The sky was torn with a terrible boom of thunder, a sound so huge that it seemed to flatten all before it, and an unearthly howl brought Thaniel to his knees. A great wind, smelling of salt and the sea, tore through the cathedral, a thwarted fury shrieking in frustration; and the great and terrible eyes of the Glau Meska turned away from the world of humanity, their dread gaze passing and dimming as the gateway that might have let them in was suddenly slammed shut. Alaizabel held on to Thaniel, and the three of them huddled as small as they could against the hurricane that blasted around them, tiny figures on the balcony above the howling hordes.
The wind dropped. A beat of silence.
Then the shock wave ripped out from the cathedral, a vast quake of earth and air, and the enormous red swirl in the clouds spun free like a snapped chain on a bicycle, the hole in its centre blasted wide. The sky was tattered, ripped apart as if by harpies, and in moments what had been a thick blanket of darkness had been shredded into ribbons, drifting aimlessly away.
The ground bucked and heaved across London, buildings groaning as they slumped and collapsed, windows cracking and smashing and falling in thick shards to the ground. People screamed, monuments toppled, stone crashed down. Tower Bridge bowed and slid into the Thames. Fires began from candles and hearths. The Old Quarter took the brunt, its buildings pulverized and already blazing in many places.
There was a terrible screaming again, this time a multitude of voices. Alaizabel squeezed her eyes shut and held on to Thaniel, who did not even feel the wound in his side in his terror.
And then it was over. There was quiet. The rustle of the curtains on the balcony, the chime of something metal rolling on the floor... that was all.
Alaizabel opened her eyes. Sunlight shone through the smashed windows of the cathedral, beaming through the knife-slit arches. No longer was there the foul red glow, but the clean ambience of morning. She stood up slowly, bringing Thaniel with her, his arm held to his side. The remains of the cultists and Thatch lay unrecognizable in the hall below them, but of the wych-kin, there was nothing. The clouds that had blocked out the sun and allowed them to travel by day had betrayed them and left, caught them in daylight. They were gone.
Cathaline stood with them, her eyes on the warm shafts of illumination that splayed across the scene.
“I think it is over,” she said, then looked at Thaniel.
There was a troubled look in his eyes. “I think it has just begun,” he replied.
AFTERMATH 29
Detective Carver sat on a bench in Hyde Park and looked up at the night. London was enjoying a rare clear sky, and the brightest stars overcame the glow of the city’s gaslights to shine down on him. He was seated alone beneath a lamp-post, his breath steaming the January air, and London was still all ashiver with the tingle of Christmas and New Year’s Day. The disaster that had befallen them had not curbed their taste for festivity; in fact, this Christmas they celebrated like never before, even amid the rubble of broken and charred buildings. There were no grand decorations, no parades, but each man and woman knew that they had been granted a second chance, that they had inched by death and survived, and they raised what glasses they had and toasted to new beginnings and new lives.
New beginnings indeed, Carver thought. The aftermath of what became known as the Darkening had been harsh and cruel, but like the Great Fire of London before it, it had cleansed things that needed cleansing. The night after Thaniel had slain Thatch, the Old Quarter had burned to the ground, and only the great river Thames held back the blaze from the north side. Carver remembered how the flames had leaped high into the night, a raging wall that seethed and gnashed and rumbled, knowing that it could not reach over the water to what lay beyond. The fires in the north had been quelled fast, and had not caught. Finally, the rains came, and the great blaze died.
The city was picking itself back up again. Thaniel and Alaizabel had gone now; he knew not where. Thaniel had spoken of studying, attempting to compile a tome that would explain the wych-kin, to search for a way of destroying them. He saw it as his duty to use what Pyke had told him, to spread the word and arm wych-hunters against their foes. He swore to hunt no longer, but he had resolved to study wychlore now. Wherever he and Alaizabel were now, they went there together and in the full flush of love. What she would do, he could not imagine. She had something of a fortune and an estate, a legacy from her parents, but Alaizabel was never one Carver could easily understand. She would wend her way as she fancied.
Carver still saw Cathaline from time to time. She was safe and well, and though her hand was a little stiff on cold nights like this one, she continued to hunt. He felt that he owed her, for it was she who spotted him after he had been shot by Blake, and she who had bandaged him and hid him while they finished the job in the cathedral. He had felt the shudder of the bomb, heard the howls of the wych-kin as they invaded, but after that he had fainted and knew no more until Cathaline and the others had returned to take him away from that foul place. A poor show, to miss the finale, but he counted himself lucky to be breathing at all, and was happy.
Carver stood and rolled his shoulders in their sockets, then adjusted his thick greatcoat. He picked up his top hat and began to walk, strolling in a leisurely fashion towards Park Lane.
How complex was the pattern they walked, the web of coincidences that stretched over years and centuries to bring them to one conclusion or another, never ending, allowing only a victory here or a defeat there and each one connected to the next. Everything served a purpose. Even Stitch-face served a purpose, for without Stitch-face, he and Maycraft would never have been brought together; he would never hare discovered the hand of the Fraternity, and they would not have been able to stop it. In the same way, Alaizabel. How had she escaped from the Fraternity that first time, when Thaniel had discovered her? Even she did not know.
We are guided by hands vaster than any of us can see, he thought.
But there was one loose end, one point of frustration that jarred. Doctor Mammon Pyke, head of the Fraternity, lived still in his country retreat. None knew of his involvement in the Darkening; none ever would. But he had escaped the cathedral like the rest of them. He hid behind his wall of respectability, and he worked as ever at Redford Acres, treating the patients there. And Carver couldn’t touch him.
Tonight, Pyke was going to a party. A society gathering of medical minds. Carver knew this, for he kept his eye close on the good Doctor. Still, nothing had borne fruit. Pyke kept himself clean now, as pure as the snow on the Downs. The law had no power over him.
Feeling dejected, Carver walked away along Park Lane. There was little traffic now, only a lone carriage rattling along the cobbles. The driver rode with his collar up high against the chill and his top hat pulled down so that his face was in shadow. With his riding-crop, he tapped the horses on their backs: the black stallion, the white mare. As he passed, he doffed his hat politely to Carver, and Carver did the same.
Carver walked home, and Stitch-face drove on, heading for an appointment with one Doctor Mammon Pyke, with whom he had something of a score to settle.
Chris Wooding, The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray
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