The Devil in green da-1 Page 8

  'The Blue Fire is back in force.' Sophie's eyes gleamed, her voice quiet but intense. 'And we can do great things again.'

  'Just like that,' Mallory said.

  'Yes. Just like that.' She looked to Melanie. 'When everything changed with the Fall, it regained its old vitality. The Fall was a signifier that we'd moved into a new age-'

  'The dawning of the Age of Aquarius,' Mallory joked.

  'Not everyone has the ability to work subtle magics, in the same way that not everyone can be an artist. But those who are able are very, very able. Supercharged,' Melanie said.

  'I remain to be convinced,' Mallory said.

  'Of course you do,' Melanie replied. 'This is a hard topic for many people to swallow. They get taught things when they're young… things about the way the world works… and they don't like to give them up easily. It makes them feel uneasy. Destabilised.' Melanie nodded to Sophie. 'Darling, be a dear and tell Mr Mallory about Ruth Gallagher.' Her eyelids drooped shut.

  'I've heard that name,' Miller said.

  'You should have. Everyone should have, but the word is still getting round.' Sophie tried to read Mallory's face to see if he had become any more receptive. 'After the Fall, there was a group of people who fought for humanity. They were heroes. And one of them was Ruth Gallagher. The gods gifted her with a tremendous power. She became an ultimate adept at the Craft-'

  'An Uber-witch.' Mallory couldn't restrain himself, but Sophie was unfazed.

  'She could do amazing things. She could shake the world if she wanted. After the final battle, she set out across the land, spreading the word, teaching those who came to her. And Melanie was one of the first. They met in the Midlands, near Warwick, and Melanie took to it phenomenally. Her potential was off the scale. And she taught me.'

  'And Sophie's potential is great, too.' Melanie's eyes were open once more, but she looked even more weary.

  'I still think you're fooling yourself,' Mallory said. 'But I'll bite. Go on, show me.'

  'No,' Sophie said indignantly.

  'We don't perform, Mr Mallory.' Melanie threw a scrawny arm over her eyes. 'We use the Craft sparingly and for the right reasons. We use it as Christians would prayer. It's not something to be taken lightly.'

  'Oh, well, then, that's all right. You can show me, you just don't feel like it,' Mallory said. 'You've convinced me. I'm a believer.'

  'Are you always like this?' Sophie's eyes blazed.

  'Actually, he is,' Miller said.

  Mallory flashed him a look that suggested he was a traitor. 'As you said earlier, everyone out there thinks they know the way the world works. And they're all wrong. So why should you be right?'

  Miller moved to the foot of Melanie's bed. His curiosity had been caught by the way the blankets were lying; it didn't look right. 'If you don't mind me asking,' he said gently, 'what's wrong with you?'

  Sophie's face grew hard. 'What's wrong with her?' Rick suddenly appeared near to tears. 'She was trying to do some good and she was attacked and beaten for it!'

  'I'm sorry,' Miller said. 'We have access to medical care… well, herbs and the like. If we can help-'

  'There's not much that can be done, I'm afraid.' Melanie gently pulled back the blankets. Both her legs were missing from the knee.

  Miller recoiled. 'My God, what happened?'

  'She was attacked by a group of bastards from the cathedral!' Rick said, his eyes brimming over.

  Miller blanched, glanced at Mallory in disbelief.

  'We were at Stonehenge,' Sophie continued, her face like stone. 'It used to be a dead site… all the energy leeched from it because of exploitation… but after the Fall it came back with force. We were investigating some reports that a Fabulous Beast had settled in the area when-'

  'They came out of nowhere!' Rick raged. 'Black-shirted bastards with a red cross on the front — we've seen them around the cathedral! Think they're some kind of knights-'

  'No!' Miller exclaimed, waving his hands as if he were trying to waft away the notion.

  'They did that?' Mallory said.

  'They tried to drive us off,' Sophie replied. 'Came at us on horseback with swords and pikes and all sorts of medieval weaponry.'

  'I couldn't get out of the way in time,' Melanie said. 'I fell beneath the hooves. They weren't able to save my legs.'

  'No,' Miller repeated, backing towards the purple drapes. 'I don't believe it.' Sophie, Rick and Melanie looked at him in puzzlement.

  'It's true,' Sophie said. 'We wouldn't make something like that up. They knew who we were — unbelievers — and they rode her down. They didn't try to help or anything, just drove us away. They didn't care if we lived or died.'

  'No,' Miller said again. 'We're knights — we're from the cathedral. And no one there would do anything like that.'

  Mallory's heart sank. Miller's denial was too strong, bolstered by his own need to believe that there was no truth in the story. Mallory had been focusing on Rick's face; the puzzlement hung there for an instant while he processed what Miller had said and then his features hardened.

  'Is this true?' Sophie said directly to Mallory. A hint of betrayal chilled her eyes.

  'We only signed up today,' Mallory replied.

  Rick looked as if he would leap across the room and attack them. 'They're all the same!' he raged. 'They hate anyone who's not a Christian-'

  'That's not true!' Miller protested, close to tears himself.

  'Please,' Melanie said weakly, 'no arguments.'

  Mallory could see that the warm atmosphere had already evaporated. The extent of Melanie's tragedy meant any attempt to argue their innocence would be offensive. 'Come on, Miller, this isn't the time,' he said, grabbing the young knight's arm. Miller threw it off, preparing to defend his Faith further, and Mallory grabbed him tighter this time, dragging him back. 'Get a grip,' Mallory hissed in his ear. 'Look at what's happened to her — have some heart.'

  'Yeah, get out of here,' Rick said, 'and tell your lot we'll never forget what they did.'

  Melanie closed her eyes; the strain was telling on her. Mallory tried to imagine the pain and horror of having two legs amputated without recourse to anaesthetic or an operating theatre. 'Come on, Miller,' he said, softening. Slowly, his companion unclenched and turned to go.

  Miller paused at the drapes and said, 'I'm sorry. I truly am.' But the look on the faces of Sophie and Rick showed they both realised Melanie was probably dying and there were no words that could make amends for the crime that had been committed.

  Sophie exited with them while Rick tended to Melanie. The frostiness of her mood made Mallory feel as if he'd lost something truly valuable; she didn't meet his eyes any more.

  'I know it's not your fault,' she said, 'but I have a very real problem with anyone who subscribes to a belief system that condones something like that.'

  Mallory wanted to tell her he'd only signed up for a job of work, but at that point it would have sounded so pathetic it wouldn't have achieved anything. Instead he said, 'I'm sorry things ended like this.'

  She didn't wait to hear any more.

  As they trudged across the camp, the first light of dawn coloured the eastern sky. The screeching wind ended as if someone had flicked a switch, nor was there any sign of the Fabulous Beast.

  Miller had been lost to his thoughts until he said, 'It can't be true, Mallory. No one at the cathedral would stand by that kind of behaviour.'

  'I don't know, Miller — it only takes one bad apple… or one psycho… and everybody gets tarnished. Any club that has me as a member can't have a very strict vetting procedure.'

  'We should tell James… or Blaine-'

  'Right, and say we dumped our uniforms and slipped out under cover of darkness to spend time with a bunch of witches. That should merit a crucifixion at least.'

  'Don't joke about that, Mallory!' Miller's emotions were all raging near the surface, but he managed to calm himself. 'I'm sorry. But I'm not like you, Mallory. I believe in things, and it h
urts me when you take the piss out of them.'

  'OK. I won't do it again.'

  Miller eyed him askance to see if he was joking, but couldn't begin to tell. Mallory's thoughts, however, had already turned to seeing Sophie again and ways that he might bridge the gulf that lay between them. It wasn't insurmountable, he was sure, but he would need time away from the strict regime of the cathedral.

  When they walked along High Street up to the main entrance, what they saw brought them to an immediate halt. The enormous iron gates were bowed, almost torn asunder, hanging from their hinges by a sliver. The Devil had come calling.

  Chapter Four

  Entertaining Angels Unawares

  'No human being will ever know the Truth, for even if they happened to say it by chance, they would not know they had done so.'

  — Xenophanes

  September turned to October and with it came the first real chill of the approaching winter. The rooftops visible beyond the walls sparkled with frost as they emerged from the dawn mist, and the breath of the brethren formed pearly clouds when they trooped to the cathedral for prime. How the city's residents were coping with the first cold snap was a mystery, for since the night of the near-destruction of the gates the bishop had ruled that no one should leave the compound.

  The attack had shaken the cathedral to its core. A black, fearful mood lay over all, turning every conversation at the refectory tables, or in the leaky, cold shacks, or in the kitchens, or the herbarium, or the infirmary, to only one subject: the End Times had arrived.

  At first, no one could quite grasp that what had been predicted and dissected for millennia had finally arrived and they were truly living in the age of the ultimate battle between good and evil, but gradually the desperate reality of their situation crept over them. Everyone in the cathedral who had seen the horned figure looming over the city or felt the scuttling touch of the presence's hideous intelligence in their mind had no doubt of the Adversary's black power. As the bishop pointed out in one of his sermons, there were no coincidences in God's world; the Adversary had come when the Church was at its weakest, but also at the point when it was preparing to break out as a potent force once more. 'Evil is determined to prevent our resurgence,' the bishop had said, 'and so it is down to us to ensure that Evil does not triumph. We are God's champions at a time we thought was always in the distant future. But it is now, and we cannot fail, and with our Lord beside us, we shall not fail.'

  Yet while the bishop and the Church administration pored over ancient documents in the library, or discussed the signs and portents for any insight — sightings of the risen dead reported around the cathedral compound being one of the most prominent — many of the brethren were driven to frantic prayer. They felt cripplingly weak beside the strength they had seen exhibited, unprepared, fragmented, the rump of a once- mighty religion, and after the tribulations they had already suffered, they did not know if they had any resistance left. They reassured each other that their faith was strong, but the cold wind was in danger of winnowing the small flame of their fear into a blaze.

  In the claustrophobic confines of the compound, grim and conflicting rumours circulated endlessly: the Dark Forces of the Prince of Lies were moving to wipe the Church from the land; it was the sign of the Second Coming; the apocalypse was at hand.

  Expectations were high of another assault on the cathedral, and with each day that passed peacefully the tension increased. The Chapter of Canons authorised the reinforcement of the already sturdy walls from a supply of sheet metal, then trebled the number of guards and increased the frequency of patrols along the walkways around the battlements.

  At the same time, the already rigorous routine of the knights was stepped up into a relentless round of weapons training, physical exertion and tedious study that stretched from first light to compline. The only positive aspect for Mallory was that it kept him away from the hours of prayer and chanting that dominated every aspect of life for the brethren.

  His trip into the city with Miller had given him a taste of what he was missing in the cathedral, but there was little chance of repeating the excursion. Though they had got back into the complex with ease, losing themselves among the team of workers repairing the badly damaged gates, the clampdown meant it would be too risky in the future. Suddenly Mallory felt like a prisoner.

  'Do you think it was the Blues who attacked Melanie?' Miller whispered to Mallory as they watched the elite squad moving through their practice with machine-like efficiency. 'They scare me.'

  Mallory leaned on his sword, a well-worn Reformation model. 'Don't waste your time thinking about it, Miller. We're never going to find out, and even if we did we wouldn't be able to do anything.'

  'That's not right, Mallory. We can't just ignore something so wrong.'

  'Miller, sooner or later you're going to realise that the world is filled with injustice. It's situation normal. You might as well get wound up about stopping the rain.'

  'You two! What do you think you're doing?' They turned wearily at Hipgrave's clipped tones. The captain had been bawling out one of the novice knights for clumsy swordplay, even though he was barely out of his teens and had been suffering from malnutrition when he wandered into the cathedral an hour after Mallory and Miller. He was still painfully thin and weak thanks to the meagre diet offered in the refectory.

  'Just taking a break,' Mallory said.

  Hipgrave stormed over and yelled into Mallory's face. 'There's no break on the battlefield! Get fighting!'

  Mallory didn't flinch. 'You've seen Full Metal Jacket, haven't you?'

  Hipgrave had clearly not encountered insubordination in his brief time as a captain. For a couple of seconds, he stared so blankly that Mallory could almost see the thoughts moving across his face. Finally, everything came together with the realisation of what Mallory had said, that the other Knights were watching, that he hadn't responded quickly enough or cleverly enough or with enough discipline. Unable to cope, he backed away and took his embarrassed irritation out on the knight he had just been berating. Yet his flushed cheeks revealed his awareness that his position had been undermined. Mallory expected a response sooner or later, probably when he didn't expect it; more, he didn't care.

  'That bastard's the worst kind of bully.' Gardener adjusted the bandages he had wrapped around his hands to help him grip the sword better. For someone in his fifties, he was leaner and fitter than many half his age. Mallory noted when it came to training that the Geordie had an attention to detail — like the bandages — that made him an effective force. 'He won't do it to your face 'cause he's too weak. He needs taking down a peg,' he added.

  'If we were in 'Nam we could frag him,' Mallory said wryly. 'Full Metal Racket.'

  Hipgrave gave the order to fight and Mallory and Gardener stepped into the sequences of feints and strikes they had been learning. Beside them, Daniels lined up against Miller. There were twenty-seven of them in the novice group, a mixture of skills, ages and social backgrounds. Most of the ones Mallory had encountered were decent enough, though they were all weak and pathetic according to Hipgrave.

  'You know he's got a small penis?' Daniels said. His hardly strong blow brought Miller to his knees.

  'How do you know?' Gardener grunted. 'He always goes in a cubicle if there's anyone at the urinal. Never trust a man who does that — he's got something to hide.'

  'Aren't you Mr Boa Constrictor-in-the-pants,' Daniels gibed. 'No, he's trying too hard. Over-compensating.'

  'If that's the case he probably needs a pair of tweezers to find it.' Mallory grunted as Gardener came in with three blows in quick succession.

  'I love this locker-room talk,' Daniels said. He evaded Miller's strike lithely and made a mock blow that would have taken off his partner's head.

  'It's like being in Loaded magazine around here,' Miller said. 'I bet the original Knights Templar weren't like this.'

  ' 'Course they were,' Mallory said. 'They had their candid charcoal sketches of Big Mary
of Damascus, a goat's-skin full of mead after work and then bared their arses to the passing camels before stumbling back home.'

  'You do realise we're God's Troopers,' Daniels said sniffily. 'We have forsaken all pleasures of the flesh. We get by on fresh air, a prayer and a turnip.'

  'Bollocks to that,' Gardener said. 'If God wanted us to be eunuchs he wouldn't have given us… bollocks.'

  'You've obviously not been listening to some in your constituency, Gardener,' Daniels said dryly. 'Don't forget they're the no-sex-before- marriage and lose-a-hand-for-masturbation crowd.'

  'You'll be laughing out of the other side of your face when the Rapture leaves you here to get buggered by the army of the Antichrist.' Gardener twisted, side-stepped and knocked Mallory's sword from his hand. ' 'Course, you'd probably like that, you perverse bastard.'

  Mallory noticed Hipgrave hounding the young knight again, this time quietly but with obvious venom. The knight's eyes were wet. 'Come on,' Mallory said to Gardener, 'let's have some fun.'

  He quickly whispered his idea. Gardener broke his usual dour expression with a grin, then rapidly and silently positioned himself behind Hipgrave, pretending to tie his boot.

  'Hey! Hipgrave!' Mallory called.

  Hipgrave turned suddenly at the insistence in Mallory's voice. Gardener was squatting so close to his legs that Hipgrave bumped against him, lost his balance and tumbled to the ground in an ungainly tangle of arms and legs.

  'There we go,' Mallory said, 'a dignity-free zone.'

  They expected some punishment, but after a brief outburst of cursing, Hipgrave stomped off to leave them alone with their training. Later,

  Mallory saw him in deep conversation with Blaine. As usual, the commander's face gave nothing away. His eyes moved in Mallory's direction only once, and then briefly, but they were cold and hard enough to inspire the briefest glimmer of regret.