Abomination (The Pathfinders Book 1)

by Jane Dougherty

  Mac blushed with pride.

  “So the Gouge set on the Kusha and massacre them instead of us,” Cal shouted triumphantly.

  “And if a Matonge gets an arrow with an eye emblem up his arse—” Mac blurted out.

  “He’ll just fuckin’ run fer it,” Cal finished for him.

  A freezing draft whined beneath the door. Behind it they heard the growing rumble of one of the ferocious storms that boiled up with a frightening speed and broke in torrents of rain and deafening thunder. A crash directly overhead, followed by the din of a deluge pouring down on the roof and cascading through the holes in the superstructure, drowned the enthusiastic chattering.

  As the tribesmen looked about fearfully, listening to the wind grappling with the roof, a howl, long and desolate, joined the roaring of the wind and the pounding rain. More voices took up the song, an inhuman lament or victory song, they couldn’t tell. The wind gained in force and poured through the mall, screeching and chill, reaching beneath the closed door and rattling loose metal panels. The men shuffled their feet and tried not to look at one another. Tully could almost smell their fear.

  Ace’s eyes, shining feverishly, flicked from one man to another and rested on Tully.

  “This plan of yours had better bloody work. You hear that, Warlord?”

  “I’m not deaf, Ace. What is it anyway? Drax? More wacky tribes?”

  Ace pushed his face up close to Tully’s, a twisted smile on his lips. “Drax and tribes is the least of your worries, mate. That’s pure horror waiting out there. And you know who it’s waiting for?” Ace’s eyes glittered and he gave a hoarse laugh. “You.”

  Tully felt cold and the hairs at the back of his neck stood on end. Ace was mad. He was either just winding him up or imagining things, a short circuit in his twisted brain. Probably. Maybe. He bloody hoped so. It was bad enough that Ace had grasped the plan instantly and was already one step ahead. That could only mean trouble. Tully shivered. He would worry about the sinister threat later—if there was a later.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The kitchen had been cleared and the women herded into the take-away food stand they used as a dormitory, the room with a metal blind that locked. The events of the afternoon had left Carla on an emotional high, but as the excitement of play-acting subsided, she was once again struck by the apathy of the women, by the hopeless expression in their eyes. She felt a tightening in her stomach at the idea that in time, she too would be as worn down and despondent. Except that for her, that time would never come.

  Carla caught Kat’s eye and could not hold back the smile that flashed briefly across her face. She was leaving! Kat had a plan, and she was leaving too. They had Tully. They would bring Jeff, and if Tully’s new friends turned out to be trustworthy, that made quite a band to confront the hostile world of the end of days. Most of all, she thought about the prisoner—how they would get him out and what Tully would say when he heard. What she tried not to think about at all was where they would go. If Kat had a plan, it was because she didn’t think escape was so futile after all.

  The girls were going through the dismal routine of shaking out their quilts and blankets, making a space for themselves on the floor, huddled close together for warmth and the meager comfort offered by their fellow captives. Sleep was the only escape, fleeting and ephemeral, but it was the only solace they had. Flo stood and watched, her arms folded across her chest, appraising the girls as if they were pieces of butcher’s meat. Carla saw her choice fall on a small, slight girl with pale, lank hair. Ace’s type, Carla decided—someone already so self-effacing he could rub out her personality altogether. Flo caught the girl’s eye and signaled to her to leave her things and get ready to go. The girl hung her head but obeyed without a murmur. Carla’s stomach was tying itself in knots. Kat too looked anxious. Then the door was flung open and two of the tribesmen swaggered in.

  “Girls!” one of them barked with a leer twisting his fat, florid face. Flo nodded to the pale-haired girl. The tribesman shook his head. “For Warlord Thor. Kat and Carla, get moving!”

  Flo’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, but she could not oppose the request.

  * * * *

  The corridor led from the women’s quarters into the main supermarket area, now almost completely empty except for broken and buckled shelving and the inevitable tangle of trolleys. At this time of the evening the power was turned off, and the two guards lit the way across the debris with flashlights. They skirted several gaping holes in the floor that could have been made by shells or the earthquakes and made their way along the walkway that led past the main stairwell to Lady Day’s Fine Lingerie boutique.

  Carla was cold all the time. She had forgotten what it felt like to be warm. Nowhere in the rickety structure that was like the leaking, rusting hull of a wrecked ocean liner, was out of reach of the glacial wind, the showers of ice and frozen rock, or the beating, freezing rain. She shivered inside her thick sheepskin and dreamed of hot food, hot drinks, roaring fires and deep feather quilts. She tried to remember hot summer skies, beaches and the feel of the sun on her closed eyelids, but the effort was too great. The howling frozen landscape of the present, with its lowering banks of black cloud and volcanic ash, was too oppressive.

  Carla felt the reassuring presence of Kat walking next to her with a determined stride, and their situation seemed a little less desperate. Over the last few days, Kat had recovered some of the dignity she had lost and held her head high. She had begun to tie up her thick auburn hair, and her eyes were no longer dull and hopeless.

  The men strutted about like peacocks in fashion sportswear or expensive great outdoors gear, even if it was all threadbare and filthy by now, but the abject position of the women was reflected in the way they looked. All self-respect had been beaten out of them. They slunk about with downcast eyes and dressed like drudges, unkempt and careless.

  Carla hoped that the subtle change in Kat hadn’t made Flo suspicious. She was the brutal kind of woman who in other times would have been a concentration camp guard or some mad doctor’s willing assistant. Carla suspected that when it came to the crunch, Flo would turn out to be even more ruthless than Ace.

  They hurried past the spot where the rat man had perched, and Carla avoided looking at the dark stain that the body had left on the ground once the rats had cleaned up. At Lady Day’s boutique, the first guard stopped and beat, rather than knocked on, the metal blind. A pair of hands heaved it up to waist height and Matt’s head ducked into view. The guards grinned at him and made obscene gestures as they pushed Kat and Carla under the half-raised blind.

  Carla blinked and shielded her eyes. Tully had rounded up a dozen paraffin lamps from the camping department and the soft light filled the bare room with a warm glow and a comforting, smoky smell. Jeff, Matt and Jim sat around a tiny camping stove where a kettle bubbled, the steam that plumed from its spout adding to the homely atmosphere.

  “Take a pew.” Tully indicated a couple of folding chairs, then poured out two mugs of tea. Kat took hers and sat down next to Jeff. His face lit up when she put her arm around his shoulders and combed his unruly hair out of his eyes with her fingers.

  “I see you cleaned up this pigs’ house a little.” Carla stood awkwardly, her hands shoved deep into her jacket pockets. Her eyes locked into Tully’s, searching for a familiar light.

  “Sorry there’s no coffee. Must have all got pinched.” Tully smiled hopefully. “But the commandos who turned this place over seem not to have appreciated the civilized pleasure of a nice cup of tea.”

  “Cheers.” Carla wanted to cry. “I don’t suppose there’s any milk?”

  “Only concentrate,” Tully said softly. The expression in his eyes was so soft and tender, she almost cracked up. She tried to smile but her face puckered and she swallowed back a sob. Tully stood and put his arms around her, drawing her close. “Oh, Carla,” he whispered into her hair. “I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

  Carla threw her arms around his neck a
nd let a few tears of fear, tension, relief and bitter grief squeeze from behind the lids of her tight-shut eyes. “Of course I forgive you,” she murmured, “stronzo.” And pulled him into a furious kiss.

  When they parted, Tully held Carla’s gaze for an instant, searching deep for the forgiveness he needed, a smile lingering on his lips. He found it, rushing up from her heart, filling her eyes. Together they would find a way out of the hell at the end of the wormhole. He would organize the diversion, Carla would have a plan for getting away. She was good like that. He kissed her again, tenderly, on the forehead and they loosened their embrace, aware that an awkward conversation was going on in fits and starts, as the others pretended not to have noticed. Tully turned to Matt.

  “Could you just make sure there are no ears flapping outside?”

  Matt braced himself then heaved with all his strength on the blind, sending it rattling up to the ceiling. He flashed a torch up and down the walkway. “All clear.” The blind rattled down again.

  “Now,” Tully said, “about this plan. Ours, I mean, not Ace’s. In front of the boys he talks as though the only thing we have to prepare for is a bunch of wacko tribesmen raiding our Italian plum tomatoes, but that’s just a sideshow, isn’t it?” He stared hard at Jim and Matt. “And I’m expecting you to put me in the picture, straight up, no more pissing me about.”

  Jim and Matt stared at their feet. Kat cradled her mug in her cold hands, closing her eyes in the delicious damp warmth of the steam. “Listen, Tully,” she began. “Before we go any further, there’s something Carla wants to tell you.”

  Carla leaned forward, her eyes bright with excitement. “It’s the most amazing thing, Tully. The prisoner, the one who won’t fight for Ace… I’ve seen him. You’ll never guess who it is!”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  A brief silence followed Carla’s revelation. Tully took a deep breath and ran both hands through his hair. He pushed back his chair and stood up. “Okay, let’s go. Show me where he is.”

  Jim put a hand on his arm and shook his head. “You go bursting in now and the game’s up. You can’t get him out without the key, and Flo has it.”

  Kat looked at Carla. “I suppose this is our baby. You get him out when you take him his meal tomorrow. We’ll find him a hiding place until it’s safe for us all to leave.”

  Carla shook her head. “If he goes missing while I’m in charge of the key, Flo’ll guess I let him out, and she hates me enough already. No. Let’s do it tonight, while it’s dark. Flo expects us to be here all night. I have an alibi.”

  “I know where she keeps the key,” Kat lowered her voice. “She doesn’t bother to hide it. Why should she? It’s hardly likely any of us would want to let him out. Who needs another potential rapist and brawler?”

  “There is a certain logic to that,” Tully agreed.

  “No!” Jim’s face was white, his voice strained. “Nobody’s going to get that key. The prisoner’s staying right where he is.”

  Carla stared in disbelief. “Would it be possible to know why?”

  “The risk’s too great.”

  “What risk?” Tully was seething, already halfway to the door. “So, we don’t let him near the kitchen. The awfulness of his cooking has been greatly exaggerated, you know. He grills a mean sausage if he doesn’t get distracted.”

  Matt wrung his hands and shook his head slowly. “Jim’s right. We’re sorry Tully but we can’t let him out. He’s the malediction. He’s Eblis-Azazel.”

  “That’s why Ace has him locked up.” Jim’s eyes refused to meet Tully’s. His voice was full of apology. “He wants to turn him over to the Burnt Man when he comes back. He thinks that’ll make him leave us alone.”

  Carla leaped to her feet and joined Tully. “Go and get yourselves buggered! You’re mad! Nuts! Come on, Tully. We’ll get him out. And don’t any of you lunatics try to stop us.” She wrenched at the blind and got it half open. Tully stooped to help her and felt a tugging at his jacket.

  “Wait!” Jeff’s face was as white as Tully’s had been two minutes before. “Jim, Matt, you’re wrong. The Holy Man said that Eblis would come out of the wormhole after the other two scourges—”

  “And the Holy Man’s visions come true,” Jim shouted.

  “Visions,” Carla snorted.

  “What do you know about it?” Jim turned on her angrily. “The women are never allowed to be around when he sees things. I know it sounds stupid, and I don’t want it to be true anymore than you do, but the Holy Man’s always right.” Jim’s voice tailed off and he turned his head away.

  “Maybe not always.” A thought had occurred to Matt. “He did predict that if we attacked the Matonge that time, we’d capture their food store, starve them out and become the most powerful tribe in the sector.”

  Jim nodded. “That was when Ace fell into one of their defense trenches and broke his ankle…”

  “Yeah, and Jules got caught on the wire getting him out and his wound infected and he died,” Matt went on triumphantly. “And then a drac got Frank when we dashed back across no man’s land.”

  “An impressive victory,” Tully muttered.

  “Still—” Jim was struggling with what he feared and what he hoped.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake! Call yourselves warriors? Grown men?” Kat shouted. The boys stared at her, electrified. It was the first time in years they had heard one of their women raise her voice. “Why not try thinking for yourselves sometimes! Just because those junkies with their visions and their instruments of torture say that the guy who stumbled out of that hole is the devil’s henchman, doesn’t make it true. If they said he was the reincarnation of Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile, you’d believe them, I suppose?”

  “I’ve heard some good ones about my dad.” Tully’s voice was incredulous. “Lots of people think he’s a bit eccentric. But nobody to my knowledge has ever accused him of being the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse.”

  “What I was trying to say,” Jeff piped up in a small voice, “is that whoever the Holy Man saw coming out of the hole, it wasn’t Eblis. I can tell. There’s nothing…funny about the prisoner. Eblis isn’t here yet. He’s…hidden.” Jeff shivered and staggered. Kat grabbed him before he fell and laid him down gently on the floor. Jeff lifted his head as if it weighed a ton, and propped himself up on his elbows, his forehead beaded with sweat. “The Holy Man sees things, but he doesn’t see everything. Sometimes it’s only a part of what will happen. Usually it’s just what might happen, just one of the thousands of possibilities. When Eblis comes, I’ll feel it. Believe me.”

  “And why should we believe you?” Jim asked bluntly.

  Jeff tried his best to answer Jim’s question, to explain the chaos inside his head. No matter how hard he tried to shut out the images, he was bombarded with glimpses of what was to happen. Sometimes the glimpses were so fleeting as to be a simple colored blur. Other times the eye dwelt on even the most insignificant details, painting an intricate tableau that left nothing to the imagination, where nothing could hide behind a might be, or a perhaps.

  Jeff hadn’t always been gifted. The gift had come to him just before the Burnt Man had appeared. It probably coincided with the Burnt Man entering the wormhole, dragging his two henchmen and the horde of drax and walking corpses in his wake. From the moment the visions had started, like a film on an endless loop, they had never ceased.

  Voices murmured constantly in his head, buildings crumbled, bodies fell to the ground in fountains of blood or wreathed in flames. Cars, lorries, buses cavorted and cabrioled to destruction, chasms opened, mountains fell and gray volcanic dust settled over everything. He had not been quite six years old when it started. He’d had no one to tell, except Kat.

  His voice petered out into a thin, pale whisper and his eyes closed in exhaustion. He sighed as he slipped into sleep and the flickering pictures slowed and stopped.

  “Maybe you can just leave him alone now.” Kat’s voice was a whisper. The others looked at th
e sleeping child with a mixture of awe and pity, trying to imagine how it felt to have an inner eye, an eye that looked beyond the here and now, into tomorrow and beyond—an eye that never closed.

  “Poor kid,” Tully said sympathetically. And he meant it.

  “Mmm,” Jim said, and he did too.

  “So why does Ace waste his time with that phony of a Holy Man?” Carla wanted to know.

  “Because he doesn’t know about Jeff for one thing,” Jim said, “nobody does, or did. And for another, he needs someone to believe in.”

  Matt nodded his head in agreement. “The Holy Man tells him what he wants to hear. What we wanted to hear too, most of the time. It suited us fine, like we weren’t really responsible for anything that happened.”

  “But not anymore?”

  Matt thought over Carla’s question before shaking his head. “No. We have to take the blame for the things we do, if it’s not right. Like…with the girls, when I let the other sick bastards get their mitts on…”

  Jim nudged him gently in the side. “Yeah,” his voice was a whisper. “We shouldn’t let them do it.”

  Matt gave his friend a thin smile. “Well, it’s finished all that now. We don’t have to listen to that useless creep anymore.”

  Jim shrugged. “The Holy Man’s sick. That’s no secret. We’ve always known that. But he gets these flashes of inspiration. That’s true enough. Okay, maybe it’s not a gift because he sometimes gets it wrong. Maybe it’s more like sort of psychic interference.”

  Kat’s face lit up. “That’s it. Jim’s right! The Holy Man gets interference from Jeff, and because he’s used to having his brain short circuit from time to time, he doesn’t notice the difference.”

  Tully had been listening impatiently. “Right, well now we’ve got that little misunderstanding cleared up, does anybody mind if we get on with springing my dad?”