Acolyte (44 page)

It felt like the cold air had penetrated down to his soul.

He closed his eyes. In the stillness he heard the rustling sound again and made his way to the centre of the circle, towards the white torus. It sat mounted on four-foot steel poles, obscuring his view of what was inside. Only when he was past the innermost circle of cryogenic units did he crouch down to see.

It looked like a table.

No
, he thought.
An altar.

His mind made the unwelcome leap from
altar
to
sacrifice.

There was someone lying on it. And there was blood.

Please
, he thought.
No more dead friends.

It was Tess.

He stepped closer. The blood on her face had streamed from her nose, her mouth, her eyes. Those eyes were closed now. He wondered if there was anything behind the lids.

Then she moved, her feet and legs pulling against the restraints that held her in position, making the same rustling sound that had drawn him to the centre.

‘Tess?' he said, barely above a whisper. He unfastened the strap holding her left arm, and as he went to work on the other, her eyelids flickered open, the eyes unharmed. She looked around wildly until she focused on his face, then brought her free hand up to his cheek, staring at him with disbelief.

From above their heads came more sounds, a wet thrashing and a scrabbling of claw on floor, the noise horribly close to them. The sounds stopped. Jonah looked at Tess and put his finger to his lips, then undid the remaining straps.

She sat upright, dazed and weak. He gave her the flashlight to hold, and helped her off the table. Slowly they made their way out of the circle, under the torus. They threaded their way between the cryogenic units, passing some of those Jonah had wiped the condensation from. Tess stared at what was inside.

They reached the outer wall and sat. ‘You'd not seen them until now?' said Jonah, his voice low.

She shook her head. ‘But I'd heard. I'd heard Andreas talk about what went into their machine. The revivers. All of them
needed to tear open the door, and let Andreas's power return to him.'

‘And you. You were the final missing element, weren't you?' She nodded. He reached to her face and wiped some of the blood from her cheek. ‘When I saw you I thought you'd been a sacrifice.'

‘No,' she said. She looked up at him, eyes tearing, desolate. ‘It was the Elder inside me that was the sacrifice. They needed it to find the door, before the revivers opened it. The Elder is gone, now. They hollowed me out, Jonah. Hollowed me out.'

The noises from the floor above came again. Jonah looked up, knowing he had to face whatever it was. When he looked back at Tess her eyes were on him. ‘You thought it could be killed,' he said. ‘We blew the power. It's
hurt.
I can feel it.'

‘Jonah …' she said, dismay in her voice. She looked at the ceiling again. Each sound that came from above made her flinch. ‘I felt its power, running through me. I was drowning in it. Then I felt it shift somehow, out of control. A surge. An overload.'

‘When the machine failed.'

‘Yes. It felt
destructive
, so maybe …' She sounded almost hopeful, but then shook her head. ‘Yes, the power surge hurt it, but I don't know how badly.'

‘I can kill it,' he said. ‘I know I can. Somehow.' He looked at her, needing her to agree, because the reality was cold and simple: he had to
try
, whether there was any genuine hope or not.

Tess nodded at him, but she didn't seem able to speak. She gave him back the flashlight.

‘Stay here,' he said. He walked to the far side of the chamber: a metal stairway, a sign on the wall reading ‘Control/Obs', with an upward arrow. He took out Sly's pistol and started to climb the stairs.

Two tiers of metal stairway led to an open door. A figure was sprawled across the threshold, motionless. The woman was dressed in the black that Andreas's people had been wearing. Her face was covered in blood, and Jonah could smell a strong odour of decay and bile, the same acidic stench he'd encountered in the pool when the shadow had finally perished in his hands.

He crouched beside the woman. She had no pulse.

He shone the flashlight beam inside the door. It looked like an observation area, large windows opening onto what must be the focus of the circular arena. The windows were dark but the observation area had dim emergency lighting. There were simple metal benches on two levels, enough for a few dozen to watch what was happening inside, and the benches had been full. Now, though, the observers were on the floor, haphazard and still, just like the one across the doorway.

He entered carefully, the acid stench enough to make him gag.

An arm of one of the black-clothed figures on the floor moved, slowly, back and forth. Jonah readied the gun, but what could he do? He had no doubt what Sly would say, but there were no shadows here that he could see, not any more. These people were all either dead or badly injured. He watched as the arm gradually stopped.

Whatever catastrophic failure had been caused by the blowing of the power hub and interrupting the function of their machine, it
hadn't just been Andreas to suffer. Every shadow – here, at least – had been caught in the aftermath of the uncontrolled surge Tess had felt. Caught and destroyed … the hosts, as all these people must have been, dead or injured as a result.

Then he heard the same sounds of scrabbling movement he'd been hearing from below. He went to the observation window. The emergency lighting within was weak, but it was enough to see by.

Jonah stared at what Andreas had become.

The glass seemed thick. He was glad.

The Great Shadow
, Jonah thought. He felt cold, watching it: seeing the sheer power on display, even given its ravaged state.

The ruin of a stillborn god filled the chamber; smoke hung in the air within, but he could make out dark, wet flesh partly covering obsidian bone, amputated stumps flailing now, lashing out against the wall or floor then becoming still again.

Jonah tried to make sense of it, of its anatomy. It was centred on a shape at the heart of the circle. Wanting to see –
needing
to see – he brought up the flashlight and shone it inside. It was hard to make out in the black smoke, but there was enough for Jonah to see a suggestion of wing, and a distorted mass in place of a head. Pieces of it emanated from there, but in a chaotic form, as if it had erupted from inside, uncontrolled, unready. Unfinished.

Something raw and claw-like thudded hard against the other side of the glass, leaving a dark smear. He quickly stepped back.

Then a voice from behind him made him spin round. ‘My God …' said Tess, staring at it.

‘Nobody's god,' said Jonah. ‘Not now.'

She came to stand beside him, then approached the glass. ‘Look at it. It can't have been far from succeeding.'

‘I wouldn't get so close,' said Jonah. The ragged claw hit the glass again, harder this time, leaving a small, visible crack.

Tess moved away. She ran her eyes over the bodies on the floor. ‘Do you think all Andreas's people are like this?'

‘We saw others standing outside in a circle.' He nodded
towards a secure door at the far side of the observation room, which he guessed led to the corridor where the rest of the acolytes had been standing. ‘I think if they weren't dead or incapacitated, they'd be in here by now.' There was every chance that distance could make all the difference, he knew – that if there were others in the facility, further from the arena, they could have survived. He'd been lucky so far, but whatever he was going to do, he had to do it soon.

And for that, he needed a way inside the chamber. As well as the door they'd entered by, and the one he thought led to the corridor, there was a third. He went across and opened it, the acrid stench stronger in the more confined space: the control room, half the size of the observation area, eight bodies on the floor. Panel indicator lights showed there was some power. Here, too, there was a large viewing window into the chamber, but there was also an entryway. The lock panel showed a single red light.

Tess joined him. ‘What can you do?' she said, anxious. She nodded to the chamber. ‘Against
that
?'

He reached down to his weapon harness, and took out the trigger and the single charge he had left. He paired them and held up the charge. ‘These pack a punch,' he said, whispering in case the sound from the room could reach the chamber. ‘Maybe enough to kill the damn thing. Up close. All I'd have to do is get inside, get clear and press the button.'

Tess turned to the chamber, tears in her eyes. ‘Do you think he's still there?' Jonah looked blank.
‘Michael
,
'
she said. ‘Not the creature that took his body. Michael himself. Do you think he's free of it now, or still trapped inside?'

‘I don't know,' said Jonah, lying. He thought there was very little chance of him being free, and he thought Tess felt the same way.

He went to the chamber entry door and tried it, but it wouldn't open. Quickly he searched the bodies in the room. The last one he checked was the furthest, against the wall, out of sight of the
observation window. It had a security card on a thin chain around the neck. Jonah set the charge and trigger on a low desk next to the body to give him a free hand. He looped the chain over the corpse's head then returned to the door and swiped. The lock went green. Jonah felt cheated, somehow. It should have been harder to get in; it should have taken longer, put this
moment
off for longer.

He reached for the charge and trigger, but Tess stayed his hand with her own. ‘There has to be another way,' she said. ‘Look at it. It wouldn't let you near.'

He looked. Some of the pieces of dark flesh seemed to be dissipating into swirls of steaming black smoke. For a moment he thought it might be in the throes of death, but instead the central bulk seemed to be drawing itself back in, abandoning the extremities to their fate. He could see Tess's point, though. In what remained, there was strength. There was tooth, and claw.

‘I can get close enough,' he said, but he knew it would be difficult.

Tess looked at him. ‘Even if you did, you wouldn't be able to get enough distance from the blast.'

He looked away from her scrutiny. Getting far enough wasn't a necessity, of course. His plan was to get close to the creature's malformed head, shove the charge down the damn thing's throat, if he could, and trigger it at once. ‘I have options,' he said, picking up the charge. ‘I can stick it to any surface.' He peeled the backing from the adhesive. ‘If I have to, I'll throw it.' He was lying, of course; he knew he had to make sure of doing the maximum damage. Point blank was the only way. Any less could mean a wasted chance.

He set the charge back down carefully and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘There's a woman on the floor below us,' he said. ‘Her name's Sly. She's injured, but she'll get you out of here. Whatever happens.'

Tess moved forward and embraced him. ‘There has to be another
way
,' she said again, but they both knew there wasn't.

They separated. Jonah smiled at her, tears in his eyes.

And then the creature spoke.

‘
Jonah . .
.' it said.

Jonah could see no detail in the dark bulk in the middle of the chamber, but he knew that was the source of the voice. He looked at Tess.

‘What?' she said.

‘Didn't you hear it?'

Tess shook her head. The voice was only for him. Through the observation window he saw the dark shape moving, shifting, half hidden in the smoke that persisted from the dissolution of the rest of it. He had a sense of it being
crouched
, waiting. Ready for him, and angry.

‘You
did this to me?'
it said.
‘I'm impressed. I'll show you just how much, when I finally take you. Last, of course. You'll watch the world burn before I let you die.'

‘Look at you,' Jonah said, his voice raised. ‘So this is what a dead god looks like.'

‘
You catch me at a bad time
,' it replied, and laughed, like clattering bones.
‘But not for long. The door is open now, Jonah. It will not shut. The power flows slower now, but it still flows. And I'm patient. Don't doubt me. Don't doubt that you'll watch all your friends perish, one by one
.'

‘You think so, dead god?' said Jonah. ‘Look at yourself.'

It laughed its dry-bone laugh again.
‘Come, Jonah. Come inside and show me how weak I am.'
Something unfurled from
the darkness, a long dark arm, and at the tip a powerful hand that made Jonah think of
teeth
as much as
claw.

The creature was right, Jonah knew. With it disoriented and flailing he'd stood a chance. Now? He'd be powerless the moment he stepped through the door. He and Tess looked at each other. He shook his head, frustrated and despairing.

Tess turned to the window again. ‘Michael …' she said.

Jonah felt the creature smile. He heard a long, satisfied sigh in his mind.
‘Ah … Tess! She's still alive! And I can still USE her. You should kill her, Jonah. If only you weren't so weak.'

From inside the chamber, the dark shape physically spoke, a tortured cry. The look on Tess's face was one of utter horror.

‘Tess,' said the creature aloud. ‘Help me, Tess.
Please.
'

She put her hand to the glass. ‘Michael?'

‘It's weak … it's dying … I've pulled free of it! Help me!'

Jonah put his hand on her shoulder. ‘It's lying to you.' There was doubt in her face, though.

‘I can
feel
that it's dying,' said the creature. ‘It's going back to the void. I need you, Tess. I need your help or it'll take me with it. Your presence is the only thing that can help me.'