“Well I hope this means that your soul is sound,” snorted Philip. “Now, Rei, are you and Mathew injured badly do you think?”
“I don’t think so. Just cut shaken and dirty. We can rest here today then set off tonight.”
“Right, and that’s all arranged, yeah?”
“Yes,” answered Deon. “We’ll go to the Roamers’ camp later. They’ll take us straight down to Beer over three days.”
“It can’t take three days to get to Devon,” Mathew stated.
“You have to remember that the roads are not as well maintained as they might have been once,” Philip explained quietly.
“Also,” added Deon, “the Roamers need to work, so you’ll be in a slow convoy. They can arrange a vehicle to take us along the coast to Southampton, and I’ll get a private boat from there to France. I’ll get it all done by the time we arrive. That way everything’s done in advance and we’re not drawing attention to ourselves, which we would if we have to wait around too long making arrangements.”
“Once we’re across the Channel things should be a bit easier,” Philip stated. “We can start to be a little less paranoid and arrange a ride east by rail quite easily. No one’s going to question anything from there. Rei will accompany you on the last part of the trip. I can write and research the story and try to get some exposure on the Walden Centre from Europe.”
“What about you?” Mathew asked Deon.
“I need to go where I’m needed. That will become obvious as we continue, and somehow I’ll be provided with the means that I need.” Philip caught Rei’s eye and gestured his cynicism, but Rei just shrugged. Mathew was her concern; Deon would look out for himself as she guessed that he’d always done.
“I’ll get some provisions later,” said Philip as he sorted through a projection of stories from his c-pac. “Right, this looks like it. Yeah, there’s something here about a blast in east London. Shit, it’s worse than we thought.” He opened up the screen, which projected into the air in front of him, to reveal an image of the street opposite the warehouse that they’d left. Several medics were operating on people on the side of the street, while a parade of corpses were just visible lined up in the background. The group looked at the devastation in stunned silence. A fire was still visible in a church, and people were stumbling around outside the building. The outside broadcast reporter came into view.
“The latest that we have,” she said, “is that at least 65 people are known to have died and nearly 100 others are injured. The explosion ripped through St Peter’s Church in the early evening during a mass. This is an unusually Christian area, and the church was packed following an appeal from ministers for people to show their support and solidarity after a 28 year old woman was killed here last week, and the murder of Bishop Peter Ross. The woman was at the centre of an anti-Christian attack, and the blast here tonight appears to have been yet another act of terrorism against the followers of this religion. Eye-witnesses claim to have seen an unknown young woman in the church, and some say that the blast originated from beside, or even inside her, which suggests that this may have been a suicide bomber. The community here is a close-knit one, and many people that I have spoken to say that this will only serve to strengthen their resolve. Police officials are refusing to comment on widely accepted reports that an Islamic group has claimed responsibility of this. Unofficially we’ve heard that police are keen to interview Nasreen Freeman who disappeared after the attack on the Fort Burlington community several weeks ago. It is believed that she has links to an Islamic group. Police have also said that they would be interested in interviewing one Deon Underdown, who also disappeared from the commune at the same time. They are also now examining whether this attack could be related to the two recent murders in the area and similar explosions elsewhere in London and in Leeds last month. That attack, although not in a church, seemed to target a Christian group organising a non-religious meeting. That was not originally seen as being religiously or sectarian based, but it was also a suicide bombing, so may be related. Twenty-two people died there and if these are organised by the same extremists this may represent an escalation in this manner of attack. If these atrocities are the work of suicide bombers then police are baffled as to how they brought explosives through the security checks at the church. Since this latest attack on a Christian target the BBC has heard from a group calling themselves Crusaders for Truth, saying ‘that if this blast does turn out to be the work of religious extremists, then they will retaliate against the perpetrators.’ It now remains to be seen whether inter-religious sectarian fighting of the type seen previously in North America and Africa will be spreading across Britain for the first time. Diane Bell, BBC News.”
Deon became slowly aware that everyone was looking at him.
“You knew about Unit already,” he said, surprised to be the focus of attention. “I told you about that.”
“Actually, I told everyone else about it, pal. You said you were a porter called James. Anyhow, that’s not the issue. We all know about the commune, but you’re linked to another attack by the police and that’s not going to help us move around anonymously.”
“Hang on; what’s this about a commune? I don’t know anything about this.” Mathew felt incensed that no one ever told him what was happening. “Is this guy dangerous?”
“I didn’t do anything. I’m a victim. I was nearly killed there, but I know how the police deal with people like me, and I wasn’t about to wait to be revolved by them.”
“Revolved?” asked Mathew.
“Framed,” explained Philip. “If you want to fit in here, you’ll have to listen to how people speak. Right, Deon, we know that you weren’t involved in what happened. Lyal, I’ll explain it all later. But what we need to decide is how we’re going to handle this. And Deon, have you heard from this Nasreen woman?”
“No, not since I left Unit, but I know that she wouldn’t be involved in some weird cult thing.”
Philip and Rei exchanged a glance, but didn’t say anything about Deon. Philip continued:
“The thing is, she was a member of a group of extreme Muslims who were linked to some hate crimes a few years back, so whatever you know about her, well, it may not be true. And if she contacts you now, she’ll put us all in danger.”
“How do you know what she’s done in the past?”
“I’m a reporter, it’s what I do. Fucking hell, you spend enough time changing people’s identity details to know that you get access to anything if really want to. Now, we’ve got a few issues on our side here still. Firstly the police were definitely under the impression that the Fort Burlington massacre was some kind of ritual suicide with two escapees, so they’ve not been chasing you, which is how you’ve managed to avoid any contact with them so far. That and the fact that the DI in charge of that case is an arsehole and is totally incompetent. Apart from the three of us no one’s going to link you to James Peacock yet, so there’s no reason to think that there’s any kind of trail leading to the Walden Centre. Our trouble is only if anyone recognises him, and that’s going to be a lot more likely if we all travel together. So let’s try this, we carry on as planned, except Deon stays here and arranges the boat from,…where did we say? Portsmouth?”
“Southampton’s easier at the moment, and it’s quieter.”
“Right. You stay here and arrange the passage, then come down separately to meet us in Southampton.”
“That’s what I wanted to do originally,” he protested. “It’s probably easier to arrange a boat from here then it is from a travelling camp.”
“Good, well you’ve got what you wanted, you should be pleased. Is everyone ok with that?” Rei nodded slowly, wondering if this new turn of events would hinder their progress.
“I’m fine with the arrangement,” said Mathew. “But I still need to know what happened at this fort. And what’s this about fighting from America and Africa spreading to here?”
“It was ’cos gangs of Muslims massacred C
hristians in Morocco,” Deon recited, well-schooled.
“It’s not really that simple,” Philip interrupted. “And it was in Mozambique, not Morocco. A party of Neo-Conservative Christians, backed the Californian government, amongst others, seized control of the country in a coup about 15 years ago. There was a lot of fuss, but basically most countries’ governments either supported the coup or didn’t care. And California still has some sway in world affairs, even since the break-up of the USA. Anyhow, the Synod that controlled the country started on this policy of religious singularity. They started out by cutting funding to any Islamic or Jewish groups, people or temples, and over the course of about 2 years it turned into genocide of any religious community that wasn’t Christian. You know what the Inquisition did in the Renaissance? Well it was like that; a Christian police, torturing people into recanting their former beliefs. And because the Church controlled the government, any secular political affiliations led to imprisonment as well. And when they ran out of Muslims and Jews, they started on Protestants, Mormons, anyone who didn’t share their fascist fundamentalism. During that time the policy spread to a number of other countries. There were thousands killed and people took up arms against each other, it was like something out of the Middle Ages, really. The protests became stronger around the world, especially in the south of North America and the Near East, and as it escalated so one group of Muslims would attack a church, and then Christians would bomb a mosque, and so on. Eventually the government in Mozambique collapsed, not due to anything religious, they just screwed their internal accounts and went bankrupt, and then everyone condemned them and the factionalism kind of died out, although the country’s still counting the costs of it all now, and has never really been stable since. There’s still a great deal of mistrust and antagonism in these places between Muslims, Christians and Jews, and whenever there’s an issue between them this is always seen as one of the causes. And of course there’d been religious clashes in America about 10 years before all this. That was based around racial and ethnic inequalities. The riots manifested themselves as inter-religious, but some of that goes back to the last century. What happened in America and what occurred in Africa had very different root causes, but obviously the end result – these wars apparently between religious factions – was the same.”
“How many died?”
“No one’s quite sure. Between 2 and 6 million in Africa, probably. Most just disappeared. In America it was nearer 1 million, but over a much longer time scale.”
“But it never happened here?”
“Well, not yet it hasn’t.”
“But there must be a reason for it, because Christians don’t behave like that; not without a good reason’ stated Deon. “And I’ve heard that the Muslims caused it by torturing kids and burning schools. When you’re forced to behave in a certain way, sometimes you have to fight back. I’ve heard about the killings done to the Christians there, it was appalling and God needed people to fight for him. They killed babies you know!”
“Deon, I do know what I’m talking about.”
“Well, it’s not like you were there or something.”
“I’ve studied this. I do know about it. Anyway, that’s what happened. But our main concern now is getting out of London, so let’s concentrate on that ok? We’ll need to leave in about six hours, so you may want to get some rest.”
Mathew woke with a start, unsure where he was at first, as the events of the last few days slowly flooded back to him. He looked about the room. It was dark, and cluttered. Boxes were piled in corners, and a mattress was upended to make more room on the floor. There was a small kitchen to one end, although it looked as if most of the appliances had never been used. There was a picture of Christ in a frame propped up in one corner, but otherwise it was undecorated. He was glad that he wouldn’t be staying here longer than a day.
“Mathew?” he looked over at Deon, who was fiddling with some beakers which were stuck together as he spoke.
“What?” Mathew answered, still not sure how to take this strange man.
“Before you came back, what was it like?”
“What was what like?”
“Does anyone want tea?” Deon picked off one of the stuck beakers and held it out.
“No,” was the unanimous answer.
“What was what like?” repeated Mathew.
“Where you were?”
“I wasn’t anywhere, Deon, it wasn’t like anything.”
“But you must have been in heaven.”
“Well, if I was I don't remember it.”
“Did you meet God?”
“Deon, he doesn’t remember, he just said that,” interjected Philip.
“No, I don't remember anything. There was just nothing.”
“But that doesn’t really make any sense does it,” said Deon, still pulling apart the cups and then placing them on the floor and looking up before continuing. “I think that maybe God doesn’t let you remember, but you must have been in paradise, and I know that God has a mission for everyone. And you can’t have been nowhere, because you were somewhere before, and you're here now, so it doesn’t work that you weren't anywhere in between.”
Rei looked up at the others. “There is some logic to that, you know.”
Philip made a noise that demonstrated he didn’t agree, but didn’t have a valid argument.
“Well, I don’t really know then Deon,” said Mathew.
“You see,” Deon continued, “I have gotten messages from God…”
“Yeah, I thought you might, pal.”
Deon ignored Philip. “He sends me signs.” He started to dig in one of the boxes, and pulled out an assortment of junk. “Look at this. This is my reliquary. A host of holy relics. Here!” He held out a clump of hair, tied together by a small piece of string. “This is the hair from the head of St Catherine of Siena. She had her head cut off. And this…” he fumbled in the box, before pulling out a small bottle, which Mathew thought looked like one of the miniatures from a hotel bedroom, “this contains the blood of St Januarius, not all of it mind, most was spilled and the rest is in Naples.” No one spoke as Deon rummaged for more relics in his box. “Here it is.” He pulled out a piece of wood, about 10cm long, partially painted green and splintered at one end. This is part of the one of the spokes from the wheel used to test the faith of St Catherine of Alexandria. She’s not the same Catherine as the hair, they just have the same name.”
“It’s painted green,” said Philip, examining the spoke.
“You get green wheels!” explained Deon.
“Obviously. Any more?”
“Well, yes, this is the special one.” Deon moved the mattress in the corner, and stuck his arm through a small hole in the wall, eventually coming out with a small box. “This is the special one!” he repeated in hushed and reverent tones. He held out the box.
“What is it?” asked Philip, moving to take the box, before Deon snatched it back to his chest.
“It’s a secret and holy relic, and I am its keeper. The Archangel Michael has entrusted it to me. Its contents are the reason I am here. I keep it safe, and will leave it for the future.”
“Ok,” said Philip, sceptically. “So, err, what’s actually in it?”
Deon shook the box and something solid inside rattled slightly. “A holy relic.”
“Any particular one?”
“That’s the divine mystery of the reliquary,” replied Deon, never taking his eyes from the box. “The Archangel Michael has told me that.”
“I really think that we should be starting to get ready to leave,” Philip said brusquely.
“It’s ok,” Rei interjected, “we have enough time, if there’s something that Deon feels important to tell us.” Philip glared at her, but she ignored him. “Where did you get the box?”
“Reliquary!”
“Where did you get the reliquary?”
“I found it, about four years ago, down by the river, it was half buried in the mud, bu
t the sun shone on the wood, and made it glow, so I ran down and pulled it from the river bank.”
“It’s a piece of crap you found floating in the Thames, pal.” Rei lifted a hand to silence Philip, but Deon carried on undeterred anyway.
“I brought it back here. I knew it was special because of the way it shone in the light, and I could hear that it contained something. I cleaned it up and tried to open it, but here’s the strange part - it doesn’t open. No hinges, no locks, no latches. Yet it can contain a relic. I knew there was something special about it.”
“It looks sort of familiar,” said Mathew, peering in the half-light at the box.
“I kept it hidden, and for months I tried to open it. Then one day I was awoken by a great light.”
“I thought something like that might have happened.”
“Philip! He’s telling us something important to him.”
“Ok, just saying. So, bright light….”
“A GREAT light. It filled the room.”
“I wish it would now,” Philip muttered through the darkness. Rei kicked him on the shin.
“And through the light I saw a staircase, and down the staircase came the Archangel Michael. He was swathed in light and the glory of God.” Mathew raised an eyebrow at Philip, who shrugged. “And he walked into my room, this room, and said ‘You have a relic from Christ Almighty. Passed through generations, and you are the now the Relic Keeper. The box may only be opened by a special messenger, chosen for the task, and the Holy Relic, will reveal its secret only when needed. It is the answer to the question you do not know,’ and he placed a hand on my forehead, and I knew my destiny was to wait for the question that the relic would answer. Then he spread his golden wings and ascended to heaven.”
The Relic Keeper Page 21
