‘… you were just patchwork lives … but I was real … once …’
‘Sal, this isn’t how you are! Not before you stepped in. You weren’t thinking things like that! You weren’t –’
The neck curled backwards like a rattlesnake recoiling, preparing to strike. ‘… YOU DON’T KNOW! … you NEVER cared! … you NEVER asked! …’
‘I did – I do care! We’re friends! We’re like sisters, for God’s sake! I loved you!’
‘… you had love, didn’t you? …’ Sal’s eyes receded into her head, deepened until they were shadowed by her brow, lost dark pits on an ashen face. ‘… not me … never me …’
Maddy glanced over her shoulder. Adam? She’s talking about me and Adam?
‘… Liam had adventure … and you found love … but me? I was spare … I had nothing … I WAS nothing …’
‘We had each other, Sal! God, we still do! We can still get you –’
Sal’s mouth stretched long and wide, a smile like a gashed face, lips pulling back revealing gums, tendons, glistening bared muscle and sinew, skin peeling back beyond any possibility of returning her face to normal.
‘… all I had was her … Saleena. She was MY love …’
The face was morphing beyond recognition. All that remained of what Maddy could recognize as Sal was a flap of grey membranous tissue that hung from above her forehead. It had been black and silky like her hair had been, but now the texture had changed to a sickening putrid flesh, like the jellied skin of an eel – a half-hearted attempt at replicating how her dark hair used to flop over one eye, hiding all but a mischievous glint.
‘Sal?’
The long neck, bulging laces of tendon beneath a translucent skin, recoiled once more and the mockery of Sal’s face lifted up and hovered above, looking down on Maddy. ‘… you were going to take Saleena from me …’
‘No! Sal! That’s not how it is! I’m not lying!’
The neck swung down low again, Sal’s face looking more like a skull than anything else now: the skull of Mr Punch, Punchinello. The trickster. It hovered just a foot from Maddy, searing heat emanating from the glistening grey image of bone and rotten eel flesh.
‘… then let me open you and see what’s inside your head …’
Chapter 65
1479, the Lost City of the Windtalkers
Maddy felt a hand roughly grasp her shoulder and yank her back. She staggered backwards, lost her balance and fell to the floor. She looked up and saw that Adam was standing where she’d been.
‘Adam! No!’
He shouted over his shoulder. ‘GET HER BACK!’
Rashim and Bertie pulled her to her feet. ‘Adam! What’re you doing?!’
Adam turned to her quickly. ‘Maddy … I get it! I know what happens! I’m dead already!’
‘Adam! Get back from –’
‘GO!’ He looked at Rashim. ‘GET HER OUT OF HERE!’ He turned to face the entity. ‘Sal!’ he barked, his voice warbling with fear. ‘I’m something you’ll never have!’
The skeletal head that had been looking at Maddy, cocked and curious, now swung its attention to him.
‘Love!’ he cried. ‘Somebody to love you!’
‘Adam!’ Maddy screamed at him. She struggled to free herself of Rashim’s and Bertie’s grasping hands. ‘God! She’ll kill you!’
He side-stepped across the room, away from Maddy and the others, drawing the attention of the seeker with him. ‘It’s me! This is all down to me! She loves me … she doesn’t care about you any more! She doesn’t give a damn about keeping your stupid future any more! Because she’s got better things to do. She’s in love. I changed her, Sal! You want to know who to blame? It’s me! Me! ME!’
The creature roared: a chorus of voices high and shrill and feminine, all of them sounding achingly pitiful. Grief multiplied out over millennia. Sorrow, brittle and fragile, shattered mercilessly over a hard uncompromising knee. A keening moan that filled the room. Its energy surged and crackled, heating the room almost as if the gates to Hell itself had been flung wide open. The broiling heat threatened to render every last person in the temple a blackened, carbonized mannequin.
It surged forward after Adam, now invisible again except for a heat haze that glided towards him and away from the ruins of the doorway.
Rashim and Bertie dragged Maddy to the exit. She kicked, squirmed and screamed, desperately trying to free herself, to give it one last go – to call out after Sal – to try one more time to talk her – or what was left of her – out of doing this …
Adam was still shouting something at it, his voice lost beneath the wail of beast. Backing into the far corner of the room, the people behind him were immobilized with fear, too frightened to move and make a break for the door in case they attracted the attention of the creature.
‘Adam!’ Maddy screamed out for him. ‘Get out of there! GET OUT OF THERE!’
They were scrambling through the doorway, stepping over shards of jagged wood, and stumbling out into the narrow alley – when Maddy caught her very last glimpse of him.
Alive. Still.
But certainly not for very much longer.
Her last sight of him was through the oily ripple of the intense heat haze. She could just make out his pale face, blotched pink by the intolerable heat, his untidy greasy rope-like dreadlocks, his scruffy tie-dyed shorts and shirt, arms frantically waving at Rashim and Bertie to get her away.
And then he was gone as they pulled her with them, down the now-deserted street. It was dark. Night had fallen quickly and the stars were patiently waiting for the moon to wake up. She was vaguely aware of the smells around her, the perfume of night-blooming flowers, the tang of wood smoke, the odour of seared human flesh.
The stepped flagstones beneath their feet were littered with shattered blocks and rubble knocked from the buildings either side and dozens of dark steaming humps – the charred husks of what were once people.
Liam decided they’d waited around here at the mouth of the tunnel long enough. ‘Stuff this, I’m going back there to look for them.’
Bob reached out quickly and grasped his wrist in one giant fist. ‘I advise against that decision, Liam,’ he said. ‘If they are still alive, they will know to meet us here.’
‘Dammit! Let me go!’
‘Negative. It is too dangerous.’
Becks nodded in agreement. ‘Bob is correct. You are making a flawed and foolish tactical judgement, Liam.’
‘I may be a fool, but I’m still the bloody operative! I’m the one in charge, last time I checked. So let me go!’
‘As you wish.’ Bob released his hold and Liam staggered forward. ‘If that is your command.’
He rubbed his wrist. ‘And the both of you are coming with me, so you are – now!’
The support units briefly looked at each other. Becks replied, ‘It is better to be as far away as possible from any source of energy. We should allow this entity to simply deplete itself.’
‘You understand, Liam,’ added Bob, ‘we will not be able to protect you from this seeker? It is pure energy.’
‘Aye, well … we’ll worry all about that if we bump into the bloody thing. Now come on!’
The three of them were about to set off down the sloping flagstone path towards the plaza when they heard the clack of footsteps hurrying uphill towards them. Distinct and clear: not the soft muffled slap of leather sandals but the hard clack of boot heels – and something more … the muffled sound of someone sobbing.
‘Maddy? Is that you?’
‘It is us, Liam!’ Rashim replied. Moments later they all but bumped into each other in the moonless dark. ‘Thank God,’ said Rashim. ‘I was worried you were gone. Tell me you have the transponder still?’
‘Aye.’ Liam felt for it in his pocket. He noticed Maddy was being held up by Bertie. ‘Is she OK?’
Rashim shook his head. Not that the gesture was seen. ‘We had a close encounter with the seeker. We just managed to escape. But Ad
am was not so fortunate, he …’ Liam heard the words trail away and figured out what he was saying.
‘All right,’ he replied. Maddy’s sobbing was intermittent and subdued, the tail end of an outpouring of grief. The tears might be slowing for the moment, but that meant nothing more than she’d cried herself dry for now.
‘All right,’ he said again, thinking aloud. ‘All right. We should leave. There’s nothing more we can do here and now.’ He looked out across the dark city. Tonight there were no pinpricks of light, no cooking fires or oil lamps, no tallow candles. It was a dark, abandoned ghost town. He knew this was how this place would remain as nature slowly recovered its hold over it. Centuries quietly passing, vines and roots meshing with each other and covering weather-worn stonework beneath an emerald-coloured shroud.
And the bodies of the dead would decay to bones.
‘That thing is out there somewhere,’ he said finally.
‘It is … it – it s-still is out there!’ whispered Bertie. His quiet voice fluttered with fear. ‘I … I saw it. The Devil h-himself! We should go. We should go. We should go!’
Liam nodded. Wherever Sal was, she was surely somewhere less dangerous than right here. ‘We’d be bloody idiots standing around here a moment longer. Come on.’ He started uphill towards the entrance to the tunnel. ‘I’ll turn on the transponder when we get to the cave.’
They made their way up the tunnel, feeling their way in the absolute dark, none of them daring to snap on their torches and all of them hoping the pitch black was covering their quiet escape.
Chapter 66
1479, the cave, Nicaragua
‘Does – does it normally take so long?’ whispered Bertie anxiously. ‘Are you sure your d-device is working p-properly, Mr O’Connor?’
Liam nodded. ‘Don’t worry, it’s working.’
The first faint grey stain of dawn was lighting the sky over the carpet of jungle below the cave. By the wan light, they watched mist gathering in ghostly pools far beneath them. Daylight couldn’t arrive soon enough.
‘Sometimes it’s immediate, other times we might have to wait a few hours.’ He offered Bertie a reassuring smile. ‘Relax. The portal will open for us soon enough.’
He turned back to Rashim. ‘I still can’t believe what you said earlier. Sal? Are you sure you saw her? I mean really sure?’ Liam shook his head. ‘Maybe you’re remembering it wrong –’
‘I saw her face on the seeker, Liam!’ His eyes looked haunted. ‘It was definitely her face. She was that thing, or at least, she was a part of that thing.’
He felt something cold ride his spine. A shiver. Not from the cool breath of the pre-dawn breeze, nor was it like the pleasant shudder from a lover’s whispered words or the touch of tender, feather-light fingers. Instead, it was the prickling sensation that accompanies a terrible and sudden understanding. He realized what had become of Sal.
‘That thing was not Sal, not any more,’ uttered Maddy. ‘That thing – that monster wasn’t her.’ She looked at Liam with eyes raw and red from crying. ‘It was … it was a corruption of her. A twisted version of her.’ She rubbed at those red eyes. They looked painfully sore.
‘Perhaps it was the “essence” of her,’ said Rashim, ‘a borrowed part of her consciousness. The darker side.’ He looked up and out at the stars. ‘We all have a dark side, a part of our mind that broods on matters, sometimes wishes upon others the very worst of things.’ He rubbed his cold hands together. ‘Is it possible that in chaos space not only can physical matter be fused together but also consciousness? Our thoughts? That thing could be an amalgamation of many, many people’s minds. A manifestation of their darkest wishes and dreams.’
Liam struggled to believe that thoughts as dark as that might have existed in Sal’s mind. ‘She was troubled, for sure,’ he said. ‘I know she was finding it hard to accept what she was. But I can’t believe she ever meant us any harm.’
Maddy nodded slowly. ‘Not the Sal we knew. But …’ Maddy was going to say more, but instead she fell silent.
‘What? But what?’
‘I think …’ She closed her eyes, and a fresh tear leaked out on to her cheek. ‘I think she was in there for a long time, Liam.’ She opened her eyes and gazed out of the open mouth of the cave at the dark outline of the jungle and the subtly lightening sky, just that little bit paler now and closer to dawn.
‘She … she said something about “thousands of years”, Liam. Thousands. I don’t know how chaos space works. But you know what it’s like; time can feel distorted in there. Horribly distorted.’
He knew exactly what she meant by that. Sometimes, stepping into a portal and emerging out the other side seemed to occur in an instant. A heartbeat. Other times, it could seem like several minutes had passed. On those occasions, mercifully few, it was a profoundly disturbing experience; the cloying mist and that feeling of complete isolation, the deadened senses.
Alone … with nothing but yourself, floating in that featureless white soup.
For thousands of years? Thousands of years of that …?
‘I think she went insane,’ said Maddy. ‘Long ago – centuries ago, in that white, she must have quietly gone insane. And all that was left of her mind was just vague memories of us. All twisted up and confused.’
‘Jay-zus,’ Liam uttered. All of a sudden he wasn’t so sure he wanted the transponder to be working, for the portal to open up here in the cave. To step once again through that place.
Maddy met his gaze. Perhaps she was thinking the very same thing: what if this time while heading home something went wrong, left one of them stranded forever? Like one of those lost souls?
‘We could stay here,’ said Liam. ‘Stay in 1479?’
Bertie looked alarmed. ‘Oh no! I’ll not stay here! Please! We must return to –’
‘Information,’ said Bob. ‘Our current base of operations contains a fully functional displacement machine. This cannot be left behind intact.’
Bob didn’t need to elaborate. There was no real choice. They had to go back. They couldn’t leave things as they were. Eventually Delbert or someone else would kick the door in and discover what was inside. In the hands of Delbert, perhaps the conniving merchant would not know what to make of it? But then he might pass on his discovery to much smarter men who would understand what power they had at their fingertips.
What would the secretive ruling elite of Victorian England do with technology like that in their hands? The inquisitive minds of those learned gentlemen would want to explore it. Would want to visit the past with their hunting rifles and notebooks, pith helmets and magnifying glasses, to joyride the past, leaving their muddy footprints all over history and not care, probably not even understand, the damage they might be doing.
‘Bob is right,’ said Maddy. ‘We do need to go back.’
‘And s-soon – for the love of God! Soon!’ whispered Bertie, hugging his knees. ‘Before that monster finds us hiding away up here!’
‘It is unlikely to follow us here,’ said Rashim. ‘I imagine it will want to stay near that beam, to replenish its energy.’
‘If the column behaves as it did on previous occasions,’ said Becks, ‘it should have automatically closed itself after less than half an hour. The seeker will have no access to the tachyon beam and be unable to restore its energy level.’ She shrugged. ‘It will eventually … die.’
Liam hunched his shoulders. ‘I think we’re safe up here for the moment.’ He turned to Bob and Becks. ‘Sniffing any particles yet?’
Both silently shook their heads.
Liam sighed. ‘What the hell’s keeping computer-Bob?’
The conversation died to an uneasy silence and they sat for a long while, listening to the tap, tap, tap of moisture dripping from some fissure in the roof of the cave, and watching the sky gradually lighten and the faintest bloom of peach stain the far horizon as the sun, still unseen, raced to catch up to its appointment with dawn. Liam discreetly sneaked a look at Maddy. H
e could see moisture glint in her eyes, see her swiping tears silently from her cheeks. He wondered who she was thinking about, who she was crying for. Sal? Or Adam?
‘I … I need to relieve myself,’ said Bertie quietly.
Liam turned to look at him. ‘Well go on, then. You don’t need to announce it.’
‘But where?’
Outside on the ledge it might be a little slippery with the morning dew. ‘Back there somewhere.’ Liam gestured into the cave. ‘Where those wall paintings are is far back enough.’
Bertie swallowed anxiously and peered into the gloom. ‘It’s dark.’
Liam tossed a torch across to him. ‘There you go. Button’s on the top. Don’t go too far.’
Chapter 67
1479, the Lost City of the Windtalkers
Its movements were governed by ‘committee’, by a community of mind fragments. Pieces of consciousness from so many tortured souls, all of them confused, frightened – but most of all, angry. One fragment, however, seemed to hold sway over the others. It had a vague recollection of who it once was, a girl. Incalculable years, centuries ago … it had been a girl.
A girl called Sal.
The instinct of the collective was to withdraw. The entity’s rage had been spent, its desire for revenge sated. And now, feeling itself weakening, it needed to return from whence it came, to drink energy again, or else wither away to nothing.
But the one voice, the girl’s, had a clearer goal. A far stronger imperative. What remained of her mind recalled those faces; once upon a time those faces belonged to the dearest of friends, almost like family … then, they became her betrayers.
She remembered them and how they wanted to take something from her. What it was that they’d wanted to take came and went, just like its form phased from energy to material. But she recalled again now. They wanted to erase the girl she’d once been.