‘And toxoplasmosis,’ said Skinner. ‘That makes mice not afraid of cats. This is just bigger and weirder.’
‘Maybe …’ said Einstein and he sat down. ‘Talk me through the timeline.’
‘OK,’ said Skinner. ‘About sixteen years ago the parasites get out of the jungle …’
‘Carried by scientists – like me,’ said the Green Man.
‘Thanks for that,’ said Achilleus. Skinner ignored him and carried on.
‘Disguised as human blood cells, the parasites go unnoticed and multiply rapidly in their hosts, for now doing no harm at all. But they’re microscopic and can be coughed out, sneezed out, flushed down the toilet into the water supply, and that’s how they spread – on the air and in the water – all around the world. Within a year, nearly everyone on the planet is infected. That’s the first stage of its life cycle. The spore stage. They get into a body, settle down and start a family. They don’t go travelling any more.’
‘And that’s why you’re OK,’ Fish-Face said to Einstein. ‘Because you weren’t around to get infected last time.’
‘I suppose that makes sense.’ Einstein nodded, thinking hard.
‘Us Twisted Kids,’ said Fish-Face, ‘we’re like an experiment. As if the parasites were trying to splice their DNA with human DNA, and it didn’t work out too good, but we have some of the parasites’ characteristics, like the ultrasound thing.’
‘And now the parasites are massing,’ said Skinner. ‘Or their human hosts are.’
‘Why?’
‘We think they’re getting together for the big bang,’ said Fish-Face. ‘The next infestation. When their spores will get airborne again. We think it’s a sixteen-year cycle.’
‘I get it,’ said Achilleus. ‘I saw this clip one time on YouTube. A friend showed it me cos it was so freaky. There was these bugs in, like, Washington or somewhere. Like chicories, chicklets, sickos, these, like, cricket things.’
‘Cicadas?’ said Jackson, helping him out.
‘Yeah, that’s them. Ugly bugs. They scrape their wings together and make, like, the loudest noise. And these ones in Washington, they live underground, like worm things, for, like, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years. And then one day, all of them together, they come out of these holes, all at the same time, and they climb into the trees, millions of them, man, and they turn into flying bugs. They only hang around for, like, a few weeks and then mate and lay they eggs and, when they hatch, the babies go underground and stay there, growing for like seventeen years or whatever, and it happens all over again. Boom! Every seventeen years.’
‘Is that true?’ said Jackson. ‘You think the parasites are getting ready to spawn? You telling me they’re gonna shoot their germs into the air and try to infect us all?’
‘Ain’t gonna happen,’ said Achilleus. ‘Because we gonna massacre them before they get the chance. Simple as that. We won’t need no cure, doc. What they say? Kill or cure? This is kill.’
‘Oh,’ said Einstein with mock innocence. ‘But the cure isn’t for them … it’s for us.’
31
Shadowman was at Westminster Abbey. He hadn’t slept more than one night in the same place for a long while now. There was so much to do. He had to keep moving. And it was so much easier now that the streets were quiet. Even though Shadowman knew better than anyone why that was. It hadn’t been his plan to sleep at the abbey, however, and now it looked like he was going to be stuck here for the night.
Kids were spread out over the pews, talking in little groups. A group of musicians had set up in the choir stalls and were playing a weird drone that rose up and filled the huge, echoing space, not really a tune, but it had started to get under Shadowman’s skin. He wondered how long they were going to keep it up and something told him they were settled in for the night. He smiled. He’d slept in stranger places.
He’d delivered Ben and Bernie to Saif, stayed long enough to make sure everyone knew what they were doing, and then left them to get on with their mission at Wembley. Then it was back to his base near Trafalgar Square to spend a night alone and clear his head. Then a night at the Houses of Parliament, talking long into the night with Nicola, seeing if there was anything they could do about David. Then back to the Natural History Museum to sit in on a meeting with Justin. After the meeting he’d offered to bring some kids over to the abbey. Most of them were greens from St Paul’s, like the little girl, Yo-Yo, who had chosen to camp out at the Victoria and Albert rather than here. They were missing their friends – the most religious of Matt’s people – who were living here. Right now the hardcore were holding some kind of vigil that seemed to involve lots of kneeling and chanting.
The rest of the kids he’d brought over were a group of Jordan’s guys who’d wanted to discuss some things with Matt. They’d gone back some time ago, escorted by Ryan and his hunters. But Yo-Yo and a handful of other greens were still here. Shadowman could see that Yo-Yo wasn’t going anywhere. He was responsible for her now. She was young and not at all streetwise. She didn’t carry a weapon of any kind. Instead, she’d brought her violin. It was kind of cute, but kind of dumb. Her real name was Charlotte. Apparently The Kid had given her the whacky nickname. More and more kids were giving themselves new names now, becoming new people, forgetting the past and all the hurt. His own nickname was camouflage, something to hide behind. Charlotte seemed happy to be called Yo-Yo. When Ed had rescued Small Sam and The Kid from Matt, Charlotte had gone with them. She stuck close to Sam and The Kid, but he could see how happy she was to be back with her friends again. It was possible she might not want to return to the Victoria and Albert at all.
He looked over to where the little girl was yacking away with her mates, catching up. She was holding her violin. She never put it down.
Shadowman didn’t like being responsible for anyone else. Preferred to be a free agent. Could he leave her to it and come back in the morning?
He looked up. The stained-glass windows in the abbey were already growing grey and dim and colourless. It may have felt safe moving in the daylight, but he didn’t want to risk travelling at night. Who knew what might come out after dark? Besides, he’d offered to bring Yo-Yo and her friends here mainly because he was interested to find out more about Matt and his God-bothering clan, so he wasn’t too sore about staying over. He’d learn more this way.
Matt fascinated him. He was obviously unhinged, but he offered these kids something. Something to believe in. Something outside the bloody misery of their daily lives. It didn’t matter really whether Matt was Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian Scientist or voodoo. It worked. The kids were happy. Matt had apparently been poisoned by carbon monoxide when he’d tried burning a stack of wood in a brazier inside a chapel at his school …
School, what a weird concept that seemed now …
Was it the fumes that had affected his mind or something else? Maybe, like a lot of kids, he’d just cracked. And, in a mad world, why not make a madman king? Matt had a bunch of guys who stayed close to him; some seemed quite sensible, holding things together, allowing Matt to go off on whatever mad rants he wanted. Others, like his ‘acolytes’, as he called them, were as nutty as him. It sounded like it had got well out of hand, though, when Matt had tried to sacrifice The Kid to his pet sicko, the Green Man. Ed had told Shadowman how he’d crashed that particular party, and it sounded like Jordan Hordern had slapped Matt down when he’d rescued him from a massive sicko attack.
Matt was behaving himself now.
No more dangerous craziness.
Just the old harmless stuff.
Shadowman had spent his time at the abbey getting close to Matt, moving ever deeper into the heart of the organization here. He was good at that. He’d done it so many times in so many different camps. He’d worm his way in, make friends, keep out of trouble, work out who was important, who was powerful, end up at the centre. He’d quickly spotted that a boy called Archie Bishop was second in command to Matt. And Archie was
one of the sane ones. Not one of the nutty brigade. Archie was a classic fixer. He didn’t have what it took to be in charge, but he was the power behind the throne.
Shadowman was sitting with him now, on a hard wooden pew in the centre of the abbey. This place was massive, like something out of a gothic horror film, made even more so by the flickering candles that were being lit everywhere. Up above the altar was a massive round stained-glass window. When the sun streamed in through it, it must look like God’s torch shining directly on you.
Right now Matt was sitting in the centre of an open area with a mosaic floor, talking to some kids who sat in a circle around him.
‘So how is he?’ Shadowman asked Archie. ‘Does he get better or worse?’
‘It comes and goes,’ said Archie. He was a chubby kid and, like everyone else here, he was dressed all in green. ‘After the stuff with The Kid and the siege he calmed down a lot. I think even he realized he’d gone too far, and Jordan Hordern’s let him know that if he gets out of hand … It wouldn’t take much to set him off again, though. You can sense he’s sort of waiting for something.’
‘Like what?’
‘Don’t know. A sign. To Matt anything can be a sign. A leaf falling a certain way. A dead pigeon. Someone farting.’
Shadowman laughed.
‘You sound like he’s – like he’s not really your friend,’ he said.
‘He hasn’t got any friends,’ said Archie. ‘He’s above all that, on a different wavelength. You can’t really get through to him. I don’t think I’ve had a single normal conversation with him since we left the chapel at Rowhurst.’
‘That’s gotta be hard work – for both of you.’
‘He’s his own guy,’ said Archie. ‘You can’t ever get to know what’s inside a boy like Matt. You look in his eyes and, man, it’s like there’s nothing in there. Or like he’s talking to someone else. Inside his head. Talking to God. Just not talking to you. It’s freaky.’
‘Some of the kids at the museum have a theory that the sickos talk to each other with some kind of ultrasound thing,’ said Shadowman. ‘Almost like telepathy. A different wavelength to the rest of us. A different frequency.’
‘Maybe that’s what prayer has always been,’ said Archie. ‘How we talk to God.’
‘You really believe in God?’
‘Doesn’t make any difference really. I believe in Matt.’
Yo-Yo came over, her eyes wide and dark in the low light.
‘Can I stay the night?’ she asked, like Shadowman was her dad.
‘Course you can, darling,’ he said. ‘I assumed you wanted a sleepover.’
Yo-Yo giggled. ‘Sleepovers are something from history.’
‘Well, that’s what it is,’ said Shadowman. ‘No other word for it.’
‘I can find you both some sleeping stuff,’ said Archie.
‘Is all right.’ Shadowman stretched out his arms and cricked his back. ‘I always travel with my own gear. You never know how things are gonna pan out. But maybe you can find something for Yo-Yo.’
‘Sure … And you’ll be able to hear Matt’s sermon.’
‘Well, that’s a bonus,’ said Shadowman, and he smiled.
32
‘It was all written, scratched into our skin, the words are on us and the words are in us. I am the word. I watched as the Lamb wrote the book with fire. He had a dream and I was in the dream. I saw the fall of the Nephilim. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair. The whole moon turned blood-red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth. It has fallen: Wormwood, the poison star. And the Nephilim are among us. I have seen it all. It is the truth. It will come to be.’
Shadowman had to admit he was quite enjoying this. It was like a mad play. Made more so by the musicians in the choir stalls keeping up their moody soundtrack. He wasn’t alone in his enjoyment. All the green kids were sitting, hypnotised, on the pews, staring up at Matt with wide, shining eyes. Did they understand any of it? Did any of it make sense? What did Matt mean when he said the words were scratched into their skin?
Shadowman studied Matt. His body movement, his eyes as they darted about, now staring up to the heavens, now fixed on his followers. Shadowman was good at reading people and one thing was clear about Matt – he had a secret.
‘The kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the mighty, they will be saved by the blood of the Lamb. It is coming. The End. There are signs in the sky. An enormous red beast with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads, breathing fire across the moon. And there is a war in heaven. The great dragon has been hurled down – that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. Some say he is the dragon, and some say he is the dragon slayer …’
This hit home with Shadowman. The dragon slayer. St George. He smiled to himself. Matt was clever. If you threw out enough random images you could let people make their own stories out of the parts. Your words could mean anything. Matt began reading from his book now. Archie had told Shadowman all about it. It was made up of scraps of burnt Bible and Matt’s own additions.
‘Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go, pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.” The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the land, and ugly and painful sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshipped his image.’
Shadowman had watched Matt earlier as he changed into his robes for the sermon. His body was pale and skinny, the ribs poking through the skin. And he was slightly stiff. He moved in a twisted sort of way, like he was in pain. His shaved head was small and bony, his eyes deep in dark sockets, the veins showing blue against the stark white of his skin. In the middle of his forehead was a nasty scab. Shadowman had seen several other kids with similar scabs.
‘What is that thing?’ he’d asked Archie.
‘The mark of the Lamb.’
As if Shadowman should know what that meant.
‘His blood will save us! Our enemies will drink his blood and it will destroy them. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He will save us all. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. Never again will we hunger. Never again will we thirst. He has the power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as he wants. He has the power of fire, and his blood is our blood and it drowns the heavens!’
A gasp went up from the kids and Shadowman felt the hairs on his skin stand up all over his body. The windows all around the abbey were turning red, or rather the sky outside was, as if the sky was bleeding. That was a hell of a special effect. A hell of a show. A hell of a trick.
A hell of a lucky coincidence?
Matt was trying to carry on, shouting out his nonsense, but he realized he was losing the kids’ attention. They were starting to get up, muttering and pointing, staring at the windows. Even the musicians had stopped playing.
Shadowman wanted to see how Matt was going to handle this. He was flustered, his words stumbling. He kept clutching his backside as if he was in pain. He suddenly raised both hands.
‘Outside,’ he yelled, almost a scream. ‘You will see the truth of my words written in the sky.’
There was a mad scramble for the doors, Shadowman following.
The sky above London was glowing red.
‘The moon,’ someone shouted. ‘Look at the moon!’
Shadowman looked.
A hell of a show.
‘What did I tell you,’ said Matt. ‘The whole moon will be turned blood-red. It is the blood moon. The End is near. The Nephilim are coming.’
Shadowman shook his head. This was some mucked-up shit. He needed to know more. What was Matt’s secret?
He needed to get closer.
It was time to go to work.
33
Matt was kneeling on the cold tiled floor. Half nake
d, his pale back scarred and scabbed, the backbone pressing through like a buried fossil emerging from the earth. He was alternately clutching his hands in prayer, a leather belt held between them, and beating himself with the belt, which left nasty red welts across his skin.
THWACK.
Shadowman winced. Matt really took this whole God thing seriously.
This was Henry the Seventh’s chapel, a separate, more private area up a short flight of steps and through some brass gates at the opposite end of the abbey to the altar and the big rose window. There were candles lit, and Matt was alone, muttering to himself, looking like some medieval martyr in his grey leggings. Shadowman had waited until it was quiet and had crept back here. He stepped softly. He could move unseen and unheard. He’d spent his whole life learning the art. He hung back in the shadows, listening to Matt and wincing each time the leather belt thwacked across his back. Was this why Matt had looked uncomfortable? Like he was hurting? Shadowman waited for his eyes and ears to adjust, until he was able to pick out some of what Matt was saying.
‘I have drunk the blood and the blood has drunk me … You cannot harm me … You are the Nephilim and I will destroy you all … Be quiet … The Lamb will cleanse me … I am stronger than you. I have the blood in me. The blood of the Lamb and the blood of the dragon. The Lamb’s blood is stronger. The Lamb’s blood is pure. I have seen your moon. You are bleeding. You will all die.’
THWACK.
Shadowman crept closer still. The grey leggings were all that Matt was wearing. The soles of his feet were black and calloused. He scrunched up his toes every time the belt hit his flesh. His whole body was twitching and jerking, and occasionally he would break from prayer and massage his backside. And then he’d whack himself again.