sail. Like wings flapping. She got to her feet, rubbing her hands together. Hope filled her. Maybe if he came, everything would be all right. Maybe he could make it right.
He came from the night, naked. His body was marked with writing and symbols. He had a gouge down the middle of his chest, as if someone had carried out heart surgery on him without stitching up the wound afterwards.
She looked at his body and felt a thrill race through her.
He landed five yards from her and folded his wings into his back.
“Charlie,” she said, falling almost towards him.
“I’m not Charlie anymore.” His raised hand halted her. “I am the unspeakable, Tash.”
“I love you.”
“Don’t love me. You’ll doom yourself.”
“I don’t care.”
“I . . . ” He trailed off and glanced away.
“What?”
He stayed silent.
“Charlie, what were you going to say?” she asked again.
He looked her in the eye. “Nothing, Tash. My heart’s gone. There’s no love in me, now.”
She started to cry. “What about Rachel? Your mother?”
“She wasn’t my mother. And Rachel . . . ” He shook his head.
“So we were nothing to you?”
“You were put in my path. I was put in yours.”
“So . . . so we were meant to be.”
“No, Tash. This was meant to be.” He gestured at the destruction.
The lapsed into silence
After a few moments Tash said, “When I was young, when you were with Rachel . . . I used to daydream about marrying you, Charlie.”
“Forget me.”
“I can’t. I’m a seer, remember?”
“Don’t look for me, Tash. Ever. If you do, you will die. And . . . and something in me doesn’t want that.”
She found hope in those words and said, “Charlie, you can love me, you see? Please . . . ”
“Don’t look for me,” he said, this time with steel in his voice.
“What if I do?”
His face darkened. He said nothing.
She said again, “What if I look for you?”
His face darkened. “Don’t you realize what I am? I am pain, Tash. I am suffering. I am sin. I bring only grief. I am the lord who gapes, and out of my mouth comes evil. I am the lantern of the tomb, and I cast my light on death. I am the moth eating at the law, and when it crumbles, there will be chaos. This is what I am. That’s my purpose. Go and find love, Tash. You deserve it.”
“I don’t want it. I want you.”
“Go and find it, because if I have my way, there won’t be much of it left—it’s what I’m born for. We’re done. I’ll do my best to stay away from you and Jasmine and anyone you love. But I can’t promise that I won’t corrupt your lives in some way. I just can’t promise that.”
Tash cried. She said nothing. Charlie—or what had been Charlie—spread his wings and lifted away the roof. He turned elegantly in the air, and his wings powered him higher. She watched him go.
He said he’d do his best to stay away from her, but she knew he’d be back one day. She knew he would corrupt her life. It was inevitable. Evil came to everyone in the end. When it came to her, she would love it because it had once loved her.
He rose higher and higher and went into the darkness, and slowly the darkness swallowed him. And then he was gone.
THE END
About the Author
Thomas Emson is the author of several novels, including Maneater, Zombie Britannica, and the Vampire Trinity series. Additionally, he is the author of two nonfiction books in Welsh. A former journalist, he is also an award-winning playwright. Thomas lives in Kent, England, with his wife.