Tim Lebbon - Coldbrook

And it was not quite human.

It had a heavy brow, and what little hair remained was long and black. Its face projected forward, like an ape’s. The arms were long and the hands large. It looked mummified — skin tight and shiny across some bones, but hanging loose across its stomach and chest — and its eyes were shrunken and deep.

It jerked forward when it sensed their presence, drawing in its legs and arms where it sat like a dying spider. The chains clanked and dust fell from them; they had not moved for some time. Even though it was badly desiccated, Jonah could see signs of mutilation from those early experiments. An opening had been cut into its skull, and he saw the shadowy insides — the brain was still wet. The flesh had been scoured from one forearm. There were holes in its chest, one of which he was sure he could see through.

‘Horrible,’ he said.

‘I just see pathetic,’ Drake said. ‘It’s a dried-up old thing, victim of the Inquisitor’s kind.’

‘Then why not put it down?’

‘You talk as if it’s a suffering animal,’ Drake said, surprised. ‘It’s nothing like that. It was dead before it came through and doomed my world. Why put down something that’s already dead?’

Jonah looked at his counterpart and saw a strong, determined man. But Drake was also someone who had been living in the aftermath all his life, scratching and surviving amid the rubble of his dead civilisation. If he was harsh, it was because that was all he had.

‘In our world, they were Neanderthals,’ Jonah said, turning his back on the horrible thing.

‘Ours also,’ Drake agreed. ‘It seems that they didn’t die out on every Earth. Another reason why the Inquisitors have to be defeated, and destroyed. They’ll kill anything that isn’t them. It’s worse than genocide. Not the extermination of a people, but an entire species. A reality. And if they finally succeed-’

‘They’ll never succeed.’

‘Why not?’ Drake asked.

‘Because the multiverse is infinite.’

‘Then they’ll commit infinite evil, and cause infinite pain, because they can never stop. Infinite Earths that might never breach without their help will be exposed to. .’ Drake nodded at the wretched animate corpse.

‘There must be a way,’ Jonah said. ‘With that bastard stalking me.’ He looked around, away from the trapped dead thing and back out into the narrow tunnel beyond. He hadn’t seen the Inquisitor since coming through, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Sometimes when he blinked it was watching him, standing behind the operating table with the objects it wanted to graft onto Jonah. Just waiting for him to accept his fate.

‘There might be,’ Drake said, his voice sad once again, hesitant.

‘How? You think you have a way?’

‘First, I can show you more of what is out there. You want to see?’

‘No,’ Jonah said. ‘But I must.’

‘My wife, Paloma,’ Drake said, introducing Jonah to a tall, thin woman. ‘She’s our doctor. She will work with Marc when he arrives.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Jonah said, extending his hand. Paloma glanced at it and smiled uncertainly. Drake went to her side and hugged her, then whispered something in her ear. Her eyes went wide and she averted her gaze from Jonah, trying to appear less shocked than she was.

‘Something I should know?’ Jonah asked. Drake was guiding him here, choosing what he should hear and know, and that was a level of control no one had ever had over Jonah. He bristled, but also felt something like a child. They might be survivors barely scraping an existence, but something about Drake’s world was far ahead of Jonah’s.

‘I’m telling her about Jayne,’ Drake said, not looking at Jonah.

‘Good,’ Jonah said. ‘Hopefully she and Marc-’

‘Yes,’ Drake said. ‘So, casting library. This way.’ And he left the room, expecting Jonah to follow. Paloma remained looking at the floor, and Jonah walked closer to her than he had to, hoping that she would glance up. But she did not. Dead man walking , he thought, not sure where the words had come from.

He followed Drake. They passed through a series of doors, and then Drake paused at a doorway, put his finger to his lips and nodded inside. ‘Casting room,’ he whispered as Jonah drew close. ‘This will upset you.’

And how right Drake was. For a second Jonah was amazed at the technology behind what he was seeing, and a hundred questions occurred to him all at once. But then he realised what was being displayed on the screens hanging above the prone people, and such petty queries fled.

He saw his world in flames and turmoil. Burning cities, rivers of bodies, masses of humanity no longer human.

‘Enough,’ Jonah said, turning away. He met Drake’s gaze. What he’d just seen was more terrible than the visions shown him by the Inquisitor, because this was his Earth.

‘I’m sorry,’ Drake said.

Jonah was going to reply, and then he saw a shape moving along the corridor., dragging a familiar shadow. It can’t be. I’m a universe away! But the Inquisitor was there, those horrible objects dangling from its hand. They swung like heavy wet organs removed from another body. They dripped.

One of the Inquisitor’s shoulders was bleeding, the blood looking surprisingly fresh against the old, dusty robes. Holly shot him with her crossbow , Jonah thought, and that gave him a brief burst of confidence. ‘I do not accept,’ he said hoarsely, and the Inquisitor faded away.

‘It was here?’ Drake said softly, his tone full of wonder and dread. He grabbed Jonah’s arm and pulled him away from the casting room, back along the corridor to a narrow doorway. ‘We don’t have long.’

‘Why the rush?’

‘Because the Inquisitor won’t wait for ever for you to accept. Kathryn’s diaries said as much. It’s dancing with me when I don’t want to be its partner. And yet this game must have an end . She found her end, Jonah. And unless we hurry, you’ll find yours as well.’

‘You have a plan to deny him?’

‘Trust me. We’re like brothers. You’re your Earth’s me, do you not see that? Don’t you feel it?’

Jonah nodded, and made the decision to trust this man. He had little choice, and behind Drake’s apparent arrogance was a self-confidence that Jonah had to respect. Any genius had an ego; he only hoped that Drake’s was justified.

They entered a new room and Drake flicked on several lights. ‘We have to destroy them. You see that?’

‘I’m keen to hear your plan. But what’s this?’ The room held four wardrobe-sized objects that seemed to shimmer with power. They dripped with condensation.

‘Our casting-field generators,’ Drake said. ‘Just let me get this ready and I’ll tell you my plan.’ He went to a cupboard and took out some objects. Jonah heard various clicks and clunks as he sorted them.

A network of clear cables rose from each generator into the ceiling, pulsing with gentle blue sparks. Jonah thought of the core back in his Coldbrook, how huge and unknowable it was, and the idea of what might be inside these units made him shiver.

‘Amazing,’ Jonah said.

‘It’s all amazing,’ Drake said, his back still turned to Jonah. ‘So you see why we have to win? All those Earths, gone. All that wonder, knowledge and industry, hope and ambition. All that art. You understand why we have to fight?’

‘Of course,’ Jonah said.

‘Good, Jonah. Good.’ Drake turned, lifted a small crossbow, and shot Jonah in the heart.

Vic follows his sister through the ruined streets, and Jayne is staring at him from every window, every open door. There are cars slewed across the roads, resting on deflated tyres and with their windows slicked with something wet and mossy on the inside. A few have burned, and their stark black skeletons are now home to weeds that wave in the breeze.