Resurrectionists (68 page)

“Stop!” he said. “Don’t say any more.”

Sacha impatiently pulled his hands down. “To be buried in Solgreve is to have your soul trapped in the earth forever,” he said. “That’s how you stay healthy even though you’re ninety-eight.”

“No. Doctor Flood has a special scientific way of –”

“Reverend, Doctor Flood is over five hundred years old. How do you think he’s doing that? Eating a lot of soy products?”

“Sacha, go easy,” Maisie said. “He’s an old man.”

“He’d be dead if he wasn’t feeding off the souls in the ground. He’s a fucking vampire.”

“Don’t, don’t,” the Reverend said putting up his hand. “Please, let me think.” He screwed his eyes closed, more to keep helpless tears from falling than from any need to concentrate.

Was this it? The Reverend was a practitioner of mysticism as much as any new-age guru or sage. He should recognise the end when it came. He was the last of his line, and that may have been for a reason. His father’s nightmare fairytale came back to him. It was true, of course it was true and he had always known it. He was ninety-eight. His entire life he had been denying this awful truth for fear it would send him mad. Well, what if he acknowledged it? And what if, instead of letting it send him mad, he fought against it?

She had soul magic, she had defeated the Wraiths. Maybe it was time to throw in his lot with the opposition, with this strange, black-eyed girl who could have been his granddaughter.

“Reverend?” Maisie said quietly. “Are you okay?”

“If you force me, I have no choice,” he said.

“We don’t want to force you,” Maisie said. “We don’t want to hurt you.”

“If you force me,” he said again, more

emphatically, “I have no choice.”

He opened his eyes. Again the two young people were exchanging uncertain glances. He watched as their realisation evolved.

“If we force you –” Sacha said.

“I have no choice,” the Reverend finished for him. Maisie nodded at Sacha. Sacha bent over and pulled the Reverend from his chair, twisted his arm –

very gently – behind his back. “Okay, where are the keys to the door in the abbey spire?”

“I’ll show you,” the Reverend replied. “Only don’t hurt me.”

Maisie dreaded leaving behind the warm comfort of the Reverend’s house to go out into the freezing weather once again. She was so tired, every joint in her body ached, and she wasn’t at all sure they were doing the right thing. They had to wait ten minutes while the Reverend got dressed – he was a most obliging hostage – and found his key.

“Can we trust him?” she asked Sacha in a hushed voice while the Reverend was pulling on his gumboots. Sacha shrugged. “He wants to help. Though I can’t believe that he didn’t know what Flood was doing.”

“Perhaps he never questioned it.”

“We don’t have a choice in any case.”

The Reverend shuffled back up the hall and

resumed his position in front of Sacha who, to complete the charade, held the Reverend’s arm behind his back. Sacha could barely walk and would be easy enough to escape, but the Reverend was determined he would only help them if it looked like he was being forced.

“I have an idea,” the Reverend said.

“What is it?”

“I’ll get him to go in his second chamber and you two can go and do whatever it is you have to do. He may never even know you’ve been.”

“How are we going to do that?” Maisie asked patiently.

“I’ll go on ahead, knock on his door, make up a story. You wait on the stairs. While he’s in the other chamber, you run down and . . .” He trailed off, frightened, “and do what you have to do.”

“All right, Reverend,” Sacha said, “but don’t think of messing us around, okay? You may be too old to be scared of dying, but we have a freshly-dug pit in Maisie’s back garden which would fit you nicely.”

The Reverend went pale. Maisie picked up the lantern and showed them to the door. “After you,”

she said.

The rush of the sea was almost deafening now, the wind thrusting their breath back down their throats as they stepped out into it, heads down, and made for the abbey. The Reverend looked left and right nervously. When he noticed Maisie’s lantern glowing dimly, he gasped.

“Is that . . .?”

“God, you didn’t even know the wall in his room is made of souls?” Maisie said.

The Reverend looked away, focused ahead of him, placing one foot deliberately in front of the other. It was clear that Sacha was in great pain but trying to hide it, limping badly. Great, she was about to confront a five-century-old evil force and she had a senile old man and a cripple for backup.

But she had the lantern. She had Georgette’s soul, and she could work the magic. If the Reverend could indeed get Flood out of the room, it would just make it that much easier. Destroy the wall, set the souls free, and Flood would die.

They approached the abbey in the dark. The

Reverend fitted the key in the lock and the door swung open, revealing the trapdoor. He pulled up the ring and beckoned to them. By now, he was visibly terrified. His body trembled and his voice was a nervous whisper. “You’ll have to be quiet and stay on the top half of the staircase. Otherwise he’ll sense you.”

Maisie grabbed him by the shoulders. “Reverend Fowler, you have to pull yourself together. He’ll be able to tell there’s something wrong otherwise.”

He nodded.

“Take some deep breaths,” she said, taking his hand. “You’re doing the right thing.”

“I’m frightened,” he said and his whisper was nearly carried away on the wind.

“I’m frightened too,” she said, “but there are souls here who have been trapped in the ground for centuries. We have to set them free. You’re nearly a hundred years old. This might be the most important thing you’ll ever do.”

He nodded, clung to her hand as they descended the stairs. About halfway down he dropped her hand and turned to them, motioned them to be quiet, and continued on his own. Maisie and Sacha stood on the step, waiting in the dark. If the worst happened, if the Reverend betrayed them, they were close enough to the exit to run for their lives.

She heard knocking, a door opening, a voice –

Flood’s – say, “Are you come to tell me she’s dead?”

Maisie’s skin crawled.

“Not yet. The Wraiths haven’t come for me yet.”

“Then what are you doing out of your home? I instructed you to –”

“Doctor. Tony Blake saw somebody break into the abbey spire.”

A pause. “What?”

“Somebody broke the lock and came down here.”

“How long ago?”

“Ten minutes. I came straight away. But there’s nobody in the tunnel.”

“And nobody has come to my door.”

“Perhaps it was the girl,” the Reverend said. Maisie could have cheered, hearing how convincing he sounded.

“Why would she be –?”

“Do you have any bodies next door? Any

extractions waiting to be performed?”

There was a flurry of motion. “Quick. If she’s in there we still have time to stop her.” A door opening. Maisie cautiously advanced a few steps. The entrance to Flood’s chamber stood open, the other door was just closing.

“Now,” she hissed in the dark. She and Sacha hurried up the tunnel and into Flood’s chamber, closing the door as quietly as possible behind them.

“God, it’s pitch dark,” Sacha said.

Maisie tried to use the lantern as a torch. She made her way past benches crammed with devices and receptacles and experiments – just a clutter of inexplicable dark shapes – to the wall of souls. Sacha stood by the door.

“Quick, Maisie, the Reverend won’t keep him forever.”

She raised her left hand and moved to touch the glass bricks. As though a powerful magnet was attracting it, her hand dropped to a brick in the centre of the wall. Her fingers stuck to it as though glued. She had a sudden and overwhelming sense of a feminine presence, old and wise, caring and immeasurably proud. It electrified her, filled her up, made her gasp.

“What?” Sacha asked. “What’s the matter?”

Tears burst from her eyes, her stomach clenched against the profound and devastating emotion. “It’s my grandmother.”

“There’s nobody here,” Flood was saying. Reverend Fowler pressed his back against the door.

“Perhaps she’s already gone.”

“I’d be able to sense if somebody had been here.”

Flood turned and peered at the Reverend. He had the advantage, he could see in the dark. In this room, there wasn’t even the benefit of the phosphorous wall –

(God help him, were they really souls?)
–to see by. Or perhaps it was better that way. Perhaps there were things in here he did not want to see.

“Well, maybe Tony was mistaken,” the Reverend offered.

Flood shook his head. “What is this about,

Reverend? Do you want to hide from the Wraiths, hide from your promise?”

“No, no. I just . . .”

Flood was walking towards him, making to leave the room. The Reverend stilled his quaking knees and stood firm, determined to give Maisie as much time as possible. If she could set the souls free, Flood would be incredibly weakened, perhaps even destroyed. Nothing to be afraid of then.

“Out of my way,” Flood said.

“I –”

“Linden, what is this all about?” And in that instant, he could feel his own mind give up its secret to Flood. In the next instant, he felt the blow to his head.

“You mean to see me destroyed?” This was Flood’s voice, coming from a long way off. The Reverend realised he was on the ground. Flood spoke again as he stepped over him. “You’re a fool, Reverend. She’s only a girl.”

“She’s only a girl,” the Reverend echoed. He saw Flood’s feet heading towards the first chamber before unconsciousness dragged him under.

Maisie pressed her fingers fervently against the smooth glass. “Sybill,” she whispered. “Sybill.”

The door burst open. Maisie’s head snapped up in shock as Dr Flood strode in.

“Maisie!” Sacha called. Already he was hobbling towards Flood, trying to block him. In the half-light, Maisie could make out the doctor’s impossibly wrinkled skin. He had all the appearance of extreme age but, uncannily, he moved like a young man. He stopped Sacha easily, knocked him aside with a sweep of his arm, then kicked him and brought him to the ground. Maisie cried out, but then remembered the task before her. She had to stay focused. She squared her shoulders and fixed her gaze on Flood.

“What do you hope to achieve?” he asked in a calm, regulated voice. “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

Did she? No, not really. She had never felt herself to be so young, so irrational and unprepared for anything. Horrible panic grabbed her in its prickly arms. But she had done it once this evening, why not again? There was nowhere to run in any case. Courage was forced upon her.

She brushed her fingers against the lantern then held up her hand. “Stop, don’t come any closer,” she said firmly.

Nothing happened.

“Oh, god.” Her bones turned to cold, cotton thread. He moved around a bench and approached her.

“Really, this is ridiculous,” he said. “I’m so much stronger than you.”

Her heart jumped around in her chest like a frantic bird. This couldn’t be happening. Once more she brushed her hand against the lantern, moved to hold it out. But this time, the wall’s strange magnetism yanked her fingertips towards the glass brick where Sybill’s soul glowed ghostly in the dark. A buzzing pressure built up under her skin, and suddenly, with a loud crack, the brick shattered in a blaze of blue light. Maisie thought she caught a brief glimpse of a human shape in the gloom, but then it was gone.

A sharp wince from Flood brought her attention back to him. He faltered a little, and his hand went to his chest. But then he straightened up and, with determination, kept coming towards her. A voice, like the echo of a memory, slid into her mind.

“
You have to free the other souls.”

“What . . .?”

“
I’m with you, Maisie. It’s Sybill, I’m with you.
Free the others. He can’t survive if we’re not trapped.”

Maisie didn’t stop to question. Her fingers went again to the lantern and then to the next brick in the wall. Again the pressure and the crack of electricity. Again, Flood seemed momentarily injured but kept coming forward.

“I can’t do it fast enough!” she cried.

“
I can help.”

A barely visible glimmer of blue light concentrated over Maisie’s free hand and then bounced back into the wall. Bricks began to shatter. Maisie desperately crushed her fingers into as many bricks as she could, turning them to dust. The room filled with jolting, cracking sounds. All around, pale glimpses of human figures rushed past her. For every one she destroyed, Sybill was destroying ten. Flood had stopped and doubled over by a bench.

The wall of souls was now spontaneously selfdestructing as the souls broke free, breaking other bricks on their way. Blue light flashed and sizzled around her, casting long gruesome shadows on the walls. The crackling was deafening – like standing next to fireworks as they went off. Maisie worked desperately. Her hands were cut and bleeding from flying glass. Flood had paused, jerked and spasmed as though he were being assaulted by an invisible assailant. Still Maisie pushed on, terror fuelling her. Seven more bricks to go, six, five…

Flood suddenly howled in pain and collapsed on the floor. In between the flashes of light and dark she watched as his hand clutched at the air, the movement strangely slow as though watching an actor perform in a strobe light. With a thrash and a rattle, the howl died upon his lips and his hand fell beside him, twitched once or twice and then grew still. In the dying light, she watched centuries advance upon Flood’s face in seconds. His cheeks fell in, his forehead crumbled, his mouth and eye sockets dropped to hollows. His body, too, collapsed. His skin turned to dry paper, his bones crumbled beneath its weight. His hands turned to claws and disintegrated into nothing. Soon, all that remained was a heap of grey dust, an empty red coat. The final few flickers of the wall died away and she and Sacha were once more left in darkness.

She rushed to his side. “Sacha?”

He groaned.