The Devil in green da-1 Read online

  Mallory half-expected the attacker to pursue them even though they were on sacred ground, so he rolled over and dragged Hipgrave to his feet, propelling him back down the tunnel. Hipgrave was clutching his sword- arm in pain where the skin was marred by five red marks.

  'We'll be back,' he grunted. 'We've seen it now.'

  'It's seen us,' Mallory corrected.

  When they were a few yards away, he glanced back to see a large figure silhouetted against the lighter shadows, stooping to fits its frame in the constricting tunnel. Mallory didn't want to come back to face that thing at all.

  They emerged from another tunnel on the edge of the cloisters, both still troubled by what they had seen. Hipgrave was rambling about exorcising the Devil, and seemed so distracted that he was barely aware Mallory was with him. Mallory took the earliest opportunity to slip away, first into the cathedral and then out into the twilight. As he crossed the lawns back to the dorm, he saw Daniels in deep conversation with his young friend Lewis — his lover, Mallory guessed. The teen appeared upset. Mallory tried not to look, but as he passed it was obvious all was not well between the two of them. The youth was tearful, his voice growing louder. Eventually he stormed away. Daniels noticed Mallory and came over morosely.

  'Trouble?' Mallory said.

  Daniels didn't meet his eye. 'He's young — he doesn't understand.' He fell silent, and when Mallory didn't press him for information, he added, 'You haven't heard, then. Stefan is introducing some new rules to impose order. They were announced an hour ago in the cathedral. Where were you?'

  'Carrying Hipgrave's drool cup. What kind of rules?' 'Reactionary rules.' There was an edge to Daniels' voice that Mallory hadn't heard before.

  'You know he comes from the fundamentalist wing. Don't tell me you're surprised.'

  'I was hopeful, Mallory. That's the kind of person I am -1 always think everyone is as reasonable and erudite and downright charming as myself.' He looked up at the icy stars. 'It's going to be a hell of a winter.'

  'So what's he-'

  'He doesn't want any sodomites polluting the religion. There are too many of us here, apparendy — though most of them must be so far in the closet they've never seen the light of day. And God doesn't recognise us. We're sinful… we'll never be allowed into heaven.'

  'That's what you get for messing with religion, Daniels — it's just a prop for prejudice.'

  He swore under his breath with irritation. 'I knew I shouldn't waste my time talking to you…'

  Mallory caught him as he prepared to storm off. 'You're right — I'm sorry, that was a cheap shot. Look, just lie low for a while. What can he do?'

  'I don't know. But he had those thugs from the Inquisition with him when he made the announcement. I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this.'

  'For God's sake,' Mallory said, 'this is the pathetic rump of Christianity in Britain, here, within these four walls. He can't afford to start driving people out! There'll be nobody left.'

  'I suppose you're right. He's just making a point. I mean, he said we could stay if we renounced our sexuality, so he's not being completely hard line about it.'

  'There you go.'

  Daniels rubbed his eyes wearily. 'I was trying to explain it to Lewis. I said if we didn't flaunt it we could carry on. He said if God is love and we love each other, what's wrong with that?'

  'He's got a point.'

  'The Bible says-'

  'The Bible says a lot of nonsense amongst all the good stuff. You can justify any point of view with it. Same with the Koran. Look what happened out in Afghanistan.'

  'If we haven't got the Bible, Mallory, we haven't got anything.'

  'Yeah, I hear that all the time, and you know what? I don't believe it. When you come down to it, it's a book. Any religion has to be bigger than that.'

  'I'll try that one on Stefan the next time I see him,' Daniels said sarcastically. 'Look, I'm off to compline. Got to show willing in the current atmosphere. I'll see you later.'

  He headed off in the growing gloom, shoulders bowed. Mallory watched him go, sympathetic but not surprised. Daniels had been right: winter was going to be hard.

  'What are you doing, Mallory?'

  Miller's whisper floated out of the dark, startling Mallory who was lying in his bunk, staring up at the ceiling. Further down the room, Gardener was snoring as loudly as a chain saw. Daniels had been tossing and turning for an hour, but now seemed to have drifted off.

  'Thinking.' He'd actually been tracing the pattern of the dragons on the hilt of his sword in the scabbard that hung from the bed-head. Its response to the Blue Fire barrier in the tunnels that afternoon had brought to a head his growing concerns about it. He recalled what Rhiannon had said about its importance when he had picked it up at the Court of Peaceful Days, but he still couldn't guess its true significance. Sometimes it felt alive in his grasp; when at rest in the scabbard it often appeared to be singing to him, the faint vibration he felt in his leg oddly comforting.

  'You're always thinking, Mallory. I watch you, you know.'

  'You're starting to scare me now, Miller.'

  'All the people around here drift through what's happening, but you pay attention to everything and everybody.' In the dark, Miller's voice sounded small, like a child's. 'You try to pretend you don't care about anything, but I can tell you care a lot… even if you don't see it yourself.'

  'You sound like a bad self-help book.' Mallory wondered if he could throw the sword away. At first it had seemed like a valuable, powerful form of protection, but increasingly it was just a reminder of the obligations Rhiannon had attempted to thrust on him: to be a hero, to fight for humanity as some kind of mythical knight, a Brother of Dragons. That had sounded pathetic at the time. Now it was simply irritating him, although he didn't quite know why he felt that way.

  'We need you, Mallory.'

  The honesty in Miller's voice was affecting; Mallory couldn't come back with a joke. 'You don't need me.'

  'You think that because you're strong, everyone else is strong, too, but that's not true. Some people need others to help them along. The strong help the weak — that's how it should be. Things are falling apart here, Mallory. We need you.'

  Miller's words were an uncomfortable piece of synchronicity with

  Mallory's own thoughts. He usually managed to keep his many doubts locked away behind a patina of arrogance, but at that moment he could barely contain them. 'I was given this sword by someone who felt I should be a hero,' he mused aloud. 'I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they were acting as though I was meant to be there.'

  'Maybe it's true what they say — there aren't any coincidences. Everything that happens is meant to happen.'

  'Or maybe they just got the wrong bloke.'

  Silence consumed them for ten minutes until Miller said, 'What do you see when you close your eyes at night, Mallory?'

  A burst of fire in the dark, cleansing, like the flame of a Fabulous Beast. He didn't answer.

  'Something bad happened to you before you came here, didn't it?'

  Mallory tensed. 'What makes you say that?'

  'Like I said, I watch you. Little things you've said… the way you act… the way you won't talk about the life you had before.'

  'In this world we've got now, something bad has happened to everyone.'

  'It's not healthy to bottle these things up. It affects the way you act… stops you moving on… makes you give up on die life God has planned for you-'

  'There you go with that evangelical crap again.'

  'You don't have to act with me, Mallory. You can tell me anything, get it off your chest. I'm your friend.' A long pause. 'Aren't I?'

  Mallory sighed wearily. 'I'm only saying this because the other two are asleep and it's dark. Yes, I like you, Miller, because you haven't let yourself get eaten up by cynicism like everyone else.'

  'Is that it?' Miller sounded disappointed. He covered himself hastily with, 'Look, tell me what happened to you an
d I'll tell you something bad that happened to me. That's fair. That way we both benefit.'

  And Mallory almost did; the feeling that the awful burden that had crushed him for so long was about to be lifted was exhilarating. If he admitted it to himself, Miller was probably the only reason he had decided to stick around after his first beating at Blaine's hands. Whatever Blaine had said, he could have found some way to get out. But he saw in Miller something of himself, before all the misery. It gave him an odd sort of hope, but he didn't want to analyse it too closely. And that was the reason why he couldn't tell him: he couldn't spoil him.

  'Go to sleep, Miller,' he said.

  He guessed from the silence that he'd hurt Miller's feelings, but he put it out of his mind; he was good at that these days. Gardener and Daniels were silent. The moon broke through the curtains in a band illuminating the far wall. It made him think, oddly, of Sophie. And then he fell asleep.

  She was waiting for him in the silvery glade, filled with mysteries and cool, dark depths.

  'How do you do this?' he asked. A summery breeze rustled the leaves above his head. 'And, for that matter, where is this?'

  'There are more worlds than the one you see around you, Mallory,' she said, walking slowly around the ring of fungi that marked the perimeter of the clearing. 'This one is at the same time in your head and encompassing everything… the universe… everything.'

  'Well, that's the kind of mystical bollocks I expect from you.'

  'You've learned a little sassiness since our last meeting, I see.' She wasn't offended by his comment and that made him like her even more. 'How do I come here? A few herbs, a little incense, some candle smoke, a small ritual… easy when you know how.'

  Recalling their previous meeting when his every emotion had been untrammelled, he struggled to keep control while maintaining a superficially blase appearance. 'And why do you come here to see me?' he said, leaning against a tree as nonchalantly as he could manage. But it was difficult; every fibre of him wanted to feel the sensation of her pressed against his body, forced inside him so he could consume all parts of her.

  'It passes the time.' She flashed him a sideways glance, quickly obscured by her hair.

  'You said we should stop playing games.' He tried to analyse why he felt so strongly about her, but it escaped all examination: too complex, too deep-seated, too many interrelated subtleties of intellect, emotion and physical appearance. It was simply the way it was, and he had to accept it on those terms.

  'I'm not. But,' she added thoughtfully, 'the travelling is half the fun of getting here.'

  'Then you haven't been doing it right.'

  The glade was filled with a crackling tension, both emotional and sexual. Mallory realised his breathing had become shallow, could see the same quick rise and fall in Sophie's chest. She kept her face turned away from him so he couldn't see her reactions. 'And you've actually had a relationship before? Amazing.'

  He was hypnotised by the way she moved, in and out of the circle now, light and supple. 'You've forgiven me, then?' he asked.

  'Just about.'

  'We're trying to dig a tunnel into your camp.'

  She flashed him another look, more suspicious this time. 'We heard the digging. What's going on?'

  'We're starting to starve in there… you know those things won't let us in or out. Pretty soon people are going to start dying.'

  'And you expect… what? Sympathy? For the people who killed Melanie and Scab?'

  Mallory walked into the centre of the circle, turning slowly to follow her. He could barely contain the electric charge in his limbs. 'You're talking about prejudice now… the kind of thing you said your own people face. Yes, there are some unpleasant types in the cathedral… same as everywhere. But a lot of them are good, decent, possibly misguided, but-'

  'And what are you asking?'

  'For your help.' She didn't show whether she had heard him. 'You can trust me.'

  This time she looked up. 'I think I can trust you, Mallory.' She sounded surprised herself. 'But how do I know I can trust the rest of the God Squad?'

  'All they want is some food… a way to carry on believing in what they believe in. The same as you.'

  Mallory was intrigued to see what looked like moonlight glimmering where her bare feet had just trod. 'So they dig under the wall… what then?'

  'The food comes in through your camp to the tunnel. In return, they can offer something… I don't know. See it as trade between nation- states. They've got a good standard of health care… they know about herbs-'

  'So do we.'

  'And they've got a massive wine cellar and a lake of beer.'

  'OK, you sold me.' She laughed. 'Whose idea was this?'

  'Mine.'

  'Preaching peace and love between men, Mallory? There's hope for you yet.'

  'There might have been a slightly more selfish motivation.' Hunger consumed him. In that place where there were no rules and no judgment, he finally accepted he didn't have to pretend.

  Her eyes flashed in the moonlight. 'Oh?' A faint smile.

  'Well, you won't come to me…'

  'Major engineering works, just to see me? How very romantic.' She broke off from her dance and entered the circle to join him. There was nothing coy about her; she was as strong and confident as he was: an equal. All his repressed emotion rushed up and out: his consuming guilt, his fear and, most of all, his love. At that moment, nothing else mattered — all Existence revolved around the two of them.

  He grabbed her shoulders forcefully and pulled her forwards. She propelled herself to him with the same hunger. This kiss was so much more than the tentative, desperate first one: it was voracious; all barriers crashed before it. Her skin was hot. Their lips were hard and bruising, their mouths moving with desire, hands raking each other's bodies.

  Energy crackled between them: Blue Fire, Mallory thought, filling them, consuming them. From that point, there was no going back.

  The next day dawned cold and grey, but Mallory took to it as if it was midsummer. He found time to go up on to the walls so he could look at the trees that lined the hillsides to the south of the city, bare black amid the evergreens. As he slowly made his way along the walkway, enjoying the peace away from the oppressive control of the knights, he became aware of two people talking below him. There was something in the tone of their conversation that caught his attention, a note of deep concern, perhaps of undue seriousness. He peered cautiously over the edge to see James and Julian so engrossed they were oblivious to his presence above them.

  'It's outrageous,' Julian said. 'He should be using his position to bring the camps together. He doesn't have a mandate. The election was so close it could have gone either way. And after we all made such a big show of supporting him…'

  'There'll be trouble. Some on our side won't toe the line indefinitely for the sake of unity,' James said. He added hopefully, 'Perhaps he won't go down that road. It's all rumour and innuendo-'

  'It sounded pretty copper-bottomed when I heard it.' Julian's voice snapped with repressed anger. 'He could split the Church. How stupid is that? We're barely hanging on by our fingernails. To fragment us now could be…' He shook his head. Tears of anger flecked his eyes. 'I can't believe this is happening so soon after Cornelius passed. He'd be outraged, after all he did to bring together all the conflicting factions. Good Lord, even the Baptists. I'm starting to think he should have been a little more exacting in his inclusion policy.'

  James clapped him on the shoulder supportively. 'Things have been bad before. We'll pull through, God willing. If things are going the way you say, we have to make a stand. We have to. We can't let the Church be taken over in this way. It would be disastrous. The responsibility is on us to provide a counterbalance.'

  'And how do you think he'll respond to that?' Julian said. 'For all his public pronouncements, he's never been one for compromise.'

  'Then we'll have a fight on our hands.'

  They walked away in the directi
on of the cathedral, leaving Mallory to ponder on the significance of what they had been discussing.

  Most of the knights congregated on the roof at seven p.m., but the Blues were nowhere to be seen. There was an atmosphere of tense anticipation, though oddly hopeful as everyone prepared for the release of pent-up feelings of impotence and inadequacy. Although no one quite knew what it was hoped would be achieved by the planned strike-back, it felt good to be doing anything. And debate raged back and forth about exactly what they were doing; Blaine had given nothing away in his briefing. No one had any idea how they could hit the Adversary's forces from the restricted position of the roof of the cathedral buildings. And even if they could strike the creatures that attacked the walls, how could it possibly amount to the kind of earth-shaking blow Blaine had implied?

  Mallory leaned on the stone wall that ran around the edge of the roof area and peered into the sea of dark beneath; it provided no sense of depth, so he had the dizzying sensation that the drop went on for ever. Miller refused to come anywhere near the edge; he complained of vertigo and had almost been physically sick when they had processed on to the roof to see the landscape stretched out all around, bathed in the moonlight shining from a clear sky. Daniels lay glumly against a sloping section, wrapped in his cloak, staring at the stars. Gardener sat with his back to the wall, smoking a roll-up.

  The roof was structurally as complex as the new buildings it covered: pitched, tiled sections separated flat areas that could be accessed from the many corridors and rooms that filled the roof spaces; towers, steeples with flag poles and lightning conductors protruded upwards, along with huge gothic gargoyles that had the same unnerving effect as the ones overlooking the great hall. The knights had decamped in little clusters all around, reflecting the small teams that had been established during the training period.