Kardinal (34 page)

LAWTON ran up the slope, then into the corridor. He stopped for a second to get his bearings, checking out the fresco. Then he was off again, pulling the Spear of Abraham apart as he ran, taking both ends in either hand as swords once more.

He bolted through an opening, and the smell of blood hit him.

He stopped dead.

It was an altar-room. The walls were decked in images of women wearing white. They were faded but he could make them out. And they all looked like Ereshkigal.

Up ahead, the altar stood bloody.

His heart pounded, and his skin crawled.

“Aaliyah,” he said. “Aaliyah, are you here?”

Something loomed from the shadows behind the altar. Something large and lethal. It took shape as it moved out of the darkness and into the light, and Lawton saw it. He saw the leathery skin, the powerful limbs, the sharp teeth, the vicious talons, and he saw the wounds on the creature’s scalp.

Lawton glanced at his swords, which he’d carried with him for years.

Now they’d come home.

Nimrod stepped over the altar.

It said something, a word that sounded like a growl at first:

“Avram… ”

Lawton held his ground. He steeled himself for a battle with this monster. He was tense all over, his hands sweating on the swords, his skin tingl
ing. The voices still sang in his skull, and the pain was such that he had now embraced it – he did not think he could survive without it, without the adrenaline it released in his body.

“Aaliyah, where are you?” he said again. “Where is she, you fucker?”

Nimrod said something again, and once more it sounded more like a growl. He pointed at the bone swords in Lawton’s hands.

“
I brought them home,” said Lawton. “You want them?”

He remembered Goga’s words:

Make Nimrod one with himself again.

The only way to kill him.

He knew what that meant now. It had come to him. It made sense. He would make the monster whole again. And if these tusks could kill every other vampire, why wouldn’t they kill the father of vampires?

The god approached.

Lawton slowly kneeled.

He rested one sword on the ground and scooped up a handful of dust.

Nimrod growled.

Lawton lunged, tossing the dust into the creature’s face. The monster reeled. Lawton grabbed the sword. Armed with both, he launched himself at the Great Hunter. The beast saw him coming and swatted him away.

Lawton went spinning. The world wheeled. He fell hard, hitting his head against the stone floor. He saw stars.

The ground shook. He wondered why. Then he realized and he got his bearings.

Nimrod was running towards him.

Lawton scrabbled to his feet, dizzy, unsteady.

The god loomed. His shadow fell across Lawton. Jake slashed wildly with his swords. Ivory sliced flesh. Blood sprayed. Nimrod howled.

Lawton stumbled backwards, and came to a halt against the wall. He pulled himself together, fixed on his opponent.

Nimrod snarled. Blood dripped from a wound in the Great Hunter’s hand.

Is that all I did to him?
thought Lawton.

“What have you done with Aaliyah?” he said.

He felt rage and pain. In his heart, he knew she was dead – or something worse.

But if she were, he would not leave her in this underworld.

You leave no one behind.

You take everyone home, dead or alive.

He cried out in fury as suddenly a world without Aaliyah became apparent.

He leapt at Nimrod.

The Great Hunter swatted again, but this time he missed, and his wayward attempt left his chest open for attack.

Lawton drove the bone-sword into the creature’s breast.

The huge pectoral muscle sliced open.

Meat showed pink. Blood ran red. Bone gleamed white.

The god screamed.

Lawton rolled away.

He’s killable
, he thought.
He’s flesh and bone. He bleeds. And these weapons can hurt him.

Immortality wasn’t final, he realized.

Death could get at anyone under the right circumstances.

The god trembled.

Lawton attacked.

But Nimrod was faking. He swung round to face Lawton and grabbed him around the waist, lifting him above his head.

Lawton looked down and saw the wounds on the creature’s scalp where the horns had been ripped out.

They festered and crawled with insects.

Lawton hacked at Nimrod’s arm, cutting into the flesh.

The monster let him go, and he fell to the ground.

He was up straight away, ignoring the pain, ignoring the dizziness. He leapt up on the altar. Blood was thick on the stone. He looked behind him, steadying himself – and there she was. She lay in a pool of blood. Her clothes were torn. He shouted her name and leapt down behind the altar.

“Aaliyah! No!”

Her eyes opened.

He cried with joy and cradled her, but she groaned in pain.

Blood came from her mouth, and from a terrible wound on her throat, and there was also blood between her legs – lots of it.

Her eyes glittered.

“Why did you leave me?” she whispered.

“No,” screamed Lawton, “No, I never left you, I never – ”

“Don’t let me be like them,” she said.

“No, Aaliyah, don’t make me – ”

Before he could finish, he felt himself being picked up by the leg, the world turning upside down, Aaliyah going further and further away.

Nimrod started to swing him round violently.

Lawton could hardly take a breath.

Aaliyah’s face was branded into his mind. The pain it caused him made all his other agonies pale into insignificance. Her face represented
all his failings –as a soldier, as a man, as a human.

Nimrod slammed him to the ground, and for a second he couldn’t breathe.

He thought he’d let himself be killed, be fed on, because if Aaliyah was going to be undead…

Don’t let me be like them

… then he would be too.

He would not be the half-thing he’d become. He would be vampire. He would be what he hated most. But for Aaliyah, he would do anything.

London – 10.23pm (GMT), 20 May, 2011

“TOO many vampires,” said Mei. Her small force wasn’t strong enough to take on the undead and the Neb militia. They were retreating – Mei, David, and Murray, along with some of her troops.

They had fled up Wembley Hill Road. The streets were laden with panic-stricken people, confused Neb militia men, and hungry vampires.

The group found refuge in a church, St Augustine’s, a red brick building at the end of Wembley Hill Road.

At the far end of the room that they’d entered, Jesus hung on his cross over the altar. David looked at the Christ. He looked at him for hope, for salvation. Maybe now, at the end, there would be some kind of holy intervention.

But none came.

They armed themselves with plastic chairs and waited for the vampires.

“Mum, are you OK?” he said.

His mother hugged him. “I’m so proud of you.”

“I love you,” he said.

“Hey, don’t cry – we’re not dead yet.”

She smiled at him, but there were tears in her eyes too.

She knew they were as good as dead. He could tell.

The doors buckled. The vampires, assisted by militia men with military vehicles, were breaking into the church.

“We die here,” said Mei. “Good place to die, with Jesus.”

She slashed the air with her swords.

Mei was so brave. David looked at her in awe. She had always fought against the odds, ever since he’d known her.

“We lose here, but we win in the end,” she said.

Outside, a voice on a loudspeaker boomed:

“We are regaining control of the streets. The insurgents are being rounded up. Good people of Britain, please return to your homes. There is an immediate curfew… ”

“That’s Howard Vince,” said David’s mum. “He didn’t waste any time grabbing power.”

Vince’s bellowing voice continued:

“
Point us to the traitors, the foreign gangsters, the Lawtonite rebels. Offer them no sanctuary, or punishment will be brutal. We must have law and order. I will execute anyone who breaks the law. The law is your friend. The traitors are the enemies of the law.”

The church doors shattered.

The vampires swarmed inside.

David told his companions to retreat towards the altar, and he stood in the vampires’ way, brandishing the tiny piece of cloth he’d torn from George Fuad’s wrist. He felt naked with it against dozens of the undead. But they baulked, hissing at him.

“Get out and leave us alone,” he said.

A few of the vampires laughed at him. They skirted the walls, keeping well away from David.

“No,” he cried out, “no, leave them – ”

But the vampires were closing in on David’s mum, Mei, and the others as they huddled under Jesus on his cross.

Hillah – 10.25pm (GMT + 3 hours), 20/21 May, 2011

NIMROD swung Lawton round. The room whirled. Lawton felt sick. He wanted to puke. And just as he was about to, the monster let him go. He clattered into the altar, banging the back of his skull.

Nimrod charged.

Lawton lunged.

He drove one of his swords into the wound on the Great Hunter’s leg, and then forward-rolled out of the way.

The god bellowed.

Lawton tried to get up, but his legs buckled. He was so weak now. But he had to keep going. He had to get to Aaliyah. He gritted his teeth and dug deep.

He hobbled towards the altar, but Nimrod cut him off.

The monster roared, plumes of smoke coming from his nostrils. His eyes burned with rage. He slashed and hacked at Lawton, forcing Jake to duck and dive and back away from where he knew Aaliyah was dying.

I have to get to her
, he thought.
I can’t let her down again
.

He faced Nimrod and thrust with his swords. He sliced into the monster’s flesh. The creature seemed unconcerned by most of the blows. But now and again, Lawton’s weapons sank deep into the Great Hunter’s limbs, and his cries told Jake that the beast was hurting.

And if you could hurt something, you could kill it.

Lawton grew in confidence. His constant thrusts forced Nimrod back. The creature snarled, bearing its vicious teeth.

Lawton thought he saw movement from behind the altar.

Aaliyah
.

He glanced out of the corner of his eye. Nothing there. Shadows, that was all. And blood –

The blow struck him in the belly. He sailed across the altar-room. As he hung in the air, he saw Nimrod bound after him. The tiles shattered under the monster’s powerful feet. Shards of clay spattered across the floor.

Lawton hit the ground.

Nimrod was on him.

Lawton rolled just in time to avoid the monster’s foot as it stamped down hard on the tiles.

Lawton rolled again as once more Nimrod tried to crush him.

He rolled a third time as Nimrod again tried to stamp on him.

Lawton came to a halt against the altar. The monster towered over him, Lawton strewn between the creature’s legs.

The god reached down.

Lawton rammed one of his swords into the Great Hunter’s crotch.

Blood sprayed out of the creature’s groin, and he shrieked.

The god writhed.

Lawton rolled away and clambered up on the altar.

“Aaliyah,” he said, reaching for her.

But she was gone.

A trail of blood led into the darkness beyond the altar.

“Aaliyah!”

Fury laced his blood. He turned in time to see an equally enraged Nimrod striding towards him. Blood ran down the creature’s inner thighs. Ribbons of skin flapped where his scrotum had been. But the injury wasn’t hindering the Great Hunter. He barrelled towards the altar.

Lawton launched himself.

He sailed towards Nimrod. He landed on the monster’s shoulders. He scissored his legs around the creature’s neck.

Nimrod clawed at him, ripping his flesh.

But Lawton ignored the pain.

He was the one with wounds.

He had to embrace agony. He had to invite it.

Nimrod whirled around, trying to dislodge Lawton. But Jake wasn’t going anywhere. He looked down into the wounds on the Great Hunter’s scalp. They were putrid. Gaping holes of rotting flesh. Torn skin and dried blood.

Lawton raised one of the swords, and rammed it down into the first wound.

Nimrod shrieked.

He wheeled violently.

Lawton held on with his legs.

The god wailed.

The cry of pain shattered the walls.

Lawton raised the second sword.

He roared, unleashing years of rage and frustration, unleashing the anguish of losing friends and lovers, unleashing the pain of a shattered future.