Simon Green - For Heaven's Eyes Only

“We don’t have time!” snapped Callan. “Go for it, Amelia.”

He beckoned forward a dozen other far-seers who’d been waiting nearby, and they all crowded in around Amelia. Linked together, that many far-seers should be able to See through anything. We’ve always had the best remote viewers in the world. The problem’s been to keep them out of the bedrooms of the rich and famous. They leaned in together, shoulder-to-shoulder, peering intently into the scrying pool. And then Amelia’s head exploded. Her skull shattered, blown outwards as though someone had buried a grenade inside her brain. Bone fragments and spatters of pink and grey meat shot across the scrying pool, and her headless body slumped forward, spouting blood in thick jets. Two more far-seers screamed shrilly as their eyes exploded, splashing the others with thick, viscous, bloody fluids. Another far-seer reached up and tore his own eyes out so he wouldn’t have to See what he was Seeing. Two more spontaneously combusted, burning fiercely with thick yellow sulphurous flames. They didn’t move; just stood where they were, burning right down to the bone. Another far-seer started laughing and couldn’t stop.

“Shut down the far-seers!” shouted the Sarjeant-at-Arms, running forward. “I told you to shut down the whole section!”

“Armour up!” Ethel’s voice said suddenly, out of nowhere. “Everyone armour up! My strange matter will protect you!”

We all put our armour on, and the whole War Room was full of gleaming golden figures. The golden man who had been the Sarjeant-at-Arms moved forward, pushing others out of his way, and smashed the scrying pool with one armoured fist. The silver ectoplasm lost coherence immediately and ran away down the legs of the workstation. We all waited a moment, but nothing else happened. The Sarjeant grabbed up a fire extinguisher and put out the two burning far-seers. Their charred and blackened bodies just stood there. Callan gestured for some of his people to come and take them away and escort the surviving far-seers out of the War Room to the nearest hospital ward. The Sarjeant-at-Arms glared around him.

“All right, everyone armour down! The danger’s over. But stay cautious! Callan, you and Eddie stay in your armour, with me. You’re always boasting about your old scrying skills, Callan; use that magic mirror on the next bench, and See what you can See.”

Callan nodded stiffly, and then glanced at Molly. “You’d better stay back. You won’t have armour to protect you.”

“Please,” said Molly. “Remember whom you’re talking to.”

“Ah. Yes . . . quite,” said Callan. “On your own head be it.” He nodded to the Sarjeant and me. “Let’s do this.”

He moved over to the next bench, still covered with its shimmering screen. The Sarjeant and I moved in on either side of him, and Molly leaned in. At first all I could see was a dark bloodred light, shining from some new and terrible kind of sun. The town buildings stood as they always had, but the air in the streets shook and trembled like some unearthly heat wave. There were great cracks and rents the whole length of the road, as though earthquakes had torn through the underlying strata. As I watched, some of the rents slammed back together again, and then reappeared, like doors opening and closing. Waiting for something to come through them. And there was something wrong about the buildings. In slow and subtle ways they seemed to slump, to seep, to fall in on themselves, as though they couldn’t quite be bothered to keep up the facade of normality. Some of the shop signs were misspelt, or garbled, or just plain gibberish. Or perhaps words from unknown languages. Doors and windows were set in the wrong places, or in the wrong proportions, or tilted at crazy angles. As though the madness in this place were infecting the very structure of the buildings.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” I said quietly to Molly.

“Not on this earth,” she said.

I looked to Callan, and he shrugged uneasily. “We’re getting some information as to what’s happening inside the dark circle, but there’s no telling how dependable the readings are. . . . The very building blocks of reality have been compromised. No linear time, no cause and effect, everything changing for no purpose, from moment to moment. . . .”

“The Satanists have blown apart the very rules that hold everything together,” said Molly. “Dropped a whole town into chaos. That’s some bomb. . . .”

“We can’t be sure they’re behind this,” said Callan. “Not yet. More important, we haven’t a clue how they did this. That’s why I called in the Armourer.”

He looked hopefully at my uncle Jack, but the Armourer shrugged without looking up from whatever he was working on.

“Would even Drood armour be enough to protect me in such an environment?” I asked him.

Molly looked at me sharply. “You’re not thinking of going in there, are you?”

“There could be survivors,” I said. “People trapped in there. What do you think, Ethel? It’s your armour.”

“I don’t know!” Ethel’s voice sounded definitely troubled, issuing from somewhere above us. “It ought to, but this is all new to me. I can’t see inside the dark circle, but from what you’re seeing . . . I’ve never encountered such extreme conditions before; and I’ve been around. But I designed your armour to survive whatever your reality could throw at it. And since strange matter comes from my domain, not yours . . . Roll the dice, and see what happens! I can’t wait to find out!”

“Sometimes her endless enthusiasm can get a bit creepy,” murmured Molly.

“I heard that!”

“Somebody’s got to go in there,” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms, moving forward to glare at the images on the screen. “We have to figure out how this was done, before the conspiracy does it somewhere else. Next time they might go for a city. And yes, Edwin, we do need to check for possible survivors as well.”

“You’re all heart, Cedric,” I said.

“But . . . why pick a nowhere place like Little Stoke?” said Callan.

“To test their new weapon,” said the Armourer, looking up from doing something unnatural with a bunch of silicon chips and some mistletoe.

“Then why remove the people before they unleash the weapon?” said Molly.

“Maybe they want them for test subjects for other weapons,” said the Sarjeant.

“I don’t like the way we’re playing catch-up with the conspiracy,” I said. “Always one step behind. I say we storm Lightbringer House in force, use every field agent available. Smash through their defences, grab everyone there and ask them a whole bunch of really pointed questions.”

“Way ahead of you, as always.” The Sarjeant-at-Arms sniffed. “We sent our people in while you and the Armourer were off playing tourist at the Supernatural Arms Faire. But the Satanist conspiracy people were all long gone. Their files with them. And no, they didn’t leave a forwarding address. They stripped the place clean and vanished into the undergrowth the moment you and the Metcalf sisters left the premises. Some of our best people are currently tearing the whole building apart, in case they missed something, but right now there’s no sign anyone was ever there.”

“Hold it,” I said. “No booby traps?”

“They left in a really big hurry,” said the Sarjeant.

“Something must have frightened them,” Molly said artlessly. “But then, Iz and I always did believe in making an impression.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t leave skid marks,” I said solemnly.

“Try to be serious, Edwin,” said the Sarjeant. “This is a serious situation.”

“I know,” I said. “Someone has to go into Little Stoke and see if anyone survived.”