The War in the Dark

by Nick Setchfield

  She strode back to Winter, proffering the relic.

  ‘The face on the coin,’ she said. ‘The saint wasn’t praying. He was hiding his eyes.’

  She took the knife and worked its tip into the pits of the skull. The blade slid beneath the sapphires that had been wedged in the eye sockets. In moments she had prised the gems from the bone hollows. She tossed the skull to the ground and let the sapphires roll on her palm. There was a tiny glyph etched into the back of each stone. The language of fire.

  ‘You were right,’ she smiled. ‘A safeguard.’

  The glare of the Ascendance filled the basilica. Winter had an impression of vast white wings unfurling. Their brilliance burned at the edges of his eyes. There were no more shadows now. Only the light of the Ascendance, a light that would claim the world.

  ‘Quickly,’ he hissed. ‘Do it!’

  Karina thrust the knife towards him. And then she hesitated, clearly unwilling to put the blade to his body.

  ‘You’re going to feel it,’ he told her, his voice as calm as he could make it. ‘Just keep going. Whatever happens, don’t be afraid of it.’

  Karina nodded, numbly. She gathered her resolve, tightening her grip on the hilt.

  The blade punctured Winter’s skin. He grimaced as the obsidian tip sliced into him, cold and insistent. It moved across his chest, dragging the incision sideways. A bright ribbon of blood rose to the surface and trailed behind the blade. It had a rich scent, coppery and sweet.

  The knife continued its arc. Karina glanced again at the sapphires, memorising each crucial stroke of the runes. And then she threw the gems to the ground and seized the hilt in both hands, pushing the blade’s edge deeper into Winter’s chest. His blood ran on her fingers, sticky and warm.

  Winter screamed as his flesh tore. The obsidian was pitilessly sharp. It scored him like razor wire. He felt Karina lift the knife away but it was only a momentary relief. Seconds later it pierced him again, carving a new and equally bloody arc.

  He reached for her wrists, wanting to stop her, to wrest the knife away. But it was Hart he could feel in his hands, Hart who was fighting to live. Winter forced his fingers away from her. They snatched at empty air, spasming in shock.

  The blade moved quickly. Karina’s face was determined. She overlaid the second symbol on the first, creating a conjoined glyph on Winter’s body. Outlined in blood, a moon encircled two mirrored triangles, the disparate shapes united by three undulating lines, like waves. She kept the blade moving, her mouth locked tight, her hands rigid around the hilt.

  Winter flailed, his body protesting. It wasn’t just the pain of the black knife tearing through his skin. Each cut burned as if his soul was being seared.

  Hart was inside him, one with his flesh.

  Karina made a final wound, a long diagonal incision that completed the rune. And then she stood back, repulsed by what she had done, and flung the knife to the flagstones.

  Winter crashed to his knees. His chest ran with blood. He threw his arms behind him, his ribs pushing against his bare skin as he took air into his lungs.

  The rune began to glow, every carved, bloodied line gleaming with white fire.

  A surge of energy struck his chest, punching through him. It lit every nerve, every blood cell. Winter howled as it pierced him, consumed him. He was a conduit now, a channel for this unearthly force.

  He could hear Hart’s voice in his head, louder than the pain. It was raging, crying for life.

  Winter’s body buckled, the glyph of blood blazing on his chest. It felt as though his soul was being severed in two. The agony was almost unendurable, a pain that was beyond the body, beyond the physical limitations of the flesh, a pain that terrified him because he had no idea if it would ever end.

  A final, anguished scream filled his skull. And then, still raging, still defiant, Tobias Hart was torn out of him and cast back to Hell, forever.

  Winter trembled. The fire and the pain had left his body. The man that he had been was gone.

  The circle of white flame roared and then vanished. There was a rush of wind where the burning maw had been. It seemed to snatch all the light from the church. All that remained of the Ascendance was an after-image, a pale, wraithlike echo of great white wings and shining eyes. The vision lingered, like the sun imprinted on a retina. And then that too was gone.

  Winter collapsed to the ground. He lay there, his face on the floor of the nave, hearing his own breathing. He pressed his chest against the cold stone, relishing its chill against his raw skin. His eyes adjusted to the sudden gloom. The shadows slowly disclosed their shapes. He watched as the marble columns came into focus, emerging out of the grey.

  And then he gathered himself and got to his feet. Karina moved to help him but he pushed past her, making for the tall wooden door at the basilica’s entrance. He staggered towards it, knocking into the scattered pews, his legs betraying him.

  He put a hand to the heavy old door and stumbled into morning. The daylight made his eyes run and the shock of Alpine air scraped his throat. Winter kept walking, away from the ruined monastery, over the stone path and its weeds, his chest dripping blood on the snow.

  He took it all in. The sky seemed limitless above the eternal peaks of the Alps. It was dizzying, infinitely blue. This world was suddenly all too big. He slumped to his knees, shivering as his shirt flapped around him, the wind from the lake on his body. He barely registered Karina running after him, calling a name that didn’t belong to him now.

  He had nothing. No self, no identity. No memories he could ever claim as his own. Christopher Winter had been a chain of lies, a life written by Malcolm Hands. Tobias Hart’s memories belonged to someone who had worn his face and done terrible things, a long time ago. Both those men were strangers. Whoever he was, whatever he called himself, he was a blank. Hollow inside, Malykh had said. And that’s what he was. He knew that now.

  Karina’s arms were around him.

  He looked up at her, searching her face, his eyes lost.

  ‘Just one memory,’ he said, his words breaking as she cradled him. ‘Just give me one bloody memory that’s mine…’

  She put her mouth to his and she kissed him. Her lips were like fruit.

  She was warm and she was close and there was tamarind in her hair. He clung to her and willed the fear and the horror away. The pain began to ebb.

  They held each other in the church’s shadow as the lake mist found them.

  33

  He had found the invitation the day he had placed lilies on Joyce’s grave.

  It had been tucked in front of her headstone, wedged in the damp, sweet-smelling earth. A corner of the card had been eaten by the rain but the words were still legible, even though the ink had run. Russian words, scrawled in Cyrillic script. He could just about translate them.

  Come to tea, the invitation had read. Don’t be late. There was a time and an address.

  Pocketing the card he had put a hand to the freshly inscribed marble, wondering just who he was paying his respects to. The grave was probably empty, after all, more a memorial to Malcolm’s subterfuge than the woman he had once loved. Whoever had played Joyce Winter had doubtlessly been laid to rest elsewhere, buried under her true name. The fiction of her death would have been immaculately constructed, naturally, the details of her demise neat and watertight. The service would have seen to that. Anything to keep the great machinery of shadows intact.

  He had placed the flowers against the headstone and then he had walked away, past the stone cherubs and the mossy war graves and out through the gates of the sprawling Victorian cemetery by Mitcham Common.

  Now, a fortnight later, he descended the stairs that led to a Westminster tea room, keeping the rendezvous arranged by the card. He felt intrigued and wary, not entirely sure what to expect from this encounter. Why had she summoned him? He hadn’t seen her since the events in Bavaria. What did she want?

  He entered the basement dining area, pushing through tall glass doo
rs stencilled with roses. The walnut-panelled room smelt of tobacco, tea and sweet pastry and had the unmistakable hum of London money. People ate cake and made low-key conversation, barely louder than the chinking of their china.

  She was waiting for him in the far corner.

  ‘There you are,’ said the Widow of Kursk.

  The demon sat at the table, perfectly poised, black eyes bright behind the lace mesh of her veil. As ever a discreet malevolence surrounded her. She raised a gloved hand and indicated the vacant chair, beckoning him over. ‘Do join me, Tobias.’

  ‘I don’t go by that name,’ he told her, taking the seat. ‘Not anymore.’

  A smile rose on her bloodless lips. ‘Really? So what do you call yourself, might I ask?’

  ‘Christopher Winter. It’s as good a name as any.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get used to calling you that.’

  It was Winter’s turn to smile. His was tight and defensive. ‘Well, that shouldn’t be a problem. I’d like to believe this is the last time we see one another.’

  ‘I’m sure you would.’ She made a show of forming the next word. ‘Christopher.’

  Winter glanced at the sugar bowl, distracted by a glimpse of black among the glistening white. Looking closer he saw that there were three dead flies on the neatly piled cubes. Another fly was scaling the tongs, unsteady on the silver, its wings quivering.

  ‘Such terribly small deaths,’ said the Widow, observing them too. ‘Not even their parasites mourn them. I certainly can’t dine on their passing. Now a city the size of London, with one of those beautiful new bombs…’

  She moved her eyes to him again. ‘I’m surprised you came. You must know I could kill you.’

  ‘Well, I can’t imagine I’d receive a formal invitation to my own funeral.’

  ‘A fair point. But I’d hate to be predictable.’

  Winter leaned forward, determined to keep this conversation short. ‘So why did you ask me here?’

  She made a sympathetic pout beneath the lace. ‘Concern. And curiosity. What do you intend to do with yourself?’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure.’

  ‘Are the SIS aware you’re back in London?’

  Winter grimaced. ‘I’ve managed to evade them so far. Who knows how much luck I have left.’

  ‘Will you return to the service? I imagine your country still has a use for your talent.’

  ‘Killing people isn’t a talent.’

  ‘A skill, then,’ said the demon, sharply.

  Winter shook his head. ‘It was a job. It’s not one I’d choose again.’

  ‘Moral qualms? With your past? Pity. I was going to offer you a partnership.’

  Winter shot her a look of genuine surprise, his eyebrows steepening. ‘A partnership?’

  The Widow nodded. ‘Think of it. An assassin. And a creature who feeds on mourning. A perfect symbiosis, wouldn’t you say?’

  Winter snorted, his eyes on the other patrons, watching as a businessman charmed his mistress over a plate of scones. ‘You could kill everyone in this room. You don’t need me.’

  She grinned, exposing a row of kitten teeth. ‘I know. But I want you to be fulfilled too.’

  Winter regarded her evenly. ‘It’s a kind offer. But I’m sure I’ll get by. And besides, I don’t need a parasite.’

  There was amusement on the pale, ageless face behind the veil. ‘Well, doubtlessly I shall be sated. I find myself in a time that slays a young president, after all. Poor Mr Kennedy. So much hope stolen from the world, so much to mourn. And these new weapons you men build. Such wicked and clever things. I imagine I won’t run short of grief in the years ahead.’

  Something very old and very dark moved in her eyes. ‘The Greeks knew me as the Widow of Troy, the English the Widow of Agincourt. In the revolution I was the Widow of Paris. History has rarely disappointed me.’

  She rested a glove on Winter’s hand. He could feel the chill of her ungodly flesh burning through the velvet.

  ‘But listen,’ she said. ‘What will you do, really?’

  Winter shrugged. ‘To be honest I think I’ll keep my head down for a while.’

  The Widow mulled this. ‘That may be very wise. You crossed a lot of people in your time. Made plenty of enemies in your youth. Some of them must still be out there. I doubt they’ve forgotten you. A baroness with a mahogany hand, for instance. What was her name?’

  Winter averted his eyes. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Antonia,’ said the demon, brightly, delighted to have recalled the name. ‘Yes, that was it. The English girl. She turned somewhat bitter after what you did to her. And who can blame her? It’s not easily forgiven. I’d certainly watch your back.’

  ‘Consider me warned.’

  Winter rose from the table, buttoning his coat. It was time to end this. She made his skin shiver, like the first shudder of autumn blown in by a summer wind, a promise of dead leaves.

  ‘Tell me one thing,’ he asked. ‘Those creatures. The Almost. Are they still hunting me?’

  The Widow paused, considering the question. ‘I’m not sure. Possibly not. I imagine you might have confused them. There’s probably no one else alive who’s willingly sent part of their soul to Hell. One thing I do know, though.’

  Winter listened.

  ‘When the day comes your death will taste delicious. A truly unique flavour. I look forward to feasting on the grief of someone who loves you.’

  Winter peered into the Widow’s veil, searching for the eyes. ‘I do hope I don’t disappoint you.’

  He strode out of the tea room. As he approached the glass-panelled door he caught sight of the demon’s reflection. A second later it had gone, replaced by a crack in the pane, newly splintered. Winter glanced back. The Widow’s chair was empty.

  * * *

  Frost glistened on the clock face of Big Ben, catching the last light of the afternoon.

  Winter stepped on to Westminster Bridge, hearing its iron span shudder as black cabs and Routemasters trundled across the river, carrying people home. There was an early moon in the London sky and the first stars hung above the spires of Parliament. A parade of gas lamps already burned along the length of the bridge.

  A month ago a streak of silver, trailing fire, had torn through the heavens above the capital, crossing Highgate and Kensington and arcing over Mortlake, where John Dee’s spirit-haunted warren of a house once stood. A dying satellite, people had guessed. Maybe a wounded Telstar, cast out of orbit. That night it had felt part of an older, darker world, an age of comets and portents. It had fallen like a burning star.

  This was only a respite, Winter knew, as the evening shadows collected. A chance to take a breath, nothing more. He could sense the war around them now, waiting at the edges of the light.

  Ever since Bavaria he had known something else, too.

  He tugged the lambskin glove from his left hand, feeling the wind on his skin. And then he trailed his fingers in the rain that had pooled on the cast-iron balustrade, his flesh tingling at the chill of the water, the nerves pulsing inside him. He wasn’t hollow. He was alive, in this moment. And he wanted it. Fearlessly.

  Karina smiled in the December dusk.

  ‘Can you see the lights?’ she asked.

  She was waiting beneath one of the ornate triple-lantern gas lamps, dressed for the English weather in a Cossack hat and an olive trenchcoat. Behind her the horizon glowed, the streets lit by electric angels, reindeers and snowflakes. It would soon be Christmas.

  ‘It’s what we do, isn’t it,’ she said. ‘Burn fires into the night.’

  Winter considered the skyline. ‘It’s what we’ve always done. It’s how we win.’

  They began to walk, over the river and its bridge of lights, into the bright old city. A black fist of birds rose above the Thames. London shone against the gathering dark.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Kerensa Creswell-Bryant, who was there on Portobello Road, where it all began; Laura diZ
erega, for umlauts and architecture; Johnny King, for motorcycle know-how; Elena Smolina, for Russian assistance.

  Neil Gaiman, Russell T Davies, Mark Millar and Steven Moffat, for encouragement and advice.

  My agent, Julie Crisp, who lit the fuse in the first place; my editor Cat Camacho at Titan Books (thank you for believing in this tall tale); Titan’s equally keen-eyed Joanna Harwood; Dana Spector at Paradigm.

  Mum, my family and all my friends, especially Jordan Farley, Sally Browne, Louise Blain, Jacqueline Roach and Rob Power – trusted conspirators and keepers of secrets. And, of course, the brilliant team on SFX, the greatest magazine on this planet or any other.

  And to you, unknown but splendid reader, wherever and whenever you are. You’re the electricity that powers this ghost train ride. Thank you.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Nick Setchfield is a writer and features editor for SFX, Britain’s best-selling magazine of genre entertainment in film, TV and books. A regular contributing writer to Total Film, he’s also been a movie reviewer for the BBC and a scriptwriter for ITV’s Spitting Image. The War in the Dark is his first novel. He lives in Bath.

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