For A Few Souls More (Heaven's Gate Book 3) (28 page)

“Do stop fidgeting,” Agrat told him, “you’re aggravating my dress.”

Unsure of quite where such aggravation might lead, Forset did as he was told.

There was a distant shout and he saw one of the lookouts signalling to those gathered below.

“I imagine that means he’s nearly here,” Forset said.

“Hooray,” Agrat replied, with very little enthusiasm.

6.

“A
LMOST THERE, SIR,
” said Oliver, peering out of the carriage window. “There’s quite a crowd.”

“Naturally,” said Harrison. “This is a piece of theatre as much as it is politics.”

“Is there ever really a difference?” asked Levi Morton, Harrison’s vice-president.

Harrison sighed into his beard. “Perhaps not.” He tugged at his jacket, trying to make himself look as presentable as possible. Morton always looked so damned dapper, he thought, whereas he could never quite shake the feeling that someone had altered the fit of his suit overnight, making it pinch and bulge in all the most uncomfortable places.

“Historic times,” said Morton.

“Historic indeed,” Harrison agreed, “and the problem with history is that it will always be judged by those who follow. Let us hope what we do today is judged fairly.”

“There will be those who consider us heroes and those who consider us villains,” Morton replied. “That, at least, will never really change.”

7.

F
ATHER
M
ARTIN WATCHED
as the people from the camp began to descend the mountain, nigh-on a hundred and fifty souls, all ready to fight for something they believed in. Ready, perhaps, to die for it. On one hand he was distraught at the idea of the impending violence, on the other he found he envied them their conviction. He watched them recede down the mountainside, likely never to return. Behind him were the remains of the Order of Ruth, excluded from the fighting due to their age and the few fragile convictions they had left. Some were praying, the others just stood silently, as lost as their superior.

“What is my purpose?” Father Martin asked, no longer expecting an answer.

“Well,” came a voice from behind him, “I would say it’s the same as the rest of us: to be a better man.”

Father Martin turned to see Patrick Irish. In the writer’s arms was Popo, barely conscious, his wounds leaking onto Irish’s shirt and pooling in the ground at their feet.

“Patrick? You came back?”

“Temporarily. I am, for once in my life, committed to tidying up after the mistakes of others.” Irish lay Popo down on the ground. “You need to bring whatever medical supplies you have. Clean water, dressings, whatever you can find.”

Father Martin stared at Popo. “That’s... the creature we...”

“Nearly killed, yes. But you’re going to learn to be a better man than that and you’re going to look after him. You’re going to help him heal and then you’re going to take him home.”

“I am?” Father Martin stared down at Popo, at his bright red, bloodied face, the skin torn to reveal the muscle beneath, and he remembered the visions that had plagued him on his journey to Wormwood. The red-faced man that had appeared to him nightly, taunting him—or so he had thought—an omen of the very worst to come. He looked down at Popo and realised that the omen had always been about him, about the horror he would not only witness but endorse. Oh Martin, he thought to himself, you lost your way so long ago, I only hope there’s time for you to find your way back. “I am,” he repeated, “of course I am. Fetch everything you can find!” he shouted at the monks, “this man needs our help.”

8.

T
HE
P
RESIDENT’S CONVOY
arrived on the plain and the barely restrained chaos that had held sway for the last hour or so finally burst. The reporters and spectators were shouting and crowding around the carriages as the army did their best to hold them back. Orders were barked, shots were fired into the air, defensive formations were struck and somewhere, at the heart of it all, two middle-aged politicians stepped out into the sunlight and wondered what the Hell lay ahead.

“Spare any change?” asked the demon who had taken up residence on the edge of town, restraining a sneeze that would set his facial fronds into a financially disastrous mess of mucus. Nobody even heard him—though a few had given him a wide berth when he’d ambled over earlier, bowl held out hopefully towards the gathered members of the mortal public.

Jolted by a small gang of reporters, he tumbled to the floor, his bowl spilling its pathetic contents. Cursing under his breath he tried to retrieve his funds; at least he hoped they were funds, being new to the world of dollars and cents he was a little baffled by some of what he’d been given. Retreating to a safe distance he shoved the mixture of coinage, buttons and small stones into his pockets and sat back to watch the pageantry unfold.

Agrat and Forset were on their feet and making their way towards Harrison and Morton, the crowds finally forced back by the enthusiastic efforts of the military.

Harrison looked at Agrat and her chattering frock as if he were about to be buttonholed by a glamorous, six foot shrimp.

“My name is Agrat,” she said, “the other creature is Lord Forset, we have been sent to welcome you on behalf of the Governor of Wormwood.”

“Charmed,” said Harrison taking her hand.

Agrat looked to Morton. “Is this your wife?” she asked.

“Vice-President Levi P. Morton, ma’am,” Morton said, giving a polite bow.

“You didn’t answer the question...”

“Not wife, no,” said Forset, nerves having robbed him of all but the most vital words. “Pleased to meet you, gentlemen,” he said to Harrison and Morton. “I have agreed to assist the governor in diplomatic matters, as I hope has been explained. I do not represent my home country in any way, I speak on behalf of Wormwood only.”

“Understood,” Harrison smiled. “I’m sure we’re grateful for your assistance.”

“These are complicated times, sir, I’m just hopeful they can be turned to everyone’s benefit.”

“You and me both.”

They moved towards the tent that had been constructed for their talks, a sea of shouted questions washing over them as they approached it.

“That’s an interesting gown, ma’am,” said Morton, looking at the roving hem with a mixture of concern and curiosity.

“Just mind it doesn’t go for your fingers,” she warned him, “the threads get a trifle unruly in crowds.”

He took a slight step back, unsure whether she was joking.

“Unruly or not,” he said, “it’s most...”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence. A rifle shot rang out and he was startled to note a blossoming of red on the front of his shirt. “Oh Lord,” he said, “I think I’ve just been...”

A second shot, and this time Harrison was the target. Later, when the gathered representatives of the press tried to evoke that moment they would write of that startled face, his thinning hair flicked skywards, the blood covering half of his face, the eyes that spoke only of confusion. None of the descriptions were printed, many were not even accurate, dramatising after the fact. At the moment that the shot was fired—the second shot that would change the world—the panic was so widespread, the confusion so total, that nobody really had the first idea what was happening.

It was Agrat that reacted first, that much would be accurately reported. Indeed, even in the calamity that was to follow, she was impossible to miss.

“Get behind me,” she roared, seeming to grow in size, her dress writhing around her, her eyes burning. If there was one thing the mortals would never forget, she decided, it was that Agrat was not a woman you pointed a weapon towards, not if you wanted to retain your soul.

The rifle shots were only the beginning. Even as their noise continued to echo between the mountains, they were joined by the roar of a crowd of people, Atherton’s devout army, breaking from cover and advancing towards the town.

9.

A
THERTON REACHED INTO
his pocket to reload. As accomplished as he was in the art of killing, he was by no means sure that he had administered a lethal wound to either of his targets. Even if he had, there could be no harm in adding a few more corpses to his ever-increasing tally.

He felt a hand grip his wrist and, as he turned, a fist connected under his jaw and his rifle was snatched away from him.

The sun shone in his eyes as he tried to focus on the figure hovering over him. A demon? Here to punish him?

“That’s your lot, British,” said the Geek, squatting down over him. “I promised God I’d help, see? And I’m not a man to say no to the Almighty, my folks brought me up better than that.”

Atherton lifted his knee, meaning to dislodge the Geek, get that foul face and rancid breath away from him so that he could regain the upper hand. He was a fighter, it would take more than this brutish freak to get one over on him.

But the Geek was fast. Atherton may have been a fighter but the Geek was a hunter and he’d spent his whole life subduing his dinner.

“Uh uh,” he said, avoiding Atherton’s leg and dealing another blow to the man’s head. He stepped back, Atherton’s rifle now pointing at its owner.

“Now,” said the Geek, “you’re going to tell the folks down there who you are and who you just shot.”

“Like Hell I am,” Atherton replied, spitting at the Geek. “Who do you think you’re dealing with? I’ve engineered entire revolutions, I’ve squeezed out a final beat from the heart of kings, I’ll die before I say a word.”

The Geek smiled, his metal teeth glinting in the sun. “I kind of hoped you might say something like that,” he replied. “I was looking forward to convincing you.”

10.

O
SCAR BURIED HIS
head in hands and wished to be anyone but the man he was. Life had become far too hard over the last week. Surrounded by people demanding answers and owning nothing but questions, he had come close to barricading himself in his office and refusing to come out. Realising that, however much he might wish it, this was not possible, he had at least taken to locking himself away for half an hour every day. Shut in with silence and a decent brandy he would try and clear his thoughts of their own unproductive chatter so that he might be able to do something useful once forced back out into the world. He never could, but he did at least have a small portion of the day he could now look forward to.

“This really is a very good brandy,” said a voice from one of his two armchairs. He looked up to see a man sat there, perfectly at home, sipping at some of his liquor. This was impertinent but not his uppermost concern, his uppermost concern was how the devil the man had got in here in the first place. The office had been empty when he’d locked the door and drawn the curtains, refusing the outside world entrance. There was no doubt about that; his office, though spacious, was not so cavernous as to be able to hide people in it.

“I’m glad you approve,” said Oscar. “If it’s not too much to ask, who the devil are you and how did you get in?”

“I’m the person who’s going to help solve the Wormwood problem for you, and I got in by methods that you will scarcely be able to comprehend.”

“I can comprehend a great deal.”

“Very well.” The man placed his brandy on the small table next to his chair and promptly vanished, only to reappear again sat on the corner of Oscar’s desk. “Can we take that part of things as read now? It really would save a great deal of time if you simply accepted I’m working with powers and abilities you can’t begin to imagine.”

“You’ve left your brandy behind,” Oscar nodded towards it, terrified but suitably trained after a life in government not to show it.

“I shouldn’t be drinking anyway,” said the man. “Patrick Irish,” he announced, extending a hand for shaking. “A pleasure to meet you, Oscar.”

“Likewise, I’m sure,” Oscar replied, ignoring the handshake.

“Time will tell on that,” said Irish. “I’m afraid I have some bad news. Atherton, the man Admiral Clemence set to keep an eye on the Wormwood situation, has just put you in a very awkward position.”

“Has he now?”

“He has. He’s just shot both the President and the Vice-President of the United States of America. Not only that but he’s managed to get caught and identified himself as an officer of the British Empire.”

As well-trained in appearing casual as Oscar was, this was a step too far and he couldn’t quite conceal his discomfort. “That is an awkward position,” he agreed, reaching for his own brandy.

“Indeed. He has quite possibly placed you at war. A war, I hasten to point out, that you couldn’t possibly win.”

“We can win most wars,” Oscar replied. “Eventually.”

“Not ones like this. You know that America has a new ally. One that no other force in the world could hope to defeat.”