The travellers had already piled into the back alongside Miller. Sophie
took the seat next to Mallory.
'Everybody in?' He flicked the windscreen wipers to clear several
months' worth of dust.
'Put your foot down, OK?' Sophie hadn't shown a glimmer of fear
throughout their ordeal, but Mallory could sense it just beneath the
surface.
'Can't you do a spell or something?' he said, thumping the gear stick
into first and lurching off.
'I told you, it doesn't work like that
. . .
not in the heat of things. I'll try
to do something as we go.' She closed her eyes, whispering a mantra as she
meditated.
In the side mirror, Mallory saw the thing bearing down on them. Now
the crimson skull appeared to be the only thing of substance, its body a
ragged black sheet billowing in the wind as it rushed on with alarming
speed. It wasn't far behind the truck now. Something about it made him
feel sick: its relentlessness, the sheer inhumanity of its attacks, the way he
couldn't be sure of its shape.
What
is
it?
he said to himself, desperately urging the truck to go faster.
He kept his foot to the floor as he rammed through the gears, but the
vehicle felt as if it was running through mud. It slowly began to build
speed, churning up the turf as it juddered and skidded.
In the mirror, the skull loomed up just to the left side of the rear
lights. Mallory could hear the screams from the back and a crashing
noise as someone lashed out with an object they'd obviously found in the
back.
Just as the truck began to hit thirty miles per hour, there was a sickening
scream followed by a tumult from the rear. Mallory could see the
reflection of the thing hunched over a flailing shape pinned to the ground,
ready to feed. It was the girl who had fainted.
'What's happening?' Sophie said anxiously.
Mallory set his jaw. 'We've got away from it.'
The rest of the journey passed in near silence as Sophie and the travellers
mourned their two friends and Mallory turned over the events of the night,
sickened that he hadn't been able to prevent the deaths. In one brief period
of conversation, Sophie had thanked him 'for being a good man', for his
bravery and compassion, and he felt like such a fraud he couldn't look her
in the face. She thought he was just exhibiting humility; another trait he
didn't have.
They reached Salisbury at four a.m. The city was deserted, the houses and
shops dark, not even a candle flame burning. Mallory expected someone
to poke their head out at the long-lost sound of a combustion engine, but
no one came to see.
Sophie pointed out the most unusual sight. There were barricades along
some of the streets, and several doors and windows had been fitted with
security covers. 'It looks as if everyone's boarding themselves in,' she said.
Apprehension tugged at Mallory's mind. What had been happening
while they had been gone?
He pulled over on Castle Street so that the travellers could make their
way to their camp without the guards on the cathedral walls seeing to
whom he'd been giving a lift; no point making unnecessary trouble for
himself. The remaining travellers came by one by one to thank him. He
felt uncomfortable at the undiluted strength of their gratitude, yet
touched, too, as he watched them troop sadly off in the direction of the
tent city.
Sophie hung around until they were out of sight, then said, 'You look a
picture.'
He leaned out to look in the side mirror. He was covered in blood and
mud, his hair matted, a growth of beard shadowing his face. 'At least all
the relevant bits are there.'
'I'm grateful for what you did for us, Mallory,' she said. 'You didn't
have to help us
.
. . you could have abandoned us at any time. If all the
knights are like you, I might have to reassess my judgement.'
She looked even more attractive in the cold moonlight. He seriously
thought about asking her to go with him, just drive off, but he knew she
would never abandon her responsibilities.
'And I'll stand by you, if you ever need me,' she continued. 'I won't
forget what you did.'
She smiled properly for the first time on the journey. It was only a brief
flash, but it was so honest it brought a shiver to his spine. 'Don't I get a
kiss?' he said, only half-joking.
'Don't push it, Mallory. This isn't the Middle Ages where the shy,
retiring damsel has to reward her knight.' She slipped out, but before she
closed the door she poked her head back in. 'You know where I am.' It
wasn't much, but there was a substance to it that excited him.
He waited as she hurried down the street, hoping she'd turn back but
sure she wouldn't; she knew he was watching her and she wouldn't give
him that advantage. When she'd finally disappeared, he took a deep breath
and moved the truck slowly in the direction of the cathedral.
But as he turned on to High Street and the final stretch to the compound
gates, the shock of what he saw made him slam on the brakes.
Instead of the lone spire rising majestically from the cathedral's bulk, an
enormous building of black stone now covered most of the area within the
compound. The cathedral was still there at the core, but it had been
expanded into a massive gothic construction that mirrored the original in
the fundamentals, but had been elaborated into a feverish vision of
gargoyles, towers, cupolas, stained-glass windows
-
some of them forty
feet tall - statues, carvings and insanely pitched roofs branching out all
over the place. It would have taken decades to build with hundreds, if not
thousands, of skilled craftsmen. The dislocation made him queasy;
Mallory felt as if he had been transported back to the Otherworld, but
everything else in the surroundings was as it always had been.
He let his eyes drift over what appeared to be a mad architect's dream. If
the first cathedral had been an elegant vision of God's Glory, this was
something much, much darker.
'Appearances are a glimpse of what is hidden.'
- Anaxagoras
Mallory allowed the truck to trundle slowly up to the gates. Disbelief kept
his gaze firmly fixed on the unbelievable, monumental construction; nothing, however bizarre, could begin to explain what he was seeing. When
he did finally break his gaze, he saw guards ranged all along the walls,
crossbows trained on him from several quarters. Everything had changed.
Cautiously, he turned off the engine and wound down the window. 'It's
me, Mallory. A knight,' he yelled. 'I've got another badly wounded knight
in the back.'
There was a long period of silence before a voice barked, 'Get out!'
Slowly, he clambered on to the flagstones, hands raised.
'Move closer to the gates.'