Fray (The Ruin Saga Book 3) (46 page)

Charlie waved his arms and bellowed, and beside him Lucian did the same. Both of them stood upon the lobby reception desk, their voices eaten by the echoing roar.

“It’s not working,” Charlie said.

“Keep at it.”

“I can’t stop them. I never could.”

Lucian seized him. “You can. We just have to get their attention.”

“How?”

Lucian’s mouth worked, but no sound escaped. He was in the process of cursing when his eyes bulged and his face slackened. Charlie followed his gaze, and all the air punched out of him.

The courtyard outside darkened with fresh masses of people coming in through the walls. As they passed inside, with shocking suddenness, the rumble of shells impacting the tower died.

Who? How?
Charlie thought, stunned.

“You said there were no more!” Lucian hissed. “We can’t handle more.”

Charlie shook his head. “They’re not ours.”

Lucian stiffened, then a gravelly laugh erupted from his chest.

The lobby became surrounded by the newcomers gathering at the shattered revolving doors. Unwounded, unfatigued by battle, they looked almost Olympian compared to the rest, most of who could barely stand. One person at a time, a wave of realisation swept through the lobby. At last ringing silence permeated the space.

There’s enough of them to actually make a stand. Maybe… maybe they can win.

But no. There were many, and they were strong, but they were nowhere near enough. All that could result was a stalemate. If they fought to the last man, there would be nobody left.

Already Charlie could feel tension building, straining the armistice brought about by shock. A few were already stepping forwards.

Lucian’s voice filled the lobby, rising even above the hammering rain. “Stop! All of you, stop now. I am Lucian McKay of the Alliance of the South, aide-de-camp to Alexander of New Canterbury. You will listen to me!”

Charlie frowned.

Lucian muttered from the corner of his mouth, “Never thought I’d say that kind of crap.”

But it’s done the trick
, Charlie thought. Everybody in the lobby span as though mounted on turntables.

Lucian said, “This ends now. None of you want this. If we keep down this path, there won’t be anybody left to talk about it. I know you feel what’s coming. That’s no storm out there, it’s something worse.” He pointed to Charlie. “Those of you who marched on this city know this man. You know his station.” Lucian paused. “I killed this man’s father. I stole from him, beat him, did all the wrongs to him that the Alliance has done to you all.” Lucian looked to Charlie. “He’ll speak to you now.”

Charlie could only stare back at him as though from a great distance.

I hope you saw that, wherever you are, Dad
, Charlie thought.

Then he was looking over those he had helped bring here, numbed by their combined stares. “I…” He cleared his throat. “Some of you are like me: you got so scared you started to hate, and that hate brought you here. A lot of you never wanted this… We just took you. We took a lot of you. But none of us have to be scared anymore. We can stop this.”

Blank stares speared him, and his stomach sank.

They won’t listen. They don’t see me.

“You don’t have to be afraid.” His voice echoed back from afar—a nasal kid’s voice.

Somebody spoke from close by. “You know what we’re scared of. He still breathes.”

Jason
.
How many did he kill on the march south because they wanted to stop?

“Are you all going to die today because of a madman?”

Blanket silence. The storm crackled outside. The cold deepened.

Lucian gestured to the newcomers. “We leave them be.” He pointed into the storm. “We still have a lot of people out there. Draw anybody upstairs into the courtyard. Bring everybody into one place. We need to spread the word and cut down anybody who won’t stop, no matter what side they’re on. There isn’t much time.” When nobody moved, he slammed his hands together. “
Move
!”

Then, astonishingly, they were in motion. Those who had been in death duels moments before looked to one another distrustfully, fawningly, but started heading towards the stairs. Charlie watched hundreds pass by with his heart pulsing in his mouth.

“It’s a start,” Lucian growled.

Charlie nodded numbly. A nagging truth ate at him, still: this wouldn’t be over until Jason was taken down. They might have won the lobby, but the army would never stop until the mad general was dead.

“It’s done,” James said, staring out at the storm. “Finally, things are being put right.”

The vortex of darkness now sheathed the entire length of the tower, pooling upon the ground and spreading towards the compound’s shattered walls. The surrounding skyscrapers were beginning to ice over, despite the endless sheets of rain pouring down from above.

No ordinary ice. It’s the End.
It’s here
, Alexander thought.

“It’s you, isn’t it? You’re doing this,” he muttered.

“We are all doing this,” James said.

“But you started it. You’re…”

“A catalyst. No more. Make no mistake: when the End comes, it will come from within. I was told that a long time ago.”

“By who?” Alexander said.

By what?
he thought.

James said nothing.

They had watched people arrive from all over the city in stunned silence. Alexander had no idea where they came from, or why they came. Their messengers couldn’t have reached that many in so short a time. Yet they had come, hurrying onto the Isle of Dogs and passing through the walls.

They had caught glimpses of people emerging from the tower, drawn outside by the new arrivals, before the darkness had engulfed the compound. Now there was no knowing what went on inside. What they could see were bright red flashes bursting across Canary Wharf, colliding with other buildings. The mortar positions had been overrun, but the fire still came, undirected and random, as though trying to take out the reinforcements.

Alexander couldn’t take his eyes from the ice spreading radially outwards from the undulating blackness hiding the tower.

If the End really is coming again, it’s going to start there. It looks like the fight is nearly done.

James spoke from the window. “It was latent in all of us: the power to end things for good. The biggest irony is that if you hadn’t caused so much pain, we might never had managed it.”

Alexander shook his head. “I’m done fighting you, James. I can’t take any of it back. Why are we still here?”

James left the window and stood a few paces in front of Alexander. “Because I need you to see it, Alex. I need you to know, before it all goes away.”

“Why?” Alexander said. “Why end it all? These people have lives.”

“They had lives! Before you and the Alliance, they had a chance at making a new beginning. Now their minds are poisoned, and their families are gone. Better we all go to our fate, as we should have done in the beginning.”

“If we were all supposed to die in the End, why did we survive?”

James said nothing.

“You don’t know any more than the rest of us. You might be different—I don’t pretend to understand it, and I don’t care. But I know you can’t really think you’re doing what’s right by destroying what’s left of the world. I know you better than that.”

James tittered. “You don’t know anything about me. You never did. All you know is what you wanted me to be. If the world kept spinning, you’d do it all over again, wouldn’t you? You’d find some other poor sap to take Norman’s place, look into their eyes and tell them they’re special—that they have a great destiny. You’d fill them with hope and false dreams, and squash anybody who got in your way. You’d dig any memory of him and me out of your head and begin all over, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you?”

Alexander said nothing.

James’s lip curled. “Even now, you can’t see that it was all for nothing.”

Alexander sank lower to the ground. All he wanted to do was sleep. “Just do it.”

“No. You’re going to watch. You’re going to see this through.” James pulled him to his feet, marching him to the window, pressing his face against the glass. “Watch the whole world end because you couldn’t let go.”

Alexander gasped, struggling for breath. “You can stop this. We can. Together.”

James turned him around with a wordless yell. His eyes were wild, and in that moment Alexander saw a little boy that he had once known. “Together?” he roared, his balaclava falling away, revealing the scars, the bare cheekbone.

“It wasn’t…”

James pulled them face-to-face. “What?”

Alexander forced himself to look him in the eye. “It wasn’t for nothing—”

A high whine built from nothing, and in the last moment Alex saw a shadow fall over them, staring over James’s shoulder through the window. The shell detonated twenty feet from the building, and for a silent instant a concussive blast rushed out towards them, forging an empty bubble in the sheets of falling rain. Then the roar was upon them, and the window blew out, and they were both yelling, tumbling end over end.

Alexander’s ears sang. For what seemed an age he stared at the ceiling, breathing shallowly as the wailing ebbed, replaced by a thousand sources of tinkling glass, and the rumble of the unfettered storm. Then James’s face was hovering over him, and hands wrapped around his chest, lifting him up to a sitting position.

“No,” James hissed.

Alexander struggled for breath, sharp pain stabbing his lower back. It felt very warm down there, too warm.

James’s hand probed his back. Alexander cried out when the hand pulled away, holding a six-inch shard of bloodied glass.

Alexander tried to move, but the pain only intensified. He coughed, tracing his hand over the ground and catching on the ragged shards until he found James’s arm. “James,” he slurred. He receded back now, falling away from his body, retreating under the surface of some inky ocean. “James…”

“No.” James’s stretched, scarred face contorted. His voice grew strangled, watery. “No!”

Alexander pulled him close as he fell under the ocean’s surface and whispered, “It wasn’t for nothing.”

By the time they reached London, the rain had become a relentless cascade. Their horses were exhausted; and being driven straight back home had proved too much. Alex had tried cutting through the capital to get back faster, but once they had entered the paved streets proper, the horses had simply stopped in united rebellion.

They piled to the ground and stood looking around at the empty city, huddled together for warmth.

Alex’s mind turned dully about in circles, caught in an endless cycle.

I lost him. He’s gone. James is gone.

Those same thoughts, replaying over and over, a maddening mantra recited without end.

He knew he should have felt guilt, anger, loss. He should have felt a lot of things. But the truth was he felt nothing. He had done what he needed to do, and it would have worked—if James hadn’t done what he did. They had been so close.

He chose to stay.

In his mind’s eye he saw a little boy, no more than eight years old, sat upon his bed begging to be read a story. Alex had read
Alice in Wonderland
for the thousandth time, but only after changing the boy’s life forever.

They could have been great. Together, they could have saved it all. Now the dream lay smouldering at his feet.

He knew the mourning would come later, in the light of day when he was confronted with decades’ worth of collections back home, all gathered with James by his side.

Everything he had invested, every scrap of effort over the past twenty years, all gone to nothing. The fate of the mission hung in the balance. What were they working for now, if there was nobody left behind to take up the mantle?

Lucian and Oliver took an end of Norman’s stretcher each and brought him down to the ground. The boy had scarcely stirred since they left Newquay’s Moon. They removed the tarp that had been erected as a rain-shield, revealing his head turning from side to side, splashed with fat droplets of rain. The others gathered around in silence, weary and cold.