by Kim Newman
11
In the Bomb Site, a ring of flame burned cold and silent. Phantom fire filled the crater like ground mist, not giving off heat. Allison recognized the fire as an aura of the earth. She experimentally dipped her hand into it and felt nothing. Mike Toad gasped, and she laughed at him.
‘See,’ she said, wiggling her fingers. ‘Magic.’
‘Doesn’t it hurt?’ the Toad asked, bending to peer into waving flames.
She grabbed the back of his neck and rammed his face into the fire, holding his head under for a moment, then let him up again.
‘What do you think?’ she asked.
The boy was shaking but unharmed.
‘There, there,’ she said, maternally. ‘You know I wouldn’t let you get hurt, Toad Boy.’
Badmouth Ben strode past them, wading into the fire. It eddied around his legs as he made for the scraped-bare shingles at the clearing’s centre. Ben was still changing. Wendy’s skin combined with his leathers so that he seemed to be wearing a poofy pink jacket, stained red in a tie-dye pattern. There were zips, straps and pockets, all made from the sacrifice’s hide.
The scream of the crowd down in Alder was like the pounding of waves, a solid thing that would always be there. From the crest of the crater, Allison could see energy currents swirling and throbbing above the village. There were obvious focuses, a main concentration being the Agapemone. Jago, the Lord God, was at the heart of it all. Allison had been thinking about the man in the Manor House, and realized he was important in the scheme. As important as Ben or herself. He had power.
Ben stood in the fire, gazing at the sky. Allison walked to him, entering the flames. Terry on all fours, scrabbling along, and Mike, frightened, fingering his unburned face, came to the fireline. Jazz, still poised, stepped in, smiled as if paddling in warm water, and walked through the flame, giggling in wonderment. She looked back at the others, still hesitating at the edge. Terry scurried into the burning circle, and the Toad, giving up, followed him. Terry’s back stood out of the fire as he snuffled the ground. Ben stood dead centre, where the fire had burned out and the ground was shining black, speckled with embers. He looked out over the moors, down to the village.
She wondered how far the noise carried. To Bridgwater and Glastonbury at least, perhaps to the Bristol Channel. There were firefly headlights on all the roads, bringing more to join the festival. The cry was worship, but also welcome. Terry was on his haunches, howling along. The Toad also cried out, swept away by the communion of the scream. He took off his hat and tossed it high into the sky. It spun like a flying saucer and sailed off into the woods. The Toad was laughing, his noise lost in the greater noise. He played an invisible guitar, one hand stuck above his shoulder fingering chords, the other worrying his groin. Terry rolled over in the fire and kicked his arms and legs into the air, shaking his back against the ground, scratching for fleas. Jazz was fascinated by the flame. She lay down and let it wash over her, feeling its painless flicker.
Allison dipped a hand into a flame. Her flesh tingled, but there was no hurt. The fire was an echo, a ghost. She raised her hand, and threads of flame ran like mercury in her palm. She drank the fire, and swallowed. She felt nothing. Terry and the Toad were part of the crowd, mouths open, adding their voices to the yell. But Allison and Ben were quiet, enveloped by noise but not a part of it. Jazz was spared, too. Allison realized the London girl had a part to play, and was ready.
Jazz sat up, wiping scraps of flame off her face with ring-knuckled fingers, and paid attention. Ben was facing the two girls, fire in his eye sockets. He began to unzip and unbuckle his jacket, unfastening straps on sleeves, belly and chest, loosening Wendy’s leftover skin from his own body as he had removed it from hers. His jaw dropped and a voice came, cutting through the scream. Not Ben’s voice, but a voice speaking through him, pouring out of his burned skull like milk from a jug. It was a cool charm of a voice, and wrapped around Allison like a gentle snake. She felt the voice in her breasts, in her belly, in her clit, in her eyes.
‘Behold, thou art fair, my love. Thou hast doves’ eyes within thy locks, thy hair is a flock of goats that appear from Mount Gilead…’
Allison saw Jazz was affected too. She crawled on all fours, arse moving from side to side, through the flames. She felt a pang of possessiveness for Ben, but knew she shouldn’t question the higher purpose. There was enough for everyone.
The voice continued, meaningless but seductive. ‘Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely... Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies…’
The voice entered into her, loving her, fucking her.
‘Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee…’
She was at Ben’s feet now, face to his polished boots, abasing herself, loving herself, hating herself. To attain perfection, one must first become nothing.
‘Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse. Thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes…’
Jazz was beside her, writhing against the shingles. They both kissed the biker’s boots, tasting dirt on leather. The boots were overcooked pork, hard and crusted crackling over bloody meat. Ben dropped his jacket and peeled his T-shirt from his burn-tattooed chest. Allison and Jazz caressed his legs as he freed his belt from its skull buckle and unbuttoned his fly. He skinned his trews over eaten-away hips.
‘How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse. How much better is thy love than wine, and the smell of thine ointment than all spices’
Ben took the girls by their chins and pulled them upright. Allison trembled at his grip, bone fingertips biting her cheeks. Ben brought them close to him, their faces touched his chest. Allison felt his ribs through papery skin, heard the beat of his heart.
‘Thy lips, oh my spouse, drop as the honeycomb. Honey and milk are under thy tongue…’
Ben let them go, and they straightened, looking at him and each other. At that moment, Allison loved Jazz, but was prepared, at a nod from Ben, to kill her. That might be a part of the ritual. She didn’t know.
‘A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse…’
His glance wandered between their faces, and Allison knew she would be chosen. The worst of it was past. Jazz helped her lie down, kneeling and taking her head and shoulders into her lap, stroking her hair. Behind the London girl, flames rose higher, enclosing them like a wall. Faces stood out of the fire like masks. Mike Toad and Terry. Ben kicked off his boots and trousers, and knelt between Allison’s legs, his prick stabbing her dirty denim thighs.
‘Spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes…’
Jazz’s hands locked with Allison’s, and they clutched tight. The scream was all around, a background to the voice that sounded in her head. The scream was in the fire. She could see the moon through Ben. He was fading again, thinning without his clothes. Much of his flesh had come away with his leathers, and his skeleton was visible through the transparent stuff of his body. The fire gave him a glow, but made his bones stand out black against orange.
‘Awake, oh North wind, and come, thou South; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out…’
Ben thrust forwards and melted into Allison, phantom prick spearing her cunt, face pressing against hers and passing into her head, body lying heavy for a second, then sinking through her ribs. Allison was bloated, incorporating what was left of Ben into her own flesh. Her clothes bit into her. She fought Jazz, but was held down. She kicked the ground, huge belly ballooning, legs like tree trunks. Then she was shrinking again, clothes easing up. Her stomach writhed, but shrank. Her bones, stretched and cramped, fell back into their proper places. The prick snug in her cunt turned inside out and, with a nerve-pinching thrill, she knew she had absorbed all Ben’s power. She opened her mouth, feeling cold night air in her gullet, and shrieked her pleasure.
They were together, in the same space. In her mind, she felt his last mom
ents, seeing a younger Wendy—head shaved—watching with hate as flame gnawed him. She screamed again, her scream ripped from her, passing into Jazz like a sword.
Allison saw her own face bent over her, felt a red-hot wire tight around her throat. Hello, Wendy, she thought, recognizing the other presence inside her. She felt the blast of air in her face, the surging power of an engine between her thighs. She knew things, could remember things. There was a great deal of Ben, a younger, harder Ben. But she had also taken in Wendy, with a hard focus on her time with Ben—they had fucked, Allison was shocked to discover—and a suggestive fog for before and after. Now she was dead and sacrificed, Allison Loved the woman.
Allison—Allison-and-Ben-and-Wendy—stood up, gently pushing Jazz away. The other girl looked at her, adoring.
Allison knew she was changed physically. Ben was a part of her. She felt her jeans crotch swell as Ben’s prick and balls coexisted with her cunt. She was male and female. Her prick was a hard rod of power, her clit a hot coal of pleasure. Hard, burning scars swarmed on her face. She was everything.
‘I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey,’ she said, a voice coming from inside her as it had from inside Ben, ‘I have drunk my wine with my milk…’
Above the fire, the patterns of power were clear, sparkling among the stars, revolving around the node of the Bomb Site. Terry and the Toad were out of the flames too, faces full and glowing as if they’d absorbed fire. Jazz stood between them, face a panda-eyed, black-and-white mask of beauty. Allison wanted to fuck them all. Inside her, Ben wanted to hurt them all. Wendy went along with them. And the voice still spoke.
‘I sleep, but my heart waketh…’
Allison took Jazz by the shoulders, feeling stiffly permed hair against her hands, and brought her face close. Her black-lined eyes flicked from side to side. Her powder-white cheeks were pockmarked with tears and soot. She was wearing one silver earring, a ruby-eyed skull with a sword stuck through it, a snake twining around the sword and through the skull. Around her white throat was a clutter of tiny crucifixes, scarabs, skulls, daggers, angels, ravens, rosaries and eye-in-the-pyramid emblems. Even a miniature swastika, like the one Allison’s granddad had given her, with inset green paste jewels.
She saw through Ben’s eyes and through her own, two images of Jazz settling to make a third. The temptation and the rival became a lover.
‘Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled…’
‘Yes,’ the London girl said, almost under her breath.
Allison’s mouth latched on Jazz’s black lips, and she kissed the girl. Fire closed around them all.
12
‘Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled…’ Beloved stood back for a moment, and the handmaidens came forward. Jenny, smiling, tugged at the laces of Hazel’s robe, and the garment came apart at the front. Kate opened the folds, baring Hazel’s body. His touch had warmed her, so she didn’t feel cold. She knew the whole congregation was watching, but she didn’t feel embarrassed.
The altar wasn’t uncomfortable, although the eagle’s wings scratched a little. The handmaidens still supported her weight, keeping her on a sort of seat. The fine hair on her legs and arms stood up. She could see the beams of the chapel ceiling, vines twining ivylike around them. Bunches of grapes hung from the vines, swelling by the moment, dropping juice like rain.
‘…for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night…’
Hazel felt the Love entwining her.
Beloved, face angelic, unfastened His raiment and stepped out of it, moving forward, pressing His body to Hazel’s, easing her legs apart, guiding His penis.
For an instant, she was disappointed. So that was all there was to the Great Manifestation.
The handmaidens helped, letting her weight fall slowly as Beloved joined flesh with her. They raised her arms around His shoulders, and she held Him. His stomach and chest pressed against her. Her chin rested on His shoulder. He swelled inside her, filling her. It was not a struggle.
Inside her mind, tiny buds of doubt opened. How had she got here? She thought of Paul, of her father, her sister... All around her were strangers. Smiling faces, names she barely knew, a man inside her she’d never met. These people didn’t know her, couldn’t understand…
* * *
Beloved—this calm stranger joined to her—took her head in His hands and looked into her eyes. She almost fought Him, muscles of her arms tightening to push Him away. But He spoke to her. Without words, He soothed her doubts, showed her truth, guided her along the path.
‘Alleiluya,’ the Brethren sang.
He didn’t seem to thrust, but He moved inside her. A drop of sweat gathered between His eyebrows and fell to her cheek like a tear. His eyes were clear, and she could see into them, the future, the past, the beyond.
The Brethren were singing for her, Hazel realized. She hung on to Beloved as her mind expanded and contracted.
She was…
…loving an angel of flame, rejoicing in the healing fire of His touch… at the feet of a sad-eyed bleeding Messiah, wailing before the cross… lost in the darkness but with a beacon ahead… dancing in a Brighton club, one she’d dreamed of visiting when she was ten but which had closed years ago, impossibly agile and attractive, boys staring at her from the dark beyond the strobe-lit dance floor… evolving into a higher lifeform, body changing beautifully, mind swelling to conquer mysteries, hand becoming a gun that could shoot Love… leaving her mother’s womb, swimming in wonder towards the world… leaving her clumsy body, drifting towards a golden field… the Earth, Loved by the farmer who sowed his seed in her, extending pebbly arms to embrace him, to reward his devotion… clay, shaped by her own hands, perfected.
‘Alleiluya…’
The chapel roof was crumbling and being sucked upwards, like jigsaw pieces being taken away. She saw stars scattered in the night, the cold eye of the moon. Then, there was light. The picture cracked open and the sun exploded, filling the night with day. The skies were blue and white, and filled with birds. The sun grew enormous and burst, its light blotting out all else. The light rained down a fiery gold that splashed and ran like quicksilver. She felt it on her face. The gold glittered, shot through with divine blood.
The arms around her were feathered. Her weight was pulled upwards, lifted off the altar. Her feet dangled in empty air. She heard her own voice added to the song. She was danced in air, her own wings beating nervously, Beloved’s with supreme confidence. Still joined, they rose through the chapel, and bathed in the falling light. The gold was deep red now, a red that ran for ever, blanketing the world below. She looked at the face of Beloved, and saw God.
She lost herself, lost Hazel Chapelet. Free of her old loves—the nasty tangle of compromises and competitions and petty affections that tied her to Paul, to Patch, to Dad, to herself—she could join in the greater Love, the Love that would redeem the world.
‘If you go away this summer,’ Dad had said, ‘there’ll be tears. He’s nearly thirty, and he’s not grown up.’
‘I have to go away some time,’ she’d said back, seeing an escape from the quiet, thickly carpeted house.
At first, she was scared. Among so many, she was alone, easy to overlook. Rivers of red gold flowed through crowds, encouraging the faithful to bathe. Beloved knew even the least of His flock, Loved them with a passionate fire, cared for them, protected them. And she was His sister, His spouse.
‘I love you,’ Paul had said.
I’m not so sure, she’d thought, saying, ‘Thank you.’
She was wrapped tight around Beloved, falling back gently on to the altar. It was soft as a mattress. He was wordlessly caressing her, His face huge, His eyes suns.
‘Haze, be careful,’ Patch always said, ‘you know what you’re like.’
No, she always thought, no, I don’t.
Now she knew. Now, no longer even able to feel the superiority due her after all these years as the less clever
one, she knew all things, understood all things. Paul and Patch were too clever really to know, to understand. She hoped she could redeem her old loves, could bring them to the arms of Beloved.
The singing was a joyous scream, and she knew it was hers, her scream in the throats of others. They exulted for her.
‘Love,’ she said.
13
As suddenly as it began, the scream ended. His hands were over his ears. The noise had been painful. The screamers ceased and looked in wonder at skies only they could see. In the sudden quiet, Paul heard the tiny sounds of night. Standing up slowly, Paul looked to Ferg. The boy shrugged. The hippie, Dolar, had a beatific just-swallowed-an-ounce-of-dope look. Everyone looked into the sky, as if a comet were streaking miraculously past, exploding into multicoloured fireworks. After the scream, the quiet was unnerving. Paul felt he was standing on the thinnest of ice covers, afraid to breathe lest it should shatter and plunge him into the darkness beneath. Finally, he let go before he choked.
* * *
Susan wanted to be sick. Karen was holding her hand with an imbecile’s grasp. The overflow from Jago’s coupling with Hazel was running through the congregation. Even she could feel the warmth inside, hating herself for it. This time, the Great Manifestation had been stronger. She was sure Beloved had levitated a few inches while he pushed himself into the girl. There had certainly been a few lighting effects, and the stained-glass eyes of saints and martyrs had glowed with lust.
