Always Forever (15 page)

"More impact that way." She chewed on a knuckle apprehensively; Church
watched, wondering. "So did you get it? I know how dense you can be," she
asked.

He nodded. "Part of it anyway." He weighed his thoughts, not sure how
much he should tell her, then hating himself for even thinking it. "One of us
killed Marianne."

"One of us?"

"Laura, Shavi, Veitch-"

"Or me?"

"Everything went pear shaped before I had a chance to piece it all together.
But I saw a shadow that I recognised. I smelled something-"

"What? Like perfume?" she said sharply.

"No. It was unusual. But familiar. Subtle. I don't know what it meant. Instinctively I was certain it was one of us. If I'd only had a few more minutes-"

"You're sure?"

He thought for a moment. "I'm sure."

She sucked on her lip. "So who do you think it is?"

"I don't know."

"Who do you think?"

"I don't know. Honestly."

"Do you think it was me?"

He looked her full in the eye. Her gaze was unwavering, confident, perhaps
a little hurt. "I'm about as sure as I can be that it wasn't you."

That pleased her immensely. Her mouth crumpled into a smile before
growing serious a moment later. "That ties in with what the Celtic dead told us
about a traitor in the group. Whoever it was, they were there from the start."

"We mustn't start jumping to conclusions."

"No, but it makes sense."

And he had to admit that it did, but it was too upsetting to consider. The
five of them had been friends through the hardest of times. They had saved each
other's lives. He trusted them all implicitly, knew them all inside out, or
thought he did. None of them had the capacity to be a traitor on the scale
implied, he was sure of it. But if he could be fooled through such intimate contact, what did that mean? That the traitor was truly evil, and truly dangerous.

He could tell Ruth was thinking something similar; she rubbed her arms as
if she were cold despite the warmth of the sun. "There's no point in guessing,"
she said eventually. "If we could piece it together from what we've seen we
would have done it already."

"I know, but ..."

"What is it?"

"It casts a shadow over everything. I know that sounds stupid with what's
going down, but the fact is, the five of us ... six, with Tom ... we were the
calm centre, something I could rely on to make everything else bearable."

"It's just the two of us now. We're the calm centre."

Any further discussion was curtailed by a sharp knock at the door. It was
Baccharus carrying a tray filled with cold meats, fruit and bread. "I thought you
might like to break your fast," he said quietly.

They ushered him in, then refused to let him leave while they hungrily are
everything on the tray. They questioned him about what was happening elsewhere on Wave Sweeper.

"The Master has called a meeting of all who travel upon Wave Sweeper, on deck
shortly. There is a feeling for ..." He chose his word carefully. ". . . retribution."

"Have you found the Walpurgis?" Church asked.

Baccharus shook his head. "There are many scouring the boat, even as we
speak, but it is ..." He made an expansive gesture.

"How serious is this?" Ruth said.

"How serious? To the Golden Ones it is a crime against existence. We dance
amongst the worlds; stars pass beneath our feet. We are a part of everything, of
the endless cycle. We are not meant to be eradicated-"

"But it is possible," Church said, remembering Calatin. "You know that."

"Anything is possible." Baccharus's voice had grown even quieter. "But
there are some things that should not happen. One could imagine the whole of
everything falling into the void before they came to pass. The eradication of a
Golden One is one of those things. Cormorel may have appeared young to you.
But he was enjoying his wild ways when your world was a steaming rock in the
infinite dark. What you saw last night was something beyond your comprehension. A star exploding would not have matched one atom of its import."

"I'm sorry." Ruth rested a hand on his forearm. "I know Cormorel was your
companion. We know what it is like to lose a dear friend." His expression
brought her up sharp; it said she could never understand the slightest of what
he-all the Tuatha De Danann-were experiencing.

"There are two issues here," Baccharus continued. "The Master is concerned
that the Walpurgis had not only the power, but also the knowledge of how to
use it to end Cormorel's days. And that he had the inclination."

"Do you believe it was the Walpurgis?" Church pressed.

Baccharus looked at him thoughtfully. "You saw as well as I-"

"I saw him drain Cormorel's soul. I didn't see him commit murder."

Baccharus shrugged. "The Master believes it to be the Walpurgis-"

"Isn't justice important?"

"Of course." Baccharus's voice grew cold for the first time since they had
known him.

"Well, isn't it?" Church pressed.

"Justice is above us all."

An uncomfortable silence descended on the room until Ruth couldn't bear
it. "That thing which attacked last night-"

"The G'a'naran." Baccharus was staring dismally across the waves.

"The G'a'naran. What was it?" She looked to Church. "It reminded me of
old stories, mariners' tales-"

"More race memories, things that slip between the worlds."

"A sea monster?"

"The G'a'naran is unformed, from the age when all flowed freely, finding its
shape," Baccharus said. "Its home is not beneath the waves, though sometimes
it takes refuge there. It navigates amongst the stars-"

"Like you?"

Baccharus looked at Ruth. "No, not like us."

Church was troubled by Baccharus's description. "I don't understand why it
attacked the ship if it's not some kind of mindless animal, which I presume it's not.
Is it a predator?" He was surprised to see Baccharus was concerned too. "What is it?"

The god made to leave without answering, but Church dragged the reply
from him. "The G'a'naran would not have attacked Wave Sweeper unless it was
provoked. Or summoned."

"Summoned?" Church's head was thundering; connections were lining up,
but not quite linking. "What's going on here?"

Before the matter could be pursued further, a long, low mournful sound
reverberated throughout the ship. It drew an overwhelmingly dismal feeling
from deep within them; Ruth found tears springing to her eyes involuntarily.

"The Master is summoning." Baccharus looked oddly distracted, almost
dazed. When he realised they were still seated, he said, "You must come."

The sun was unbearably bright as they stepped out on to the deck, blinking.
"Tell me," Church hissed to Baccharus in response to the silence that lay heavy
over everything, "when you were in trouble on deck last night, why didn't
anyone save you?"

On the surface Baccharus's face appeared emotionless, but Church could tell
there were deep but unreadable emotions running beneath. "There is no recognition that we might not exist. Therefore there is no need to aid one in dire straits."

"I thought you lot always stuck together."

"You do not understand our ways." It was a cold statement; Church knew
there was no point pursuing the matter. By that time they had arrived in the
midst of a crowd filling every foot of the ship's boards, some of the freakish travellers even clambering up into the rigging. Others were arriving behind them.
Amidst the reek of alien scents, the pressing of skin that felt like carbonised
rubber or gelatine, Church fought to focus his attention on the tableau
unfolding on the raised area preserved for the captain of the vessel.

His face like an ocean tempest, Manannan overlooked the crowd, hands
behind his back, flanked by other members of the Tuatha De Danann. Niamh
was close by his right arm, her beautiful face troubled too. She stared across the
waves, lost to whatever dark scenarios were playing in her mind.

A low muttering had risen in the crowd like wind over the water, but when
Manannan raised his left arm, everyone felt silent. His gaze slowly moved across
the masses; even at that distance Church was sure his eyes were burning. His
face held an odd quality too, as though it were about to become fluid, transform.

"A crime has been committed against the very fabric of existence." He
appeared to be whispering, but his voice boomed over the throng, which grew visibly cowed. "Something more valuable than the stars above you, more important than the entire weight of all your races, from the beginning to the end, has
been torn away. This will not go unpunished."

Church felt a pang of fear. Ruth's skin was unnaturally pale.

"The one who committed this atrocity is known to us, and though not yet
within our grasp, know this: there is no escape from our unflinching eye. No
hope. We will peel back the lies, strip away the moment and the mile, never
rest, until we have it." He paused, letting his words fall like stones. "And know
this also: our gaze will be turned on you, all of you, individually, even in your
most private moments. And if we find any who have aided or abetted the committal of this monstrous crime, they will be punished." Another pause. "With
the full weight of our wrath."

He surveyed the crowd one final time, with many flinching from his eyes,
and then slowly descended to his quarters, the other members of the Tuatha De
Danann trailing behind.

Even when they had all departed and the door had closed, no one on deck
moved, no one spoke, there was not even a rustle of clothing. Church smelled
fear in the air and more than that, an awful dread that events were rapidly deteriorating. There was darkness on the horizon and none of them knew which way
the wind was blowing.

"He's in here?"

Baccharus motioned towards the heavy wooden door with the black sigil. It
was two decks down, at the heart of the ship so no wall was next to the cool,
green water. Church moved his palm gently a quarter-inch above the surface of
the door, testing the sensitivity that had grown in him since Tom had introduced him to the Blue Fire. His skin prickled. Inside the room he felt an
unpleasant coldness that was the antithesis of that spirit energy. He didn't know
why he had asked Baccharus to take him there while Ruth rested-or hid-in
her cabin, but the urge had been insistent. He pushed his palm forward and the
door swung open at his touch.

The chamber was in complete darkness. It smelled of some zoo cage littered
with dirty straw, reminding him uncomfortably of his imprisonment in the mine
deep beneath Dartmoor. He couldn't help but think a cruelty was being inflicted,
despite everything his rational mind told him of deserving punishment.

Baccharus stepped past him holding one of the torches from the corridor and
lit an extinct one fixed to the wall close to the door. Unlike the torches without,
it cast only a dull, ruddy glare, barely causing the shadows to retreat. Baccharus
nodded to him curtly, then stepped out and closed the door behind him.

"So you've found it in your heart to visit another soldier of the road, now
sadly down on his luck." The voice was infused with scorn.

At the far end of the room was an iron cage, barely large enough for a man
to stretch out in. Straw was indeed scattered on the floor within, along with
what resembled an animal's feeding trough. Callow squatted at the back of it,
his peeled white eyes staring like sickly lamps. There was something about that
unflinching gaze that made Church's stomach squirm: human yet not human.
The parchment skin was a muddy red in the flickering glow of the torch, but
the black veins still stood out starkly, a roadmap of hell.

"Don't get smart with me. You've brought everything on yourself."

"Well, that's a fine attitude for such a noble man to take. Filled with Christian values. Do I hear the sweet tinkling notes of forgiveness? The vibrato of salvation? The teasing choir of redemption? Or perhaps we truly are brothers of the
byway. When the ditch is your billet, you see life with a different perspective,
is that not true? Not so noble then, is it? Means to an end is the phrase on every
good man's lips."

"Shut up, Callow. I haven't got the energy." Church eyed the heavy padlocks
on the cage door. The Tuatha De Danann were taking no chances with him. Perhaps he should be more cautious.

"And how is the lovely Miz Gallagher?" Callow began oleaginously.

Church's glare stopped him dead; it left Callow in no doubt that here was a
topic where he could never trespass. Callow scrabbled around in the straw for a
distraction like he was looking for a stray piece of corn from his meal; a chicken
waiting to be harvested. But then he looked up with a cold confidence and said,
"Things have turned a little sour, have they not?" His thin lips peeled back from
his blackened teeth in a sly smirk.

He knows why I've come, Church thought.

Callow's eyes were a vortex in the gloom. "You're here to beg for my help.
Oh, Glory be! My time has truly come!"

"Your time has long gone, Callow. But you might still be able to rescue a
thin chance of saving yourself if you start acting like you don't want to see the
whole of humanity eradicated."

"Look after number one, my boy. You know that well."

The jibe hurt Church even though he had managed to put his own selfish
interests to one side. "This is a new age, didn't you know? These days we look
after each other." Callow looked away. "I may be wasting my time here in more
ways than one," Church continued, "but I have to ignore my personal feelings if
there's a chance everyone might benefit. And make no mistake, Callow, I loathe
you. For what you did to Laura, and Ruth. For turning your back on the human race simply to achieve your own ends. You truly are a grotesque person. But it's
still wrong the way the Tuatha De Danann are treating you like some animal."