Clive Barker - Weave World

De Bono threw himself against the door and began to wrestle with the handle. The door opened, but Cal snatched hold of him before he could pitch himself out, at the same time putting his foot on the accelerator. As he did so a sheet of white flame erupted in front of the car, eclipsing the Scourge.

It was the briefest of respites. The car had backed up only five yards before the Scourge came at it again.

As it came, Hobart opened his mouth to a dislocating width, and a voice that was not his issued from his throat.

‘I see you,' it said.

The next moment it seemed the ground beneath the car erupted, and the vehicle was flung over onto the driver's side.

There was total confusion within, as a hail of bric-a-brac tumbled from dashboard and glove compartment. Then de Bono was scrabbling at the passenger door once again, pushing it open. Despite his wounds some of a rope-dancer's agility was still in evidence, for he was out of the felled vehicle in two economical moves.

‘Get going!' he yelled to Cal, who was still attempting to work out which way was up. As he stood, and levered himself out of the car, two sights were there to greet him. One, that of de Bono disappearing into the fog, which now seemed charged on every side with an empire of eyes. The other, a figure standing in the midst looking at him. It seemed it was a night for familiar faces, changed by circumstance. First, de Bono; then Hobart; and now - though for an instant Cal refused to believe it - Shadwell.

He'd seen the man play many roles. Avuncular salesman, wreathed in smiles and promises; tormentor and seducer; Prophet of Deliverance. But here was a Shadwell stripped of pretences, and the actor beneath was a vacant thing. His features, robbed of animation, hung on his bones like soiled linen. Only his eyes - which had always been small, but now seemed vestigial - still preserved a trace of fervour.

They watched Cal now, as he scrambled off the car and onto the ice-slick street.

There's nowhere left to run,' he said. His voice was slurred, as though he needed sleep. ‘It's going to find you, wherever you try to hide. It's an Angel, Mooney. It has God's eyes.'

‘An Angel? That?'

The fog trembled to right and left of them, like living tissue. At any moment it might be back upon them. But the sight of Shadwell, and the riddle of his words, kept Cal glued to the spot. And another puzzle too; something about Shadwell's changed appearance which he couldn't put his finger on.

‘It's called Uriel,' Shadwell said. The flame of God. And it's here to bring an end to magic. That's its only purpose. An end to rapture. Once and for all.'

The fog trembled again, but Cal still stared at Shadwell, too intrigued to retreat. It was perverse, to be vexed by trivia when a power of an Angel's magnitude was within spitting distance. But then the Mooneys had always been perverse.

That's my gift to the world,' Shadwell was declaring. ‘I'm going to destroy the magicians. Every one. I don't sell any longer you see. I do this for love.'

At this mention of selling, Cal recognized the change in the man. It was sartorial. Shadwell's jacket, the jacket of illusions which had broken Brendan's heart, and doubtless the hearts of countless others, had gone. In its place Shadwell wore a new coat, immaculately tailored but bereft of raptures.

‘We're bringing an end to illusions and deceptions. An end to it all -'

As he spoke the fog shuddered, and from it there came a single shriek, which was cut off abruptly. De Bono: living and dying.

‘ ... you fucker...' Cal said.

‘I was deceivedI Shadwell replied, untouched by Cal's hostility. ‘So terribly deceived. Seduced by their duplicity; willing to spill blood to have what they tantalized me with -'

‘And what are you doing now?' Cal spat back. ‘Still spilling blood.'

Shadwell opened his arms. ‘I come empty-handed, Calhoun,' he replied. That's my gift. Emptiness.'

‘I don't want your damn gifts.'

‘Oh you do. In your bones you do. They've seduced you with their circus. But here's an end to that sham.'

There was such sanity in his voice; a politician's sanity, as he sold his flock the wisdom of the bomb. This soulless certainty was more chilling than hysteria or malice.

Cal realized now that his first impression had been mistaken. Shadwell the actor had not disappeared. He'd simply forsaken his patter and his hyperbole for a playing style so plain, so minimal, it scarcely seemed like a performance at all. But it was. This was his triumph: Shadwell the Naked.

The fog had begun to chum with fresh enthusiasm. Uriel was coming back.

Cal took one more look at Shadwell, to fix the mask in his mind once and for all, then he turned and started to run.

He didn't see the Scourge reappear, but he heard the car explode behind him, and felt the blast of heat which turned the snow to a warm drizzle around his head. He heard Shadwell's voice too - carried crisply on the cold air.

‘I see you... ‘ he said.

That was a lie; he didn't and he couldn't. The fog was for the moment Cal's ally. He fled through it, not caring much in which direction he went as long as he outpaced the gift-giver's brute.

A house loomed up out of the murk. He didn't recognize it, but he followed the pavement until he reached the first crossroads. The intersection he knew, and took off back towards Chariot Street by a labyrinthine route designed to confuse his pursuers.

Shadwell would guess where he was headed, no doubt; the living fog that concealed the Scourge was probably half way down Chariot Street already. The thought gave speed to Cal's feet. He had to get to the house before the fire. Suzanna's book was there: the book she'd given into his hands for safe-keeping.

Twice the ice underfoot brought him down, twice he hauled himself up again - limbs and lungs aching - and ran on. At the railway bridge he clambered over the wire and up onto the embankment. The fog had thinned out here; there was just the snow, falling on the silent tracks. He could see the backs of the houses clearly enough to count them as he ran, until he reached the fence at the back of his father's house. He clambered over, realizing as he ran past the loft that he had another duty to perform here before he could make his escape. But first, the book.

Stumbling through the ruins of the garden he reached the back door and let himself in. His heart was a lunatic, beating against his ribs. Any moment the Scourge would be outside, and this - his home - would go the way of the Fugue. There was no time to retrieve anything of sentimental value, he had seconds only to gather the bare essentials: maybe not even that. He picked up the book, then a coat, and finally went in search of his wallet. A glance at the window showed him that the street outside had vanished; the fog was pressing its clammy face at the glass. Wallet secured he raced back through the house and left by the route he'd come: out of the door and through the tangle of bushes his mother had planted so many springs ago.

At the loft, he halted. He couldn't take 33 and his mate with him, but he could at least give them a chance to escape if they wanted to. They did. They were flying back and forth in the frost-proofed cage he'd built for them, perfectly alive to their jeopardy. As soon as he opened the door they were out and into the air, rising through the snow until they found the safety of the clouds.

As he started along the embankment - not back towards the bridge but in the opposite direction - he realized that he might never again see the house he was leaving behind. The ache that thought awoke made the cold seem benign. He paused, and turned to try and hold the sight in his memory: the roof, the windows of his parents' bedroom, the garden, the empty loft. This was the house in which he'd grown to adulthood; the house where he'd learned to be the man he was, for better or worse; here all his memories of Eileen and Brendan were rooted. But in the end it was just bricks and mortar; evil could take it as it had taken the Fugue.