Legion lunged forward again, further this time, flipping the knife and jabbing the butt into Alex’s temple. Alex staggered sideways, his legs giving way. I could see a long, thin, shallow tear in his clothes. There was no blood, but it had torn though his top like paper.
He moved in a third and final time and punched the knife’s handle into the side of Alex’s head again. Alex lost his footing completely and tumbled to his left — pulling me down with him. At first, as everything shattered around me, I couldn’t understand why he’d done it. Why he’d grabbed me too. Then, as he crashed to the floor and rolled over on top of me, I could see what he was doing. He was protecting me. Legion couldn’t go through him.
He came towards us, the knife out in front of him. I was still too close to Alex for him to get careless, so he stabbed the blade into the floor next to my ear. Trying to force a reaction movement from me, away from Alex. But I couldn’t move. I was trapped beneath Alex. He rammed a foot into Alex’s face and the back of Alex’s head hit my nose — a force like a hammer blow. White light flashed in my eyes. Blurring. Soundless blurring. Blood splashed on to my skin, into my mouth and eyes. Then as noise returned, Legion was rolling Alex off me, on to the floor. Alex was dazed. I looked for the Beretta, and found it: out of reach.
I could see Legion again, bent over, dragging Alex across the room. Legion’s hooded top was hoisted up across his back. Criss-crossing between his shoulder blades was a leather strap. A knife sheath was perched three-quarters of the way up his spine, empty now.
When he was done, he turned back to face me, eyes flashing. He flipped the knife, the blade now an extension of his palm, and came across the room at me.
I got on to all fours and looked for the nearest gun. It was Legion’s SIG, about five feet to my left. I threw myself towards it as he jumped on my back, his knee cracking against the base of my spine, just below the scourge marks. I hit the floor face first. We slid across the floorboards, glass scattering. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a tattooed arm pinning me down by the neck. The other raising the knife above his head.
The final act.
Suddenly, the power faded from his arms.
I inched my face further around and could see Legion looking over his shoulder. Alex was standing behind him, with a gun to the back of his head. Legion smiled, glanced at me, and released some of the pressure on my neck.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Let him go,’ Alex said, sounding dazed.
‘What are you doing, cockroach?’
One side of my face was flat to the floor. I could feel shards of glass embedded in my cheek. As I tried to lift myself up and shake them off, Legion looked down at me and pushed his knee harder against my spine. His fingers wriggled at my neck.
He looked back over his shoulder at Alex.
‘Are you listening, Alex?’
My eyes darted across the room. I had a narrow field of vision, but I could see the SIG about a foot away, level with my face. When Legion had launched himself into my back, he’d pushed us both across the floor towards it.
‘You should have been dead a long time ago,’ he said to Alex.
I moved my hand an inch away from my body. Waited for any reaction. When none came, I moved it another inch.
‘I should have made you suffer.’
I carried on moving my arm in an arc, sweeping through the debris. Sooner or later, I expected the movement of my body to register, but Legion had become consumed by his venom for Alex. For the first time, he was starting to lose some control.
‘I should have sliced you open.’
Closer to the gun. Inch by inch.
‘That’s what you deserved.’
My fingers touched the SIG. I could feel the rough texture of the grip.
‘That’s what you’ve always deserved.’
I pulled the gun towards me. Worked my palm around the grip and my finger around the trigger. The SIG was in against my hand now. I could feel everything. The curve of the trigger, the weight of its casing. The finality of it.
‘You deserved to be tortured,’ Legion said, almost spitting the words back across his shoulder at Alex. ‘You’re a cockroach, just like this…’
He looked down at me.
His fingers wriggled at my neck.
I raised the gun off the ground. Bent my arm back and forced the SIG in against his stomach.
And I fired.
He fell off me, his grip releasing instantly. I rolled over and saw his hand clutching a space just under the ribcage. Blood was spilling out over his fingers. He brought the knife up, swung it at me, but the power had gone from his arms. The effort pulled his body backwards. He hit the nearest wall and slid down, the knife falling from his hand.
Dead.
I looked up at Alex. He nodded and threw the gun to the floor. He was retching; choking on the fear and adrenalin.
I dropped the SIG next to me. Slowly got to my feet. My Beretta was midway between where I was lying and Legion’s body. I went over and picked it up, then pulled out the clip.
One bullet still inside.
The one I always kept on me.
I moved across the room and used the barrel to prod the devil’s body. He shifted a little; a dead weight. The wound under his ribcage was small, but there was a lot of blood. It was spilling out on to his clothes and running down on to the floor. I reached over to him and lifted up his top. Underneath, he was wearing a thin black padded vest. Sleeveless. It looked thermal. Maybe military. There were a series of zip pockets on its front.
Inside one of the pockets I found three photographs.
One was a long lens shot of me standing outside Mary’s house, talking to her on the porch. The second was me talking to Jade outside Angel’s. The third was the photo of Derryn and me that he had stolen from my bedroom the night he had come for me. My face had been circled in red pen, over and over and over until the photograph had started to tear.
Behind me Alex moved. He was leaving the room and heading for the landing, clutching his face and limping slightly. He disappeared out of sight. After a while, I thought I could hear him crying.
I turned back. Saw Legion had shifted slightly.
And his eyes were open.
An arm came up, clamping on to my throat, closing around my windpipe. His fingers burrowed in against the skin, trying to dig deeper and deeper into my flesh. I froze. Couldn’t move. Stared down at him as air stopped passing to my head — a feeling so cold, so final, it was like drowning in an icy lake.
Pull yourself out.
I found the trigger of the Beretta.
Pushed the gun in against the first piece of skin I could find.
Take this chance, David.
I fired.
The bullet blew through his throat.
He slumped sideways, his eyes darkening even more, like the gates of hell had opened up for him. Then the devil was still.
45
Before daylight started to break, I brought the Shogun up the track to Bethany. Alex and I carried Legion out, and dumped his body in the back of the car. We stood there for a moment, staring in at him. Even as death claimed his body, his eyes still looked out at us. As powerful as when they blinked and moved behind the mask.
Next, we got Andrew. He was bigger, more difficult. We carried him, his body broken, the bones shifting and moving inside his skin. When we got to the Shogun, we dropped him into the back, and then Alex rolled him on top of Legion as best he could. When I asked him why, he said it was so that he no longer had to look at the eyes of the devil.