Always Forever (44 page)

Some people have to see the big picture. Tom had utilised that mantra many times
during his long life and it had kept the beast locked up on most occasions. But
increasingly his guilt was getting out of the cage. He'd been around the Brothers
and Sisters of Dragons too long. Why did they have to humanise him? How could
he be a general sending the innocents off to war if he felt every death, every scratch?

Some people have to see the big picture. All of existence is at stake. Against that, no
individual matters.

He sucked on the joint, then let out the draught without inhaling, spat and
tamped out the hot end. He had taken on the role of teacher, an archetype
demanded by the universe, but he didn't feel up to it at all. The others might
see him as all-knowing, but in his heart he was the same romantic fool who had
fallen asleep under the hawthorn tree in the Eildon Hills. Whenever anyone
described him as a mythic hero, he felt faintly sick. A man. Weak and pathetic
like all men, crippled by insecurities, guilts and fears. Not up to the task at all.
But like all men he put on a brave face and pretended to the world he was the
one for the job; it was a man thing, as old as time, and it involved pretending
to yourself as much as everyone else.

But still, in his quiet moments, when he dared look into his heart, he knew.
Not up to the job, Thomas. Not up to it at all. Smoke some more hashish.

He stood up just as Robertson was approaching fearfully from the shade of
the house. A bruise marred his cheek from Veitch's attack. He glanced at the sun
now beating down on the lawns before he dared speak, "Your friend-"

"I haven't got time for that now," Tom snapped. "Show me the stable block.
I need some horse dung, some straw where a mare has slept, and then I need you
to leave me alone for the next hour."

Robertson stared at him blankly.

"Don't ask any questions." Tom pushed by him. "Or I'll do to you what my
good friend did."

Veitch was fighting like a berserker within seconds of being swamped by the wave
of dead, a few limbs lopped off here, a skull or two split there. By the time the
sword was knocked away from him, he was already aware how worthless it was.

He tried to yell Shavi's name to check his friend was okay, but dead fingers
drove into his mouth like sticks blown off an old tree. Sandpapery hands crushed
tight around his wrists and his legs, pulled at his head until he feared they were
going to rip it off. He choked, saw stars, but still fought like a wild animal.

And the gaping black mouth of the mausoleum drew closer.

Dead hands passed Shavi from one to the other across the angry sea. It was
impossible to get his bearings, or even to call out, and any retaliation was
quickly stifled. From his occasional glimpses of Veitch he knew the dead were
not treating him as roughly as his friend. Perhaps they considered him one of
their own.

Veitch was thrown roughly into the mausoleum first. Shavi was pitched at
head height into the dark after him. He skidded across the floor, knocking over
Veitch, who was clambering to his feet in a daze.

Before he could say anything, Shavi noticed his pale hand was slowly
turning grey. At the entrance only a thin crack of white mist and grey sky
remained. As he threw himself forward, the door slammed shut with a
resounding clang.

"Are you okay?" Veitch whispered.

Shavi felt a searching arm grab his sleeve, hauling the two of them together.
"Bruised."

"Bastards." A pause. "Is this the best they can do? We'll be out of here in
no time."

"How?"

A long silence. "How solid can this thing be?" Another pause. "It's not like
it's meant to keep things in. We could jemmy the door-"

"Wait."

"What?"

"We are not in here alone."

"What do you mean?"

"Hush."

There came the sound of a large, slow-moving bulk dragging itself at the
far end of the mausoleum.

"What the hell's that?" Unease strained Veitch's voice.

Shavi felt the hand leave his sleeve as Veitch scurried in the direction of the
door. Several moments of scrabbling and grunting followed before he crawled
back, panting and cursing.

Whatever else was in there was shifting towards them. Shavi had an image
of something with only arms, dragging what remained of its body across the
floor. He couldn't help but think it was hungry, probably hadn't been fed for a
long time.

"I've still got my crossbow." The note of futility in Veitch's voice suggested
he wasn't about to use it. "I thought this was just the land of the bleedin' dead."

"Ryan. Hush."

After several minutes, the dragging noise died away. From the echoes, Shavi
estimated it had halted about fifteen feet away. All that remained was the sound
of breathing, slow, rhythmic and rough. Although there wasn't even the faintest
glimmer of light, he couldn't shake the feeling it was watching them with a
contemptuous, heavy gaze; sizing them up, dissecting them.

At his side, Witch's body was taut. Neither of them knew what to do next.

"The rules of this place were formed long before your kind emerged from
the long night." The voice sounded like bones rattling across stone. Its bass
notes vibrated deep in Shavi's chest; he felt instantly queasy, not just from the
tone of the voice, but from the very feel of whatever squatted away in the gloom.
"No warm bodies, no beating hearts, no words or thoughts or ideas."

"No. There's a deal. I was allowed to come here," Veitch protested
cautiously.

"You were allowed to cross over, but the rules of this place can never be transgressed. The living are not wanted. The dead rule here. And they will have no
warm bodies spoiling the cold days of this land. They will have punishment."

Shavi waited for it to attack, but there was only silence. He pictured it
savouring its taunting before the inevitable. Here was not only intelligence, but
also cruelty, and hatred.

"What are you?" Shavi asked. The hairs on the back of his neck had snapped
alert.

"This is a place without hope for those who do not leave. Where behind is
too terrible to consider, and ahead is an unwanted distraction. This is desolation,
and despair. Misery and pain."

"A land for those who prey on those things," Shavi said.

"Here, the dead have their own existence, their own rules and rhythms,
their own hierarchies and mythologies, fears and desires."

The dark was so all-encompassing Shavi was beginning to hallucinate trails
of white sparks and flashes of geometric patterns. The atmosphere of dread grew
more oppressive.

"What are you?" There was no bravado in Veitch's voice. Shavi really wished
he hadn't asked the question again; he was afraid the answer would be too terrible for them to bear.

"I am the end of you."

Those simple words made his stomach clench. They were flatly stated, yet
filled with such finality, hinting at a fate much worse than death.

Slowly it began to drag itself forward, an inch at a time.

"Wait," Veitch said sharply. "I was allowed to come here-you can't get
away from that. And Shavi here, he's not dead-"

"He will be." A blast of cold air.

"But he's not now. He shouldn't be here. What I'm doing ... yeah, it might
go against your rules-but against the bigger rules I'm doing the right thing.
I'm taking him back. I'm making everything all right again."

For a long period the mausoleum appeared to be filled with the soughing of
an icy wind. Then: "There is the matter of trespass."

"What do you mean?"

"The dead want no reminder of the living. It makes them aware of what
they have lost and what they have yet to gain. To remember makes their suffering even greater."

Veitch sensed a chink in the seemingly inviolate position. "So they want
some kind of payback," he said, warming to his argument. "We can do that.
Then you let us go, and everybody's sweet."

"No!" Shavi gripped Veitch's wrist; the memory of the price he had paid for
the deal with the dead of Mary King's Close was still too raw. "You never know
to what you are agreeing. Words are twisted so easily."

Veitch shook him off. "We have to cut a deal-it's the only way. There's too
much at stake."

"Ryan! You must listen to me-"

But Veitch had scrambled off in the dark. "Go on then." His disembodied
voice filled Shavi with ice. "What's the deal?"

There was silence from the brooding presence. Shavi couldn't work out what
that meant, but he felt like it was swelling in size to fill all the shadows.

After a moment or two, Veitch repeated, "What's the deal?"

"A hand," the rumbling voice replied.

"Ryan, please do not do this. We can find another way."

"A hand?" Veitch's voice was suddenly querulous. "Cut off my hand?"

"A small price to pay for your friend's life."

The price is too high! Shavi wanted to cry out, but he knew his voice would
only tighten his friend's resolve. The sense of threat in that confined space felt
like strong arms crushing his chest. They both knew their lives were hanging
by a thread.

In the silence that followed, he could almost hear the turning of Veitch's
thought processes as he considered the mutilation, what the absence of his hand
would mean in his life, what the absence of Shavi would mean. There was an
awful weight to Veitch's deliberations as he desperately tried to reach the place
where he could do the right thing, whatever the cost to himself. Do not agree,
Ryan, Shavi pleaded silently.

"Okay." The word sounded like a tolling bell.

Shavi tried to throw himself between Veitch and the dark presence, but he
misjudged his leap in the dark and crashed into the wall.

"Don't worry, mate. Really," Veitch said. "I know you'd do the same for me.
Whatever you say, I know that. We've got bigger things to think about. That's
what Church always said. I can do this. For everybody else."

Shavi bit sharply on his knuckle to restrain his emotions. All he could do
was make his friend feel good about his choice. "You are a true hero, Ryan."
Shavi knew it was what Veitch wanted to hear, what he had wanted from the
moment he had got involved with them.

Veitch didn't reply, but Shavi could almost feel his pride. "Get it over
with," the Londoner said.

Veitch was trembling, despite the bravado he was trying to drive through his
system. He still couldn't quite believe what he had agreed to, but from his position the lines appeared clear cut: Shavi was the better man; the world couldn't
afford to lose him. What did his own suffering mean against that? Once they were
back in the world, he'd take it all out on the Bastards. Bring on an army of them.

He threw off the shakes, set his jaw, and extended his left arm.

The first sensation made him shiver with disgust. Hot air on his hand,
rushing up his forearm, then something wet tickling the tips of his fingers,
brushing his skin as it enclosed his hand. The flicker of something that felt like
a cold slug on his knuckles.

He closed his eyes, despite the dark.

The sharpness of needles encircled his wrist. The pain increased rapidly
until the sound of crunching bones brought nausea surging up from his
stomach. The noises that followed were even worse, but by then he had already
blacked out.

He lost consciousness for only a few seconds, and when he came round there was
heat in his wrist and the sickening smell of cauterised flesh. His left arm felt too
light. Amidst the shock and the nausea, thoughts flitted across his head without
settling.

And then he did capture one, shining more brightly than all the others: he
had saved Shavi. Through his sacrifice, he alone.

"That's my part." He didn't recognise the ragged voice as his own. "Now
you've got to let Shavi go."

The wet, smacking sound churned his stomach even further, but he
wouldn't allow himself to accept what was happening. When it had died away,
the rattling bones voice returned, flat, almost matter-of-fact: "Then he may go."

A wave of relief cut through the shakes that convulsed him.

"But you must stay."

Veitch couldn't grasp the meaning of the words. Shavi was yelling something, trying to grab at his arms, getting knocked away by a figure, more than
one figure; not the monstrous presence, which was dragging itself back into the
depths of the mausoleum.

He drifted in and out, his left arm by his side, trying to move his fingers.

Movement all around. Shavi was being dragged away. He fought himself
back to clarity, knowing it was vitally important, but he still felt wrapped in
gauze. At some point he realised he could see, although he couldn't guess the
light source; the illumination was thin and grey, like winter twilight.

The dead had come back in. Shavi was against the open door, hands clamped
across his mouth, head and arms. Veitch could just make out what appeared to
be a large rough box, the lid open, next to a gaping hole. His shock-addled brain
couldn't put the information into any coherent shape.