The Sacrifice (39 page)

‘Your music must drown out the
storm!’ he yelled as outside the thunder rolled across the sky.

‘Let the Lord know that Wormwood is
doing his duty!’ Matt wailed. Although he was trying to sound like an adult he had
the croaky, pinched, slightly squeaky voice of a teenager whose voice was breaking.
‘The Goat is being beaten; there is a great battle taking place; we must help the
Lamb. I need more. Where are the trumpeters?’

Sam turned his head on his aching, stiff
neck and saw even more musicians settling down in the choir stalls. It looked like all
the kids in the cathedral who could play the trumpet were joining in, as well as two
extra drummers.

Matt was raging again, like a kid in a bad
school play.

‘The smoke of the incense, together
with the prayers of the chosen, went up before God from the angel’s hand. Then the
angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth;
and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake. Then
the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them … 
Sound
them now!
’

The trumpeters blasted out a ragged fanfare,
thunder boomed overhead and then, almost as if it had been rehearsed, the big doors at
the end of the cathedral burst open and a flash of lightning revealed six kids standing
there in shining armour, and in the centre, his mortuary sword raised in his hand, his
scar lit livid, was Ed.

The musicians were so surprised they all
stopped playing at once, so that there was silence in the cathedral for the first time
since Sam had arrived.

He stood up from his throne and cheered.

‘Sit back down,’ Matt
hissed.

‘Sod off,’ said Sam, throwing off
his robes and running down the aisle.

‘Stop him!’ Matt yelled, but
nobody seemed to know who this command was aimed at. Nathan and his guards were all
gathered round Matt near the throne. The kids in chairs just sat there and watched the
show.

‘Ed!’ Sam ran straight up to Ed
and threw his arms round his waist.

‘I knew someone would come,’ he
said, tears pouring down his face and mingling with the water that was dripping off
Ed.

Ed gave Sam a quick reassuring hug, took the
garland of leaves from his head and tossed it away.

‘Where’s The Kid?’ he
asked, and the thunder crashed like an exploding bomb.

Shadowman was moving barely faster than a
walk. His knee was on fire and the muscles in his right leg were cramping. He
wasn’t sure he could go on for much longer.

But Bluetooth and his gang wouldn’t
give up.

They just kept coming.

Shadowman had kept well clear of St George
and the main body of The Fear, avoiding any road where there were sentinels. He’d
made so many switches and turns he wasn’t even really sure where he was any more
and the storm had made it black as night, even though he reckoned it couldn’t be
much later than about five o’clock. The rain was belting down on to the road,
which made it even harder to see anything. He hoped that he was heading roughly south,
because the only thought he had in his head was to somehow make it back to the palace
before St George got there.

Every few minutes the pain would get so bad
he’d have to stop and check whether Bluetooth was still on his tail. And, every
time, there he was with his pals, tramping through the rain. Shadowman would wait just
long enough to get his breath back and for the pain to dim slightly – once he’d
even risked grabbing some painkillers from his pack – and then he’d reload his
crossbow, an agonizing process
with his bad knee, and fire a bolt at
his pursuers before setting off again, never sure if he was hitting anything. He thought
there were perhaps fewer of the strangers on his tail than when he’d started, but
it could just be wishful thinking. Whether he’d killed any or not, there were
still at least ten of them and, in his weakened state, with his bruised ribs and his
wrenched knee and his exhaustion, he couldn’t risk those odds in a hand-to-hand
fight, especially as Bluetooth still had the captured machete and a couple of the others
also had weapons of some sort.

Old-school strangers, the dumb sort, the
ones who wouldn’t know one end of a sword from the other, even if it was sticking
in their guts, would have been easy meat. He could have waited and then taken them
on.

Not this lot, though.

He stopped and turned, grunting with the
effort.

One of the strangers was pulling ahead,
younger and fitter than the others. Hungry. Desperate. Eager to catch up with Shadowman
now that he’d stopped again. Shadowman slung the crossbow over his shoulder and
slipped his own machete from its sheath.

Maybe this was the way to do it. If he could
string them out, split them up, wait for the fastest ones to break ranks, he might be
able to pick them off one by one. They might be cleverer than most strangers, but they
weren’t as clever as him.

It was a tiny plan, but it was still a
plan.

The danger, of course, was letting the rest
of them get closer at the same time.

Oh well, at least, if nothing more, it gave
him another few seconds to rest his knee. The young father came closer, leaving the rest
of his gang further behind.

‘Yes, come on, here I
am … ’

The father was unarmed, but looked strong
and determined, breathing through his mouth. The rain was making his pale, swollen face
look mushy, as if the skin was dripping off.

Shadowman let him come right up until he was
in reach of the machete and then ducked down and swiped the blade at his ankle. He
didn’t need to kill him, just put him out of the race. The father hissed and
stumbled sideways, hitting the ground with a splash.

One down.

Shadowman turned and limped off. Jesus, his
knee hurt. He wondered if he’d ever be able to walk again after this. The rest of
the pack was frighteningly close. He would have to force himself to speed up a little if
he wanted to try that trick again. He could hear their footsteps behind him. Bare soles
as hard as leather slapping on the wet ground.

‘I should have killed you a year ago,
Matt.’ Ed’s voice was cold and flat. ‘On the boat, when I had the
chance. And I should kill you now, but I gave an order that no kids would be hurt.
You’re bloody crazy, you know that? What are you doing farting about in here with
all your made-up religious crap when all hell’s breaking loose outside? I mean,
have you seen it? Have you seen what’s out there? There’s an army of sickos
surrounding this place.’

‘They can’t get in,’ said
Archie Bishop.

‘They will eventually,’ Ed
snapped. ‘There’s too many of them.’

They were sitting at a round table in a
little wood-panelled room built into the wall of the cathedral behind the choir stalls.
It was one of Matt’s private rooms.

‘The Lord will protect us,’ said
Archie.

‘No, he won’t, you
jerk.’

‘The Lord protects those who protect
themselves,’ said Kyle.

Matt’s security, completely taken by
surprise, had done nothing. Ed’s crew had stormed down the aisle towards the
throne with such an air of menace and pent-up violence that Nathan and his guards had
hesitated, not wanting to
risk a fight here in the cathedral that they
had no sure chance of winning.

Ed had been so angry he’d been fully
prepared to ignore the order he’d given and cut Matt down there and then. But Matt
had ducked behind Nathan who at last drew his own sword. Ed had glared at him and Nathan
had instantly lowered his sword, terrified.

Sometimes it helped having an ugly scar
disfiguring your face, and when that scar was backed up by a genuine berserk fury, only
a very brave or a very stupid kid would stand in his way.

Nathan was neither. These intruders were
street-hard, dripping wet and armed to the teeth. In the end Matt had been the one to
tell his troops to stand down. The fact that Ed had put a sword point to his throat
helped more than a little.

Everyone had then started shouting at once
until Matt had suggested that they go to his rooms to talk. So it was that Ed, Kyle and
Sam were sitting across a round table from Matt, Archie Bishop and Nathan in something
like peace and quiet, lit by several church candles that flickered and danced in the
draughts.

They’d left Hayden in charge of the
rest of Ed’s team, who were drying themselves round a smoky brazier while the
cathedral kids talked excitedly among themselves, nudging each other and pointing
towards the new kids.

‘We’re doing all right
here,’ said Archie. ‘If you can believe that.’

‘I know.’ Ed was trying to hold
his anger back. ‘I know all about your secret stash, your Tree of Life, or
whatever the hell you bloody call it. You always were a little chunky, Archie, but just
look at you now. You’ve grown fat while everyone else in London is
starving.’

‘Yeah, all right,’ said Archie,
blushing. ‘You don’t have to get personal.’

‘I’ll get bloody personal if I
want to, Archie!’ Ed shouted. ‘You bastards have been kidnapping little
kids.’

‘We didn’t kidnap Sam,’
said Matt. ‘He chose to come here.’

Ed looked at Sam. ‘Well?’

‘I didn’t choose to come
here,’ Sam said, wide-eyed at the cheek of it. ‘I mean, they rescued us, we
were stuck in this tube station and they got us out, but I didn’t know what was
here; if I’d have known I’d never have come. Specially after what they said
about The Kid.’

‘OK.’ Ed stared Matt down.
‘Is anyone going to tell me where he is?’

‘The Kid, as you call him, is
important to us,’ said Matt. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘Try me.’

‘They killed him, Ed.’
Sam’s voice was very small and quiet.

Ed jumped up from the table, knocking his
chair over, and launched himself across the top, going for Matt’s throat. Matt
managed to scramble out of the way and Nathan got up to help him. In a moment Kyle had
come round the other side and was standing over Nathan with his axe.

‘Stop,’ said Archie. ‘We
don’t need this.’

Ed ignored him. ‘Is that true?’
he snarled at Matt, climbing off the table. ‘Have you killed The Kid?’

‘No,’ said Matt calmly. ‘I
haven’t killed him. None of us have.’

‘They’re lying,’ Sam
shouted. ‘They did. They took him away; they said they were going to sacrifice
him; they said he was this, like, demon thing, said he was the Goat, that
he played tricks on us. Him there.’ He pointed a shaking finger
at Nathan. ‘He took him away, to a place they called the Abyss, under the food
place. They said he was going to be sacrificed there.’

Ed advanced on Nathan, who backed away.

‘Is this true?’ he said.

‘Sort of,’ said Nathan. Ed
raised a hand to hit him.

‘Stop it,’ Archie said again.
‘Look, Ed. Let me explain.’ He had a quick whispered conversation with Matt,
who at first looked cross but eventually nodded. Archie then addressed the room.
‘Everyone except me and Ed should just leave, OK? Before there’s a fight. I
want to talk to him alone.’

Ed thought about this. Archie had always
been more sensible than Matt. He didn’t hide behind twaddle and bullshit. He knew
that if Matt and Nathan stayed in here sooner or later he was going to attack one of
them and do some real damage, if Kyle didn’t beat him to it. The important thing
was to find out exactly what had happened to The Kid.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Everyone
else out.’

Kyle protested, but Ed convinced him that
he’d be OK and the others all filed out.

Now there were just the two of them left in
the room. Ed and Archie. Outside, the storm was passing away. The thunder was just a
distant rumble, but the rain was still hissing on the walls and the wind moaned at the
windows.

‘I know how this looks,’ said
Archie.

‘Yeah. It looks bad. Don’t see
how it can be any other way, Archie.’

‘Maybe Matt
is
mad,’
said Archie. ‘I can say that now he’s gone.’

‘Is that meant to be an excuse?’
Ed shook his head. ‘Just tell me, Archie, what is going on?’

‘A few months ago we found this
sicko,’ said Archie. ‘He wasn’t like the others. There’s a
strange energy around here. Matt says it’s spiritual, the power of God. Maybe
he’s right. How do I know? But we’re at the centre of it here or near the
centre anyway. Even if you don’t believe in any religion, or stuff like that, you
have to feel it – things are different.’

‘Yeah.’ Ed was cold, very aware
of how damp he was, sitting there with his pants sticking to his arse. ‘I’ll
give you that, Archie. But what’s this got to do with The Kid?’

‘I’m getting to that. But you
have to understand.’

‘Go on then.’

‘We found the sicko living in some
offices. We were going to kill him like all the others, but he was different.’

‘How?’

‘He could talk, Ed. He still had his
brains in his head.’

‘A talking sicko?’ Ed leant back
in his chair, thinking this over. ‘After all this time?’

‘We sometimes find them in the City or
we used to before the Wall went up and we shut them all out. There were ones who stayed
in the dark, underground, and the sickness didn’t seem to affect them so badly.
Anyway, this one, he could talk all right, but he wasn’t exactly sane. Spouted a
whole load of nonsense. Matt latched on to it, reckoned it was speaking in tongues,
messages from God or something; he just had to understand it all. He was obsessed with
him. Called him Wormwood, the fallen star. We caught him and locked him up out of the
way in an old cellar underneath the warehouse. It wasn’t easy. He’s
dangerous. Very strong and very quick when he wants to be. He sits there doing nothing
and then – BANG. He killed two of our kids early on. Begged us to
let
him have them. And we wanted to keep him alive, so in the end we had a ceremony. And
Matt gave him the bodies of the two dead kids.’