“Now,” he said.
He heard a dull crack and Laurent’s head snapped forward. His face crumpling with confusion, he collapsed to the ground.
Nicholas found himself face to face with Dawn. She breathed heavily, a bloodied flint stone in her hand. She had pulled it free from the ruins and dashed it against Laurent’s skull.
“Nice one,” Nicholas said.
Dawn stared down at Laurent. She seemed to be considering smashing the rock over his head again. If she did, Nicholas wouldn’t stop her. He touched her arm and she looked at him glassily.
“They’d be proud,” he said.
Red lightning boomed through the heavens and Nicholas shuddered. Something was different. He turned and stared straight into cold, cat-like eyes.
“You’re harder to kill than a cockroach,” Malika purred. She idled by the ruins, no more than ten feet away. Two Harvesters came up behind her, carrying a limp body between them. They put the unconscious figure down on the ground and Nicholas was able to get a good look at her.
It was Rae.
“What have you done to her?” he demanded.
“She did this to herself,” Malika said.
Laurent groaned on the ground and put a hand to the wound at the back of his skull. Dawn went to Nicholas’s side and they watched as Laurent woozily got to his feet, adjusting his robes. His eyes flashed to Dawn.
“Young Dawn,” he leered. His cheekbones jutted and the sneer made his attractive features ugly. “What would your parents say of such violent outbursts? Not much, I suspect.”
Nicholas felt Dawn trembling beside him, but she didn’t move.
Laurent dabbed at his head and peered down at his blood-smeared fingers. Then, as if he’d heard something, perhaps the voices of the Prophets whispering to him again, he turned. His grin split slowly like a rupturing wound.
Nicholas followed where Laurent was looking and froze.
The Tortor swept through the Abbey gardens, the spear still embedded in its torso.
“Ah, now the fun really begins,” Laurent purred.
*
Sam couldn’t look away from Liberty. The tears spilled freely and he sank to the ground beside her body.
Not her, he thought. Not Liberty.
The girl he’d watched grow into a woman lay dead. The grief was a scream trapped in his chest. He could shout and cry all he wanted, but the scream would never dislodge. It squeezed his heart, smothered every thought in darkness.
“Francesca,” he whispered. Liberty’s daughter. She was only six. Another young Sentinel orphaned by the Dark Prophets. Another name to add to the list.
The grief blunted into blind anger and Sam seized a piece of the debris from the gym floor, hurling it across the room with a roar.
Weariness subdued him.
“Sam, we have to go.”
He barely heard Merlyn speak, or the grim laughter that gurgled through the gymnasium. Miss Fink, the Harvester headmistress, was approaching.
He didn’t care anymore.
“Nicholas needs us,” Merlyn said.
The name struck him like a beam of light. It momentarily forced the grief to shrink back. For a second he saw clearly. Saw Merlyn, skinny and shaken; Aileen clambering to her feet while Isabel scanned their whereabouts. Liberty lying broken in the wrecked gymnasium...
“Liberty,” he murmured.
Merlyn tugged his arm. “Come on, fella,” he urged. “You can grieve later. We’ll come back for her. But this place is screwed. We have to get out.”
He knew he was right. As the initial shock receded, Sam wiped his face and cast about the gym. Already the shadows were threshing and coming alive.
“This way,” Isabel called, at the gym door with Aileen.
Merlyn handed Sam his rifle and he squeezed it, clinging to it for dear life. He had to think clearly. This was exactly what Malika wanted. His wits cowering round his ankles. He wouldn’t let her win.
“We have to be quick,” he gruffed, stomping after Isabel, kicking the debris aside. Merlyn hurried after him, eyeing the moving shadows uneasily.
“What are those things?” the youngster asked shakily.
“Black manifestations,” Isabel said as they entered the blood-smeared corridor. “Nightmare demons. In my day we called them murklings. Don’t grant them access to your mind or they will turn your greatest fear against you.”
As one, the four Sentinels hurried down the corridor. They rounded a corner and Sam skidded to a halt.
Miss Fink stood bent and buckled with age. The former headmistress of Royal Birch Primary School snickered through reptilian lips, her purple-white skin glowing in the gloom.
She stood in the middle of the corridor, barring their way.
“Much blood has been spilled in my playground,” she hissed, clutching her mittened claws together. “And yet more must be spilled.”
“The hag is mine,” Isabel spat. “Samuel, go!”
In other circumstances, Sam might have argued, but golden sparks already spat and fizzed in the cat’s eyes, and he knew this wasn’t a battle he could win. The school had become a supernatural battlefield. Brute strength was nothing against the likes of Miss Fink.
“Boy,” Sam said to Merlyn. “Aileen.”
Aileen nodded and disappeared into one of the classrooms, Merlyn at her heels. Sam went to the door. He paused a moment to watch.
Miss Fink peered at the cat with sly curiosity.
“What jest is this?” she gurgled. As the golden sparks sizzled, though, the headteacher’s expression hardened. A gnarled claw made a curious gesture and shadows spilled away from the walls, surrounding the cat.
For a moment, Isabel was lost. The flocking murklings blanketed her, swiping out with distended talons, their cut-out shadow mouths stretched open in silent shrieks.
Then an aurulent light erupted from the centre of the black mass and the murklings were cast off, melting back into the walls.
In a single, shambling step, Miss Fink was upon Isabel. She plucked the cat from the floor and Isabel shrieked. She writhed in the headmistress’s grip, tail lashing furiously, but she couldn’t free herself.
Miss Fink cackled.
The breath stuck in Sam’s throat. Even as he pushed away from the wall, lunging for the headteacher, Miss Fink held Isabel aloft like some long-coveted prize and, crowing wickedly, she snapped the cat’s neck.
*
As the Tortor made its way through the Abbey Gardens, trees combusted in its wake. Flames blazed where none had before, flickering eagerly to consume the sun-baked bark. Within minutes, the park had become an inferno. Even the grass burned, as if it had been doused with petrol.
“The totems,” Nicholas hissed at Dawn. The altar behind Laurent was lined with the three totems – the three-headed beast; the female-shaped Slaughter Stone; the Chinese vase. Dawn nodded and clenched her fists at her side. Then, without so much as a cry, she hurled herself at Laurent.
The man was so taken aback, still recovering from the blow to the head, he nearly lost his footing. Dawn scratched at his face, thrashing wildly, diverting his attention away from Nicholas.
Nicholas seized his moment. He aimed the gauntlet at the totems and clenched his fist. Blue lightning forked toward the altar and an almighty flash briefly blinded him. When his vision cleared, he saw that the totems remained untouched. The air pulsed and recoiled, steam curling up from the altar.
The totems were protected.
Even as disappointment clutched at him, a bellow rang through the park. It was followed by a rallying cry. Nicholas turned to see a mass of bodies charging into the Abbey Gardens. There must be a hundred of them. Then he saw who was leading the charge.
Nale.
His clothes were ripped and his face was plastered in blood, but he held an axe aloft as he stormed ahead of the other Sentinels. He leapt onto the back of one of the scaly monstrosities that had emerged from the pit and buried his weapon in its skull.
The be
ast toppled.
The remaining Harvesters leapt into action, snaking over the ruins, spilling toward the Sentinels until they clashed messily at the centre of the park. Screams and yells rose above the battlefield.
Nicholas glimpsed Malika dashing among them. She wielded the Drujblade with deadly skill, slashing at exposed throats, revelling in the arterial spray that doused her in wet crimson.
He heard a cry and turned to see Laurent throw Dawn off. She tumbled over the ground and fell into the pit by the altar. She was gone.
“NO!” Nicholas shouted.
“Enjoy Hell,” Laurent spat. He leapt at Nicholas and they tussled against the ruins.
“Rae!” Nicholas yelled. “Rae, wake up!”
“This is the end,” Laurent sneered, gaining the upper hand. “Accept it.”
Nicholas sensed movement and attempted to see past Laurent. He cried out as the man tore the gauntlet from his cast and smashed his broken arm against the flint wall. Screaming agony rendered him momentarily blind and Nicholas collapsed to the ground. A boot drove into his ribs. He tasted blood.
“What’s this?”
Choking for breath, Nicholas looked up at Laurent’s astonished tone. Hope surged through him. Rae was awake. She was at the pit, reaching in, pulling.
“Dawn,” he croaked as Rae dragged a figure out. Dawn must have been clinging at the edge. She flopped onto the ground and Rae helped her to her feet.
“Still weigh a ton,” she groused.
“Oh, Rae, don’t tell me you’ve come over all heroic,” Laurent jibed, gliding toward the two girls.
She looked at him and the air shimmered.
“After everything I taught you,” Laurent oozed.
“Shut up,” Rae spat.
Laurent made a strangled noise. He held his hands before him in shock and Nicholas saw boiling welts rising angrily. Rae. She’d turned on him.
Clutching his ribs, Nicholas attempted to stand. Pain tore through him and he thought he was going to pass out. No, he had to get to the altar. Gritting his teeth, he dragged himself across the grass.
“No, boy,” Laurent gasped, but there was nothing he could do. His skin blistered and he was on his knees.
Nicholas seized the edge of the altar and attempted to prise himself from the ground. His ribs shrieked at him, as if they were tearing apart, but he had to keep going. Sweat beading his upper lip, he felt hands under his armpits and Dawn heaved him up.
Not wasting a moment, he seized the nearest totem. The Slaughter Stone. Nothing happened. No sparks. No flames. It hummed in his hands and his skin prickled, itching where it made contact with the stone, but he lifted it as easily as if he’d plucked something from a supermarket shelf.
“Stop!” Laurent yelled.
“Time’s up,” Nicholas said. He hurled the totem at the ruins. It smashed on impact.
“NO!” Laurent screamed. He threw himself at Nicholas, but he was too slow. Nicholas grabbed the Èyùn vase and the three-headed statuette, dashing them against the flint work, too. They shattered into hundreds of pieces.
Nostrils flaring, Laurent fell upon Nicholas. They toppled over and Nicholas’s back struck the ground. Laurent clambered on top of him, swiping his face with his hands. Before he could do anything else, Dawn beat at the back of Laurent’s head with the bloodied flint-stone.
The man grunted and sagged heavily to the ground.
“Something about doing that is too much fun,” Dawn panted. She helped Nicholas to his feet.
Laurent lay sprawled. Unconscious or dead, Nicholas couldn’t tell. He thought he saw a faint fall and rise of the man’s chest. There was no time to find out, though. The Tortor had reached their part of the ruins. The monster paused on the other side of the wall, its feature-less face turned blankly toward them. The spear was still embedded in its chest.
Unnatural flames sprung up wherever the Tortor stepped, lapping almost as high as parts of the ruins. The heat was unbearable and Nicholas had to fight the wooziness.
“Rae,” he said. Finally, he knew what they had to do. They were connected, and it was that connection that could defeat the Tortor. She hurried to his side and he grabbed her hand.
In a flash, he saw everything. Her anger flooded hotly into him, barbed and painful. He embraced it and lifted it away, drew it away from her and turned it into vapour.
They were linked. They were the same.
The flames closed in as the Tortor paced slowly toward them.
“That thing,” Rae grimaced.
“Yeah, that thing.”
There was new resolve in her face. She wasn’t afraid anymore. She focussed on the faceless man and the air shimmered with heat. Nicholas’s hand fused with Rae’s and he could sense the power welling in her, becoming volatile, unstable. He attempted to give it borders, keep it from getting out of control.
Fire exploded around them, but it was directed only at the Tortor.
The blaze engulfed the faceless man. He began to shudder and twitch. The creature’s skin bubbled, hardened, solidified into rock. The Tortor became rigid. A craggy statue. He reached for them, a quivering finger elongating, searching, before it, too, became solid and immovable.
Rae let out a breath at the same time as Nicholas.
They watched as the Tortor toppled, falling stiffly to the ground and thudding into the mud.
In an instant, the whirling cyclone above their heads closed. The pit directly below it filled in and the flames ravaging the Abbey Gardens extinguished, leaving behind scorched earth and little else.
The Tortor lay in a grave of cinders.
It was over.
“Guys, that was awesome,” Dawn said.
Nicholas scanned the park. Nale stared back at him from the oak tree on the hill. There were no Harvesters left. He turned to where Laurent had fallen, but he was gone. There was no sign of Malika, either.
In the chaos, they had both escaped.
Other Sentinels battled the remaining monsters, and the mingle of human and inhuman shrieks made Nicholas’s hair stand on end.
He pondered the tortured sky, which still roiled red and angry. Unnatural whoops and shrieks filled the air as the creatures that Laurent had unleashed made their way beyond the park, into the decimated town.
It wasn’t over yet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Cat
THE SCHOOL WAS ALIVE WITH DEADLY shadows. The foundations trembled, as if some immense creature was heaving itself up from the bowels of the earth, and Sam clung to a wall.
A shadow with teeth snapped at his face and he shoved himself away, staggering over to Aileen.
“What’s happening?” she yelled, slashing the air with her sword.
“The shadow things,” Merlyn said.
“Where’s the cat?”
“Gone,” Sam said.
He ignored the nip of remorse and dodged as a dark shape swooped for him.
“Hands up if you think getting the fudge out of here is priority numero uno,” Merlyn yelled, slashing his own blade at the murklings. It passed ineffectually through them.
Sam felt a rush of heat as one of the murklings slithered through him.
Judith. He saw Judith. The last time he’d seen her, he’d kissed her on the cheek and left her in Orville. Left her to die so that he could attend a Sentinel summit in Cambridge. All that was left was ash. Not even enough to fill an urn.
“I didn’t know,” he gasped, attempting to free himself from the murkling. “I DIDN’T KNOW SHE WAS GOING TO DIE!”
The murkling released its grip.
Sam panted, planting his hands on his knees.
What were the murklings waiting for? They could kill them in an instant if they wanted to.
Fear, Sam thought. They wanted to bleed them dry of their fear. Even as he looked on, they were increasing in size, becoming swollen. Their cut-out eyes gleamed red.
A solid form emerged into the corridor. It hurled an object through the air and Merlyn crie
d out.
“Son of a!” He spun around, attempting to grasp at the round, cerated blade embedded just under his shoulder. Aileen came to his rescue, tackling the Harvester who had hurled the weapon. She moved faster than Sam ever thought possible. The sound of metal clashing rang over the din of murklings.
A wall exploded beside him and he saw that another Harvester had emerged, this one equipped with a gauntlet.
“That one!” he yelled. “Get that one!”
As Merlyn charged, Sam rooted around in his satchel. There had to be something to keep the murklings at bay. He’d never heard of anything like them. They were insubstantial. How could you fight something you couldn’t touch?
His fingers closed around a box of matches.
Light.
It was worth a try. If they really were shadows, it stood to reason that they’d retreat from the light.
As Merlyn and Aileen fought off the Harvesters, all the while attempting to evade the murklings, he grabbed a chair from where it rested against the wall and smashed it. Seizing a splintered leg, he tore off a piece of his shirt and wrapped it around the end, dousing it in lighter fluid. He struck a match.
The murklings screeched and flashed away from him, melting into the walls.
“Aileen, Merlyn, this way!” Sam yelled, brandishing the torch.
Merlyn tugged his blade free from a Harvester’s belly and hurried after Sam. Another wall exploded ahead of them. The remaining Harvesters were giving chase.
“Is this the way out?” Aileen puffed.
Dismayed, Sam realised they’d doubled back on themselves in the confusion.
“This way,” he said, aiming for the doors that led out onto the playground.
As they staggered down the corridor, they came to a part of the school that seemed to have been subjected to a small explosion. A perfect circle of burnt linoleum. And the floor was littered with debris.
Sam squinted uncertainly.
Beside the debris lay the body of a black cat.
“What’s this?” Merlyn said.
“Go,” Sam urged, handing the young Sentinel the torch. Ahead, he saw the double doors that led to the playground. “That way. Go now.”
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