Always Forever (22 page)

A wave of revulsion swept through her. London was swarming. It looked
like an enormous jarful of spiders had been emptied out on to the buildings and
streets. The Fomorii scurried everywhere, at times as though millions upon millions of long-legged insects were racing chaotically over everything, then as if
one beast lay across the capital, flowing like oil. Many or one, it didn't matter;
London was subsumed. And at the heart of it, an abiding darkness pulsated:
Balor, replete in its lair, growing stronger after the strain of rebirth, sucking in
energy ready to consume the planet. Beating like a giant heart. Thump-thump.
Thump-thump. She couldn't truly see it, had no real idea of its form, but it was
there on a spiritual level, tendrils creeping out from the cold sore. She gagged,
despite the fact her corporeal body was a world away.

What made her flesh creep the most was the way that vibrating black mass
was pushing out from the centre, reaching into the suburbs, moving out across
the country. Nothing could have stood in its path.

"All those people," she gasped. The realisation of what must have happened
made her head spin: an atrocity on a grand scale; perhaps millions dead, and
more to come.

"We have to get back," she said to the owl. "We can't afford to waste any
more time."

But as she turned to depart, brutal reverberations crashed inside her skull
and her body doubled up with pain. Looking back she saw, rising up above the
skyscrapers of the City, an area of infinite darkness, blacker even than deepest
space, cold and sucking. It was impossible to tell if it was truly happening in
the real world or if it was a metaphor imprinted on a higher level of consciousness, but it filled her with utmost dread. It was alive, and it had an intelligence
so vile her mind screamed at even the slightest brush with it.

Balor. The name tolled like a funereal bell deep in her head.

And it rose up and up, bigger than the city, bigger than all existence. How can we beat something like that? she thought with the bitter sting of despair. And
still it rose, and washing off it came waves of malignancy. And then, as it had in
the dream that was not a dream in Mousehole, an eye opened in that black
cloud, an eye that was not an eye, though she characterised it as such. And it
focused its attention on her and she thought she was about to go mad with fear.

It could see her there, hidden in the clouds, miles away. It could see her anywhere. But worse than that, it recognised her.

The shock dislocated her thoughts; it was already in motion before she registered it was coming for her.

A wide flailing disrupted the air currents next to her. Her familiar was
thrashing and screaming, an owl, a ball of feathers, then the owl man, and then
something infinitely worse, moving rapidly backwards and forwards across the
spectrum of its appearance in a terrible panic.

In terror, she attempted to flee, only to realise she couldn't move. The evil
had her in some invisible grip, holding her steady like a fish on a line. Until it
reached her.

Her consciousness finally burst from whatever spell it was under, and suddenly she was thinking at lightning speed. "Help me!" she yelled, but the owl
was already moving away from her, every wing beat a flurry of desperation.

She tried to flee once more, but it was as if her limbs, or her mind, was
pinned; no amount of effort could move her. Behind her, the monstrous gravity
of the thing grew more powerful.

"Come back!" she screamed. "You were supposed to help me!" The familiar
was lost in the glare of the sun.

A freezing shadow had fallen across her, reaching through her physical body
to the depths of her soul. It was creeping up her spine, deadening the chakras as
it passed, crawling towards her brain. Incomprehensible whispers began to lick
at her mind. In that contact she sensed the sickening presence of Balor, and she
knew it was the reason why fear had been implanted in the human consciousness. The Celts had given it a name to try to contain it, but it could not be contained; it was bigger than everything.

Her vision started to close in, until there was only a tunnel of light towards
the sun. A strain was being placed on the invisible cord that connected her with
her body. One snap and she would be lost to the endless void forever. And then,
slowly but relentlessly, the thing started to drag her back.

Just as she thought the darkness was about to engulf her completely, she
caught sight of faint movement in that tunnel of light. Nothing. It was nothing.
She slipped back further.

She was startled from her panic by the owl erupting from nowhere close to her face. Its bristling feathers obscured the whole of that tunnel of light, and for
a second she was sure she had gone blind. But then it moved back slightly,
changing shape back and forth as it had done at the height of its desperation.
She could still feel its fear, but now behind it was determination and obligation.

The air pressure increased, iron filled her mouth and a weight built behind
her eyes until she was convinced they were going to be driven from her head.
Slowly, she started to move forward.

She felt like she was trying to push a truck up a hill; every agonising inch
she moved was a triumph. Yet although the grip of the darkness didn't relinquish in the slightest, gradually her strength increased and she began to make
slight progress. It was nowhere near fast enough, though; the tension zinged
through her arteries.

With determination, she drove herself on until she reached a point where
her speed began to build. Finally it felt like she had crossed some invisible barrier, and with a burst of relief she was soaring out over the golden-tinged clouds.
The coldness left her head, skidding down her back to her thighs. Later she wondered if she had imagined it, but she thought she heard a howl of fury that was
at once the movement of tectonic plates, the boom of cold water shifting in the
depths of the Marianas Trench.

And faster still; hope soared in her heart at the same time as tears of fear
stung her eyes. She would never be so stupid again. If she got back. A pain in her
solar plexus told her time was running out. She had been away from her body
for too long, and the flimsy spiritual bond was close to being broken.

The shadowy cold was still on her legs. Stupidly, she glanced back and
thought her heart would stop. The entire sky was black, boiling like storm
clouds, but not natural-sentient-and pursuing her with venom.

Fire filled her belly. Focusing all her attention on the flight, she propelled
herself forward with a speed that made Dorset flash by in the blink of an eye.

Still the darkness didn't give up. She knew it would never give up now it had
recognised her. She put the thought out of her head. Faster, faster, thinking of
Church, giving meaning to her struggle; if not for her, for him.

Soon they were over the choppy sea and the owl was ahead of her, already
turning itself inside out. The sky and sea swapped place, turned blood red. And then
they were soaring over Wave Sweeper and the darkness was nowhere to be seen.

She plummeted towards the ship as the connecting strand grew thinner by
the second. It was just the width of a hair when she finally slid into her body,
exhausted. Amongst the receding terror, one thing stayed with her: at the last,
she had looked into her familiar's eyes. What she saw was a definite impression
that she was now in its debt.

She recovered in her cabin for an hour or more, listening to the soothing wash
of the waves beyond the open window. She couldn't believe how stupid she had
been to venture so close, but until then she had not truly grasped the enormity
of what they faced.

Once she had calmed herself, she made her way back to the deck, though
she kept her shaking hands hidden from view. Taranis was at the rail, scanning
the horizon. She handed him his telescope with a sly smile.

"How curious." He turned it over in his hands. "It is so very warm."

"Hmm," Ruth replied. "I wonder why that is?"

Church had spent the time on deck, watching the crew go about their puzzling
tasks. Few of the passengers ventured up from the depths in their attempt to
keep a distance from the grim Tuatha lle Danann, so that the ship had the
dismal, empty appearance of a seaside resort in off season. The atmosphere was
so intense he had felt it politic to stay away from the gods himself, nestling in
a heap of oily tarpaulins and thick ropes where he could watch without drawing
attention to himself.

He had never seen the Tuatha lle Danann so strained. Irritation gripped
them because they had not managed to track down the Walpurgis, a failure that
only added to their pain at Cormorel's death. Their aloof nature had always made
them appear dangerous in a haphazard, detached way; now they were a constant
threat, ready to take out their fury on anyone who crossed their path.

If the gods could not find the Walpurgis with all the heightened abilities at
their disposal, there was little chance Church would be able to locate the creature he had increasingly convinced himself was not the murderer. Yet he felt a
growing imperative to do so, for he was sure the Walpurgis had information of
vital importance.

His thoughts were disrupted by a cry from one of the crew perched in the
crow's nest. Everyone on deck stopped moving. Church couldn't tell if it was
because of hope, or apprehension-or fear.

Across the pea-green sea he could just make out a purple and brown smudge
on the horizon. Here it is, he thought, suddenly concerned himself. The Islands of
the Dead.

he waters were unnaturally calm as Wave Sweeper sailed in, leaving barely
a ripple in its passing. Insects skimmed the surface of the ocean in the heavy
heat, buzzing noisily. An unpleasant smell of stagnancy hung over everything,
but it was the stillness that unnerved everyone the most. There was a feeling of
death in the air.

As Wave Sweeper closed on the land, Church was surprised to see it was not
one single mass, but an archipelago, the strangest one he had ever seen.
Numerous small islands protruded from the sea like fingers pointing at the sky,
rising precipitously to dizzying summits, many looking like they could barely
support their own weight. They were gnarled with rocky outcroppings and
fledged with twisted trees and tenacious bushes. Stone buildings perched on the
top of the island towers, occasionally obscured by drifting plumes of cloud.
However, on the loftiest, most twisted, most precarious island stood a grand
castle of bronze and glass, the walls afire in the dazzling sunlight. Its enormous
bulk atop the slim column was in direct opposition to any natural laws on Earth.
But this was Otherworld.

Manannan's order to drop anchor drew the crew out of their trance. Church
noticed Ruth had appeared beside Taranis, who was observing the peaks of the
island through his telescope, his face as hard as the stone of the cliffs.

"What's wrong?" Church slipped in quietly beside them.

Taranis looked at him as if an insect had chirped in his ear. "There has been
no greeting," he said distractedly, returning his attention to his telescope.

Church eyed Ruth, her face uncommonly tired and drawn, but she shrugged
noncommittally. "Who were you expecting to greet you?" Church pressed.

Taranis sighed. "In the Fixed Lands she was known as Hellawes. She foolishly grew too close to Fragile Creatures during her travels and became afflicted
with the weariness of existence. She retired here, to her island home, though
whether she truly recovered, none know. Still, she provided a welcome for travellers. It was the Master's wish to dine at her table."

Church followed the angle of the telescope to the castle that appeared to be floating on the clouds that drifted beneath it. "Maybe she doesn't know we're
here."

Taranis snorted; it was obvious he was not going to give them any more of
his time. Ruth caught Church's arm and led him away, eager to tell him what
she knew of home.