If belief gave it a charge, that explained why certain places became sacred - churches, stone circles, hilltops, springs - sites where the Blue
Fire was already strong and made more potent by worshipping humans, creating a spiritual atmosphere that was ripe for connection with the divine.
And as the Caretaker had told him, the cathedral had somehow become supercharged; that had kept the enemy at bay for a long time. But now the rejuvenating faith of the brothers was being knocked by successive blows - the murders, the siege, the diminishing supplies. The site was slowly losing its power. If things carried on the same way, if the brothers found out they had no more food, soon the walls would fall completely and the supernatural forces would sweep across them all.
Of course, we might have starved to death long before then,
he thought wryly. But the Adversary had been very clever: it
had
all been linked.
He was disturbed from his deep thoughts by the door swinging open and heated conversation spilling out into the corridor. Wearily, he pushed himself back to his feet.
Stefan marched out, hands behind his back, his face dark with determination. 'Do what I say. This is the only way. We have the ultimate obligation. If we
fail ...
if God's light goes out because we turned away . . . because we weren't strong enough . . . then we will be damned for all eternity.' He marched straight past Mallory as if he wasn't there.
Blaine followed him out, unusually angry. There had obviously been some disagreement. He paused by Mallory. 'If you do anything to destroy morale, anything at all, I will personally break your fucking neck,' he said, quietly and coldly. He turned to Roeser. 'Organise the teams. Everyone works through the night. We'll punch the tunnel through by tomorrow or someone's head will roll, and it'll probably be yours.'
Daniels, Gardener and Miller were gathered together in the dorm, clearly on edge. Miller jumped up anxiously when Mallory entered. 'What's going on?' he blurted.
Mallory wondered how much he could tell them without prompting Blaine to carry out his threat.
'There are all sorts of rumours flying around,' Miller said; he couldn't keep still.
Gardener sucked on a roll-up, on the surface the picture of calm, but Mallory could see from his eyes that he was troubled. 'They've cranked us up to the highest alert,' he said. 'Summat's up.'
'Are they sending us out to fight those things?' Daniels looked drained, his face puffy as if he had been crying. Mallory could see he had been crushed by what had happened to his boyfriend and what that had made him face within himself.
'Gibson's dead.' Mallory dropped wearily on to his bunk and closed his eyes.
'Oh, no!' Miller whined.
'The same as before?' Daniels asked.
'The same.' In the dark behind his eyes, with their disembodied voices floating around him, Mallory made another connection; they were coming thick and fast, each prompting another. Everything had been planned from the beginning. They had been lured to Bratton Camp so they could bring that terrible creature back. A hidden assassin to strike from the inside while the hellish forces attacked from without. How very clever. How pathetically stupid they all seemed in comparison; a stupidity born of arrogance. Even after all that had happened, they still thought they were top of the pile, better than anything else in Existence. They weren't, not by a long way.
But it was the words of the Caretaker that struck him the most:
Look to your hearts.
And then he thought of the severed hand he had seen at Bratton Camp, seemingly belonging to one of them, yet apparently not. Now he could guess what it all meant: the thing was inside one of them, somehow, regenerating what was lost; or perhaps even it
was
one of them, putting on skin and bones and face like other people put on a suit of clothes.
That was how they had brought it back. That was how it survived on the sacred ground of the cathedral where no other supernatural creature could walk, the ultimate fifth columnist.
He looked at the faces surrounding him: Daniels, Gardener, Miller, and then thought of Hipgrave locked in his little room in the infirmary. He had spent hours with all of them since the return and they had all seemed perfectly human: flawed, wrapped up in their own little troubles. How well it hid. How could he ever tell which one of them it was?
'What's up with you, lad?' Gardener was watching him carefully. 'You're looking at us as if you've never seen us before.'
Desperately, he tried to recall where they all had been at the time of the murders. They had been with him on the walls when Cornelius's body had been discovered . . . but when he had been murdered? And Julian, where had any of them been when he died? Hipgrave had certainly been locked away when Gibson was killed. Or had he? Perhaps he was free, loose in the cathedral.
'I'm just tired,' he said, closing his eyes again.
Who could he trust? Gardener was hardened by life, but there was humanity burning inside him. Miller was bright and innocent, all his emotions on the surface. Daniels might have been temporarily broken by what he had seen earlier, but his love of life still shone beneath that. Even shattered, sad Hipgrave, unable to live up to his ambitions, was basically a good man. How could it be any of them?
'Are you all right?' Miller asked, concerned.
But what he did know was that if he gave any sign he suspected, he wouldn't stand a chance. 'Fine,' he said. 'You know they're punching the tunnel through tomorrow, hopefully? Putting a lot of steam behind it. Working through the night.'
'Why?' Gardener asked suspiciously. 'For the last few days they seemed quite happy letting us munch through spuds while they took their time.'
'Maybe they finally realised time's running out,' Daniels said.
The snow stopped falling some time during the night, but by then everywhere was blanketed by a covering almost two feet thick in parts. It was generally agreed by those who came from the area that there hadn't been a snowfall like it for a good few years, not even during the previous year's harsh winter.
The digging, however, had continued frantically throughout the night, with large teams working a strict rota system. They had partially demolished a wall surrounding the bishop's palace to provide stone to line the tunnel, and with wood torn from the rafters of another building, it looked as though they had beaten the numerous collapses that had held them up until that point.
'Amazing what you can do when a crisis focuses your mind,' Mallory muttered, forgetting Miller was with him.
'What crisis?' Miller asked. 'You're talking as if it's even worse than we think.'
'It's always worse than you think.' Mallory looked out over the crowd of brothers who had gathered to watch the digging. He saw suspicion and trepidation in their faces as they picked up on the powerful mood of anxiety hanging over those in charge. The brethren were increasingly loath to attend to their duties and some were even beginning to skip services. Although the Blues and the inquisitors were stamping out open dissent, they couldn't control the Chinese whispers rustling through the community. Respect for Stefan and his repressive rule appeared to be crumbling quickly. People had been prepared to tolerate him if he got them out of current difficulties and provided security, but things had rapidly gone from bad to worse.
The dissent, though, clearly had a profound effect on Stefan and his supporters. Mallory could see it in the hard lines of their faces: any jubilation they might have felt at their unexpected triumph had faded, but it was plain that now they had tasted power they were not going to let it go at any cost. Mallory saw them all over the place, though they were easy to miss. Seemingly faceless, they passed through rooms without any noticeable trace, like ghosts; the effects only became apparent later. They were particularly adept at using scripture to support their hardline views. Most didn't have the time, the energy or the intellectual rigour to argue against them; sometimes it was easier to allow oneself to be swayed. And again, only later were the results apparent.
'You went to see Hipgrave this morning, didn't you?' Miller said curiously.
'Yes.' Mallory had known it was only a matter of time before Stefan did something to bolster his position, so he wasn't surprised to see him striding up to the dig with his fawning entourage.
'How is he?'
'Still locked in.'
Miller looked blank at this response, then said, 'Are you OK, Mallory? You seem a little distant today. Have I done something to offend you?'
'Nothing more than usual.'
They hushed as Stefan prepared to give an impromptu oration, only as he began to intone gravely, it was soon apparent that it wasn't impromptu at all: the words had been carefully crafted.
'I have an important announcement to make,' he said, after climbing atop a pile of masonry. 'We have had many hardships heaped upon us in recent times, and it would seem to me - and, I would think, to most people here - that we have been failing our Lord. We have not been devout enough . . . pure enough. We have not turned our hearts and minds to the teachings of the Lord God, our Father. We have not expunged the sins of our past lives. Rather, we have allowed them to grow fruitful on the vines of our souls, and to the Lord, that could only be an abomination. And so it is time for us to cleanse ourselves.'
Mallory tried to guess what tricks Stefan had planned, but the bishop was always cunning.
'Our sacred relic, which has made this cathedral so strong, is filled with God's power,' he continued. 'And through prayer, deep in the spirit, our Lord has illuminated me on its workings. It can, quite literally, see into the depths of a soul. It can find out your sins. We - the Chapter of Canons and myself - have decided to use that power to enable us all to cleanse
ourselves ...
to make us closer to God in every way, so that we can overcome these trials presented to us. One by one, every brother shall be brought before the relic to have their sins divined. In the glorious light of true confession and personal revelation, we shall all find our earthly redemption.'
It took a while for the meaning of his words to filter through to the crowd's consciousness, and when it did it was not welcomed with the universal acclaim of the bishop's past orations. But that was clearly what he intended. It must have been in the planning for a while; Stefan had hinted at it on the previous evening. It was an undoubted masterstroke. In the eyes of the hardliners, everyone had sinned, and all the brothers knew it; somewhere in the deep recesses of the heart, everyone had a little unpleasantness tucked away. It might not be anything bad - a touch of jealousy, a wisp of pride, a hint of sloth, basic human flaws - but the Bible told them it was wrong and the programming of their religion made it impossible to shake that at the most basic level. Mallory had come to understand how the concept of sin was like a constant buzz in the background of everyday life for the devout.
And Stefan had pointedly failed to mention what he, or the inquisitors, or the other Church authorities would do once they knew everyone's dirty little secrets. Would they simply absolve everyone with a little prayer? Would they hold it in abeyance to gain leverage? Or would they pass judgment?