The next room we came to was full of flies, buzzing over everything.
“Swarming like Dezkary immigrants,” Fisk said.
Moriah rubbed his brow. “Give it a rest.”
Troughton had gone quiet and now wandered over to the opposite wall of the corridor. He rested his head against the wall, with his hands interlaced over the back of his neck. I was getting concerned about him.
I gave Fisk a sharp shove in the chest. “That’s enough, Fisk. Make one more offensive comment, I’m taking you off field duty for a month.”
“What for? I ain’t saying nothing that the Procurators wouldn’t agree with.”
“I’d find a reason!” I yelled back. “Andreas would back me up in whatever I say you’ve done, so don’t challenge me, Fisk. Two of ours have died tonight, and you will show some respect.”
Maybe he hadn’t fired the first shot when the unit had killed those civilians, but he had helped create the atmosphere of panic that had scared everyone, scared Gibbs, into such drastic action. In a way he was partly responsible for how things had eventually played out in the empty, impossible room. I wasn’t letting the same kind of crushing despair be inflicted on Troughton.
He stood down and dusted himself off. “Awright. Everyone so damn touchy today. No-one knows how to take a joke.”
After that incident, the Fallen was no doubt aware of our exact location, but we’d been kidding ourselves to think that hadn’t been the case all along. I turned my attention back to the investigation. We had to locate the bastard and annihilate it, before it made its next move.
A broken window let the wind in to sift the stenches of the room, of faeces and decay. Mingled with that, yet again, was that sickly sweet smell of lavender. That day, I had been nine and my brother had been five. I’d been looking after him, and we’d gone barrelling through the hay fields. As the dying rays of sun had danced over the dust of the field we had kicked up, we had found a patch of wild lavender.
Was that the smell of the Fallen? Were there lavender plants in the building?
I peered into the room. Two armchairs and a two seater sofa were arranged facing each other. In the middle of them was a low table, bearing a vase of dead flowers. Lavender. Mystery solved.
The seats were all occupied by unmoving, vaguely human-shaped mounds. I went in, and clasped my hand over my mouth and nose. Moriah followed me in, coughing and retching. He started to peel off his mask.
“I really wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I warned him.
“I . . .” He hacked up phlegm inside the mask. “It’s not that . . .”
I approached him, rested a hand on his back as he bent over and the cough rattled through him and into me. “Moriah?”
I helped him with the mask.
Beneath it, his face was a swollen cluster of weeping sores and pustules. His left eye was closed by the pressure of a massive boil on the bridge of his nose. Pus trickled down his right cheek from an opening that looked more like a bullet wound than a skin lesion.
“I . . . can’t . . .” he rasped, and turned to grasp at the front of my uniform. Then he was sick. Dark, foul liquid poured over me, soaked through until I could feel the warmth of it and the stickiness against my belly.
Moriah collapsed, face first, against me, pushing me back. His face smeared through his own vomit as he slid down. I had just enough presence of mind to catch him and lower him to the ground.
Troughton stepped into the room, and into the faint illumination offered by the broken window. “Is he..?”
He was, but my throat wouldn’t communicate the information. I waved Troughton back, paranoid that somehow the filth in this room had caused Brian Moriah’s death. The grief overwhelmed me. I propped myself up on my knees. I felt dizzy. The stink of the room ceased to exist, and so did its contents. All I could see were the flies, already settling on the vomit and pus that was smeared across Moriah’s inert face. All I could smell was the dead lavender.
World, I’d lost half the unit in one mission. I was failing them all, just like I had failed . . .
“You okay?” somebody asked. It was enough to snap me out of it. I looked up and my head swam. “Yes,” I lied.
“Fuck me,” Fisk said, looking down at Moriah’s body. “He looks like he had Drellpox. Maybe he really was a homo.”
Troughton rounded on him. “Drellpox has nothing to do with that, you idiot! And who cares who he slept with? He’s dead on the floor in front of you!”
Fisk stumbled back against one of the mouldering chairs, shocked. The impact caused the occupant to lurch forward slightly. Fisk shook as he stood back up, and at first I thought it was with rage. I prepared for him to throw a punch or pull a pistol, but instead he said, “Hey, I’m sorry. Really, I . . . it’s just what I do. To make things easier, you know.”
Troughton relaxed, but just a little. He had always been edgy around Fisk, unsurprisingly.
I looked about the room. Frank started to pray again, this time chanting and swaying, oblivious to the stares of his two remaining team-mates. I decided not to challenge him. The incident with Gibbs had shown how the men’s emotional wellbeing was important. If this helped Frank to deal with what had happened, it had my support.
Although the glass that remained in the window was filthy, through the shattered pane and the dead tree outside I could see over the Caldair rooftops. The sun was starting to emerge, picking out the details of the room, and if our quarry had the same vulnerabilities as most Fallen that would make our job easier. Even once we hit full daylight, the others would keep their masks on to remain the avatars of the Purifying flame.
The body that had lurched forward in its seat had left tendrils of congealed seepage, trailing towards the fabric of the sofa like unearthed roots. The man in the seat next to him was wearing a wooden mask, painted red and bearing a familiar, ghastly visage. It was the same demonic face that we had seen elsewhere: in the room of sacrifices, where Frank had started to come unstuck, and in the room that Gibbs had been unable to believe in and unwilling to leave.
I should have moved quicker, been more persuasive, been more attuned to his state of mind, done more to help him.
May as well wish that I’d been able to see the future.
“I really am sorry,” Fisk was saying to an unreceptive but slowly relaxing Troughton. “I should never have said those things. I was blowing off steam.”
The demon face grinned at me, a twisted reflection of our own masquerade.
“It’s all right,” Troughton replied, stiffly but amicably. “We all say things we don’t mean under stress.” His voice was strained. He had no real desire to reconcile with Fisk, but was making a valiant effort.
“I just . . . Moriah’s dead and I feel bad for what I said. I should never have accused him of something like that.”
My attention shifted, my instincts flared.
“Something like what?” Troughton bristled. It was his turn to shake. “Like what, Fisk?”
“You know . . .”
“No I don’t,” Troughton’s voice was cracking. “All I remember was you accused him of sleeping with men.” Perhaps he felt he had to speak out, but he didn’t want to say this, and was terrified of Fisk. Perhaps he was even more afraid of what he might let slip.
“Well, that’s a sin. You know that, buddy. That’s what the Exalted says. It’s not up to me.”
“Guys, shelve it,” I ordered. “Personal debates belong back at the Guardian House.”
“Except we can’t have debates like this at the Guardian House,” Troughton objected, then laughed nervously. “Can’t speak our minds.”
“C’mon, buddy,” Fisk said, genuinely concerned. “What’s this about really? ‘Cos you sound like you’re saying . . .”
“I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s just . . .” he gestured towards Moriah’s corpse. “He was so well respected and he would have hated to go out like that, in such a degrading way, and . . .”
“Yeah, I know
that, buddy. That’s what I’m saying. I hate it too. We lost Billy, Gibbs and Moriah tonight, and I mouth off when things get to me, is all. Especially cos of the way Moriah went. Like you said, degrading, looking like he was homo. You get that, don’t you, buddy?”
“Stop calling me ‘buddy’! I am not your damn buddy!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, fellas.” Frank had ceased his prayers and stepped between them, keeping them at arm’s length away from each other. “Stop it, now. Take it from me, arguments get a bit too personal when you’re under strain. Turcotte’s right, we shouldn’t do this here.”
“No. We should.” Troughton flexed his shoulders, bracing himself, building up the fortitude for what he wanted to do. “This is the perfect place and the perfect time, for me to tell this fucking bigot what I think of him.”
“Bigot? Cos I don’t like homos and Dezkarians? The Exalted doesn’t like them either. And if He says summin’s wrong, that’s good enough for me.”
Troughton was silent for a moment but gestured angrily, trying to think of what to say. “It doesn’t hurt anyone,” he said at last.
“Stop this now!” I yelled. They didn’t hear.
“I don’t care if it hurts anyone,” Fisk scoffed. “It’s a sin. Why are you so worked up?”
“Because . . .” He bunched his trembling hands into shaking fists. “I just am. Because . . .” He reached up and ripped off his mask. He was hyperventilating and sweat was beading on his forehead.
“Troughton, Len,” I said, “you don’t need to do this.”
“Yeah, I think I do. World help me.”
“Come on, Len,” Fisk said, almost pleadingly. “Don’t do this. If you say anything else about this, you know I’ll have to bring you in. After this is over, you’ll have to come with me to the Procurators and . . .”
“Fisk, I’m warning you.”
Troughton was chewing his lip, and his eyes were wide. He looked down at Moriah for a long moment, took in a giant breath and said, “I’m gay.” That desperate laugh again. “I’m gay. And I don’t think the Exalted would hate me for it.”
“Aww shit,” Fisk moaned, covering his face with both hands. “Shit, shit, shit. Why? Why did you have to say that for, Len?”
“Listen,” Frank interceded. “We can pretend we didn’t hear that. Nothing’s changed here, Fisk.”
“I follow my commands. I follow doctrine. To the letter. It’s not up to me.”
Troughton started to cry, more out of panic than anything. He turned away and walked towards the corner of the room, hands again linked over the back of his head.
“I have to report this,” Fisk continued. “I’m so sorry, Len.”
“You will do no such thing,” I said, walking away from the sitting corpses and advancing on Fisk. “If you do, I will make you pay for it, and I will say that you are lying.”
“No!” Troughton snapped. “Don’t you dare. I’m standing by this.”
“Don’t be foolish,” Frank said. “If you do that, you’ll die.”
“If I’m accused, I won’t deny it. I can’t.”
“Look,” Fisk said, “maybe you’re just cracking under pressure or something.”
Troughton closed his eyes and took three or four ragged breaths, then muttered, “fuck it,” and ran for the window.
I don’t believe he intended to do what Gibbs had done,
It had gotten to him, weighed him down. He had been so eager to impress, but it was easier to decide that none of it was real. The look in his eyes just before the room turned red.
Gibbs had been a man full of shame, wearing a veneer of pride, and Troughton was the opposite. I’m convinced he had planned to climb out the window, down the tree, and go AWOL. He never got that far. As he ran past the mouldering seats, his uniform snagged on something and he stumbled. It took a moment to see that it was the masked body’s hand that had snagged him, reaching up to clamp decaying fingers around the seam.
The dead man rose to his full, imposing height, creating a tearing sound as fluids and decaying tissues that had seeped into the upholstery and then dried pulled away from their cushioned grave.
Fisk was first to react, letting off two rounds into the thing’s chest before Frank and I had our pistols unholstered. It didn’t react.
Its height combined with its emaciated build made it look impossibly gaunt. It grinned at our impassive masks, then its grin split apart, revealing lethal fangs. Troughton was struggling with all his strength and anger, but the Fallen had him by the shoulders. He couldn’t move his arms, so he kicked and head-butted and writhed to free himself, bucked like a bull. I raced forward, firing at the creature as I moved, but again
“Thomas . . .” I had run out of words. I braced myself to lunge for the weapon and drag him out of the room.
He sniffed and brought himself up to his full height, trying to hold back the tears. “It doesn’t matter, Andreas.” He shrugged resignedly, spluttering as he did so. “It isn’t real. Maybe nothing’s real.”
He put the gun to his temple.
it was too late. The Fallen wrapped his fingers into Troughton’s hair, dug his fingers into one shoulder, and pulled, exposing his neck.
Fisk, of all people, charged past me and tackled Troughton and the Fallen to the ground, bellowing as he went. Troughton scrambled out from underneath them and clawed his way up the side of the chair until he was standing.
Fisk being underneath gave us clear shots at the thing’s back, but the silver bullets didn’t seem to harm it. It juddered in Fisk’s grasp, flickered, limbs flashing out in blurs to impossible lengths and angles. Within seconds, it had freed itself, gotten to its feet and clasped Fisk around the neck. Then, the mouth of its wooden demon mask opening wide like real jaws, it lunged and bit.
Fisk screamed with rage, tried to beat the Fallen’s head in with his bare fists. Blood spurted out of his neck where the Fallen’s mouth was clamped on. Frank and I raced forward and, with Troughton’s help, tried to pull Fisk free. Fisk started to spasm, then fell still. The Fallen threw him at the window. The remaining glass shattered and fell to the floor with Fisk’s corpse, and the Fallen advanced on the rest of us.
I gave the signal for everyone to withdraw swiftly while keeping the Fallen in sight, but as fast as we moved there was no way to outpace it—it’s speed was as preternatural as everything else about that place. It lurched forward like a puppet with tangled strings, took three or four high-speed steps, then stopped for a split second, then raced forward again.
Frank yelled, “Get clear!” and I threw myself at Troughton, sending us both to the floor. Frank was about to use his weapon of choice.
He reached round to his back holster and drew the emitter for the flamethrower.
Silver was tried and tested against Fallen. The silver bullets should have worked. But I would dismiss all this as a dream if the flamethrower failed to dispatch it. Fire killed everything.
The flame thrower roared to life, engulfing the Fallen in orange and yellow petals. It shrieked.
Under any other circumstances, I would never have allowed Frank to use a flamethrower in a place like this, made almost entirely of wood, but given the immediate threat it was a risk worth taking. I counted on the pervasive damp to prevent the fire from catching.
The Fallen seemed to shrink and crumple as it wheeled back past the seats. It continued to edge back, up the wall, shrieking and flailing its blazing arms.
“Come on,” I yelled. “It’s done for, let’s get out of this room and find whatever we were sent here for.”
We sprinted from the room, up the still dark corridor, the Fallen’s last gurgled screams dwindling behind us.
We ran around a corner and kept going, and quickly reached the end of the corridor without discovering any more rooms. It was difficult to understand what the corridor existed for, since it led to nothing except a dead end.
“There’s nothing here, Turcotte,” Frank growled. “We have spent our comrades’ lives cheap
ly.”
Troughton was examining the walls, by touch. “The big guy is right. There’s no way through. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t think what’s happening is quite real.” I said. “I think our fears are being brought to life. Gibbs was scared of losing his notion of what was real, and of losing respect, same as Moriah was scared of being a hindrance and losing his dignity, and Fisk was scared of Fallen, that they would infiltrate our country with the refugees.” I was thinking it through. Somewhere in the pattern was a solution.
“This is real,” Frank insisted. “The Exalted tells me so. Our brothers’ deaths were real.”
“No. Think about it. Why did those charms disappear? Why do we keep seeing that same face? How did the mouth of that mask open like that? The Fallen made a noise as it got out of its chair, it had to tear itself free because it had started to seep into its seat. But how could it have been sat there decomposing at the same time as roaming the house?”
I turned back to face the way we had come, and shushed the others. Something, or someone, was shuffling towards us.
“It surely can’t still be alive,” Troughton said. “I heard it . . .”
“We all did,” I confirmed, “but it shouldn’t have survived those silver bullets either.”
“This is the Ruiner’s work,” Frank rumbled.
The shuffling was getting closer, picking up speed. I pulled my mask back on to use the night vision, and twiddled the dial on the left eyepiece to zoom. The person approaching was far shorter and bulkier than the Fallen had been, and was stumbling along, dragging one foot.
“It’s Fisk,” said Frank. “He’s alive!”
“Not quite.”
Fisk’s neck wound was no longer spurting but was still obscenely large. His lips were distorted by an overbite he hadn’t had before. His eyes had a peculiar gleam behind them.
“He’s Fallen,” I said.
“Aw, World no,” Troughton groaned.
Frank hissed through clenched teeth. “If your theory is true, then whose fear is this?”
“This is still Fisk’s,” Troughton said. “Nothing scared him worse than becoming Fallen.”