The Sacrifice (23 page)

They’d survived the boat wreck in the
Thames. They’d found their way here. They’d beaten off the Nephilim. Built
the Wall. They’d found the food supply that kept them all alive. They’d
found Wormwood. They’d even found the Lamb and the Goat.

Just like Matt had said they would.

Maybe, when it came down to it, Matt was the
sane one and the rest of them were crazy.

A hundred per cent crazy.

‘When we sacrifice the Goat, all will
be clear,’ Matt said. ‘We’ll know what we have to do. Today
we’ll take him to Wormwood. And we’ll see what’s what. So let’s
get on with it.’

Sam felt like he was going mad. The
chickens running around everywhere, the smoke, the noise, the messed-up kids. He’d
hardly slept at all, and whenever he had managed to doze off, his dreams had been filled
with horrors. He’d lost count of the times he’d woken up in the night,
anxious and shaking, drenched in sweat. It didn’t help that he was under guard.
There were always two older kids watching over him, working in shifts, sitting there
silently, forcing themselves not to look directly at him.

His bed was a camping mattress rolled out on
the hard floor. All the other kids appeared to sleep in the main body of the cathedral,
except for Matt and his closest circle, who had some rooms in another part of the
building somewhere.

Sam sat up and looked around, making doubly
sure that this wasn’t just another nightmare. His head throbbed; the cuts and
bruises he’d got yesterday were very painful, particularly his shins where
he’d bashed them climbing into the tunnel. The smoke that filled the cathedral had
made his throat raw and he still felt jittery from all the rich food he’d eaten
last night and all the Coke he’d drunk.

A few kids were still churning out a drone
from the choir stalls. They’d kept it up all night just as Matt had warned.
It was the thing Sam found hardest to deal with. He’d been on
holiday with his family to Spain once. They’d stayed in a nice hotel, with a pool
and waterslides, but their rooms had been directly over the hotel disco and all night
the
thump, thump, thump
had come up through the floor, mixed in with people
laughing and cheering and shouting. Sam had found it impossible to sleep and his dad had
been driven nuts. Sam had never seen him like that before, stamping about in his room in
the middle of the night, screaming at them all to shut up.

Sam yawned and rubbed his face. His eyes
felt all itchy and gritty; they hurt if he moved them too much. Above him the early
morning light made a milky white glow in the smoke-filled dome. Two pigeons flapped
about up there. He coughed. Spat on to the floor. Then a big fat tear ran down his nose
and splatted next to the pathetic little blob of phlegm. This was all so unfair. He
wasn’t supposed to be here. The grown-ups were the ones you had to worry about,
not other children. How could the kids here pretend they were good, claim they were
helping him, claim they worshipped him even, when they treated him and The Kid like
this?

They’d put The Kid in a cage last
night. That wasn’t right. They shouldn’t do that to someone. After
they’d caught him they’d dragged him down the aisle to where the cage stood
waiting. He’d gone quietly, realistic about his chances of being able to fight so
many people. Sam had gone berserk, though, spitting, cursing, yelling, screaming and
kicking the bigger kids who held him back. In the end he’d exhausted himself and
they’d let him go. He’d sat in a side chapel and cried and cried until they
put him to bed.

The cage sat in the middle of the cathedral,
under the
dome, where they’d dragged it last night. It was
metal, looked a bit fake, like it had been made for a film or a play, or the old London
Dungeon. Maybe that’s where they’d got it from – they certainly hadn’t
made it themselves. But the lock on its door worked all right; that wasn’t just
for show.

Sam looked over to his friend. The Kid was
sitting up straight with his legs crossed, unmoving, his dark eyes glinting in the milky
light.

Sam went to get up. One of the boys who was
guarding him spoke.

‘Stay there, please.’

‘Can’t I at least go and talk to
my friend?’

‘Matt said you weren’t to go
anywhere.’

‘I’m not going anywhere.
I’ll only be over there.’

‘I don’t know. I was told to
keep you here.’

Sam swore at the boy, who kept his head
bowed and his eyes on the floor.

‘What’s going on?’ Tish
came over with another girl. They looked bleary-eyed. Sam wondered if anyone ever got
any sleep around here with that racket going on all night. Maybe Matt wanted it that
way, wanted to keep everyone half crazed, unable to think straight, like zombies. Sam
had seen a programme about brainwashing once, how the American army tortured people by
not letting them get any sleep – and playing loud heavy metal music at them. It broke
their minds eventually.

‘Are you all right?’ Tish asked
with a soppy smile, as if she was talking to a baby. At least she looked at him,
though.

‘What do you think?’ said Sam.
‘Of course I’m not all right. Please, can’t I just go and talk to The
Kid? I feel sorry for him, all by himself over there.’

Tish bit her lip as she thought this over. The
scab on her forehead looked black. At least half the other children here had similar
wounds.

They freaked Sam out.

‘If you want me to go along with
things,’ he said, ‘then you’ll have to let me do what I
want.’

Tish looked around the cathedral. There was
no sign of Matt or Archie Bishop or any of the acolytes.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘If
it’ll cheer you up. But just for a minute and then will you behave, yeah?
Cooperate?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Come on then.’ Tish smiled
again. ‘To be fair, I can’t see what harm it can do.’

She took Sam over to the cage. The other
girl and the two guards came with them. Sam felt a bit self-conscious, but when he got
there, all he could think about was how miserable The Kid must be. He laced his fingers
through the bars of the cage and tried not to start crying again. That wouldn’t
help his friend any.

‘I’m sorry about this,’ he
said. ‘I didn’t know. It’s not my fault. I’m not what they think
I am. I’m sorry we ended up here.’

The Kid said nothing. Didn’t move or
speak, just stared into infinity. Sam felt awful. The Kid must be blaming him for
everything. Sam would’ve done the same in his position. He turned angrily on
Tish.

‘How can you say he’s
bad?’ he said, trying not to shout. ‘How can you say he’s this goat
you all keep talking about? Some evil thing? He’s not evil. He’s a boy like
me. He’s my friend.’

‘He’s deceived you.’

‘I don’t even know what that
means.’

‘He’s pretending to be your friend
when really he’s the Goat.’

‘That’s mental. He’s not a
goat. How could he be a goat?’

‘It’s not literal,’ said
Tish, looking slightly confused herself. ‘To be fair, I don’t think
he’s, like, I mean, he’s not
literally
a goat. I don’t really
understand it. It’s all symbols, hidden meanings, words inside words. You’d
need to be in the inner circle to understand it. I don’t understand half the
stuff. Matt and Archie and the acolytes, they have meetings and study groups and Matt
tells them the words and they write them down. The religious books get longer every day
and sometimes they change, like when Matt tells us he’s heard the words wrong or
misunderstood something, then he changes things. Writes new rules. That’s what the
smoke’s for, to give us all fresh visions.’

‘Since when did smoke ever make
anything more clearer?’ said Sam. ‘That’s just stupid. Like everything
here.’

‘Matt can explain it
better.’

‘But I mean, wouldn’t I know
about it?’ said Sam. ‘Just a little bit? If I really was the lamb,
wouldn’t I have some idea? It doesn’t make any sense.’

‘You
are
the Lamb.’

‘No, I’m not!’

‘It was prophesied.’

‘Don’t keep using long words to
try and confuse me.’

‘Matt was told you’d come
here.’

‘How could he have been? I’m
not
the lamb.’

Suddenly The Kid spoke.

‘He’s not the messiah,’ he
said. ‘He’s just a very naughty boy.’

Sam laughed. He’d seen that film,
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
. It was one of Dad’s favourites.
The Kid laughed too. Maybe he didn’t blame Sam after all.

Sharing a joke like this broke the spell,
made everything more normal. Sam noticed that even one of the guards was trying not to
laugh. They couldn’t actually believe all this rubbish, could they? Had Matt
really brainwashed them so completely?

It felt very different in the cathedral when
Matt wasn’t around. There was a much more relaxed, normal atmosphere. And now,
bang on cue, all ready to spoil the party, he came in. Swishing in through the side door
that led to the stairs, followed by Archie and Nathan.

Sam felt the place go cold. The smile died
on the guard’s lips.

Matt had his own smile, big enough for all
of them. He approached Sam and did a little bow with his head.

‘How are you today, my
lord?’

‘Terrible,’ said Sam. ‘I
hardly slept at all.’

‘Your mind is troubled,’ said
Matt. ‘You are waking up. The light of truth is entering and pushing out the
darkness. Maybe it’s too bright for you to sleep.’

‘No, it’s too bloody loud. That
so-called music is doing my head in.’

‘The truth is waking inside
you.’

‘You twist everything,’ Sam
snapped. ‘That’s not what’s happening. Why don’t you just let me
and The Kid go? We don’t want to join in your stupid games.’

‘He casts a strong spell over you, the
Goat.’

‘He’s not a goat, he’s a
kid. He’s
The
Kid and I don’t mean like a young goat, I mean
that’s his name.’

‘His name is The Kid?’

‘Yes, that’s what we call
him.’

‘And what’s his real
name?’

‘I don’t know, do I? He’s
never told me. He’s just The Kid. That’s it. Full names don’t really
much matter any more, do they?’

‘You see how he’s deceived
you?’ said Matt. ‘How he’s hiding who he really is from
you?’

‘No, I don’t see that at all. He
just uses a nickname.’

‘But most people with a nickname,
they’d tell you their real name, wouldn’t they?’

‘He’s not like most
people.’

‘Ah … ’

‘I don’t mean anything like
that, stop twisting things. He’s just different.’

‘He is truly different.’ Matt
now turned to the cage. ‘Tell us your real name,’ he said.

‘Rumpelstiltskin,’ said The
Kid.

Sam saw the mask slip. A flicker passed
across Matt’s face and he looked annoyed for a moment. He was used to everyone
there listening carefully to everything he said, looking up to him, worshipping him
even. The Kid knew how to get to him.

Matt moved closer to the cage, leant towards
The Kid. When he spoke, it was quiet and intense.

‘What should we call you?’ he
said. ‘What is your true name? Are you the First Beast? The Second Beast? The
Whore of Babylon? The dragon? Beelzebub, Satan, Lucifer,
Leviathan … ’

‘Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and
Titch,’ The Kid interrupted. Again there was a flicker of irritation from Matt
before he pressed on.

‘Baphomet, Iblis, Shayatan, Belial,
Azazel … ’

‘Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert,
Dibble, Grub … ’

‘You see.’ Matt turned to Sam,
holding his arms wide. ‘He’s trying to confuse us with his magic.’

‘No, he’s not,’ said Sam.
‘He’s having a joke with you. This is all whack.’

Again Matt spoke to The Kid.

‘Just tell us your real name,’
he said. ‘It’ll save us all a lot of time.’

‘I’m The Kid is all you need to
know.’

‘What kid?’

‘The Milky Bar Kid, the Silky Bra Kid,
Billy the Kid, Billy the Fish, Super Meat Boy, Kid Jenson, kid leather, I kid you
not.’

‘Tell us your name!’ Matt
screeched at him.

‘What difference does it make what his
name is?’ said Sam. ‘Leave him alone.’

‘The first step to taming the beast is
to find out its name.’

‘He’s not a beast, though, is
he?’

‘
And you shall know him by what he
brings. He shall carry a sword, but that sword shall be broken. By his dress also
shall ye know him … 
’

‘What are you talking
about?’

‘It was all in the prophecy. It was
all written down. “
By his dress also shall ye know
him
 … ” And see, he’s wearing a dress.’

Sam gave a snort of laughter.
‘Don’t be crazy,’ he said. ‘That just means dress, like in what
he’s wearing, not dress as in a
dress
.’

‘It’s all written down,’
said Matt, ignoring Sam. ‘And it’s also written down that we have to find
out his real name.’

‘Where’s it written?’

‘It is written. That’s all you
need to know.’

‘I bet it’s not. I bet
you’re making it up.’

‘We have to know his name.’

‘Well, he’s not going to tell
you, is he?’

‘We’ll get him to
talk.’

‘Good luck,’ said Sam. ‘If
he doesn’t want to do something he won’t.’

‘The truth is stronger than
lies,’ said Matt. ‘It will always win and it will always show itself in the
end. Unlock the cage.’

Sam felt his heart lift. They were going to
let The Kid out. Maybe Matt was starting to see sense. One of Sam’s guards
unlocked the door and swung it open. Matt’s acolytes had come over to watch. Matt
spoke softly to them and they nodded.

After a while The Kid got up and climbed
out; he looked stiff and awkward and took a few moments to straighten up and stamp some
life back into his feet. Sam gave him a hug.

‘Kiss me, Hardy,’ said The
Kid.