The Storm

  ‘We don’t need to talk,’ he said. ‘We just need to move. Been here too long, slept right through, though God knows how.’

  It was weird – they’d slept for almost twelve hours straight. Shock did that to you, though, Cal guessed. Knocked you out so the body could recover.

  ‘But Rilke, Schiller, they’re killing people,’ Cal said. ‘We need to tell someone at least, the police.’

  ‘Duh, they killed about a hundred cops last night,’ Brick said. ‘I think the police know. There’s nothing we can do. You saw what he did—’

  Brick seemed to choke on the words, and Cal knew what he was seeing: people bundled up by invisible arms, smashed into each other until all that remained was a spinning ball of compressed flesh; a helicopter crumpled, its pilots still inside; an explosion that obliterated everything from horizon to horizon. And Schiller hanging above the ground, lost inside an inferno, commanding it all.

  ‘How the hell can we stop that?’ Brick asked when he had recovered. ‘I can’t believe Rilke even let us go.’

  Because whatever Schiller was, they were too. You’ll see, Cal, Rilke had said. It might take a day, it might take a week, but you’ll see. And he would. He knew that one day he too would go cold, and then something terrible would break through his soul. He shuddered, realising that Brick was still talking.

  ‘We show up now, we get in her way, and she’ll just set Schiller on us. One word from her and we’re . . .’ He scooped up a handful of ash from the bonnet of the car, letting it trail from his fingers. Then, disgusted, he rubbed his palm down his filthy jeans, glaring at Cal like everything was his fault. ‘I haven’t got through all this just to get killed by her pet dog. We need to get out of here, and whichever direction she’s gone, we go the other way.’

  ‘What about Daisy?’ Cal asked. ‘She needs help.’

  Brick glanced towards the back of the Freelander.

  ‘She’s going to be like Schiller, isn’t she?’ he said. Cal didn’t reply. They both knew the answer to that. ‘She’s got one of those things inside her.’

  ‘An angel.’

  Brick snorted. ‘That’s what Rilke said they were. But she doesn’t know anything. She’s talking crap.’

  But Daisy had said it too, thought Cal, and she had known the truth. She’d known other things too.

  ‘But what if Daisy was right,’ Cal said. ‘What if there is a reason we’re here – to fight whatever it was she saw.’ The man in the storm, she had called it.

  ‘Yeah, Cal, sure. The world is in peril and it’s you, me and a couple of kids destined to save it. I’m tired. I just want all this to be over.’

  Cal nodded, looking up at the trees. Most of the needles had been blown off by the explosion and the birds, perched on branches like pinecones, had nowhere to hide. They still sang, though. There was a message in there somewhere, he thought. He leaned against the Freelander, the metal frozen. It was his mum’s car, he’d stolen it when everything had kicked off, to get him out of the city. The last time he’d seen her was in the rear-view mirror as she’d screamed and raged and tried to murder him. She would have killed him if she’d been able to, she would have torn him to pieces and then gone inside and put away her shopping like nothing had happened. The Fury.

  ‘You think everyone still wants to kill us?’ he asked Brick. The bigger boy shrugged.

  ‘Think people have bigger fish to fry now, with Rilke out there. Maybe they won’t even notice us.’ He paused, spat, almost smiled. ‘Hell, if she has her way maybe there won’t be anyone left to notice us.’ It was a smile without humour, though, and when he wiped his face again his tears left streaks in the dirt. Cal turned away, pretending not to notice.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s go, just get away from here, from Rilke. We can figure out what to do on the way.’

  ‘Think the car will still work?’ Brick asked, sniffing.

  Cal climbed back in the driver’s seat, fishing the keys from his pocket. The Freelander had taken a proper battering on the way up here from London, but Schiller’s onslaught didn’t seem to have reached it. He flicked the ignition, grinning when the engine spluttered, whined, then finally caught. There was a rustle from the back and he turned to see Adam there, sitting up in his seat and looking around with wide, wet eyes.

  ‘It’s okay, mate,’ Cal said, leaving the car in neutral so he could take his foot off the clutch and shuffle round. ‘You’re safe. It’s Cal, remember?’

  Adam nodded, relaxing a little but still not blinking.

  ‘You have nightmares?’ The kid nodded again. He hadn’t spoken since he’d turned up at Fursville, and didn’t look like he was about to start any time soon. ‘Me too,’ Cal went on. ‘But they’re just dreams, they can’t hurt us. You’re safe here, with me and Brick. Daisy too, she’s sleeping just over there.’

  Adam glanced into the boot, reaching down to touch Daisy’s face. He quickly pulled his hand away, putting his fingers to his lips.

  ‘She’s okay,’ Cal said. ‘She’s . . . You know the story of Sleeping Beauty, right? That’s what’s happened to Daisy. She’ll wake up soon, I promise you. Will you put your seat belt on for me, Adam?’

  He did as he was told, as meekly as a beaten dog. Brick opened the passenger door, angling his lanky body inside and slamming it behind him. It took a couple of attempts to get it shut, and by that time the car was full of dust, countless cremated dead swimming in their ears and mouths and noses. Cal lowered his window, stuck the car in gear and steered it through the car park, leaving a perfect circle of tyre tracks in the ash.

  ‘You know where we’re going?’ Brick asked.

  The car rocked down the potholed path that led through the trees, back to the coast road.

  ‘Cal?’ Brick said.

  ‘I know where we’re going,’ he replied as they reached the road, checking that the coast was clear before heading south, away from Fursville. He thought about Daisy in her coffin of ice, and about the creature inside her. The angel. A hospital wouldn’t help her, not the police, not the army either. There was only one place he could think of where they might find answers. He put his foot down, the car accelerating and dragging a flowing cloak behind it. Then he looked at Brick and said:

  ‘We need to find a church.’

  Rilke

  Caister-on-Sea, 7.37 a.m.

  They were vermin, all of them.

  Men and women and children teemed over the dead grass of the holiday park, their eyes black and small and empty, their teeth bared. They swarmed from caravans and chalets and cars, blind to anything but their own hate. Some tripped and were quickly drowned in the stampede. More thumped into each other, the slap of flesh against flesh almost as loud as the thunder of footsteps. Others shrieked and howled, the air alive with the cries of the damned. And they were damned, there was no doubt about that.

  ‘Are you ready, little brother?’ Rilke asked, turning to Schiller. He stood stooped next to her, pale and frightened and weak. He looked so tired, the flesh of his face loose, the corners of his mouth turned down like a sad clown’s. The ground shook as the ferals flocked closer, the first of them – a huge, hairy ape of a man dressed in shorts and a vest – now ten metres away. Close enough to smell. Oh how she hated them, these parasites. Once upon a time she would have been scared, but not any more. Now there was only fury – her fury, as white and as hot and as dangerous as their own. ‘Schiller,’ she said. ‘Do it.’

  ‘Please, Rilke,’ he started, but she cut him off, grabbing his arm and twisting hard. Behind him stood Jade and Marcus with faces like sheep. The new boy, the one they had found in Hemsby, lay between them, still frozen. Rilke turned back to her brother.

  ‘Do it.’

  Schiller might have been reluctant, but the creature inside him was eager. Her brother’s eyes blazed, so bright that it looked as though a furnace had been fired up inside his skull. In a heartbeat the flames had spread, a second skin that wrapped him in angry light, and he opened his mouth in
a silent scream of fire. With a snap like a pistol shot his wings punched through his shoulders, blasting out a shockwave that kicked up dust and sand and sent the first line of ferals rolling back into the crowd. Those wings beat slowly, almost lazily, forged of flame. The sheer power there made the air tremble, a generator hum that seemed to pull reality apart. She had to bite her tongue and screw her eyes shut to stop the vertigo, and when she looked again Schiller was already at work.

  There had to be a hundred of them, fast and hard and angry. They didn’t seem scared by Schiller’s transformation. If anything, it seemed to incense them even further. They threw themselves at the burning boy, hands like claws, the same awful, guttural cries barked from their throats. A hundred of them, and they never stood a chance.

  Schiller opened his arms, the air around him shimmering. He was hovering off the ground now, ripples spreading outwards over the dirt like it was water. The hairy man came apart with a soft pop, his atomised body holding its shape for a fraction of a second before drifting away. Others ran through his floating remains before disintegrating with the same speed, the sound like somebody playing with bubble wrap. But still they kept coming, until a churning cloud hung before Schiller, as dark and as thick as smoke.

  ‘Rilke!’ She turned to see Jade screaming as more ferals approached from behind them. A couple of teenage boys led this crowd. Both threw themselves on Marcus, tumbling into a tangle of limbs and teeth. Three more followed, piling on to the skinny boy until he was lost. Others ran for Jade, and more still turned towards Rilke. Don’t be afraid of them, they are rats, she ordered herself, but the fear turned her legs to stone. She didn’t have Schiller’s powers, not yet. She was still a pathetic human, nine pints of blood in a paper shell. They would tear her apart as easily as pulling petals from a plant.

  ‘Schill!’ she cried. A woman leapt for her, tripping on one of Marcus’s flailing arms and falling short. A man followed, raking nails across her face and making her stumble backwards. Then she was falling, the man’s other hand grabbing for her throat, his eyes black pits of utter hatred.

  She never hit the ground. The air beneath her grew solid, holding her up. The man was moving, but impossibly slowly. His fingers were almost frozen in front of her neck, like a piece of film playing at one tenth of the right speed. She could see the dirt beneath his nails, the tarnished sovereign ring on his pinkie finger. Spittle flew from his lips, rising almost gracefully, hanging in the sun like a dewdrop.

  Everything seemed to have stopped, time grinding reluctantly along its axis. One of the ferals sitting on Marcus was lifting a fist, a pearl of dark blood suspended from her knuckles. Others were still approaching, their sprint now a snail crawl. Rilke found herself laughing, her own movements sluggish too, as though she was swimming in a lake of treacle. She was still falling, she realised, but so slowly that it felt as though she was still.

  Only Schiller was immune. He floated through the crowds until he was standing next to Rilke, then he pressed a fiery hand against the man’s chest. This one didn’t explode into dust. He folded in half with a chorus of breaking bones, then folded again, and again, until he was no bigger than a matchbox. Schiller flicked him away, then turned his attention to the other ferals. Even if they hadn’t been moving in slow motion they couldn’t have fought him. All her brother did was turn his palms towards the sky and every feral man, woman and child in sight jerked upwards like a puppet on a string. They came apart as they rose, limbs popping loose, clothes and skin torn into patchwork, teeth and fingernails spinning free, all linked by spirals of blood – rising until they were as tiny as distant birds, then vanishing.

  Time seemed to remember itself then, wrapping its fingers around Rilke and pulling her to the floor. Her ears popped, her heart juddering for a handful of beats before finding its rhythm. Marcus squirmed on the ground before noticing that his attackers were gone, while Jade sat in a heap, her eyes glazed, a little more of her sanity rubbed away. Rilke scrabbled to her feet, planting her hands on her knees to stop herself from falling again.

  ‘All of it,’ she said. She coughed, said it again. ‘All of it, Schill. We don’t want to leave anything.’

  He looked at her, those unblinking eyes like portals to another world. Staring into them brought on a creeping kind of madness, one that made her sick to her stomach. The vibration in the air intensified and she could feel a finger of blood wind its way down from her ear. But she didn’t look away.

  ‘Now, Schiller,’ she said again. And it was her brother who broke, his head dropping. He didn’t even move this time, but all the same the landscape dismantled itself just as it had done in Hemmingway and in Hemsby. Caravans lifted off the ground, doors and windows flapping like agitated limbs as they shook themselves into dust. Chalets crumbled as though made from sand, dropping crumbs as they passed overhead. Cars and bikes and pushchairs broke apart with muffled clanks and rings. Rilke watched them go, a tide of matter that flowed above them like a river, heading over the dunes and out to sea.

  Schiller lowered his arms and the remains of the holiday park dropped with a roar like thunder, the water churned into a rage. Rilke felt the salt spray on her face and she wiped it away. She hated the smell of the sea. Maybe if Schiller dropped enough into it then it would dry up, earth and ocean both wiped clean. She turned to him when the echoes had died away, seeing the flames ebb from his skin, the wings folding and fading. As always, his eyes were the last to return to normal, the blazing orange giving way to watery blue. He reeled to one side and she only just reached him before he fell. She lowered him gently to the floor, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

  ‘You did well, little brother,’ she whispered. ‘You kept us safe.’

  He looked half dead, but her words drew a smile. Marcus crouched down beside them, pulling a bottle of water from his rucksack. They had gathered supplies back in Hemsby, before Schiller had razed the little town to the ground. Rilke took the bottle from him, unscrewing the cap and holding it to her brother’s lips. He drank deep, as though trying to quench a fire that still burned inside him.

  ‘Thanks, Schill,’ said Marcus. ‘I didn’t think I was getting out of that one.’

  She took a sip of water herself then handed the bottle back to him.

  ‘Nothing will happen to us,’ she said. ‘We’re too important.’

  ‘I know,’ Marcus replied, but he was frowning.

  ‘What?’ she snapped. She was exhausted. They hadn’t slept since Fursville. They had tried on the way to Hemsby, in a hollow between the dunes, but the police had found them after about half an hour and Schiller had been forced to take care of them. They’d been on the move since, and the police had apparently decided to leave them alone. Either that or there were no police left nearby – her brother had shown them absolutely no mercy.

  ‘Nothing, Rilke,’ Marcus said. ‘It’s just . . . there are so many of them, and some of them were kids.’

  Her anger boiled up her throat but she clamped her mouth shut before it could break free. She couldn’t blame Marcus for having doubts, even with everything that he had seen. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t had moments of denial as the crowds had disintegrated before her eyes, especially the children. There had been babies here too, newborns with wrinkled faces who had screamed with a fury they could never hope to understand.

  Yet the truth was unmistakable and inescapable. They were here to humble the human race, to make it understand that there was a higher power, that the illusion of free rein, of impunity, was just that: an illusion. They were the angels of death, the great flood and the cleansing fire. People were bad. Rilke knew that better than anyone. They’re all like him, like the bad man, she thought, thinking of her mother’s doctor, his bad breath and his greedy fingers. Deep down they all have secrets, they’re all rotten. Marcus was just having doubts because he hadn’t turned yet, that was all. As soon as his angel hatched then he’d see the truth. Schiller had turned, and he knew.

  ‘We’re doing the
right thing, aren’t we, little brother,’ she said, but it wasn’t a question. Schiller looked at her with those big, sad eyes, eventually nodding.

  ‘I think so,’ he said.

  ‘You know so.’ Rilke suddenly remembered an incident a few years ago, when she and Schiller had been playing at home – she didn’t remember what, exactly, just that they were both running – and she had knocked one of their mother’s china dolls from the sideboard in the dining room. It had broken into a thousand pieces, and for an instant her life was over. Their mother was just starting to lose it back then, the insanity slowly rotting the foundations of her mind, and she loved those dolls more than she loved her own children. Breaking one was a serious crime, one punishable by a beating. So she convinced Schiller to take the blame. He had argued at first – he was more scared of their mother than she was – but he was weak, always weak, and it didn’t take long to break him. By the time they walked upstairs and Schiller confessed his crime, Rilke was sure that he actually believed he was guilty.

  Why was she thinking about that now?

  ‘You know so,’ she said again, smoothing a hand over his head. When she lifted it there were clumps of his hair woven between her fingers like seaweed and she wiped them off on her skirt. ‘Trust me, Schiller.’

  He tried to push himself up but didn’t have the strength, dropping on to his back. His forehead was slick with sweat, his skin grey. It’s just tiredness, she told herself. We need to find somewhere to rest, to sleep. But there was another thought there too: It’s killing him. She pushed it aside. What Schiller had inside him was a miracle, something good. It made him strong, it kept him safe. It wouldn’t do anything to hurt him.

  ‘I see things,’ her brother said, looking up at the sky. ‘When it happens, when I turn, I see things.’

  ‘Like what?’ Rilke asked.