Pandaemonium (46 page)

‘Now, before I let you out of this bird, assure me one more time that we’re all straight with this.’

‘I’m straight with it,’ Blake replies.

‘Good. Now get busy forgetting: that’s the best way to help your friends and to help yourself, not to mention your church.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll be keeping this strictly to myself.’

He pulls off his dog collar, which is, frankly, beginning to chafe.

‘I swear to God.’

The Cardinal came through the portal only a few minutes behind, tumbling to the rocky ground amidst a sudden light-storm before an awed and fearful gathering. The flashes and noise accompanying Adnan’s own entrance must have been what drew the creatures, alerting them that something dramatic was afoot, but he had exited stage left and taken cover before any of them showed up. Thus the initial disturbance had served merely as a harbinger of this subsequent advent.

Tullian lay stunned on the ground at first, taking a moment to gather himself as he recovered from what had preceded his arrival, not to mention the rigours of the journey itself. Then he stood up, prompting gasps as his great robes swirled about him. Despite the rips and frays and smears of blood, they must have looked luxuriant beyond the imaginings of these observers in their crude and muddied rags.

Tullian stared for a few seconds, wild-eyed, at the assembly before him, then turned back towards the portal, which chose this unfortunately coincidental moment to close, prompting another round of terrified amazement.

Then their leader approached him, a huge demon in a headdress just like Adnan had seen depicted in claw marks, blood and shit on the walls of that cell: the tribal chief or holy man. Tullian reached out and zapped him with the pike, sending him flying backwards through the air with a flash of blue sparkling light that outshone the sum of their flaming torches.

Within seconds, they were prostrate in worship. Every last one.

Four of them brought up a litter, the chair suspended on poles that the chief had arrived aboard, and very soon, Tullian was being carted off, shoulder-high, like fucking Threepio in
Return
.

Major lossage. The stupid fuckers think he’s a god.

That’s how this shit starts.