The Power of Five Oblivion (72 page)

We couldn’t go back. If we turned round, it would leap onto us in a second, and anyway, what would be the point? We had to get into the church. We had no choice but to continue forward, racing towards it. Twenty-five metres. Twenty metres. We weren’t going to make it.

It would have killed us all. I’m sure of it. It was already tensing itself to jump right onto us. But then, before it could make its move, something else happened – so extraordinary and inexplicable that I couldn’t believe it. I really did think I must be dreaming or hallucinating. Or maybe my fear had driven me insane.

The sky burst into flames.

I mean, the whole sky. If you can imagine dousing all the clouds in petrol and then putting a match to them, that was what happened. We didn’t feel any heat. Perhaps there was none. But the whole of London, the church and the spider were bathed in a deep red glow. At the same time, I thought I heard a bell strike somewhere in the far distance, coming from another church or maybe from St Meredith’s, and later on I realized that it must have been exactly eight o’clock – twelve o’clock in Antarctica – and if ever there was a moment of truth, this was it.

The sky blazed. The spider froze. We didn’t stop. It took us less than a minute to reach the front entrance where the door was shattered and the stonework charred, wisps of smoke still rising. For just a second, Jamie and I were close to each other, our shoulders touching and I saw him turn and look back, the flames reflecting in his face. I had never seen him look so dismayed.

“What is it? I asked.

“Matt,” he said. Just the one word, but I knew it meant that something dreadful had happened.

And then we were inside the church. It was a big place, five times the size of St Botolph’s back in my village and a lot gloomier too, with most of the windows broken, rubble over the floor, the pews all smashed up and most of them taken away, probably for firewood. There were huge pillars holding up the ceiling and chapels leading off at the sides. Everything was very dark and red.

I didn’t know what to think. Part of me thought that we’d done it, that we’d made it here and nothing was going to stop us finding the door. Jamie and the Traveller would soon be on their way … on yet another journey. I suppose I should have been glad. But I wasn’t. I would never see Jamie again and without him I had no reason at all to be here. What would happen to me? The Nexus would look after me, I guessed. And if Jamie won the fight against the Old Ones, perhaps I’d be able to return to the village, or one like it. But George was dead. Rita and John were dead. Just about everybody I knew was dead. And on top of that, the world was on fire. I was in the middle of a ruined city. There was no way back.

Blake, Simon, Ryan and Amir had fanned out in front of us. I had my gun. Jamie had his. The Traveller and his brother were covering us from behind.

Blake pointed. “There it is,” he said. “The door…”

There was a burst of gunfire, horribly loud, deafening in the empty space, and Blake was hurled off his feet, dead before he hit the ground. I cried out. The ginger-haired woman who had come in the helicopter to the village and followed us to Little Moulsford before she lost us at the Sheerwall Tunnel had caught up with us again. She was striding towards us in her long coat with a look of grim determination on that pale, thin face of hers. It was she who had fired the shots but she was surrounded by armed policemen and I knew at once that they weren’t going to stop, that there weren’t going to be any warnings or questions. They would kill us all – Jamie too, this time – and that would be the end of it.

But Jamie had his power, didn’t he? I waited for him to tell the woman that he wasn’t there or to order her to simply drop her gun or whatever. It never happened. A gas cylinder exploded – I didn’t even see who threw it – and suddenly there was smoke everywhere, thick yellow clouds gushing out around our feet. I gasped for breath. My throat was raw. My eyes were burning and I could feel the tears streaming down my cheeks. It was some sort of tear gas. The woman knew just what Jamie could do and she’d taken no chances, disabling him and the rest of us before she closed in. How had she got to St Meredith’s? It was obvious. She had known where we were heading and she had simply waited for us to turn up.

Blake was gone but the others were shooting back. Bullets exploded all around me. Once again I found myself in the middle of a gun battle, unsure what to do. I didn’t dare fire myself in case I hit Jamie or the Traveller.

“Go, Jamie! Go!”

I think it was Will who shouted the order. It was impossible to be sure. There must have been hundreds of bullets being fired and I screamed as one hit my hand, going right through the palm. With what little vision I had, I saw Jamie start forward and even then the thought occurred to me that it was a shame that he hadn’t had time to say goodbye properly. Maybe that was why I followed him or maybe it was simply because I didn’t want to be left on my own. Either way, four of us made the sprint to the door, although Will only took a few more steps before he was shot down. I couldn’t tell if he’d been wounded or killed. A second later I saw the Traveller turn round and fire off three shots: at least one of them found its target – a perfect target – because I saw the policewoman throw her head back, and when she lowered it again there was a round, red hole where her left eye had been. She fell onto her knees, but then the Traveller cried out and went sprawling, and suddenly there was just Jamie and me with the door right in front of us and there was no chance of the Traveller following so Jamie just grabbed me instead and the two of us burst through.

The church was behind us. The policemen were still firing. There was smoke everywhere. And I remember thinking that, this time, I really, really hoped the door would work.

ANTARCTICA

It was exactly like being electrocuted.

Scott felt the terrible shock running through him, and even if he had wanted to let go of the lock it would have been impossible because his own hands were fused to it. He was burning up. It seemed to him that the world was on fire … the sky, the ice. He could barely see, his vision torn away from him. He knew that he was dying on his feet.

But this was for Jamie and he refused to black out. He refused to die. He fought back, ignoring the pain even as it shuddered through his arms, and instead he focused all his remaining strength on separating the white ivory hands, pulling them apart. He had forgotten the injuries that Jonas Mortlake had inflicted on him. He had forgotten everything that had happened since he had walked out of the door from Hong Kong and into the Abbey of San Galgano. All that mattered was that he should succeed and, sure enough, in the half-second before he collapsed, unconscious, he felt his hands come apart and knew that the chain had been unfastened, that the door was open and that Jamie could come through.

Scarlett felt herself being released from Scott’s power and ran over to Scott, who was lying dead still, his hands and wrists blackened, smoke seeping out of the corner of his mouth. He looked hideous, like the victim of some terrible accident. Lohan was right behind her.

“What’s happening?” Lohan shouted. “The sky!”

It was true. Scott hadn’t imagined it. Flames were rippling across the Antarctic sky. It was a shocking, horrific image. The end of the world.

“I don’t know!” Scarlett was next to Scott, certain he was dead, cradling him in her arms.

Lohan looked past her, at the two chains with the ivory hands, now lying apart. “He did it!” he exclaimed. “The door is open. You and I can leave! You can take us anywhere in the world!”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Scarlett cried.

“Wait…!”

Lohan was pointing. Scarlett looked into the cave.

There were three figures in the darkness, moving out of the shadows. They were coming towards her.

FIFTY-FIVE

In their own way, they were beautiful.

They might have been designed only to bring death and devastation but the Trident missiles, fired from the submarine twelve minutes before, had an undoubted magnificence as they grouped together and began their descent.

Not all the boats carrying the survivors of the World Army were far enough away from Oblivion and many of them would be caught up in the blast and the inevitable tsunami that would follow. But innocent people must die in every war and they would be serving a greater good. Surely even the power of the Old Ones could not stand up to the blast wave generated by twelve nuclear warheads. The fortress would be vaporized. In fact the entire ice shelf for miles around would disappear.

And there they were, silver needles in the sky. They were like a flock of birds, each one with a separate intelligence and yet coming together in a single, unified whole. The target was ahead of them. The fortress was still tiny but with every second it seemed to grow as the missiles closed in.

Nobody saw them. They were still covered by the clouds, and anyway, they were moving too fast. By the time anyone looked up, it would be too late.

Pedro was the first one to emerge from the cave, still dressed in the thin clothes he had been wearing in Rome, and he was hit at once by the full force of the Antarctic cold. Maybe the shock of it did him good because it was as if he had finally left the poison behind him, and as he continued forward his steps became stronger and more confident until he was almost running, ready for whatever else he had to face.

Scarlett saw him and was shocked by the change in his appearance. She had only seen him once, briefly in Hong Kong, and she was unsure if that had been a few weeks or ten years ago. He was so much thinner, hollow-eyed and pale. But then he recognized her and smiled, and suddenly she knew that he had survived and he was here and that everything was going to be all right.

“Pedro!” she exclaimed.

“Scarlett!” Pedro looked around him, unable to take everything in. Something had happened to the sky. There were flames stretching as far as he could see, an ocean of them reflecting in the real ocean below. He was in some kind of fortress, in the snow. A great mountain rose up behind him. To one side there was a figure hanging from a scaffold. He had thought that Naples was a terrible place but this was much, much worse.

And then he saw the broken body of Scott, with Lohan standing helplessly beside him. At once, everything that had happened in the past weeks was forgotten. It didn’t matter what Scott had done. He was one of the Five and he was hurt. Pedro went over to him, stretched out his hands and prepared to do what he had always done, to bring the power of healing.

Meanwhile, Scarlett was standing in front of the cave, the broken chain resting on either side of her. Two more people had emerged. One of them was a girl she had never seen before, round-faced and pretty with freckles over her nose, and fair hair. She was cradling one hand in the other and she looked shocked. The other was a boy. Even if he hadn’t been identical to Scott, she would have known him instantly. It was Jamie.

Finally, there were four of them here together. But where was Matt? And what had happened to Richard Cole?

Jamie had escaped unhurt from St Meredith’s. He didn’t know if he had been right to bring Holly with him, but everything had happened so quickly and he had decided it was the only way to save her. He couldn’t have left her behind. Like Pedro before him, he felt the extreme cold almost like a hammer blow. He took in the fortress walls, the towers, the mountain and the sky. So the whole world was on fire! He saw Lohan looking up at him, read the pain in his eyes and finally realized that the figure lying stretched out on the snow in front of him was his brother, Scott, and he had arrived too late.

Forgetting everything else, Jamie ran over to him, dropping onto his knees. Pedro was already with him but one glance told him that there was nothing that even a healer could do.

“Scott!” Jamie swept his brother into his arms. “I’m here, Scott!” he shouted, and for the first time since this whole thing had begun, he felt a sense of overwhelming grief that came with the knowledge that whatever had happened, it was his fault, that he should never have left Scott on his own. “I’m sorry,” he continued. “I shouldn’t have left you behind. I should have stayed with you. We were always together, you and me. You always looked after me. Please tell me you’re not angry with me, Scott. I was only doing what I thought was best …”

Scott’s eyes flickered open. He smiled.

“Jamie…” he said.

“What happened here, Scott? What have they done to you?”

“It’s been bad. But it’s OK now. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Scott…”

“Tell Matt…”

Scott’s eyes closed. Jamie waited for him to say more but no more words came. He glanced at Pedro, who was staring at him with shock in his eyes. Both of them knew.

Scott had died.

Scarlett saw what had happened and all the strength drained out of her. Scott had sacrificed himself. But his death meant that the Five could never come together. The Old Ones had won.

The ground began to shake.

All of them – Jamie, Pedro, Scarlett, Lohan and Holly – felt the sudden, intense lurching, the sense that the world was tearing itself apart beneath their feet. The clouds seemed to be burning more brightly than ever and the walls were vibrating, huge cracks appearing, rock and ice beginning to tumble down. There was a rumble of what sounded like thunder, only deeper and a thousand times louder. Lohan looked up and felt pure terror as the entire mountain began to break open. The noise was deafening, pounding at his ears and eyes. Huge boulders rolled down, smashing into the ground below. A wind had sprung up, sending snow and dust whipping into his face, blinding him.