Marc Chadbourn - The Queen of sinister

'Red Sonja, more like. You remember Conan? The She-Devil with a Sword. Or in this case a machete.'

'They're all dead, you know.' Harvey jerked a thumb in the direction of the corridor leading to the concourse. 'All that bastard's men.'

Thackeray looked Caitlin in the eye; he couldn't quite understand what he was glimpsing there, though it certainly wasn't the blankness he had seen in the woman with whom he had first fallen in love. 'I'm not going to be able to take you back to mother, am I?'

'But why didn't you kill him?' Harvey nodded towards Buckland, who was increasingly delirious with the pain.

'He's facing his own punishment.' The new vision Caitlin had gained since the Morrigan had come to the fore was proving a revelation. As Caitlin watched Buckland, she could see the devils dancing over his form, teasing the plague along the meridians of his body where the chi flowed. She knew what it was now: a spirit-plague, a corruption of the soul that attacked the life-giving essence of reality. It wasn't just designed to kill people; it was there to destroy everything. The Blue Fire would be attacked first, and then physical matter would follow.

And while it could be a natural infestation, the presence of the devils and the malignant and modulated way in which they went about their terrible business made Caitlin sure there was an intelligence behind it. Something had loosed such an awful thing; something wanted Existence destroyed. And that made her think that it was all connected — the plague, the Lament-Brood, the attempt to eradicate her. But who or what could possibly want to wipe out everything that ever was?

'So, we getting out of here?' Thackeray said. 'Buckland's not going to be much of a threat any more. In a world with the flimsiest of health services, what you've done to him is pretty much a death sentence.'

'For what it's worth,' Caitlin said.

'Maybe we could take over from him,' Harvey mused. 'With an enforcer like her, nobody would mess with us.'

'Nah,' Thackeray said. 'Too much responsibility. I'd rather go on holiday.'

He looked at Caitlin hopefully, but her face told him all he needed to know. They stood on one of the station platforms, the intense darkness thrown back in one small arc by a lone torch held by Harvey.

Thackeray had his arms around Caitlin's waist, pulling her close so he could feel her tenderness. 'You've really got to go?'

'Yes. People are counting on me.'

His sigh was supposed to be theatrical, but it carried the full weight of his feeling. 'It's understandable. You're getting out of Birmingham. Who wouldn't?'

'You could leave, too.'

'You'd think, wouldn't you?' He looked deep into her eyes, tried to appear blase. 'I'd go with you.'

She shook her head. 'I don't think I'll be coming back, Thackeray. What I've got to do… well… my instinct tells me the price is going to be my life. These things always end badly.'

'Yeah. You see, responsibility… I don't really get that word.'

She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. It was subtle but as potent as the passion he had experienced from her earlier. A shiver ran down his spine. He knew in his heart that he would never find another who meant as much to him. Their time together could be counted in days, yet the connection he felt with her was as deep and abiding as the ocean. He wanted to tell her how much he needed her, how he could see, even though she hadn't examined it herself, that she loved him, too. But he could also tell it was pointless. She couldn't stay; obligation lay on her shoulders like a millstone.

'In this world we've ended up with,' he said, 'things are just too, too tragic.'

She smiled and electricity jumped between them, but the poignancy was almost too painful for him to bear. She pulled back and his hands fell from her waist. 'Bye, Harvey,' she said with a wave.

There was a hint of relief in his smile. 'You want to get some shampoo for that hair, Red Sonja.'

She laughed, dropped from the platform on to the tracks. They watched her as she moved along the lines, and only once did she look back before the darkness swallowed her up. At that moment Thackeray thought he was going to die.

Harvey slapped a hand on his shoulder. 'I'm sorry, mate. But look on the bright side… you'd never have been able to argue with her.' Thackeray tried to pierce the gloom, imagining her wending her way out into the night, fierce and beautiful and wild, like nature. 'I'd have jumped through fire for her, Harv. I'd have crossed the world.'

'You're a stupid romantic, Thackeray, and it's a wonder you've got any friends.' Harvey turned away and waved the torch towards the exit. 'Come on… let's nick Buckland's whisky stash.'

Crowther was hot and irritable and the path appeared to go on for ever. The still air beneath the trees had grown oppressively muggy and even long drinks from the numerous cool streams that cut through the forest did little to ease his discomfort.

Mahalia, dealing with her grief, spoke little, but what worried him was that when she did talk, she was polite, thoughtful, almost good-natured. He was concerned that Carlton's death was an unbearable stress that could eventually destroy her.

'It might help to talk about him,' he said as he watched her kicking small stones into the thick undergrowth. 'The boy… uh, Carlton…'

'There's nothing to talk about.'

'You could tell me how you met him.'

She thought about this for a moment, then said, 'It was after I'd escaped… from the attic. I'd been living rough, trying to get food anywhere I could…' She grimaced. 'I ate some disgusting things, just to stay alive. That showed me you'd do anything to survive — anything.' She continued walking, not looking at him. 'I expect you can guess what it was like — a young girl on the street, easy target. One morning four men, four bastards…' She spat the word. '… tried to rape me. Broad daylight, on the footpath, in one of the main shopping areas. People were nearby. Nobody cared, however much I screamed. They just wanted to get on with their business. My problems were my problems.'

Crowther watched the back of her head, reading the unspoken emotions amongst her words.

'Carlton came out of nowhere,' she continued. 'Somehow he rounded up some of those people walking by — I don't know how he did it, he couldn't talk, but, you know, he had a way about him — people liked him, people followed him…' She stifled a sob in her throat, took a moment to wipe her eye, but still remained in control, still diamond-hard. 'They drove the men off… saved me. Carlton saved me. And when he came over and held out his hand to help me up, and just smiled, that way he always did, I knew I'd found a friend — someone who'd help me, someone I could help.'

Crowther watched her shoulders grow taut and her head bow. Awkwardly, he reached out a hand and laid it on her shoulders. He felt uncomfortable at making such a connection, but it did the job, for she flashed him a brief, sad smile. It made her look like a different person.

'Now we're never going to find out who he really was… or what he could do,' she said.

'Perhaps he was simply a good person,' Crowther said. 'No more, no less. Perhaps he had already done the job intended for him, and nothing more was planned for him. His work was over.'

Mahalia eyed him curiously. 'Do you believe in God, Professor?'

'I did, then I didn't, and now… I'm open to arguments.' The question unnerved him and he quickly moved the conversation away. 'So where do you come from, young Mahalia? You've been a little bit of a dark horse since we met. You've clearly had the benefit of a good education and there's an air of the well-to-do about you.' He kicked himself mentally for sounding so false, but trying to be nice didn't come easily to him. It felt as if they were two blind people groping round in the dark, trying to discover if the other was animal, mineral or vegetable.