Always Forever (84 page)

Her act was humbling, but she had shown him an important lesson: that no
race should be judged by the worst elements. That however bad humanity was
at times, it could always be redeemed by the best.

Ruth was at his side, her arm around his waist. "She did that for us? God,
I feel so guilty!" She appeared honestly shaken by what she had witnessed.

Church looked down at Ruth in growing dismay as the repercussions of
Niamh's actions slowly fell into place. They had been given another chance; now
he couldn't simply let things run their course to a bitter end. He had to take
whatever action was necessary to ensure their success, and that meant dealing
with Ruth when she attempted to betray them. What would he do? Kill her?
He had faced that terror when she had been a host to Balor, but that was before
he had realised the true depth of the feelings they had for each other.

Ruth grabbed his hand. "Look at you-you're shaking," she whispered.
"Don't worry, we're all scared."

"This is like Ten Little Indians," Laura said morosely. "Bags not being
next." She looked round and fixed on the Bone Inspector. "Oldest first, I say."

He gave a dark, triumphant smile. "Ah, but I'm not going in there. That's
your job."

In his sly way, he had pointed them back on track. They turned as one and
stared at the door, then looked to Church.

"Okay," he said. "Let's do it."

As they collected the artefacts in silence, they were constantly aware of the door,
like a sentient creature watching them malignantly.

"What's the plan?" Veitch asked Church.

"We have to use the talismans as soon as we get in there."

"That's a plan?"

"We might not even get a chance," Ruth said. "He's so powerful he could
strike us down in a second."

"The talismans should offer us some protection." Church was aware he had
to sound as positive as possible. "Individually, they're powerful. Together they'll
be incredible. And with the head, the Luck of the Land ..." He shrugged.

"So, we're winging it, right?" Laura's grin eased the mood a little.

"Just remember the legends," Church said. "He was always described as
having a single eye-if he turned it on you it would cause death in an instant.
I don't know if that's for real or symbolism, but there's a reason it was passed
down the years. Keep it in mind."

"So what's it like in the land of the dead, Shav-ster?" Laura asked.

"It's like Jamaica, but with free drink."

"Really?"

"No."

"You could have lied, you know."

As they turned to face the door, Veitch stepped in close to Church and said
quietly, "I'm glad I'm with you, boss. You've done right by us all the way down
the line."

His face had the same childlike innocence that had made Church warm to
him in the first place; for all his flaws, and there were many, that saved him.

"I'm okay, you know," he continued. "About you and Ruth."

Church winced.

"I feel like I've been stabbed in the gut, but that's not important. I want her
to be happy. And I want you to be happy. Whatever happens here, I'm going to
be a winner. For the kind of life I've had, that's the only thing that matters to
me. And I've got you to thank for it, mate." He took Church's hand and shook
it forcefully, hesitated a second, then stepped in and gave him a stiff hug. The
others pretended not to notice.

"Will you lot get a move on." The Bone Inspector marched around anxiously. "The gates will be open any moment, and then it will all be-"

"Make sure you cheer loudly so we can hear you from way back here," Laura
said acidly.

Finally, it was time. Church gripped the door handle. Before he swung it
open, he cast an eye on Ruth. Her move would undoubtedly be made at the
worst possible moment. But could he face up to Balor and watch for an attack
from the back as well?

The answer would come soon enough. He opened the door in one swift
movement and stepped over the threshold.

The room was as silent and still as night. Darkness clustered on every side, but
the sapphire glow from the talismans gave them enough light to see by. The
pounding of the blood in their head drowned out all thoughts and sensations for
the first few seconds before everything fell into stark relief.

They each had their own idea of what monstrous form Balor would take, so
they were all left floundering around when their eyes fell on a small boy,
standing with his arms behind his back in the centre of the huge, empty
chamber. A shock of black hair tumbled around an innocent, smiling face. His
clothes were Sunday School-best, his posture polite and upright like a dutiful
Victorian son.

"If I'd known we could just have spanked him, I wouldn't have got so
worked up," Laura said breathlessly.

"A boy, right?" Church said. "We're all seeing a boy? You know that's only
the form our own perception is putting on it."

"But why a boy?" Ruth's voice had an edge of dismay to it.

It was only then that the finer detail of what they were seeing broke
through. Unimaginable dread pressed like a boulder on their chests, choking the
air in their throats. A deep, primal part of their subconscious recognised what
lay beyond the physical: a race memory of unbearable evil that demanded they
flee or lose not only their lives, but also their souls. And then they saw his eyes
were completely black, as immeasurable as the void.

The shock of the image kept them rooted for a second too long; they had
already missed the opportunity to act. Something was happening to the boy. A
horizontal crack opened slowly in his face. The top and bottom folded back
gradually to reveal a twisting geometric shape made of brilliant red light so
complex their minds couldn't make sense of it.

"The eye!"

They scattered at the sound of Church's voice; he was the head, they were
the vital, component parts of the body, the reason why they worked so well
together. In the instant the face opened completely they felt something as dank
and chill as the grave brush past them. Church saw Shavi turn white, fight to
control himself before moving off. He dabbed at his own ears and found blood
on his fingers.

The thing with the body of a boy was already turning to focus on them.

"Keep moving!" Church shouted.

They scattered amongst the shadows just as death swept through them
again. It whispered by a hair's-breadth away. An ache sprang up deep in
Church's bones. The thing was too fast, too powerful; they wouldn't have an
instant to lay out the talismans. The worst thing was that Church knew it was
using only a fraction of its power. Most of it was maintaining the integrity of
the tower, overseeing the Fomorii forces, preparing for the gates to open. They
were a distraction, nothing more.

They ran back and forth as the boy turned this way and that. Each time the
icy, whispering wind rushed out it came a little closer to them. Laura appeared
to have lost the use of her left arm. Veitch was bleeding from his nose.

Yet there was a moment between attacks when the eye needed to focus, and
in that time Ruth snatched up the Spear. It was the kind of smart, brave move
he would have expected of her, but all he felt was panic. This is it! he thought.

Ruth hurled the weapon, but not at him. It shot like an arrow, much faster
and stronger than she could have propelled it herself. It would have driven
through the eye, but at the last instant, the boy folded like a paper figure. Instead, it rammed through his chest. White light exploded across the room like gouts of
molten metal and there was a shrieking that came from everywhere at once.

Laura was already crouching, her good hand resting on the floor before her.
Vegetation sprouted madly along a rapid path between her and the boy. Thorns
of the hardest wood burst through its legs, vines and brambles snapping round
and round like steel wire.

Church seized the moment. He turned for the talismans, but Shavi was
already scrambling to lay them out. Church dived in to help him, aware of the
agonies Balor was going through behind him, knowing how futile it really was. It
was a shock to feel the talismans writhe and twist beneath his fingers, subtly
forcing him to put them in the right place. The head sat in the centre of the array,
its mouth opening and closing as if it were barking orders. Yet Church didn't feel
scared by it; there was a deeply comforting warmth rolling off the objects.

Finally the five talismans they still had were laid out. Instantly they began
to change. No longer were they a Sword, a Stone, a Cauldron, a Lantern or a severed head, but something that Church couldn't begin to get a fix on, yet they
were undoubtedly one thing, unified, beating powerfully; it was like he was
staring at a storm cloud through a heat haze.

One part was still missing; he could feel that intensely. He had to retrieve
the Spear. All he needed was Veitch to launch one of his brutal attacks to keep
Balor off balance and he would be able to do it.

Shavi was already moving towards the Heart of Shadows, but Church pulled
him back; it was his responsibility, his risk. Secure in the knowledge that Veitch
would instinctively know what to do as his exquisite strategic skills came into
play, he ran towards the creature that no longer resembled a boy, now as
unknowable as the talismans, growing and changing all the time.

Laura was still drawing the greenery out of nothing, swathing Balor in bark
and leaf, but as his form changed he was rising above, sucking in the true power
that he had dissipated throughout the tower, perhaps even throughout London.
And from the corner of his eye Church saw Ruth utilising all the power Cernunnos had gifted her to attack Balor, and he wondered why, at the end, she had
turned away from betraying them.

And then he was within Balor's sphere, sickened by the power and the evil,
his thoughts fragmenting with the chaos that swept around him. Somehow he
managed to grab the Spear; it squirmed in his fingers as he dragged it out.

White-hot pain exploded in his side. The shock snapped him away from the
Spear as his mind struggled to understand what was happening.

Ruth?

He staggered backwards, blood flooding into his clothes. Scarlet flashes burst across his mind. In the madness that engulfed him, the world seesawed
sharply: he saw Balor looking down on him dispassionately, its attention already
moving elsewhere; and he saw Ruth, her face torn with anguish.

Somehow he found himself on the floor near the talismans, and Shavi was
over him, desperately trying to staunch the wound. He tried to strain towards
Ruth, but all he could see was Laura continuing her attack on Balor, her face as
white as the moon. Slowly the Beast was driving her back.

Veitch drifted into his fractured frame of vision, and the maelstrom of
insanity grew infinitely worse. His silver hand was dripping blood. Church's
blood. Veitch stared at the prosthetic dismally as it clenched and unclenched,
seemingly beyond his control. Suddenly it lashed out of its own accord,
smashing with the force of a hammer into the side of Shavi's head. Shavi flew
across the floor, droplets of blood trailing behind him. Blood, everywhere. More
on Witch's face, trickling from his nose, mingling with the streaming tears. The
blood that did not come from an injury inflicted by Balor, as Church had
thought, but was the mark of a Caraprix in action.

"Bastard!" Veitch hammered his fists against his temple, his face scarlet
with the strain. "Bastard, bastard, bastard!" He bucked at the waist as the rage
consumed him.

Church looked down hazily; the pool of blood around him was so large! He
never dreamed he had so much blood in him. The blue light streaming off the
talismans was reflected in it, as he watched those tracers in the dark he had a
moment of clarity. Witch's anger, always so close to the surface, so terrible when
unleashed, was the product of his subconscious continually struggling against
the subtle influence of the Caraprix. They had judged him by that anger, all of
them, and they had been so wrong.

"Fight it, Ryan." Church's voice cracked; cold spread along his side. "I know
they stuck one of those things in your head."

"Not one! Two!" His nails tore deep furrows in the sides of his head. A
scream ripped from his throat. "I didn't know! I knew! But I didn't know!" He
jackknifed at the waist again, still fighting. "Those golden bastards stuck one in
first so I'd do all their dirty business to get us all together!" A sob; more tears.
"I'm sorry!" He threw his head back and howled. "I'm sorry! Church, for Marianne! Oh Christ, I'm sorry! The others, Shavi, mate! Shavi!" And then he was
crying uncontrollably.

Horrific images shimmered across Church's mind: Veitch bludgeoning
Shavi's boyfriend to death in a South London street; Veitch murdering Laura's
mother while Laura lay unconscious on the floor; Veitch gunning down Ruth's
uncle in the building society rage.

And then he was back in the sequence the Walpurgis had played over and
over in his head. The flat, comfortable with a woman's presence. The acid jazz
CD playing. Marianne humming as she moved into the bathroom. Dread surged
through Church; he didn't want to imagine anymore. But just as it had with the
Walpurgis, the images came thick and fast: the gentle click of the front door
that Marianne never heard. His heart boomed. The strange smell he now knew
was the Caraprix at work on Veitch; the familiar shadow. Veitch slipping
through the flat like a shadow, his eyes glassy. The knife glinting in his hand.
Her voice, as clear as day: "Church? Is that you?" And then Witch in like
thunder. A merciful blur of limbs and steel and blood ...

"Ryan ..." Church felt he was swimming away from the world.

"Then those Fomorii bastards did it too! You didn't even think it through!"
Witch's voice had the shattering pain of a child who had been failed by a parent.
"They dragged Tom off and stuck one in his head when we were in those cells
under Dartmoor! And I was there first-why shouldn't they have done it to me?"