A Quantum Mythology (58 page)

‘What if it’s a trap?’ Anharad demanded.

‘Then we will all be dead,’ Germelqart said.

‘And I would offer to take more of you if I was leading you into a trap,’ Britha pointed out.

‘Nine is the number,’ Bladud said. Nine was a number all Pretani held as sacred.

‘We will go,’ Ysgawyn said. Tangwen glared at them, and several of the warriors and landsfolk present looked less than pleased at this.

‘I will go.’ Tangwen looked around to see who had spoken. She saw Sadhbh of the Iceni, with her lynx-head mask, walk out from under the trees.

‘I must go,’ Germelqart said quietly.

Kush stared at his much smaller friend, a look of confusion on his face. ‘Then I will go, too,’ Kush said.

‘And I,’ Tangwen found herself saying, though her companions on this journey would make her more than a little nervous.

‘I will go,’ Bladud said.

‘Then so will I,’ Nerthach said.

‘That is more than nine,’ Britha pointed out, amused.

Bladud turned to Ysgawyn. ‘Two of your people will stay here,’ he told him. Ysgawyn looked less than pleased, but nodded.

‘And I will stay and look after your people,’ Guidgen said.

Tangwen glanced at the
dryw
. His smile was back.

‘I told you the grounds for a challenge,’ Bladud said through gritted teeth.

‘I think you need to make up your mind,’ Guidgen said. ‘You may believe yourself somehow both
rhi
and
dryw
, but when you try to be both, you are neither. Your people, your responsibility, will need leadership while you are gone. I will do this.’ He looked up and around at the assembled crowd. ‘Unless there is another?’ There was a lot of muttering but nobody volunteered.

Bladud glared at the old
dryw
. ‘Very well. I will stay.’

Guidgen nodded, his smile becoming wider. ‘And I will go in your stead,’ he said.

Bladud continued glaring at the other man for a moment, and then his features softened and a smile split his face. ‘I cannot make up my mind if I want to drink with you or drink from your hollowed-out skull,’ Bladud muttered. There was some laughter from the assembled crowd.

‘Which do you think would provide you with the greater wisdom?’ Guidgen asked, as if he was genuinely interested in the answer.

‘We will need weapons that can harm the Lochlannach,’ Britha said reluctantly. ‘To get to Oeth we must enter Annwn. Those who come with us will need to be able to see in total darkness.’

‘How can we see in total darkness?’ Sadhbh demanded in exasperation. Tangwen saw Kush glance at Germelqart.

‘We must drink her blood,’ Tangwen said.

Britha spoke with Guidgen. The old
dryw
did not look even remotely intimidated by the strange northern woman. Britha explained the ritual to him, and the importance of the feast to follow after. Tangwen watched as Britha had disrobed and saw that the red metallic sigils had pushed through the flesh on other parts of her body as well as her arms and face. She was sure the symbol of a Z-shaped broken spear entwined with a serpent that covered much of her upper back had once been blue. Now it had the same look as the rest of the sigils: a smooth, red, almost flesh-like metal.

They constructed a frame from branches gathered by the
gwyllion
. Guidgen first offered a sacrifice of his own blood to the earth, to appease the Horned God for calling on other magics in his woodland realm. Then they hung Britha from the frame by her feet and cut her at the ankles, the wrists and the neck, to bleed her like a sacrificed calf. Bowls made of ash, willow, beach and oak were arranged to collect the blood from the ankle and wrist wounds. A bowl of bronze collected the blood from the neck. All the while Guidgen kept watch, burning various herbs and mumbling the words of protective magics to himself.

Tangwen remembered the first time she saw something like this, when she found Britha and Fachtna hanging by their feet. She had been appalled at their apparent sacrifice. That was not even one moon ago, but she was a different person now.

Bladud came to watch the proceedings when he wasn’t attending to other duties. Tangwen had noticed him deep in conversation with Nerthach more than once.

When the blood stopped flowing, they cut Britha down and wrapped her black robe around her. The other eight who were to accompany her to Annwn joined Tangwen. They dipped sword and dagger blades, spearheads, arrow tips, her own hatchet blade, Guidgen’s sickle and Germelqart’s skull-topped mace in the blood-filled wooden bowls.

Finally they were presented with the bronze bowl of Britha’s neck blood. Though Tangwen had drunk of her serpent-father’s blood, somehow this still felt wrong, like dark magic. She saw Sadhbh and Nerthach looking at the bowl with disgust on their faces. Kush and Germelqart appeared less than happy at the prospect of drinking from it. Even Guidgen seemed unsure. Only the two Corpse People appeared to relish the chance to drink the powerful
dryw
’s blood – Brys, the powerfully built, scarred, grey-bearded and grey-haired veteran, and Madawg, the balding, sickly-looking warrior.

‘Where is your king?’ Tangwen asked as she watched Madawg drink from the copper bowl.

‘My understanding is that the amount you drink makes no difference to the power you receive,’ Guidgen told the frail-looking Corpse People warrior. Madawg stopped drinking from the bowl, his mouth stained with Britha’s neck-blood.

‘Perhaps I like the taste,’ Madawg said, grinning, and passed the bowl to Brys, who drank and passed it to Nerthach, who just stared at it.

‘He has sent his two best remaining warriors,’ Brys said.

‘This one does not look much like a warrior,’ Nerthach said, glancing down at Madawg.

‘And yet I have the courage to drink of the
dryw
’s blood, and you do not,’ Madawg said.

‘Are you not a follower of Cocidius, the Red Man?’ Guidgen asked Nerthach. ‘He is red because he is covered in blood.’

‘Aye, covered in it, not drinking it,’ Nerthach muttered, but he glanced at Madawg, who was smirking. The Brigante steeled himself and drank from the bronze bowl. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and passed the bowl to Sadhbh.

Finally all the others had drunk and the bowl was passed to Tangwen. She stared at it. She knew this was the blood magic of the Lochlannach. The ritual might have changed it, controlled it, but it was still the magic of demons from the ice in the far north. The magics she had fought against, the magics that were used to enslave. She feared enslavement more than she feared death, perhaps even more than she feared transformation by Andraste’s spawn.

‘It is not a good thing that we do, but this will not make us what we fear and hate,’ Germelqart said softly, as if he had read her mind, but it was more likely Sadhbh’s contemptuous sneer that made her drink from the bowl. The blood was still hot and tasted of metal, and seemed almost eager to be drunk – it practically surged down her throat. Then fear gripped her as she felt something move inside her. She could see the dots of fire moving through the blood of her companions.

Tangwen felt good, she had to admit, strong, fast. The night felt somehow alive, vibrant. She could see clearly in the dark, hear insects on the wing and distant hunting owls in flight. She could smell the food from the feast, the fire, sweat, leather, metal, the sap of the trees and the scent of the flowers. She felt very different, but for some reason the change did not worry her.

Bladud had arranged the feast. Tangwen knew she should feel guilty for the food that she and the other eight gorged themselves on, but she did not. That said, the amount Britha ate was appalling. In front of their eyes, she devoured the survivors’ meagre supplies and what the
gwyllion
had been able to hunt, and her frame filled out as they watched. She had been carried to the food in a weakened stupor, barely able to grab at it and stuff it into her mouth. Now she looked strong and healthy, though there was still little colour in her pale skin.

They were seated around a fire pit over which the remains of a deer was cooking. A cauldron bubbled over another nearby fire. Nerthach was next to Bladud, who ate little. Tangwen sat next to Guidgen, Kush next to her. Germelqart was on the other side of Kush.

‘Where is your friend?’ Guidgen asked, and then belched loudly. Tangwen bit off another chunk of meat from the haunch of venison she was eating. She didn’t think she’d ever eaten so much in her life before, but still she wanted more. Tangwen looked around the fire pit. Britha was no longer there.

‘She’s not my friend,’ Tangwen muttered, and then took a mouthful from a horn of ale.

‘I think that, whatever else she has said and done, once you have shared certain … troubles, there is a bond,’ the elderly
dryw
said.

‘She betrayed us,’ Tangwen said stubbornly.

‘She also saved us,’ Kush pointed out. Germelqart had stopped eating and was looking at Tangwen. She could not read the Carthaginian’s expression.

‘Would you do me a service, Tangwen serpent-child?’ Guidgen asked. Tangwen nodded. There was little choice in the matter when a
dryw
asked something of you. ‘It worries me that she is not here. Would you go and see if you can find her?’

Tangwen wanted to say no. Instead she reluctantly got to her feet and went to do as Guidgen bid her.

‘It is true. I have been to the Otherworld, but I am no child-thief.’

Tangwen could hear the exasperation in Britha’s voice. The northern woman was talking to Anharad among the wet trees. There was a small girl with the older woman, one of the few survivors from the wicker man who had made it this far. The child had never uttered a word that Tangwen had heard. She and Anharad had taken it in turns looking after the girl before they met up with Bladud’s forces.

Mabon was nearby, perched on a rock. His knife was in his hand and the boy looked like he was ready to pounce.

‘I could not care less if you were the bride of the sun and the moon himself – leave this girl in peace, or Bladud will know why,’ Anharad spat. Tangwen could tell that the older woman was frightened. The little girl was, too – she was shaking like a leaf and staring at Britha wide-eyed, but to her credit she did not cry.

‘Do you think your Witch King frightens me, woman?’ Britha demanded.

‘What do you want of the child?’ Tangwen said, stepping forwards. Both Anharad and Mabon jumped. Britha did not. Instead she turned to Tangwen. She opened her mouth to say something, then appeared to think better of it, and her expression softened.

‘She is of the Cirig,’ Britha told her.

‘Your people?’ Tangwen asked.

‘She may be the last one,’ Britha said.

‘So she says,’ Anharad spat.

‘I will cut out your tongue if you name me a liar once more,’ Britha declared.

‘I’ll call you—’

‘Anharad!’ Tangwen said, desperate to get the other woman’s attention before she said something Britha would have to act on. ‘Please, peace. We are about to walk into the Underworld and all is shouting.’ Anharad subsided into an angry silence. Tangwen looked at the child. ‘She is strong, she does not cry and she lives, despite all. Isn’t that right?’ The girl still clung to Anharad’s leg, but she was staring at Tangwen now. ‘Do you remember me?’ Tangwen asked. Slowly the girl nodded.

Tangwen pointed to Britha. ‘Do you remember this woman?’ she asked. ‘You do not have to be afraid of her. She cannot hurt you here.’ The girl looked up at Britha, her eyes wide. Tangwen saw the look of recognition in her eyes before she nodded. ‘Do you remember her from your own lands, before you were taken?’ Tangwen asked.

‘Tangwen!’ Anharad hissed, but the little girl nodded.

‘What is her name?’ Tangwen asked Britha.

‘I …’ Britha started and then made choking noises. Tangwen was surprised to see tears rolling down the northern woman’s face. ‘I can’t remember.’

Anharad was staring at Britha with an expression of surprise on her face. Tangwen got her attention and nodded. Anharad scooped the child up and headed back to camp. Mabon leaped off his rock and followed.

Tangwen stopped Anharad as she passed. ‘Would you speak with this woman again?’ Tangwen asked the child. The little girl nodded.

When Anharad, Mabon and the child had gone, Britha broke down sobbing and sat hard on the wet earth. Tangwen stared. She could see Britha following a path to power, even betraying them for that, but she did not know this sobbing woman.

Tangwen knelt down next to her and put her hand on Britha’s shoulder. The other woman looked up at the hunter.

‘What?’ Tangwen asked.

‘I’ve failed that girl so much …’ The sobbing intensified, wracking her body. It looked like something she had been holding in for a while ‘There was a child …’ Britha managed. Tangwen held her tightly.

40

Birmingham, 2 Weeks Ago

Silas awoke face down in the mud, frightened. He had no idea what had happened. He had no idea why he was lying on the path next to the canal. The last thing he could remember was climbing out of the water.

This wasn’t supposed to happen to him. He was as a god among these people. Nothing should be able to hurt or even inconvenience him. Nothing should be able to toy with him like this. Make him feel how he made others feel.

Had he been compromised? It didn’t make sense. If he had, why hadn’t he been killed and captured, why had he just been left there? He should move, flee, go somewhere else, even another city, but he was so close. There was too much to lose if he stopped now.

Grace was crouching down, hugging her knees, in the corner of the derelict warehouse. She wiped away tears and snot with the back of her hand as she watched the blackened piece of meat that was du Bois try to regenerate in the back of the Range Rover.

Grace had managed to free the Range Rover and load du Bois into the back of it. She hooked him up to emergency matter/energy packs, which looked like IVs but contained matter that could be converted to regenerate damaged flesh, and concentrated calories to help power the conversion. They were the last hope for Circle operatives if they were very badly damaged. Taking a point-blank blast from a claymore might have been too much, however.

Grace flinched as du Bois started to cry out in agony. Then a grin split her face. She stood up and walked towards him, pulling the cap off a syringe with enough morphine in it to stun an elephant.

‘You were right about the grand gestures,’ Grace said. She sounded subdued. Du Bois had put on replacement clothes that he kept in an overnight case in the back of the Range Rover. He had been badly hurt before, close to death, but he was very surprised to have survived this time. The technology in his body was suppressing biochemistry and psychology, which, quite reasonably, wanted him to go into shock. He was still shaking. He was sitting on the open tailgate of the Range Rover with a tartan car blanket wrapped around him, as if that would make everything okay. He was clutching a mug of strong, sweet tea.

‘I couldn’t quite work out why he did what he did in Demesne House,’ du Bois said. ‘I think you’re right. He is like a rudimentary Hawksmoor. He was trying to brutalise the city, he wants it afraid so he can harvest that fear somehow.’

‘Or he thinks he can,’ Grace said. Du Bois nodded and took another sip of his tea. With shaking hands he put a cigarette into his mouth. Grace had to light it for him.

‘He might be able to move around the city unseen, but a van can’t materialise out of thin air.’

With a thought, Grace sent the information she had gathered to du Bois. He accepted it without using the phone as a buffer this time.

Grace had sifted through all the
CCTV
camera footage she could gain access to. The white Mercedes Sprinter van’s first appearance was in Heath Mill Lane, in Digbeth, just south-east of the city centre. When du Bois stopped shaking, they took the slightly battered Range Rover there.

Heath Mill Lane was the location of Robert Jaggard’s exhibition. Du Bois found himself standing on the road bridge over the Grand Union Canal again. It was a grey day, overcast sky but no rain, and neither particularly warm nor cold. It was a nondescript day. He still couldn’t shake the feeling that the canals were involved somehow. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was Silas’s age, the era he was born into. Du Bois remembered the changes, technological and social, and how uncomfortable he had been with them. The canals were such a part of that time, feeding the industry that had transformed this and other cities. Du Bois glanced up at the much higher red-brick bridge next to the road bridge. A train thundered by overhead, heading into New Street Station. The canals had been so quickly superseded by the railways. Grace’s era.

Du Bois also knew that this area was close to where Silas was caught on
CCTV
leaping from the train after he’d killed Jaggard. As far as du Bois could tell, that was one of the few mistakes Silas had made.

He felt his phone vibrate in the pocket of his leather coat. He closed his eyes, an unnecessary affectation, and accessed the text. It was an
address on Heath Mill Lane sent by Grace. Du Bois turned to look towards the Digbeth Road.

The garage did maintenance on the city’s black cabs.

There was an empty space in the cramped environs of the garage big enough for a van. The mechanics were all underneath the platform lifts. The lifts had been lowered onto them, crushing them. Du Bois looked down at the mechanics. In many ways they were little people to him, unimportant, but all they’d been doing was trying to make a living, to look after themselves and their families. He found that he didn’t feel angry, just very sad.

His blood-screen finished analysing a residue of something remaining in the garage. He turned slowly to look at Grace, who did look angry.

‘How can they not know where it is?’ Grace demanded. ‘Even if they’ve lost it, they should be able to pick up its energy signature from orbit.’

They had found trace nanites that could only have come from the Red Chalice.

‘He’s here,’ du Bois said. They’d called the murders in to the police and were standing in a nearby alleyway close to where the Range Rover was parked. Both of them were leaning against the wall, smoking.

Grace nodded. ‘I know,’ she said quietly. Around the corner they could see the glow of the flashing blue lights, hear the occasional siren and the raised voices of the police.

Du Bois was mentally checking the various dead letter email accounts that he used around the world. It was for something to do more than anything else. He knew they were close, but he couldn’t see how to make the leap to actually finding Silas.

‘What are we going to do?’ Grace asked.

‘We’re going to find this bastard and kill him,’ du Bois said.

‘And if he has the Red Chalice … ?’

Then du Bois found the anonymous email. He assimilated its contents, double- and triple-checked the information. He tried tracing it, but it had been occulted so effectively that it might as well have just blinked into existence in his protected account. He checked it for subtle viruses and found nothing. He shared its contents with Grace. Grace looked over at him.

‘Do we tell Control?’ she asked.

‘They either know already or don’t care,’ du Bois said. He walked to
the Range Rover, unlocking it with a thought. He opened the tailgate and unlocked the concealed weapons locker.

‘What do you want?’ du Bois asked Grace.

The Fazeley Street Gasworks had been touched by the gentrification of the Digbeth area. The huge red-brick Georgian edifice on the banks of the Grand Union Canal had been renovated and turned into a conference centre, complete with an upmarket café. The two brick outbuildings attached to the gasworks had been left to rot, however. Their walls were crumbling, and the wrought-iron arches which held up what was left of the roof looked extensively rusted. Du Bois and Grace entered stealthily through holes in the wall.

Du Bois had the folding stock of his .45 calibre Heckler & Koch UMP against his shoulder as he checked his surroundings. He had attached the M320 grenade-launcher to the mounting rail beneath the SMG’s barrel and loaded his Accurised .45 pistol with his only magazine of nanite-tipped bullets. He knew that Grace had done the same with one of her Berettas. She had du Bois’ M1014 semi-automatic Benelli shotgun at the ready.

The outbuilding was an old retort house where coal had once been heated to produce gas. They skirted piles of rubble, their weapons twitching up and down, left and right, barrels following their line of sight. The retort house felt empty and looked undisturbed. They could hear the sound of cars on Fazeley Street, which ran parallel with the canal on the other side of the gas works, and there were smokers chatting outside the conference facilities. It looked like a very normal day, in a very normal world. Even if all the overheard conversation was about the massacre at Druids Heath, the chase and the subsequent explosion in Victoria Square.

Du Bois signalled a stop. He was beginning to wonder if he’d been set up as he glanced around the rubble-filled building. Then his blood-screen snagged something.

Silas launched himself off a rusted iron arch, falling silently through the air and the nanites of du Bois’ and Grace’s blood-screens, his coat-tails flapping out behind him. He clutched a large, stylised, silver-bladed knife in each hand. Du Bois turned, bringing his SMG to bear smoothly, his right hand moving forwards. A hard kick into his shoulder. The popping noise of the underslung grenade-launcher firing. The flechettes from the forty-millimetre grenade barely had time to spread out as they tore through Silas’s flesh, shredding it, creating a cloud of blood behind the killer. Screaming and red, Silas landed on du Bois, knocking him to the ground, slashing wildly with both knives.

Grace swung around and started firing the Benelli rapidly as she moved towards Silas and du Bois. Silas jerked as the first cloud of buckshot hit him, then the second round knocked him off du Bois. Grace was shocked when Silas stood up. She continued firing. Liquid red metal was pouring out of his exposed flesh, knitting it together and sealing it. He was glowing with an inner red light. She had fired all eight rounds from the shotgun before the first ejected cartridge hit the ground. Silas turned and ran. In one smooth motion, Grace let the shotgun drop on its sling and drew the Berretta with the nanite-tipped bullets from her left-shoulder holster. She held the weapon two-handed, for accuracy, and fired. Silas dived into a pile of rubble. The shot missed. She holstered the pistol and drew the other Beretta, which contained conventional rounds in its magazine, with her left hand. She backed towards du Bois, looking all around for Silas while reloading the shotgun’s tubular magazine with her right hand.

‘Malcolm?’

‘Christ!’ Du Bois’ flesh looked in flux. As soon as his wounds healed they reopened as the nanites Silas had coated his blades with warred with du Bois’ own defences.

Grace opened her mouth to say something, but instead spat blood all over du Bois. The tip of the blade pierced her chest as Silas grew out of the earth behind her. She dropped the shotgun cartridge she’d been trying to load into the Benelli. Silas opened his mouth to say something and Grace elbowed him in the face. Silas staggered back, more from surprise than anything else, and Grace back-kicked him with enough force to send him flying through the air. She continued turning, firing the Berretta with the conventional rounds at Silas. There was a little glint of red metal after each round hit. Du Bois managed to roll to his knees and bring up the UMP, firing rapid, short bursts at Silas. Grace drew the other Berretta and fired it once, but Silas was sucked into the earth again and her second nanite-tipped round missed. She collapsed into the dirt, dropping the conventionally loaded Beretta. She managed to reach behind and awkwardly pull the knife out of her back, crying out in pain, blood spraying from the wound. She felt the nanites from Silas’s blades attacking her defences, trying to consume her own nanites and kill her. Sweat beaded her skin, a sensation she hadn’t felt in years, as her body became a battlefield. Grace dropped Silas’s knife. She didn’t see the fingers that wrapped themselves around its hilt and pulled the weapon into the earth. Du Bois staggered to his feet, changed magazines on his UMP while standing over her.

Then the screaming started. It wasn’t audible. Instead it tore through their heads. Blood filled their eyes and ran from their ears and noses. Du Bois staggered but managed to remain on his feet. Grace’s hands went to her ears, though she was still holding one of her pistols in her right hand. It felt as if something was tearing them apart at some fundamental level. Nausea threatened to overwhelm them. Insects made from shards of razor-sharp glass were eating their way out of their guts. Amongst the screaming they could hear horrific, discordant music, and the air in front of them was squirming as if it was alive. They felt more than heard the howls of agony coming from people outside the retort house.

Silas grew out of earth next to them, holding his knives crossed over his chest. He was weeping tears of blood. More blood ran from his nose and ears.

Du Bois staggered away from Silas, firing short burst after short burst from his SMG into the murderer.

‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ Silas said, barely staggering as round after round hit him.

‘You have to keep him occupied,’ Grace heard du Bois say in her mind. Her defences had just about won the battle against Silas’s blade-delivered nanites and she could almost move through the pain and nausea. She raised her Beretta and fired twice. One of the nanite-tipped rounds caught Silas in the leg, the other in the hip. He barely registered them, but then nanites in the hollow points immediately started to attack his systems. Silas kicked the Beretta out of Grace’s hand, shattering the weapon and every bone in her hand. She managed to grab the shotgun’s pistol grip somewhat awkwardly with her left hand. She jammed the shotgun barrel up into Silas’s stomach as he reached for her and fired again, and again. The nearly .70 calibre solid shot blew chunks of his flesh out through his back, but he reached through the muzzle flashes and grabbed the barrel of the weapon. Grace let go of the shotgun, drew the knuckleduster-hilted fighting knife from under her right shoulder and cut the sling that connected her to the shotgun as Silas yanked it towards himself. Grace kicked off backwards in a one-handed flip. She barely felt the pain of putting all her weight, for a moment, on her still rapidly healing right hand. As she flipped she grabbed the conventionally loaded Beretta and came to her feet with the gun in her right hand and the fighting knife in her left. Even through the pain and nausea she was wondering what the fuck du Bois was doing.

Du Bois sank to his knees, praying to a god he knew didn’t exist. He grabbed the tanto from its sheath and cut down the artery on his wrist. He was finding it difficult to concentrate through the screaming in his head and the pain, which he heard and felt at some level more fundamental than the physical. He managed to force his body to increase the flow to the artery, the pace of his heartbeat picking up as he started to spray blood in pulses onto the dirt. It was a quick, dirty, nasty matter-hack. He told the nanites coursing through his blood to do one simple thing. He told them to do it over and over again. It became part of his prayer. An invocation.