The Beauty of Destruction (44 page)

No!
Bladud thought.
That cannot
stand!
He had his suspicions as regards the Corpse People’s part in Nils’ murder – if Madawg had killed Nils it was unlikely he would have acted alone – but Guidgen couldn’t just do as he pleased. Bladud was furious. Steam was rising as the slush melted around him. He felt the heat of the
riasterthae
frenzy that gripped him.

‘Form here!’ Tangwen screamed, and her charioteer slewed the chariot to a halt some hundred paces in front of Crom Dhubh as he advanced towards them. Britha rode between them and the Dark Man, arrows flying past her as Tangwen loosed again and again at the obsidian-skinned figure. The other remaining chariots were pulling up next to Tangwen, the archers also loosing at Crom Dhubh. The chariots were ready just behind the archers to carry them away when the Dark Man got too close. The warriors were grabbing their longspears, running to face the giant stalking across the ice towards them. There were only four warriors, four archers.

Britha turned to look ahead. Calgacus had stumbled to his feet first. Britha knew he needed to move, but the Cait
mormaer
looked dazed. She was aware of the light beneath the ice brightening. Calgacus had managed to draw his sword. He was looking around for Bress. The chariot was bearing down on the warrior from the Otherworld, spiked wheels and studded hooves kicking up chips of ice.

‘Redden the ice!’ Britha screamed. ‘Run him down!’ She noticed that Bress was carrying the case that contained Fachtna’s terrible spear. At the last moment Bress rolled to one side and swung his sword up through the first horse on one side of the team, then the next. He cut through the frame of the cart, cut through the charioteer at his midriff. Britha had thrown herself back the moment she had seen him move. The blade of her spearhead cut through the leather she had tied herself to the frame of the chariot with. His blade flashed over her, narrowly missing. Then she hit the bloody ice and slid along after the mangled remains of the chariot and horse team.

Bress didn’t know if he was trying to kill her or not any more. Tears stung his eyes as he straightened up. The warrior who had thrown himself at him looked like he had recovered enough to attack. He swung at Bress. It was a good swing, if Bress had been a normal human of this realm. Bress just leant back out of the way of the blade. His own sword cut the man’s shield in two, and took his arm off at the elbow. Bress stepped back and let his opponent think about the situation for a moment. The man stared at the bleeding stump of his shield arm as though he didn’t really believe what was happening. Then he swung again. Bress parried as he glanced back at Britha. He had learned not to let his lover get behind him when she was angry. She was still lying on the bloody ice. Beyond her was the wreckage of the chariot and team. Bress turned back to the man he was fighting. He swung low, cutting through both the man’s legs at the knee. The man’s body fell to the ice. Beyond his opponent he could see Crom Dhubh. His master had arrows sticking out all over him. Even from where Bress was standing he could see the living, iron roots moving in the Dark Man’s flesh like a second, living skin of red metal. Bress turned back to his opponent, who was flopping around on the bloody ice waving his sword at him. Bress studied the man, trying to work out why he was still attempting to fight. Did the man feel hate as he did, or was he motivated by something else? He stepped to one side, sword at the ready as his erstwhile love walked past the wounded warrior on the ice. She rammed the head of her spear through his opponent’s chest and twisted. The man lay still on the ice in a widening pool of red. Britha turned to face him.

‘Assassins?’ she demanded, her face a storm.

‘I told you to get rid of the child.’ He would not look her in the eyes. ‘I could not do it myself.’

‘Coward!’ she spat.

‘It would seem so,’ he said, nodding. Then he looked up at her. ‘But you cannot beat me. It’s over.’ Beyond her, Crom Dhubh was stumbling as arrow after arrow thudded into him. The archers stepped back onto the chariots, and the chariots moved further away from Crom Dhubh. The archers were still loosing. Bress frowned. Had his master badly misjudged these people again?

Bress watched as the giant swept a warrior aside, then picked up another and squeezed; a third it stamped on. The fourth tried to run but didn’t get very far. Bress turned back to Britha. She was looking at the bright light shining through the ice.

‘What’s happening?’ she demanded.

Bress risked another quick look towards Crom Dhubh. The giant was making its way towards the archers and the chariots. The Dark Man suddenly faltered, and knelt down on the ice. Bress frowned.

‘Give me the rod!’ Britha screamed at him. He looked back to her.

‘I do not have it,’ he said, and glanced at the light underneath the ice. Britha followed his gaze. Then she saw Crom Dhubh on his knees. She dropped her spear on the ice, and walked quickly to Bress.

‘You promised. You can be free. Please.’ She was begging now. He shook his head. Crom Dhubh’s will was too great. The giant would reach the archers and kill them before they could ever do lasting harm to the Dark Man.

‘I cannot,’ he said. Then he looked down at her, at her stomach. He put his hand on her belly and swallowed, only faintly aware of the tears running down his face. ‘What this starts … you have to kill it … promise me and I …’ Bress looked over at Crom Dhubh on his knees again. He liked that. He turned back to Britha. ‘Swear to me you’ll kill it?’ She stared back at him. ‘Swear it.’

‘Yes,’ she said. He wasn’t sure of the truth of it.

‘Make me believe it, or I’ll kill you both now!’ Bress shouted, shaking her. The archers were on the chariots again, loosing arrows up at the giant as it bore down on them, the chariots trying to get up to speed.

‘Yes! Yes! I’ll kill it! I’ll kill your seed for my daughter! A child by a better man than you!’ she screamed. Bress read the hate in her face. He could feel it as pain. He felt his own face hardening. He nodded, blinking away tears.

‘You need to get very far away from me,’ he said. Britha was backing away from him. ‘Very far. The light will take you where you want to go.’ He reached behind him for the case containing Fachtna’s spear: the Spear of the Sun. The spear that Crom had wanted him to carry back to its home, the Ubh Blaosc, and use against them. He was a slave. He had always been a slave. He could not break Crom Dhubh’s control over him. The Dark Man had provided him with the magics that helped control the spear, which protected him from the insane mind inside the weapon. He couldn’t fight Crom Dhubh, but if the spear possessed him, if he voluntarily dropped his defences …

‘Run!’ he screamed at her. He opened the case and took out the hungry burning spear, and surrendered to it.

The last giant fell. The remaining Lochlannach were being hunted down and killed. There could be no mercy. Steam rose from the snow and slurry with every footfall as Bladud made his way towards Guidgen. He could see others now. Gwynn, the remaining Corpse People warrior, looked as though he was glowing from within as well.

The heat was agony now. He was burning from the inside as he managed to put one step in front of the other. The old
dryw
saw him coming. Bladud pointed at him with his sword.

‘You!’ he cried. He tried to swing his sword at the
dryw
. Guidgen stepped back. Bladud’s sword, re-forged in the chalice, turned to dust, red dust. The Witch King stumbled and fell to his knees. Guidgen looked down at him sympathetically. Nearby Gwynn screamed as he burst into flames. Bladud was shaking his head. ‘This is neither right nor fair.’

Guidgen swallowed hard. ‘You wanted too much.’

Bladud looked down. The pain made him want to scream but he didn’t.

‘After all I have done,’ he said. ‘I did not deserve this.’

‘No,’ Guidgen admitted. ‘No, you did not.’ He knelt down in front of the Witch King. ‘They are already singing of you in Annwn.’ As the last of the Lochlannach died Bladud’s warband’s weapons turned to red dust. The Witch King could see beyond Guidgen to where Germelqart sat on still pristine, white snow, protected by the
gwyllion
warriors. More warriors burst into flames, those who had drunk from the chalice. They deserved better than this, as did their terrified friends and allies. Some tried to help, some ran in terror, others just watched, numb after everything they had seen and done today. Bladud looked up at Guidgen.

‘So you and your little circle control the Red Chalice and all its magics?’ he managed. Guidgen nodded. ‘What makes you think you’ll be any better than me?’ He saw the doubt on Guidgen’s face. Bladud burst into flames, but the Witch King did not scream.

Britha watched as Bress lit up from within, skin smoking, veins and eyes burning, the ice already starting to melt under him. The spear wreathed in flame. She was running now.

‘Tangwen!’ she screamed. The giant leant down and with one hand swept another of the chariots away, sending it spinning through the air to slam into the cavern wall. ‘Tangwen!’ She was trying to wave at the younger woman as she ran.

Bress threw the spear. It screamed in flight, seeming to suck all the air towards it. Britha couldn’t have been heard over the spear, but for some reason Tangwen turned to look at her. The chariot changed direction. The spear flew through the giant leaving a burning hole, growing larger as its gnarled flesh melted in the weapon’s wake. The giant was still, then it tottered, then it fell. The ice around the massive creature cracked, but it did not fall through.

Tangwen reached for Britha as the chariot thundered by. Britha grabbed the hunter’s arm, the speed of the chariot trying to wrench her own arm off, and swung up into the cart. She knelt down on the boards of the chariot, clinging onto the frame for dear life.

The spear hit the roof of the cavern. Jagged, tooth-like rocks dropped through the ice and into the lake below. Cracks ran from the burning stone the spear had left behind it.

She watched as what had been Bress – for he was little more than a vessel for the demon, or the god, that lived in the burning spear now – turned to look at Crom Dhubh. The Dark Man had staggered to his feet and was slowly, painfully, pulling arrows with wriggling heads from his desiccated flesh. Bress started walking towards the obsidian figure. Tangwen’s chariot rounded the island and they were lost from view.

The light at the other end of the island, under the ice, changed from warm amber to a cold, burning, bright blue. It refracted off the ice and now the whole cavern was that colour.

‘Head towards that!’ Britha shouted at the blonde, scarred charioteer. The woman glanced behind her at the
ban draoi
, but changed course. On the other side of the island there was another, really bright light. Ice and water were thrown up into the air. Some powerful, unseen force hit the chariot, causing it to skid in a spray of ice chips, but the spiked wheels found purchase again. They were nearly at the light. Britha had no idea what to do when they got there. Then the ice disappeared in a perfect circle above the stones. The circle was edged in bright blue fire. There was no water in the circle. The blonde charioteer was dragging on the reins trying to stop the team, but they were going too fast.

On the other side of the island something burst through the ice. Britha only caught a glimpse of it; she assumed she couldn’t actually be seeing what she thought she was seeing. It looked like some kind of structure, like the one she had seen the edge of in the water, next to the standing stones, when she had first gone to Oeth.

The spear exploded back through the roof of the cavern, heading straight for the flying structure. Cracks shot out across the ice. Cracks appeared climbing up the rock wall of the cavern. The ice under their chariot collapsed. Cold lake water surged over the circle of blue fire, and they found themselves sliding down the ice as panicked horses desperately tried to backtrack. In the centre of the circle of blue fire they could see Lochlannach surrounding one figure. Everything seemed to slow down. The figure turned to look at her as the chariot and team slid down the ice. Skin covered its eyes, nostrils, mouth and ears, yet it looked familiar somehow. A vertical reptilian eye opened in its forehead. The chariot slid into the circle of blue fire from above.

The spear had left. It was no longer present in this place. At the last moment it had veered away from Crom Dhubh’s vessel. The blue glow died. As water shifted violently beneath it, more cracks appeared in the frozen surface of the lake. Cracks ran up the cavern wall. More stalactites fell through the ice. Bress’s head was white agony. His body felt like it was on fire. White light shot out from Crom Dhubh’s vessel, its proximity setting Bress’s skin on fire. The light turned stone to slag, burning and cutting through rock.

He had expected his master to kill him. He had outbid the Dark Man’s control with the ancient power of long-forgotten gods, but Crom Dhubh had something else in mind. His erstwhile master’s vessel moved into the hole it had carved, causing yet more damage to the structural integrity of the cavern.

Bress managed to roll onto his back just in time to see the roof collapse.

32

Now

Everything smelled of fuel or burning, everything sounded like gunfire. There were flames under all the letters on the Hollywood sign. This time when they came back into Laurel Canyon they came quietly. The streets of the canyon were empty except for dogs. Not the wild packs of street dogs in the city below, these looked more like spoilt pets who had no idea what to do now. They kept trying to make friends with Grace and du Bois as they walked ahead of the
ECV
. They were travelling slowly, the lights off. Beth was in the turret watching the two ex-Circle operatives. She was pretty sure that Grace wasn’t a dog person. Du Bois, on the other hand, was struggling to shoo them away. She smiled. The smile disappeared when she remembered that while he might like dogs, he had no compunction about killing people.

Suddenly the dogs scattered. Du Bois held up his hand. Alexia brought the
ECV
to a halt. Du Bois and Grace crouched down, carbines at the ready. The dogs had been spooked by the presence of a bigger predator. The tiger stalked out of the undergrowth at the bottom of the built-up canyon wall. Its eyes glowed with reflected moonlight. It must have escaped, or been released, from a zoo or private menagerie. Du Bois and Grace brought their carbines up to bear on the beautiful animal.

‘No,’ Beth said simply from the turret. The big cat turned to look in their direction.

‘You’re not out here with it,’ Grace said quietly through gritted teeth. The tiger let out a low throaty growl. Beth found herself wishing she had a camera. This beautiful predator out of place in the suburbs of a city she knew only from film. The tiger looked away from du Bois, Grace, the vehicle, and stalked into the undergrowth on the other side of the road. Grace kept the area covered as they moved slowly by.

Behind them were the lights of the LA basin and the distant flames burning in and around what had been LAX. It looked like the sea was on fire. Up here it should have been peaceful, but she could still hear the heavy beat of the rap and heavy metal played aggressively loudly from La Calavera’s castle further up the canyon.

They had picked the house because the driveway was big enough to park the
ECV
around the back, out of view of the road. It was on one of the streets that branched off from Laurel Canyon Boulevard, high on the canyon wall, and it provided them a distant view of La Calavera’s castle. Beth had come to welcome the sound of the music now. It was preferable to the occasional screams they heard. The castle was lit up.
SUV
s and pickups, sporting armour and weapons, done up as technicals, or improvised fighting vehicles, were patrolling the neighbourhood, accompanied by motorcycle outriders.

Beth was watching this from the steep driveway while Grace broke in, quietly, through a side door, du Bois covering her. Alexia was leaning against the wall. Grace pushed open the door, drew one of her knives, and clutched the blade. The cut across her palm didn’t bleed. She sheathed the fighting knife and concentrated.

‘There’s people in there,’ she finally said.

‘Find another house?’ Alexia whispered.

‘They already know we’re here,’ du Bois said, nodding at the dark shape of the
ECV
. He had wanted to recce the area on foot first but the
ECV
had been too exposed. Beth heard the sound of metal on metal. She glanced back and saw Grace and du Bois changing magazines on their carbines, and then screwing suppressors onto the barrels. It seemed they had chosen expedience.

‘Perhaps another way?’ Alexia suggested. She pushed past them both without a weapon drawn. Beth was already walking back up the hill. Du Bois went to follow his sister, but Beth’s hand on his shoulder stopped him.

‘Keep watch,’ she told him. He looked like he was about to argue but thought the better of it.

‘At least five people in the left-hand side back bedroom upstairs,’ Grace told her. Beth nodded and followed Alexia. She slung the
LMG
down her front but drew her Colt
OHWS
, screwed the suppressor into the barrel, and changed the magazine for her only clip of subsonic ammo. She moved quickly, catching up with Alexia.

‘I am so sick of this soldier girl bullshit,’ the statuesque woman muttered. Beth suppressed a smile, but gestured towards the room that Grace had indicated. She tried to cover Alexia without making it too obvious she was covering her. If everything hadn’t been so incredibly horrible she had to admit that she would have been enjoying all the soldier stuff. Alexia at least had the sense to stand to one side of the door when she tapped on it.

‘Hello? If you’re psychos there will probably be a horrible fight, but if not can we come in?’

On a whim Beth pushed open the door to the nearest room to her. There was a body in it. A teenaged boy. Blunt force trauma. It looked like someone had caved his head in with his own computer. The bloodstained tower was lying next to him.

‘Alexia,’ she whispered. Alexia turned to look at her, and Beth just pushed the door open further. Suddenly Beth wished she had cleared the house, instead of just relying on Grace’s blood-screen, but Alexia had been moving too quickly. Strange new military instincts were screaming at her that she was doing this wrong. She could hear movement in the room that Alexia had just knocked on. Beth signalled that she was going to check the other rooms. Alexia nodded and drew both her katana-like long knifes. Her sidearm didn’t have a suppressor. Beth went from bedroom to bedroom, quickly checking. She saw signs of habitation. In what she assumed was the master bedroom, she found bloodstains and signs of a struggle, but nobody else. She went back out into the hall and covered Alexia.

‘Okay, I’m going to open the door now,’ Alexia said. ‘Broadly speaking I’m a nice lady, so please don’t shoot me.’ She turned the handle on the door and pushed. It opened a little way and then stuck. Beth heard a sob from inside. If they were infected with the insanity then they were really milking the tension. Alexia finally managed to push the door open. There were six of them: an old woman, two younger women, a man, a boy and a girl. They looked terrified. They obviously hadn’t answered phones, watched TV, or been online. The old woman was pointing an archaic-looking shotgun at them.

‘We’re not mad,’ Alexia told them. ‘We’re not here to hurt you, and while we’re here nobody else will hurt you either.’

The woman who owned the house was called Eileen; the old lady with a shotgun, Dora, was her mother-in-law. Eileen had no idea where her husband or her other son were. All things considered she was holding it together pretty well. She had killed her youngest son when he had attacked her daughter, the little girl.

The man was called Ralph, and he was frantic about his partner who was a big-time Century City lawyer. The other woman was named Celia, and she was a neighbour. The boy hadn’t spoken. They had no idea who he was, or where he was from, but he clearly wasn’t insane so they had taken him in. They had pretty much been living in the back bedroom, staying away from the road to avoid the patrols from the castle. They were, of course, terrified of the heavily armed intruders in their home/hiding place.

Du Bois had joined them. Grace had remained on watch outside. It was clear from her body language that she didn’t want to be anywhere near du Bois, which was understandable. It was also clear that her presence made du Bois very uncomfortable. False memory or not, Beth had less sympathy for him.

‘After …’ Eileen stopped and looked towards the bedroom with the dead boy in it.

‘It wasn’t him,’ Alexia told her.

The woman looked away. She had the look of a modern hippy. Someone who made her living doing something creative, Beth guessed. It made sense. Her understanding was that Laurel Canyon had been that kind of place.

‘Well, everything just went mad, people we’d known …’

‘You’ll find another body downstairs,’ Dora, the old lady, said grimly.

‘I hadn’t wanted the gun in the house, Pete and I had a blazing row about it, but thank god,’ Eileen continued, fighting tears. ‘Mr Macintyre, we’ve known him since we moved here.’

‘Lived on a farm,’ Dora said matter-of-factly.

‘We hid in the loft,’ Eileen told the three of them.

‘When did the people at the castle arrive?’ du Bois asked softly.

Eileen shook her head, and looked down at her hands folded in her lap. ‘I don’t know. It felt like days after. It could have been hours. We stayed in the loft.’ The tears came now. ‘The things we heard.’

‘I saw them,’ Celia said. She was a middle-aged woman with laughter lines around her eyes. She looked like she smiled a lot. Beth suspected there was little cause for that now. ‘They shot everyone who gave them trouble, took the rest with them. I’m not sure what for but we hear cheering and …’ She finished with a sob.

‘They patrol the neighbourhood, looking for other people,’ Ralph said. ‘Are you people British military? Special forces or something? Is this only happening here?’

‘We’re a private concern,’ du Bois told them.

‘Mercenaries?’ Dora asked. The tone of disapproval somehow made Beth like the old woman more. Du Bois opened his mouth to answer the question.

‘This is happening everywhere,’ Beth told them. ‘I think you need to prepare yourself for the worst.’

‘Your best bet is the desert, or the mountains, get as far away from everyone else as you can,’ du Bois told them.

‘Can you help us?’ Ralph asked. The desperation in his voice was difficult to hear. She wondered if she would have been this helpless without all the augmentation. Not quite, she reckoned, but it wouldn’t have been far off.

‘I’m sorry.’ Du Bois stood up and left the back bedroom.

Beth found him later in the garden. He had taken Eileen’s son from his bedroom, and the body of the neighbour from the kitchen, and was digging graves for them.

‘What we’re doing now …’ Beth wasn’t quite sure how to say what she was trying to say. ‘We only have revenge or running away left, right?’ Du Bois didn’t answer her. ‘Would it be so bad to help them, others like them, maybe find a place we could all stay? Rather than just killing all the people we’re pissed off with?’

Du Bois threw down the spade and turned on her. ‘What’s the point?’ he demanded.

‘Keep your voice down,’ Beth hissed.

‘It only gets worse from here on, until there’s nothing left. We’re not even insects to these things. We’re bits of dust.’

‘So we keep killing, following your vision, sent by those insane things?’ Beth asked. She wasn’t sure who she was angry with.

‘You want to stay and help these people, stay and help these people,’ du Bois said. ‘Be a good person.’ He stormed past her and stopped suddenly. Beth turned to see Grace standing by the corner of the house; du Bois was staring at her, and then he continued on his way down the steep drive. Grace lit a cigarette.

‘Revenge seems like a pretty good motivation to me,’ the punk girl said. Beth leaned her
LMG
against the
ECV
, and picked up the spade.

‘Do you want to help?’ Beth asked.

‘Can’t, I’m on guard.’ Beth got the feeling that she probably wouldn’t have helped even if she hadn’t been on guard. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that on edge.’

‘It’s a pretty extreme situation,’ Beth said. The blade of the shovel bit into the earth as she started to dig. Above her she could hear faint piano music. Her neuralware told her it was Debussy. Her newfound military instincts wanted to go and tell whoever was playing to shut up, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Beth had finally managed to divest herself of all her weaponry, webbing and ammunition, though she was still carrying her pistol. She felt so much lighter. She’d even had a shower. Self-cleaning skin or not, she felt much better afterwards.

Alexia was sitting in the dark in the master bedroom playing an electric keyboard. The volume was turned down quite low. There were towels over the bloodstains. Beth leant on the doorframe and listened.

‘Did we even ask them if we could stay?’ Beth asked when Alexia had finished. She was aware of the other people in the house moving around quietly. Doors had been left open so they could hear Alexia play.

‘Yes,’ Alexia said. ‘Of all the things I’m going to miss, dirty martinis, having my hair and nails done, breakfast at the Waldorf, music is the only thing I can’t live without. I said that and Andrea, the little girl, went and got me the keyboard. This brave new world will be the poorer without music.’

In the distance they could hear the thump of the bass-heavy music from the castle.

‘That first piece you played?’ Beth asked.

‘“Clair de lune”, but then you’ll know that. I think it’s my brother’s favourite.’

‘You think?’

‘Well, he’s not exactly forthcoming, is he? You know, although I am a much better poly-musician, singer, lyricist and composer, and despite having devoted my life to music … well, a little bit to hedonism and decadence … well, okay, perhaps equal measures … he’s actually a better pianist than I am. I know! Heartbreaking, isn’t it? Where is he anyway?’

‘I think I upset him.’

Alexia brought her knees up to her chest, hugging her legs. ‘You wouldn’t have upset him, darling. This has upset him. He doesn’t know what to do.’

Beth stared at her. ‘He doesn’t know … ?’

‘He likes taking orders. We all do. It’s hard thinking for yourself. I think he would just shut down except …’

‘Except?’ Beth prompted.

‘I think you might struggle to believe this from your perspective, but he is driven to do the right thing.’

Beth felt her face harden. ‘Yes, you’re right, that is difficult for me to believe.’

Alexia looked up her. ‘He killed your father for what he thought was the right reason. Now he knows it’s wrong. If he’s off sulking then he’s probably gone looking for a church to ask forgiveness of a god he, probably more than most on this planet, knows doesn’t exist. Perhaps he’s even self-flagellating again.’