The Book of Daniel (28 page)

That wasn’t the only aspect of my new existence that reminded me of my prior life in the Army, either. With my transformed attitude to the afterlife came also a rediscovery of a sense of responsibility for the people fighting by my side, no matter how little I knew them; and my apparent immortality allowed me to continue my bravery on the battlefield, in their defence as well as my own. Even after a demon bit my left hand off, I still felt no fear the next time I stepped out of those huge gates; the fact that I had again been rescued so swiftly by one of the angels, coupled with the amazing speed at which the pain faded and the hand grew back, meant that it soon became about as significant to me as if I had cut myself shaving. I wondered if Thomas had ever felt the same indifference to injury during his time in Purgatory; in fact, quite often I found myself wondering, “What would Thomas think?” WWTT? Even though he was no longer directly with us, his presence could still be felt, not only in my own head but also in my conversations with Harper. It wasn’t long before I found myself living out his legacy in other ways, too. In addition to looking after the others out on the battlefield, I also joined Harper in helping to introduce the Newborn to the delights of their new home, just as Thomas had used to do, and in fact had done for me.

But for all the comfort of routine, albeit a strange and perilous routine, I continued to miss Jo like mad. The feeling stabbed at me like a knife, no matter how much I tried to drown my sorrows with ineffective alcohol, the blood of demons, or the milk of human kindness. Whenever I slew a demon, I hoped it was the last one, that I had finally done enough to have earned my redemption; but the pang of disappointment I felt when I still found myself surrounded by the slavering hordes was never enough to discourage me from persevering. Off the battlefield, too, I never tired of trying to force the square-shaped peg of my mindset through the round-shaped hole of what I knew it needed to be. But I just couldn’t do it. There wasn’t a day that went by when I didn’t remember, in every agonising detail, those last few seconds that Jo and I had together, hiding in the kitchen, and those last few seconds we had apart, as she slipped from my grasp and was killed. Every time I saw one of the Newborn perish as a direct result of my failure to save them, I was bitterly reminded of the way Jo’s precious life had ended. Unfortunately, the opposite was not true: no matter how many others I
did
manage to rescue or encourage, I was always left with a hollow feeling about the size and shape of, oh, a wife and her unborn child.

And then suddenly, time ran out.

The trumpet calling the unfaithful to battle that day sounded exactly the same as it always did, and Harper and I led our latest waif (hers) and stray (mine) out to the field of combat just as we had done countless times before. The sea of demons looked no more hungry than usual. When the angels sprang upwards, unleashing the horde, even then there was no indication that this wasn’t going to be just another normal working day in the afterlife. Looking back on it, of course I shouldn’t have been surprised that there were no black cats crossing my path or portentous thunderclouds gathering in the sky; after all, the day Jo and I died had started out just like any other, too. In a way, it’s pretty amusing to think that battling demons in Purgatory had become almost as humdrum as working the night shift at a warehouse full of cardboard boxes.

The stray I had with me that day was an Italian guy named Paolo. In common with many of his countrymen, he was a devout Catholic, and as such was scared shitless at finding himself in Purgatory. From the moment the city gates had begun to swing open to let us out, he had started mumbling urgent prayers to himself, and as the inevitable clash with Satan’s army drew closer, his prayers grew faster, louder and more desperate. I caught Harper’s eye, but she just gave me one of those heavenward glances as if to say, “What can you do?” She was right, of course, but I liked Paolo; before his nerves had got the better of him, he had told us that he and his pregnant wife had been killed in a car crash, and that she had apparently already been allowed into Heaven. I don’t have to spell it out for you, do I?

Unfortunately for all parties concerned, Paolo completely fell to pieces when he saw the demons streaming towards us. First, his sword fell to the ground with a dull clunk, and then so did Paolo. Hunched over and praying like a madman, it was impossible to lift him back onto his feet again, and as the horde drew closer, I grew increasingly frustrated. I wanted to help him out, but he needed to help himself, too, and in the absence of a flash of blue light, curling up into a ball wasn’t going to get him very far. Of course, there were the angels, but even though they would usually intervene, I had seen plenty of other Newborn deliberately abandoned to their grisly fates on their first days out. The situation was desperate enough that I found myself muttering a prayer. It wasn’t a particularly graceful one (in any sense of the word), which is maybe why it didn’t do any good. Paolo remained prone, a quivering millstone at my feet—and around my neck—that somehow I felt responsible for.

I did the best I could. For the next twenty minutes, I fended off the endless stream of demons that, sensing easy prey, homed in on him, all the while trying to get him to stand up and take an interest in his own salvation. But as the ranks of the Purgatorians steadily thinned under the relentless attack, it became more and more difficult to protect both Paolo and myself, and I could feel the situation deteriorating. I couldn’t fall back to join any of the larger groups of soldiers without abandoning him, and Paolo himself still didn’t seem interested in moving, despite all that was going on around us. Even a couple of well-placed kicks weren’t enough to raise him from his soon-to-be-final resting place. The presence of an angel hovering nearby suggested that perhaps I was wasting my sweat needlessly, but it wasn’t a chance I was about to take. I tried calling out to it to help move him back to safety several times, but it continued to gaze on impassively, almost as if it was enjoying our plight.

I held on for as long as I could, fighting like a demon myself—but inevitably, the crisis reached its tipping point. A pack of Bloodhounds raced past nearby, chasing down a tired-looking bunch of soldiers; business as usual. But Paolo and I did not go unnoticed, and three of the dogs broke off from the main group, making their way towards us instead, jaws snapping and flinging foam through the air. My heart sank as I watched the group split up; I knew there was no way I could fend off attacks coming from three different directions at once, and again I yelled out to the angel for help. To my surprise, it did. With a sudden swoop, it dived down towards us, scattering the unholy trinity of Bloodhounds like leaves and sweeping poor Paolo up into its arms.

“About bloody time!” I yelled over the savage protests of the demons, already recovering from the buffeting they had received, and now twitching and flopping their way back onto their feet. “Let’s get out of here!”

The angel’s words were like coffin nails. “Not you, Daniel. Not this time. The Lord has turned His back on you. You are on your own now.” And with that, it took off, carrying Paolo’s still-curled form under its arm.

My stomach did a slow somersault. If what the angel said was true—and obviously angels aren’t exactly known for telling lies—then I was up to my neck in shit. With all angelic protection removed, and no obvious Purgatorian backup in sight, I was suddenly as alone as it was possible to be. If I lost this fight, then that was it: off to Hell for all eternity. I began to understand why Paolo had behaved the way he did.

With no hope of reply, I called out for help anyway, at the same time racing to think of a strategy to get myself out of this mess. By now the three demons had regained their feet and were edging forwards, their heads low to the ground and their eyes glowering up at me. They moved as a single group now, no doubt as a precaution in case another angel intervened. Little did they know. I planted my feet firmly in the ground, bracing myself for their charge, remembering, as I always did, what Thomas had said about not showing any fear. I’m sure that there was no outward sign of the light-headedness I felt, because the closer they drew, the more wary the demons became. Their hesitation gave me a flare of confidence, and I took a step forward, declaring my lack of fear to my foes and stamping down on the doubts that tried to snake into my mind.

That was the theory, at least. But I found myself taking two steps back, both literally and mentally, as another demon suddenly flapped its way overhead and landed gracelessly on the ground behind my three opponents. This new arrival was a terrible thing to behold. Initially, much of its body was hidden behind its vast wings, as frail and spindly as something out of a Leonardo da Vinci sketch, but as they folded up behind its back, the full horror was exposed. My first impression was of a giant skeleton—although if that’s what it was, it didn’t come from any creature I had ever known to exist. Its bones protruded horribly, covered by tightly stretched skin that seemed in danger of splitting open every time this monstrous husk moved; and when it did move, turning towards me, there was a slowness and deliberateness about its action which I knew came from immense power, not fragility. By the time it had fully come around, its head was revealed: a skull covered with long, wicked spikes, and framing a single poisonous green eye that stared unblinkingly into my own, seeing past all my bravado, glowing with the knowledge that I had been abandoned by Heaven and consigned to my fate.

Whether the three Bloodhounds saw this new, terrifying creature as a reinforcement or a rival I couldn’t tell, but whichever it was, it certainly made them abandon their caution. They lunged towards me, snapping their jaws, one of them biting at the space which my leg had occupied only a moment earlier. I brought my sword down towards its head, but the demon was too quick, and my blade only caught its shoulder a glancing blow. An unearthly howl filled the air, but the sound was more anger than pain. I didn’t need telling twice. Even as the dogs rounded on me, I backed away as quickly as I dared, trying to put some space between us. But all the while I was occupied with the Bloodhounds, the green-eyed behemoth had been closing in, and before I knew what had happened, it was upon me.

With an effortless swipe, the skeletal Cyclops flung me up into the air, its claws puncturing my armour and digging into my flesh. The wounds started to burn immediately, their fire racing along my veins and spreading to the rest of my body before I had even hit the ground. A fever gripped me, as terrible as that I had endured in the hospital after Lewis had died, only this time of course Jo was not there to help me through it. Quite the opposite, in fact, for if my body could not purge this sickness from itself and do so swiftly, I knew I would lose her forever. I stumbled to my feet as quickly as I could, willing my wounds to heal, but the exertion only made me feel weaker still. My stomach lurched as a cold thought poured into my mind: what if my body
couldn’t
repair itself anymore? What if God’s judgement meant that my restorative powers had also been revoked? Was I now just as mortal as I had been in my old body back on Earth?

Stacked up against the physical effects of the poison, the mental effects of my doubts, and the undeniable truth of my abandonment by God, the confidence I had felt a few moments earlier—before the Cyclops had joined the fray—vanished. Through my blurry vision, I could see the Bloodhounds regrouping, their exuberance tempered a little by the wound I had inflicted on one of them, but I doubted that was anything other than a temporary effect. Even as I slowly focussed my eyes, I could see them beginning to stalk towards me once again, the juices dripping from their mouths as they tasted my weakness in the air. And next to them stood the Cyclops, casually waiting to step in as soon as my attention was focussed elsewhere, its sickly green gaze burning into me like acid.

The more I looked into that eye, the more I could feel my options and my hope ebbing away. I briefly considered making a run for it, but knew from the fate of countless others that the Bloodhounds would easily catch me and tear me to pieces—and that was before taking into account the poison that tainted my blood and slowed me down. And even if by some miracle I did manage to outrun them, the Cyclops would simply fly after me, snatch me up in its claws and that would be the end of it. No, my only option, however weak I felt, was to fight…

Or
, whispered Thomas’s voice in my head,
to pray
. It had worked for Paolo, at least to the extent that he had been spared an immediate death, but the difference was that Paolo had a genuine faith in God, rather than the rickety construction I had built up during my time in Purgatory. And I certainly had no intention of dropping my sword, closing my eyes and hoping for the best, either, especially in view of the fact that I had just been told that God had washed his hands of me. At the same time, I realised that I had nothing to lose by at least trying to pray. The worst that could happen was that, as usual, God would ignore me and I would be no worse off than I already was—which was pretty fucked.

I began to pray one of my bastard prayers—misshapen, awkward and desperate for attention—but there was little conviction or hope behind it. As I begged, pleaded and reasoned in my mind with the silent God, I kept both eyes wide open, tracking even the slightest movement from my foes, trying to anticipate when the inevitable attack would come. But when it did, the demons were as surprised as I was.

One moment we stood there, facing each other down like gunfighters in a spaghetti western; the next thing I knew, a fifth demon hurtled in out of nowhere, powering into the Bloodhounds and scattering them as if they were skittles. Before any of us had a chance to respond, one of the dogs had already been eviscerated by this new threat, its guttural snarls draining away with the innards that spilled from its belly. The new demon, humanoid in shape but so swift and doused in blood and gore that it was almost impossible to tell anything else about it, stooped down and ripped a part off of the dying demon’s body, throwing it at the next monster in line. The confusion had barely faded from the target’s eyes before the Berserker stamped down on its head, grinding it underfoot as it strode towards the last of the Bloodhounds—and then that one, too, was dispatched, effortlessly decapitated with an off-hand swing of the giant’s sword. The severed head had scarcely hit the ground before the Berserker turned to face the skeletal Cyclops, bellowed its claim over my soul, and launched its bloody self headlong.