by Clive Barker
‘You’re certain it’ll do that?’
‘This Shrine is sacred to magic. Shadwell will bring the Scourge here and destroy it the first chance he gets. And we’re defenceless against it. All we can do is warn you.’
‘Thank you for that.’
The wraith began to waver, as its power to hold its form diminished.
‘There was a time, you know …’ Immacolata said, ‘when we had such raptures.’ The dust she was made of was blowing away, the bone-shards dropping to the ground. ‘When every breath was magic; and we were afraid of nothing.’
‘It may come again.’
Within seconds the three had grown so tenuous they were barely recognizable. But the voice lingered a little while, to say:
‘It’s in your hands, sister…’
And then they were gone.
V
THE NAKED FLAME
1
he house that Mimi Laschenski had occupied for over half a century had been sold two months after her death. The new owners had been able to purchase it for a song, given its dilapidated condition, and put several weeks of hard labour into modernizing it before moving in. But that investment of time and money was not enough to persuade them to stay. A week later they left in a hurry, claiming the place was haunted. Sensible folks too, to look at them, talking of empty rooms that growled; of large invisible forms that brushed past them in darkened passageways; and, almost worse in its way, the pungent smell of cats that hung over the place, however hard they scrubbed the boards.
Once left empty, number eighteen Rue Street remained so. The property market was slow up that end of the city, and the rumours about the house were enough to deter the few who came to view. It was eventually taken over by squatters, who in the six days of their occupancy undid much of the work the previous owners had put in. But the twenty-four hour a day orgy which the neighbours suspected was going on came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the sixth night, and the tenants were gone by the following morning, exiting in some haste to judge by the litter of belongings they left on the steps.
After that, the house had no more occupants, legal or otherwise, and it didn’t take long for gossip about number eighteen to be supplanted by talk of more lively scandals. The house simply became an unsaleable eye-sore: its windows boarded up, its paintwork deteriorating.
That was, until that night in December. What would happen that night would change the face of Rue Street entirely, and guarantee that the house in which Mimi Laschenski had lived out her lonely old age was never occupied again.
2
Had Cal set eyes on the five figures that entered number eighteen that night it would have taken him some time to recognize their leader as Balm de Bono. The rope-dancer’s hair was cropped so short it was all but invisible; his face was thin, his features set. Even less recognizable, perhaps, was Toller, whom Cal had last seen perched on a rope in Starbrook’s Field. Toller’s ambitions as a rope-dancer had come to an abrupt end hours after that encounter, when he’d fallen foul of the Prophet’s men. They’d broken his legs, and cracked his skull, leaving him for dead. He had at least survived. Starbrook’s third pupil, Galin, had perished that night, in a vain attempt to protect his master’s Field from desecration.
It had been de Bono’s inspiration to visit the Laschenski house – where the Weave had lain for so long – in the hope of finding a pocket of the Old Science to arm themselves against the approaching cataclysm. He had three other allies in this, besides Toller: Baptista Dolphi, whose father had been shot down in Capra’s House; her lover, Otis Beau; and a girl whom he’d first seen in Nonesuch, sitting on a window-ledge wearing paper wings. He’d seen her again, on Venus Mountain, in the reverie the presences there had granted him, and she’d shown him a world of paper and light that had kept him from total despair in the hours that followed. Her name was Leah.
Of the five, she was the most expert in the working of raptures; and the most sensitive to their proximity. It was she, therefore, who led the way through the Laschenski house in search of the room where the Weaveworld had lain. Her path-finding took them up the stairs and into the second-storey front room.
‘The house is full of echoes,’ she said. ‘Some of the Custodian; some of animals. It takes time to sort them out –’ She went down on her knees in the middle of the room, and put her hands on the floor. ‘ – but the Weave lay here. I’m sure of it.’
Otis went across to where she knelt. He too crouched and put his palms to the ground.
‘I don’t feel a thing,’ he said.
‘Believe me,’ said Leah. ‘This is where it lay.’
‘Why don’t we get down to the bare boards?’ Toller suggested. ‘We may get a clearer signal.’
Plush, deep-pile carpeting had been laid in the room, only to be subsequently soiled by the squatters. They removed what remnants of furniture the room could boast, then tore the carpet up. The labour left them shaky: the training de Bono had devised for this expedition – refinement techniques culled from his old master’s teachings – had kept sleep and food in recent days to the minimum. But it paid dividends when they laid their hands on the stripped boards. Their rarefied senses responded on the instant; even Otis could feel the echoes now.
‘I can practically see the Weave,’ Baptista said.
It was a sensation they all shared.
‘What do we do now?’ Otis asked Leah, but she was too involved in the echoes to hear his question. He turned to de Bono: ‘Well?’ he said.
De Bono had no answers. Though he’d theorized at length with any who’d debate on the subject, the plain fact was this: they were flying blind. There was no sure way of getting to the raptures whose memory they were evoking. His unspoken hope was that the ghosts of power here would come to them, sensing the urgency of their mission. If, however, the force beneath their fingertips was unmoved by the gravity of their cause, then they had no way to persuade it. They’d be obliged to face their nightmares unprotected; which was – he didn’t doubt – a sentence of death.
3
At two-fifty in the morning Cal woke from a dream which – though it resembled the terrors of previous nights – was in several significant ways different. For one thing, he’d not been alone on Venus Mountain; he’d had the company of de Bono. Together they’d fled the creature that came after them, into the same maze of alleyways that would lead – had the dream proceeded in its usual fashion – to the yard behind the Laschenski house. But it didn’t. Somewhere in the alley he and de Bono were parted, and Cal, completely disoriented, took a route that led him into another street entirely.
There, the sense of pursuit waned, only to be replaced by a fresh anxiety. He was no longer the quarry, his dream-self knew, because the creature had gone after de Bono, leaving him in the role of helpless observer. The street seemed to be full of hiding places – doorways and garden walls – where it might wait, stoking its fires. But he’d misunderstood, once again. It had no need to hide. There it was now, crossing the intersection at the end of the street. Not a single pursuer this time, but two. One was human; a slouching shadowy form. The other – gigantic, as tall as a house, a cloud in which a furnace roared. He started to edge back towards the alleyway from which he’d stepped, moving slowly so as not to attract the monster or its companion’s attention. A foolish hope. The refuge he sought had been sealed up, and as his fingers scrabbled at the brick the creature looked his way.
It had already devoured de Bono: he saw his friend’s ashes in the cloud whose flame sight was on him.
I don’t want to burn! he yelled, but the fire was coming at him –
Please God!
Before it struck him he flung himself up out of sleep.
Geraldine was not with him tonight; he lay in the middle of the bed, trembling from gut to pores, until he was certain movement wouldn’t make him vomit, then he got up, went to the window, and drew the curtains aside.
Chariot Street was perfectly quiet; the same icy hush that wou
ld be city-wide at this hour. Snow had begun to fall; its idling descent hypnotic. But the sight of neither street nor snow nor lamplight reassured him. There was a reason why the terrors that came in sleep were different tonight: because they weren’t just in dreams any longer. He knew this without any trace of doubt. That somewhere near, in a street like this – all lamp light and peace – his nightmares were coming true.
4
There was mute but perceptible elation in the upper room of the Laschenski house: the call had been answered. It had begun slowly, with lights moving back and forth through the echoes of the Weave, as the Old Science rose from its hiding places in the carpet and came to meet those who longed for it. The process was still slow, and demanding – they could not afford distraction from the task for fear of losing contact. But they were prepared for such rigours, and as the power beneath their hands intensified they couldn’t help but express their pleasure in soft words of welcome. The past was coming to fetch them.
A noise from the floor below drew de Bono’s attention. Taking care not to disturb the others as they worked, he tip-toed to the door and stepped out onto the landing.
There was no encore to the sound that had brought him out here. He crossed the darkened landing to the top of the stairs, and studied the shadows below. Nothing moved there. He’d imagined it, he decided. His protein-starved brain was playing tricks on him. But just to be certain he went through to one of the back bedrooms and peered down into the yard. Snow was falling, the flakes tapping lightly on the glass. That was all he could see or hear.
He took his spectacles off and pressed his fingers to his eyes. The burst of energy that had come with the first intimations of success had faded. All he wanted now was sleep. But they had a good deal of work to do yet. Calling the Old Science up was just beginning; next came the problem of harnessing it.
He turned away from the window to make his way back to his companions. As he did so he saw two figures moving towards the Weave room. Had someone come out to search for him? He put his spectacles back on, to get a better look at them.
The sight before him brought a shouted warning to his lips, but it was old news by the time he raised it, falling on ears already deafened by their own screams. It was all so quick. One moment he was slipping the scene into focus; the very next, it erupted.
Before he could reach the landing the killers had stepped into the carpet room, and the door was flung off its hinges by the force unleashed inside. A body was flung out on a stream of molten light and held – as though spitted – in the middle of the landing, while darts of flame devoured it. He saw the victim clearly. It was Toller; poor Toller; his body closing into a blistered knot as the fire withered him.
The de Bono who’d been with Cal at Lemuel Lo’s orchard would now have flung himself into the holocaust, and not considered the consequences. But bad times had taught him caution. There was no merit in suicide. If he tried to challenge the force that was running riot in the carpet room he’d die the way the rest were dying, and there’d be nobody left to testify to this atrocity. He knew the power whose labours he was witnessing: the worst predictions of his fellow Kind were here proved. This was the Scourge.
There was another explosion in the carpet room, and fresh fire blossomed onto the landing. The ceiling and floor were alight now; so were the bannisters and stairs. Very soon any escape route would be blocked, and he’d perish where he stood. He had to risk crossing the landing, and hope that the smoke would conceal him from the killing glance. There was no time to plot his route through the fire. Shielding his face he made a straight run for the stairs.
He almost got there too, but as he came within a pace of the top step he stumbled. He threw out his arms to save his fall and his hands gripped hold of the burning bannister. A cry escaped him, as the fire caught him; then he was up again and stumbling down the stairs towards the front door.
The Scourge came after him immediately, its first blow melting the brick where he’d stood two beats before. Eyes on the door, he pelted down the stairs, and was within five steps of the hallway when he heard a sound – like a titanic intake of breath – behind him. Why did he turn? He was a fool to turn. But he wanted a sight of the Scourge before it slaughtered him.
It was not the fire-bringer he saw at the top of the stairs however, but its slave. He’d never seen the Salesman dressed in his own skin, so he couldn’t name this man. All he saw in that instant was a wasted, sweating face, regarding him with more desperation than malice. The sight made him hesitate, and as he did so this Cuckoo stood aside, and the Scourge came into view.
It was made of innumerable eyes; and bone that had never been clothed; and emptiness. He saw the fire in it too, of course: a fire from the bowels of a sun, in love with extinction. And he saw agony.
It would have been upon him – both fire and agony – had the ceiling above the stairs not given way at that moment, falling between him and his tormentors in a curtain of flame. He didn’t escape its touch. Pieces of debris struck him: he smelt his skin burn. But while the deluge eclipsed him he was down the rest of the stairs and out – in three or four panicked paces – into the freezing air of the street.
There was a body burning in the gutter, having been thrown from the upper window, reduced by the Scourge’s heat to the size of a child. It was beyond all recognition.
With sudden fury he turned back on the house and yelled at the beasts within:
‘Bastards! Bastards!’
Then he took to his heels, before the fire came after him.
There were lights on all along the street, and doors opening as Cuckoos came out to see what it was that had disturbed their slumbers. Always the sight-seers: open-mouthed, disbelieving. There was a force for desolation loose in their midst which could consume their lives at a glance, surely they could see that? But they’d watch anyway, willing to embrace the void if it came with sufficient razzmatazz. In his rage and his despair de Bono found himself saying: let it come, let it come. There were no safe places left; nor powers to protect the vulnerable.
So let it do its worst, if that at the last was inevitable. Let the void come, and bring an end to the tyranny of hope.
VI
DEATH COMES HOME
1
s the dead hours between midnight and first light ticked by, the snowfall became heavier. Cal sat in his father’s chair at the back window, and watched the flakes as they spiralled down, knowing from experience that trying to get back to sleep was a waste of effort. He would sit here and watch the night until the first train of the new day rattled by. The sky would begin to lighten an hour or so after that, though with the clouds so snow-laden the dawn would be subtler than usual. About seven-thirty he’d pick up the telephone and try calling Gluck, something he’d been doing regularly, both from the house and from the bakery, for several days, and always with the same result. Gluck didn’t answer; Gluck wasn’t home. Cal had even asked for the line to be checked, in case it was faulty. There was no technical problem, however: there was simply nobody to pick up the receiver at the other end. Perhaps the visitors Gluck had been spying on for so long had finally taken him to their bosom.
A knocking at the front door brought him to his feet. He looked at the clock: it was a little after three-thirty. Who the hell would come calling at this hour?
He stepped out into the hallway. There was a sliding sound from the far side of the door. Was somebody pushing against it?
‘Who’s there?’ he said.
There was no reply. He took a few more steps towards the door. The sliding sound had stopped, but the rapping – much fainter this time – was repeated. He unbolted the door, and took off the chain. The noises had ceased entirely now. Curiosity bettering discretion, he opened the door. The weight of the body on the other side threw it wide. Snow and Balm de Bono fell on the Welcome mat.
It wasn’t until Cal went down on his haunches to help the man that he recognized the pain-contorted features. De Bono had cheated fire once; bu
t this time it had caught him, and more than made up for its former defeat.
He put his hand to the man’s cheek, and at his touch the eyes flickered open.
‘Cal…’
‘I’ll get an ambulance.’
‘No,’ said de Bono. ‘It’s not safe here.’
The look on his face was enough to silence Cal’s objections.
‘I’ll get the car-keys,’ he said, and went in search of them. He was returning to the front door, keys in hand, when a spasm ran through him, as though his gut was trying to tie a knot in itself. He’d felt this sensation all too often of late, in dreams. There, it meant the beast was near.
He stared out into the spattered darkness. The street was deserted, as far as he could see; and silent enough to hear the snow-hooded lamps hum in the cold. But his heart had caught his belly’s trepidation: it was thumping wildly.
When he knelt at de Bono’s side again, the man had made a temporary peace with his pain. His face was expressionless and his voice flat, which gave all the more potency to his words.
‘It’s coming …’ he said. ‘… it’s followed me …’
A dog had started to bark at the far end of the street. Not the whining complaint of an animal locked out in the cold, but raw alarm.
‘What is it?’ Cal said, looking out at the street again.
‘The Scourge.’
‘ … oh Jesus …’
The barking had been picked up from kennels and kitchens all along the row of houses. As in sleep, so waking: the beast was near.
‘We have to get moving,’ Cal said.
‘I don’t think I can.’
Cal put his arm beneath de Bono and lifted him gently into a sitting position. The wounds he’d received were substantial, but they weren’t bleeding; the fire had sealed them up, blackening the flesh of his arms and shoulder and side. His face was the colour of the snow, his heat running out of him in breath and sweat.
