by Kim Newman
Susan felt his pain, sharp and pure. And saw what he saw. It was no better than what everyone else in Alder was stuck with, even if the sun was shining and the moon had set. Reality hurts, she thought.
A demon cavalry officer rode by the pub, in a tight red tunic with gold piping and epaulettes, a human skin worn en pelisse over one shoulder, tall shako fixed to his head by horns, red-hot sabre in one elegantly gloved claw. He was mounted on a large locust, regimental symbols etched into its carapace, saddle perched on its wing-case. The insect trotted like a well-drilled steed. The moustached demon surveyed the carnage with all the superior insouciance of a marshal of France. People fell before the locust, chomped by its triangular mouth, borne down by its shod forelegs. The officer slashed deftly, detaching heads and arms.
She heard shrieks of panic in her mind. This Armageddon was the fusion of everyone’s dreams and fancies, sucked into Jago’s overwhelming self-belief. His was the basic shape of the drama, but everyone else provided set dressing, worked in their own business. It was a community play, a sprawling spectacle costumed in fancy dress gathered from the back of closets, sets knocked together by DIY freaks with more enthusiasm than skill, variably acted.
The mounted locust was impressive and detailed. But other vignettes were barely sketched in. A cardboard-box robot lumbered down the street, a stiff wire spiral of smoke coming from the flashing light on its head, legs crumpling as it stamped.
Much of the village was destroyed and replaced. A chest-high mountain range had erupted along one side of the main road, throwing back houses and gardens. A black tower, like a large chess castle, stood askew where the Cardigan house had been, ravens circling its battlements, fire pouring from its gutters. Catsized red ants surrounded the tower with miniature siege engines.
Susan tried to create an island of calm. She found her centre, and let it radiate. The ground stopped shaking in the pub garden, and light penetrated the dark.
‘Susan, is that you?’ Lytton asked.
His words shocked her, and she lost it.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
She shook his apology away, and tried again. It took all her concentration, and showed just how feeble her Talent was next to Jago’s. There was now a smooth stretch of pub lawn beneath, garden furniture jumbled up together against the wall. Light descended around them. Teddy shoved himself away from the wall and, unsteadily, stood up. They all looked up at the gap in the night.
Her head was heavy, pain throbbing inside. Her temples hurt, and the entire back of her skull. Still, she’d affected it somehow.
A girl scrambled over the wall, bursting through the curtain of dark, and lay, gasping. She was a redhead, dressed in black, white legs showing through holes in her tights, scrapes on her bare back. She crawled to Lytton, seeking security, and hugged his legs.
‘You’ve found an admirer,’ Susan said.
He looked embarrassed. ‘This is Pam. She’s a nuisance.’
Pam did not speak, just whimpered a little. Another mental casualty.
* * *
His wife and children were in their places. And he was fixed to the soil. No matter what strife might rage around, the Maskell Family Tree was safe.
The blood of the boy who’d been sacrificed fed and watered them. Sue-Clare was nestled by his side, head in his armpit, arms wrapped tight around him. The children grew where they should, sprouting branches of their own.
The couple who’d slept in his shade were awake now, presenting offerings. The man found some bananas inside the house and laid them on a shelf that ran around the trunk. They slumped before Maskell, looking up with reverence. Others had joined them in worship. Maskell had a congregation. Everyone was looking for something to believe in these days. He had found nature’s path, and it was his duty to let the word spread.
‘Show us, oh Swamp Thing,’ the man said, ‘show us the way.’
Maskell was amused, but didn’t reply.
‘The sun is black, the moon is red,’ the man said. ‘Save us.’
‘Yes,’ chimed the others, ‘save us.’
Maskell stretched branches. He wondered what his first demand should be. Most of the worshippers were young men and women who’d come for the festival. But there were a few villagers mixed in. Reg Gilpin stood, naked to the waist, looking up at his former employer.
Maskell remembered Reggie from when he was a boy. An electric wire snapped by the house and fell out of the sky, sparking and kicking like an angry eel. The wire brushed the tree, and he recalled the first spark of the soil.
‘Come forward,’ he roared. ‘Bring me Reggie Gilpin.’
Reggie was astounded. He had not recognized Maskell. None of the others knew Reggie, but his reaction gave him away. The worshippers grabbed him and forced him to his knees before the tree, shoving his face into the dirt between the roots.
Maskell’s quirt hung from the tree trunk, supple and strong.
He extended arms from his trunk and grabbed Reggie, hugging him to the tree. His quirt whipped out, twining around Reggie’s waist like an elephant’s trunk, and grew tight. The worshippers gave a hearty cheer as Reggie came apart. Goodness spread on the tree and the ground.
* * *
Since he last saw her, Pam had become demented. Luckily, she’d turned timid rather than unmanageable. In the oasis of peace Susan had made of the garden, Lytton hugged the girl like a baby. There was no desire in her clinging, just a desperate need for comfort.
Without consulting anyone, he made a unilateral decision.
‘Okay,’ he told Susan, ‘I’m pulling the plug.’
She nodded, knowing what he meant.
He had twelve cartridges in the Browning, another full clip in his pocket.
‘If Jago goes, this all stops, right?’
Susan shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
He had been hoping for more positive approval.
‘It’d be a start.’
‘Certainly.’
He looked at Pam, a frightened child under the streaks of make-up. And he saw Teddy, a broken doll bent by the weight of wonders. There were dead people up and down the street. And monsters.
But could he kill someone? Even to stop all this?
‘I don’t think he’s really alive anyway,’ Susan said. ‘His Talent has eaten away whatever mind he started out with.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t do that.’
‘I can’t help it. You scream your thoughts, you know.’
‘Thanks for telling me.’
He imagined putting the Browning to Jago’s head, and pulling the trigger until the clip was empty.
‘Ugh,’ she said. ‘Messy.’
He gave Pam to Paul and said, ‘Look after her. And Teddy.’
The young man nodded. Pam’s tenacious grip was transferred to him.
He hoped he could just walk up to the Agapemone, let himself in and get to Jago without anyone trying to stop him.
‘You wish,’ Susan said. ‘I’m coming with you.’
He did not even have to think his objection.
‘You can’t do it alone. A Talent could see you coming a mile off. Even a stone-crazy Messiah like Jago. I can engage his attention long enough for you to get near. Then it’s up to you. Bang bang bang.’
She made a finger gun and pointed it.
‘I’ll try,’ Susan said, answering some mental question of Paul’s. ‘Where she is, she should be safe. Once Jago is gone, she should be okay. Everyone should be free then.’
‘Let’s go,’ he said, stepping over the garden wall, back into pandemonium.
8
Karen had chosen to become a baby, and was gurgling happily in adult-sized robes, a crown of tinsel perched in the air above her head. Gerald Taine was a full Angel, eagle wings spread behind him, hair flowing to his waist. Derek was in a cloud of multicoloured fog, disco-lit by a swarm of tinkling fireflies. In Heaven, Jenny realized, you were whatever you wanted. She, however, hadn’t changed.
‘Salvation to our Go
d which sitteth upon the throne,’ she said, gazing upon the face of the Beloved, ‘and unto the Lamb.’
The Brethren, transformed, chorused, ‘Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour be unto our God for ever and ever, Amen.’
‘These are they that have come out of great tribulation,’ Jenny said, ‘and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, for the Lamb shall lead them unto living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes’
The Brethren raised alleiluyas, and the Light varied its magnificence. They were wrapped in His glory. Fountains rose behind the throne, Light rainbowing in the sweet waters that flowed around the feet of the Lamb, mingling with the bright blood, flowing down among the Brethren. Kate picked up Karen and gathered her in her arms, together with her own baby. Beloved had opened the book, breaking the seven seals, and set it aside. Below, the consequences raged, as the unrighteous were cut down by unloosed plagues. The chaff blew on the burning wind.
Beloved stretched out His right hand, wound leaking pure Light. He called for the Sister-Love. Hazel, nervous, edged away. Jenny took the girl’s shoulders and eased her forwards, up to the throne. Hazel dipped her fingers in Beloved’s wound, and the chosen girl’s doubts vanished.
‘Let Him kiss me with kisses of his mouth,’ she said.
Beloved dipped His head, pressing His face close to Hazel’s. With their kiss, the Light around doubled its intensity. Jenny, driven back, humbly went on to her knees. Blood and water flowed around her, a brook cascading down the stairways of the Agapemone. She shuffled backwards in the shining stream, and was swept past the ranks of the Chosen, out to the hallway. She’d been chosen by Beloved for her own mission.
The Light wasn’t as strong in the hall as in the throne room. The walls of the Manor House were still discernible. The telephone stood on its stand, the lounge door hung open. The veiled, dark woman who was sometimes glimpsed stood in the doorway. Jenny smiled at the lost soul, but she turned away in a flutter of black lace, becoming a simple shadow.
Beyond the Agapemone, the Bottomless Pit was opened up, poisonous smoke seeping out, creatures swarming forth. ‘And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth, and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power…’
The front door was pulled from the outside. Jenny spread her hands in welcome. The door open, a rough dark figure was silhouetted, bringing into Heaven some of the chaos of the world below.
‘…it was commanded them that they should not hurt only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man…’
Fringed by Light, the figure’s outline was fuzzy, insect-blurred, inconstant, but eyes shone with a watery brilliance. Beyond the Light, a chitinous rattle drowned out the screams of the tormented.
‘…and in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them…’
The figure stepped forwards.
* * *
Jenny Steyning stood at the bottom of the staircase, in a blinding white dress with a train that gathered around her feet. Without make-up, her face was her nine-year-old sister’s. Very seldom conscious of her own appearance, Allison knew how she must look—with her bramble-tangled hair, luminous eyes and shaggy, smelly jacket—next to Jenny.
‘Allison?’ Jenny asked, uncertain, peering through the Light at her.
Allison took two steps forwards, nodding. ‘Jenny.’
They had never had much to say to each other. Allison remembered being not invited to Jenny’s birthday party at primary school, and not caring much. At the comprehensive, they had rarely been in the same class. Teddy Gilpin fancied the girl, but she looked as if she’d break if touched! Besides, she was Jago’s. She always had been, from the time the Lord God came to Alder. Now, Jago needed someone else.
Without Jago, their lives might have been different: Allison would be a bruised slag like Sharon Coram, hating herself as much as the louts she fucked; while Jenny would be a young farmers’ cheerleader, like Beth Yatman, organizing dances and day trips to Minehead. In a few years, Allison would have turned into one of Alder’s solitary mad people, like Mr Keough or her dead granddad; while Jenny would have ended up as Sue-Clare Maskell or Ursula Cardigan, married to a man with property or a business, working one day a week in a charity shop.
Jago had been a saviour for them both. Allison looked into Jenny’s face and saw her own reflection, her dark against Jenny’s light. She reached out and held the girl, hands on her shoulders. Jenny grabbed back, taking her waist. Neither knew whether to push or pull. Allison knew she could crush Jenny like a butterfly.
‘We share Love,’ Jenny said.
Allison pulled Jenny into an embrace. ‘Sisters,’ she said.
‘Sisters,’ Jenny confirmed.
There was an awkward moment. Allison felt Jenny squirming in their hug and let her go. ‘I’m not a dyke,’ she explained. ‘God knows.’
Jenny smiled kindly and hugged Allison again, quickly and briefly.
‘It’s all right,’ Jenny said, ‘the other stuff is all gone. Flesh is old-fashioned. It’s just Love now.’
‘Love?’
‘The Love of the Lamb. Beloved.’
Love was in the Light, but that was only a part of what Jago wanted. First, there must be a scourging.
‘He needs me,’ Allison said. ‘So I’m here for Him.’
Jenny took her hand and led her upstairs. As they climbed, the Light was stronger. They went up more stairs than could possibly be in the house, stairs enough to take them half a mile into the sky. All around, the Brethren sang. They were like Jenny, shining from the inside. At last, having walked and climbed so far the aches fell from her body, Allison was brought before the throne. The girl from the Pottery—Paul’s girlfriend—was nestled in Jago’s lap. Fountains towered, and Light was made concrete in the throne. Jenny dropped to the floor and humbled herself. Allison saluted, a general before an emperor.
Jenny rose, reciting, ‘And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and their faces were the faces of men, and they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions…’
Jago didn’t need to speak to Allison. She knew she was welcomed into the fold. Soon Jago’s enemies would try to topple Him. She was charged with guarding His life.
‘…and they had a queen over them,’ Jenny continued, holding Allison’s arm, ‘the Angel of the Bottomless Pit whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue is her name Apollyon.’
Abaddon, Apollyon. The names sounded comfortable, familiar, fitting.
‘And in English?’ she asked.
‘Allison,’ she was told.
Jenny, she realized, had just made her Queen of the Earth.
* * *
Before the throne were two girls, one light, one dark. Hazel remembered their faces, but it was what had been made of them that was important. Beloved’s hand cradled her head, touch funnelling Light into her. Her own memories were faint, memories of a film she’d seen, not a life she’d led. Other memories crowded in, blotting her out. A city at night, with fire all around, and sirens. London, she thought, during the Blitz. In the north, another city, a sea of faces beyond a lectern, listening to a sermon. A chapel in the rain, with Wendy and Derek. A first sight of the Manor House. The two girls as children, bare knees and big eyes. Her own face, eyes tight shut, with chanting and incense. Beloved whispered in her brain. She held tight to His arms, knowing He’d see her safely through the storm. For a moment, she thought she heard Paul crying out to her to be careful, but his tiny whine was lost in the music of angels. Thro
ugh His eyes, she saw the earth below, devastated by fire and blood, scarlet seas thick with fish corpses, continents shifting and buckling, a poison star falling into the Atlantic, darkness thickening above the plains of carcasses. But in the Light, the Brethren were safe.
9
With difficulty, he managed to get Teddy and Pam into the pub. The boy was on the point of catatonia and probably had a few broken bones. When Paul held up three fingers and asked how many, the boy mumbled ‘Jenny’, which wasn’t helpful or reassuring. The girl was only malleable because she’d been hysterical for so long she was exhausted. She needed to hold on to someone, so he thought it clever to attach her to Teddy, but he hurt when hugged. Finally, she settled for holding the boy’s hand with a death-tight grip. Paul installed them in a deep sofa.
The saloon had fewer windows than the public bar, and thus felt more defensible. With Teddy and Pam settled and not in any immediate danger, Paul looked around, hoping not to find anything. If he shut his ears to the din outside, the empty place seemed normal. There was a notice board by the door. The heads of drawing pins reflected the light, reminding him the electricity was still working. There were posters up for a Christmas club and for the local skittles league, plus a bent card from someone who’d lost a cat and was offering a small reward for safe return.
Perched on a bar stool, he was drained. His tooth still hurt, but it was absurd to be concerned with that when he’d seen living people cut up, monsters from a medieval woodcut. He thought of Hazel, and tried to resign himself to never seeing her again, to never putting things right between them. It was impossible that both of them would survive the next few hours, let alone get back together. It was possible no one would survive the next few hours.
There was another tremor, and bottles fell down behind the bar. Teddy drew in a pained breath as Pam pressed close to him. Paul counted the seconds, and, when he was still alive after thirty, breathed again.
What would happen if Lytton killed Jago? Would reality come flooding back, a village packed with injured, insane or dead people? Maybe Jago’s dreams could live on after his death, and killing him would end the world. Now, the end of the world was an option he was willing to countenance. At least, it would put a full stop to suffering. In nothingness, his bloody tooth wouldn’t torment him any more.
