Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2) (34 page)

One of the Tuatha De Danann Church didn’t recognise leaned forward and said something in the angel-tongue. On cue, Veitch whirled and fired the gun. An elderly man was thrown back as if he’d been hit by a car, trailing droplets of blood through the air.

Ruth’s uncle, Church thought. The act that brought on her father’s heart attack. Two lives ruined by the arrogance of power.

He watched the faces of the Tuatha De Danann expecting, hoping almost, to see cruel glee or contempt there, but there was nothing. It was an act inflicted on beings so far beneath them that there was no call for any response; it was nothing more than a brushing away of a dust mote.

Sickened, he turned and hurried away.

He hadn’t gone far when an idea struck him. If what he was viewing was random, such a turning point in all their lives would have been too much of a coincidence. In some way the events were arriving before him like lightning leaping to the rod on a church steeple, summoned by his subconscious, or some other vital part of his being.

Maybe we’re operating on the quantum level, he thought, where everything is linked. But if that was true, what did the first terrifying image mean? Maybe I can make this work for me.

He concentrated until he dredged up images from his subconscious, some so painful they brought tears to his eyes. He remembered how Tom had used the blue fire to warp space before, drawing them along lines of power from the stormy sea off Tintagel to the top of Glastonbury Tor in the wink of an eye.

Do it for me now, he wished, feeling like a boy, not caring.

For long moments nothing happened. And then, suddenly, he was falling. When the descent stopped he was standing in his old flat. But it didn’t have the familiar look of bachelorhood, the secret layers of dust, the scatter of magazines, piles of videos and CDs, and odours that wouldn’t shift. It was before. When Marianne lived there.

His heart leapt, but that was just the start of a complex flood of emotions that overwhelmed him. He breathed in deeply. He could smell her! That brought a fugitive tear, which he hastily rubbed away.

Stay focused. This is where you find the truth, he thought. If you can bear it. If you can feel your heart ripped out, see things that will scar your mind for the rest of your life.

He wished he could let it go, move on, but Marianne’s death had destroyed him and not even a saint could turn the other cheek to that. Here was something he could believe in: revenge. Cold and hard.

The flat appeared empty. One of her acid jazz CDs played innocuously in the background. And then he could hear her moving around, humming to the music, at peace with herself and the life they had.

Don’t cry, he told himself futilely.

He remembered where he had been at that moment: in the pub two streets away, drunk on booze, drunk on life, singing old Pogues songs with Dale and thinking what it would be like to be married.

Don’t cry, he told himself futilely.

He wiped his face, forced himself to stay calm in the centre of a room a lifetime away, when he had been whole; listened intently. Soon. Soon.

Marianne singing now, in perfect harmony with the track. Leaving the kitchen where she had been washing up. Crossing to the bathroom. He strained to see, then averted his eyes at the last moment. Then regretted it a second later.

The bathroom cabinet opening. She was taking out something. Bath oil? No taps yet. There had been no water in the bath.

There it was: the bare, brief click of the door. Nausea clutched his stomach.

“Church? Is that you?” Her voice; he couldn’t bear it.

Take me away. His eyes were flooded, blurring everything.

He took a step forward. A dark shape flitted across the hall towards the bathroom. The damp ebb of his emotion was replaced by a cold hatred that surprised him; but it was better, definitely. It allowed him to act.

He moved quickly. He was going to find out who the bastard was who had destroyed everything. It didn’t matter that he was a puppet. He was a killer of dreams and he was going to pay the price.

Don’t scream, he prayed.

Marianne screamed. And then he was running, and running, but the bathroom was a million miles away, and he knew if he reached it, what he wanted most in the world would destroy him. Every sight, every experience stays with you forever; that one would ruin him for all time.

I have to see, I have to see, he pleaded with himself. And still he ran, but he knew he couldn’t bring himself to do it. And then the bathroom, the flat, everything that had ever mattered to him was receding, and he was falling, upwards this time, yelling and crying, like some drunken fool, brutalised by the pain of his emotions.

And then he was back in the dark once again.

He wandered for what seemed like hours. If that were the case, the cavern would have been enormous, but he had the unnerving feeling he was no longer walking through that place; his meanderings had taken him much, much further afield. He didn’t dare think too hard about that; the chance that he might be lost and walking for all time hovered constantly at the back of his head.

Sometimes he thought he was about to break through into another solid place; shadowy figures moved in the distance, lighter than the surrounding dark, but he never seemed to draw near enough to reach them. Sounds continued to burst through the void, fading, then growing louder, as if they were being controlled by a mixing desk: psychedelic aural hallucinations. Briefly, he heard Ruth calling for his help, but it was lost the moment he thought he recognised her voice.

And still he walked, until he heard something enormous moving away in the dark, circling him. A chill insinuated itself into his veins. There was a sound like the rough breathing of a wild animal and when he turned suddenly, he glimpsed a giant wolf. He knew instinctively this was the thing that had taken Ruth and attacked him in the library. But he also knew, although he did not know how, that it was not really a wolf, nor any kind of supernatural creature; it was mortal, and more, it was someone he knew.

For the briefest instant a yellow eye glinted in the dark and he was filled with an immeasurable dread. He turned and ran in the opposite direction until he was sure he had left it far behind him.

“Jack!”

The voice came as a shock because he had seen no sign of any other figure after fleeing the wolf that was not a wolf. It was crystal clear, unlike the other hallucinations, and when he spun round there was Niamh, arms outstretched towards him, her normally placid face filled with concern; it made him fearful to see it.

“It is a maze,” she was saying. “If you do not pick your way through, you will be lost.”

Unlike the other visions of the Tuatha De Danann, she was able to see him. In fact, he felt she had come looking for him, to lead him out of there, back to safety.

“Your own thoughts are trapping you,” she continued.

“How do I get out of here?” he called.

But before she could answer, her face grew scared and she was pulled apart, as if she were nothing more than smoke caught in the wind. Even she did not have power over that place.

After a long while he came to the conclusion that he was not making his way through a maze. It was a whirlpool. The blocked earth energy was causing eddies in the very fabric of reality, sucking him back and forth. How was he ever going to get out of it?

He finally realised the futility of walking and getting nowhere, so he simply sat on the cold, stone floor and tried to think his way out. No further scenarios presented themselves to him, nor did doors open, but during a meditation on the nature of the blue fire, a possible solution presented itself.

Gently he closed his eyes, which seemed a bit unecessary in the uncompromising dark, but it was the only way he could do it. Then, with as much willpower as he could muster, he tried to focus on the earth energy as he had done at the well-head. It was a long shot, but Tom had told him the energy was in everything. Perhaps there was some kind of pattern he could see that would show him the way out.

He thought it would be hard, but it took much longer in coming than it had before; the anxiety gnawing away at him seemed to be a barrier. Eventually he saw the first familiar blue streaks, just flashes against the blackness, like tracer bullets in a night-time air-raid. Slowly, though, his perception came into focus and he recognised that the earth energy was as prevalent there as it had been out on the land.

It seemed that his analogy of a whirlpool had been correct. The tracks of light were sucked into different eddies that formed complex patterns, reminding him of Mandelbrot set illustrations he had seen: chaos everywhere, yet, paradoxically, an overriding pattern to it; a blueprint for existence. The marvel of it was mesmerising; he could certainly see how the ancients had been in awe of its power and majesty. The lifeblood of everything.

Even so, in places the traces of light fragmented or seemed to dry up completely. There was none of the pulsating vitality he had seen when Tom had first introduced him to the blue fire at Stonehenge. Was this what had been happening all over the land, all over the globe: the gradual break-down of the fundamental essence of the world, driven to extinction by people with an increasing morbidity of spirit?

His dreamy musings came to an abrupt end. There was one area where the light was brighter and more forceful; it seemed to be driving in to the confluence of tiny whirlpools that made up the bigger maelstrom. He hurried towards it and was pleased to see that beyond that area there was a definite flow, although it was more of a trickle than a torrent.

He moved as quickly as he could, not knowing how long he could maintain his altered perception. Occasionally it flickered and threatened to fade and he had to fight to bring it back, but he was buoyed by his progress.

The visual and aural hallucinations appeared to have been left behind in the whirlpool area, so he was surprised when an insistent voice came echoing through the darkness to him. Its familiarity was more of a shock: it was his own. As he turned suddenly, the view of the earth energy fizzed out. And there he was, coming towards himself through the void. His ghost-image was subtly changed: longer hair, a goatee, the drawn, pale face of a man who had seen too many terrible things; it was the same Church he had seen watching a burning city in his vision in the Watchtower.

“Is this it? Is this the right time?” his future-self was saying to him passionately; Church couldn’t decide if it was fear or anger or a mixture of both he was hearing in the voice. “You have to listen to me! This is a warning!” He looked around, confused, as if trying to work out where he was. “Is this the right place? Am I too late?”

His words fell into relief and Church said quickly, “Tell me what you have to say.”

The future-Church shook himself, regained his focus. “When you’re in Otherworld and they call, heed it right away! They’re going to bring him back! They’re-“

“Calm down! You’re babbling!” Church yelled. “Who is going to bring who back?”

The other Church suddenly looked terrified, glanced over his shoulder. “Too late!” he yelled.

And then he was gone.

The encounter disturbed Church immensely. The message was garbled, disorienting, but he felt he had missed a vital opportunity to discover something important, perhaps something that would be a life-or-death matter. He vowed to keep the message in his head so that if any fitting situation arose, he would be able to act instantly.

When they call, heed it right away.

At least he had managed to maintain his sense of direction. He continued walking along the path he had been following and soon he saw the gently glowing cavern walls approaching from either side. They met at a rough opening where the tunnel continued. And on a boulder near the entrance sat Tom, quietly sucking on a joint.

“How the hell did you get here?” Church asked in disbelief.

“I walked.”

“You know what I mean!”

Tom shrugged, giving nothing away. Then he couldn’t seem to resist, and said with a faint smile, “You were the one who had to go through it. It was a test.”

“It was a natural obstacle caused by the backed-up earth energy. Wasn’t it?”

“It was. But you were drawn into it for a reason. I told you, it was a test.”

“Why was I being tested?”

“You know,” Tom snapped.

Church tried to make sense of it. “The things I saw out there! It was-“

“I know. I’ve experienced that kind of thing before. We can carry on now. We’ve been allowed access.”

“You’re talking like the blue fire’s got some kind of intelligence,” Church laughed mockingly.

“It has. Of a kind. Everything thinks, everything feels, everything hurts.”

“More hippie bullshit!” Church snorted with derision, but the concept stayed with him. They set off along the new tunnel and after a moment or two, he said, “So tell me, is it God?”

“Call it that if you want,” Tom said dismissively. “If you want to reduce something so enormous and complex to such pathetically, childishly simplistic terms.”

Church chopped the air with his hand and cursed under his breath, picking up his step so he didn’t have to walk in irritation at the older man’s side.