Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2) (54 page)

The words dried in Church’s throat when he saw Dian Cecht’s face flare with rage, become insubstantial, shift through a range of alien visages. He suddenly acted as if Church were no longer in the room. “We will deal with the Heart of Shadows and the Night Walkers if they become a problem, True Thomas-“

“Ifl” Church raged.

Tom moved quickly to push him and Ruth towards the door. “Quiet, you idiot!” he hissed. “You’re close to having your blood boiled in your veins!”

“Leave now, True Thomas, and do not bring this foul thing to this place again.” Dian Cecht turned sharply and led the others from the precinct.

The silence that lay in their wake was all-encompassing. Ruth dropped her head heavily on to Church’s shoulder. “God …”

“Are you going to tell us your blinding revelation or what?” Laura tried to keep apace with Veitch as he marched back towards The Green Man. His face was flushed with anger and there was determination in every fibre of his being.

“I’ll do more than tell you.”

Laura glanced back at Shavi, who shook his head dumbfoundedly.

Veitch burst into the pub like he was looking for a fight. Most of the action group had already gathered there, hunkering in serious conversation at the bar. They looked up in shock as Veitch marched up. He muttered something to one of the group which Laura and Shavi couldn’t hear and then he spun round and was heading out of the door again. Laura thought about catching his arm to slow him until she glimpsed his expression. She dropped back several feet and let Shavi move ahead to keep up with the Londoner.

Night had almost fallen by the time they had reached the area of large, old houses at the top of the High Street. Only a thin band of pale blue and gold lay on the horizon and that was disappearing fast. Veitch ranged back and forth along one of the streets, his fists bunching then opening, his breathing ragged. Eventually he found the house he was looking for. One boot burst the wooden gate from its hinges and then he was racing up the path.

The door was locked. He hammered on it so loudly the glass in the front windows rattled. “Open up!”

A hollow voice echoed somewhere inside.

“I said open up or I’ll kick the fucking thing down and then you’ll have nothing to protect you!” he raged.

Footsteps approached quickly and they heard the sounds of bolts being drawn. The door had opened only a crack when Veitch kicked it sharply, smashing it into the face of whoever was behind it. There was a groan as someone crashed back against the wall of the hall. Veitch pushed his way in with Laura and Shavi close behind. They didn’t recognise the man who was desperately trying to staunch the blood pumping from his nose; it had streamed down over his mouth so that he resembled a vampire from some cheap horror movie. He was in his fifties, balding and overweight, with large, unsightly jowls.

But instead of berating him, Veitch marched past, glancing into the first room he came to before moving on to the next. He stopped at a large drawing room at the rear of the house. French windows looked out over a garden so big they couldn’t see the bottom in the dark. The room was decorated with an abundance of antiques on a deep carpet; large, gilt-framed paintings hung on the walls and a log fire crackled in the grate, despite the warmth of the day. A piano stood in one corner.

Several people were gathered in the room, their apprehensive, pale faces turned towards Veitch, Shavi and Laura. There were four women, one in her forties with blonde hair so lacquered it resembled a helmet, the others in their sixties or older, but still well turned-out. The rest were men of different ages and shapes, but they had one thing in common which only Veitch could see: the vague air that the world belonged to them.

“I say, what do you think you’re doing?” Sir Richard stepped forward from the back of the group, a glass of brandy nestled in his palm. His cheeks were slightly flushed; Laura couldn’t tell if it was from the fire, the brandy or the interruption.

Veitch stepped forward and smashed the glass from his grip with the back of his hand. It shattered on the floor.

“Good Lord, are you mad?”

“I fucking hate toffs and rich bastards,” Veitch spat. There was a note in his voice which made Laura’s blood run cold.

Shavi stepped forward. “Ryan, are you sure-“

He whirled. “Yes, I am fucking sure! You two wouldn’t even have thought of this because you’ve got a good outlook on life. You were brought up right in a modern world where everybody treats each other at face value, and that’s how it should be. But there are still people out there, even in this fucking day and age, who think they’re better than others, because they were born that way or because they earned a bundle of fucking cash.” He turned back to Sir Richard. “Am I right?”

Sir Richard flustered indignantly. “If you’re implying that I-“

“Shut the fuck up.”

Laura watched the scene with a terrible fascination. The sense of irrational, uncontrollable threat that Veitch was radiating scared even her, so God knows how frightened the great and good of the village felt. She looked round and saw the dismay and worry marked in their faces; they looked as if Veitch was about to shoot them, then rob them; and with her hand on her heart, Laura couldn’t say that he wouldn’t.

Veitch turned to Shavi, but he was obviously talking to the whole room. “Let me tell you what happened. When the rich old lady was the first to catch it, this lot were horrified. They thought they were fucking untouchable here in their little sanctuary. But that was a big alarm: anybody could get it now the whole world had been turned on its head, and they had no special fucking privileges to protect them. And then when the drunk got it the little lightbulbs started popping over their heads. He was a fucking undesirable, a piss-head and a burden on fucking society. Maybe it wasn’t even so bad that he got it. The village would look a lot prettier without his piles of puke in the gutter. And then they thought, it didn’t have to be them who ended up as dead meat. There were a few more that the village could do without. Lazy layabouts without a job for a start.” He put on a mock high-class voice, but it was still laced with venom. “Wasn’t there a little pocket of them down in that part of the village we never went to, where those cheap, dirty little houses were?”

“Now hang on a minute! Those were our neighbours!” a tall, thin man in a dark suit said sharply. “We always got on well with them.”

“You tolerated them because you were on top,” Veitch snapped. “But when your backs were against the wall, you didn’t have far to look for sacrifices. You knew those fucking creatures left you alone for a bit after they’d eaten. But you knew they couldn’t get into a house without the door open. So what did you do? One or two of you fucking cowards went down after dark and jimmied a door open.”

Laura suddenly realised why Veitch had been examining the door frames; he’d been looking for splinters where the locks had been forced. And she guessed from his past experience he had a perfectly good idea what a jimmied door looked like.

“So you consigned those poor bastards to be meat for another scavenging class we’ve all had dumped on us.”

Shavi was looking from Veitch to the faces of the assembled group and then back; the truth of Witch’s account was in the guilt that was heavy in every feature. But Shavi was still puzzled. “I do not understand. If all the doors were locked, the creatures would not have been able to get to anyone-“

Veitch shook his head. “You’re too much of a good bloke, Shav. You’ve got to think like these bastards. They like cash. They’ll do anything for cash. It’s their fucking god. They hated being prisoners in their own homes. Couldn’t make any lucre. But if those creatures laid low for a few days they had a chance to see if they could get their businesses going. Working their fucking big farms or trying to keep their fucking wine-importing business going or whatever the fuck it was.” He turned slowly around to them. “That was it, wasn’t it?”

Sir Richard began to protest. Veitch stepped forward and hit him sharply in the mouth; his lip burst open and blood splattered on his clean, white shirt. A gasp rippled round the room, and Laura realised she had joined in, so shocking was the image.

One of the old women started to cry. “I’m sorry-“

“Bit fucking late for that. Thought you’d get rid of a single mum last time, didn’t you? Instead you got a poor kid.”

“We didn’t mean-“

“Shut up. Whose idea was it?”

There was a long silence while everyone in the room tried to read what his next actions would be. Finally Sir Richard stopped dabbing at his lip. “It was all of us. We discussed it together.” There was an unpleasant defiance in his face that gave the truth to everything Veitch had said.

“Yeah? Fair enough.” Veitch nodded reasonably. Then he slowly drew the crossbow out of the harness, loaded it and pointed it at the thin man in the dark suit; his face turned instantly grey. “We’ll start here then.”

“No, Ryan,” Shavi cautioned. Veitch ignored him. He slowly tightened his finger on the trigger.

“No!” The thin man pointed a shaking finger at Sir Richard. “It was his idea! Yes, we all went along with it! But it was his idea!”

“You know what? I fucking thought as much. I’m a good judge of character like that. I know scum when I see it. And I knew you slimy fuckers would all be jumping to save your own skin when the shit hit the fan.” He motioned to Sir Richard with the crossbow. “You’re coming with me, matey.”

“I certainly am not!” Sir Richard’s eyes darted round like a hunted animal. Before he could move Veitch had loosed the bolt into the floor and had clubbed him on the side of the head with the crossbow. Sir Richard slumped to the floor unconscious.

Veitch coolly reclaimed the bolt and slipped it back into the harness with the crossbow. Then he bent down and effortlessly slung Sir Richard over his shoulder. He turned to Shavi and Laura as he marched towards the door. “I’ll see you at the pub later.”

“Where are you going, Ryan?” Shavi asked darkly.

“I said, I’ll see you later.” He tried to mask what was in his face with a tight smile, but Laura and Shavi both saw, and wished they hadn’t.

The journey through the temple, across the autumnal fields, and out into the wide world, resembled a funeral procession. Ruth’s face was like jagged shards of glass, her eyes constantly fixed on an inner landscape. She leaned on Church, for emotional rather than physical support, but his tread was heavy. Tom followed behind, unusually disoriented, with Max looking poleaxed at the rear.

In Richmond it was midmorning, the air heavy with an unpleasant heat. Insects buzzed in from the surrounding dales, and traffic fumes choked the market place. They had no idea if it was the next day or several weeks hence; although it remained unspoken, they all knew the date was now mightily significant.

In the back seat of the car, Ruth could no longer contain herself. She undid her jeans and pulled them down over her belly; there was an unmistakable swelling there.

“It doesn’t make any sense!” Church protested to Tom. “There’s nothing actually, physically inside her! Is there?”

Tom looked away, shaking his head; it could have meant anything. Ruth broke down in sobs of shock.

After they had subsided, she slumped on the back seat in desperate silence. Tom caught Church’s eye and the two of them slipped out, leaving Max to keep an eye on her.

“There must be something we can do,” Church said when they were far enough away from the car not to be overheard.

“Perhaps. But there is a more immediate problem. The Fomorii will never leave us alone until they have Balor back. Inside her is their entire reason for existence, the Heart of Shadows. They must have regrouped after the devastation in Edinburgh. Once they locate us their pursuit will be relentless.” He paused. “They can’t take the risk that you’ll kill her to prevent Balor being born.”

“Kill her?” The thought hadn’t even entered Church’s head.

Tom nodded gravely. “At the moment it’s the only option.”

Church cursed Tom furiously for his cold-heartedness, but his reaction was so extreme because he knew, if he could bear to examine his thoughts rationally, that the Rhymer was right. The rebirth of Balor meant the End of Everything. To prevent that, Ruth’s life was a small price to pay. Rationally, objectively, from a distance. But from his close perspective she was so dear to him her life was more important than everything. How could he kill her? And he knew, with a terrible, hollow ache, that ultimately the decision would come down to him; one of the burdens of leadership. And whatever his choice, he also knew it would destroy him forever.

The atmosphere on the way back was thick with unspoken thoughts. Church could see Max was seething with questions, but he didn’t feel like answering anything; it was too big to consider even in the privacy of his head. Ruth had dried her eyes and was coping with the shock remarkably well; somehow, that made Church feel even worse.

“That’s why my familiar has disappeared,” she muttered, almost to herself. “It won’t come anywhere near me while that thing’s inside me.”

They drove with all the windows down, but even that couldn’t disperse the oppressive heat in the car. They were sleeked in sweat, sticking uncomfortably to the seats, flushed and irritable. There wasn’t even a breath of wind across the lush landscape; the trees remained upright, the crops and hedgerow flowers unmoving.

Max drove speedily along the empty roads, leaning forward to peer through the windscreen that was streaked yellow and orange with the remains of a hundred bugs. But as he rounded a corner, he cursed loudly and slammed on the brakes, the Fiesta fishtailing to a sudden halt. A stream of cars filtered past the turning they needed for the route home: ahead were the unmissable signs of another police roadblock.

“They did see us on the way here.” Church grabbed Max’s shoulder. “You need to back up and get out of here. Find a different route.”

The words were barely out of his mouth when a spurt of blue activity broke out at the road junction; someone had already spotted them. Officers wearing body armour and helmets were tumbling out of the back of a van parked on the edge of the road; Church thought he glimpsed guns.