The scene before her was one of utter confusion. Any attempt to complete the assault on the necropolis had ceased since Boone had sent Eigerman running. Both his men and their civilian support had retreated from around the walls. Some had already driven away, most likely fearing what would happen when the sun sank over the horizon. Most remained however, prepared to beat a retreat if necessary, but mesmerized by the spectacle of destruction. Her gaze went from one to another, looking for some sign of what they were feeling, but every face was blank. They looked like death masks, she thought, wiped of response. Except that she knew the dead now. She walked with them, talked with them. Saw them feel and weep. Who then were the real dead? The silent hearted, who still knew pain, or their glassy-eyed tormentors?
A break in the smoke uncovered the sun, teetering on the rim of the world. The red light dazzled her. She closed her eyes against it.
In the darkness, she heard a breath a little way behind her. She opened her eyes, and began to turn, knowing harm was coming. Too late to slip it. The Mask was a yard from her, and closing.
She had seconds only before the knife found her, but it was long enough to see the Mask as she’d never seen it before. Here was the blankness on the faces she’d studied perfectly perfected; the human fiend made myth. No use to call it Decker. It wasn’t Decker. No use to call it anything. It was as far beyond names as she was beyond power to tame it.
It slashed her arm. Once, and again.
There were no taunts from it this time. It had come only to despatch her.
The wounds stung. Instinctively she put her hand to them, her motion giving him opportunity to kick the legs from under her. She had no time to cushion her fall. The impact emptied her lungs. Sobbing for breath, she turned her face to the ground to keep it from the knife. The earth seemed to shudder beneath her. Illusion, surely. Yet it came again.
She glanced up at the Mask. He too had felt the tremors, and was looking towards the cemetery. His distraction would be her only reprieve; she had to take it. Rolling out of his shadow she got to her feet. There was no sign of Narcisse, or Rachel; nor much hope of help from the death-masks, who’d forsaken their vigil and were hurrying away from the smoke as the tremors intensified. Fixing her eyes on the gate through which Boone had stepped, she stumbled down the hill, the dusty soil dancing at her feet.
The source of the agitation was Midian. Its cue, the disappearance of the sun, and with it the light that had trapped the Breed underground. It was their noise that made the ground shake, as they destroyed their refuge. What was below could remain below no longer.
The Nightbreed were rising.
The knowledge didn’t persuade her from her course. Whatever was loose inside the gate she’d long ago made her peace with it, and might expect mercy. From the horror at her back, matching her stride for stride, she could expect none.
There were only the fires from the tombs up ahead to light her way now, a way strewn with the debris of the siege: petrol cans, shovels, discarded weapons. She was almost at the gates before she caught sight of Babette standing close to the wall, her face terror stricken.
‘Run!’ she yelled, afraid the Mask would wound the child.
Babette did as she was told, her body seeming to melt into beast as she turned and fled through the gates. Lori came a few paces after her, but by the time she was over the threshold the child had already gone, lost down the smoke filled avenues. The tremors here were strong enough to unseat the paving stones, and topple the mausoleums, as though some force underground – Baphomet, perhaps, Who Made Midian – was shaking its foundations to bring the place to ruin. She hadn’t anticipated such violence; her chances of surviving the cataclysm were slim.
But better to be buried in the rubble than succumb to the Mask. And be flattered, at the end, that Fate had at least offered her a choice of extinctions.
XXIII
The Harrowing
1
In the cell back at Shere Neck memories of Midian’s labyrinth had tormented Boone. Closing his eyes against the sun he’d found himself lost here, only to open them again and find the maze echoed in the whirls of his fingertips and the veins on his arms. Veins in which no heat ran; reminders, like Midian, of his shame.
Lori had broken that spell of despair, coming to him not begging but demanding he forgive himself.
Now, back in the avenues from which his monstrous condition had sprung, he felt her love for him like the life his body no longer possessed.
He needed its comfort, in the pandemonium. The Nightbreed were not simply bringing Midian down, they were erasing all clue to their nature or keepsake of their passing. He saw them at work on every side, labouring to finish what Eigerman’s scourge had begun. Gathering up the pieces of their dead and throwing them into the flames; burning their beds, their clothes, anything they couldn’t take with them.
These were not the only preparations for escape. He glimpsed the Breed in forms he’d never before had the honour to see: unfurling wings, unfolding limbs. One becoming many (a man, a flock); many becoming one (three lovers, a cloud). All around, the rites of departure.
Ashbery was still at Boone’s side, agog.
‘Where are they going?’
‘I’m too late,’ Boone said. ‘They’re leaving Midian.’
The lid of a tomb ahead flew off, and a ghost form rose like a rocket into the night sky.
‘Beautiful,’ Ashbery said. ‘What are they? Why have I never known them?’
Boone shook his head. He had no way to describe the Breed that were not the old ways. They didn’t belong to Hell; nor yet to Heaven. They were what the species he’d once belonged to could not bear to be. The un-people; the anti-tribe; humanity’s sack unpicked and sewn together again with the moon inside.
And now, before he’d a chance to know them – and by knowing them, know himself – he was losing them. They were finding transport in their cells, and rising to the night.
‘Too late,’ he said again, the pain of this parting bringing tears to his eyes.
The escapes were gathering momentum. On every side doors were being thrown wide, and slabs overturned, as the spirits ascended in innumerable forms. Not all flew. Some went as goat or tiger, racing through the flames to the gate. Most went alone, but some – whose fecundity neither death nor Midian had slowed – went with families of six or more, their littlest in their arms. He was witnessing, he knew, the passing of an age, the end of which had begun the moment he’d first stepped on Midian’s soil. He was the maker of this devastation, though he’d set no fire and toppled no tomb. He had brought men to Midian. In doing so, he’d destroyed it. Even Lori could not persuade him to forgive himself that. The thought might have tempted him to the flames, had he not heard the child calling his name.
She was only human enough to use words; the rest was beast.
‘Lori,’ she said.
‘What about her?’
‘The Mask has her.’
The Mask? She could only mean Decker.
‘Where?’
2
Close, and closer still.
Knowing she couldn’t outpace him she tried instead to outdare him, going where she hoped he would not. But he was too hot for her life to be shaken off. He followed her into territory where the ground erupted beneath their feet, and smoking stone rained around them.
It was not his voice that called her, however.
‘Lori! This way!’
She chanced a desperate look, and there – God love him! – was Narcisse, beckoning. She veered off the pathway, or what was left of it, towards him, ducking between two mausoleums as their stained glass blew, and a stream of shadow, pricked with eyes, left its hiding place for the stars. It was like a piece of night sky itself, she marvelled. It belonged in the heavens.
The sight slowed her pace by an all but fatal step. The Mask closed the gap between them and snatched at her blouse. She threw herself forward to avoid the stab she knew must follow, the fabric tearing as sh
e fell. This time he had her. Even as she reached for the wall to haul herself to her feet she felt his gloved hand at her nape.
‘Fuckhead?’ somebody shouted.
She looked up to see Narcisse at the other end of the passage between the mausoleums. He’d clearly caught Decker’s attention. The hold on her neck was relaxing. It wasn’t enough for her to squirm free, but if Narcisse could only keep up his distraction he might do the trick.
‘Got something for you,’ he said, and took his hands from his pocket to display the silver hooks on his thumbs.
He struck the hooks together. They sparked.
Decker let Lori’s neck slip from his fingers. She slid out of his reach and began to stumble towards Narcisse. He was moving down the passage towards her, or rather towards Decker, on whom his eyes were fixed.
‘Don’t –’ she gasped. ‘He’s dangerous.’
Narcisse heard her – he grinned at the warning – but he made no reply. He just moved on past her to intercept the killer.
Lori glanced back. As the pair came within a yard of each other the Mask dragged a second knife, its blade as broad as a machete, from his jacket. Before Narcisse had a chance to defend himself the butcher delivered a swift downward stroke that separated Narcisse’s left hand from his wrist in a single cut. Shaking his head, Narcisse took a backward step, but the Mask matched his retreat, raising the machete a second time and bringing it down on his victim’s skull. The blow divided Narcisse’s head from scalp to neck. It was a wound even a dead man could not survive. Narcisse’s body began to shake, and then – like Ohnaka, trapped in sunlight – he came apart with a crack, a chorus of howls and sighs emerging, then taking flight.
Lori let out a sob, but stifled anything more. There was no time to mourn. If she waited to shed a single tear the Mask would claim her, and Narcisse’s sacrifice would have been for nothing. She started to back away, the walls shaking to either side of her, knowing she should simply run but unable to detach herself from the sight of the Mask’s depravity. Rooting amid the carnage he skewered half of Narcisse’s head on the finer of his blades, then rested the knife on his shoulder, trophy and all, before renewing his pursuit.
Now she ran, out of the shadow of the mausoleums and back onto the main avenue. Even if memory could have offered a guide to her whereabouts all the monuments had gone to the same rubble; she could not tell north from south. It was all one in the end. Whichever way she turned the same ruin, and the same pursuer. If he would come after her forever and forever – and he would – what was the use of living in fear of him? Let him have his sharp way. Her heart beat too hard to be pressed any further.
But even as she resigned herself to his knife the stretch of paving between her and her slaughterer cracked open, a plume of smoke shielding her from the Mask. An instant later the whole avenue opened up. She fell. Not to the ground. There was no ground. But into the earth –
3
‘– falling!’ the child said.
The shock of it almost toppled her from Boone’s shoulders. His hands went up to support her. She took fiercer hold of his hair.
‘Steady?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
She wouldn’t countenance Ashbery accompanying them. He’d been left to fend for himself in the maelstrom, while they went looking for Lori.
‘Ahead,’ she said, directing her mount. ‘Not very far.’
The fires were dying down, having devoured all they could get their tongues to. Confronted with cold brick all they could do was lick it black, then gutter out. But the tremors from below had not ceased. Their motions still ground stone on stone. And beneath the reverberations there was another sound, which Boone didn’t so much hear as feel: in his gut and balls and teeth.
The child turned his head with her reins.
That way,’ she said.
The diminishing fires made progress easier; their brightness hadn’t suited Boone’s eyes. Now he went more quickly, though the avenues had been ploughed by the quake and he trod turned earth.
‘How far?’ he asked.
‘Hush,’ she told him.
‘What?’
‘Stand still.’
‘You hear it too?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘What is it?’
She didn’t answer at first, but listened again.
Then she said:
‘Baphomet.’
In his hours of imprisonment he’d thought more than once of the Baptiser’s chamber; of the cold time he’d spent witness to the divided God. Hadn’t it spoken prophecies to him? whispered in his head and demanded he listen? It had seen this ruin. It had told him Midian’s last hour was imminent. Yet there’d been no accusations, though it must have known that it spoke to the man responsible. Instead it had seemed almost intimate, which had terrified him more than any assault. He could not be the confidant of divinities. He’d come to appeal to Baphomet as one of the newly dead, requesting a place in the earth. But he’d been greeted like an actor in some future drama. Called by another name, even. He’d wanted none of it. Not the auguries; not the name. He’d fought them, turning his back on the Baptiser; stumbling away, shaking the whispers from his head.
In that he’d not succeeded. At the thought of Baphomet’s presence its words, and that name, were back like Furies.
You’re Cabal, it had said.
He’d denied it then; he denied it now. Much as he pitied Baphomet’s tragedy, knowing it couldn’t escape this destruction in its wounded condition, he had more urgent claims upon his sympathies.
He couldn’t save the Baptiser. But he could save Lori.
‘She’s there!’ the child said.
‘Which way?’
‘Straight ahead. Look!’
There was only chaos visible. The avenue in front of them had been split open; light and smoke poured up through the ruptured ground. There was no sign of anything living.
‘I don’t see her,’ he said.
‘She’s underground,’ the child replied. ‘In the pit.’
‘Direct me then.’
‘I can’t go any further.’
‘Why not?’
‘Put me down. I’ve taken you as far as I can.’ A barely suppressed panic had crept into her voice. ‘Put me down,’ she insisted.
Boone dropped to his haunches, and the child slid off his shoulders.
‘What’s wrong?’ he said.
‘I mustn’t go with you. It’s not allowed.’
After the havoc they’d come through, her distress was bewildering.
‘What are you afraid of?’ he said.
‘I can’t look,’ she replied. ‘Not at the Baptiser.’
‘It’s here?’
She nodded, retreating from him as new violence opened the fissure ahead even wider.
‘Go to Lori,’ she told him. ‘Bring her out. You’re all she has.’
Then she was gone, two legs becoming four as she fled, leaving Boone to the pit.
4
Lori’s consciousness flickered out as she fell. When she came round, seconds later, she was lying half way up, or down, a steep slope. The roof above her was still intact, but badly fractured, the cracks opening even as she watched, presaging total collapse. If she didn’t move quickly she’d be buried alive. She looked towards the head of the slope. The cross tunnel was open to the sky. She began to crawl towards it, earth cascading down on her head, the walls creaking as they were pressed to surrender.
‘Not yet …’ she murmured. ‘Please, not yet …’
It was only as she came within six feet of the summit that her dazed senses recognized the slope. She’d carried Boone up this very incline once, away from the power that resided in the chamber at the bottom. Was it still there, watching her scrabblings? Or was this whole cataclysm evidence of its departure: the architect’s farewell? She couldn’t feel its surveillance, but then she could feel very little. Her body and mind functioned because instinct told them to. There was life at the top of the s
lope. Inch by wracking inch she was crawling to meet it.
Another minute and she reached the tunnel, or its roofless remains. She lay on her back for a time, staring up at the sky. With her breath regained she got to her feet and examined her wounded arm. The cuts were gummed up with dirt, but at least the blood had ceased to flow.
As she coaxed her legs to move something fell in front of her, wet in the dirt. Narcisse looked up at her with half a face. She sobbed his name, turning her eyes to meet the Mask. He straddled the tunnel like a grave-digger then dropped down to join her.
The spike was aimed at her heart. Had she been stronger it would have struck home, but the earth at the head of the slope gave way beneath her backward step and she had no power to keep herself from falling, head over heels, back down the incline –
Her cry gave Boone direction. He clambered over upended slabs of paving into the exposed tunnels, then through the maze of toppled walls and dying fires towards her. It was not her figure he saw in the passage ahead, however, turning to meet him with knives at the ready.
It was the doctor, at last.
From the precarious safety of the slope Lori saw the Mask turn from her, diverted from its purpose. She had managed to arrest her fall by catching hold of a crack in the wall with her good hand, which did its duty long enough for her to glimpse Boone in the passageway above. She’d seen what the machete had done to Narcisse. Even the dead had their mortality. But before she could utter any word of warning to Boone a wave of cold power mounted the slope behind her. Baphomet had not vacated its flame. It was there still, its grasp unpicking her fingers from the wall.
Unable to resist it, she slid backwards down the slope, into the erupting chamber.
The ecstasies of the Breed hadn’t tainted Decker. He came at Boone like an abattoir worker to finish a slaughter he’d been called from: without flourish, without passion.