Mark Chadbourn - Darkest hour

"No," she cautioned. A panic seemed to be growing deep in her eyes. "No. It's not like that. It's still bad."

"What do you mean?"

She shook her head, unable to find the right words. Instead she made him put her down, then took his hand and led him back into the house. He looked round for Laura to join in the celebrations, but the place was empty.

"I'm so sorry," Ruth said in a small voice.

It was like I was floating above myself. I could see and hear everything that was going on around me, and some things that were happening even further afield." Ruth stared bleakly at the makeshift bed where she had lain for so long.

Church slumped in the corner, eyes fixed on the middle distance, too weary to attempt to rationalise anything. There was no sound apart from Ruth's voice and the occasional gust of wind battering against the aged walls.

"It was near the end… I know it was near the end because my consciousness was starting to break up like some radio station on the edge of its frequency. I could see what was happening to my… my shell." She looked down at her belly, now returned to its normal size and shape. There was no sign of the disfiguring blemishes, and her skin had regained its usual colour. In fact, apart from the intense weariness that afflicted her spiritually as well as physically, there was no way of telling she had been through anything.

"You know, she wasn't as bad as we all thought," she said, glancing up at Church.

"I never thought she was bad."

"You didn't think she was good. I didn't. Especially me. And the worst thing was, she didn't even think it herself."

Church let the exhaustion pull his head down. He could feel each breath going in and out of his lungs. "What happened to her?"

"But she was good, you see. She deserved to be one of us."

Church looked up sharply. "What happened?"

"While you were out there facing up to the Fomorii there was a sound like an animal snuffling and scrabbling around the house. Laura got frightened by it. She looked round for anything that might make a weapon to defend me. You know, she was pretty close to the edge by then, and not just because of what was going on outside."

"You're pretty good with that perception." It sounded a little more sour than he had intended.

Ruth ignored him. "I think she was about to barricade the door when it suddenly burst in. It was Cernunnos."

Church's brow furrowed. "He came here? What about Shavi?"

Ruth shook her head. "It wasn't his Wild Hunt persona. It was the pleasing side of him… the Green side. He had a bottle." She was staring blankly at the wall of unintelligible writing as if the images were playing out like a movie. "Small, smoky-coloured. He spoke to Laura-"

"What did he say?" Church snapped. His inability to understand her was grating on him; he could sense some mystery behind it all that he didn't want revealed.

"I didn't hear it all. But the bottle held some kind of… potion, I suppose… something that Shavi had been after-"

"And he didn't say anything about Shavi?"

"No, I told you. The potion was supposed to save me. It wouldn't destroy Balor. It would…" She struggled for the correct words.

"What?" Church said in exasperation.

Ruth took a deep breath to compose herself. "He explained it all to Laura so she could make the right choice. He kept saying it was important she knew what she was doing. She didn't have to, there was no pressure, she could walk away-I remember him saying that, not quite in those words. But it was there if she wanted to use it. He wanted to help us, Church. He'd marked Laura and me-"

"A sacrifice. There always has to be a sacrifice."

"With magic, yes." She paused. "I suppose there's a price to pay for everything."

He put a hand over his eyes. "What was it?"

"It wouldn't destroy Balor, but it could transfer him-"

"What?" He felt something cold and hard start to grow inside him.

"Cernunnos left the bottle on the floor and went. Laura stared at it for a while. I could see her face, all the emotions so raw on it… I wish I'd been nicer to her. I was a bitch."

"She was a bitch. Don't start eulogising her." What did he feel? Anger? Bitterness? He was surprised he felt anything.

"She took the bottle. I don't think she knew whether she was supposed to drink it or pour it on me or what. But when she pulled out the stopper this smoke licked up, and it moved like it had a life of its own. And suddenly I was in agony, I mean real pain, worse than anything the Fomorii did to me. It was like wrenching, like…" She covered her eyes briefly. "And the next thing I knew, Laura was face-down on the floor. Out of it. Completely. Mercifully. And Balor was inside her, or wherever he-"

"Christ!" Church chewed on a knuckle, staring at the floor, picturing the scene, wishing he couldn't.

"She transferred it from me to inside herself."

"Christ."

"She did it for me, Church. For all of us."

"Christ."

Ruth wandered over to the window. The Bone Inspector sat forlornly on the lip of the ridge, exhausted, but she didn't seem to see him.

Church looked round. "Where is she, then?"

Ruth turned to him and her expression said it all. "The Fomorii took her. While you were out there fighting Calatin, a few of them came in here. One of them was-"

"Mollecht."

She nodded.

"He gave me what I needed to kill Calatin so he could seize control. And he took her?"

She nodded again. Then she came over and squatted next to him. He rested his head on her shoulder, acceptance crushing him down.

"So they have Balor. They've won."

They drifted outside in silence. From their vantage point they could see civilisation lit clearly in sodium, the cities glowing orange in the distance, the village oases, the ribbons of lights connecting them, mapping out humanity's hegemony. Church checked his watch, waited. A moment later every light winked out as one.

"It's time," he said bleakly.

From the south came a distant howling, growing louder. A wind tore across the countryside, bending the trees, ripping at the hedgerows, screaming up to them like lost souls en route to hell. The clouds tumbled before it, spreading out across the sky, obscuring the stars one by one until there wasn't even the light of the heavens to see by: only complete darkness, impenetrable, claustrophobic, too terrible for life. And in that awful howling wind Church could almost hear Laura's death-scream. It was all over. Balor had been reborn. The End of Everything had begun.

So this is the way the world ends, he thought.

Except it didn't. Things carried on the same, though sapped of hope, and everything he could pick out in the dark was dismally grey. There was the wind, quieter now, and Ruth beside him, unmoving. Or perhaps it was just an illusion, random flashes on his mind's eye. But it smelled the same, and it sounded the same, and that was worse than a sudden ending.

"I can't believe she's dead." Church stared into the heart of the blazing fire, remembering Skye at Beltane when they thought they had suffered a terrible defeat; not really knowing what the word meant. Behind him, Mam Tor loomed up against the sky; he couldn't bear to stay on it any longer. But at least the initial shock and dissolution had finally subsided. Now there was only a sickening numbness as he tried to come to terms with what the future held.

"We all knew there was a chance we were going to get it at some point." Ruth threw more wood on the blaze, enjoying the feel of the heat on her skin; despite everything, enjoying just being alive. "I'm sorry, Church, that sounded really harsh and I didn't mean it like that-"

"I know, I know. We were all aware our lives were hanging by a thread. But however much you think about people dying, it never really prepares you."