The rest of it was over in seconds. The end came not even with a whimper.
  Usher was still standing in position at the foot of the stairs, his eyes fixed on Sarah's face. And behind him the two injured Architects quickly disassembled their distracted brother; pulling off his legs like a crustacean meant for the pot, plucking his wings at the root, biting off his barely human face. They feasted on their kin, absorbing him, bringing him back into the family. Whale-song cries filled the cramped space; they were so loud and sonorous that Sarah could hear nothing else. But she knew that an echo of those cries would remain inside her head until the day she died⦠and possibly beyond even that.
  Then, in a sort of folding motion, the three straining creatures all became one pulsating mass of wings and legs and lion teeth, of golden hair and scorpion tails, of otherworldly pain and forlorn whale-song.
  That busy fury, in the form of an unruly storm of woes, rose slowly from the floor and folded even further in on itself, becoming smaller and denser, like a collapsing star drawing energy into its failing orbit: a tiny black hole suspended in the solar system of Emerson Doherty's cellar. There was a loud shattering sound, and a trembling not unlike a minor earth tremor and when Sarah blinked, they were gone.
  Up above, in the house, the tremors continued, shaking apart the walls and buckling the floors. After-shocks travelled throughout the structure, creating a storm of brick dust that blinded Sarah. Then even this leftover energy was dispelled, directed into the building's foundations and then deep into the waiting earth.
  Usher went down on his knees, exhausted. His hands flailed at the wall, his nails scratched at the dry plaster. He looked spent, and Sarah wondered what part his mysterious power had played in those final horrifying moments of absolute destruction. And what price it would demand of his body.
  Sarah was still unable to move. She felt that she might never move again, not without aid. But now, she realised with a warmth at her core, there was finally someone here to help her. Because her father, for whom she had spent a lifetime wrapped up in grief, was back; he was home; he was here.
  He was her father. And she loved him, no matter what the cost.
Â
Â
Â
Â
THIRTY-FOUR
Â
Â
Â
When I emerged from the cellar we expected the house to be in ruins, but it still stood. The main walls remained upright, the doors and window frames were intact, despite the shattered glass and broken furniture. The internal damage was extensive, but at least the roof was not going to fall down and crush us â what irony that would have been, to be killed by falling masonry after defeating the Pilgrim and his siblings.
  The main thing was that we were safe. I carried Sarah in my arms, like a baby, and walked through the mess of the ground floor. We were both crying, but silently. I'm still not sure exactly what we were crying for.
  I set Sarah down on a filthy sofa and used her mobile phone to call an ambulance. I told them that there had been some kind of freak earthquake, and I knew the damage to adjacent properties and terrified accounts from the neighbours would probably make that story stick. Why would they want to consider an alternative reason for the destruction anyway, when a rational story was so close to hand?
  Even now, neither of us is clear of the exact details of what happened inside that house. We both saw different things, and for once I suspect that I was the one who failed to see it clearly.
  Sarah claims that they were biblical demons, exactly like a description in the King James Bible, Revelation 9 â but from her upbringing her mind is accustomed to Christian imagery and it would naturally shape the sight into something that she could recognise. I have no idea what I saw, but to me they resembled more closely the artist Francis Bacon's
Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion
â austere anthropomorphic creatures writhing in a state of tired agony. They were not ghosts, they were something else. The Pilgrim and his brothers: the Architects of Serendipity. They were something else entirely.
  What I think happened is that the Pilgrim's brothers would not let him contrive to take whatever it is they called my design. Either they were too afraid or simply not ready to reach out towards a thing they had called
untouchable.
  At the time I felt as if the design I supposedly possess provided at least some of the energy required to halt the Pilgrim's desperate end game. But in all honesty my final line of defence was naught but a bluff â I'm not sure if it was my disbelief that rendered the Pilgrim powerless or if his belief in my rejection of his reality simply caused him to unravel. Whatever the case, he became the architect of his own downfall.
  Or maybe notâ¦
  I still cannot understand the true nature and motivations of that grinning trickster demon, and perhaps I never will. Perhaps it is better that way.
  Often the things we don't know are the very things that save us. Sometimes ignorance can amount to a kind of salvation.
Â
I don't know if I'll ever see the Pilgrim again, but for the first time in my life a kind of spiritual weight has been lifted. I am no longer afraid; he does not frighten me. The Pilgrim, it seems, is more afraid of me than I ever was of him.
  I spent so long under the Pilgrim's gaze that I believed it was normal to endure such intense spiritual scrutiny, and now that he is no longer watching me I feel a sense of freedom that is utterly terrifying in its absence of surveillance.
  Part of me misses being the subject of so much attention. The rest of me, the sensible part, is intensely grateful for each and every day that I remain free.
  It will take time to get used to this freedom.
  It will also take time to grow accustomed to being a father.
  Sarah is my daughter, of that fact I have no doubt. She is mine, my flesh and blood. We both know it, by a means that it is beyond our ability to understand. Call it supernatural; call it what you will. It is the bond between father and daughter.
  It has been six weeks since the events at Emerson Doherty's old house. The For Sale sign went up a week ago, and there has already been some interest in the property. We have priced it low, as I'm sure can be understood, in order to make a quick sale.
  The doctors have told me that Sarah will never walk again. Her lower spine was shattered in the fall; the damage is so extensive that surgery is not an option.
  She is crippled, but she is alive. She lives. That is enough for us both.
  I have spent so long grieving for my dead family, and hoping that I might see their ghosts, that the very notion of "family" has become something I no longer understand. It is something else that I will be required to learn again.
  I have a lot to learn. All over again.
Â
In a few days I can bring Sarah home. I've opened up the old place, the house I bought with Rebecca and Ally, and aired out the empty rooms. I shall wheel her home in the chair, and once I've made some money I will modify the house to suit her needs. Entrance ramps, a stair lift, so many other things that I will have to research and then have installed. Sarah can choose the new décor in every room and I will carry out the work. I have no real style to speak of, and the place will benefit greatly from a woman's touch.
  But we have time. We have all the time in this world and the next, as long as the clock of the universe keeps ticking.
  Sarah gets glimpses now; she sees things. She calls it her twitch. I am not yet sure how much she has become aware of, but it is her birthright. She got her mother's looks and my⦠my what? Did she inherit a version of my design, or perhaps just a small piece of it?
  I can't be sure. Nothing is certain. Even reality cannot be trusted. Sarah's origin â despite what the Pilgrim told me â is the biggest mystery of all.
  All those years ago, when we first slept together, why didn't Ellen tell me that she was pregnant? If she had an abortion, as Emerson's grim angel told me, then why can I find no official record of the procedure?
  The Pilgrim, like the devil that lives within us all, on that dusty lower landing of the human soul, is a liar. But couched within a network of lies there is always the shadow of truth. The only truth I care about is that I have a daughter â one that is alive, who I can touch and protect. Little else matters to me.
  I will always miss my family, but now I have a new family to share in that grief. I wish Sarah could have known her half-sister, and my wife. I wish we could all be together, if only for a short timeâ¦
  But I know that will never happen.
  Life doesn't work that way.
  DI Tebbit is still in a coma. Through all this, he has somehow kept on going, his failing system refusing to give up the fight and go gentle into the night â be it good, bad or otherwise. He is in no state to clean up my mess â not this time â but there are other sympathetic officers who have been willing to help. They have no choice; they are all tainted by Emerson Doherty's madness.
  Benson's disappearance has been useful for the police â Sarah showed her superiors the evidence she'd found in the cellars under Emerson's house, and since then his guilt in the old, unheard of killings has been suppressed. Tebbit's superior officers examined the photographs in silence and listened to the tape recordings as the murderer précised his own crimes between songs.
  The pay-off we demanded for our silence regarding the matter was that they don't go looking for Benson. He was a killer, an embarrassment to the force, and they are more than happy to pretend that he is just another missing person. They know he's dead; of course they do. But they play the game and they follow the rules, thankful that there are still some pieces left to move around the boardâ¦
  So many missing people; even those we can see or feel or touch. Sometimes those missing are closer to us than we might like to think.
  If my dying friend, DI Donald Tebbit, ever comes out of his coma I will tell him everything we have experienced, but I don't expect that to happen. It is almost his time to go, to become one of the missing himself.
  The watchful ghost of his wife never strays from his side. She is there for him, no matter what. Just like Sarah and I will be there for each other, now that we have finally found the remains of our family.
  It is enough, for now. In fact, it is more than enough: it's everything we have.
Â
Â
Â
Â
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Â
Â
Â
Not too many people to mention this time around, as I kept my head down and went at it like a battering ram. A great debt of gratitude is due, though, to Mark West for being such a great and insightful (and honest!) test reader of this material. I know he found a certain scene hard to take, and I apologise for putting him through the emotional wringer. I'd also like to pay my dues to the great Ramsey Campbell, whose work continues to inspire and astound me. As usual, Gary Fry and John Probert supplied some welcome chuckles along the way (and believe me, with a novel this dark, laughs are hard to come by). Finally, and by no means any less worthy of my humble thanks, I have to say that none of this would have been possible without my amazing wife Emily, and our weird and wonderful son, Charlie.
Â
Â
Â
Â
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Â
Â
Â
Gary McMahon's short fiction has appeared in numerous acclaimed magazines and anthologies in the UK and US and has been reprinted in yearly "Best of" collections.
  He is the multiple-award-nominated author of the novellas
Rough Cut
and
All Your Gods Are Dead
, the collections
Dirty
Prayers
and
How to Make Monsters
and
Pieces of Midnight
, and the novels
Pretty Little Dead Things, Rain Dog, Hungry Hearts
and
The
Concrete Grove.
  He has been nominated for seven different British Fantasy Awards as both author and editor.
Â
Extras...
Â
Â
LATE RUNNERS
Â
Â
Â
This short story â written in August 2005 â is the first ever story
Â
to feature Thomas Usher. It first appeared in
The First Humdrumming Book of Horror
in September 2007.
Â
It was a long drive to Upper Chinley, particularly at the speed I travel, but my old Volvo managed the journey without giving me too much cause for concern. It voiced the odd groan or stutter when forced to climb one of the many steep inclines we encountered along the way, but for the most part, it soldiered on admirably. I don't like cars as a rule, but this one suited me more than most â although none of them suit me too well.
  The village was your quintessential northern English picture postcard scene: shambling cobbled lanes, leaning terraces built of rugged yellowish Yorkshire stone, old people sitting as idle as fading memories in teashop windows, eating Eccles cakes and drinking tea from patterned china cups.
  The weather was typically English too: a light smattering of rain falling from a sky the colour of scrubbed slate.
  As I passed along the main high street, enquiring eyes intently watched my progress. I was a stranger here, and as such, my business was suspect. It's always this way in small, close knit communities, especially these days, when even your closest neighbour cannot be trusted.
  One quickly grows used to mistrust in my line of work.