Mark Chadbourn - Always Forever

"These must be the tunnels the Government set up in the fifties and sixties in case of a nuclear strike," Ruth said. "A good way to save all the great and good and leave the poor bastards to die. Probably a favour. Who'd want to live in a world filled with politicians, the military, businessmen and the aristocracy?"

"We're well and truly bleedin' lost now," Veitch said angrily. "Why did it have to be me who fucked up again?"

When he was like that there was no consoling him. "Pick a direction," she said dismally. "It'll take us somewhere."

His anger grew more intense as it became obvious they were moving off the beaten track. The well-tended road gave way to rough ground, the tunnel became unfinished: bare brick, then girders and scaffolding, before they came to a thick barrier of sleepers and planks.

Veitch smashed his fist against the wall, as hard as if he was punching someone in the face, but his rage wiped away any pain he might have felt. When he turned, Ruth could see his knuckles were ragged.

She cowered as he stormed around searching for something to attack. "We fucked up!" he yelled.

"We can go-"

"No! We! Can't!" His furious face thrust an inch away from hers. Suddenly she was terrified; she couldn't see any sign of the funny, gentle Veitch she had known from the quieter times they had shared.

She took a step back, but didn't show her fear. "Pull yourself together."

"What?" His eyes ranged wildly as though she wasn't there.

"I said, pull yourself together. You're the hero here-"

"Hero! I'm the bleedin' loser! Same as I always was!" He flailed his arm, obviously some sort of primal gesture to wave her away. But instead he caught the torch and knocked it from her weak grip. It smashed into pieces on the floor, the flame now a faint flicker along one of the shards.

"Ryan!" Ruth dropped to her knees desperately, but there was nothing to save.

"Oh, fuck! Now look what I've done!" He ran over and kicked the wall hard.

Ruth only saw what happened next from the corner of her eye as she bent down trying to pull the remaining pieces of wood together to keep the flame going. Weakened by his punches, the wall collapsed. Veitch plunged forward into a gulf beyond and a shower of rubble fell down reclosing the opening.

Ruth covered her head until the fall had ended, but none of the debris touched her. She looked at the faint flame and then slowly took in her surroundings.

"Oh, Ryan," she whispered. And then the tears came in force.

When she finally regained control of her emotions, Ruth wiped her eyes and resolved to find a way out of her predicament. She wasn't going to be beaten. She certainly wasn't going to die down there. Balor had to be beaten, humanity had to be saved and, more importantly-she had to laugh at that strange truth-she had to see Church again. Even if she had to crawl along pitch-black tunnels to find a way out.

The flame was barely more than a candle's height on the splinters of wood. It became trimmed briefly with blue and then began to gutter.

Here we go, she thought. Prepare yourself.

Then, as the flame finally began to die, she became aware of other lights in the dark. At first she dismissed it as an optical illusion caused by the sharp contrast of shadow and light on her retina. The flame became the size of her fingernail.

Almost gone now.

But the other lights remained; tiny, glittering stars sweeping across the firmament. She scanned them curiously, and then, just as the flame finally died she realised what she was seeing and her blood ran cold.

Darkness swept up around her and she heard the sharp skittering sound as the first rat moved forward.

Veitch fell fifteen feet into freezing water, slamming his head hard on the way down. The cold and wet kept him conscious, but the dark was so all-consuming he couldn't tell up from down. The water came up to his thighs and by stretching out slowly on either side he realised he was in some kind of small tunnel or gully as wide as the span of his arms. He spent ten minutes trying to find where he had fallen and attempting to climb back up, but it was impossible to see, and more rubble kept falling. Dejected and afraid he might be pinned by another collapse, he began to wade wearily forward.

He continued for what he guessed was around an hour, pausing occasionally to rest against the wall and catch minutes of microsleep. He couldn't even feel his lower legs and he wondered how long it would be before hypothermia set in. But whatever set him apart as a Brother of Dragons made him resilient, helped him to heal; he'd keep going, he thought dismally. He hated himself. He hated himself so much he considered lying down in the water and drowning himself, but it wasn't in his nature. So he had to continue with the infinitely worse burden of his guilt, thinking about what he had done to Ruth, punishing himself by images of her wandering along inky corridors until the inevitable end came. It had all been his fault; he could almost have scripted it.

The water began to rise soon after, a half-hour later it was up to chest height. He was racked by convulsive shivers, drifting in and out of a fugue state brought on by the cold. Gradually he became aware that the tunnel was becoming increasingly steep. By the time he had grasped how sharply it was falling away, his feet would no longer give him purchase and suddenly he was sliding down. He barely had time to take a breath before the water washed above his head, and then he was rattling down an incline, faster and faster, until it became a vertical drop.

The rush of water burst out into thin air. He could vaguely feel his legs bicycling as he plunged thirty feet into more water, deeper this time and rushing in a torrent. One random thought flickered through his head: Ruth's beautiful face as she told him about London's old River Fleet, now buried beneath the city as it rushed down towards the Thames. And then the impact stole his consciousness and the water closed over his head.

Save Sweeper was moored not far from Southend when Church came sweeping down from the northwest with the remainder of the Tuatha Df Danann force. The journey skirting Greater London and through the green fields of rural Essex had passed in a golden blur. He was accompanied by Tom, the Bone Inspector and Niamh, but he didn't recognise any of the other gods, although he sensed many of them were not sympathetic to the cause of the Fragile Creatures. He wondered why his particular task force was burdened with more dissenters than the other two, but Tom wasn't too concerned when he raised the matter.

On board it felt strangely good to be back in the familiar detachment of Otherworld with its heightened sensations, away from all the suffering of the real world. There was an atmosphere of stillness that eased the anxiety coiled in his chest; even the sun was shining brighter than on the shore. He made his way to the rail where he quietly enjoyed the tang of the sea and the warmth on his skin, until Tom joined him.

"You're going to bring me down, aren't you?" Church said without looking round.

"I'm the last person to advocate an injection of reality, but-"

"I know: responsibility, obligation, and all that. Is this the standard precrisis pep talk?"

"Something like that." Tom leaned against the rail, facing the sun, his eyes closed. "You know, I can remember the days of my youth as clearly as if they were yesterday. Hundreds of years-although it's not really, not by Otherworld time. But it's still a long, long time and so many experiences." He took a deep breath. "I smell the blossom in the garden of my childhood, so powerful, like incense and fruit wrapped up together. I remember distinctly the way the sunlight caught the dew on a spiderweb in an old yew tree, one dawn when I had crept out of the house before anyone had awoken. The rosewater on the neck of the first woman I ever loved. The touch of her fingers on the back of my neck." He shook his head dreamily. "Amazing."