‘You must make them understand or they… you all will be less than slaves.’
Britha knew that there was more to this than simple survival. Even if they fled to another land where their weakness was not known, they would know. They would have murdered what they were. Life is not worth living crawling on your belly.
‘What words do you have for me if we fight?’
‘You cannot.’
‘But if we do?’ Now there was anger in Britha’s voice.
Cliodna’s face softened. It was the first time Britha had seen the woman she knew. ‘The leader, Bress, but your weapons… It is not easy to harm him, nearly impossible to kill him. To your people he may as well be a god.’
‘Tell me how to kill him,’ Britha said. Even in the darkness, even with how strange Cliodna had become to her, Britha could see the other woman’s sadness.
She had not realised that their voices had stopped being whispers some time ago. Britha had time to look up. Her confused mind thought for a moment he was flying. After all, no man in that much armour and carrying a shield would jump off a twenty-foot cliff.
Cliodna disappeared as two casting spears hit the water where she had been moments before.
Britha just had time to roll to the side as the sentry landed where she had been crouched by the water. He kicked her in the side and sent her flying into the rocks. Ignoring the pain, she reached for her sickle as he drew his sword.
Without a spear or Nechtan or Talorcan to help, she did not see this fight going well. The sentry advanced on her, in the moonlight and shadows, his blade already looking red.
Cliodna exploded out of the water, wrapping herself around the man, a spitting, hissing frenzy. Off balance, he toppled into the sea. There was thrashing, then it went still. Britha could see dark clouds in the water. Sickle at the ready, she leaned forward.
Cliodna exploded out of the water again, grabbing Britha around the neck. She was covered in blood, her expression feral, the skin somehow swept back around her mouth. Britha saw the rows of needle-like, red-stained teeth and smelled the meat on her breath.
‘You want to die? The weapon you want to kill Bress with, bathe it in your blood.’ And she was gone. Again.
6. Now
It took fourteen hours to hitch from London to Portsmouth. Beth had taken the train into King’s Cross and been delayed there by some kind of nearby terrorist incident. She had decided to hitch to save some of the small amount of money her dad had given her.
A bored lorry driver picked her up. She struggled to keep up her end of the deal, providing enough conversation to keep him awake. It had looked so close on the map. She could not understand why it was taking so long. They got there in the early hours of the morning. Came in on the M275, drove onto Portsea Island past the rusting hulks of dead submarines and other military-looking vehicles.
The lorry driver was taking a load over to the continent and dropped her close to the ferry port. On the other side of the road was a high wall of grey concrete council flats. They reminded her of the prison she had just left. She turned and trudged towards the town centre, following the signs. Nothing moved. The town seemed as dead as the rusting hulks she had seen on the way in.
It was Hamad. Control had seeded the rats. There were too many eyes in the city. You were never more than two metres away from a grass. They had uploaded the images into his head and du Bois had got to see his old adversary, a man he once wished he had had the courage to call a friend, staggering through the more picturesque of London’s Roman sewers.
He thought back to when he had first met the Syrian Nizari. Du Bois laughed at his own naivety back then. He had actually been looking for the grail, fool that he was. He wanted to heal his sister’s mind. Hamad had been looking for the milk of Innana. Both of them had been wrong. Hamad had been closer to the truth.
The Hamad he had known had been calm, even tranquil; the Hamad he saw through a rodent’s eye looked mad. Du Bois wondered if the madness was guilt over his crime or something else, something ancient and corrupted whispering horrific truths into his godsware.
Du Bois now knew where Hamad was going. It made sense. He could hide there; after all, Hawksmoor had been a rogue and a turncoat before du Bois himself had caught up with him and put a stop to his geometry of violence, ironically with violence. This was after the architect had faked his death and been reborn. He hated the churches; each one was a death trap that knew him.
Beth awoke to judgemental glares from people waiting at the bus stop. She was achy and tired. You never got much sleep on the street; you had to be aware at some level in case someone tried to do something to you. She ignored the glares and the suggestions that she find a job and rolled up her sleeping bag.
She didn’t feel much cleaner after a trip to the toilets in a fast-food place, but it would have to do. A little bit more of her preciously dwindling money brought her a map and she found the address. Pretoria Road down in Southsea.
The walk gave her time to think about how much she was not looking forward to seeing Talia. The anger she thought would have died down after years inside came back stronger than ever, and she saw her sister’s face crumpling under her fist. She tried to suppress the anger. She could not let her temper go like that again. Lose control and she would be straight back inside. All those years of model behaviour would be worthless. She was not institutionalised, she thought fiercely. It did not matter how shit it was outside, she did not want to go back.
It was unlikely that Talia would want to leave whatever she was mixed up in and return to her dying father and a very still house. Beth did not even really know what she was doing. Maybe she could get Talia to write a letter pretending to care.
Du Bois did not so much park the Range Rover as just abandon it on the side of the road. He checked the accurised .45. He still had the magazine with the special loads in place. He chambered a round and then slid the weapon back into the hip holster, safety off. He hoped it would be enough, he did not fancy taking heavier artillery into a London church.
He glanced up at the pyramid spire, a reconstruction of the Tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus and nothing at all to do with Christianity. The statuary – St George, the lion, the unicorn – all made him nervous. Still, at least it was not Spitalfields. He still saw the stream of blood pouring down the red-painted church when he slept sometimes. Even after he had tried to edit his memories.
How decadent Christianity has become, he thought as he headed up the stairs past the bacchanalian porticoes and pushed the door open. When it closed behind him he knew that it did not just lock, it sealed itself shut. The spite with which the tendrils of his blood-screen reaching out towards the building had been destroyed was amplified in the church itself. This building fundamentally did not like him. He wondered if the vicar, staff and any unfortunate visitors were already dead.
The .45 held in a two-handed grip, Du Bois advanced slowly, checking all around. The white of the Portland limestone seemed to jar with his presence here. Even if he had not understood the significance of the architecture he would have been able to see why people connected this with a pale reflection of heaven.
Above the pulpit he saw the hilt of a black dagger rammed into one of the supporting pillars. Du Bois recognised the weapon. He was surprised and more than a little worried that even now the Brass City would let Nightmare out. The dagger was said to be far beyond insane. He did not like the violence it had done to the church either.