Timekeepers: Number 2 in Series (12 page)

Sam ran for his bag, found the surgical spirit, pulled it out. He splashed it across the floor in front of the door, sending up a vile stench, soaking the wood. Surgical spirit, while not as useful as petrol and whisky for sheer explosive force, was a brilliant catalyst of coldfire, as he’d discovered when he’d tried to use it along with a coldfire sterilisation spell on a particularly nasty blister. It might not burn as well as real fire, but it was a terrific way of causing heavy damage that little could prevent, short of a major magical effort.

Sam heard footsteps on the stairs, even as the little spider curled away from the vibrations of all those feet. He kept pouring, watching the clear liquid spill out under the door and into the corridor beyond. There was a squelching sound, and a voice asked, ‘What’s that smell?’

‘Surgical spirit,’ said Tinkerbell’s voice. Then, louder, meant for Sam’s ears, ‘That’s very impressive, but it doesn’t make things easier for anyone.’

‘Tell me, Tinkerbell, are you possibly standing in the stuff?’ Long silence, that Sam took to be a yes. ‘Only it goes up brilliantly when you apply a coldfire spark to it.’

More silence. Then, ‘Why are you doing this, Sebastian? I thought you were on our side.’

‘I am. But it seems you want to turn me over to the enemy, so I’ve kinda rethought my position.’

A silence even longer than before. Sam let it last, counting under his breath. The guys outside were very, very uncomfortable if they couldn’t think of anything to say for over fifteen agonising seconds. ‘What makes you think we’re doing that?’ asked Tinkerbell finally.

‘Well, let me see. Could it be the fact that a guy bearing a remarkable resemblance to Jehovah in voice, mind and abominable fashion sense has just attempted to leave this house?’

‘So you blew the tyre, huh?’

‘You can tell, can’t you?’ asked Sam, slinging his bag over his shoulder and edging up to the window. He placed one hand over the locking mechanism, pushing his mind into it. It was warded.

‘Look, this isn’t what it seems —’

‘Nah. It’s just a litre of coldfire catalyst, a man who’s working towards the release of Cronus even as we speak and who has sworn my destruction several times chatting nicely with Gail, and a rather disappointed Bearer of Light: nothing is ever as it seems, is it?’

The locking mechanism was the only thing warded, however, which Sam thought ruined the point. This was the trouble with magicians. They often thought of what they’d do if locked in a bedroom in the middle of nowhere, but rarely considered the alternative methods of escape. He picked up the holy cross hanging above the bed, wrapped the corner of the duvet cover around his hand and swung the cross against the glass. The window exploded outwards.

‘Sebastian? What are you doing?’

‘I don’t fancy dying this young, that’s all,’ he replied gaily. Having bashed out the rest of the glass, Sam manoeuvred himself until he was sitting in the empty frame, legs dangling out of the window, just as the door opened. A demon stood there, and looked at him.

Sam beamed, waved, and threw a fat blue spark into the pool of surgical spirit at the demon’s feet. As the spark touched, and ignited in bright blue flames, he swung himself around and caught a drainpipe, swinging his weight on to it. The pipe creaked pitifully, but held. He began to lower himself hand over hand, bag bouncing against his back, bare feet wrapped like a monkey’s around the cold metal, keeping his elbows into his sides and trying not to look down.

After what felt like an eternity his feet touched ground. He could see light, an unnatural blue tinged with white, flickering out from his window, casting its glow across the ground. He ran.

Behind him a door opened. Sam half turned to see a demon raising a crossbow. He grabbed a Coke bottle and threw it, breaking the ignition ward as it went. There was a dull explosion behind him; not loud, but with the reassuring sound of jagged metal flying everywhere, not to mention boiling hot Coke.
If only the manufacturers knew
,
he thought, running past the empty red sports car with no real sense of direction. He felt terribly exposed, fearing the pain at any moment of something hitting him in the back, then the regenerative trance pulling him down. Or worse, no trance at all. Just death, sitting there with a big grin and maybe worse dress sense than Jehovah.

He tried to focus. A Portal, that’s what he needed to find. A nice Hell Portal somewhere, a place to run, now that he knew for sure that the Ashen’ia were under no man’s control except his enemy’s…

There was a road beside the field, cut off from the rest of the world by high hedges. He turned into it, the tarmac hard and unyielding on his bare feet after the grass, his soles aching in protest.

Ran round a shallow corner. Slowed, stopped. There he was. Leaning calmly on his staff, almost like an old man. His brown beard was neatly trimmed, his steady eyes shone with that intensity that had always annoyed Sam. Even when young, Jehovah had had a gleam of old age in his eyes. Sam imagined him standing every night in front of a mirror trying to out-stare himself. The bastard was even wearing his crown of thorns, which it was said cut everyone except him. Just as Sam’s crown, when put on by anyone else, would drive the wearer mad.

Sam refused to let himself be unnerved. Of all his siblings, Jehovah had been the most open in his dislike. It was something to do, Sam guessed, with the discovery that Sam, one of his dedicated servants, was a Waywalker in his own right. But to discover that the Waywalker was not only a bastard son but the Bearer of Light too – that had been almost more than Jehovah could take.

He had loathed Sam ever since, with more or less show of politeness. He was being polite now. Much in the style of an iceberg facing down an ocean liner.

Sam pulled out a Coke can and held it ready in his right hand, with little optimism. Jehovah smiled faintly, and shook his head. Again, playing the father figure. At that, Sam felt a spark of anger stir inside him, grabbed at it. Anger was what he needed at that moment; anger gave strength, even if it did reduce your capacity for defence. He knew he was fairly defenceless anyway. Attack was the key.

‘It’s not what it seems, you know,’ said Jehovah.

‘T
ruly it’s not what it seems.’

‘That’s nice,’ Sam told Jehovah.

‘Now you know who I am, you must understand that you’re double the threat.’

‘No. Enlighten me, as Buddha would say.’

‘Because,’ said Jehovah, lightly swinging his staff back and forth, ‘if Seth and Odin discover that I’ve betrayed them for the Ashen’ia, they’ll kill me. And the Ashen’ia will lose their inside man. I can understand you trying to run. You know that I was originally one of those who freed the Pandora spirits, and the situation between us,’ – a faint smile – ‘is hardly fraternal. You’re scared. I understand this.’

Sam inwardly counted the seconds while his mind raced. ‘You’re sure you’re not a treble agent? Betraying everyone except yourself?’

Jehovah shrugged. ‘There is more to everything than meets the eye.’

‘Surprise me. One of the Big Three traitors turns out to be playing a double game. For how long?’

‘Not as long as you think. At first I was genuinely determined to get power through the Pandora spirits. Since then my attitude has changed somewhat.’

‘You killed Freya?’

‘No.’

Sam gave a little laugh of disdain. ‘Sure. You freed Suspicion?’

‘That I admit.’

‘Why’d you do it?’

‘As I said. Power in Heaven. I wanted to be King.’

‘And you don’t any more?’

‘No. I see that it is impossible.’

‘So you’ve had a miraculous change of attitude?’

‘You could say that. But I also realised that in order to stop Seth it might be useful to have a power base within his army. So I went on playing his game.’

‘And quietly sold out to the Ashen’ia. How admirable.’

‘You’d rather have me as foe than friend?’

‘Actually, yes. It’d make it more satisfying when chopping you up in bits and serving you to Thor as cat food. And if you have things so obviously under control, you hardly need me, do you?’

‘You’re the Bearer of Light.’

‘Actually, I’m not. It’s all been an elaborate hoax. I’ve been on a secret mission for thousands of years from Time himself to cover up for the real Bearer of Light, help keep his identity a secret.’

Jehovah sighed and gave Sam a mournful look, as if disappointed in him.

Sam shrugged. ‘Okay, so maybe not. But I had you worried for a second, right?’

‘The odds we fight against are still huge. Seth is served by Odin, and by Thor who himself has —’

‘I know, sold his soul to Cronus; we met and talked about it.’

Jehovah’s face, never animated, seemed to twitch. He never liked to be interrupted, Sam remembered, and inwardly vowed to butt in as much as possible.

‘There’s still a chance that Seth will free Cronus. In which eventuality, we need you alive.’

‘So I can die destroying Cronus,’ said Sam bitterly.

‘Essentially, yes. Or you could live, by a miracle. You are the miracle-maker, after all.’

‘You’re just seeking to use me. Little light, little fire, that’s what they call me. Little Lucifer, the poor bastard Son of Time who never had the guts to use his full power for fear of all those minds inside his mind, all those voices. You’ll send me against Cronus and let me die.

‘And at the end of the battle you’ll stand up, with no enemies left to challenge you. You’ll walk the fields of the living and say, “Look, for I have defeated these evil people, the bastard Son of Time who closed the Way of Eden for ever, the evil Sons of War and the Son of Night; and Cronus himself is dead at my hands. Worship me, peoples of the worlds; if you don’t, I’ll destroy you.” And it’ll take a miracle to stop you, won’t it?’

‘But you can’t make miracles when you’re dead,’ said Jehovah with a faint smile that seemed almost to touch on pity.

‘No,’ Sam agreed, looking small and rather sad, a figure with torn clothes, no shoes, a battered old bag and a Coke can as a weapon. ‘I can’t, can I? And you, like Gail, are lying.’

Jehovah raised his eyebrows. ‘How so?’

That was possibly the most annoying thing about Jehovah. You could tell him he had a face like a mouldy turnip that had been through the digestive system of an elephant, and he wouldn’t even blink. Sam resisted the urge to hit him.

‘If you had no ulterior motive in preventing Seth from freeing Cronus, you would have come directly to me. Instead, how did it feel,
brother
, watching our sisters and brothers cower in terror of you when you marched into Heaven with the Pandora spirits at your command? I imagine you liked that, went round telling everyone it was for their own good, no doubt. As for those who disagreed with you, who tried to stop you, you sighed and patted their heads and said, “Don’t worry, a dungeon will cure your heresy.” You must have been having a ball, dear
brother
.’

‘Whereas you have enjoyed a peaceful regime of getting shot, stabbed, chased and captured, not necessarily at different times!’ snapped Jehovah.

Sam was surprised. Pleased, but mainly surprised. His brother had actually shown anger. He lowered his voice. ‘Why hasn’t Father stopped you? Naughty boy is playing a little game of his own. And the only reason he hasn’t been fried is because Time likes Jehovah doing his footwork for him, and disposing not only of the Ashen’ia, but of Seth too.’

‘I don’t do Time’s dirty work, you do,’ said Jehovah, voice controlled again, but that angry gleam still in his eyes. ‘You were the necessary child. You were the one created to die.’

‘And you ask why I fight?’ demanded Sam with a disbelieving snort. ‘I’ve known for thousands of years that I was created with a purpose. I understand that my own father had me born in order to die for him! But that doesn’t mean I’m going to accept it! I’ll stop Seth without you!’ Sam’s free fist was opening and closing at his side as he flung the words at Jehovah. ‘I’ll do it without you, without the Ashen’ia. Cronus will remain imprisoned, and the Ashen’ia will never catch me. And you’ll remain what you always were – a messiah with a press-ganged congregation.’

Jehovah didn’t say a thing: he didn’t lunge at Sam screaming, he didn’t spit defiance. He simply swung the staff, a sweeping gesture that bathed the road and much of the hedges around in fire. Sam covered his head with his hands, seeing it coming and wincing at the brightness of the flames as they struck his shielding and poured off like running water. The fire died and Sam raised his head.

Jehovah’s staff caught him squarely in the belly. He flopped forwards, breath wheezing in his throat, tears in his eyes. Standing over him where he lay curled up on the ground, Jehovah seized the back of Sam’s shirt and hissed, ‘Up. Get up!’ Sam struggled to his feet and half turned, ramming the Coke can into Jehovah’s belly.

Jehovah grinned in surprise, snatching the can from Sam and pushing him back. ‘This?’ he asked, looking scornfully at the can. ‘This is your great weapon?’

Sam staggered back from Jehovah, waiting for the world to steady. ‘Watch,’ he croaked, triggering the ward.

The can exploded in Jehovah’s grasp. Sam heard his brother’s scream, and looked down to see him kneeling on the ground, clutching one bloody hand. Jehovah looked up with murder in his eyes. ‘Bloody idiot…’ he hissed. But which of them he meant, Sam wasn’t sure.

Sam grabbed his bag and fled, bare feet slapping on the tarmac road as he ran and ran and ran, breath hissing through clenched teeth. There was no sound of pursuit. In the distance he could hear church bells, and sensed from roughly the same direction the pull of a Hell Portal. He kept on running. Hedges fell away; there were open fields, the occasional coppice of trees. The air was fresh and cold, the clouds low. Was he on high ground? There were hills all around, and on the horizon a high range of rock faces that had to be mountains.

A village ahead. He slowed, looking it over. A church with a bulbous spire, a post office, a few run-down East German cars. One or two cats in the street, a chained dog behind an iron fence with an electronic buzz box. Small, neat houses with well-tended flowers, no doubt maintained by people who took a deep pride in their neighbourhood. It was almost a fairytale village, but for an old woman with a limp and thin white hair who swore at him as he passed. He did look like a beggar, he realised. His stomach rumbled; he felt like one too.

There was a small bakery, just opening. A young woman was helping load up a tiny delivery van, more of a box on a motorbike. She stopped as he approached, and where the old woman had sworn she gave him a look almost of pity. He summoned the illusion of two euros and asked for bread. She not only gave him bread, she took him into the bakery and gave him a glass of water.

So it was then, sitting in the window of the bakery on an empty wooden box, tearing into a loaf of bread paid for with illusionary money and gulping water from an ancient glass turned almost white with use, he heard it.

You don’t trust anyone, do you, little light, little fire? We come, we are the powers you people created, you mortal minds, we come now to wreak our revenge, grow strong hy making you hear nothing but our voices, feed on the harm you do each other, we come, and you cannot hide
…
 

Music, filled with words, the chanting of a Pandora spirit.
You don’t trust anyone, do you?
Suspicion was coming, sent by Jehovah. Suspicion was going to hunt Sam down and there was nothing Sam could do to stop it.

Except discharge the Light.
 

We come, little one, we come to reclaim the minds of men, you cannot hide
…
 

My mind is Many minds. I am what you cannot target, I am Many minds with all their contradictions. You cannot target too much at once. So leave.
 

The song filled his ears, the Pandora spirit danced through the air around him, laughing.
You cannot fight the power of Suspicion.

I can. I am more than you are, for you are just one timeless entity. I am Many. I am the Bearer of Light.
 

And what is the Bearer of Light? A weakling fool with voices in his head?
 

It’s what the voices say that’s important. I am the intention and the act, the light and the dark. I am Many things, you are but one, a part of me. Just another concept created by life. Life is in me, you are in me, but I am greater than you are because I am more than just one concept Incarnate. I have seen the minds of the world, and in a small way they are all part of me, as I am a small part of them. You cannot touch me.
 

No? Perhaps not. But – even more potent – we can touch others.
 

Silence. In vain Sam got to his feet and searched around desperately for the voice of Suspicion. But the song was still there, filling his ears.

Then he heard a different voice, slightly indignant. ‘Did you pay for that?’

‘What?’ He looked at the woman from the bakery, slightly irritated to be broken out of his own darker, more pressing thoughts.

‘Did you pay?’

‘Yes. I gave you two euros.’

‘Where are they?’

‘I gave them to you.’
Admittedly, I dropped the illusion immediately after.

‘I can’t find them.’

‘Look, I’ll give you more…’

‘Who are you, anyway? How did you end up this way?’ asked the woman, suddenly not interested in his money. The boy who drove the motorbike-van was pressing his nose against the window, curious.

Sam suddenly felt very cold and knew exactly what Suspicion had done. He said, ‘Look, I’ve really got to go,’ and backed to the door.

The woman followed. ‘Just who are you? Claus, stop him!’ This to the boy. The boy didn’t stop him though, but danced round Sam as he went down the street yelling, ‘Thief, thief, thief!’

Doors opened as Sam toiled briskly up the small hill towards the church, feet and face burning alike. Other faces peered out as the woman and boy circled around and around him, shouting, ‘Stop the thief, stop him!’

More people entered the street, even some wearing dressing gowns and slippers, and began following them. More cries took up the chant. ‘Thief, thief, thief, thief!’

And then the inevitable. A policeman headed towards them, stopped in front of Sam and held up his hand. Sam stopped too, and the crowd with him. The policeman didn’t say a word, but slowly looked Sam up and down. Then, very quietly, he whispered, ‘Thief.’

The crowd took it up, whispering quietly the same over and over again. ‘Thief, thief, thief, thief…’

Sam looked round at the faces. Narrowed eyes, clenched fingers, flushed faces, sweaty despite the cold. He looked back at the policeman and ran. He reached the end of the street with the entire crowd behind him, screaming their chant. ‘Thief, thief, thief…!’

He turned. More people. People ahead, another mini-mob. People behind, closing in, chanting the same thing over and over again. Thief, thief, thief, thief.

Wildly he raised his hands, ready to summon magic. Women, men, grannies, grandfathers, grandchildren, everyone in the village seemed to have turned out. Hands grabbed him, hit him, spun him round and round.

‘I didn’t do anything!’ he yelled as hands scratched at his arms and face. He tried to push his way through the throng; immediately more arms grabbed him, and held him in place no matter how hard he struggled. The voices roared in his ears, the song of Suspicion filled his head.
All those minds
…
you’re too much of a coward, that’s your weakness
…