The Queen of sinister

After what seemed like hours, Crowther emerged from the trees on to a shimmering path. Relief flooded through him. In the timeless Forest of the Night, he had begun to think he might be wandering in the green world for ever, lulled into a dream state by its peculiar haunting qualities. He had even lost consciousness for a while, he was sure, and was worried that he might have put on the mask. Was it controlling him so easily now?

Many things moved through the trees just out of sight, but they didn't scare him, and he had come to accept that he was no longer afraid of death; more and more it felt like a way out. There had been no sign of the Gehennis, but at one point curiously he had heard horses and baying hounds, a hunt pursuing its prey. However, on occasion he had glimpsed the drifting purple light that signified the Lament-Brood and that did frighten him: to become part of that zombie army, to think and feel inside, perhaps, but to be controlled by another intelligence was his greatest nightmare.

Resting on his staff to catch his breath, he was surprised to feel his weariness easing the longer he stood on the path. As he scraped his fingers along its surface, they tingled and an easy feeling of wellbeing rose through him. The Blue Fire really was the fuel that drove everything, just as everyone had been taught at the college in Glastonbury. Might he actually have found peace if he'd stayed there and devoted himself to studying? The search for knowledge had always been the thing that had made him feel complete in the old days. Without finding an answer, he set off along the path. It wasn't long before he spotted a small dark figure sitting cross-legged. It was Mahalia, unmoving, head bowed so that her black hair covered her face like a hood. She didn't even stir when he came within three feet of her. 'You got out, then,' he said. 'Looks like it.' She didn't look up at him. 'Have you seen any of the others?' She began to shake her head, then caught herself. 'What is it?' This time she did look up and Crowther was shocked by the devastation he saw in her face. 'Carlton's dead,' she said bluntly. 'Dead? The boy?' 'I… I saw the body.' She motioned further along the path. Every fibre of her being was directed towards suppressing her emotions. 'His throat's been cut. He's lying across the path…' Crowther tried to make sense of what he was hearing. 'Across the path? That can't be. The dangerous things that live in this forest shouldn't be able to touch us on here.' 'Well, he is dead,' she said sharply. 'No mistaking that.' 'Show me,' Crowther said with irritated disbelief. Realisation of what he was asking came a second later and tenderness crept into his voice. 'I am sorry. That was very… thoughtless of me. I know how close you two were.' He rested one comforting hand on her head, but she felt as rigid as stone beneath his fingers and he withdrew it quickly. 'I'll check.' He hurried along the path and found the boy's body round a bend, as she had described. The cut had been made skilfully. This was no attack by wild beast or some haunted forest thing.

For a moment he was honestly overwhelmed with emotion. He had seen a lot of brutally upsetting things in recent times, but he couldn't understand how anyone could kill a young boy.

He shed a few tears before another thought struck. Caitlin had been convinced that the boy was vitally important to the great scheme that was being played out around them. What did his death mean for that?

After taking a moment to recover, he picked up Carlton and carried him a few feet into the forest. The loam was soft and he managed to clear enough of it to make a shallow grave in which he laid the body. It wasn't enough, but it would have to do. He scooped up handfuls of the loam to cover it, and then picked up as many fallen branches as he could to rest along the surface, so that in the end it resembled a wooden tomb. He forced one of the branches into the ground at the head as a marker.

Then he returned to Mahalia and brought her back to show her his work. 'I think we should say a few words,' he said.

'No point. He's gone.'

Crowther winced. 'Even if you don't believe in anything spiritual, the ritual would be good, to help you adjust to his passing.'

'I don't need to adjust. I can see he's gone. Come on, let's get out of this creepy forest.' She set off along the path before he had time to reply.

Her state troubled Crowther immensely. He had seen how angry and upset she had been when anyone had tried, however innocentiy, to come between her and Carlton. The boy appeared to mean more to her than life itself. And now she was acting as if she didn't care at all. 'Look at this, Matt.' Jack motioned to an area off to the right of the path. The trees seeped an oily black ichor and all the leaves were shrivelled and mottled with black spots. It had affected at least twenty trees that Jack could see and was spreading to the ground vegetation.

Matt examined it from the path, then moved closer. 'It's the same thing that was on that flower you found earlier.'

'I wouldn't get too near to it,' Jack warned.

'Wait.' Matt held out an arm, his attention gripped by something on the ground among the affected trees. Cautiously, he motioned for Jack to join him.

Jack had to blink a few times until he was sure of what he was seeing. Where the forest floor should have been, there was what he could only describe as a rip, as if he were looking at a painting and the canvas had been torn to reveal what lay behind it. In the centre of the rip was a deep black emptiness, like space, with the same endless quality. It made him feel queasy staring into it, for there was no sense that it was a hole in the ground. He felt that he could fall through it and into… nothing. 'What is it?' he asked in a hushed, uneasy voice.

'I don't know.' Matt stared at it for a moment and then guided Jack back to the path.

'You know what it looked like?' Jack said as they continued on their way. 'It looked like whatever was attacking the trees had eaten that hole away, too… but a hole right through everything.' He thought for a moment, and then grew uneasy. 'What could do that?'

'I have no idea. You know more about this place than I do. As far as I can tell, anything can happen here. It's like a dream… or a nightmare. No point getting concerned about it.' He clapped a hand across Jack's shoulders. 'If we're going to start worrying, we've got more important things to worry about.'

'I hope the others got out.'

'You hope Mahalia got out.'

Jack blushed.

'I've seen the way you've been with her.'

'She's nice. I like her.'

Matt shrugged. 'Personally I think you've got a tiger by the tail, but it's your life. Just be careful.' He shook his head with mock-weariness. 'What is wrong with me? I sound like a dad.'

Jack laughed. 'I never knew my father. You'll do for the moment.'

'Don't you go putting that on me. I've got quite enough on my plate without getting all paternal too.' He stretched aching shoulder muscles and adjusted the bow and quiver. 'I feel like we've been walking for weeks.'

'Perhaps we have. You can never quite tell here. I still think we should have waited-'

'We talked about this.' Matt stood in front of him and put his hands on the boy's shoulders. 'We all got turned around in the dark. It was blind luck that I ran into you. The others, if they did get out, could be way ahead of us. The best thing we can do is get to that place Triathus mentioned and wait for the others there.'

They set back off on their way, but it wasn't long before the boy was talking again. 'You know, I like this.'

'What? Getting lost in a forest with no provisions and no idea if you're going to get slaughtered when you go round the next bend?'

'No. Being with you… with people. I've never known humans all my life. Just the Golden Ones.' Anger rose but was quickly suppressed. 'Can you understand what it's like? Not to be with any of your own kind, just to hear stories about them, or sometimes see them across the barrier between the worlds, but never talk to them. Never be with them.'

'Yeah, and look at what your first experience of it was — us lot. Of all the people in all the world you ended up palling around with a bunch of psychos, liars and losers.' 'No, that's not true!' Jack said. 'I can see a lot more than you think — because I've been apart.' Matt eyed him curiously. 'I can tell what people are really like,' Jack continued. 'Everyone puts up barriers, and some people put up thicker walls than others. Take Professor Crowther. He can act very unpleasantly to everyone, but he's scared… of everything. He pretends he can cope, but he really can't cope at all.'

'So, you're a part-time psychoanalyst, too.' Matt laughed.

'And Mahalia, she's scared, too, but trying to appear strong. In fact, everybody's scared, but nobody wants to appear weak.'

'What about Caitlin? I bet you'd have a field day there.'

'I can tell you like her.'

Matt looked away. 'All right. Let's not have any of that.'

'And you

'Wait!' Matt silenced him with a raised hand. 'Can you hear that?'

Dimly, through the rustling of the leaves, a dull roaring was audible. 'Water,' Jack said. 'That must be the gorge.'

They hurried along the path until the heavy greenery of the trees gave way sharply to brilliant blue sky. An instant of rushing vertigo hit both of them, for they stood on the lip of a dizzying drop down a sheer granite face to rushing white water far below. The ravine was barely wider than the length of a football pitch, the Forest of the Night pressing up against the very edge so that ancient oaks and twisted yews overhung the chasm. Anyone not following the path would come out of the trees and over the lip with no warning.

'That,' Matt said, gripping a branch tightly, 'is a long way down.'

The path went down a flight of rough-hewn steps to a ledge ten feet below the edge and continued hugging the wall of the ravine until it disappeared around a bend. Barely two feet wide, there was nothing between whoever was walking the path and the sickening drop.

'We could wait here,' Jack said hopefully.

'I think the least we should do is see what's round the corner,' Matt replied. He winked at Jack. 'Don't forget — it's not the fall that kills you.'

'Huh?' Jack said, but Matt was already edging his way down the steps.

In the gorge, the crashing water was deafening. They made their way slowly, gripping on to cracks and crevices in the cliff face for protection against the eddying wind that threatened to pluck them off if their guard dropped. At times, Jack grew rigid with fear and had to stop. Matt urged him on, yelling to be heard above the water and the wind. And then they rounded the bend, and what they saw took away all thoughts of the drop.

Set into the cliff face was a city, stretching almost from the water's edge to the very top. Monolithic blocks of stone formed the basis of the structure, protruding in balconies and terraces, buttresses and gargoyles, so that it was impossible even to begin to guess how it had been constructed in such a precarious position.

Set against it was a different style of architecture, more graceful and delicate, with glass, silver and bronze, designed in sweeping arcs, with huge multi-panelled windows that would allow sunlight deep into the heart of the construction, which, it appeared, burrowed deep into the cliff.

The two styles, brutalist and cultured, worked strangely well together so that the overall appearance was quite stunning; both welcoming and a little frightening in its magnitude.

'Is that it?' Matt asked, trying to take in the full sweep of the magnificent city.

'Yes.' Even Jack was awed. 'The Court of the Dreaming Song.' As Thackeray descended the frozen escalator steps into New Street Station, the light of a hundred torches came up out of the gloom. They burned along the length of the huge concourse, where travellers had once stared up at the rows of electronic timetables, filling the lofty roof with acrid smoke. Behind it lay the familiar smell of engine oil, hanging around like the ghost of better times. At that moment it felt as if he was entering the jungle compound of some Stone-Age tribe, where brutality and ritual still ruled, and in a way he was right.

The plague wardens flanked him, their heavy boots clanking on the metal steps. He was desperately aware of the guns and knives and axes they carried, but it was their fists that had put the pain into his ribs, arms and jaw. He could almost feel the bruises forcing their way to the surface.

Approaching the ticket gates, he saw that they had been all but obscured by a wall of razor wire. One heavily fortified gate lay in the centre. The lead plague warden hammered on it three times and then stepped back so that it could swing out to reveal two shaven-headed bruisers nursing shotguns. One wore a St George flag on his T- shirt. The other had a cheap leather jacket pulled tightly across his beer belly. Thackeray's heart fell even more at the realisation that the people he would leave a pub to avoid had now taken over the world.

They ushered him in, past more burning torches and a flaming oil drum stoked for heat in the chill station. Finally he was presented at a suite of offices, packed with incongruously plush furniture, antiques and works of art. The lead plague warden took him into an office that had once belonged to a faceless executive and was now a sumptuous testament to bad taste, thuggery and greed. To Thackeray, the first was probably the greater crime. Buckland sat in a leather armchair, feet up on a table, drinking whisky from a crystal glass. He had a look of Boris Karloff about him, with sunken eyes, an icy pallor and silver hair swept back over his shoulders, but was probably only in his mid-forties. He glanced over at Thackeray with cold contempt and then returned to contemplating his porn magazine. The lead plague warden whispered a few words in his ear before Buckland threw the magazine to one side and came over.

'What is it with you people?' Buckland said, irritated that his reading had been disrupted. He was educated but not clever, Thackeray could see from his eyes; he survived on cunning and an ability to be one degree harder, one notch more brutal than anyone else. 'You know the rules,' Buckland continued. 'Everyone on my patch knows them. They were designed for the benefit of the people living here. Are you antisocial or something?'

Thackeray almost laughed, but a very basic fear helped him maintain a straight face.

'Rule number one: no one hoards anything. All supplies have to be held centrally for the good of the people. You know that?' Thackeray nodded; there was no point in lying. 'Rule number two: any sign of the plague has to be reported so we can take steps to deal with it.'

'I don't know anyone with signs of the plague.'

Buckland pushed his face close to Thackeray's; he smelled of meat. 'No, but you hoard!'

'It was a mistake-'

'You're right there. Do you know how hard it is to keep order in this fucking world? Do you, you little toe-rag? Everyone's trying to look after themselves… no one's thinking about the common good. Except me. And what thanks do I get? No bloody respect.' Buckland finished his whisky and went to pour himself another from a decanter on an antique table in one corner. Thackeray couldn't quite tell if Buckland had spouted his crazed fantasy so many times that he was starting to believe it himself. But Thackeray knew all the stories of how Buckland had come to power. How he'd used to run the drugs and prostitution rackets in Sparkhill with his gang of local thugs, earning his reputation with the judicious use of a double-bladed Stanley knife to carve up the faces of his enemies because it was impossible to stitch the two parallel cuts at Accident and Emergency. There were so many people walking around Sparkhill with his mark that it acquired the nickname Razor Town. And then, once the Fall began, and communications broke down, and all the weird rumours about what was happening outside the city took off, Buckland was ready to start the looting and the rioting.

In a moment of lucid slyness, he had realised that Sparkhill was too small for him and had moved straight into the city centre, adding to his band of thugs as he progressed. No Stanley knives for him then; he'd graduated to proper weapons. They say he personally killed three hundred people on the first day of his rule. Who could fight something like that? Who had the time or the energy or the inclination when personal survival was paramount? It was somebody else's problem. So here he was: unassailable. The Butcher King of Birmingham. And Thackeray was about to become a lesson for all the other poor bastards living in fear in his Kingdom of the Damned.

Buckland returned with his whisky. 'You know I'm going to have to make an example of you?'

'You could let me go. I wouldn't say anything.' 'You see, it doesn't work like that. People always say they won't say anything. Then they go out and have a drink, or start trying to impress someone… some woman… and suddenly it's, "Mr Buckland couldn't touch me. I'm better than him. I'm smarter. I'm harder." And some people are stupid — they think that kind of stuff might be true. And then we have problems. You see, problems breed problems. So I always try to sort things out early. It's simpler that way.' He sipped his whisky while staring deep into Thackeray's eyes. A faint smile came to his lips. 'You're scared.'

'Who wouldn't be?'

'That's true.' Buckland took a long swig and flashed a glance at the plague warden, who moved towards a door at the back. 'You're a smart bloke,' Buckland continued. 'I can see that. I'm a good judge of character. You know things are different now.' He sucked on his lip while he searched for words to rephrase. 'You know there's things out there you wouldn't even have dreamed of a couple of years ago.'

'I've heard stories.'

'Not stories, friend. The truth. They're… supernatural.' He nodded with pride at his choice of word. 'And you know how hard I am? I'm so hard I caught one of them. I'm so hard that now it does everything I say, like a Staffordshire bull terrier, because it's scared of me. Can you believe that?'

Thackeray grew even more nauseous. Harvey had been right. He'd expected to be taken out and shot, maybe even beaten to death. But now his imagination was racing at what his fate would be. If Buckland had preserved this particular horror for teaching lessons, there was no doubt it would be even worse than anything he could imagine.

'I think you're going to have to meet him.' Buckland motioned to the door at the back where the plague warden waited.

Thackeray thought of Caitlin. All the guttersnipes and lowlifes were out on the street at night, slipping through the gloom, avoiding the areas where the occasional torch burned. Everywhere smelled of shit and urine and rot. In one area, women turned tricks for food, thinking there was safety in numbers. Children threw rocks at the rats, whose undulating movements created an eerie optical illusion in some streets where it looked as if the dark was rippling with water.

And the plague wardens came and went, scores of them on circuit after circuit, seeking out the latest poor afflicted, shooting some, herding others ahead of their bikes to the houses of the dead.

Caitlin passed through it all like a ghost. Blood thundered in her head, her heart, colouring her vision. Blood everywhere; inside, from the last surge of her period. Harvey kept a few paces ahead as he led the way, occasionally glancing back, unsure and a little scared of the woman who only hours earlier had appeared so weak and unthreatening.

Caitlin's skull echoed with the constant hard-edged whispers of the Morrigan, telling her terrible secrets, relating horrific stories of battlefields and slaughter, hinting at things to come. Caitlin's own inner voice felt insignificant next to it, but they were both there, side by side, sisters-in-blood.

'New Street Station's just up there,' Harvey hissed, then jumped when he saw that Caitlin already had an arrow notched. 'But I tell you, it's pointless. You'll never get past his guards. There's millions of them! Besides…' His voice grew sad. '… Thackeray'll be long gone by now.'

'You like him.' Caitlin scanned the approach to the station. Nothing moved.

'He's a good mate, the best. There aren't many that would have stuck with me.' He turned away from her. 'I'm not much good, really. Bit of a liability. Thackeray would have been better off on his own. He's got what it takes to survive. But he stuck by me. I'll never forget that.'

'When I go in, you stay far enough behind so you won't get hurt in any crossfire.'

'Don't worry about that — I'll be a speck on the horizon. You're mad, you know.' He took a step away in case she lashed out.

'That's what they say.' One hand went to her quiver to check her supply. 'I'm going to have to reclaim arrows as I go… don't have many left.'

'Right, right. You're sure you don't want to try to get a gun first? It would be-'

'Let's go.' She pushed past him towards the entrance. A firm hand between the shoulder blades propelled Thackeray into the room and the door closed behind him. At first, all he was aware of was the thunder of his heart in his head and the shortness of his breath. Then he became aware of the most foul stink, like rotting meat.

The room appeared pitch black until his eyes grew used to a thin light coming through small holes punched in the walls. It was just enough for him to see where the occupant of the room lay. Initially it looked like a shadow denser than any of the surrounding gloom, as though it were sucking the light into it like a mini-black hole. But then it began to move, rising up in the corner where it had been gnawing on something, and its skin glinted like oil. There were eyes, bestial and lethal, and a mouth, and mandibles, and a carapace of interlocking plates, and bony ridges, but every time he focused on a detail it changed before his eyes, so that all he had was a perception of something monstrous and deadly.

'They called themselves Fomorii,' Buckland had told him before he entered the room. 'The Fall came after a war between them and some others… some kind of gods. The Fomorii lost, and then they were gone, just like that. Except this one. This one couldn't get away because I had him.'

Thackeray had no idea how Buckland knew all this, or if he was just making it all up. He couldn't understand how Buckland could keep something like that constrained, working to his will. It didn't matter. The Fomor rose up nine feet or more, its shape flowing, becoming more terrifying with each incarnation until Thackeray thought he might go mad simply from looking at it.

He backed slowly into a corner. Caitlin came down the escalator so stealthily her feet never made a sound. The contrast between the blazing torches and the heavy darkness all around would have been distracting for some people, but Caitlin's vision now operated on a different level. It was as if she was staring through a scarlet filter. Every thing hidden in the shadows was available to her, and distance fell away so that she could pick out the finest detail across the length of the concourse.

She saw the razor-wire wall across the ticket barrier and the door in the centre of it. There was a slot halfway up the door.

Caitlin coughed loudly. The slot slid back and she saw a pair of piggy eyes glinting inside it. Raising the bow and loosing the arrow was a fluid blur. It sped across the concourse, slipped perfectly through the slot and rammed dead centre between the eyes with a sticky thud. A cry of shock rose up from her victim's colleague.

She only expected stupidity and she was easily rewarded. Another pair of eyes appeared at the slot, only this time she didn't loose an arrow. She was already standing a foot away from it, smiling innocently, her bow out of sight. She could almost hear the slow turning of the guard's mind.

'Quick,' she said breathlessly, 'let me in… before he gets me.' The guard acted on instinct; the door eased open a little. Caitlin was through it in an instant. The guard was stunned by her speed, but only had a second to register surprise before her stiffened hand rammed into his throat, bursting through his windpipe. She curled her fingers and ripped, tearing across until she ruptured his carotid artery. Blood sprayed all over, gouting up the door, across the floor. The guard fell down, clutching at his throat, still not quite believing what had happened. It was a woman; only a woman.

After reclaiming her first arrow, Caitlin continued down the corridor, turning briefly when she heard Harvey exclaim behind her. For a second she was caught in the glare of a torch, stained red, droplets falling from her nose, her eyelashes, the ends of her hair.

'Jesus Christ!' Harvey said. 'It's like… Carrie!'

Plague wardens and other guards began to emerge from rooms on every side. Caitlin, her eyes wide, emotionless, turned to meet them. Inside, the Morrigan's whispering reached a crescendo, laced with glee and threat. Caitlin raised her bow.

The arrows swept along the corridor. Four men fell before the others even realised Caitlin was armed. Even though she was a woman, one of them was taking no chances. He pulled up a shotgun and fired. The blast echoed down the corridor, the shot passing through the spot where Caitlin had been. By then she had yanked the shotgun from his hands and brought the butt up hard to shatter his jaw. As he went down, she yanked the gun above her head and brought it down three times in quick succession, smashing his skull into pieces and bursting his brain across the grimy floor. The rest were caught in disarray. They were burly men, used to casual brutality, but they had no response to the woman who moved like mercury amongst them, savage and relentless as a storm. She appeared next to one, using the shotgun like a club, and before he had fallen she had taken his machete and slashed open the guts of another. Three more fell before the machete was knocked from her hands, and then she launched herself at another's throat to rend and tear with her teeth. She came up from him, spitting meat, blood and skin, to find herself alone. The Fomor was taking its time toying with its prey like a lion in the veld. Thackeray had managed to duck under two of its lunges and dart to another corner, but he knew he was only delaying the inevitable. And he had discovered what the inevitable was: bones, gnawed clean, lay in a pile in one corner and they were all clearly human.

Despite its size and power, the beast moved sinuously across the room while the array of changes to its form continued with a near-poetic grace, armour plates giving way to rows of cruel spikes, shifting to mighty bat-wings, all gleaming black.

Thackeray ducked beneath its sweeping hand, only for the hooked fingers to extend with razor-tipped talons, tearing through the back of his jacket to raise blood. As he rolled out of the way, cursing with the pain, a spike burst from the creature's thigh to miss his head by an inch and punch a hole in the wall.

You might as well give up, he told himself. But he couldn't.

A glancing blow almost took his head from his shoulders. He could taste blood in his mouth, feel it trickling down his back and into his eyes. The Fomor was tiring of its sport, growing faster, more vicious.

Thackeray jumped out of the way as a fist smashed down at him, raising a cloud of concrete dust from the floor. But in his rush to escape, he slammed his head against the wall, and slid down, dazed. His time was up.

Light flooded into the room. In his stunned state, it took him a second to realise that the door had been thrown open. Someone was standing there, silhouetted against the torchlight beyond, and as the figure shifted he saw that it was some hideous apparition, stained with blood from head to toe, white eyes staring furiously from the scarlet. It was armed with a machete, but Thackeray only had a second to take that in before the figure launched into action.

It threw itself at the Fomor, the blade a whirl, sparks flying in golden showers where it crashed off the armour. The beast made an inhuman howling noise that set Thackeray's teeth on edge, and then it became a whirlwind of mutating activity. It was impossible for Thackeray to get a handle on what was happening, so furious was the movement. All he could capture were brief snapshots of a struggle that was apocalyptic in its intensity.

Somehow the darting figure always managed to stay a fraction of an inch beneath the claws, spikes and fangs, thrusting with the machete in search of some chink in the creature's defences. Thackeray couldn't believe there was one — it was too much of a killing machine — but then a gout of black liquid burst across the room and splattered next to him, sizzling as it burned through the floor. The bass rumbles of the beast became a deafening high-pitched whine that made Thackeray want to vomit.

The black liquid spouted from somewhere beneath its head. It stumbled back, but the scarlet figure didn't relent, hacking and chopping and thrusting in a crazed blood- lust, taking advantage of the Fomor's increasing inability to armour itself. Chunks of quivering black flesh fell to the floor, followed by wriggling digits and then limbs.

Even when the beast lay trembling on the floor, the figure continued to chop, and finally there was nothing left but unidentifiable lumps. Thackeray had to look away.

A moment later he realised the figure was standing over him, and he wondered if it was now his turn. With surprise, he saw a woman behind the bloodstained exterior. Gradually recognition dawned. It was too much of a shock, leaving him grasping for comprehension.

Finally she reached out a sticky hand and helped him to his feet. 'My name's Caitlin,' she said.

Despite everything he had seen, hearing her voice sent a shiver through him. 'What are you?' he asked.

She tossed the machete to one side and for a second he thought he saw tears in her eyes. Then she threw herself at him with the same passion with which she had attacked the Fomor, forcing her lips on to his, kissing so hard he saw stars, giving every fibre of her being.

The force of the kiss, and the crackling energy that lay behind it, drove him back down. He was too weak to resist, nor did he want to. She continued to kiss, and then bite at his face and neck, her hands feverishly running over his body, before she broke off and started to tear first at his clothes then her own. Her breasts and belly were white against the crimson stain of her face and hands. Her hair lashed the air as she ground her groin against his, showering droplets of blood on to his face, his chest. Her nails raked his skin, but she was oblivious to the occasional bursts of pain that she caused him, so lost was she to her sexual frenzy.

Thackeray was dragged along by her fire, gave himself up to her fully. She was like a drug; his blood thundered, his head spinning with hallucinogenic desire, transformative, sacramental. Connections blazed with energy, blue, blue fire that lay beyond the physical. She was all he could ever have wanted.

When she'd dragged his trousers down, she used her hands and her mouth to ensure he was fully erect, and then she raised herself to slide him inside her. She rode him furiously, ducking to kiss and bite, and there was blood everywhere, on his skin, in his vision.

When he came in a blazing burst of euphoria she refused to let him withdraw, her own orgasm coming a second or so later. Only then did she collapse on his chest, breathing hard, her heart pounding. It felt as if she had given him everything within her.

'I think I love you,' he said, stroking her sticky hair; and he meant it.

They dressed and ventured out into Buckland's office. The thug lay in one corner, moaning gently to himself. Both his kneecaps were shattered. He began to curse loudly when he saw Caitlin and Thackeray.

Harvey loitered in the doorway, both scared and overjoyed. 'Thought you were a dead dog,' he said to Thackeray obliquely.

'Nearly… a couple more minutes.'

'Glad you pulled through.'

'Yep. Looks like you're stuck with me for a bit longer.' They shuffled round for a moment, unable to face their emotions, and then Thackeray nodded at Caitlin. 'What about her, then?'

'Yeah. Who'da thought it?' Harvey eyed her warily. 'Like somebody out of The Matrix.'

'Red Sonja, more like. You remember Conan? The She-Devil with a Sword. Or in this case a machete.'

'They're all dead, you know.' Harvey jerked a thumb in the direction of the corridor leading to the concourse. 'All that bastard's men.'

Thackeray looked Caitlin in the eye; he couldn't quite understand what he was glimpsing there, though it certainly wasn't the blankness he had seen in the woman with whom he had first fallen in love. 'I'm not going to be able to take you back to mother, am I?'

'But why didn't you kill him?' Harvey nodded towards Buckland, who was increasingly delirious with the pain.

'He's facing his own punishment.' The new vision Caitlin had gained since the Morrigan had come to the fore was proving a revelation. As Caitlin watched Buckland, she could see the devils dancing over his form, teasing the plague along the meridians of his body where the chi flowed. She knew what it was now: a spirit-plague, a corruption of the soul that attacked the life-giving essence of reality. It wasn't just designed to kill people; it was there to destroy everything. The Blue Fire would be attacked first, and then physical matter would follow.

And while it could be a natural infestation, the presence of the devils and the malignant and modulated way in which they went about their terrible business made Caitlin sure there was an intelligence behind it. Something had loosed such an awful thing; something wanted Existence destroyed. And that made her think that it was all connected — the plague, the Lament-Brood, the attempt to eradicate her. But who or what could possibly want to wipe out everything that ever was?

'So, we getting out of here?' Thackeray said. 'Buckland's not going to be much of a threat any more. In a world with the flimsiest of health services, what you've done to him is pretty much a death sentence.'

'For what it's worth,' Caitlin said.

'Maybe we could take over from him,' Harvey mused. 'With an enforcer like her, nobody would mess with us.'

'Nah,' Thackeray said. 'Too much responsibility. I'd rather go on holiday.'

He looked at Caitlin hopefully, but her face told him all he needed to know. They stood on one of the station platforms, the intense darkness thrown back in one small arc by a lone torch held by Harvey.

Thackeray had his arms around Caitlin's waist, pulling her close so he could feel her tenderness. 'You've really got to go?'

'Yes. People are counting on me.'

His sigh was supposed to be theatrical, but it carried the full weight of his feeling. 'It's understandable. You're getting out of Birmingham. Who wouldn't?'

'You could leave, too.'

'You'd think, wouldn't you?' He looked deep into her eyes, tried to appear blase. 'I'd go with you.'

She shook her head. 'I don't think I'll be coming back, Thackeray. What I've got to do… well… my instinct tells me the price is going to be my life. These things always end badly.'

'Yeah. You see, responsibility… I don't really get that word.'

She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. It was subtle but as potent as the passion he had experienced from her earlier. A shiver ran down his spine. He knew in his heart that he would never find another who meant as much to him. Their time together could be counted in days, yet the connection he felt with her was as deep and abiding as the ocean. He wanted to tell her how much he needed her, how he could see, even though she hadn't examined it herself, that she loved him, too. But he could also tell it was pointless. She couldn't stay; obligation lay on her shoulders like a millstone.

'In this world we've ended up with,' he said, 'things are just too, too tragic.'

She smiled and electricity jumped between them, but the poignancy was almost too painful for him to bear. She pulled back and his hands fell from her waist. 'Bye, Harvey,' she said with a wave.

There was a hint of relief in his smile. 'You want to get some shampoo for that hair, Red Sonja.'

She laughed, dropped from the platform on to the tracks. They watched her as she moved along the lines, and only once did she look back before the darkness swallowed her up. At that moment Thackeray thought he was going to die.

Harvey slapped a hand on his shoulder. 'I'm sorry, mate. But look on the bright side… you'd never have been able to argue with her.' Thackeray tried to pierce the gloom, imagining her wending her way out into the night, fierce and beautiful and wild, like nature. 'I'd have jumped through fire for her, Harv. I'd have crossed the world.'

'You're a stupid romantic, Thackeray, and it's a wonder you've got any friends.' Harvey turned away and waved the torch towards the exit. 'Come on… let's nick Buckland's whisky stash.'