The mayan prophecy (Timeriders # 8) (30 page)

The wooden door crashed inwards into the temple hall, shards and splinters of wood skittering across the stone slab floor. A cloud of dust, rubble and grit filling the doorway.

A large shape pushed through the cloud. It was no more than an indistinct mass that seemed to glide in through the opening. Its animal-like roar filled the temple chamber. Pat-ishka turned and cried out in horror, his weak, reedy voice lost beneath the chorus of screams and wailing behind him.

But, trembling and frail and now fallen down on to his hands and knees, he had courage enough to crawl towards the swaying, roaring entity standing just inside the shattered doorway.

Half a dozen yards short of it he stopped, lifted himself up on to thin wobbling legs and spread his arms wide. He called out something – a challenge, a command, a plea? But it was drowned by the din of the beast’s trumpeting cry. Something invisible and large swiped through the air, the only indication of mass in motion was the blur and ripple of heat. The elder seemed to explode. More precisely, his body appeared to suddenly separate of its own accord into four large pieces – legs, abdomen and pelvis, upper torso and head – each portion spinning, flailing along a bloody arc of their own direction.

‘Oh, God Almighty, have mercy!’ cried out Bertie.

Maddy pushed Adam’s obstructing arm aside. ‘It
knows
me! It’ll listen to me!’

‘No!’ said Adam. ‘Not you!’ His lips trembled uncertainly. ‘I’ll talk to it. Let me –’

‘No.’ Maddy shook her head. ‘She won’t listen to you. It’s got to be me!’ She pushed past him and stepped forward, not entirely certain that this thing was quite the same entity or in the same frame of mind as it had been back in chaos space. Back there in the mist, it seemed to be able to reason, to think … and certainly able to communicate. But this terrifying apparition appeared to be nothing but energy and blind rage.

The entity surged forward into the temple room, now wholly invisible again and only detectable as a gliding cloud of shimmering super-heated air. She could feel the burning heat of its energy on her cheeks as she approached it; like the open coals of a furnace roused by a blacksmith’s bellows, glowing fiercely and crackling as it fed on the fresh blast of oxygen.

Another roar from the beast. A chorus cry of tormented human voices filled the room. It seemed to her more a collective cry of anguish than an animal’s territorial challenge.

Maddy waved her arms above her head. ‘Look at me! Over here! It’s me! Maddy!’

The entity’s roar faded away and for a moment the energy phased and it became visible. It had changed form yet again. No longer a giant boar-like head with a snout, but now necks protruded, long, swan-like necks that emerged from the central mass, different human heads on each. Heads that constantly morphed from one face to another.

‘It’s Maddy … you saw me in chaos space!’

A head turned down to look at her, then the neck swung down. The head staring at her from its tip was human but not
of human proportions, three times larger than her own. She thought she recognized one face that came and went in the blink of an eye – wasn’t that the secret agent guy who’d found their archway? The one who’d been carefully looking after that fossilized piece of clay containing Liam’s carved message? What was his name? She remembered.

Cartwright
.

My God, was that deliberate?
Was this beast signalling that it knew her? Deliberately presenting a face she might recognize?

‘Yes! You
know
me!’ Maddy called out again. ‘YOU KNOW ME!’

The room had become quiet. The entity was no longer roaring. The men, women and children behind Maddy had quietened down. She could hear the whimper of one or two children, but the rest of the people seemed to be collectively holding their breaths.

More faces played across the giant head hovering in front of her, but no more that she recognized. Perhaps, as she’d imagined back in chaos space, they were the faces of other people who had become trapped in the mist. Lost souls. Ghosts.

Then – so sudden and unexpected it made her take an involuntary step backwards – Sal’s face appeared. Her eyes narrowed, her head cocked slightly, just as Sal’s used to do when something was puzzling her.

‘My God! S-Sal!?’ She gasped. ‘Is – is that you?’

The entity, or at least this portion of it, seemed to stir with the faintest indication of recognition. ‘… 
Maddy
 … 
?
’ The voice was many voices, old and young, male and female. But in there, somewhere, among the chorus, was Sal’s voice.

‘Yes! It’s me! It’s Maddy!’ She wanted to reach out … she wanted to touch her friend. But the searing heat, even from feet away, was too intense. She could feel her skin prickling, the first
sting of burning. She had to step back a little. ‘Oh my God, Sal … what’s happened to you?!’

Again, her friend’s eyes narrowed. She looked as if she was fumbling to retrieve distant memories. ‘… 
so long ago
 … 
we were friends, so long ago
 …’

‘No! We’re still friends. You and me and Liam. The three of us. We always will be friends. Sal, we were so worried. You went missing. We tried to find you –’

‘… 
you abandoned me
 …’

‘No!’ Maddy shook her head. ‘That’s not true. I came into the mist looking for you, hon. We –’

‘… 
waited … and waited … hundreds … thousands of years … you never came
 …’

‘Why, Sal? Why did you do it? Why did you step in?’

Her face became vague again. And so old. An ancient soul trawling a mind long ago wiped clean of childhood memories.

‘
… I … I … don’t remember …
’

Then her eyes suddenly widened. Some of her ancient past was coming back. ‘
… I remember …
’

Maddy nodded encouragement. ‘Remember what?’

The entity phased and became invisible for a moment. Maddy could still see the shimmering air, and knew the head on the long neck was just there, still hovering a few feet away from her.

‘Sal? You there? Remember what?’

Her face reappeared. ‘… 
you wanted to kill her, destroy her
 …’

‘Kill her? Destroy
who
?’

‘
… Saleena …
’

‘What? I don’t understand. That doesn’t make any –’

‘
You wanted to change history … make her life never happen
 …’

Then it came to her. She understood. Sal had been convinced her memories were those of a real girl. Maddy remembered her telling her how she’d actually seen her ‘real self’ in New York.
Seen her with her father, young and happy even in a world full of portents of a dark and difficult soon-to-be future; there she’d been, wearing an impenetrable cloak of contentment. Happy seeing the sights alongside her father. Happy simply being in the company of her beloved father.

‘We just want to know whether this is the
right
history, Sal! Can you remember? We all talked about it? That it
could
be wrong. It
could
be we weren’t meant to wipe ourselves ou–’

‘… 
you envied me … I was once real
 …’ Sal’s eyes narrowed again. Her face contorted, her jaw distended, grew longer. It became underslung and pointed like the jaw of a Punch and Judy hand-puppet. Cruel and clown-like.

‘… 
you were just patchwork lives … but I was real … once …
’

‘Sal, this isn’t how you are! Not before you stepped in. You weren’t thinking things like that! You weren’t –’

The neck curled backwards like a rattlesnake recoiling, preparing to strike. ‘… 
YOU DON’T KNOW! … you NEVER cared! … you NEVER asked! …
’

‘I did – I
do
care! We’re friends! We’re like sisters, for God’s sake! I loved you!’

‘… 
you had love, didn’t you? …
’ Sal’s eyes receded into her head, deepened until they were shadowed by her brow, lost dark pits on an ashen face. ‘… 
not me … never me
 …’

Maddy glanced over her shoulder.
Adam? She’s talking about me and Adam?

‘… 
Liam had adventure … and you found love … but me? I was spare … I had nothing … I WAS nothing …
’

‘We had each other, Sal! God, we still do! We can still get you –’

Sal’s mouth stretched long and wide, a smile like a gashed face, lips pulling back revealing gums, tendons, glistening bared
muscle and sinew, skin peeling back beyond any possibility of returning her face to normal.

‘… 
all I had was her … Saleena. She was MY love
 …’

The face was morphing beyond recognition. All that remained of what Maddy could recognize as Sal was a flap of grey membranous tissue that hung from above her forehead. It had been black and silky like her hair had been, but now the texture had changed to a sickening putrid flesh, like the jellied skin of an eel – a half-hearted attempt at replicating how her dark hair used to flop over one eye, hiding all but a mischievous glint.

‘Sal?’

The long neck, bulging laces of tendon beneath a translucent skin, recoiled once more and the mockery of Sal’s face lifted up and hovered above, looking down on Maddy. ‘… 
you were going to take Saleena from me
 …’

‘No! Sal! That’s not how it is! I’m not lying!’

The neck swung down low again, Sal’s face looking more like a skull than anything else now: the skull of Mr Punch, Punchinello. The trickster. It hovered just a foot from Maddy, searing heat emanating from the glistening grey image of bone and rotten eel flesh.

‘… 
then let me open you and see what’s inside your head
 …’

Maddy felt a hand roughly grasp her shoulder and yank her back. She staggered backwards, lost her balance and fell to the floor. She looked up and saw that Adam was standing where she’d been.

‘Adam! No!’

He shouted over his shoulder. ‘GET HER BACK!’

Rashim and Bertie pulled her to her feet. ‘Adam! What’re you doing?!’

Adam turned to her quickly. ‘Maddy … I get it! I know what happens! I’m dead already!’

‘Adam! Get back from –’

‘GO!’ He looked at Rashim. ‘GET HER OUT OF HERE!’ He turned to face the entity. ‘Sal!’ he barked, his voice warbling with fear. ‘I’m something you’ll never have!’

The skeletal head that had been looking at Maddy, cocked and curious, now swung its attention to him.

‘Love!’ he cried. ‘Somebody to love you!’

‘Adam!’ Maddy screamed at him. She struggled to free herself of Rashim’s and Bertie’s grasping hands. ‘God! She’ll kill you!’

He side-stepped across the room, away from Maddy and the others, drawing the attention of the seeker with him. ‘It’s me! This is all down to
me
! She loves me … she doesn’t care about you any more! She doesn’t give a damn about keeping your
stupid future any more! Because she’s got better things to do. She’s in love. I changed her, Sal! You want to know who to blame? It’s me! Me! ME!’

The creature roared: a chorus of voices high and shrill and feminine, all of them sounding achingly pitiful. Grief multiplied out over millennia. Sorrow, brittle and fragile, shattered mercilessly over a hard uncompromising knee. A keening moan that filled the room. Its energy surged and crackled, heating the room almost as if the gates to Hell itself had been flung wide open. The broiling heat threatened to render every last person in the temple a blackened, carbonized mannequin.

It surged forward after Adam, now invisible again except for a heat haze that glided towards him and away from the ruins of the doorway.

Rashim and Bertie dragged Maddy to the exit. She kicked, squirmed and screamed, desperately trying to free herself, to give it one last go – to call out after Sal – to try one more time to talk her – or what was left of her – out of doing this …

Adam was still shouting something at it, his voice lost beneath the wail of beast. Backing into the far corner of the room, the people behind him were immobilized with fear, too frightened to move and make a break for the door in case they attracted the attention of the creature.

‘Adam!’ Maddy screamed out for him. ‘Get out of there! GET OUT OF THERE!’

They were scrambling through the doorway, stepping over shards of jagged wood, and stumbling out into the narrow alley – when Maddy caught her very last glimpse of him.

Alive. Still.

But certainly not for very much longer.

Her last sight of him was through the oily ripple of the intense heat haze. She could just make out his pale face, blotched pink by the intolerable heat, his untidy greasy rope-like dreadlocks, his scruffy tie-dyed shorts and shirt, arms frantically waving at Rashim and Bertie to get her away.

And then he was gone as they pulled her with them, down the now-deserted street. It was dark. Night had fallen quickly and the stars were patiently waiting for the moon to wake up. She was vaguely aware of the smells around her, the perfume of night-blooming flowers, the tang of wood smoke, the odour of seared human flesh.

The stepped flagstones beneath their feet were littered with shattered blocks and rubble knocked from the buildings either side and dozens of dark steaming humps – the charred husks of what were once people.

Liam decided they’d waited around here at the mouth of the tunnel long enough. ‘Stuff this, I’m going back there to look for them.’

Bob reached out quickly and grasped his wrist in one giant fist. ‘I advise against that decision, Liam,’ he said. ‘If they are still alive, they will know to meet us here.’

‘Dammit! Let me go!’

‘Negative. It is too dangerous.’

Becks nodded in agreement. ‘Bob is correct. You are making a flawed and foolish tactical judgement, Liam.’

‘I may be a fool, but I’m still the bloody operative! I’m the one in charge, last time I checked. So let me go!’

‘As you wish.’ Bob released his hold and Liam staggered forward. ‘If that is your
command
.’

He rubbed his wrist. ‘And the both of you are coming with me, so you are –
now
!’

The support units briefly looked at each other. Becks replied, ‘It is better to be as far away as possible from any source of energy. We should allow this entity to simply deplete itself.’

‘You understand, Liam,’ added Bob, ‘we will not be able to protect you from this seeker? It is pure energy.’

‘Aye, well … we’ll worry all about that if we bump into the bloody thing. Now come on!’

The three of them were about to set off down the sloping flagstone path towards the plaza when they heard the
clack
of footsteps hurrying uphill towards them. Distinct and clear: not the soft muffled slap of leather sandals but the hard
clack
of boot heels – and something more … the muffled sound of someone sobbing.

‘Maddy? Is that you?’

‘It is us, Liam!’ Rashim replied. Moments later they all but bumped into each other in the moonless dark. ‘Thank God,’ said Rashim. ‘I was worried you were gone. Tell me you have the transponder still?’

‘Aye.’ Liam felt for it in his pocket. He noticed Maddy was being held up by Bertie. ‘Is she OK?’

Rashim shook his head. Not that the gesture was seen. ‘We had a close encounter with the seeker. We just managed to escape. But Adam was not so fortunate, he …’ Liam heard the words trail away and figured out what he was saying.

‘All right,’ he replied. Maddy’s sobbing was intermittent and subdued, the tail end of an outpouring of grief. The tears might be slowing for the moment, but that meant nothing more than she’d cried herself dry for now.

‘All right,’ he said again, thinking aloud. ‘All right. We should leave. There’s nothing more we can do here and now.’ He looked out across the dark city. Tonight there were no pinpricks of light, no cooking fires or oil lamps, no tallow candles. It was a
dark, abandoned ghost town. He knew this was how this place would remain as nature slowly recovered its hold over it. Centuries quietly passing, vines and roots meshing with each other and covering weather-worn stonework beneath an emerald-coloured shroud.

And the bodies of the dead would decay to bones.

‘That thing is out there somewhere,’ he said finally.

‘It is … it – it s-still is out there!’ whispered Bertie. His quiet voice fluttered with fear. ‘I … I saw it. The Devil h-himself! We should go. We should go. We should go!’

Liam nodded. Wherever Sal was, she was surely somewhere less dangerous than right here. ‘We’d be bloody idiots standing around here a moment longer. Come on.’ He started uphill towards the entrance to the tunnel. ‘I’ll turn on the transponder when we get to the cave.’

They made their way up the tunnel, feeling their way in the absolute dark, none of them daring to snap on their torches and all of them hoping the pitch black was covering their quiet escape.