Relics (32 page)

Perry smiled crookedly.

‘Cutler and the others were killed by Morrigan.’

Wallace frowned. The name rang a bell.

‘The Queen of Demons,’ Perry told him. ‘A being able to take on the form of a human. A creature with incredible strength. She fed on the flesh of her victims. The Celts used to flay sacrificial offerings and lay the skin on the altars of Morrigan.’

‘This is bullshit,’ Wallace said, watching as Perry pulled one of the children to him, the sword poised at its throat.

‘You still don’t understand, do you?’ Perry snarled. ‘That was why I took
her
daughter. I had to bring
her
here tonight. I had to make sure
she
would come so that I could destroy her.’

‘Who?’ Wallace demanded.

The Queen of Demons, the creature that killed Cutler and all the others. The one possessed by Morrigan.’

Wallace shook his head.

‘No,’ he murmured.

‘She murdered them. Kim Nichols killed them all,’ Perry told him. ‘Or at least what once was Kim Nichols. Morrigan has found a new host body now. She was safe inside Kim until I discovered the truth in the writing on these walls. Kim is possessed. She has been since we opened this chamber. Only now I know it for sure.’

Wallace shook his head, edging closer to Perry, ready to jump him if the chance arose.

‘Let the children go.’

The voice lanced through the blackness and both men turned to see Kim approaching them.

‘Stay back,’ Perry said, a look of absolute terror crossing his face.

‘Let them go,’ Kim said again, and Wallace too was shocked as he heard her voice deepen from its normal feminine pitch to a thick deep bass.

‘Release them.’ she said, the words now almost slurred due to the depth of tone. They boomed around the tunnel and Wallace stood transfixed as Kim moved closer, her body beginning to shudder. She stood still, only feet from him, her head tilted backwards slightly, her arms stiff by her sides. The shudders intensified and suddenly she let out a roar which froze his blood.

Her head snapped forward and Wallace found himself witnessing something plucked straight from a nightmare.

There was a sound like tearing fabric and the skin on her face split in three or four places, peeling back to reveal dark, pitted, rotted flesh beneath. It welled through the rifts like pus-filled growths, expanding and contracting as even greater convulsions racked her body. The flesh beneath Kim’s own skin was sickly yellow and Wallace saw a number of liquescent boils pushing through it like fingers through wet pastry. Like a mask, her entire face seemed to peel off, hanging by a thick tendril of skin from her stubby neck.

And now he saw her chest and stomach undulating madly, the clothes she wore stretching over each fresh bulge, ripping in places to reveal the scabrous flesh beneath.

Her eyes rolled white, the pupils disappearing, and the glistening orbs then turned red as blood vessels dilated and swelled. She opened her mouth to reveal an array of sharply pointed teeth, all blackened and stained like her lips, which reminded Wallace of swollen leeches. Only they were dark blue, like two corpulent bruises framing a leering mouth which stretched wide and expelled a blast of air so rank that both men almost vomited.

Her hands and arms twitched madly as more flesh peeled back in great leprous folds, dropping away as if she were some kind of snake undergoing a sloughing process. Thick veins pulsed obscenely beneath the new, odorous skin, throbbing like blackened, animated worms.

Wallace shook his head in horrified disbelief as her fingers seemed to reshape themselves into points, not just the nails but the digits themselves, which contracted until they were like bloated needles.

He suddenly understood why they had found no fingerprints on the bodies of the murder victims. This beast had no pads to leave indentations.

Her hair turned grey, then white. In stark contrast to the colour of her putrescent skin.

The change was complete.

The thing which had once been Kim Nichols threw back its head and uttered a loud ululation which could never have come from anything human.

Wallace felt his bowels loosen, the screams of the children now also drumming in his ears.

With another inhuman roar, Morrigan launched herself at Perry.

The archaeologist screamed and went down in a heap beneath the raving monstrosity, the sword falling from his grip.

Wallace took his chance.

‘Run,’ he shouted at the terrified children. ‘Go on, down the tunnel. Now.’

They set off in the darkness, crying in terror, stumbling over bones and other objects as they went, but they struggled on, Clare sobbing with a particularly despairing tone.

Wallace turned to look back at the writhing forms close to him. He heard Perry scream in agony as one of Morrigan’s clawed hands slashed open his cheek, exposing the bone, ripping a large portion of the flesh away.

‘Slaughter the children, the archaeologist wailed. ‘Stop Dagda.’

Wallace felt as if he was frozen to the ground, unable to move as he watched the creature lift Perry with one scabrous hand, dangling him as a child would dangle a puppet. Then he saw the bloodied hand dart forward towards the man’s stomach. The nails pierced the flesh effortlessly and the leathery fingers closed around the archaeologist’s intestines, pulling hard. Thick gouts of blood burst from the rent, followed by several sticky, bloated lengths of entrail which the abomination held before it like dripping trophies. Wallace could see that the innards were still pulsing like heavy veins. Blood sprayed everywhere, some of it splattering the policeman, who felt his stomach contract.

Blood filled Perry’s mouth, his shrieks of agony gurgling through the crimson clots which filled his throat and surged upwards to cascade over his lips.

Morrigan lowered him a foot or two, his body already beginning to spasm. The monstrosity glared at him. With one lightning movement, it jabbed the needle-sharp claws into his right eye, carving through the soft flesh of the lids, scooping the bunging orb free of the socket and into the palm of its hand where it studied this new prize for a second before shoving it into the gaping maw of its mouth. As the jaws came together the eye burst, a gush of clear fluid and blood spilling down Morrigan’s chin. The monster chewed for a second then swallowed the pulped orb.

Wallace could hold back no longer. He bent double and vomited violently, staggering past as the beast dug out Perry’s other eye and devoured it, dragging him closer, allowing a wolfish, tumefied tongue to probe deep inside the bleeding sockets, sucking out the clotted blood and other matter which remained inside. Then, with a roar, Morrigan flung the body to one side and set off after Wallace.

He ran as he’d never run before, his head spinning, his breath drawn in great racking gasps. Aware only of the monstrous creature that chased him, moving sure-footedly in the gloom which was its home.

He slammed into a rock wall, bounced off and carried on running, not knowing how far he had to go to reach the shaft.

Or the children.

Dear Christ, the children . . .

They were just ahead of him. He could see them in the light from the torch. He flicked it behind him and Morrigan was illuminated in the beam, a vision of such monstrous corruption that Wallace began to fear for his sanity.

And she was gaining on him.

The ground before him suddenly erupted, a shower of dirt and stones spraying up into the tunnel. All around, the stonework began to crack.

The rumbling grew louder until it filled his ears.

Even the wild roars of the pursuing creature and the high-pitched screams of the children were lost to him now as more earth showered down.

The tunnel was collapsing.

Wallace threw himself forward as on his left another portion of the tunnel floor exploded upwards as if punched by some massive fist.

Was this the end? Was it to be as Perry had described it?

Wallace could see nothing but he could feel the life being sucked from him, his will draining away as the entity known as Dagda began to rise. He knew, in that split second, what he must do.

There was a child close to him, one of the two boys.

Wallace made a grab for him but, before he could seize the fleeing child, he felt strong hands tearing at his back and he knew that Morrigan was upon him.

The claws cut effortlessly through his jacket and quickly found his flesh, reducing the skin on his back to bloodied tatters. Wallace rolled over, despairingly driving one foot into the creature’s face, feeling bones splinter beneath the impact. He gripped the torch and used it like a club, bringing it down with bone-crushing force on her head. Blood gushed from the wound but Morrigan did not cease her attack.

Wallace put up an arm to shield his face and felt his forearm torn open by the claws. He drove his fist towards her face but one powerful hand clutched his wrist, squeezing tighter until much worse pain shot up his arm and the bones began to splinter. Wallace roared in pain and rage and drove a powerful backhand swipe into the monster’s face. To his horror, it gripped his other wrist too, lifting him into the air with a strength that belied its size.

He felt mind-numbing agony sweep through him, then Morrigan hurled him against the wall of the tunnel. His head snapped back and a sharp piece of rock sliced open his scalp. But as he slid downward he used his one good hand to clutch a lump of the stone. He used it as a bludgeon, crashing it into the face of his attacker, feeling the nose disintegrate under the impact. Morrigan picked him up and hurled him to one side. He hit the ground hard and rolled, finding that he was close to the bottom of the shaft.

The children were there, waiting for him, screaming and crying with new shock as first Wallace, then Morrigan, emerged from the tunnel.

The ground burst open again, and now the entire complex of tunnels was beginning to rumble and shake as Wallace felt the air growing colder.

He struggled to his feet, searching for a weapon, knowing that time had already run out for him.

And for those above.

He snatched up a broken sword from the floor of the shaft and hefted it before him. The pain from his broken wrist was excruciating, but he gripped the sword as tightly as he could, bracing himself as Morrigan, Queen of Demons, came hurtling towards him.

Broken though it was, the sword was still almost two feet long and it put sufficient distance between Wallace and his attacker. As she ran at him he swung the blade in a downward arc and it sheared through her puffy skin, opening her arm from shoulder to elbow.

A mixture of blood and blackened pus spurted from the wound, bringing with it a choking stench. Wallace ignored this, almost shouting with triumph when he saw the creature stumble.

He struck again.

Morrigan raised an arm to protect herself, but Wallace was driven on now by a mixture of fear and desperation which seemed to increase his strength.

The blade scythed through her arm just below the elbow, shattered the bone and carved swiftly through the remaining muscle, severing the limb, which fell to the ground twitching wildly. Morrigan roared and leapt at Wallace, using her remaining arm to seize him by the throat. The severed stump of the other spewed reeking fluid onto the policeman as he was pushed back against the wall of the shaft, the beast’s claws cutting into his neck, drawing blood in several places.

His eyes bulged and he felt as if someone were filling his head with air. The fetid stench of the creature’s breath combined with the even more noxious odour of the blood and pus almost caused Wallace to be sick again.

He found himself staring straight into the demon’s blood-flecked white orbs, seeing nothing there but blind hatred and something like triumph.

The ground all around them seemed to be bubbling. Small geysers of earth rose and fell rapidly as the pressure beneath grew to an intolerable level. Wallace knew he had lost, unless . . .

With a despairing moan he managed to push the creature away, smashing it across the face with the flat of the sword.

It staggered, momentarily stunned, and in that split second Wallace struck.

Gripping the sword in both hands he swung it with all his strength.

The blade caught Morrigan just below the jaw, carving through bone and muscle with ease.

The head rose on a thick arc of blood, screaming its defiance even though it had been severed. The mouth yawned open in a last roar of rage, then the head thudded to the ground on the stump of the neck.

Wallace fell back, not prepared for what happened next.

Morrigan’s body remained upright, like a beheaded chicken, staggering back and forth for interminable moments. Then it seemed to swell up, muscles bulging outwards as if pumped by air. Bloated, replete with corruption, it burst like one massive boil.

The entire body exploded in a welter of blood and pus. A great stinking eruption of it seemed to fill the shaft, showering Wallace and the children. Great twisted lengths of intestine spiralled upwards like uncoiling springs coated in glutinous red muck. Nails burst from the swollen finger tips even as they flew through the air with the other sickening debris. Wallace screamed despairingly as the vile mixture covered him, matting his hair, lathering his face with reeking red foam.

Even the severed head erupted, greyish-pink gobbets of brain propelled from the riven skull which cracked open to reveal its sticky contents. The eyes burst in their sockets, viscous fluid from the obscene spheres mingling with the blood and pus.

Wallace staggered towards the children, one of whom had fainted.

He saw that two of them had already begun to climb.

‘No,’ he screamed, his voice drowned as the ground near him split open, the fissure shooting close to his feet.

Beneath him something huge, something loathsome, moved.

He looked down at the little girl, tears now coursing down his cheeks, cutting a path through the gore which coated his face.

He had no choice. He had to do it.