Cold Warriors (28 page)

Anya fell to her knees beside him, toppled by the violent convulsions. Behind her, the Japanese agents were scrabbling on the ground for the guns they'd dropped. Richard grabbed Morgan's shoulder, fingers clawing hard enough to leave bruises.

Morgan didn't remember making the decision to move, but somehow he was standing next to the altar, close enough to touch the body rising from it. It
was
a body now. As cracks appeared in the floor beneath it, flesh grew to cover the bare bones. He saw the white threads of nerve fibres crawling across the red meat of muscles and round globular yellow pockets of fat. The skin came last, tightening to draw everything else within it.

Richard was still clinging to him when Morgan turned and punched him, then grabbed his shoulders and shook. "You're doing this!" he yelled. "Stop it!"

"I can't. I can't. It's too strong." Richard's voice was breathy with fear. "She's wanted to be free for so long. I can open the door but I can't close it. I told you that. I warned you!" Even as Morgan shook him, his eyes remained fixed on the altar and the unspeakable resurrection that was happening there.

When the process had finished, the little girl was naked, but whole. She was petite and blonde with improbably soft white skin. The gold crucifix glittered against the hollow at the base of her neck.

She turned her face towards Morgan, and he saw that her eyes were still empty black sockets. He flinched in horror as they slowly grew back to a bright, crystalline blue.

"It's you," she said. "I saw you watching me as I died." She wasn't speaking English, but somehow he understood her.

He backed away. "I didn't do it. I wasn't here."

"But you're here now." And when the last word left her mouth, everything changed.

The shaking stopped. The church was clean and bright, black candles burning in the sconces lining the walls. In their light, Morgan saw that Richard was still beside him, but everyone else had disappeared. There were only two other people in the church: the little girl trussed to the altar, and Raphael.

Raphael was dressed in a priest's red vestments. His hair was nut-brown and his face was round-cheeked and unlined. He couldn't have been much older than Morgan. He was holding the same knife that Morgan had seen buried in the skeleton's chest.

Morgan staggered forward two steps and reached out to wrench the knife from Raphael's hand.

There was no contact. His arm drifted through the other man's, as insubstantial as mist.

"You can't," Richard said. "Here, we're the ghosts. It's all already happened."

Raphael didn't acknowledge their presence, gazing through them as if they didn't exist. But Morgan saw the little girl's eyes tracking the movement of his arm. She could see them. Maybe the approach of death had opened a window the living couldn't usually see through.

"Help me!" she screamed.

Raphael seemed to think she was talking to him. "It's your own fault, darling," he said. "You shouldn't have told your parents the things we did together. I said there'd be consequences if you blabbed."

She was shaking and terrified, but the look she shot him was almost defiant. "I couldn't help it! They saw the blood on my dress."

"But you told them I forced you, when you know that isn't true. It was a nasty lie, and God hates liars. He sends them all to Hell." Raphael's voice was horribly reasonable. Morgan felt his hands twitching towards the other man's throat, desperate to silence him.

"Don't pretend you didn't want it," Raphael said. "Why did you dress that way? Why did you smile at me? You knew you were leading me on." His hand reached down to touch her between her legs, his face rapt with remembered pleasure. Morgan had to look away, the gorge rising in his throat.

The little girl whimpered and Raphael seemed to come back to himself. "It's too late now. They've roused all the miners against me, and the barricade across the door won't last long. I've got no choice, I have to do this. He told me if I did, he'd save me. And since it's the only form of salvation currently available, I'm planning to take it." On the final word, he raised the knife high.

Morgan's eyes flinched shut - and when he opened them again, Raphael was gone and the church was collapsing around him.

"Did you see?" the little girl asked, sitting on the altar where she died.

"Yes," Morgan said. "I was there."

"When the mass was finished, the mine collapsed - but not on him. I saw my father and mother crushed beneath the rocks. My family survived four years of war, and he killed them all."

"I'm sorry," Morgan whispered.

"He wasn't," she said. "The next day the Red Army came. He gave them information and they gave him his life. They took him away with them, and they never made him pay for what he did."

"I will," Morgan said. "I'll make him pay. I promise."

He could hear screaming behind him. He thought it might be Anya, but when he looked around he saw that it was one of Richard's men, pinned beneath a fallen statue. The deformed stone face was pressed against his, which panic had twisted into an expression almost as hideous. As Morgan watched, another of the men ran to help him. He pulled on his arm and the trapped man screamed.

Morgan realised someone was pulling on his own arm. It was Anya, face drawn with shock. "We have to get out!" she shouted. "This whole place is coming down!" Her eyes swept through the little blonde girl sitting on the altar, and he realised for the first time that Anya couldn't see her.

"Come on!" she screamed, dragging on his arm.

He pulled back, heels digging into the soft salt rock of the floor. He wasn't finished here, and he knew it.

"Tell me your name," he said to the little girl.

She smiled, as if he'd finally got something right. "I'm Marya." Blunt little fingers fiddled at the back of her neck, and then the gold crucifix was in her hand. She held it out to Morgan.

He stared at it. His flesh cringed at the thought of touching hers.

"Take it," she said. "To remember your promise."

He held out his hand, cupped beneath hers. She tipped her fingers and the little cross dropped into his palm.

It burned fiercely. Morgan scrabbled at the pocket of his jeans with his other hand, dropping the crucifix inside as soon as he could. He expected the sensation to be a phantasm, like the girl herself, but when he looked at his right palm it was burned an angry red. He looked back up at Marya, meaning to ask what it meant.

She was gone. Only her skeleton remained, lying pinned to the altar where she'd died.

"Morgan!" Anya shouted. She'd released his arm but remained a few paces away, looking back at him. He could tell she was on the cusp of running. If he didn't follow her now, she'd leave him behind. She wouldn't stay just to die beside him.

And if they stayed, they
would
die. Morgan could see that now. The exit from the church was already choked with rocks, more tumbling down as he watched. Soon it would be blocked entirely. He took one last look at the altar and the pathetic skeleton huddled on it, then turned and ran.

His feet kicked something solid that rang metallically as it clattered along the floor. A gun. One of the Japanese agents had dropped it. Morgan stooped to pick it up, losing precious seconds in his flight.

He vaguely registered that Richard was running beside him. The other man was panting in wheezing gasps, older and less fit than Morgan. A second later, and still two feet from the door, he stumbled to his knees.

If Morgan had had time to think about it, he would have left him. But instinct took over. He tucked the gun into the waistband of his jeans, hooked an arm round Richard's back and heaved him to his feet.

Richard let out a grunt that might have been gratitude or simply pain. He stumbled a few steps forward, then tripped and would have fallen to his knees again if Morgan hadn't wrenched him up at the cost of a sharp pain in his own back. Richard's ankle was probably sprained, maybe broken. He wasn't the person you wanted with you when you were trying to escape a collapsing mine.

But no one else would help him. There was no sign of the other Japanese agents. Morgan wasn't sure if they'd escaped when the collapse began, or lay crushed beneath one of the growing heaps of rock. Anya was already at the steep pile of scree that now filled the exit.

She paused at the top, reaching back a hand to help drag Morgan over. The rough stone tore through the thin material of his t-shirt and grated the skin beneath. When he looked down, he saw a dark face leering back at him. He cringed back before he realised it was one of the statues which had once lined the walls. Its beard had scraped his skin. Now it was smeared with blood, as if the statue had been chewing on his flesh.

Morgan blinked his eyes shut as a spear-sharp stalactite fell from the ceiling and impaled the debris inches from his nose. When he looked behind him he saw that the altar was already hidden beneath a heap of rock, Marya's body buried at last. Another few seconds and there would be nothing left of the church.

Richard was almost a dead weight beneath Morgan's arm. Morgan set his teeth in a grimace of effort and dragged him doggedly on. The gap at the top of the rock pile was barely shoulder-width now - and narrowing fast. If Morgan wedged himself in he could be stuck for good. A cold sweat stood out on his skin. He'd always hated confined spaces. They reminded him of those terrible moments in the dark water of the lake, when his sister had died and he thought he might too.

"We have to chance it," Richard gasped. He gave Morgan a weak shove towards the gap.

Morgan gulped in a lungful of air, then used his elbows to drag himself in. He had to drop Richard's arm, but he could feel a warm body pressed against his own as he squeezed further into the rock. The Japanese agents' lanterns were long-destroyed and Anya had taken the torch with her. Within seconds Morgan was totally blind, and he felt a moment of sick panic. What if he was going the wrong way, sideways or even backwards? Would he ever find his way out?

"Calm down," Richard hissed, and Morgan realised that his breath was coming in desperate ragged pants. "We're nearly there, I can see light ahead of us."

When he opened his eyes, so could Morgan. The hope of an end gave him extra strength, though the gap was so narrow he could do little beyond clawing himself forward with his fingernails. Grains of rock stuck beneath them and two or three tore off, salt stinging sharply in the wounds.

Five agonising minutes later he was through, tumbling down the shallow incline that led to the mine's floor. Richard fell a moment later. His shoulder thumped into Morgan's ribs as he landed.

Anya knelt beside them, putting a testing hand against Morgan's throat as if she was afraid he might have died. He gently moved it aside and lay on his back, getting his breath under control and enjoying being alive.

After a minute or less he was breathing normally, but the tunnel was no quieter than when he'd arrived. The same low grumble he'd heard in the church was audible here too.

"Shit," he said, pushing himself wearily to his feet.

"It might just be the final collapse inside," Anya said, though there wasn't much conviction in her voice. A moment later it was clear the sound was growing louder. And then the first flecks of rock began to drift down.

"We've got to get out!" Morgan said.

No one argued. The tunnel was barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast. It wouldn't take much to block it completely. It would be far too easy to get trapped here.

Morgan reached out to grasp Richard's arm again, but the other man shrugged him off.

"I'm okay, you'll slow us both down."

That was fine by Morgan. His legs felt like lead, but he forced them to drag him forward, one painful step at a time. Anya was behind him and Richard ahead, each locked in their own grim battle for survival.

At the first junction Richard turned left. Morgan wasn't sure if he really knew the way, but he followed anyway. So did the rumble of falling rock.

No matter how fast they ran, the sound kept pace, and with it needle-sharp splinters of rock and the constant threat of much worse. As Morgan watched, horrified, one black zigzag crack broadened and spread in the floor beneath his feet.

And something else was following them. At first, the sound was buried beneath the deeper rumble of falling rock. But slowly it grew louder, until it couldn't be mistaken for anything but human screams. And then Morgan could see them.

They were running alongside him, ahead and behind. Their clothes were sturdy and dark, faces streaked with sweat and rock dust. Miners, Morgan guessed. They were shouting in a language he didn't understand. But again and again he heard the name "Marya". And then one of the crowd ran
through
him, and he finally knew who they were.

Of course the little girl wouldn't be the only spirit in these caves. Many more people had died here, thanks to Raphael.

"Richard!" Morgan gasped, stumbling to a halt.

"I can see them," the other man said through gritted teeth, still running.

And as he ran, the ghosts ran with him. The ghosts, and the destruction that Morgan could now see they brought with them. The last insubstantial figure marked the outer perimeter of the damage.

Anya pushed against him, trying to get him moving again. He used his left hand to block her. With his right the pulled the gun from the waistband of his jeans.

"Stop! he shouted.

Richard didn't seem to hear him and he was drawing further ahead. Morgan grabbed Anya and began to run after him.

With the other man's injured ankle it didn't take long to catch up. Morgan barrelled past him, dragging Anya along with him. Then he stopped, blocking the path ahead, and raised his gun.

Richard almost ran into it before he realised it was there.

He looked up, bemused. "For god's sake, what?" The ghosts were crowded close around him, and his hair sparkled with the silver fall of salt from above.

"Back away," Morgan said.

"Is this really -"

"Back away!"

Richard frowned and took two steps back, then another two when Morgan fired a shot into the rock at his feet. He held up his hands. "Listen, whatever this is, can't it wait till we're out of here?"