That image finally innervated him, and he set his hands, bound behind his back, to searching the floor around him. Reaching with a desperate frenzy, his probing fingertips brushed chunks of plaster aside in their search. He rolled as quietly as he could to give himself greater reach, his rage making him numb to the digging agony of the twine biting his wrists. Frustration brewed as he failed to find what he had seen in the rubble earlier. Surely Huntley didn't have the presence of mind to have moved the damn thing?
Suddenly his fingers were resting on wood, and the heat made him snatch his hand back. The last creature he knew to have touched the charred symbol was Ambrose. Whatever hope he'd had that the breaking of the crucifix would render it inert was gone. Maybe that would work to his benefit, and there was a faster way to get free than hacking away with the sharp end.
Rocking backwards to get a better grip, he seized the snapped base of the cross, tilting it backwards so the upper struts rested between his wrists. White heat poured into his flesh, and he held his breath to cage the scream he wanted to give. Unable to stay focussed on the door, he closed his eyes, knowing he would be able to hold on for only seconds more.
Calum didn't feel the twine burn away, but suddenly his wrists were free. To his shock, even as he pulled his arms round to his front, he couldn't release his grip on the cross, which glowed with a faint red light utterly disproportionate to its heat. He dragged his hand across the floor to dislodge it, watching carpet fibres smoulder. The light dimmed as the wood lost contact with his cursed flesh.
Calum released the breath he had been holding, looking at his blistered, weeping hand with dismay, unable to twitch even one of those fingers. A clatter from the bedroom reminded him that he didn't have the luxury of time. With his right hand, only lightly burned at the wrist from the twine, he plucked at the knot binding his feet. Poorly tied in the first place, it fell apart after only a couple of tugs.
Calum climbed to his feet, reeling with triumph. Holding his bad arm in front of him, keeping his hand away from his body, he crept to the ornate cabinet, taking a large marble ashtray in his right hand, and craned his head round the edge of the door.
Huntley was resting on his haunches, staring at the now empty chest, the contents scattered across the carpet beside him. Though he had his back to the door, he wore confusion in the tension at his shoulder, the tilt of his head. Perhaps he was wondering why an angel would have a drawer stuffed with satanic tools and props.
Calum cracked the ashtray down on the back of Huntley's head just as the man twitched with awareness of his presence. The impact hurt all the way up to his shoulder, but it was worth it to see Clive's dead weight drop to the carpet. Calum didn't care if the man really was dead. Later, he might have his regrets, but staring at the body at his feet, watching blood ooze through hair and drip down the neck, there was nothing in him but a savage joy.
Looking up, imagining the evening sky beyond the ceiling, the clouds drifting by, the stars beyond them, he took a deep breath, and gave vent to his feelings. “See that, you smug, arrogant bastard? I did that. I did that on my fucking own! I don’t need you!”
Ambrose's box was in Clive's pocket, and he yanked it out, knowing that whatever happened, he would never again be a part of Christ's flock. If they would have him, he would join Ambrose and Pandora in whatever exile they were undertaking, and deal with his afterlife when he reached it. It wasn't just Clive Huntley he had escaped. It wasn't just twine that had shackled him.
Calum hurried into the flat next door, sure that the woman he had heard earlier would be dead. Seeing her lying on the couch, blood pooled on the leather and soaking into the cream carpet, he knew he was right, and felt his stomach clench around his victory, snaring and weakening it.
When her eyes snapped open, crystal blue against the smeared blood surrounding them, his shriek of fright drowned out her own desperate hitch of breath.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
By the time Gemmell and Summer got back to the station it was late afternoon, and the situation on the street was worsening. Driving from the West End to the city centre had taken hours of careful working against the crowds. Even when they reached the station itself the chaos continued. A crowd of hundreds blocked access to the street, frightened people wanting reassurance, or protection, or any of a hundred minor requests fulfilled. Fortunately, the rear of the station was largely deserted, and it was with real relief that they drove down the ramp to the underground car park and heard the automatic gates rattle shut behind them.
The ops room was a debacle, as harried officers tried to field constant telephone queries they couldn't hope to satisfy. Gemmell suspected that the men and women doing so, stressed though they appeared, were secretly glad to be where they were, instead of trying to deal with the chaos outside. Glancing at Summer, seeing her wonder how they were going to accomplish anything at all, Gemmell sighed and strode forward, clapping his hands.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention?” Some stopped what they were doing, others scarcely noticed he had arrived. Gemmell took a breath. “Boys and girls, your attention please! It is not a bloody request McCliesh, put that bloody phone down right now! Everybody! Phones down and leave them off the bloody hook!”
A panicked clatter filled the room as a dozen handsets hit desks, and then there was shocked silence. “Thank you.” Gemmell stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I'm not going to ask for a situation update, because it's fairly fucking obvious that nothing's happening. Why are you answering the bloody phones? THAT WAS RHETORICAL, MCLIESH! DON'T YOU DARE TRY TO SUCK UP TO ME, YOU ARSEHOLE!”
Turning to the wall, rolling his eyes for effect, he managed to sneak a sly wink to a stunned looking Summer without anybody else in the room noticing. Sometimes, a reputation for foul temper was a useful tool.
Turning back to the room, he sucked in a breath. “Let me update you. Thousands of people are trying to call us to say the water's gone red and funny tasting. We know that. Stop answering their calls. If the Incident Room number weren't in the paper because of the Huntley escape, we wouldn't be getting any at all. From now on, the phones stay off the hook. Gives me peace to think, and thinking, boys and girls, is something I'd like you all to experiment with over the next few hours.”
Now that he had their attention, he relaxed a little, leaning against the back wall. The faces he was looking at were calmer than they had been, but more importantly, were focussed. Focus was going to help them get through this madness. “As of this moment, I'm putting all specific operations on hold, including the Huntley escape. If you see him in the street, haul the bastard in. That's as much as I want anybody here doing, unless somebody higher up than me tells you otherwise. I want this room empty. Everybody here, DS Summer aside, is hitting the streets. Congratulations. We're going to reintroduce your footwear to the pavements.”
Groans began from corners of the room. Gemmell's eyebrows shot up. “The alternative is staying here with me, and I'm not terribly good company right now. McLiesh and Simpson, you don't have a choice. I want you operating this room. Keep the landlines off the hook and distribute your mobile phone numbers to the team. Everybody else, out in twos. The first thing I want is some calm around the station. Make that happen, and liaise with uniform. If the street isn't an oasis of bloody tranquillity by the time I leave here, I'll be inviting every one of you to my office for a chat. Do I make myself clear?” There was ripple effect of frantic nodding. “Well? Why am I still looking at your faces? I should be seeing your arses trooping out the bloody door.”
As the room whirled into action, Gemmell withdrew to his office down the corridor, Summer in tow. As she closed the door behind them, she gave him a cautious smile. “Well done sir.”
“Whatever works. Now, while they're getting on with that, we have other things to be doing. Most importantly, you're going to head down to the cantina and grab four bottles of mineral water.”
“Health kick, sir?”
“To boil.
I need coffee.”
As the door closed behind her, Gemmell snatched up the telephone on his desk, his face anxious. When he tapped in a number and got an engaged tone, his heart sank, and he slammed the receiver back down.
It would have been so good to hear his voice.
That was a worry for later. He had to concentrate on the here and now.
Searching through the piles of paper around his desk, throwing files into corners at random, he found what he was looking for. His dictionary was the worse for wear after much crossword consultation through the years. Dropping into his swivel chair, a new one the requisitions officer had insisted he take despite his protestations, and which had a long way to go before it was as comfortable as the battered piece of junk he had been using, he searched for the entry for 'Numen'.
1. A presiding divinity or spirit of a place. 2. A spirit believed by animists to inhabit certain natural phenomena or objects. 3. Creative energy; genius.
That raised his eyebrow, and he flicked quickly to 'Eidolon'.
1. A phantom; apparition. 2. An ideal.
An interesting choice of pseudonyms. Obviously, the names were selected long ago, so they couldn't have known that the news of the day was going to be a natural phenomenon of biblical proportions...
Had the news said that the Clyde was the first river hit?
Gemmell shook his head. Impossible. There couldn't be a connection, the water turning to blood was an international phenomenon. It was a coincidence.
Bugger.
He didn't believe in those.
Coincidence.
Gemmell made himself believe it. Half of his staff were recycling superstitious gobbledygook, and he was damned if he would do the same.
Summer chose the right moment to come back in, and he sighed with relief when she filled the kettle with water from three bottles. Sparking up a cigarette, ignoring Summer's outraged stare, he fished out his makeshift ashtray from the desk drawer. When the station had become a smoke-free zone, and tin no-smoking signs had been tacked up in every room in the building, Gemmell had taken the one above his door off the wall and bent it up at the edges. Since then it had collected his ash, and accumulated a brown-yellow tarnish that made him wonder what his lungs would look like stretched out before him.
Summer poured the coffees and placed them on the desk. The other chair teetered with cardboard folders, and she looked around for somewhere to put them.
“Knock them on the floor,” Gemmell said, his eyes closed in bliss as the aroma of thick black coffee steamed up from the mug in his hands. “You'll enjoy it. It's therapeutic.” The thud of paper hitting the floor made him smile, and he opened his eyes to find her sitting, looking askance at the mess she had just made. “I order you not to pick anything up. Fight those urges, Summer.”
She smiled at him, and he tossed the dictionary at her. It thudded on the desk, scooting dust into the air. “Numen and Eidolon. Look them up.” She did, then quietly closed the book. “Odd, don't you think.”
“Definitely a strange coincidence.” Summer sounded as uncertain as he felt.
“Normally I'd tell you I don't believe in coincidence. Trite, I know, but true. Today though… well, there's a lot going on.”
“What do we do now?”
Gemmell frowned. “To be honest, I hadn't thought that far ahead. Start by running database checks on our missing persons. Let’s see if they turn up in the national computer. I'm guessing they're assumed names, but we'd better make certain.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I'm going to go back over Huntley's statement from the night Eidolon was attacked. There has to be a way back into this. The trail's cold, weeks old, and we're the unlucky bastards that have to try to pick it up again.” Gemmell stared at her. “What are you waiting for?”
With her steaming cup of coffee abandoned on the desk, Jackie Summer left the room at a disgruntled trot.
Malachi swung Melissa one-handed, hurling her at the Queen sized bed. Knees catching the edge of the mattress, she flipped face first into the duvet.
Ignoring her for the moment, he glanced around the room, establishing that it was empty. Being the Honeymoon Suite, there was space, open carpet between bed and desk, between dresser and wardrobe. The less clutter there was, the more chance he had of seeing the shadow-things as they formed.
What he would do then, with no weapon to defend himself, was open to speculation.
So he couldn't let them take form. To date, they only attempted to do so in his immediate vicinity. Once fully formed, they could move freely in and out of the light, though it caused them evident pain. Surveying the room more carefully, satisfied that Melissa was going to do nothing other than catch her breath for the next few moments, he thought he could make things work. The bed on which Melissa now hugged herself with exhausted arms was a four-poster, with soft curtains tied back, ready to close them in. That wouldn't do. Striding over, cold to the flinch in Melissa's tear-streaked eyes when he approached, he took a firm grip on the material and tore it down with a clatter.
Taking one of the larger pieces of liberated fabric by the edges, he swung it neatly over the desk and chair, watching as it ballooned out, casting a flapping shadow over the back wall for the briefest of seconds. Nothing materialised in that moment, and as the curtain dropped, it covered the angles of the television, kettle, and other universal facilities that might cast strange, distrustful shadows into the room. While Melissa watched, he yanked down the curtains from above the glass sliding doors leading out to their fifth floor balcony, and then flipped on both of the bedside lamps.
“There's...” Malachi looked across at Melissa, and she aborted her sentence, her meek eyes going to the duvet on which she sat. Malachi nodded, ignoring the small, shamed part of himself that despaired at his intimidation of this frightened girl.
Gathering the remaining curtains in his arms, he dropped them inside the open cupboard. Almost closing it, he changed his mind at the last moment and left it open. By closing it, he was inviting a menagerie of shadow-things to greet him when he next pulled back the door.
Satisfied that the main bedroom was well lit, he stalked to the bathroom door. Pressing his ear to the wood, he scowled when he heard the whispery shuffle of something trying hard to be quiet. The bathroom had no external window. It was pitch black inside.
Sliding a hand into the left pocket of his leather coat, Malachi felt the hardwood of Stacey's old crucifix. At the hospital they would not let her keep it for fear that she would use it to harm herself, and Malachi had carried it with him for a long time. Once, he had hoped to give it back to her, when she was well again.
That was never going to happen, and resignation did not dull his fury.
Pulling the crucifix out by the tarnished chain, he slipped it over the handle of the bathroom door, turning the flimsy wooden barrier between himself and the thing on the other side into something it would find far harder to breach.
That done, he turned back to Melissa, noticing as he did that the bathroom light switch was on the exterior wall.
Smiling without humour, he turned it on, and was rewarded by a furore of crashing and tearing within. Heavy things hit the wooden door, shaking it on its hinges, causing Malachi to draw back before relaxing. The door was going to hold. He turned the light off.
Melissa was still sitting on the bed, eyes fearful, and he held her gaze until she broke off, turning to look out of the window. She studied it as though the night would reveal some secret knowledge.
“You wanted to say something,” he said. “Say it now.”
“There's...” her voice faltered, and Malachi watched her try to rally. When she had asked him, in the park, not to kill her, he had remained silent for good reason. He wanted her to be scared, unsure whether he might be prepared to hurt her in search of the information he wanted. He didn't know yet what it would take to undo the hold she had on her tongue. Instinct told him she had already lied, and he didn't have time
to play long games with her.
What would Stacey think of him, if she saw him now? Malachi slammed the door on that line of thought. It's all for her, he told himself, with such command that he made himself believe it.
In movies, or on television, he would be bluffing. The sanitised view of the world available from screens both large and small didn't account for his hate, rage, or single-minded purpose. Malachi would do everything required to gain her knowledge. Killing Orloch's host body had changed him. Now there was no act beyond him in this hunt, much though he might wish that there were.
The fresh discovery that he was working against the clock increased his urgency to panic levels. If Melissa was right, and he had yet to accept that she was, then the end of the world was coming. Time was short.
Melissa raised her eyes, the jut of her chin stubborn. “I was going to tell you that there's a light switch by the window. I think it's for outside, on the balcony.
Malachi nodded, and walked to where she pointed. Flicking the switch caused a light above the sliding doors, on the outside, to flare into life.
Malachi turned back to her. When he realised in the park that evening was drawing close, and he was going to trap himself outside with a potential legion of shadow creatures, he had decided to abort his questioning and seek shelter. The timing had been good. With streets awash with the bemused and the terrified, it had taken a long time to find suitable accommodation.
Now, he could continue where he had left off.
He noticed that she had cut her hair, and wondered why. It had been beautiful.
He crushed the thought.
Walking to the bed, he pulled out his knife and sat down. The eight-inch blade transfixed Melissa utterly. She couldn't take her eyes off it. That was good. It would help her to assess her priorities.