Ruins (40 page)

Nale gave them both a glowering stare, then blinked at the window.

“Go,” he said.

“You first,” Nicholas said to Dawn. She swallowed nervously and gripped the window frame, easing her way out.

“Nicholas!”

Liberty lurched through the door. She slammed it shut behind her and pressed her back against it. “Take this,” she urged desperately, thrusting a rucksack at him. Nicholas took it.

“What’s in it?” he asked.

“Just don’t lose it.”

“What about the others? Isabel and Rae?”

“I’ll find them,” Liberty assured him. “We’ll spring Sam and head for the school. You three get to that museum. Go!”

Nicholas didn’t stop to think. He shrugged into the backpack and crossed the room as Liberty disappeared back onto the landing. Nale had picked Zeus up and was climbing through the window. Nicholas went after him.

Memories of the aledite attack burst in his mind and he grit his teeth, forcing himself not to think about the bone-crunching pain as he struck the tiles that evening.

It was difficult to stand on the slanting roof, so he crouched low and scuttled over it, pressing his broken arm to his chest protectively.

Molten lava roiled in the night sky. It bubbled and slithered, a hot soup that clung to the firmament usually studded with starlight. Nicholas wiped his forehead, already sweating. How were they supposed to get down? He hoped Dawn knew a way.

Ahead, she hopped onto the neighbour’s roof and disappeared over the edge. Nale did the same with Zeus. Ignoring the twinge in his arm, Nicholas scrambled clumsily onto the neighbour’s roof and peered over the edge. Another roof rested just below, nearer to the ground. Dawn beckoned to him.

“I hate roofs,” Nicholas muttered, throwing a leg over the edge and jumping down. Nale helped him into the back garden. Nicholas had never felt more relieved to have his feet on the ground.

“Where now?” Dawn asked.

“The museum.”

“This way.” She led them to the gate at the end of the garden. It opened into the alley.

“This heat,” Nicholas griped, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. He paused, hearing screaming and shouting. “What’s going on?”

They hurried to the end of the alley, emerging into Churchgate Street.

Nicholas couldn’t believe his eyes. Houses were ablaze and the street was teeming with people. Shop windows had been shattered. Cars were on fire, their alarms shrieking. And people were fighting. Bare-knuckled. Seizing broken objects from the ground. Raising them.

Blood splattered the tarmac.

What could have done this?

Then Nicholas saw him.

The Tortor. The faceless abomination glided serenely through the bedlam, sidestepping each of the crazed townspeople. Nicholas spotted a tear-stained boy standing in the fragments of a window. He couldn’t be any older than five. Helplessly, he watched the Tortor tap the boy on the shoulder.

The crying ceased. The boy’s face darkened. He dropped his toy bear and disappeared back through the broken window. Within seconds, yet more screaming started.

Nale began to move in the Tortor’s direction, but Nicholas grabbed his arm.

“No,” he said. “We don’t know what that thing’s capable of.” The boy in the window had changed after a mere touch. Who knew what the monster could do if it got its hands around a person’s neck.

Battling with his conscience, Nale hung back, the dog whining at his side. Nale patted Zeus on the head.

The Tortor vanished down a side street.

A shrill cry echoed down the street and a woman wielding a hammer appeared. She charged at a man in a business suit, burying the weapon in his skull. It made a sickening crack and hot red spurted against the ground. The woman bared her teeth and bayed. Her eyes found Nicholas’s and he saw only madness dancing in them.

“The museum,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Hurry!”

Before the woman could make her move, they ducked into another street.

The whole town had gone mad. Barely an hour had passed since he’d found Rae in the oblituss, and already Bury St Edmunds was in chaos. No wonder the priests had incarcerated the Tortor so fastidiously.

“This is insane,” he said, dodging out of the way as a snarling man threw himself at him. The man hit the tarmac, growled and staggered to his feet, only to be tackled by a woman in curlers and a dressing gown. She slipped a shard of glass between the man’s ribs and he howled, gurgling up blood.

Zeus barked but refrained from entering the fray.

“He’s trying to destroy everything, isn’t he?” Nicholas said as they hurried on.

“Distraction,” Nale offered gruffly.

“Laurent’s keeping us from getting in his way,” Dawn murmured.

His plan’s working so far
. How could they hope to stop Laurent when the townspeople had all lost their minds? The town itself was being gutted, turned into a smoking shell. Come sunrise, there would be nothing left.

“It’s more than that,” Dawn said. “Fire’s associated with destruction
and
creation. Fires can be used for purification.”

“So this isn’t just for show?” Nicholas asked.

“I think Laurent’s purifying the town. He’s creating a nest for the Dark Prophets. An untainted site for their re-entrance into the world.”

Nicholas saw the market square ahead. It was bathed in fire and smoke choked the air. He felt it worming its way into his skin.

“He’s lost it,” he coughed.

“He doesn’t think like a man anymore,” Dawn muttered. “Because he isn’t one.”

“What else did you find out about him?”

Fear shone in Dawn’s eyes and she shook her head.

“What?” Nicholas pressed. “If it’s important–”

“His power, it’s all... acquired,” Dawn said, not meeting his gaze. “He was powerless before, so he stole the power of others.”

“What do you mean?”

“He used blood... Demon blood. Mixed it with his own. Now he has some of them in him.”

Nicholas stared at her, horrified. He hadn’t known anything like that was even possible. So Laurent was more than just a man, now; he’d corrupted his body in the pursuit of power. If he was capable of that, Laurent was even more dangerous than Nicholas ever imagined.

The market square was a bonfire. Flames roared in shop windows and bodies littered the pavement. The only building as yet untouched by the carnage was the museum. Its windows flickered with the reflected flames, observing the chaos like a patient old man, perhaps knowing it was only a matter of time until it, too, was set ablaze.

Nicholas nervously eyed the people prowling outside the museum. Twenty of them. Possibly more. It was impossible to tell if they were Harvesters or townspeople driven mad by the Tortor. They blocked the museum completely and Nicholas knew that they would put up a fight if he tried to get past them.

It wasn’t a thought that seemed to bother Nale. He strode determinedly into the throng, towering above the sea of heads and knocking people out of the way. He wasn’t using full force, Nicholas noticed. For the time being, he mostly shoved people, landing a blow if it was absolutely necessary.

He was clearing a path to the museum for them.

“What if he–” Dawn began, but Nicholas didn’t want to hear it.

“Come on,” he said, hurrying to the museum’s door. It was locked. Undeterred, Nicholas seized a brick from the ground and hurled it at the nearest window. He shrugged at Dawn. “It’s not like anybody’ll know it was us,” he said, clearing the shards of glass away using his cast. He heaved himself up onto the window ledge and winced as pain shot spikily through his broken arm. Crying out, he tumbled headfirst into the museum.

“Smooth,” Dawn said softly, squeezing through the window and dropping down beside him. She hauled him to his feet and Nicholas shot her a grateful look.

“If he’s here, he probably heard that,” he whispered, drawing the Drujblade.

“You, er... ever used that on anybody?” Dawn asked, eyeing it.

Nicholas nodded. Dawn didn’t seem comforted.

The low lobby was bathed in the fiery glow pouring in through the windows. Other than the sound of people clashing in the square outside, the museum was quiet. Nicholas tried to reach out, feel his way through the building with his mind, but it was as if it was wrapped in invisible netting. Some sort of enchantment stopped him.

“What do you think?” Dawn whispered.

“I think if we were in a horror movie we’d be dead by now.”

“Do we wait for Nale?”

“He’s a bit preoccupied at the moment.”

Though he knew it would be madness to go any further into the museum, Nicholas also knew they had to. If Laurent wasn’t here, perhaps there was some clue that would lead them to his whereabouts. He shuddered, his arm throbbing in the cast, reminding him of the first time he’d gone up against Laurent alone.

Shoving the thought aside, Nicholas stole through the lobby. It was disarmingly peaceful. He tried to flex his thoughts through the building again, sense if there was anybody else here, but he came up against that same impossible webbing.

The ground floor was deserted. They mounted the spiral staircase at the back of the museum and entered the room with the gibbet, the man-sized cage that Nicholas had seen earlier in the week.

In the dark, the glass cases looked sinister, as if their contents were being held against their will.

Something was out of place. As Nicholas surveyed the room, he was drawn to a mannequin in the corner. A woman in a dress, her gaze brooding on the window.

As Nicholas watched, panic rising in his throat, he saw the mannequin let out a breath. Porcelain skin shimmered. Red lips ruptured into a smile.

“Nicholas,” Malika cooed. “You’ve come at last.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Pandemonium

N
ICHOLAS COULDN’T MOVE AND HE HATED
himself. In the corner of the room, Malika was swaddled in shadows, but the sight of her still made his stomach spasm. His heart raced. She was the reason he couldn’t sense anything in the museum. She’d cast a dark net over the building, protecting it from the Tortor, and it had sucked the air from every room.

“You look different,” Malika observed, as if they were old friends. “You’ve matured. And you’ve brought a companion.”

“You ran off last time,” Nicholas managed to mutter. “I had to find somebody else to hang out with.”

Malika laughed and Nicholas shuddered. He noticed a collection of ancient spears just out of reach. If he could grab one of them, he might have a chance against Malika. He’d have to get by her first, though.

“I like this, Nicholas,” she purred. “It’s a shame how events transpired before, but now here we are again. I feel we should embrace.”

Nicholas pointed the Drujblade at her. She raised an eyebrow.

“You’re shy, that’s understandable.”

“Dawn, go,” Nicholas said. “Get Nale.”

“Girl, if you move, you’ll never use your legs again.” The threat whipped from the corner and Nicholas didn’t doubt Malika could carry it out without so much as breaking a sweat.

“So, Nale’s here, too,” she mused. “I do enjoy an old-fashioned reunion.”

“Where’s Laurent?” Nicholas asked. “You’re his dogsbody now, right?”

He could tell he’d struck a nerve. Her shoulders tensed and the amusement died on her lips.

“Careful with those assumptions, manchild,” Malika spat. Nicholas felt there was more she wanted to say, but she restrained herself. “This was delightful, it really was,” she sighed eventually. “But you’ve caught me at an awkward moment. I’m afraid I have other plans to attend to.”

She uttered a peculiar-sounding word and Nicholas felt the atmosphere in the room shift. The netting withdrew like a gasped breath; the enchantment protecting the museum evaporated into the ether. It was only a matter of time before the building succumbed to the ravaging fires that crackled around it.

“Whatever you’re doing, stop,” he warned.

He barely saw her move.

Malika threw something at the ceiling. A flash of light blinded him and she was upon them. Any thoughts of seizing one of the spears was forgotten. With one hand, Malika snatched at Nicholas’s broken arm and wrenched it upwards.

Pink stars exploded in front of his eyes. The pain was so intense that Nicholas forgot where he was. Who he was. His bones were jelly and he was only vaguely aware of Dawn hurling herself at Malika. There came the
thwack
of contact and Dawn tumbled backwards into the stairwell. Through the hot blanket of pain, he heard an awful thumping as she crashed all the way to the ground floor. Then silence.

“Children,” Malika hissed in his ear. She twisted his arm again. Fresh stars erupted and his vision swam. He screamed bloody murder.

“Children shouldn’t meddle in adult affairs,” Malika whispered. She pulled his broken arm, dragging him across the floor. Battling to stay conscious, Nicholas heard creaking metal and then found himself shoved up against something hard. A vibrating clang shook him and Malika’s grip released him.