The Sacrifice (33 page)

‘What is my name?’

‘You’re wasting questions,
Wormy. You only have so many; why are you asking me when you already know the
answer?’

‘Do I?’

‘Yes. Now it’s my
turn.’

‘No, wait … ’

‘My question is this. How long you
been down here, troll?’

‘Long enough to count my days with
coffee spoons.’

‘Oh, Spoony, you are breaking my
feeble heart. Tell me this. Do you have a heart?’

‘I’m a man, that much I
know.’

‘Prezackly. Pre-flaming-zackly. You
are a man with a beating heart and bellowing lungs and a long, giggling
stomach.’

‘Giggling?’

‘Giggling, gurgling. Same
difference.’

‘What are you talking
about?’

‘You keep wasting your questions,
daddio.’

‘No, that wasn’t –’

‘Yes, it was. Now here comes my next
poser – wouldn’t you like to get out of here? What can you do down here under your
bridge? Shut away forever, waiting for them to toss you some salad?’

‘I don’t want to be
here.’

‘OK, troll. We’re getting
somewhere. Now you get another question.’

‘Can you help me?’

‘Let me tell you how the story goes,
Dad. The troll comes up from under his bridge and the little billy goat turns round and
says to him, “Mister troll, what kind of a life is it living under a bridge?
Waiting for your lunch to come trip-trip-trapping along? Just as I’ve seen fresh
green grass on the other hill, why don’t you come up here and see that the world
is bigger than what’s under your cold stone bridge?”’

‘Can you really set me
free?’

‘That’s why I’m here,
greenback. This was always meant to be. You and me. I’ve come to save you, Mister
Green. To take you back into the world.’

‘Will I see my boys again?’

‘I can’t promise you the moon on
a stick. Can’t even promise you a stick. You can fly away home, but your house is
on fire and your children are gone. There’s been a lot of water flowing under your
troll’s bridge. Time is a river, flowing on, and you can’t stop it. Granddad
told me that. When he got so old his poor dry bones gave up the ghost. Buried him in a
box we did. Never cried so much.’

‘I’m scared, though, son. I fear
the daylight.’

‘Not you, Wormy, the thing inside you,
the sickness, the doll living in the doll. The thing that came from the big green and
got inside you is driving you, Wormy. It’s a celebrity in a reasonably priced car
going too fast round the track on
Top Gear
, slipping and sliding and skidding.
It ain’t you, babe. It’s the sickness fears the daylight, fears the sun and
the air and all the good things. You’re not your sickness. You said it yourself.
You’re the other one, not Wormwood, not the Green Man; you’re the father of
those boys.’

‘I’m Mark Wormold.’

‘Yes. You are. And I have answered your
riddle. You don’t get to eat me now.’

‘How can you get me out of here,
though? You’re just a kid.’

‘I am
The
Kid. I’m King
Rat, the burrower. Listen, good father, we are underground and underground is my domain,
my stamping ground. I’ll find a way. I know these old places, these tunnels and
dungeons full of wine and dust and spiders. I can get us out of here. But you’ve
got to make some stone-hard promises.’

‘What?’

‘First, I am
not
your
lunch.’

‘You do smell good, though. You smell
like life and that’s what I need.’

‘Not you, Mark Wormold, that’s
the sickness talking. You are one and it’s another. You are a father;
it
is Wormwood, the fallen star, growing back there in the big green. Wormwood wants me.
You got to fight him, tell him who’s the daddy. Don’t let your sickness be
the boss of you.’

‘No.’

‘You don’t want to eat me.
There’s bigger billy goats than me. Let them be your lunch. It’s them
who’ve kept you down here under the bridge. Not me. I wouldn’t even make a
meal. I’m less than a bite, so put your teeth away. Is that a deal, old
troll?’

‘If you can get me out of here, then
we are friends for life, little billy goat gruff.’

‘I’ll take you home, troll.
Trust me.’

Sam had never known a feeling like this
before. He was all churned up inside. Oh, he’d been angry before, and sad and
confused and frightened and bored, all those things, of course he had, and often, as
now, he’d felt them all at the same time. The difference now was that even though
he felt all that, even though he was deep in the blackest of moods, he was being treated
like a king.

A bloody god!

And for the first time in his life he
realized that maybe it wasn’t such a great life being a king. He hated being a
celebrity. It would be much better to be just ordinary.

Basically, being God sucked.

Matt had forced him to wear some ridiculous
home-made green robes, he’d put a garland of dead leaves on his head and had
plonked him on a throne under the dome at St Paul’s, where he’d been made to
sit for God knows how long.

Ha! God didn’t know, did he? God was
bored out of his mind. Sitting there with an aching bum listening to the horrible racket
of the musicians, breathing in the smelly smoke, while Matt read endless passages from
his book of truth … 

‘ … These are they who have
come out of the great
tribulation. They have washed their robes and
made them green in the blood of the Lamb. They are before the throne of God and serve
him day and night in his Temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over
them. Never again will they hunger. Never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat
upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be
their shepherd. He will lead them to springs of living water. And he will wipe away
every tear from their eyes … ’

Oh yeah?
Sam thought miserably.
And just how am I supposed to do all that?

Matt had promised that once the Goat was
sacrificed the Lamb would see the light and understand who he really was.

That wasn’t happening yet, was it?

Which meant one of two things.

It either meant that The Kid was somehow
still alive – which gave Sam a tiny warm glow of hope in his guts – or it meant that he
wasn’t the Lamb. That this was all bollocks.

He knew one thing for sure, though. Whatever
happened, Matt would have some handy excuse. He’d make up some story or change an
old one, find some dumb quote to explain it all. So long as he had all that food in the
warehouse, his ‘Tree of Life’ as he called it, he would literally have these
kids eating out of his hand. Look at them all, sitting there, heads bowed, soaking up
all this drivel … 

‘ … Each one had a harp and
they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And
they sang a new song: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and
to the Lamb … ”’

Sam had picked up The Kid’s leather
jacket from the floor of the warehouse and slipped it on over his hoodie.
The Kid would need it. Sam was holding on hard to the belief that he
was still alive. The Kid was a clever little sod. Because of the way he spoke and the
odd way his brain worked people made the mistake of thinking he was a fool. He
wasn’t. Oh, Sam thought there was probably something wrong with his friend, but he
was tough and clever and he had the skills he needed to survive in this twisted new
world. If anyone could work out a way to survive in the Abyss it was The Kid.

But just what was down there? Who or what
was Wormwood? How did the sacrifice thing actually work? That’s what Sam had to
find out, because when he did find it out, he was going to start plotting. He was going
to rescue The Kid, and he was going to kill Matt, and he was going to make everything
all right.

Yeah. Somehow he was going to fix
everything.

He smiled despite himself.

Finally he was thinking like a
god … 

‘Does it hurt?’ The red-haired
girl touched her fingers gently to Ed’s scar.

‘No. Not really. Sometimes, I guess.
If it’s really hot or really cold or I’m tired. You know. It sort of aches.
Hurt like hell at the time. A grown-up on the turn got me with a blade.’

‘I hope you killed him.’

Ed hesitated, remembering that awful day a
year ago when he’d lost his two best friends.

‘I didn’t,’ he said
flatly, then shrugged, trying to make light of something that still lay heavy on him. An
incident he still had nightmares about. Always would. ‘He’s probably dead
now, though, like most of them.’

Greg, the butcher. He’d promised them
all he was immune to the disease. He wasn’t. It had just taken him a little longer
to get it. And when he did … 

‘I bet you had all the girls chasing
after you before.’

Ed blushed. The girl, Nicola, was sitting
just a little too close to him. She had a mane of thick red hair and green eyes, and
smelt of perfume and soap.

The prime minister.

‘I don’t know,’ he said
lamely. ‘They don’t chase after me now. Mostly run screaming.’

‘I like it.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘It gives you character. I never was
one for pretty boys. I don’t like things to be too perfect.’

‘Well, you got that right. My face
certainly isn’t too perfect.’

Nicola laughed. They were sitting alone on
an uncomfortable narrow sofa in a small private office in the Houses of Parliament. Ed
had been amazed to see the inside of the place. The view of the outside was so famous
you didn’t really notice it any more and he’d seen the inside of the House
of Commons on the news often enough. He’d never really given much thought to how
the rest of the place might look, though.

Well, it was like a palace. In fact, as
Nicola had pointed out proudly as she’d led him through the buildings to this
room, it
was
a palace. The Palace of Westminster was its proper name. The kids
who lived here, and there seemed to be a lot of them, only used a tiny part of it. Ed
might live in a castle, but it was pretty basic at the Tower. This place was full of
grand chambers and Hollywood staircases, corridors lined with paintings, statues, gold
everywhere you looked, tapestries, wood panelling, stained glass in all the windows.

He had to admit it was pretty
impressive.

Nicola and the other kids here had been wary
of Ed’s crew when Ryan the hunter brought them in. Like all kids these days they
were suspicious of outsiders, but Ed had explained what they wanted and Nicola relaxed.
She’d told them to hand all their weapons in and had then taken Ed to her office
for a private chat.

Her office? What kids had
offices?

Well, this one did. Nicola was about
Ed’s age, but she seemed much older, more mature. She was very pretty and reminded
Ed of girls he’d known when he was at school. Rowhurst had been single sex,
strictly boys only, but he’d mixed with girls from other private schools, like
Walthamstow Hall in Sevenoaks. They were mostly strong and confident and seemed to know
who they were and what they wanted from life.

Just like he had been back then. Not any
more. He’d lost all his certainty. Saw the world in murky shades of grey now, not
the clear black and white he’d grown up with. Nicola hadn’t had the
confidence kicked out of her yet. He could still picture her starring in the school play
or leading their hockey team out on to the pitch.

It was strange being alone with her, here in
this tidy office. It was like he’d been taken out of the dirty, chaotic world
he’d got used to and somehow transported back to simpler times.

‘I’m sorry this is all a bit
stiff and fussy,’ Nicola was saying. ‘But you know what it’s like, we
can’t trust anyone, and … well, to tell you the truth, you’re not
the first kids to tip up here from the Tower of London.’

Ed leant forward. ‘D’you mean
DogNut and his crew?’

‘Yep. They came through here about, I
don’t know, three, four weeks ago. It’s so easy to lose track of time. We
were scared they might be spies or something, checking us out, with an idea to taking
over our patch, taking what we’ve got here.’

Ed laughed.

‘DogNut wasn’t interested in any
of that,’ he said. ‘He was happy at the Tower. Jordan Hordern, the guy in
charge, doesn’t even know this place exists. We’ve got a bloody
great castle, the safest place in London, why would we want to move
in here? No, DogNut was just looking for some friends.’

‘I know, I know.’ Nicola ran her
fingers through her hair, untangling a knot. ‘But still people are suspicious. You
can’t blame them.’

‘No.’

‘And you turning up like this, it just
adds to the rumours, the paranoia. Coming here with the same story – looking for
someone.’

‘Well, we
are
looking for
someone. Don’t you believe me then?’

Nicola touched his scar again. ‘I
believe you, scary face.’

Ed tried to ignore her. ‘So what
happened to DogNut?’

‘He tracked his friends down to the
Natural History Museum. Definitely went over there; don’t know what happened to
him after that, though. We don’t have much to do with those kids.’

‘So he found Brooke?’

‘Is that the girl he was looking
for?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then yes, he would have found her. As
far as I know, she’s still there.’

‘I can’t believe it. After a
year.’ Ed was curious to see what he felt about this. Brooke was a little like
Nicola. A strong girl, not afraid to say what she thought. She’d come on to him
and then backed off when his face was mutilated. He had a brief flare-up of emotion,
remembering all this. And then nothing. He packed it all away. Too complicated to think
about any of this now.

‘She’s one of the lucky ones, I
guess,’ said Nicola. ‘A survivor.’

‘Yeah. And DogNut too!’ Ed slapped
his leg, happy for his friend. ‘I thought he’d given himself a crazy
mission. Thought Brooke would be miles away or dead or, I don’t know. Jesus, they
must have made him so welcome he never wanted to come back to the Tower. The sly
hound.’