Tic-Toc and finally Kaboom!!! said the dangling suitcase.
The gasometer erupted in a burst of crimson flame. The figure on the catwalk shinned up another staircase clutching his single suitcase. Torrents of debris filled the air and a cloud of golden dust.
In the stadium Kaleton shook and shivered, the flames about him guttered and died. “You have done this, you have tricked me. The tower, the sanctuary!”
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand that man,” said Jim.
“Run for your life, Jim,” said the Professor.
“Now that I do understand.” Jim took to his heels.
Kaleton staggered down the walkway towards the gaming ground. “The sanctuary, the wall is breached.”
“Blimey,” said Constable Meek emerging from a pile of golden debris. “Look in there.”
Hovis raised his charred head and gazed at the gasometer. A great hole yawned in its side and from within glowed … “Gold!” cried the Inspectre. “It’s full of gold!” Gold spilled from the ragged opening, but it was not just the gold from the robbery. This was a king’s ransom, a god’s ransom, the gold of centuries, the very gold of the gods, “The Gryphon’s golden hoard”.
“I get one per cent,” said Hugo Rune, “and don’t forget that.”
“God for Harry.” King Bran swung his mighty battle-axe taking several heads from as many shoulders. “Forward men, the battle is ours!” The horsemen moved onward, carrying the fight to the very doorway of Ye Flying Swan Inn.
“Same old sign,” said Bran. “A cup of mead later, I think.” Upstairs Neville pulled a pillow over his head. “Another bloody party,” he mumbled, snuggling down. “Now where was I? Oh yes, Alison, the appliance.”
Kaleton bounded over the artificial turf. “The sanctuary, the sanctuary.” Charles Laughton wasn’t in it.
The figure on the high catwalk faced another stairway. Below him the battle raged, cruel and bloody. Other tiny figures danced before the torn opening, delving into the golden hoard.
From the direction of the Brentford Half Acre came the scream of police sirens as a convoy of armoured vehicles moved into view.
The solitary figure climbed up and up, labouring beneath the weight of his suitcase. The stairways led ever upwards, towards heaven — the gasometer was never this high — yet it was. Upwards and ever upwards.
“I think I’m lost,” said Jim Pooley, “in fact I know I am.”
“Well done, Jim.”
“Now listen.” Pooley turned upon the Professor. “None of this is my doing, I don’t see why I should carry the can.”
“Or the Gladstone?”
“You’re the magician, wave the magic wand or something.”
“Really, Jim.”
“Well,” said Pooley, all sulks. “I got us up here and a fine waste of time it’s been. The least you can do is get us down.”
“There is a way, I think,” said the Professor, “follow me.”
“My God!” said Commander West as the armoured convoy turned into the Ealing Road and slewed to a halt amidst the holocaust. “Heavy riot gear, CS gas, shields, batons.”
“Rubber bullets,” the driver suggested.
“Rubber bullets.”
“Riot shields, sir?”
“I said that.”
“Helmets then.”
“Call for more reinforcements. Get on the blower, Briant. There’s a full-scale war going on here. Good Godfrey, that’s a head on the bonnet, isn’t it?”
“Looks like a Viking head, sir.”
“No, more like a Saxon.”
“Or a Celt, sir.”
“Dammit, Briant! I don’t give a shit about its nationality, get the bloody thing off my bonnet!”
Constable Briant stared out through the security grille at the carnage beyond. “I’m a bit doubtful about going out there, sir.”
“You’ll be on a bloody charge, constable.”
“Ten-four, sir.”
“Down this way,” said Professor Slocombe.
“It doesn’t smell good,” said Jim.
“Just follow me.”
“Arrest all this gold. Meek, I saw you filling your pockets. Rune, put that back.”
“One per cent, Hovis, I’ll take it now.”
“No you bloody won’t. Meek, I’m warning you. Reekie, I don’t know where you got that wheelbarrow but…”
The figure on the high catwalk gasped breathlessly; the stairways led up forever. But now he knew that at the top, at the top… he faced another stairway and prepared to climb. But his way was blocked.
“You,” said Kaleton. “You did this? But you’re…”
“Dead?” said John Omally, for it was no other man. “I all but was. Your filthy creatures damn near had me in pieces. But I survived, I crawled away and I hid out. And I watched you and now I’m going to kill you. Where is my girlfriend, what have you done with her, you bastard?”
“You’re a hard man to kill,” said Kaleton. “However.”
Omally shifted his suitcase from hand to hand. “Where is Jennifer?”
“She’s nice and safe, would you like to join her? Shall I call Jennifer that you might see her one more time, kiss those soft red lips? She’s so close you could reach out and touch her.”
“In here?” Omally’s free hand reached to the gasometer, but an icy blast tore it away, numb and bleeding.
“No,” said Kaleton, “she’s in here,” he pointed to his mouth, “and now you can come inside.”
“You’ve killed her, you… whatever you are.”
“Whatever I am. Who do you think I am?”
“You are Choronzon,” said Professor Slocombe, “lord of all anarchy, destroyer. You are Choronzon.”
Kaleton spun about. Above him on a higher catwalk stood Pooley and the Professor. Jim’s eyes bulged, filled with tears. “John,” he gasped, “John, is that you?”
“Watchamate, Jim,” said that very man.
“Blessed be,” said Jim Pooley.
“I am the Soul of the World,” cried Kaleton in many voices and many tongues, “I am Choronzon, I am Baal, I am Kali, I am Shiva. I am all that has gone before and all that is yet to come. Ruination lies in my hands, ruination for you and your kind. You dirt, you worms. Your time is at hand.”
“Where’s my girlfriend?”
“My future wife?” asked Jim. “He’s got her?”
“I am yesterday and tomorrow, Alpha and Omega. You are finished.” Kaleton twisted, distorted, the hideous mouth opened wider, swelled as if to encompass everything, the borough, the earth, the universe, the whole damn lot.
The earth trembled. The warriors beneath gazed up towards the iron tower. The riot police, prepared to batter skulls, halted in mid-swing. Rune made sacred signs. Meek continued to fill his pockets for the meek shall inherit the earth, after all. Hovis considered bee-keeping on the Sussex Downs. Behind Pooley’s left ear a particle of dirt resembled the exact shape of the lost continent of Atlantis.
“I am Choronzon,” cried the voices of Kaleton, the voices of the millions gone forward into the oblivion of yesterday. “We are the planet’s revenge, we will have no more of you. All die.”
“But you first,” said Omally, priming the suitcase and thrusting it into the ghastly void which spread before him, the mouth of hell.
The facade of human resemblance fell away from Kaleton. He was an unearthly shape, an elemental, the bogey man, the nightmare of children, the dreams of the mad, the delirium of the dying. He was all that was opposite, life in reverse. “You cannot stop us. You cannot reverse the process. A great shot will ring out across the universe. All will die, forever die, be gone. We are your Nemesis!”
Pooley swung down from the catwalk, struck the swelling creature from behind and catapulted it into space. Kaleton flew into the air, a whirling mass of neutrinos, primal flux, ancient evil made flesh, a formless horror that was many forms, many pasts and presents. And somewhere in that hinterland of time, lost between seconds, between yesterday, today and tomorrow, Omally’s suitcase exploded. It might have been in Brentford or even anywhere in the unknown world or the partially explored cosmos. But it was within the universe that was Kaleton. Great streamers of trailing sparks spun across the sky, the gasometer rocked and shook, the stadium shuddered and trembled, the air swam with visions, dreams, memories.