Desolation (48 page)

“Sorry about that,” said Amber, and Fool turned to her. Its bald head was caked in ash-grey foundation and its thin lips were hidden somewhere in that smear of red lipstick. All of this Amber had seen before. Its teeth of broken glass that rose from bloody gums no longer shocked her. Instead, it was the thick shards of glass that had been plunged into each eye that now made her gasp.

“Fool,” she whispered, “what happened to you?”

Fool tilted its head, then said, “Oh! The eyes! Yes, this was the Master’s punishment for me being fooled by Amber Lamont.” It giggled. “Fool being fooled.”

“The Shining Demon did this to you? Did it hurt?”

“Obviously.”

“Oh Jesus …”

“Don’t worry. Bigmouth makes up for it. Having a pet is nice.”

“Fool, a Hound arrived here a few minutes ago. He had someone with him. Where did they go?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does, Fool. It matters to me. I have to find my friend.”

“No, Amber Lamont,” said Fool, “it doesn’t matter which way they went. All ways lead to the same place.”

So Amber started running.

The corridors here were wider. Much wider. She turned corners and ran on. In some corridors, the screams were so loud that she expected to burst into a torture chamber. In others, they were so faint it was like she was leaving them behind. But there were always new screams. That was the one constant in the land of the Blood-dimmed King.

She passed through junction after junction, chose a direction at random, and ran on. The geography of the castle was impossible. She was never in the same place twice and yet she should have been, she should have criss-crossed and doubled back, but every step she ran was a step on to fresh ground. She was running through another junction of corridors when movement caught her eye. She followed it, moving quickly but quietly now, catching up to her quarry.

Then she saw him.

In the land of the Blood-dimmed King, the Hound’s true form was revealed. He was bigger, bulkier, his hair longer and thicker, his skin a deep mottled brown. His heavy jaw jutted awkwardly, like it had been repeatedly broken and badly reset. Sharp teeth strained against his lips. The Hound’s nose had melted back into his face, and his eyes were a simmering yellow. He dragged Milo by the ankle. Milo was too unconscious to care.

Amber spent too long trying to figure out a plan of attack. Before she’d even looked around for a weapon, the Hound was entering a grand hall of mirrored walls, at the centre of which was a throne, and, atop that throne, Astaroth, the Shining Demon.

Fierce orange light burned from within him and, reflected in the thousands of mirrors, lit up the whole hall. Upon his translucent skin were islands of black, like missing jigsaw pieces.

Amber’s time was up. The moment for sneakiness had passed.

She sprinted after the Hound, intending to shove him aside, grab Milo, and run. But he saw her coming – of course he did, how could he not? – and he turned, catching her with a swinging arm. She had thought the Hounds had been strong on the streets of Desolation Hill – but here, this Hound’s strength was something else entirely.

She flew across the room, hit the ground, and her broken ribs jangled and she screamed so much she thought she might pass out.

The Shining Demon gazed at her, and smiled.

“There you are,” he said.

E
DISON’S
S
HARD JUTTED OUT
high over the old quarry like an accusatory finger, pointing to the mountains in the west. When Virgil had first moved into town, he had held the notion that the highest point in Desolation Hill had been named after Thomas Edison and his work with electricity. He’d been living there five years before someone, he couldn’t remember who, told him that no, it was named after Edison Samuels, a young man who had hurled himself from its heights a hundred years earlier. As Virgil climbed, using the trees for purchase, he couldn’t help but re-evaluate his assumptions about young Mr Samuels. Perhaps it hadn’t been a maudlin disposition that had sent him plummeting to his doom – perhaps it had simply been an unwillingness to live with the things he had done during Hell Night – or the things he was about to do.

Virgil leaned his shoulder against a tree and angrily sucked in air. His body was failing him. His stupid old muscles weren’t up to the task anymore. His lungs were capable of only the shallowest of breaths. His legs burned and his hands shook, and his heart …

He pushed himself upright. His heart could wait. His pain and discomfort could wait. There was a boy up here and a monster chasing him. The ailments of an old man meant nothing compared to that.

He heard a shout. There. Beyond the trees. Movement.

He adjusted the overnight bag on his shoulder, and moved onwards. One foot in front of the other. Funny how difficult the simple things could get, like walking. And breathing.

He reached the last of the trees. Austin had backed himself on to Edison’s Shard, where the wind alone might have been enough to pluck him away. Stalking him was the Narrow Man, his too-wide smile spreading across his face.

Virgil fumbled in his pocket with shaking hands, pulled out the mask and used it to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Then he looked at it, at the empty eyeholes, and, while a part of him felt ridiculous, another part, a larger part, felt right. Felt good.

He pulled on the mask, and it fitted just like it had forty years ago. Then he put on his hat, tilted it just right, like all the best crime-fighters did, and straightened himself the hell up.

“Hey,” he shouted. His voice was lost to the wind, so he shouted louder. “Hey! Come and pick on someone your own size!”

Javier was right. Virgil’s dialogue was pretty dreadful without a scriptwriter.

But at least he’d got the Narrow Man’s attention away from the boy. Virgil walked forward towards the cliff edge, putting every ounce of strength he had into pretending his body wasn’t about to fail at any moment.

“This was what you wanted, wasn’t it?” Virgil asked. His words sounded wrong. Thick. His mouth was dry. “You wanted a showdown, didn’t you? The Shroud versus Insidio, one last time? Well, here you go.”

Virgil stood his ground while his adversary moved closer and loomed over him. Up close and personal, the Narrow Man’s eyes were bottomless pits leading straight to hell. There was an emptiness in there, a void, that would have turned Virgil’s skin cold were it not for the sharp wind that had already succeeded in that regard.

But those eyes also looked into Virgil, and, as much as he tried to fight it, Virgil knew what the Narrow Man saw in there. He saw a faded actor and an old man. He saw a bad heart and all the pills that were needed to keep that heart ticking. He saw a shrivelled presence, the stooped shadow of the man he had once been.

The smile faded on his adversary’s face, and settled into a thin, wide line. The Narrow Man turned away, walked back towards Austin.

Virgil was failing.

He broke into a run, a desperate, old man’s run that nonetheless took him past the Narrow Man and out on to the Shard, because he was such a non-threat that the Narrow Man didn’t bother to stop him. Gasping, Virgil stood in front of Austin as a trembling, decrepit shield. They were close to the very point of the Shard now. There was mud beneath his feet. Virgil tried not to look to either side, tried not to look down. He must be 300 feet up. The wind plucked at his clothes. He focused on the task at hand.

Fine. So Javier was right. Virgil needed a scriptwriter. So what? His body might have been failing, but his mind was as sharp as ever.

“This is where it ends!” Virgil called out. “This is where I put a stop to your decades of evil!”

The Narrow Man froze, listening to words that had been written years earlier, that had been first spoken when the cameras rolled for the final episode of
When Strikes the Shroud
.

“For too long you have walked this earth,” Virgil continued, “destroying the lives of those you meet. No more, you hear me? No more!”

The Narrow Man came closer, the smile on his face again, and Virgil gave him a smile back beneath his mask.

“Do an old actor a favour, why don’t you? You say you’re a fan? Here’s your chance to be part of it all.”

Virgil threw him the overnight bag. It was unzipped, and gaped open when it fell. The Narrow Man reached down slowly, pulled out the velvet frockcoat.

“That’s the real thing,” Virgil told him. “The actual coat worn by Javier Santorum when he played the part of Insidio. There were three. Javier has one, one was ruined during filming, and I snagged the last. You took the face of my arch-enemy. I think it’s time you
became
my arch-enemy, what do you say?”

The Narrow Man smiled. He held the coat out in front of him, admiring it, and then with a flourish he twirled it as he shapeshifted. He slipped an arm into the sleeve and he got a little shorter, a little broader. He reached back and slipped in the other arm and his skin became awash with colour and black hair grew from his scalp. He shrugged the coat up on to his shoulders and his features rearranged themselves and became those of Oscar Moreno, otherwise known as Javier Santorum, otherwise known as Ernesto Insidio.

“It is an honour,” said Insidio, actually talking in that rasp that Javier adopted for the part, “to face you in your final moments.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Virgil said, backing away a little more on the muddy outcrop as Insidio neared. He reached behind, his fingers tapping Austin’s sleeve, making sure he was in place. Insidio took another step.

Virgil met him with a jab. It rocked Insidio, made him slip in the mud, set him up perfectly for the haymaker, but now it was Virgil’s turn to slip and his fist clipped Insidio’s chin instead of putting him on his back.

Still, for something that would appear to be the second last punch he’d ever throw, it
had
been a decent jab. He’d have to be happy with that.

Insidio had an answer to it, of course. He caught Virgil in the side with a punch that, Virgil was pretty sure, broke his ribs. All the air rushed from his lungs and the right side of Virgil’s body now seemed to be made entirely of sharp pieces. Virgil stumbled, gasping with the pain, and Insidio hit him again and Virgil’s hat flew off, vanished over the edge into darkness.

He couldn’t see. His mask had become dislodged. He’d forgotten that used to happen during the action sequences. Scowling, he ripped it off, threw it straight into Insidio’s face and then dived at him, tried to wrap his arms around him. But he slipped again and dropped to his knees as Insidio staggered from his grip.

“Run!” Virgil shouted. “Run, Austin!”

Austin darted away from the tip of the Shard, passing Insidio while he was still regaining his balance. Virgil was suddenly acutely aware of the emptiness behind him. He took a glance, saw nothing but the darkness of the quarry. The freezing wind shot up the back of his shirt, making his jacket flutter like a cape.

Insidio turned away from Virgil, pointed at Austin as he stood there, on solid ground now and halfway to the trees, not wanting to abandon Virgil to his fate. He was a good kid.

“Don’t go far,” Insidio rasped. “I counted the votes. Tonight is your night to die.”

Ignoring the pain in his side and the hammering in his chest and the ice that was travelling down his left arm, Virgil powered to his feet and grabbed his old enemy. He wrapped his arms around him and Insidio frowned and grunted, no longer enjoying the game, but Virgil didn’t give him a chance to stop playing.

He turned, twirling them in a clumsy, mud-drenched dance until they teetered on the very tip of Edison’s Shard, and Insidio’s eyes widened as he realised what was about to happen.

Virgil threw himself over the edge, and took Insidio with him.

The fall was cold. Insidio shrieked and flailed, but didn’t shapeshift. He didn’t have time to become the Narrow Man again. He was stuck in this role he had assumed. Just like Virgil.

They plummeted, and Virgil smiled, and the darkness welcomed them.

I
N THE MIRRORED HALL
in the Shining Demon’s castle, Amber curled into a ball, unable to breathe.