The End (46 page)

‘Looks to me,’ said Ryan, grinning
at the two of them as he came over, ‘like someone’s blowing the crap out of the sickos. That pink mist in the sky? That used to be people.’

‘Let’s finish this thing,’ said Jackson, and she and Achilleus and Ryan and the rest of their kids charged forward with a great shout.

There was a long moment of silence, as if the whole world had been shocked into numbness, and then bits
started to fall from the sky. Soot and blasted metal, burnt pieces of flesh, a thin drizzle of blood.

Hideous screaming then filled the park. Ben looked up, seagulls, hundreds and hundreds of them, circling and then beginning to swoop down in a feeding frenzy.

‘Man, that was peak,’ said Bernie.

Ben couldn’t believe it. Nine out of the ten car bombs had gone off. Everything
they’d rigged up had worked. The explosives, the self-driving cars, the makeshift triggers. Everything.

They’d lifted the explosives from the hell of Wembley. The stadium had been filled with a disgusting pile of human bones, the flesh mostly either rotted away or eaten by rats. The cars had been fitted with a simple combination of crook locks and wooden wedges jammed over the pedals
to keep them on track. The triggers were simple clock timers attached to the detonators they’d found at Wembley.

It had been a rush to get them ready on time, working for days and nights up at Saif’s camp in IKEA. Like one of those cable shows where men with beards made things from scrap. They wished they’d been ready yesterday, but hadn’t wanted to risk going off half-cocked.
It had to work.

And my God, did it work! They must’ve blasted half St George’s army into dust. They looked round to where Saif and Shadowman were watching the carnage from behind some safety barriers. The two boys high-fived each and then came over and hugged Ben and Bernie.

‘They weren’t expecting that,’ said Saif.

‘I’m just pissed off that the last one didn’t explode,’
said Bernie. ‘Ten out of ten I was hoping for.’

‘Nine is plenty good enough,’ said Saif. ‘You two don’t need to come and fight,’ he added. ‘Take yourself somewhere safe and stay out of it. You done your part.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Bernie. ‘We’re not intending to fight.’

‘Takes all sorts to win a war,’ said Shadowman. ‘Stay alive.’

‘Now it’s our turn to fight,’ said
Saif, turning to face his troops who were lined up on North Carriage Drive and the Bayswater Road. They were ready to march against St George’s army from the rear once all the chemicals had burned themselves out.

‘You with us, Shadowman?’

‘Something I have to do first,’ said Shadowman.

‘Always the same with you,’ said Saif. ‘Always got your own plans.’ And he slapped Shadowman’s
palm again. ‘You know I never liked you at first, fam. Didn’t trust you. Thought I knew best.’

‘No problem,’ said Shadowman. ‘We all make mistakes. Main thing is – we gotta win this. That’s all that matters.’

Shadowman hurried away. Skirting along the top of the park towards Park Lane, moving fast, his grey cloak flapping behind him, his pack strapped tightly to his chest,
his crossbow slung across his back. He then headed south down Park Lane towards where David and Jester had their HQ. He was confident he could get close without being seen. This was what he did best. He was always happiest working alone. Watching without being seen. He could hide three metres from someone and they’d never know he was there.

As he got closer to David’s camp, he
slowed down and moved more cautiously. Lots of kids were leaving the park and crossing the road. Like rats escaping a burning building. They looked mostly like John’s squatters, though Shadowman spotted a couple of red blazers in among them.

Shadowman strolled over and merged in with them, walking casually. He knew that if you acted like you were supposed to be there people didn’t
question you. He was checking their faces, looking for one in particular. No good – he needed a better view. He spotted a tree with some accessible lower branches near the edge of the park. He drifted over and pulled himself quickly up into it,
keeping the trunk between him and the deserting kids. He climbed higher. The tree was just tall enough to give him a reasonable view of
the battlefield.

The explosions had made a massive difference. Where once the sickos had seemed to fill the park, the rear half of them had gone – reduced to smoking debris. And most of the rest had broken up into small clumps, ragged and disorganized. To the south, kids were streaming out of Jordan’s encampment and tearing into them.

The battle was far from over, though. The
sickos still massively outnumbered the children, and in the centre was St George – like a queen bee in the middle of a swarm – his sickos grouping up round him in a big circle. Slowly more were joining, getting organized again. And there, closer, another organized group, centred round a second powerful sicko.

No – definitely not over yet.

Shadowman switched his attention back
to the road. He took out his binoculars and focused them on the deserting kids. Scanning them for a familiar coat. You couldn’t miss it. And only one person wore one like it.

A coat made of different coloured patches.

Shadowman had unfinished business.

It was only by pure chance that Jester had seen him. He’d sneaked to the edge of the camp to hide his coat under a hut.
He stood out too much in it. He didn’t want to risk David or any of his guards spotting him as he made his getaway. He’d been super sensitive, looking around in all directions,
and there he was
, climbing up into a tree – Shadowman. Dylan Peake. Jester’s oldest surviving friend and the person who most wanted him dead in the world.

Jester sucked in his breath and then let it
out with a curse. He knew in his bones that Shadowman was looking for him. He was up in the tree, perched there, scanning the road with his binoculars. He was good. Shadowman had always been good. If Jester hadn’t been alert to even the smallest movement he’d never have seen him up there, still now, blending in, the same colour as the tree trunk.

Jester had had it all planned. He
was doing what he did best. Saving his own skin. He was going to go back to the palace while David wasn’t there and make it his own. Lock David out. It was the only sensible thing to do. Jester could do deals with everybody. Make friends. Get all this crap sorted out. David had been a good leader, but he’d lost it. When leaders wig out, you had to get rid of them.

Killing Nicola.
That was wrong. However you looked at it. David had gone too far. Someone really needed to stop him.

Jester would leave that to a soldier. He was a thinker not a fighter.

Jester knew what Shadowman would say if he found him. Shadowman was one of those irritating people who always tried to do the right thing. Tried to be good.

He’d lay into Jester. Attack him for what
David had done. Say that Jester was part of it. Say that Jester couldn’t just run …

The thing was, Shadowman was right.

Jester swore. Sat down behind the hut where Shadowman couldn’t see him. Fought back tears. He reached under the hut for his rolled-up coat.

He couldn’t leave the battle like this. He had to try to stop David. If Jester was ever going to look Shadowman in
the eye again … No, not just Shadowman. If Jester was
ever going to be able to look at his own reflection in the mirror again he had to do the right thing.

For once in his life he had to think about someone else.

He put his coat on.

He was going back.

68

‘It’s all right. It’s all right. Hold on.’ Archie Bishop was with one of the guys who’d joined them recently. The boy had a big nose and Archie was pretty sure he was called Andy. Didn’t know anything else about him. Never would now. In the last few days a lot of other kids had joined up with Matt. Drawn by the promise of heavenly protection. Of something else to believe
in outside this world of pain and death and filth.

And most of them were dead.

Andy had a piece of fencing stuck through his body. A long, jagged bit of wood. Archie had watched helplessly as a mother had rammed it into him and then moved on.

Archie had his arms round Andy and was covered in his blood. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep going. At least half of his
friends from St Paul’s had been killed. They’d tried to protect themselves from the surging mass of sickos around them, but they hadn’t been strong enough. Religious chants and banners were no protection against teeth and fingernails, twisted bits of metal, rocks and spikes. Only the best fighters were left standing, or maybe just the luckiest ones, those that had better weapons. But
they’d become cut off from the main body of Jordan’s army and now, in the confusion and
chaos of the battle. Archie had no idea what was happening anywhere else. Were the kids winning? Or were the sickos massacring them all?

‘Attack me! I am the one! I am the Nemesis! Attack me!’ Matt was pushing past, holding up the first banner they’d ever made, the one that showed the Lamb
and the Goat – the shining boy and the shadowy boy. With the legend ‘Angus Day’. Funny if it wasn’t so tragic. Like this whole day really.

Matt marched into the surrounding sickos and they fell aside, moved away from him like water when you dropped oil in it. Opposing magnets. They wouldn’t touch Matt. It was as if he had an invisible force field around him, which in turn made
him
invisible. Like dark matter. Archie grabbed him and pulled him back.

‘You stay with us,’ he said. ‘Protect us.’

‘Why won’t they attack me?’ said Matt, looking desperate.

‘How am I supposed to know?’ Archie shouted. ‘But if you can protect us then please do.’

Matt grabbed Archie’s arm so tightly it hurt, a mad look in his eye.

‘Help is coming,’ he said. ‘The
Lamb is sending his angels. I see heaven standing open and there before me are two white horses, and their riders are dressed in shining gold. And they follow a king, dressed in a robe dipped in blood. The armies of heaven are following him, riding locusts that look like horses prepared for battle, and their teeth are like lions’ teeth. They are strong, they have breastplates of iron,
and the sound of their wings is like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle.’

Archie wanted to hit him. They had to fight, not wait for heavenly superheroes.

‘Can you hear them!’ Matt cried out. ‘They are coming! They have heard us calling to them. The Nephilim have killed the boy, but the Lamb lives! They’re coming. Can’t you hear them?’

Archie
could hear nothing, except the relentless, dreary drone of the fighting, the hiss of the sickos, the gasps and grunts and wheezing breath of the exhausted kids, the screams of the dying. Was Matt really expecting a swarm of locusts to come to their rescue? Locusts, or angels, or golden figures on horses …

‘Listen! Can’t you hear them?’

Archie was listening, but he felt a
fool for doing it. There was no buzz, no hum, no beating of wings.

‘Don’t give up!’ Matt shouted. ‘I hear the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They are coming. He has not abandoned us. The Nephilim will be defeated.’

Archie had to believe him. He had no choice. The alternative was to accept defeat. To accept oblivion.
Hope was all they had left. Hope and belief.

The Lamb would protect them.

69

Paul looked up at the sky. Boney-M was there, and he had his friends with him. They were black shapes circling, their leathery wings tattered and ripped, their broken limbs held together with scraps of skin and sinew, their dark faces twisted, beady black eyes staring down at the battlefield. And every now and then one of them would come screaming down, take up a soul and
carry it off to hell. They were cleaning the battlefield. Taking their harvest.

Now Boney-M himself swooped straight down at Paul. Paul shielded his face, yelled in fear, but Boney settled on the ground, clattered about, his long beak clacking. Staring at Paul, swearing at Paul, laughing at him.

‘You terrible streak of shite,’ he said. ‘You think you’re God? You’re not even fit
to lick my toenails. Been talking to them, have you? The stinking sickbags? Giving them the word of God? Really? Earth to Sonny Jim –
you’re not God
.
I am
. The great God of War. Me and my Valkyries will strip the battlefield and make an army of the dead. You never were anything. You never amounted to anything. What was all this for? Your sister? Those children didn’t kill your sister
and you know it. The Collector. Remember him? The greasy fat blob of guts. You know
full well it was him that killed your Olivia. This whole thing has been a waste of time. They’ve beaten you, the sickos. They put their poison in you, their parasites. That’s all you are, a carrier for their germs. A dupe. And you see him, there, coming towards you …?’