Always Forever (68 page)

"Badgers?"

"You know what I mean. Anything."

He coughed into his scarf as a swirl of smoke engulfed them. "We would
need a Ryan or a Church to offer any true resistance to a direct assault by the
Fomorii. Or even a Ruth, if what I hear of her advancing abilities is true. This
is not the best situation for us."

"Speak for yourself. I've learnt a few new tricks myself since I became the
Chlorophyll Kid."

"Oh?" He eyed her curiously. "What can you do?"

"Mind your biz. And hope I don't have to show you." She tied her scarf
tighter so she resembled a Bedouin riding into a sandstorm.

The lack of resistance was unnerving even the Tuatha De Dannan now. They
were moving more cautiously, watching the surrounding cityscape for any sign
of movement, Goibhniu's bizarre weapons levelled for a quick strike.

Baccharus rode up next to them once more. "The Night Walkers are an
underhand race. We fear an attack from the side or rear, rather than an honourable face-to-face confrontation."

"An ambush makes sense," Laura mused. "Veitch made a smart suggestion
for the two land teams to use the motorways to get right into the city quickly,
but it does make us sitting targets."

"The Golden Ones," Baccharus said self-deprecatingly, "are too proud to hide."

Ahead of them the Hammersmith Flyover rose up as the houses and shops
fell away on either side. As they passed over it, Laura could see the edges of the
roundabout under the bridge way below, and the rooftop of the Hammersmith
Odeon. "At least we're above the snipers now."

"Not for long," Shavi noted. "The road drops down quickly towards Earls
Court."

"Thanks for wrecking my one tension-free moment of the day." Movement away
to her right caught her eye. "Look at all those birds. What are they? You know, I
haven't seen any pigeons yet. Do you think they've all moved out to the country?"

Shavi watched the flock swirling around one particular rooftop. "Crows," he
said, and the moment the word had left his lips, he knew. Anxiously, he turned
to the Tuatha De Danann. "Beware-!

His warning was cut off by a deafening explosion. The ground beneath their
feet rolled like water, then dropped suddenly. Shavi was still watching the birds
fly into a tight formation that made the shape of a man when he realised he was
falling.

Laura was yelling and fighting with her horse, which was frantically attempting to gain purchase on the crumbling road surface. They were all engulfed in
noise: the panicked whinnying of the horses, the yells of the gods, the crack and
rumble of the shattering flyover, the booming bursts of more supports getting
blown out, a roaring cacophony that threatened to burst their eardrums.

They were lucky all the supports didn't go at once. Instead of dropping in
one block, the bridge concertinaed, twisting one way, then the other, so those
who were on that section slid back and forth as they moved towards the ground.
Shavi and Laura were best placed. On the area where they had skidded it only
fell sharply for the final ten feet, but that was enough to fling them both from
their horses as they were showered in rubble.

Shavi blacked out briefly, and when he came to there was a large chunk of
concrete crushing down on him. With an effort he managed to drag it off, but
he could feel the blood soaking through his clothes; nothing appeared to be
broken, though. He staggered to his feet, calling Laura's name. The air was so
choked in dust and smoke, it was impossible to see more than a few feet, but
what he could discern was bad enough. Many of the Tuatha lle Danann had been
torn apart or crushed by the falling sections of bridge. Horses lay dead or dying
all around. A few of the gods staggered to their feet in one piece, and a similar
number of the horses had survived.

The smoke and dust cleared enough to reveal the rest of the army in a
chaotic melee on the remaining part of the flyover, desperately urging their
mounts to move back along the motorway towards the slip road to ground level.
It was exactly as Laura had foreseen: there were too many of them fighting for
too little space. They were easy targets.

A sound like wind rushing through a derelict house filled the air. Mollecht
was on the edge of the building, the crows that made up his body flying in everfaster formation. The crows increased their speed until they were just a blur, and
then a hole opened up in their centre. The sound of rushing wind became almost
deafening. There was a flash as a fine, red spray erupted out of Mollecht's body,
sweeping across the gulf to the Tuatha lle Danann struggling to get off the bridge.

As it fell across them, the reaction was instantaneous. Black, mottling
patches sprang up across any exposed skin. Foam burst from their mouths and
their eyes rolled as they clawed at their throats. Those nearest to the shattered
end of the bridge staggered backwards and plummeted to the ground, bursting open like sacks of jelly. Shavi had only an instant to reflect on what could have
had such an effect on near-invulnerable gods before the thick smoke rolled in
again to obscure the rising tide of panic on the flyover.

"Laura!" he yelled again, moving amongst the rubble.

"Here." Her voice was muffled. He found her struggling out from a thick
shelter of vegetable manner that had kept the worst of the masonry from
crushing her. "The wonders of green blood," she said by way of explanation.

He offered his hand to drag her out.

"Well, that didn't take long to go pear-shaped," she said bitterly.

"They were too arrogant. And we should have trusted our own judgment
more."

Some of the gods staggered in a daze out of the swirling smoke. A few
attempted to rein in the horses cantering around wildly. Laura watched Shavi's
face grow serene; a moment later all the horses had calmed.

Baccharus came stumbling over the broken tarmac and twisted girders.
"Move quickly," he yelled. He caught three horses and herded them towards Shavi
and Laura. The other Tuatha De Danann were already mounting their own steeds.

Shavi and Laura had barely taken the reins when a gust of wind cleared the
smoke and dust to reveal a sight that rooted them to the spot. All around, silent
and unmoving, were the Fomorii, their monstrous faces turned towards Shavi
and Laura. It was an eerie scene, as if they were robots waiting to come alive.
The pile of broken masonry on which they and the Tuatha De Danann stood was
a tiny island in a sea of black.

Shavi and Laura jumped on to their horses, casting around for a way out. A
breeze rippled across the immobile sable statues. They began to move.

The shrieks and howls that rang out were deafening, the sight of the
Fomorii sweeping forward in a tidal wave enough to drive all conscious thoughts
from their minds.

Baccharus threw Shavi a strange sword with twin blades and a jewel
embedded in the handle. "Press the jewel," the god yelled.

Shavi looked at the weapon in incomprehension.

"Press the jewel!"

The Fomorii were surging forward. One of the Tuatha De Danann tried to
fend them off with a sword, but sheer force of numbers dragged him from his
horse, and both he and the mount were swallowed up by the sickening tide.

Laura lashed out at Shavi's arm, shocking him alert. "Press the jewel, you
moron!"

Shavi thumbed the gem. He felt a subtle sucking sensation deep in the heart
of him as a blue spark began to crackle between the twin blades. The Fomorii appeared to recognise what was happening, and obviously feared it, for their forward motion halted and the shrieks died away with a ripple of apprehension.
The Blue Fire burned a little higher up the blade.

Then, Shavi understood. He closed his eyes and focused his concentration on
his heart, his spirit. The effect was remarkable. He jolted as an electric surge rushed
through him, and when he opened his eyes, the Blue Fire was burning brighter
than he had ever seen it. It tore up the remainder of the blades in an instant.

He thought he heard a whisper of terror rush through the Fomorii, and then
the sapphire energy exploded from the sword like a summer lightning storm.
The force almost knocked him from the horse; for a moment the whole world
was blue. He heard Laura's exclamation of wonder, and when next he looked
there was a massive blast zone around them where lay the charred remains of
many Fomorii. Beyond it, the other Fomorii were backing away frantically.

Shavi felt so exhausted he could no longer sit upright. He slumped against
the horse's neck as the sword slipped from his grasp. Laura caught it. "I think
we'll save this for later, don't you?" She slipped it into an empty scabbard fixed
on Shavi's saddle.

Baccharus was at their side, his skin so pale there was barely a hint of gold in
it. "Come, we must not tarry here. The Night Walkers will not hold back for long.
Although they fear like beasts of the field, their individual existence is meaningless. They will give themselves up happily for the will of the collective."

A pitched battle was raging along what remained of the flyover and the
stretch of the M4 they could still see. The Fomorii were clambering over the
edges of the motorway, getting torn apart by the array of Tuatha De Danann
weapons, then coming back for more. And on the rooftops Mollecht was
unleashing more of his plague-blasts.

"We won't be getting any help from them," Laura said. She looked round
and pointed to a path that had been cut through the Fomorii.

They had no idea where they were going, knew there was little hope for such a
small band riding ever deeper into enemy territory, but there was no chance of
them going back. Even so, they refused to countenance failure, and thoughts of
their deaths never entered their minds.

The only route open to them was along Hammersmith Road. They soon left
behind the main mass of Fomorii, more concerned with defeating the Tuatha De
Danann army than with hunting a few stragglers. Yet there were still random
bursts of movement in the buildings on either side.

Baccharus was accompanied by nine other gods. They all looked stunned, as
if they'd taken a detour into a world they never dreamed existed. Baccharus, however, had best overcome the blow and was now leading the group; they
obeyed him blindly, glad that someone else was taking the responsibility.

The road led on to Kensington High Street. It was snarled with discarded
cars, trucks and a burnt-out bus, forcing them to ride on the pavement. Names
from another age reached out to them: Smith's, Boots, Barker's department store.

The smoke was thicker towards the eastern end of the high street. Kensington
Palace was still burning, its roof collapsed, the walls blackened and broken. The
huge security gates that had closed off the road leading to the palace had been torn
down and lay mangled and barely recognisable in the street.

"I wonder what happened to the Royal Family," Shavi mused as they passed.

"Those sort of people always have a bolt-hole. The Great and the Good." The
contempt in Laura's voice was heavy. "The secret service probably spirited them off
to a cushy estate in Scotland long before all this came to a head. And I bet they
never told any of the little people that Armageddon was coming to their doorsteps."

Ahead of them the green expanse of Kensington Gardens stretched out
towards Hyde Park, silent and eerie in the drifting smoke. Baccharus reined in
his horse uneasily and scanned the stark trees towards the Serpentine. "Some of
my people used to come here on summer evenings," he said. "They would steal
children and take them back to the Far Lands. Some would stay, some would be
returned."

Shavi closed his eyes, letting himself read the atmosphere. "It is a liminal
zone," he said. "Green space in an open city. The boundary between here and
T'ir n'a n'Og is fluid."

"I tripped here once," Laura said. "It was summer. Everything was yellow
and green. Me and a friend dropped a tab up near Temple Lodge, then went out
on a boat on the lake. Just drifting along. It was ... peaceful." The memory
jarred with the landscape that now lay before her. She shivered. "I don't think
we should go in there."

Behind them the sound of pitched battle grew more intense. Someone was
screaming, high-pitched and reedy, so despairing they all wanted to cover their
ears. Another explosion sent a booming blast of pressure over them.

Shavi noticed shapes moving in the doorways across the street. Fomorii were
emerging slowly. They looked wary, as if they knew of the sword even though
they had had no contact with the other group.

Laura fought back another wave of nausea when she looked at them. "God,
this place is disgusting! It's infested." She turned to Shavi. "Are you up to using
that super-cool sword again?"

He shook his head. "It is powered by the spirit. It will take a while to bring
my energy levels back up."

Baccharus pointed along Kensington Road towards Knightsbridge. "The
Night Walkers are attempting to cut us off. Moving across the road ahead,
coming up behind us."

"Then we go across the park," Shavi said. "Perhaps lose them in the smoke.
We cannot afford to move so slowly."

They spurred their horses and headed into the disquieting open space of
Kensington Gardens.

The smoke was even thicker there, blowing in from the palace, and from another
large fire burning somewhere nearby. They kept their scarves tied tightly across
their mouths, but it was still choking them; their eyes reared so much it was
often hard to see the way ahead.

It was Shavi who first recognised they were no longer alone. His ears were
attuned to the shifting moods of nature and he felt the pressure drop rapidly. It
was followed by rapid footsteps padding in the grass all around, moving back
and forth. Although the smoke was too dense to see what was there, he had the
unmistakable feeling that it was hunting.