He was somehow still a man – bloated and monstrous, yes, but with two arms and two legs and a head. His body was the size of a building, a skyscraper, the skin stretched out, broken in places, held together by a net of poisoned black strands that might once have been veins. Darkness churned inside the gaps, as if he had been emptied out and filled with smoke. Those wings, those horrible, dark wings that were so similar to her own, and yet so different, stretched out behind him like a spiderweb of shadow.
Nothing human remained above the neck, though. There was just that mouth, that gaping hole where his face should be, looking more like a whirlpool or a tornado than ever. She couldn’t see his eyes but she could feel them watching her, hooks embedded in her skin.
She opened her mouth again, feeling energy blaze a path up her throat, surging from her lips. It struck the man in the bulk of his torso, pulling away strips of old, dead flesh. Howie shouted too, the word carving through the air and ripping a chunk of darkness from the storm. She fired again, both of them calling out together, screaming, throwing everything they had at him.
Something was happening to it. It was starting to turn, like an engine, a turbine, no longer blowing out but inhaling again, like before.
Daisy felt the current in the air change, sucking her down. The void of his mouth grew closer, bigger, the sound of it like thunder rocking through her mind. She screamed at him, her voice and the angel’s lost in the madness. Something lashed out from his throat, a blade of darkness that sliced scalpel-like through the air beside her. Another followed, this one coiling around her body, a piece of liquid night that gripped her like a fist.
Daisy panicked, trying to stretch out her wings but finding them bound tight. Her angel sparked violently, fighting the darkness, and she twisted her body in an effort to get loose. She spun deeper into the pit, her mind unable to make sense of the thing that held her. There was nothing there, just a strand of complete and utter absence that seemed to eat into her, as though it was trying to swallow her up out of existence.
No! she yelled, screaming at it again and again until the piece of night began to unravel, dissolving in the cold fire of her angel. But it was too late, the current had her, reeling her into the clouds of smoke and dust that circled the beast’s throat.
The roar of the vortex grew even louder, and there was a sudden rush of movement, like being sucked down a drain. She closed her eyes, then realised that not seeing was infinitely worse than seeing. When she opened them again she saw it up ahead, the end – a point of utter blackness into which everything was being pulled. It was the tiniest of holes, surely too small to hold all this stuff. But it breathed in every last scrap of matter, bolts of not-quite-lightning cracking up from it, dozens every second. There was no sound coming from it and she wondered if maybe she’d gone deaf.
Another flutter of liquid night, but she twisted out of the way, feeling the unbearable nothing of it brush past her. She opened her mouth, fighting back. Something odd was happening as she closed in on the flickering hole. Things were slowing down – or, maybe not slowing down, but breaking apart, as if even time couldn’t hold itself here. Time, sound, matter, life, the man in the storm hated it all, he hated everything. She could almost see its story in the immense quiet that surrounded his throat. This thing, whatever it was, it came from a place where there was nothing. This thing was what had existed before life, before the first stars, before the Big Bang. It was the emptiness before the universe, and the emptiness that would follow it.
The awful sense of loneliness that washed over her was too much. She couldn’t bear it. This thing was a black hole, it would devour everything, just feed and feed and feed until there was nothing left – no warmth, no laughter, no love. Just silence, for ever and ever. There was nothing they could do against this. It was hopeless.
She heard Howie calling to her but she ignored him. She took one last look at the beast, then flexed her wings and burned herself out of its reach.
Rilke
San Francisco, 2.32 p.m.
There was something wrong with her head, but she couldn’t work out what. It hurt, for one, a throbbing needle of agony right in the centre of her brain. Noise seemed to radiate out from it, the sound of cathedral bells ringing, and there was a whistling, maddening itch in her ears. She couldn’t think straight, couldn’t seem to hold a thought up there. All she knew was that he had done it, the tall boy. Brick, was that his name? Rilke tried to remember, but the images and memories in her brain were like jigsaw pieces in a box, they didn’t make any sense.
She couldn’t see too well either. In fact, she couldn’t really see at all. But something was seeing for her, the world a web of golden strands that made up trees and fields and hills and sky. There was something inside her, something made of fire. Or had she always been like this? She wasn’t sure, she didn’t know which thoughts were real and which were imagined. Was she a doll? A broken one? What had brought her to life?
Revenge. Someone had died. Schiller. Had he been a doll too? Yes, a beautiful doll, her beautiful doll. Someone had broken him. The tall boy, the tall boy with wings. The engine of her brain stalled, the whistle rising in pitch, like people were screaming right into her ears. She felt her body shake, a fit that made every muscle spasm. It was like she had strings, not a doll but a puppet.
She looked around with her new eyes, seeing the world laid out before her, bare and vulnerable. Were they atoms she could see, the building blocks that made up every stone, every cloud, every chirping bird, every mouthful of air she took in? There were so many of them, galaxies of them, but they seemed to make sense to her. She could see a glowing trail in the sky where someone like her had been, like a ship’s wake. The tall boy, he had come this way.
She beat her wings. Had she always had them? She couldn’t be sure. The noise was too much, she couldn’t see anything past it. Every time she tried it was like she was pushing herself too hard. Something up there in the clockwork toy of her brain might just snap or ping out if she wasn’t careful. Maybe there was no before, only now. She might have just woken up for the first time. That made sense, she thought. If she was a doll then maybe she’d been asleep. Maybe being broken is what woke her.
No, maybe Schiller being broken is what woke her. She thought she saw him, his skin sparkling, as if he was carved from glass – or ice – his eyes dark beads. The tall boy had broken him. Yes, that was it. Why else was she so angry with him, the one called Brick?
It’s okay, Schiller, she said, or tried to say, but she couldn’t remember how to work her lips. That was okay, though. Dolls didn’t need to speak. She just thought it, worried that if she didn’t then it might just slip right out of the mess of her head. I know what I have to do. I have to find him, the tall boy, I have to break him too, it’s the only way we’ll be back together, right, Schill? Tell me that’s right. Mother won’t be angry if . . . if I break him.
Her brain screamed, like a jet engine. She ignored it as best she could, following the trail, the world passing by beneath her as if she was being carried, like something had her under its arm. But of course, she was a doll, so something had to be carrying her, something old and terrible and full of fire. She could almost hear it, behind the chaos, howling at her with words she could never hope to understand, trying to tell her something.
It’s okay, she said. I know what you want me to do. She thought of the doll called Schiller, and she thought of the tall boy. I’ll break him, I’ll break him, I’ll break him.
Cal
San Francisco, 2.34 p.m.
Cal stopped walking, aware of a growing darkness in his head. The air was shuddering, gusts of wind snapping between the trees, carrying the stench of smoke and blood. The ground felt like a living thing, shaking so hard it made his teeth chatter. Adam hung on to the pocket of his jeans, staring at him.
‘Daisy,’ Cal said, sensing her terror. What was happening to her? This was all wrong. He’d never felt so goddamned useless in his life. Things had al
ways been so under control. His life, his friends, everything, it had been perfect. Now, though, he couldn’t even look after a little girl.
He swore, thumped himself in the chest, hard enough to hurt.
‘Come on then,’ he yelled to the thing inside him, the creature. He knew it was there, because it had made his friends try to murder him, his mum too, what felt like a million years ago. ‘Come on, you useless piece of crap, if you’re going to do something then just do it.’
He hit himself again, and again, but the angel didn’t respond. Maybe his didn’t work. Maybe it had died on the journey over from wherever it had come from. He remembered once at school, when they were kids, they’d had a day of show and tell. Megan – God, Megan, where is she now? Did she survive the attack on London? Is she dead? The sudden rush of loss was unbearable – had brought a chick to school. Her parents kept chickens, and one of the hens had been allowed to breed. There had been dozens of them, and she’d brought one to school in a shoebox. On the way in, though, it died. It had been scared to death. When she opened the box all that was left was a tiny bundle of flesh and feather, already cold. Had that happened to his angel? Was it lying inside Cal now, a collection of weightless, broken parts rattling around inside his soul? The thought made him want to open himself up and pull everything out just to get rid of it.
And what could he do without his angel? Walk up to the man in the storm and ask him nicely to just piss off? All the man would have to do is think it and Cal’s body, the body he’d had his whole life, every single cell of it, would simply be erased. Nine pints of blood, a few bones, all wrapped up in the thinnest coat of leather. All those years of training, Choy Li Fut, sparring with his sifu, all that for nothing. As far as weapons went, he was about as dangerous as a wet sock.
‘Dammit!’ he said, shaking the darkness away, taking another step. Adam held on, dragged along beside him. He didn’t show any sign of changing either. If anything he looked younger and more feeble than ever. The new kid, Howie, had gone with Daisy, hadn’t he? And Brick? Cal couldn’t be sure. Rilke, poor lost Rilke, had turned too. Maybe all four of them were fighting. Surely that was enough, wasn’t it? They’d scared the beast away when it was just three of them, back in London. It had to be enough.
Only it wasn’t. He knew it. Cal thumped himself again, screaming, ‘What’s wrong with you? Are you scared? You’re pathetic, pathetic!’ Still no response, and his helplessness, his exhaustion, his fear, was suddenly a fury that boiled up from his belly.
He charged through the trees, running now, heading for a band of sunlight that sat ahead. The hell with it. It didn’t matter that he was human, didn’t matter that he would die. He’d fight the man in the storm anyway. At least he would have tried. Nothing could be worse than hanging back, hiding in this forest. Nothing. He burst from between the last line of trees, sunlight blinding him so much that he almost didn’t see it. Then he caught a glimpse of it between his fingers, a trench that ran parallel to the forest, a sheer cliff that dropped off metres from his feet. He skidded to a halt, kicking pebbles into the crack. There were footsteps behind him and he held out an arm so that Adam wouldn’t topple off.
‘Jesus,’ he said, creeping to the edge, leaning over. Below – maybe thirty, forty metres – was the ground that had once been joined to the forest. Between him and it was a ravine that had been opened up in the shaking earth, stretching as far as he could see in both directions. He felt his head spin and took a step away, lifting his head to the horizon. Dominating it was a black hole that stretched north to south, land and ocean boiling into it as it continued to grow. He was on a hill, near the top, and could see for miles – but all there was against the sky was the pit, a halo of dark cloud suspended over it.
Cal slapped his hands to his head, as if trying to stop his sanity from fleeing on the wind. It was just so vast, so impossible. The man in the storm was eating everything, every rock, every drop of seawater. He was devouring it. If Cal went over there – if he could even make it over the ruptured ground – it would suck him in without even noticing. He’d be just another morsel alongside the million other souls who had once lived here. His death would mean nothing, his life would mean nothing. He’d just be pulled into that hideous gullet, snuffed out of existence.
He collapsed to his knees, too numb to speak, too numb to cry, too numb to move. It was over. Daisy would die, the others would follow, and the world would end. He closed his eyes, hearing the relentless grind of the storm, the deafening crack as the bones of the world snapped deep beneath him.
Something touched his shoulder and he flinched. He looked, saw Adam right next to him, the little boy’s face as expressionless as always.
‘Sorry,’ Cal said. ‘It’s over, I think. There’s nothing we can do.’
Adam took Cal’s head, holding it against his chest. Cal rested there, hearing the beat of the boy’s heart, as fast as a rabbit’s. It should be the other way round, he thought. He should be comforting the kid. He pulled away, wrapped his hands around Adam’s waist, hugging him.
‘You’ve been so brave,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry this had to happen to you.’
Adam looked up to the horizon and Cal followed his gaze, seeing more of the world slip down the throat of the beast. The sea was making a noise the like of which he’d never heard, a sonic groan that was almost human, as if the ocean couldn’t believe what was happening to it. So much of it had been swallowed, billions and billions of gallons, that even if they were to find a way to stop the man in the storm the world could never be the same.
‘Don’t look,’ he said, pulling Adam closer. ‘It’s better if you don’t see. Just pretend . . .’ Pretend what? He’d never been great with kids, never really knew what to say. ‘Pretend it’s a game, like hide and seek. We’ll go back in the forest, find a place to hide. Just for a while; then . . .’ He swallowed, then tried to cough out the lump in his throat. ‘You miss your mum? Your dad?’
Adam shook his head, his eyes narrowing.
‘I do. I miss my mum so much. I think . . . I think we’ll see them again soon. It won’t be long, yeah?’
Only you won’t, he thought, because there’s no afterlife in there, nothing to look forward to. Just darkness, nothingness, for eternity. Think, Cal, there has to be something.
He put his hand to his chest. Maybe his angel just needed some encouragement – like a gun to its head.
‘I need you to wait here,’ he said. ‘Promise you won’t follow me, yeah?’
Cal rested both hands on the boy’s face, holding him.
‘It will be okay. If you don’t see me again, go back into the trees. Someone will find you.’
He let go of the boy, and turned back towards the ravine. From up here it looked bottomless, as if it led right to the very centre of the earth. This was so stupid, it was insane, but what choice did he have? He closed his eyes, thought about his mum, his dad, about Megan and Eddie. About Georgia too. If he did this he’d never know what it was like to kiss her, never know how her body felt in his arms. But that was okay. It was okay.
He took a deep breath, leant forward, and let himself go.
Brick
Clear Lake, California, 2.42 p.m.
Brick’s landing was messy, his wings getting in the way as he materialised, tripping him up. The ground rose up too quickly and he covered his head with his hands, crying out, the sound tearing its way through grass and then rock and then water. He tumbled head over heels, hearing the crack of ice as it formed around him, momentum carrying him across the surface of a lake then throwing him up the other side where he eventually rolled to a halt.
There was no pain. He didn’t think he could feel pain in this state. There was relief, though. He’d got away. He didn’t have to fight. He sat up, the world a shifting myriad of atoms and molecules that should have been dizzying but which somehow made sense. Holding up a hand he could see the things he was made of, the cells of skin and bone and muscle and fat, the shifting current of hi
s blood, and the fire that burned, somehow inside him and outside at the same time, making him look transparent. There was a dark stain against his burning skin, and it took him a moment to understand that he was seeing it through his hand. He dropped it to his side, seeing a cloud of smoke in the sky over the distant hills. He hadn’t gone far enough.
He got to his feet, lifting himself up by just thinking about it. Now that he was used to the creature inside him it wasn’t too weird. It was good, actually. How many times in his life had he wished for power like this? How many times had he wanted to be able to run away from it all, or to crush the faces of the people who pissed him off – and there had been so many of them. God what he’d have done to have had this when he was at school. Nobody would have taken the mickey out of him.
That made him think of Rilke, and he shuddered. She deserved it, he told himself. She had it coming, ever since she killed Lisa. But the words made his gut churn.
He tried to forget about it, reaching deep into his head and switching off the angel. That was the best way to think about it, as a machine, a suit, like Iron Man or something. The angel was the powerful one, but it didn’t have any control. It could only do what he told it to. He wasn’t quite sure why, but it made sense in a way. They couldn’t survive here, in this reality, by themselves. They had to live inside you, like a parasite in a host. And once there they didn’t have any choice but to go along with what you wanted. He was pretty sure his angel was trying to communicate with him, was probably trying to tell him to go back, to fight the beast. But screw it. His body, his rules. If the angel didn’t like it, then it could go back to wherever it came from.
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