by Louise Voss
‘WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE, ASSWIPES?’ he roared.
They woke up and both burst into tears.
39
The sound of Isaac’s name from Angelica’s mouth made Kate go cold. Anger bubbled up inside her. She became aware of her own breath changing rhythm, becoming steadier, deeper. Involuntarily, she clenched her fists. The anger felt good. She needed to hold on to it, use it.
‘Don’t say his name,’ she said.
Angelica raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. ‘He was a weak man. You should have seen him, how desperate he was to be praised, taking me into his room. The way his eyes ran up and down my body. So weak. Like all men.’
‘He was a good man,’ Kate retorted, furious that Angelica found this amusing. She tried not to let Angelica see that she was trembling. ‘Worth a million of you. You think you’re so beautiful, don’t you? But I’ve got news for you, sister. You’re ugly. It pours out of you, the ugliness. From your soul.’
The amusement on Angelica’s face vanished and she raised the gun that Kate hadn’t spotted, squeezing it, her knuckles whitening. ‘Shut your mouth and listen to me. Or shall I just kill you?’
Kate bit her lip. She so wanted to scream at this woman, try to yell some sense into her. The two of them stared at each other, both refusing to look away. The room was silent.
But one of them was holding a gun. For now, Kate knew, Angelica held all the power.
‘I’ll listen,’ she said.
Angelica relaxed and the atmosphere in the room changed in an instant. She folded her knees up under her chin and wrapped her arms round them, rocking gently on the bed. Then she stopped, and fiddled with her immaculate gold toenails. All of a sudden she looked like a little girl, frowny with concentration.
‘Kate Maddox, it’s your destiny to join us in ushering in the Golden Age. That won’t happen until the earth is cleansed of all the sinful beings that currently inhabit it, except us, the Chosen Ones.’
It was on the tip of Kate’s tongue to ask how Angelica, the murderer, thought she could possibly qualify as being without sin, but she took a deep breath.
‘How do you know that this household won’t succumb to the virus too? You’re as likely to die as anyone else.’
Angelica shook her head, smug now. ‘We’re all immune.’
Kate stared at her. ‘What? How?’
‘The Goddess protects us.’
Kate couldn’t help but roll her eyes. ‘And you really believe that every single person on the planet will be killed off,’ she said, ‘except you women, here in this house?’
She tried to imagine the levels of delusion in their minds. She saw it like the spiral on a snail’s shell, delicately twisting on itself; something beautiful and immutable, but far more fragile than they realised. She had read enough about post-apocalyptic cults to understand that their philosophical tenets, however implausible, would be completely incontrovertible to them.
Angelica’s lips parted and an expression of ecstasy crossed her face. ‘Not quite just us,’ she said. ‘It is decreed. It has been so since the start of this Cycle and every previous one. A hundred thousand of the purest female souls will remain, but we are the rulers, the Chosen Ones – and so, the Goddess tells me, are you, Kate. You and Junko are both Sisters. The message comes through to me more and more strongly with each meditation.’
‘Bit of a late addition, aren’t we?’ Kate asked, trying not to sound flippant. ‘And poor old Junko isn’t up to much at the moment.’ She looked across at her motionless friend, her black lashes fanned out on her pale cheeks.
She felt very alone. What if she never saw Jack or Paul again? What if Junko didn’t wake up?
Angelica seemed to read her mind. ‘Nothing is late, or unplanned, Sister Kate. Sekhmet’s divine plan is perfection itself. She knew, where I didn’t, that we would lose one of our number. Junko will replace Sister Cindy, so that the prophecy of Seven Sisters will be fulfilled. That is how we know that Junko will recover.’
She leaned forward and grasped Kate’s knee. ‘You, Sister Kate, will sit with us on the jewelled thrones at the start of the Golden Age – isn’t that the most glorious gift? To rule, knowing that you’ve been chosen? To wipe clean the slate of this corrupt and finished Earth, burn the pestilence out of it, and start again with your Sisters, worshipping and communing with Sekhmet herself, once more in human form, in a new world with no pain or death, just harmony and beauty for a thousand years, re-populating and fashioning the planet in our own images …’
Her eyes were shining with an excitement so genuine that, for a moment, Kate wondered if it could be true – that the Apocalypse really was playing out at the whim of some channelled Egyptian deity keen to usher in a new world …
‘Hang on a minute,’ Kate interrupted, pulling herself together. ‘Basic question I know – but if Sekhmet’s a woman – you’re all women – how exactly is that going to kick-start the human race, if everyone else has been wiped out?’
‘We’ve made provisions for that, of course,’ Angelica said, smiling beatifically at her, as though she was a kindly teacher and Kate a particularly daft schoolchild. ‘We’ve had some extremely accommodating – if unwittingly so – male guests here at the ranch for short periods of time. Just long enough, in fact, for us to take what we require from them. Then we send them out again, if they’re lucky. We sent our last guest out with a little extra something; a gift of our own. Something that he would pass on to everyone else on earth. He’s done a very good job of it so far.’
‘Can’t you stop talking in riddles? That’s how you spread the virus? You gave it to someone and sent them out into the world to spread it? Somebody on the Indian reservation?’
‘No … our carrier must have taken it there. I can’t remember his name, Cindy dealt with him. He was merely another weak man, like Dr Lart—’
Kate jumped off the bed, tuning Angelica out, unable to listen to any more of her shit. She clenched her fists and leaned her forehead against the wall, closing her gritty eyes and feeling the cold whitewash against her skin like a flannel, wishing she could wake up from this nightmare.
‘It won’t kill everybody, you know,’ she said to Angelica over her shoulder. ‘No virus has ever yet been one hundred per cent fatal. At least one per cent of those who catch it will survive. There will be islands and communities it won’t reach. Lots of people who’ve survived the original Watoto will be immune, as I am. And it’s a matter of days, if not hours, before someone in the scientific community finds the cure. You can’t assume we were the only scientists working on it. And it’s not as if you can murder all virologists, can you?’
Angelica laughed softly.
‘I told you, a hundred thousand women will survive. As I said before, don’t underestimate us, Sister. Remember, we are the most evolved of any human beings on the planet at this particular time, in preparation for the change that has already started. We are chrysalises, weaving our—’
Kate held up her hand like a traffic cop. ‘Oh please. Don’t start that again. Can we just cut to the chase here? Are you going to kill me and Junko if we don’t agree to join your twisted little cult, or what?’
Angelica shrugged. A muscle twitched in her jaw, and she instantly lost her serene expression. ‘We are not a cult. But if you choose not to take advantage of the most incredible offer you will ever be made – well, then that’s your funeral. Literally.’
40
Los Angeles was burning.
To the south, ribbons of black smoke rose to the sky in four separate locations, forming dark stains against the velvet blue of the night. A cacophony of sirens filled
the air, even at 3 a.m. Rather than risk getting caught up in the mayhem in the centre of the city, Heather headed west, then south to Long Beach. She’d tuned the car radio to KNX, where a frantic newscaster was summarising the latest developments in an increasingly desperate tone.
In South Central, where the virus had taken the strongest hold
, drugstores and clinics were being ransacked, then set ablaze by furious mobs. A pharmacist in Compton had been shot dead, not far from the spot where Heather had stamped the gun dealer to death. Witnesses said he had been trying to persuade the crowd that the anti-flu drugs they stocked would have zero effect, that they should go home, shut their doors, rest, pray. The mob didn’t believe him. Somebody shot him, then another man pulled a gun and did the same to the gunman, whose twelve-year-old daughter stood crying beside him, a scarf wrapped round her face.
At the same time, The Bloods were convinced that the Crips had a huge stash of Tamiflu, and vice versa, and young men who usually fought on corners over narcotics were now slaughtering one another for a different kind of drug, one they believed would cure their dying mothers and siblings who lay in their beds, shivering and sweating their way towards death.
Heather had to swerve suddenly to avoid a group of looters, many of them wearing surgical masks and with hoods pulled up over their heads, who had smashed in the storefront of an electrical store and were running across the street lugging HD TVs and laptops. One of them had stayed behind to set the store alight.
There was no sign of the LAPD or National Guard. Radio reports said that they were trying in vain to keep the situation under control but had effectively ceded control of the streets to the mob. They were now concentrating their efforts on keeping people inside the quarantine zone.
A great metal band of cars ringed the outskirts of the city, choking the highways, filling the bridges, and people thronged on the beaches, where Coastguard patrols had orders to fire on any one who tried escaping by sea. At the road checkpoints, water cannons had been set up to blast anyone foolhardy enough to try to storm the barriers. But there were a lot of guns in LA and, the newsreader reported, a group calling themselves the Angeles Army had declared war on the government.
‘People,’ the newscaster urged, his voice trembling, ‘stay home. Have faith in God.’
Heather laughed and said, ‘It’s exactly as the Prophecy foretells: In the first days of the Plague, brother shall turn upon brother, sister upon sister, and flames will lick the sky, burning like their anger and their fear.’
Rosie gave no sign that she’d heard. The woman and her daughter had not said a word since they entered the city.
Unperturbed, Heather continued along the Ventura Highway. Helicopters swooped overhead, flying towards the source of the smoke. A fire truck shot past, filling the air with its urgent wail.
‘It’s unstoppable,’ she whispered happily to herself, picturing a million souls taking their last shuddering breath. Bodies being carted across front lawns, the streets of suburbia filling with the dead, warning crosses painted on white picket fences, crows descending from the skies to feast on cooling flesh.
She saw sandstorms whipping across the desert homeland of the Goddess, the sky turning black, lightning flashing in the spaces between the stars.
And when it was done she would walk the streets of the world with Dadi and her Sisters, and they would survey the silent avenues and shanty towns, the empty shopping malls and hushed bazaars, from Los Angeles to London, Cairo to Delhi, Tokyo to Cape Town.
She saw the end of days and the beginning of a new world, the prophecies staining the world red as they became real.
On the outskirts of Pasadena, Heather pulled into a deserted gas station.
‘Just going for a leak,’ she informed the silent Rosie and Lucy in the back. ‘Don’t try anything. I’ve disabled the horn, so that little stunt won’t work. I’ll be watching you.’ She climbed out, yawned and stretched, looking up at the sky as she felt her vertebrae pop and release. It would be a beautiful night were it not for the smoke rising in the distance, obliterating the twinkling stars.
She took out her phone and called Angelica’s voicemail. Angelica would be sleeping now, and hated to be disturbed, but Heather knew her phone would be on silent. ‘All going to plan,’ she said cheerily. She felt a twinge of guilt at lying to Angelica, but it was only a little white lie. Things would indeed be going to plan as soon as she caught up with Paul. ‘I just need another day – he’s in LA and I’m on his tail.’ She glanced at her watch. Three a.m. ‘By the time you wake up for morning prayers, I’ll be on my way back, and the meddler will be dead. Om Shanti, Dadi.’
She hesitated, wanting to say something else. Ever since that incident in the motel room with that guy, she had wanted to speak to Angelica about what had happened. Actually, not so much to talk about it – she just wanted some sign from Angelica that everything was still the same between them. She hung up without saying any more.
The restroom door was locked, so she went to the side of the gas station, undid her combat pants, squatted and took a quick piss, keeping her eyes fixed on the SUV the whole time.
A rustle in the bushes behind her made her stiffen, and her hand automatically shot towards the curved hunting knife in the pocket of her combats. But fast as she was, it wasn’t fast enough. A huge muscled arm, twice the size of Heather’s own, had snaked round her neck and jerked her backwards into what felt like a brick wall, but was a man’s chest.
‘Nice car, lady,’ said a voice in her ear, and Heather felt the blunt muzzle of a pistol pressing into her temple and smelled a rank mix of marijuana, body odour and alcohol.
‘Yeah, nice. Shame it all bashed up.’ Another voice. ‘We still take it though. Hand over the keys.’ This man was big too, and mean looking. What was visible of his face over the top of the flu mask was a mass of mahogany-brown fissures and sharp angles. The mask seemed to glow luminous white under the sodium haze of the streetlights.
‘Well, shame you can’t have it, assholes,’ she retorted, staring down the man in the mask. The one holding her tightened his grip, cutting off her airway. Heather didn’t panic – she never panicked – but as she tried to figure out how to break free, more men appeared from behind the gas station. They surrounded her, five or six of them, and Heather’s heart sank. The irony – she’d taken a detour to avoid the centre of the city, and now this shit was happening in fucking Pasadena?
There was no way she was going to let some bunch of men defeat her. She would not fail in this mission. Thinking fast, she changed her tone:
‘Take it, then, if you want it. People in there got the flu, though. I was just driving them to the hospital.’ The pressure on her windpipe reduced her voice to a squeak, making her sound like a scared, vulnerable girl. That, and the thought that they’d probably been watching from the bushes while she was peeing, made her want to rip their hearts out with her bare hands.
The men looked at one another, and then over at the car. But it was dark, and the windows tinted. ‘You ain’t wearing a mask,’ said the leathery one.
Heather tried to shrug, although it was hard, immobilised as she was by the enormous forearm.
‘Your call,’ she said, resisting the temptation to add ‘loser’. ‘I’m immune. Are you?’
‘We’ll risk it. We need wheels,’ said the ringleader. ‘Give us the fuckin’ keys, lady.’
‘Let go of me and I’ll get them.’
The men all laughed.
‘You ain’t going nowhere. You one mean lookin’ bitch,’ said her captor, his voice so low in her ear that she felt the inside of her head vibrate. He leaned to one side, not letting up the pressure on her throat, and slid a meaty hand down her hip into the side pocket of her combats where her favourite hunting knife was kept. She tried to squirm away but he was far too strong. He removed the knife and tossed it to the leather-faced one. Then his hand delved into her front pocket for the car keys – but not before he’d snaked his fingers across to give a hard squeeze between her legs.
Heather sank her teeth into his massive forearm and bit it with all her strength. He bellowed with pain, and released the pressure on her for just a moment. She twisted out of his grasp – but turned right into the full force of a punch from one of the other men, rendering her immediately unconscious. She landed face-fir
st, her broken nose grinding into the cracked asphalt.
Rosie and Lucy, their hands still taped behind their backs, lay silently in a bush next to where the SUV had been parked, not twenty feet from where Heather was out cold. Rosie watched the huge man kick Heather’s prone form, and gave a very small mental cheer. When the seven men piled into the SUV, Rosie hoped they would drive over Heather on their way out, crunching her bones like roadkill. But it seemed they had finished with her.
‘Ain’t no one in here. She was bullshittin’ us, man,’ she heard one of them say as they reversed at speed and then skidded on to the highway.
Everything seemed eerily silent once the gang had left, aside from the faint never-ending chorus of sirens in the distance.
‘Luce, honey? Sorry I had to push you out. Are you OK?’
The moment she saw the men emerge from the bushes, Rosie had begun writhing around in the back seat until her fingers grasped the metal of the door handle behind her. She’d hung on, praying that the men would stop looking at the car, that an opportunity would come for them to slip out without being heard. When a cry of pain rang out as Heather bit her assailant, Rosie had shoulder-barged her daughter out of the vehicle and into the shadows.
Lucy didn’t reply, but leaned her body into her mother’s. Rosie would have given a month’s salary to be able to put her arms round her, but she couldn’t. Hell, a year’s salary. She felt sick and shaky, but at least they were free.
‘Come on, hon, we’ve gotta get out of here before she wakes up,’ she whispered, staggering to her feet. ‘Upsy daisy,’ she said, trying and failing to smile. ‘Sweetheart, let’s go. Oh hell, I wish our hands weren’t tied.’
Lucy grunted and rolled over on to her side, and then on to her front, her face pressing into the prickly earth around the bushes. Using her forehead as leverage, she managed to push herself to her knees, and then, wobbling dangerously, to a standing position. In the moonlight Rosie thought her daughter’s skin was the colour of milk. ‘Good girl, that’s great, well done, honey. Come on.’
