For A Few Souls More (Heaven's Gate Book 3) (29 page)

“One hears rumours.”

“One also sees a man appear and disappear in your room, Oscar, I think we can afford to take those rumours as read too, don’t you? We have power and strength that even the British Empire can’t defeat.”

“You sound English yourself.”

“I’ve emigrated. The point is this, I can assure you that war will not happen unless you take steps to instigate it. The forces that lie behind Wormwood have no urge to fight. They are content to co-exist peacefully. If you don’t threaten them, they will not threaten you. They will leave the Empire to its business.”

“And you have the authority to promise that, do you?”

“I do.”

“Bully for you I do not.”

“But you have enough authority to convince those who do, not to sharpen their sabres, Oscar. And you need to do so. Quickly. Because this is an offer you need to accept now, I can’t promise how long it will be extended to you.”

“The British government does not respond well to threats.”

“I’m not offering one. Right now myself and several other important spokesmen for the powers behind Wormwood are working hard to ensure this situation doesn’t escalate. We want this awkward situation to end before it becomes an even bigger problem. It’s in your own best interests to do the same. Work with this new power, Oscar, don’t fight it. Because, right now, the only act of aggression that matters is one undertaken by your man. If you issue an immediate and unequivocal statement clarifying that he acted under his own aegis and was not carrying out his government’s orders we can nip this in the bud right now before anyone else is hurt.”

Oscar thought about it for a moment. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good enough, I shall take you at your word. It’s the right decision, old chap, I promise you that. I’m acting just as much in your interests as I am anyone else’s.”

Irish stood up. “Now, if you’ll forgive me, I have a dead President to deal with.”

With that he vanished.

11.

K
ANE THOUGHT HE
saw movement in the mist ahead. Finally, a sign of life in this insubstantial barrier that lay between them and the real world.

“I see it!” he cried, eager to be the voice that brought his people home. “We’re here!”

He stepped through the mist and found himself facing a large chasm that stretched to either side of them. Stood on the chasm’s edge was the man he had seen Hicks talking to back in Sepulchre Heights.

“Wormwood?” he asked, an awful feeling spreading through him, the earliest sense that all was not as he had hoped and imagined.

“No,” admitted Patrick Irish as the procession gathered around Kane, staring out over the chasm into the whiteness beyond. “Not Wormwood. Somewhere better.”

The man closed his eyes and suddenly the air was filled with glowing lights, orb after orb descending as it chose a member of the procession to call its own.

“You goddamned cheat!” shouted Hicks. “You gave me the wrong directions!”

“You could look at it like that,” Irish admitted, “or you could accept that I brought you where you needed to be. There’s nothing in Wormwood for you, nothing in the mortal world. That’s done, it’s behind you. Ahead is somewhere better, ahead is what you all deserve.”

He looked at Kane and his eyes narrowed slightly. “Even you.” Several orbs clustered around the fat man. “Though you may need a bit more support than most.”

He raised his voice so that they could all hear him. “Two wonderful people left this paradise to come and rescue you. You repaid their kindness by turning your back on them. By deciding you knew better, by choosing to follow anger rather than love.” He shrugged. “But that’s fine. They would have forgiven you and so do I. Take hold of the orbs, get a firm grip.”

The orbs moved behind Kane and pressed against him, forcing him to topple back onto them, bouncing on their support.

One by one the members of the procession rode into the air. Marrousia, the woman who had hung by her feet for years; Josiah, the hollow boy; Rachel Watson, her eyes held out in front of her as she floated over the chasm; even George Oskirk, who had once taken the skin from another to protect himself in the Draining Desert. They all drifted on, towards the Dominion of Clouds and a better future.

Even Hicks, draped across an orb, sailed upwards, a wary look in his eye as Irish watched him go. “One way ticket to paradise, eh?” he shouted. “I guess I can go along with that. Especially if there’s an eager woman at the end of it!”

Irish watched him go. “You’re half right, I suppose,” he said as the orb suddenly shifted direction and Hicks began to sail back the way he had come, his orb rising higher and higher as it raced away from the chasm, back through the mist and on and on towards a destination of its very own.

Irish looked up into the air, the light of the orbs receding now that their charges were almost at the other side. “If God were here,” he said, “maybe He’d be better. But He’s not, and I’m only human.”

12.

A
S
A
THERTON’S ARMY
charged, a roar to match their own emerged from Wormwood as the Forset Land Carriage burst through the barrier and charged forth towards them.

On its roof, a solitary figure, Lucifer, the wind whipping his jacket around him.

Mere moments after the crowds had acknowledged his arrival, the large wooden bench that Agrat and Forset had been sitting on while they waited for the President creaked and expanded, rearing up to cries of panic. But those gathered had nothing to fear from Branches of Regret, his mission was not one of destruction. This had been explained to him by the curious Englishman who had visited him—and several others—a few hours earlier. His job was incarceration. He expanded wider and wider, branches forming branches forming branches as he towered over Atherton’s army, who cowered together, their advance halted by the sight of this mobile forest that seemed intent on attacking them. He did not attack. He simply dropped forward, encasing every single one of them in a cage made of his own body.

The Land Carriage turned and slowed, drawing to a halt a few yards away. Its doors opened and one by one, its passengers alighted. Billy and Elisabeth; Elwyn and Meridiana; Biter, the excitement of his situation making him howl, his face lifted up to the sky; William, Abernathy, even Knee-High, the latter couple slightly the worse for drink though they covered it well as they dropped to the ground and stood next to their fellows; several residents from Wormwood, the human and the grotesque, stepping down in front of the eyes of the world. Even Fenella and her children were there, the excitable young things clambering around the outside of the carriage, jumping to either side of Lucifer who stood firm at the centre.

Above them a figure soared in the air, the bird-like creature Atherton had first noticed on his arrival at Wormwood. It flew past them all, on towards the mountains.

“No more!” Lucifer shouted, his voice carrying over the plain as slowly, but surely everyone grew quiet. “There will be no more blood spilled here today. Your enemy is not in front of you. If you want the assassin look to your own people, not mine.”

Agrat, her face still terrifying enough to live forever in the nightmares of the first few rows of spectators, lowered her hands.

Forset, down on his haunches, holding the President in his arms, called for help. “He’s still alive!” he shouted. “I need medical help!”

Captain Corker was shouting at his men, ordering them to hold fire. As terrified as they all were, the man was right, the shooter was in the mountains behind them, not the town. He shaded his eyes with his hand and stared up into the rocks, looking for a sign of their attacker.

A field medic rushed forward, giving the Vice-President a cursory glance—more than enough to show him that Mr Morton had passed beyond his help—and dropped down next to the President.

“Head wound,” he said, examining Harrison’s scalp, which peeled away in his hand. “Not a chance.”

Forset stood up, looking down at the dying man and the crowds that pushed forward to see his final breath. Leonard Oliver was at his side. “Presidential aide,” he said. “We should...” His words failed him. The man he was responsible for was expiring and with him, Oliver’s sense of purpose.

“We need to get him inside the tent,” Forset said. “If all we can give him is privacy then that is what he deserves.”

No sooner had he finished speaking than Fenella’s children were surrounding him, swarming around both Harrison and Morton before carefully lifting them and carrying them into the tent that had been constructed for their talks. It was an image that would be remembered, the children of Wormwood and the care and respect they showed the elders of the mortal world. The field medic simply stared, Forset grabbing him by the arm and pushing him towards the tent. “Come on man, now’s not the time, just do what you can.”

“These men came to me in peace,” said Lucifer, addressing the crowd, “and were struck down by one of their own. You’re afraid, I understand, and perhaps we are worthy of your fear. But we come to you under the same promise of peace offered by your government. Would you reject that? We don’t come as enemies, we come as friends. That town behind me is the doorway to other worlds and places, and it can never be closed. So why not take comfort from it? Instead of fearing what you do not know, why not embrace it? We are with you now, and we’re staying. I have offered the people of the Dominions my protection, and I offer that same protection to you. To all of you. Please take it, it is freely given.”

There was the call of the flying creature again as it descended into the open ground between the crowds and Lucifer’s party. In its hands it held Atherton, who stumbled free and walked towards the reporters.

“My name is Richard Atherton,” he said, “and I came here under orders of the British government. I’m the man who killed your President.”

He dropped to his knees, his energy spent, and those gathered couldn’t fail to notice his right arm was torn apart up to the elbow. The reports that followed would choose to ignore the fact, because nobody quite knew how to explain the wounds. The skin was ragged and appeared to have been bitten by some wild animal. Besides, the man’s own government claimed him soon after. While they disowned his actions, they accepted his provenance. Nobody was inclined to question.

The silence that had fallen in the wake of Lucifer’s appearance broke again as the crowd began to talk. The plain was awash with shouting, tears and questions. Lucifer lowered himself from the train and stood with his companions.

“This is the turning point,” he told them, “as I’m reliably informed by an influential observer.”

Irish appeared amongst them, his face solemn. “Thank you,” he said, “for all playing your parts. We have offered a show of strength today but the only blood to be spilled is not our responsibility.”

Lucifer raised an eyebrow. “That rather depends on who told Atherton to shoot, doesn’t it? Was it really his government’s orders?”

Irish shrugged. “According to them he was acting on his own and that’s how it will be left. But the world has seen you all, standing together. They have seen you come in peace. The entire future now hangs in the balance, and there is one more card that must be dealt in order to ensure things pan out for the best.” He looked at Lucifer who, after a reluctant sigh, nodded.

13.

H
ICKS’ ORB BEGAN
to descend, his wiry little fingers digging into its skin as he screamed curse after curse at it.

Below him, he saw the signs of building, foundations being laid, concrete being poured, great crowds of people milling around as they set to the art of building the biggest, most awe-inspiring tower the Dominion had ever seen. Lower and lower he dropped, the people growing larger, their faces distinct. He saw what he would have taken to be nothing but a small child were it not for the fact that her eyes were empty holes, opening onto a limitless darkness. She smiled as he floated past, giving him a wave.

Finally, the orb came to rest, hovering over the pit at the heart of Chatter’s Munch, Hicks forced to grip as tightly as ever in case he should fall into it. On the brim of the pit he saw two people he knew only too well.

“Hello again, my kind and considerate rider,” said Harmonium Jones. She was looking much improved from the time he had seen her last. Her hair and beard were clean and brushed, her skin scrubbed. Several meals had put some weight back on her and given her skin a more healthy glow. Her husband stood next to her, his head cocked, his face half in shadow beneath the brim of his hat. He was pointing his gun at Hicks.

“I believe you owe my wife an apology,” he said. “A considerable apology.” He cocked the gun.

“Fuck you!” shouted Hicks. “You’re going to shoot me whatever I say. I loved every minute of it! Every single damned mile grinding my old balls against the back of her lousy neck. Every tug of the reins, every single crack of my whip. So get it over with! Kill me!”

Jones put his gun back in his holster. “Kill you?” he asked, leading his wife away from the pit. “Where would be the fun in that? You can hang there a little longer first. Maybe a day or two.”