The Queen of sinister

Eight lanes of dirty Tarmac stretched out before her, now camouflaged by tufts of yellow grass bursting through cracks, and nettles and thistles and wind-blown rubbish. Caitlin stood against the central reservation, watching the road sweep down between high walls, other roads crossing overhead so that it felt as if she was looking into a tunnel. And beyond were the towers and office blocks against a slate-grey sky slowly turning towards night.

Not so long ago, the Aston Expressway would have thundered with traffic making its way to and from the M6, and the air would have been filled with the cacophony of the city, engines, voices, music, one never-ending drone. Now there was nothing but bird-song and the wind against the concrete. A fox roamed across the lanes, searching for prey. Rabbits quickly ran back to their burrows beneath Spaghetti Junction. Birmingham had been reborn into the new age.

Caitlin would have recognised the city, but Caitlin was shivering in the heart of the Ice-Field, thrown free of her shelter and the others, alone, dispirited, barely surviving. Caitlin's body knew very little at all. She chose a direction at random and trudged blankly down the Expressway into the heart of the city. Darkness clung tightly to the high buildings that lined New Street, but further ahead on the pedestrian precinct a bonfire blazed. The light drew Caitlin like a moth, the thick, acrid smoke obscuring the sickening stink that hung heavily in the air.

On her journey through Colmore Circus she hadn't seen a soul, but now men flitted from shadowed doorways, scarves tied across their faces. They were young, carried knives openly, communicating with high-pitched calls and guttural growls resembling nothing more than the rats that she had seen swarming along the gutters of the business district in sickening numbers.

She stood staring into the bonfire, the heat bringing a bloom to her face, hypnotised by the flickering flames as they consumed the ripped-out fittings of a clothes shop. A young girl barely more than nine, also with a scarf across her face, hurried up and warmed her hands briefly before flashing a murderous glance at Caitlin and disappearing back into the dark.

'Hey.'

Caitlin didn't hear the voice, though it was directed at her.

'Hey!' More urgent this time. A man in his late-twenties with short black hair and eyes that were just as dark emerged from an alley, glancing up and down the street nervously. A red silk scarf was tied across his mouth. 'You. You shouldn't be here.'

'Thackeray, you twat! Leave her alone. They'll be here in a minute.' The other voice came from further down the alley.

Thackeray paused, unsure, then cursed under his breath and hurried up to Caitlin. He gripped her arm and she looked at him blankly. 'What's wrong with you? Don't you know-' The blank look in her eyes brought him up sharp. He waved one hand in front of her face, then snapped his fingers twice.

'Thackeray!" ''She's fucked in the head.'

'Well, leave her, then! Christ, at a time like this you're trying to pick up women.'

Thackeray looked deep into Caitlin's face, searching the beauty of her big eyes, taking in the shape of her lips and her cheek bones and her nose, but it was something much deeper and more indefinable that stirred him. He pulled on her arm. 'Come on.'

Caitlin stared back, blinked once, twice, lazily, saw nothing.

From the piazza at the end of New Street near the town hall came the dim sound of motorbikes, roaring like mythic beasts. Thackeray cursed again. 'Come on!' He dragged Caitlin sharply towards the alley and after a few feet she began to walk of her own volition.

Just as they stepped out of sight, ten bikes rolled up to the perimeter of orange light cast by the bonfire. The riders wore leathers sprayed with a white cross dissecting a red circle and they carried an array of weaponry: shotguns, handguns, souped-up air rifles, even a crossbow. They moved slowly, searching all around like predatory animals. Occasionally they'd shine a torch into a doorway, but as they neared the bonfire they came to a halt before what had once been a shop and was now clearly some kind of squat. Dirty curtains were draped over the picture windows to provide some privacy, but they were thin enough to reveal the flickering of candles within.

The lead rider got off his bike and marched up to the door. He had long greasy hair and a thick beard, while his huge belly, the result of too much daytime drinking, was barely contained by the fading 'Altamont Heaven' T-shirt.

He hammered on the door with a meaty fist. 'Plague warden. Open up.' The candles inside were blown out, but no one came to answer. 'If you don't open the door,' he roared, 'we'll just burn the place down. You know we will.' Rapid scuttling echoed from inside. The door was flung open by a frail-looking man in his late fifties with a bushy moustache and florid wind-licked cheeks. 'What's wrong?' he asked in a shaky local accent. 'We had information one of your family had the black spots,' the plague warden said. The man blanched. 'No. Not here.' 'Get 'em out, then.' 'What?' 'Get 'em out here!' the warden shouted. The man quaked. The warden checked a small, dirty notebook. 'Five of you. You, the missus, her sister, mum, daughter.' The man started to stutter, but was silenced as the warden waved a shotgun near his face. Broken- shouldered, the man went back inside and emerged a few seconds later with three others. 'Where's the old lady?' the warden bellowed. 'Are you fucking around with me?' 'No, no!' The man held up his hands to try to fend off the shotgun, which cracked him on the jaw. 'Get her!' After a moment, the man led out his mother, a lady in her seventies with wild white hair. She bore the black marks of the plague on her skin. 'You idiot,' the warden said. 'You know the rules. First sign — very first fucking sign — you hand 'em over so we can deal with 'em.' 'We were just going to look after her at home,' the man said weakly. 'She's me mam…' The warden raised his gun and shot the old lady in the face. Blood and bone sprayed over the man, who was frozen in shock. 'Now look,' the warden said. 'You're contaminated.' He nodded to his men, and before the family could flee they were all taken out in a volley of shots. One of the riders at the back came forward; he was wearing big biker gloves and a contamination mask.

'There's a drop-off point round the way,' he said, muffled.

'Nah, stick 'em back inside,' the warden replied. 'It'll be a warning.'

The one with the mask dragged the bodies back into the family home, shut the door and then took out two cans of spray paint before proceeding to mark the door with the circle and cross.

'Shit. There goes another load,' Thackeray whispered to himself. He looked at Caitlin. 'You don't know how much you have to thank me.'

He pulled her up the steeply climbing alley where another man around Thackeray's age waited anxiously, shifting from foot to foot. He had a thin acne-scarred face and long hair, and wore an old greatcoat and motorcycle boots.

'You're a stupid fucker, Thackeray,' he hissed. 'If they catch us now because of her-'

'I couldn't just leave her out there, could I?' Thackeray protested. He turned to Caitlin again. 'This is Harvey. Not a six-foot invisible white rabbit, but just as much fucking use.'

The bikers reached the end of the alley. A flashlight shone up and Harvey threw himself into a doorway. Thackeray pressed himself against Caitlin and her against the wall. His nose was only a centimetre from hers. He stared deeply into her eyes, which were seemingly untroubled by the threat below. Whatever he saw there brought a smile to his face.

One bike turned into the alley, paused briefly while the engine gunned, and then began to move slowly up. Thackeray dragged Caitlin into the doorway where Harvey cowered. They exchanged a nervous look and then Thackeray nodded to the door. Harvey wrenched at the handle, but just as it came open the light shifted enough to reveal a white cross on a red circle.

'Fuck. Charnel house,' Harvey whispered.

'No choice.' Thackeray propelled him through, then thrust Caitlin in with him and eased the door shut. 'Don't hang around near the door in case he checks inside,' he hissed.

'I can't see anything!' Harvey whined. 'And shit, it reeks!' He coughed. 'I can't breathe! I'm going to choke to death in here!'

Thackeray gagged and pulled his scarf tighter. 'She's not moaning so you can't either, you big fucking girl. We haven't got a choice. Get a move on.'

'Bastard.'

The sound of Harvey shuffling through the dark filtered back to them, and then Thackeray followed suit, holding Caitlin's hand tightly.

'Look, I'm going to use my flint,' Harvey said. 'They won't see the light through the door.'

He struck it three times and then a light flared. The shadows swooped back to reveal a scene so terrible Thackeray and Harvey recoiled, but there was nowhere to avert their eyes. Bodies bearing the unmistakable signs of the plague were stacked against the walls in various stages of decomposition, men, women, young, old. The floor around their boots was puddled with juices.

But that wasn't the worst thing. Several pairs of eyes followed the light, and then the moans started. Some were barely human, a whine on the edge of death, a hum of madness inflicted by the situation. Others whimpered. And a few called out in frail, pitiful voices: 'Help me. Please help me.'

'Shit!' Thackeray said in horror. 'The bastards have dumped some in here while they're still conscious.'

'There's nothing we can do about it.' Harvey tried to sound hard, but he couldn't keep the desperate humanity out of the end of the sentence. 'Bastards,' he said under his breath, keeping his eyes straight ahead.

'What kind of person are you to do something like that?' Thackeray guided Caitlin ahead of him until they reached an area where there were only corpses.

'I don't know how many times I've see this, but it still makes me sick.' Harvey picked his way through the cadavers to the back of the room where the flickering light revealed a door. 'I hope you're right and we are immune.'

'We'd be dead by now if we weren't.' Thackeray glanced back to the area where the barely living still moaned, wondering if there was anything he could do.

'There must be, what?… thousands gone by now…'

'Tens of thousands.'

'Smacker says there's whole areas where they haven't cleared them — Erdington, Bearwood… They're just lying in the streets, what's left of 'em now, in their homes… He said there's like, plagues of rats and clouds of flies as big as your fist, and the stink-'

'All right, I don't need you to paint me a picture. Let's just get out of here.'

They made their way through the door and into the back of the building where there were even more bodies. A section had been set aside where corpses could be prepared for disposal, but neither Thackeray nor Harvey paid any attention to it.

They eventually made their way out through a window on to a flat roof and then a fire escape. The roar of the bikes had now moved down towards Digbeth. They moved through the still city, the smell of corruption never far from their noses. Occasionally they'd glimpse frightened people scavenging amongst the cavernous buildings, masked with scarves or hooded to keep the stink out or in a feeble attempt to stop the spread of infection. A medieval air now lay across a city that had been thriving and modern only months earlier. Thackeray and Harvey had their base in the Mailbox, a once-upmarket shopping mall now reduced by looters to a maze of empty rooms. They lived in the barricaded back offices of a former shoe shop, with dwindling supplies stolen from a supermarket lorry in the early days of the Fall. Their food cache had once been secured in an entire shop — bottled water, trays of cans, sacks of pasta and rice — safe behind a steel security gate that could only be opened by a key Thackeray had taken from a security guard killed in the first rash of riots. Now it filled barely a tenth of that space. They still didn't know what they were going to do when it was all gone.

Once safe inside they relaxed. They had a couple of armchairs, sleeping bags under rickety tents of designer sheets to make it more homely, the food for the day in one corner, a?1500 Arabian rug on the floor, scatter cushions all around and a poster of FHMs cover girls on the wall.

'It might look like a seedy smackhead's squat, but we like to call it home,' Thackeray said, sitting Caitlin down on one of the cushions.

'So what's the deal with the bow and arrows?' Harvey said, nodding towards the weapon that was still strapped across her back.

'I don't know. Maybe she uses it to hunt animals. Nothing like a bit of roast squirrel.' He went to remove the bow, but Caitlin's hand went up unconsciously to block him. 'OK. She wants to keep it on. Might be uncomfortable sleeping in it, but that's her call.'

Harvey threw Thackeray a can of sardines and opened one himself, eating with his fingers. Thackeray took out one sardine steak dripping with thick tomato sauce and offered it to Caitlin. She looked straight past it, past him, so he put it to her mouth, rubbing it gently back and forth on her lower lip. Eventually her tongue flicked out to taste it, then she took a bite, and then took the whole piece into her mouth hungrily. 'I don't know where you came from,' Thackeray said softly, 'but you can't have been walking round this city long in this state.' He fed her another piece of sardine. 'And it looks like it's been a while since you ate. So how did you get here? Couldn't have wandered in from the outside. Getting past all the checkpoints… it was bad enough before the plague. Muzzy in the west isn't letting anybody pass through his turf. Siegler in the east has bolted everything down — and those bastards down south, you wouldn't be in this good a condition if you'd passed through there.' A look of distaste crossed his face.

'You don't really reckon she can hear you?' Harvey peered into Caitlin's blank eyes, then shook his head and returned to his can of sardines.

'It's trauma — hardly surprising in this place. She's probably locked up deep inside, understanding everything I'm saying. A fugue state…'

'You've had too much of a bloody education, you have.' Harvey finished his can and tossed it into a shiny dustbin in the corner. 'I have to ask you, mate — isn't it going to hamper us a bit carting a zombie-bird around? We've had enough close calls as it is.'

'We couldn't just leave her out there, Harvey, for all those other bastards to pick off. How humane would that be?'

'You just fancy her.'

Thackeray didn't answer. Thackeray and Harvey cared for Caitlin for the next week. After the first day she was able to feed herself, silently, laboriously, and she was capable of coping with her other bodily functions once they showed her the toilet. When her period started on the third day, Harvey went out and located a large cardboard box of sanitary towels from the storeroom of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Thackeray slept on the cushions while Caitlin had his sleeping bag, and during the day they gave her plenty of exercise walking around the roof of the Mailbox. Though she didn't realise it, from that vantage point the true state of the city could be seen.

Parts of Balsall Heath were burning and a thick cloud of smoke hovered over the area. There were gaps in the urban sprawl in other areas where similar conflagrations had been allowed to run their course. Abandoned cars and buses were everywhere. Some roofs had caved in due to more localised fires or disrepair, and there were few windows that hadn't been smashed. Barricades had been set up in many streets while bonfires blazed all over the place, pockets of hellish reds and oranges in the grim spread of browns and greys. Few people were visible on the roads, but occasionally white faces briefly passed gaping windows.

Yet there were flocks of birds all over, starlings swooping with evil eye and sharp beak, crows roosting on the rooftops of offices or nesting in the dark, empty interiors of broken-windowed tower blocks. There was greenery in unusual places, self-set elders in guttering, weeds on rooftops, out-of-control ivy swarming over entire terraces. Nature was reclaiming its own.

'It's a real mess, isn't it?' Thackeray said. He took Caitlin's hand when she ventured too close to the edge. 'I used to love this city. They'd turned it round from that horrible industrial past… lots of culture sprouting all over the place, galleries, clubs, restaurants, places you actually fancied going out to for a drink. I went to university here, decided to make it my home.' He laughed bitterly. 'Good choice.'

Harvey came up behind them. 'Don't get too close to the edge. We don't want Buckland's goons knowing we're hiding out here.'

'Ah, yeah, good old Buckland. The King of Central Birmingham,' Thackeray said sarcastically to Caitlin. 'He came up fast after the Fall, some local crook with plenty of thugs on tap to enforce his ways. There was too much chaos to get any opposition going, and once he was established, that was it.'

'That's not just it,' Harvey interjected. 'It's the thing he picked up at the Fall… the devil…'

'Superstition,' Thackeray sneered. 'You'd believe any old bollocks, you would. That's the kind of stupid stuff they put out to keep people like you in line.'

'It's true! Smacker saw it.'

'He did, did he?'

'Well, not exactly

'Buckland's just a hard man who'll go that extra mile to stay in power. And none of us are inhumane enough to match him. So we just hide out, and live a life in the shadows.' His voice was filled with self-loathing, but he turned to Caitlin and forced a smile. 'You know what they say, you're either part of the cure or you're part of the disease. So that's us done for.'

'I wish we could get out of here,' Harvey said wistfully. 'Maybe go down to Worcester. I had some good times there, in the Lamb and Flag. They're mellow down there.'

'Forget it. We're never getting out,' Thackeray said. 'Look at it — they've got it bolted down tight with their little principalities and banana republics, living off the leftovers of society and doing over everyone else who comes into view.' He scanned the skyline thoughtfully, then added sourly, 'This city is a metaphor. Everybody has their own Birmingham — it's a state of mind. You never get away from it.'

'Bloody ex-student,' Harvey muttered. Mary erupted into a twilight sky high over Wilmington, filled with an overwhelming sense of failure, but not really knowing why. Below her, on Windover Hill, the god was slowly closing the door with a fizz of blue fire. Her confusion and dismay were quickly supplanted by a burst of unfocused anxiety. She trusted her instinct in the spirit-form, where every thought and sensation was heightened, and quickly looked around for the source. What she saw made all the ecstasy of her current state quickly drain away. Her body was not where she had left it. It had been dragged twenty feet across Dragon Hill. The culprit stood nearby: the twisted dead man she was sure had died in the fire, looking completely untouched by the conflagration that had engulfed him.

It was being tormented by the Elysium, but in their spectral state they clearly had no true ability to physically stop him. They swooped and soared around him, their faces transformed by howls of pain. For a moment, Mary was locked in panic. How could she have been so stupid as to leave her body in such an exposed position? She knew the risks: if her body died while she was in spirit-form, she would drift like a ghost before she finally broke up and blew away.

The Jigsaw Man lashed out at the Elysium, somehow clearly able to see them. Sharish broke off from the battle and rushed up to Mary like a beam of light reflected off glass.

'You must come quickly,' he said. 'We cannot hold him off much longer.'

But Mary was already moving before the final word had been uttered. She re-entered her body with force, desperate not to accept the usual period of lazy readjustment, tinged with sadness, her limbs feeling as heavy as lead, her head stuffed with cotton wool. She attempted to get to her feet, but her legs buckled beneath her. It felt as if a rock pressed on her shoulders. The Jigsaw Man noticed her sudden movement and instantly ignored the Elysium. Its gait was as fast as it had been in the abandoned house, slow for a split second, then speeded-up and jerky. Dead hands clasped around Mary's throat before she had barely registered that the Jigsaw Man had moved.

'You must fight him!' Sharish said. 'We can do nothing.'

The fingers clamped tighter and tighter. Mary couldn't breathe; the pressure in her head grew intense.

'Use the Blue Fire!' Sharish pressed. 'Your kind have always been able to manipulate it.'

As the oxygen disappeared, a strange clarity came over Mary and she knew exactly what Sharish was telling her. She recalled the lines of earth energy rushing from Dragon Hill to the Long Man, and with one grasping hand reached down to the scrubby grass. Her fingers clutched at the air, missed, clutched again, and somehow she was able to extend herself enough to scrape the ground.

The Jigsaw Man helped by pressing her down towards it, but her life was fading fast under his rigid grip. The back of its head faced her her, but she could just glimpse the eyes, turned away, rolling wildly.

In her mind, she formed the image, but she had no idea how to activate it. And then Sharish was beside her, whispering a word in her ear that she had never heard before and which made her slightly queasy. Without thinking, she repeated it.

All she saw was blue, across her field of vision, deep in her head. Sapphire flames ran from her fingertips through her body and into the Jigsaw Man, exploding in a cascade of sparks twenty feet above her head.

When her vision cleared, her attacker spasmed on the ground several yards away, smoke rising from his joints.

'You must hurry,' Sharish said. 'The thing will not stay down long.'

'Goddess, what is it?' Mary gasped, rubbing at her sore throat as she scrambled for her clothes. 'Its power comes from you.' Sharish floated at her side while she bundled up her possessions and hurried down the hillside, Arthur Lee bounding at her heels from wherever he had been hiding. 'Despair. Self-hatred. Failure. It will not stop attempting to destroy you until all those things are gone from within you.'

'Then it'll never stop,' Mary said bitterly. 'Never.'

By the time she reached the foot of the hill her head had cleared. The blue fire rushing through her had a strange effect on her system: she felt positive for the first time in years. 'There must be something I can do to put things right,' she said to herself. She turned to Sharish. 'OK, if I failed with the god, then I want to find the Goddess.'

He shook his head slowly. 'It-'

'Don't tell me how dangerous it is. Don't tell me how I'm going to fail. Just tell me where I can find her. I've got to do one good deed before I die… before that thing gets me.'

He stared into her face. 'You are stronger than you think.'

'Don't give me flannel. I just want to help Caitlin. I've messed up again, as usual, but I can't give up now — she's depending on me.'

'Then you must be prepared for a long journey,' he said. 'And a terrible trial. You may not survive.' Time passed for Caitlin in a haze of food and rest and as much comfort as could be conjured from the makeshift premises. She was not aware of anything, least of all herself, but a part of her knew that she was cared for, and beneath the dull, flat line of her existence, that felt good. In her head, she still wandered the bleak, frozen plains of the Ice-Field, but it had become more of a Zen meditation than a desperate search for a way out. In time, perhaps she could even accept it. Thackeray never left her alone for fear she might accidentally harm herself. When they crept through the darkened streets in search of premises to ransack, he held her hand, guiding her carefully past dangers, always watching out for her. Occasionally he would take her off with Harvey for what he laughingly called a 'road trip', sitting by the canals throwing stones while Harvey attempted to fish, or breaking into the council chamber to lie on the floor and examine the majestic architecture of the sweeping ceiling.

'Even in the middle of all this you've got to seek out anything that might give you a laugh, make you feel as if you're alive,' he said one warm day on the edge of summer. 'Otherwise, what's the point?'

That night, Thackeray laid out a dinner for the three of them with a white cotton tablecloth on the floor, silver cutlery and crystal glasses for one of their very rare bottles of wine. As they sat around, with the candlelight flickering, he thought Caitlin looked more beautiful than ever and told Harvey so.

'You know, matey, I have to say this, but all this is a bit, you know… sick,' Harvey replied uneasily 'She's, like, disabled or something. Or, you know…' He tapped his temple.

'I'm not going to take advantage of her,' Thackeray replied. 'But I can still see the person she was, or is — maybe will be again. It's there in her face, just beneath the surface. A good person…'

'You think she's going to get better?'

Thackeray shrugged. 'I can't help myself.'

'I think you should get over her, mate, for your own good.'

Thackeray raised his glass to both of them and took a sip of the Zinfandel. 'Let me tell you something, Harvey. You're going to say I'm a complete wanker, but like I care what you think, right? Loving, and having someone who loves you, is addictive. Your whole being comes alive and suddenly it feels as if the life you had before was just floating in treacle. And the cliches, they're all true, like you're living some Woman's Weekly life. You can't eat, you can't sleep, you can't get her face out of your head, or the moments you spent together, and the things you did, and the words you said, and some stupid song that fixes it in melody and moment, constantly replaying, turning over, as if you were hoping you'd be able to step back into them and live them all again, just like the first time.'

Harvey smiled, but in a nice way, sipping his own wine with one self-mocking little finger extended.

'And all these other cliches,' Thackeray continued. 'Connections… gut instincts that transcend rational thought. Love at first sight, if you will. How stupid is that? You think to yourself, stay away from this person, they're bad for me, I'm settled, survival routines in place, my life would be a real mess if I threw in with them, and your subconscious, or your heart, says do it, this is right. The person in the back of your head just knows. And you can't help yourself. You're lost to it. That person — the real you in your deep, deep subconscious — he always knows what's right for you, at that particular time, what you need. And he or she recognises links that transcend physical space. You see a face, he sees a soul mate, something so deep it's rooted in both your genes. And when that connection happens, you know it's going to be high passion, that you're going to blaze like a star, and that you'll probably crash and burn soon after. And you don't care, you don't care.' He stared into the deep red depths of his wine with a faint, troubled smile.

'It's going to end in tears, Thackeray,' Harvey said softly.

'Yeah. 'Course it is.' They ate a long, varied meal, determined to enjoy themselves in spite of everything. Thackeray fed Caitlin the first mouthful of every dish so she could acquire the taste before continuing herself. After they had finished, Harvey strummed them romantic songs on his acoustic guitar, tongue in cheek at first, but by the end they were all lost in a haze of plangent emotions.

Finally they sat in silence, thoughtful, enjoying a faint alcohol mood. And that was when they heard a tremendous crash.

Thackeray and Harvey instantly scrambled to the front of the shop to peer out into the concourse. The strengthened-glass security doors had been smashed off their hinges by a flat-bed truck that had reversed into them at speed. There was movement all over the shadowy first floor of the mall. Eventually torches burst into light and the burly leather-clad forms of the plague wardens fell into relief.

Thackeray glanced at Harvey, who was shaking and looked as if he were going to be sick. 'We can't pull down the security shutters — it'll make too much noise,' Thackeray hissed. 'We'll have to hide in the back and hope it's just coincidence they're here and that they're not looking for us.'

Harvey was rigid and fixated on the swarming figures until Thackeray gave his shoulder a squeeze. Then they both slipped back to the living area.

'Oh, God, they know we're here!' Harvey whined, scrubbing a hand through his greasy hair. 'Someone must have seen us on the roof. I knew it was a mistake to go near the edge!'

'No point moaning about it now — it's done.' Thackeray took Caitlin's hand and pulled her to her feet.

'Aren't you scared?' Harvey asked.

'Yes,' Thackeray replied tersely.

'You know what Buckland will do to us if he gets us.'

'Maybe he'll just be happy with our supplies to add to his vast warehouse of looted consumer goods.'

'Right. After he's hung us out to dry.' Harvey hugged his arms around himself; tears of fear sprang to the corners of his eyes.

Thackeray gave him a rough shove and followed it up with a smile. 'Come on — into the hiding places. And good luck.'

Harvey forced a smile. 'You're a bastard, Thackeray, but we've had some good times.'

He made to go towards a packing crate, but Thackeray caught his arm and said, 'No, the good one. And take her with you.'

Harvey searched his friend's face for a moment and could see no point in arguing. Reluctantly, he went to a wall panel like any other and slipped a penknife into the join to prise it open. Behind was a dusty, claustrophobic space in the dry wall. Briefly, Thackeray hugged Caitlin to him, smelling her hair, wishing things were different. Then he hurriedly pressed her into the hidey-hole first, motioned her to remain silent with a finger to his lips, then let Harvey slip in after her before replacing the wall panel.

The sound of the plague wardens violently searching the concourse drew rapidly closer. Thackeray threw himself behind a packing crate and burrowed under a pile of filthy, mildewed rags. They fell in just such a way that he had a very limited view into the room.

The plague wardens entered seconds later, whooping the minute they saw the remnants of the meal. 'Here it is! Bastards have been having a party!' someone exclaimed.

'Search the place — they're here somewhere,' a gruff, authoritative voice ordered.

Thackeray remained tense, his breath a lead weight in his throat. He watched as the tablecloth was ripped up, the crystal smashed, the sleeping quarters torn and stamped. He knew they'd get him sooner or later; Harvey had known it, too, but one being caught might allow the other to escape, and they both accepted Thackeray was the least likely to fold under pressure. At least until the torture started.

Seconds later they approached the crate. Thackeray steeled himself. The rags were torn off and the room filled with jeers and abuse. Threatening hands yanked him to his feet before a fist smashed forcefully into his face. Blood splattered from a burst lip and he saw stars for a second.

'Where are the others?' The authoritative voice came from the plague warden who had shot the woman in the face on the night he had met Caitlin.

'Fuck off.'

Someone hit him again and this time he did black out for a while. When he came to, he was supported between two thugs and the leader hovered inches from his face. 'I'll ask you again,' the leader said. 'And this time we'll cut off your ear if you get smart.'

'All right,' Thackeray said with mock-weakness. 'They got out… across the roof and down the back. We had an escape route planned. I was supposed to lock up the base, but there wasn't time…'

He let his head droop. The leader grabbed him by the hair and yanked it back up. 'How many?'

'Two others.' The leader nodded, satisfied. Thackeray knew he would have seen the places set on the tablecloth.

'So, you thought you'd disobey all Mr Buckland's rules, hoarding your own stuff while the community starves. You selfish bastard.'

Thackeray wanted to laugh at the idea of Buckland being a provider for the poor and oppressed, but he managed to control himself by feigning almost losing consciousness again.

The leader backed off and waved his hand in a circle in the air. 'Clean this place out. Make sure you get all their stores. The bulk's probably in some other place. And get this bastard out of here.' Thackeray knew his fate, but he was surprised that his first thought was not regret or fear, but of a woman he hadn't even heard speak, who had given him no sign of who she was. Harvey and Caitlin emerged from their hiding place into darkness an hour later when it was clear that the plague wardens had definitely gone, and all the supplies had been removed. Harvey was sobbing silently, smearing his tears across his blotchy face.

'Sorry,' he said to her without really talking to her. 'I'm pathetic.' With an effort, he composed himself. 'Look, they're not going to be back here, so you wait… I need to find another place for us to hide out. Somewhere safe.' He chewed a knuckle, looked queasy, then gave her as much of a reassuring smile as he could muster before pressing her down to sit next to the wall. He lit a candle. 'Don't be frightened,' he whispered. 'I'll be back for you.'

And then he was out of the door and running, his footsteps echoing like gunshots in the dark vault of the concourse. Caitlin sat and watched the shadows flicker on the far wall. Deep in the bleak chambers of her head, something stirred. 'Where am I?' Her voice shrieked above the howling wind, her throat raw from her anguished screams. The fierce gale buffeted her back and forth, whipping snow into her face like hot pins so she couldn't see where she'd been or where she was going. Even wrapping her arms tightly around her couldn't stop the terrible cold from penetrating deep into the core of her being.

There was only the whiteness of frozen nothing all around as she staggered across the Ice-Field. No warmth, no hope. It would be better if she simply lay down to die, let the snow cover her over, let the permafrost build up, crush her down, make her a part of the ice itself.

*

Electricity crackled around the room, sending incandescent sparks fizzing from the metal fittings. Thunder boomed off the walls and there was ozone in the air. In one corner stood the black knight in the boar mask, his hands on the broadsword balanced on its tip between his astride legs.

'Caitlin Shepherd!' His voice sounded like bees swarming from a hive.

Caitlin stirred; light flickered in the lanterns of her eyes. In the Ice-Field, the snowstorm shifted briefly, and the hard rocks of the shelter emerged in grey from the white.

'Caitlin Shepherd!' the knight said again, in his detached, alien voice.

Caitlin blinked; the white gave way to the shifting shadows of the room. More electricity flashed around her so that it felt as if they were in some glass jar cut off from the real world.

'Are you my guardian angel?' she whispered, dazed. 'Or just some other devil sent to lead me on to damnation?'

'None of this is real — I told you that,' the knight said sonorously. His voice was clearer than it had been the last time. 'We make our own reality. It is fluid. The truth lies behind what your senses tell you. If enough people believe the world is a certain way, that is the way it shall be. But some people have the power to change all reality. The world does not have to be this way, Caitlin. It is in the process of being rebuilt. Humanity is moving on, moving up. The seasons are changing.'

Gradually, her consciousness pieced together where she was and what had been happening. She remembered Thackeray and Harvey and the plague wardens; and she recalled Carlton and his brutal and unnecessary death, and the pain hit her so hard she cried out, 'Who killed him?' 'Paths have been chosen. Events are no longer in your hands,' the knight replied. 'Only blood can turn things around — blood and vengeance.' He paused while the lightning flashed across the room in coruscating streaks, and when he spoke again his words were barely audible above the thunder. 'The time has come to let her out, Caitlin.' Caitlin staggered from the restless ocean of the Ice-Field into the small rocky shelter. Briony eyed her hatefully, while Brigid rocked backwards and forwards, cackling to herself nervously and glancing to the shadows at the back.

'We thought you were never coming back,' Amy said dismally.

Caitlin walked past them without a glance. Could she do it?

'Don't be stupid, bitch,' Briony said with a mixture of fury and fear.

Caitlin stood before the figure half-cloaked in the shadows and said uneasily, 'Come forward. I need you.'

Brigid's laughter became an anguished howl and Amy began to sob uncontrollably. The figure stepped forward, slowly at first but then with pride, and the shadows sloughed off her like silk.

Caitlin thought she would be struck blind with pure terror. Though her eyes saw the form, her mind couldn't latch on to the slippery alien essence of the creature that emerged, and every aspect of Caitlin's being rebelled at what she perceived. At first it appeared as though she were seeing crows flying madly, and then fluttering black rags from which a ghastly white face stared horribly.

Finally a beautiful and terrible woman stood before her, with lustrous black hair like a storm, flashing green eyes and ruby-red lips. She wore a black velvet gown that appeared to run like oil, with a belt of blood-red, and she carried two wicked silver knives with sinuous blades. Carrion birds flew all around her, and at times appeared to be part of her. 'You have released me!' Though the woman barely moved her lips the words thundered so loud Caitlin had to clutch her ears.

'What are you?' Caitlin asked weakly.

'I am the beginning and the end,' the woman replied. 'Fertility and destruction. Love and war. I am the messenger of death. I am the true power of all women.'

'The Morrigan!' Brigid cried, beating her chest and tearing at her hair. 'War goddess of my Celtic people, treat your daughter well! Oh, fearsome Badhbh Chatha, Raven of Battle.'

Caitlin recalled the eerie hooded crow she had seen the night she first encountered the Lament-Brood, and then again, barely recognised, on her chest as she lay on the edge of madness at Liam and Grant's graves. Somehow, Caitlin knew, this terrifying being had seen some connection inside her, had entered her and bonded with her very soul. All she had needed was Caitlin's word to come out into the open. But Caitlin was afraid of what would now happen; that the cure would be much, much worse than the disease.

'Weep for those who stand before us!' the Morrigan said, her eyes blazing. 'There will be no more suffering, Sister of Dragons. We stand as one!'

The Morrigan opened her arms and Caitlin was sucked into the infinite darkness of flapping wings. Harvey slipped quietly through the concourse, desperately afraid. He was sure they could hole up in one of the warren-like office buildings on Colmore Row, but it would only be a temporary measure. After that, he had no idea. He wasn't a thinker like Thackeray and he really couldn't see himself surviving on his own, especially now he had the added responsibility of the girl. But he couldn't abandon her. How could he?

He slipped into their former home, expecting to see Caitlin still sitting where he had left her. Instead she stood in the centre of the room. He could see instantly that there was something different about her. She stood erect, her body taut, ready for action, and for the first time there was fire in her eyes and intensity in her face.

'Oh, you're up,' he ventured. 'I'm going to take you to-'

'You're going to take me to Thackeray.'

He jumped back in shock at the sound of her voice. 'You… you're all right now?'

Caitlin fingered the ornate carvings on her bow, looking past Harvey into the darkened concourse. 'We're going to get Thackeray back.'

Harvey held up his hands. 'OK, I'm glad you're feeling better, and Thackeray was right that you were paying attention while you were… you know… doolally. Sorry. But you don't know what you're asking. We can't-'

Caitlin stepped forward quickly and gripped his shoulders with fingers that felt like iron. 'We're going to get him out-'

'He's probably already dead!'

'-and you're going to show me the way.' She spun him round and shoved him towards the exit, lost to the thunder of blood in her head.