Fading Light

by Nick Cook

  My stomach clenched as the blow caught Ethan across the head and he toppled to the floor, blood oozing from a gash in his temple.

  ‘Ethan!’ Chloe shouted.

  Hammond dragged himself up and staggered to him. With a grunt of pain, he scooped Ethan up in his arms and began to back away from the two fighting animals.

  I could do absolutely nothing as the mind-storm burned through my mind. And then Gem’s demon spread its wings wider.

  Not this time, not again. I’d promised Gem that I’d protect her and I wasn’t going to let her down, even if that meant killing her. I had to do this, however sick it made me feel inside.

  I heaved myself up, my muscles on fire. It felt as if I were lifting the weight of the planet as I staggered back to my feet. More wolves had begun padding into the atrium.

  I stared at Gem and tried to raise my arms, but couldn’t ignite even the faintest spark to use to attack.

  The wolves fanned out before us, their dark teeth glistening.

  Hammond pointed to the steps to the exhibition. ‘This way!’

  I bent down and clutched Chloe’s hand. Her expression broke with pain but she got to her feet. Together, leaning on each other, we staggered after General Hammond as he carried Ethan up the stairs.

  Domino and his wolf opponent whirled past us, still locked in battle, but the dog was starting to slow.

  Above us, Hammond was holding the exhibition doors open.

  ‘Here, boy,’ I called out, but the collie didn’t respond. ‘Chloe, call Domino – otherwise he’ll be killed.’

  She whimpered. ‘I can’t! The noise in my head…’

  ‘You’ve got to try…for Ethan.’

  Her eyes locked on mine. ‘Yes…’ Ridges chiselled her forehead as every sinew in her face stood out. For a moment nothing happened, but then her eyes became blank and Domino broke away from the wolf. The next second, the dog’s movements stiffened and it turned half sideways.

  Domino’s opponent grabbed its chance and leapt.

  Chloe turned on her heel, an action mirrored by Domino. The wolf couldn’t stop its jump and Chloe bent her neck and slammed her teeth together as it hurtled towards the collie. As the wolf’s strike missed Domino, the dog sank his teeth into the creature’s neck. With a scream, the shadow creature shattered and dissolved into smoke. Now, where the wolf had been, a man with a bloodied neck lay sprawled on the floor.

  Chloe slumped on to me, her eyes clearing. Slowly, she held her arms out as Domino, covered with blood, limped up the stairs towards her.

  Gavin shook his head and guided Gem by the arm, with the demon tracking round her body, after us.

  ‘A small victory, but you are only delaying the inevitable, Awoken,’ Gavin said.

  The yipping pack of wolves fanned out behind them.

  ‘We’ll see about that!’ I called back.

  We staggered into the exhibition room as Hammond lowered Ethan to the floor. He rushed back to the doors and slammed them shut behind us, barricading them with several small exhibition stands that pots had been placed on.

  I scanned the Terracotta Army exhibition room. It was filled with full-size clay soldier statues. ‘Where’s the other exit?’

  ‘There isn’t one,’ Hammond said.

  ‘You mean we’re trapped?’ Chloe asked.

  Domino lowered his bloodied head on to Ethan’s chest and whined. Hammond pulled his jacket off and started ripping it into strips to bandage Ethan.

  I’d had one job to do – to stop Gem – and I’d failed. And now we’d all pay the price with our lives.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The door to the exhibition room shuddered as something launched itself against the other side. General Hammond ignored it and attended to Ethan’s head injury.

  I lay on the floor, trying to focus.

  Chloe was collapsed nearby, glaring at the door. ‘That won’t hold them out for long.’

  ‘There’s nothing you can do to stop them?’ Hammond asked.

  ‘I doubt it. I only just managed to reach out to Domino’s mind and that hurt like hell, although I was able to screen it out a bit,’ she replied.

  ‘But how did you get past that mental attack at all?’ I asked her as my head throbbed.

  ‘I thought of how I wanted to protect Domino from harm. When I concentrated on that, it eased up the mind-storm just enough so that I could help him.’

  ‘We both know this isn’t really Gem. Once again she’s being twisted to the Shade’s will. She doesn’t want to do any of this. Maybe I could try talking to her…’

  ‘I doubt there’s any chance she’ll listen at the moment.’

  ‘Not by speaking to her.’ I pointed towards my skull. ‘I can’t explain it, but there seems to be a direct mental link between us.’

  ‘If you think you have a chance, go for it.’

  I closed my eyes and Gem’s furious emotions surged into in my mind. I could barely think, let alone focus, under the assault of the mental tsunami. I gasped for breath as it overwhelmed me. Then I felt gentle arms wrap round my body. I opened my eyes and found myself looking into Chloe’s crystal blue eyes.

  ‘You can do this, Jake,’ she said.

  I clung on to Chloe, her warmth anchoring me, as I let the mental storm flow through my mind. And the more I didn’t try to fight the pain, the more I found I was able to focus. I ignored everything except the feeling of calmness, and our endless candle training kicking in, centring me.

  A feeling of expansion grew inside me, as if I’d stepped out of a small room into a wide, open landscape. The walls became transparent as my thermal vision appeared. It was working!

  Hardly daring to breathe, I dialled in some X-ray on top. With the combined wavelengths, I spotted the heat signatures of Gem’s warm body and Gavin’s ice-cold one on the other side of the solid door. In front of them, shadow wolves threw themselves at the door. Within the infrared wavelength, I could see a maelstrom of dark energy particles swirling around Gem like a tornado, but no sign of her actual demon.

  Her eyes stared through the wall and straight into mine.

  Maybe this was my only chance to reach out to Gem before it was too late. I threw my mind open to her, once again concentrating on the memory of Clarke telling me how her parents had died. But this time there was no flicker of recognition in her gaze.

  ‘Not getting through to her,’ I said through my clenched jaw.

  ‘There has to be another way,’ Chloe said.

  General Hammond eyed the doors as he worked on Ethan. ‘You say that Gem has been hypnotised. If we knew the keyword, we could probably break her trance.’

  ‘I don’t think Gavin is about to give that up,’ I said.

  Chloe’s eyes widened. ‘But I can read Domino’s mind.’

  ‘How would that help?’

  ‘With his dog hearing, I bet Domino heard whatever it was that Gavin whispered to Gem.’

  ‘What, so you’re going to run through his memories till you locate it?’

  ‘It could be our only chance.’

  ‘Do it.’

  She nodded. ‘This may take me a few moments.’ Chloe closed her eyes.

  Domino stiffened, his eyes closed and his body began to twitch.

  A minute ticked past as the doors bounced in their frames and holes started to appear in the wood panelling.

  Hammond looked up as he bandaged Ethan’s head. ‘Even if Chloe succeeds and you manage to break through to Gem, there’s still an awful lot of wolves out there.’

  ‘I know…’ I extended my palm and tried to create a plasma spark. I barely managed a flicker thanks to the mind-storm spinning like a circular saw. No, Awoken combat wasn’t a viable option yet.

  I intensified my concentration against the mental barrage and shifted my consciousness just enough to be able to flick through every frequency, looking for answers in the electromagnetic spectrum. Maybe I’d find another exit that no one else knew about. But every surface was solid and the wal
ls were too high to scale to get to the roof. I shut my eyes to help me concentrate and shifted to the Light Web. Everyone’s energy fields appeared around me.

  I took a relieved breath when I saw Ethan’s energy field wasn’t dimming – no doubt his Awoken self-healing ability was starting to repair the damage. But there was something else strange that caught my attention. There were other flickers of energy in the exhibition room, fainter than any of our human aura signatures, but definitely in here with us. And there was something strangely familiar about them.

  I concentrated on one of the fainter fields as I shifted my gaze back into the Real and opened my eyes. I found myself staring at a clay soldier sitting on a full-sized horse statue. I knew exactly where I’d seen a similar energy pattern before.

  ‘Chloe, the Terracotta Army statues are like Kelly’s sculptures,’ I said.

  Domino’s head rose from Ethan’s chest. ‘Trying to concentrate here,’ Chloe said. ‘But what do you mean? They look nothing like Kelly’s.’

  ‘I don’t mean how they look, but their energy – it’s as if they have the dialled-down version of energy flowing through them, just like I saw in Kelly’s sculptures. I can’t explain it, but I’m certain they are, at least in a sense, alive.’

  Hammond looked up as he finished bandaging Ethan’s head. ‘I know you’re under pressure, but you’re babbling, Jake.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand, General Hammond. The people who created these statues put something of themselves into them, just as a friend of ours did with hers. I think what I’m feeling is an echo of the people who created all these statues.’

  General Hammond gave me a strange look – I’m sure he thought I’d tipped over the edge into craziness.

  The corners of Chloe’s mouth tightened. ‘But even if that’s true, Jake, where are you going with this?’

  ‘I’m not sure…’

  With a shriek of splintering wood, the door imploded towards us.

  Gem stood in the doorway, by Gavin’s side, face expressionless as the ghostly demon framing her body peered into the room. Behind them the pack of wolves yipped and snapped.

  ‘We need that keyword right now,’ Hammond said.

  Chloe nodded and closed her eyes again. Domino lowered his head back to Ethan’s chest.

  The first wolf bared its teeth and snarled as it stalked into the room.

  I focused my concentration and overlaid the Light Web on the Real. I could feel the ancient patterns vibrating all around me. I’d used this on Kelly’s eagle sculpture and bent its wings, but I’d always had a feeling that if I’d pushed a bit harder…

  Gem’s demon bellowed its challenge at us, a roar of pure fury.

  I closed my eyes and, fighting the mind-storm with every atom of concentration I had, wrapped my mind around the energy fields in the room. The patterns strengthened to my mind’s touch just as they had with Kelly’s eagle. It had almost felt as if it had wanted to take flight – but this was such a totally insane idea. I knew there was no way it would work. Yet our situation was so desperate, I’d try absolutely anything to save us…

  I threw everything I had into pushing the energy fields with my mind. Slowly, so slowly, like rusty cogs starting to rotate, I felt the patterns begin to shift beneath my focus. But this time, unlike with Kelly’s sculpture, I kept going – controlling and making the energy flow through the statues faster and faster. A pulse of heat warmed my face for a split second.

  ‘Good god,’ I heard General Hammond say.

  I cracked open my eyes to see the clay bodies of the soldiers rippling and bending as they stretched their limbs like athletes warming up. I kept the mental channel open, fuelling them with all the energy I had. One by one, the warriors came to life and stepped carefully off their plinths.

  I gawped along with the others, not really able to believe that I’d been able to do this.

  Hammond shook his head. ‘Is this your work, Jake?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I would never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.’ He shook his head again.

  I concentrated on the nearest figure and imagined it walking, its solid-clay joints bending like real limbs. The soldier took several steps forward by itself – without my direct mental control. Did that mean…?

  This time I focused on the figure riding the horse and visualised him organising the soldiers. My heart leapt as he and his horse, with a stuttering movement, lurched to the front of the others as he raised an arm.

  From the doorway, Gavin gawped at the mounted figure and Gem’s demon roared at the moving statue.

  The horseman thumped his chest, the sound like a clay bell. In the Light Web, I saw energy ripple from him and through the room, slamming into the other soldiers. His clay army beat their shields in response, thrusting their spears and shields. The Terracotta Army marched towards the enemy as the dance of energy kept moving, showing no signs of slowing down.

  Gavin stepped aside and gestured to one of his wolves. It leapt straight at the nearest advancing soldier.

  I felt a swirl of energy pass through the room as the Light Web shimmered and the soldier swung his spear at the wolf. His body shattered into lumps of clay as the wolf struck, causing his energy pattern to flow away to nothing. But the spear had found its mark and the wolf’s form shattered apart as it fell to the ground. Beside it, a former Shade infected man lay dead, a broken terracotta spearhead sticking out of his chest.

  Chloe opened her eyes as Domino raised his head from Ethan’s chest. Hammond took up a protective position in front of them.

  She wiped beads of sweat from her forehead. ‘That was so much harder than I expected.’

  ‘But you got the keyword?’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  One of the leading soldiers raised a spear and hurled it at Gavin. He threw himself to the floor and the weapon hurtled over his head.

  ‘Gem, listen to me!’ Chloe shouted.

  Gem’s demon raised a taloned fist to strike her.

  ‘Nemesis!’ Chloe cried out.

  At once, Gem’s eyes widened. She stared at the demon encasing her and then at us.

  ‘No!’ she screamed.

  The apparition threw its head back and howled. In a swirl of wind it evaporated around her. The mind-storm instantly shut down inside my skull.

  ‘Game on,’ Chloe said. She extended her palms and hurled an energy sphere at the shadow wolves gathered in the doorway. It struck one and shattered it on impact. Where the wolf had been, a burly man was now slumped on the floor.

  ‘Attack them, you cowards,’ Gavin screamed. But already the wolves behind him were backing away down the stairs.

  I threw out a new mental order to a warrior in full armour who’d been stalking towards Gem. He swerved away and clanked past her, heading to the pack of wolves clustered behind.

  I held out my hand. Gem ducked between the advancing soldiers and ran to me.

  She grabbed me by the shoulders. ‘They took control of me again, Jake?’

  I nodded.

  ‘But you were meant to kill me!’

  ‘We could barely breathe, let alone think about that,’ Chloe said.

  Gem shook her head and a look close to regret passed over her face. Was she really that desperate for someone to end her life?

  Gavin followed his retreating wolves back down the stairs as the clay army marched towards them.

  General Hammond hoisted Ethan’s unconscious body over his shoulder. ‘We need to get out of here while we still have a chance.’

  Domino tried to rouse himself, but quickly collapsed.

  Chloe crossed to him and scooped up the dog. ‘You take it easy, fella, you’ve done enough for your master today.’

  I took Gem by the hand. Together, we all crossed to the exit.

  In the atrium, I spotted Gavin pinned into an alcove by a group of soldiers with raised spears. Despite everything, I felt pity for the guy. After all, he’d once helped us escape – when part
of him was still human. But that part, proved by the murder of Gem’s parents, must have been swept away long ago.

  ‘Help me, Shade!’ he shouted.

  A swishing sound came from above us and we all looked up.

  Hundreds of dark shapes swooped towards the glass ceiling.

  ‘Shadow crows!’ Chloe cried out.

  The atrium roof exploded in a storm of glass as the Shade swarmed down into the room.

  I threw out a thought to the Terracotta Army horseback commander, visualising his men attacking the crows.

  He thumped his chest and his soldiers threw their spears up to meet this new attack. The clay projectiles hammered into the diving birds, turning dozens to vapour.

  ‘Attack them!’ Gavin shouted.

  His wolves leapt forward to rejoin the fight.

  The terracotta soldiers drew their swords and charged forward into a whirlwind of combat.

  ‘Time to make our getaway,’ I said.

  We reached the bottom of the stairs, but our way to the exit was blocked by the raging battle.

  ‘Jake, can you get the soldiers to pull back ahead of us?’ Chloe asked.

  ‘I’ll try.’ I sent another mental visualisation to the commander. He looked straight at me and thumped his chest again.

  Like a sea parting, the soldiers cleared a path, but there were still shadow wolves and crows between us and our exit.

  ‘You so asked for this, Shade!’ I shouted. Two plasma spheres grew rapidly in my hands until they merged into one. I screamed as I flicked my wrists out and released the energy. A single blue star rushed forward, destroying all wolves and crows in its path, until it hit the far wall, melting a crater into the brickwork.

  The commander struck his chest again and the soldiers formed a defensive line either side of the cleared path. We hurried along it as Gavin screamed fresh orders to his wolf pack.

  General Hammond paused briefly to look back at the battle. ‘I don’t quite know what I’m going to tell the Chinese ambassador about all of this.’ He shook his head as another soldier, attacked by a dozen shadow birds, crumbled away to clay.