Marc Chadbourn - The Devil in green

Even after everything, Mallory still considered rescuing him. He gripped his sword and took a step forwards, but by then Stefan was lost behind a wall of black. There was one final cry, quickly muffled, and then the haunting figures began to drift slowly away, like shadows fading in the morning light. When they had departed, of Stefan there was no sign; Mallory couldn't tell if they had dragged him off in their midst, or if he had been consumed by them. Whatever the answer, Mallory had an instinctive understanding that there had been some kind of justice.

As the tension dissipated, Mallory felt suddenly deflated. 'What now?' he asked.

'Now,' the Caretaker replied, 'there will come an ending.'

'Yeah, I can dump this box and get back to Sophie,' Mallory said, brightening; still not quite accepting his triumph. 'And then it's just me and her-'

'No,' the Caretaker said. 'That is not how it will be.'

Mallory couldn't meet his eyes; although he shouldn't have had any inkling, he somehow knew what lay ahead, and it left him with a desolation that made him tremble.

'There is one more door to pass through, Brother of Dragons.' The Caretaker motioned behind Mallory. The mysterious door with the carved surround through which he had first passed now stood behind him. He could feel the weight of it, as if it would suck him through.

'I can't,' Mallory said. 'I need to get back to Sophie.'

He sheathed his sword and broke into a run, zigzagging randomly through the grave markers. When he was finally exhausted, the Caretaker was waiting. 'Take me back to Sophie,' Mallory pleaded.

The Caretaker led him to the trilithon and then through the corridors and halls beyond, though they never passed through the reservoir or anywhere else that Mallory recalled. Finally, they came to a halt at a blank wall. Mallory waited patiently until he realised that the Caretaker was staring at him.

'What?' he said a little too sharply.

The Caretaker appeared to be choosing his words carefully; though his face was held rigid, some deep emotion shifted behind it. 'Existence is fluid, Brother of Dragons,' he began. 'It is what we make it. Each of us, individually. Nothing is real. Everything is real. Worlds spiral out of mind, disappear into the void, split in two, and then again, into infinity. The only world that truly matters is the one inside because that is the one that affects everything else.'

Mallory couldn't quite tell if the Caretaker was apologising for something, or warning him, or trying to offer some kind of guidance. The blank wall opened out to reveal the rolling snow-covered lawns beneath a dawn of majestic pink and purple.

Mallory made to step out, but the Caretaker's heavy hand fell on his shoulder to hold him back for a second. 'When you pass through this door, you can never come back to this point again,' he said. 'When you pass through this door, everything changes.'

Mallory nodded, not understanding, and stepped over the threshold.

Mallory sprinted through the foot-deep snow, clutching the box to his chest. In the rosy wash of first light he saw Sophie huddling inside a blanket. More blankets had been heaped over the still form of Miller. Her head was bowed, her hair falling across her face so that he couldn't tell if she was asleep or watching her charge intently. Emotions frozen within him for so long now moved easily: hope that finally everything was going to be all right for them in an idyllic, well-dreamed future; a warm, unfocused joy at the perfect resolution when all had seemed hopeless; and, most of all, love, as sharp as sunlight on snow.

Sophie heard the sound of his boots and turned. The smile was there, as he had hoped. He gave a curt wave — no point in being too out of character — and held up the box to signify his success.

Her smile faded; a shadow fell across her face. A shadow fell across him.

It felt like a car slamming into him. His breath rushed out, the box went flying, he hit the ground, saw stars, skidded, somehow pulled his senses back from the brink.

The Hipgrave-thing raced towards Sophie, a black cloud sweeping across an unblemished sky. Mallory didn't stall, didn't think; he was moving instantly, sword unsheathed, blue glow on snow, driving forwards. The tearing-silk sound destroyed the dawn stillness. It was more thing now than Hipgrave: insect arms becoming slashing swords becoming a cloud of snapping mouths becoming something that made his stomach heave; his mind just wouldn't fix on one shape.

He found energy where he thought he had none; the distance between them shortened rapidly. But it was not enough. He saw in frozen instants: Sophie looking up; a true shadow falling over her; her arm rising in feeble protection; her mouth opening, an exclamation or a scream, he wasn't sure; the Hipgrave-thing smashing down.

And as quickly as it had been there, it was gone, moving out across the compound to new territories, a storm, nothing more, a force of nature that came from beyond nature. And Mallory ran, and dropped to his knees beside her, but it was too late. Clearly, too late. A pool of blood flooded out, staining the snow in a widening arc. Her eyes were wide and fixed. She was already gone.

In that instant, he reached the extremes of human feeling; the acuity of the sensation almost destroyed him. One thought flickered briefly across the tempest: what was the point? Why did humanity exist at all?

'When you pass through this door, everything changes.'

Mallory sprinted through the foot-deep snow, clutching the box to his chest. Sophie heard the sound of his boots and turned. He gave a curt wave — no point in being too out of character — and held up the box to signify his success. But the smile wasn't there as he had hoped.

'He's gone, Mallory.'

He followed her gaze down to Miller's still form. The face was as white as the surrounding snow, the cheeks and eye sockets so hollow that it didn't look like Miller at all. In a rush, Mallory remembered dragging Miller into the car as the monkey-creatures attacked them on the approach to Salisbury; recalled searching for him on Salisbury Plain when it would have been easier to leave him to die. The Chinese believed if you saved somebody's life you were responsible for it from then on; and he had saved Miller twice, but the third time, when Miller had really needed it, had pleaded with him from the pits of his soul, Mallory had given up on his responsibility. Mallory might as well have killed him himself.

What was the point…

'When you pass through this door, everything changes.'

Mallory sprinted through the foot-deep snow, clutching the box to his chest. Sophie heard the sound of his boots and turned. The smile was there, as he had hoped. He gave a curt wave — no point in being too out of character — and held up the box to signify his success.

The Hipgrave-thing raced towards Sophie, but Mallory had already dodged out of its path when the shadow fell across him. He was close enough to swing his sword; even such a powerful blade was not strong enough to kill the shifting creature, but it hurt it badly. There was a screech that made his ears hurt, and it turned on him. He saw movement and darkness and a glimpse of the man he had once known, and then it fell on him. Its first attack sliced deep into his shoulder blade, but after that burst of pain the rest became a wash of nothing. He saw the sky, pink and purple, dark at the extremes, and he saw Sophie, her face so beautiful, so torn with emotion, and then he fell backwards into the white, and further backwards into the dark, finally warm, finally rested…

The Caretaker was standing beside him. 'He waits,' he said, pointing to a solitary figure standing dark against the thick snow. The emotion carried with the hooded figure that had haunted him for so long was no longer threatening but so potently desolate that it ignited a deep dread in Mallory. He wanted to run anywhere so he didn't have to face that thing and what it represented.