Kristin Read online

  ‘ ... Mama? ... Mama?’

  As the old man slept, the Beast raged.

  Pope Alexander stared at the young woman before him through wet eyes. ‘ ... You are truly despicable.’

  ‘A great compliment, shit-eating Christian pig.’

  ‘And also a fool.’

  It sulked.

  ‘Did you believe you could pollute the soul of such a good, gentle man with your sinful bile, force him to commit such a cruel, unintelligible deed?’

  ‘I had thy bastard sibling, Pontifice.’

  ‘And you lost him. Love overcame hatred, as it always does in the end.’

  It reached into his body, behind the protective cage of bone, and tried to rend his heart in two, but he resisted stoically and struck her down again. This time she was severely winded, the blow had somehow hurt her more then being blasted to bits. The Beast measured the level of pain as being at least equal to the punishment meted out by its father in Koreans. Something told it that its father was not at all happy it had come to the Vatican space, attempted to hurt the pontifice

  The holy man had proved to be a tricky, Christian cunt! He’d been stronger, much stronger than the Beast expected. It could not lay its darkness upon his soul, nor that of his sibling. It could not take life from him. And he was able to hurt the female very badly. Its power in the space was greatly limited. And still it had not found the Christ. It was time to leave.

  She turned to find Pope Alexander IX sitting on the steps of the altar, recovering. He raised his head wearily. ‘I never imagined I would one day meet you, talk to you. Now that I have I pity you, as much as I pity the wretched woman you have overwhelmed.’

  ‘Just the latest in a long line, Pontifice. And pity thyself, not me, for thy virtue will not save thee from the inevitable.’

  ‘You are correct, Diablo. Now that Christ our Lord is risen again, he will save me. He will save all of us.’

  ‘The Christ will perish, I will kill it, and thou knowest I will always walk amongst thee in one form or another.’

  Pope Alexander watched in astonishment as she slowly became something that had no place in the world around him, something he had imagined only in his darkest moments, and then faded from sight altogether.

  Twenty-nine

  Thom Sharman stood slumped against the cold, steel handrail of the Millennium Bridge, staring at a distant point above and beyond the towers of Docklands. A gunshot reverberated, there was an explosion, screams. But they were things he didn’t notice anymore.

  How would he live now that she was dead, now that there was no corner of the world in which he might find her? Surely she must be somewhere? Surely she was simply lost, unable to find her way home, like his father and brother? Like his mother?

  He closed his eyes and saw her rise from the soil once more, saw her body jerk with the ravaging impact of each cartridge fired from the soldiers’ guns, saw her expression that at first damned him for his flagrant betrayal but was then accepting, and finally thankful.

  “Get to the Holocaust Memorial in Hyde Park”, the text message had read. “Help us to end this. We’ll make it quick, she won’t suffer”.

  He’d had done as he was asked, and he’d carried out her wishes. But it was no comfort to him, he could still taste the blood on her rent lips as he’d kissed them for the last time.

  Another blast made shook the bridge and pain shot down his leg. Sergeant Wilshere hadn’t tended to his bullet wound as he’d been ordered to, but screamed at Thom, pushed him aside and run from the park like a madman.

  Later, Thom smashed in a shop window, took a bottle of whisky and poured some into the hole left after he dug the bullet out with a piece of splintered wood. After crudely suturing the wound with a nail and some wire, he drank the rest of the bottle.

  A faint vibration passed through his feet; somebody had started across the bridge, a tall woman with a dog. She was moving slowly, with caution, the labrador leading her, guiding her; she was blind. The woman stopped twenty feet from him, removed the dog’s harness and picked the animal up. She moved towards the edge.

  He approached her quickly, instinctively, and she jumped when he touched her shoulder. ‘Are you sure, in your soul, that you wish to do this?’ he asked in a voice he no longer recognized as his own.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ she remonstrated. ‘The dog must die!’

  ‘It will swim to the riverbank. But how will you find your way without it?’

  ‘I don’t need it to see for me anymore, she shows me the way ahead. Her eyes are my eyes.’

  ‘Her eyes are dead ... I watched them die.’

  ‘HERETIC!’ she spat, and the dog yelped, trying to wriggle free of its once trusted owner.

  ‘The failings of mankind are not the fault of this poor animal.’ He soothed the dog’s head as it whimpered helplessly. ‘See the dog with your own eyes, and believe this.’

  ‘I’m blind, you imbecile!’

  He layed his hand on her head.

  ‘ ... What are you doing? Let me go, let me do what she tells ...!’ The lifelong veil of darkness that had hidden the world from her started to lift. Startling, vivid colours and shapes became visible to her, a hitherto unknown dimension opening up, and she fell against him, bewildered by the frenzy of visual stimuli.

  ‘See life,’ he whispered.

  The woman saw her dog, her friend and saviour, and fell to the steel floor, wrapping her arms around its neck. She wept as she replaced the animal’s harness effortlessly, and realized she felt no more anger towards her dog, no more malice towards anybody or anything. ‘ So wonderful! So wonderful!’ she cried. ‘Who are you? How have you done this, how is it possible ... I’ve ... I’ve been blind since birth?’

  ‘I’m afraid I cannot answer your question.’

  She drew herself up and embraced him. ‘Promise me you’ll try to help others, like you’ve helped me?’

  ‘I will try.’

  The woman turned and left, wheeling from side to side as if inebriated, then stopped near the south end of the bridge. She put her hand to her brow, searching for him. ‘You know, you may be right!’ she called out. ‘I think her eyes are dead, I can see that now that mine live!’ She bent, stroked the dog and then scanned for him once more. When his image eventually snapped into focus she let out a loud gasp.

  Unthinkingly, Thom followed the south bank of the river westwards as far as Vauxhall Bridge and wandered into the grounds of Lambeth Palace through the arched doorway of Morton’s Tower gatehouse, whose heavy, sixteenth-century oak door had been smashed from its massive, iron hinges.

  The palace was the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Aldous Waldegrave. But something made Thom feel that the old man, revered by so many, would never return.

  Against the blackened wall of the Great Hall Cardinal Pole’s fig tree, the White Marseilles, planted in 1525, had been burned black and the acrid odour of charcoal hung in the damp air left behind after the rain had cleared away to the east.

  Two rabid screams, one pitched higher than the other shattered the silence. He spun to see a woman and a child, naked, flying at him, teeth flashing white, eyes like cows’ in a slaughterhouse.

  He snapped off a branch from the tree and brought it down hard on the back of the woman's head knocking her unconscious, but the boy leapt at him, straddled his neck, tore at his hair, bit his scalp. Thom threw his weight to one side and the child lost his grip, crashed into the blackened tree and was motionless.

  He rolled the woman over with his foot. Her flesh was covered in cuts and bruises, her platinum blonde hair hacked to different lengths, her uncut fingernails ingrained underneath with gritty dirt and dried blood. She was almost feral.

  The boy was no older than seven and looked quite harmless as he lay in the debris of the burned tree, smothered in its sodden ashes, and yet he’d had the physical strength of an adult.

  Without thinking, Thom rested his hand on the woman’s head. Then he did the sam
e to the boy: When they awoke, their ordeal would be over.

  In the hours that followed he acted time and again to prevent shocking episodes of violence, depravity and inhumanity, healing those who, against their will, were ready to murder, mutilate and debase their fellow human beings. Now, finally, he was able to accept his ability to aid, and cure the afflicted. But he wasn’t all powerful; he’d been helpless when he’d seen an elderly man and woman climb over the edge of a balcony near the top of Cromwell Tower in the Barbican, kiss, and plummet three hundred feet to their deaths. Neither did he hold the destiny of humanity in his hands, as his mother had intimated.

  He wandered further and further afield, a stranger to himself, but began to think clearly for the first time since the butchery in Hyde Park: If Kristin was dead — if the terrible presence had died with her, why did London still seem to be held in its unrelenting grip?

  Nothing had changed.

  Thirty

  The Beast had returned Kristin to the roof of the basilica and she scrabbled at the lead flashing with raw fingers as it brooded over its bitter experience in the pontifice’s obscene place of worship.

  How it abhorred the pontifice and his sibling! Its loathing was incalculable. Fuck the man of God! Fuck him for his incorruptible strength! Shit on his sibling for his odious rectitude! Fuck the bitch, Flavia, for the appalling pain she’d caused its earthly being, for wasting its precious time! If there was another life, as these moronic beings seemed to believe, it hoped she’d return as a male and that before he was grown he’d be set upon by another male, get his arse raped and bleed to death out on the streets. Fuck them! It sought out Flavia’s spirit, as it rested in heaven above, and cast it into the depths of hell.

  Kristin tipped her head back, loosed a large glob of black, blood-streaked sputum and spat it out. She watched it befoul the long, red roof below. Then the Beast made her strike herself hard in the stomach. Burning, watery vomit surged up her feeding tube, following the same course, and as the discharge spotted onto the terracotta tiles the Beast imagined the roof as a symbol for humankind.

  Unfortunately the female’s bowels were empty of waste, otherwise it would have made her remove her lower coverings and shit a torrent of ochre faeces down upon the roof too. Fuck them! Fuck them all! It had given them the opportunity to join with it but its generous offer had been spurned. It would never give them another chance.

  It forced her gaze skywards, drew upon the sum of its powers and screamed, ‘LET THERE BE NO MORE LIGHT!’

  Darkness descended instantly, as though a vast, black shroud had been drawn across the world, and Kristin curled into a tight ball, terrified.

  Where was the Christ, was it still alive? Yes it was, the Beast could feel its presence in the air, maintaining the equilibrium of the Earth, safeguarding its trees, grass, rivers and streams, clouds, sky, birds and animals. And its people. Now the Beast would burn everything to a cinder. This, after all, was only what humanity sought for itself. It would no longer be sidetracked by its personal vendetta against the Christ — it would follow in any case. The Beast would travel to the very cradle of Christianity, defile and desecrate the area. Afterwards, it would rest awhile. Then the Christ would come for it, meet its end. And then the Beast would end all things.

  Thirty-one

  The Earth groaned, capitulating, when darkness fell upon it so suddenly.

  Thom stumbled headlong into a rough, wet, Victorian wall, disorientated. He slid down onto the frozen ground, sucking in rapid lungfulls of oxygen. Was it an eclipse? The light wasn’t simply subdued, but extinguished. The latter part of the day had produced crystal clear skies and yet he could see neither moon nor stars.

  Exhaustion replaced fear. He was debilitated, he had to rest, but not here. He picked himself back up.

  To his left he noticed a dark, narrow road and headed down it, feeling his way along the buildings, running his fingers over freezing glass, sharp, flaking timber mouldings and more glass until they settled on an icy cold, pitted metal door knob. He turned it, pushed with his shoulder, and the old door juddered open.

  The interior was narrow but deep. It was lit by a solitary light bulb mounted on the wall towards the back that revealed the outlines of masses of angular shapes against the walls and in piles upon the floor. The musty smell was unmistakably familiar; it could only exist in an old bookshop.

  He walked through to the end of the shop, lay down and pushed three thick volumes under his head. The back room was very small and the packed shelves surrounding him seemed to provide insulation from the sub-zero temperature outside. Thom found the old scent of the books comforting somehow, redolent of a time passed that he yearned for now more than ever before.

  He began to drift. And when he was midway between the conscious and the subconscious a much loved, often missed voice startled him with its beautiful clarity.

  Thom? his brother, Nicholas whispered. It’s time, Thom. It’s time.

  Thirty-two

  Within the freezing chamber of ancient stone inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the pilgrims had broken through the rope barrier and prostrated themselves before Jesus Christ’s tomb one on top of the other, in a heaving, moaning mass of humanity desperate for deliverance. They clung to the sarcophagus in the suffocating, candle-lit chamber with outstretched arms, praying, hoping, begging. But the Lord did not hear them.

  An old woman with long, ragged grey hair plastered to her white face disentangled herself from the horde and climbed up onto the tomb. She raised her thick coat, hitched up three layers of dress underneath and defecated copiously, caterwauling, shaking her head from side to side, ‘AIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!’

  They pulled her down and jerked her backwards through the crush, covering her face with spittle, screaming at her.

  ‘Kalba!’

  ‘Mishugena!’

  ‘Tisaref b’azazel!’

  Two men dragged the delirious hag across the raw, eleventh-century floor slabs by one leg and when she wriggled free, by her hair, which pulled out in red-rooted clumps. They took her half way up the stairway to Golgotha and made her kneel. One of them forced her mouth open and the other removed a small brick from the crumbling wall. He swung it at her exposed teeth, smashing them out, and then both men made her perform felatio on them with her gaping, harmless mouth.

  When she’d satisfied their needs the first man battered her to death with the same brick. Then they returned to the sepulchre, pushed their way to the front and begged Christ for absolution. But it was not forthcoming.

  The edicule shook violently, throwing the murderers off, and they feared the wrath of God. The massive lid to the tomb began to slide and the topmost pilgrims wailed whilst those trapped beneath gasped as the air was punched from their lungs.

  The lid grated again, revealing an angled slot of absolute darkness, and a vague, vaporous shape slipped out. It rose to the ceiling and hung in suspension — a barely visible mist. It started to change, contracting to a tiny nucleus, and then rapidly expanded to twice its original size. It lengthened, dangling from the rocky ceiling and began to assume physical form, bone structure developing inside. The skeleton was quickly encased in muscle and other organic tissue as internal organs appeared inside the upper body. The vestiges of the vapour soaked into the outer membrane as if it were a sponge.

  Kristin levitated above the tomb, her eyes partially concealed behind a curtain of lank, black hair, her head cramped against the low ceiling. The multitude cowered before her, screaming, weeping.

  ‘Hayi’ti la’chem b’chira! ... Thou hadst a choice!’ the Beast rasped. ‘All of thee. But thee decided, in thy wisdom, to continue to follow the teachings of the monstrosity entombed in this stone box twenty centuries ago.’

  A youth opened a razor and drew it across his throat, spraying her with his blood. The Beast cackled with laughter, making Kristin rub the red shower into her face and naked arms like a balm. The mass surged towards the narrow doorway, trampling many of their number
to death.

  ‘It seems I cannot reclaim what is rightfully mine — all of thy souls,’ it wheezed, rancourously. ‘So I shall simply break thee instead, destroy thee — all that thou art, everything thou hast built and nurtured — with devices of thine own making.’

  Two sisters lunged at her but she thrust them back into the people and severed their optical nerves. ‘Understand, I am merely speeding the natural course of ... ’ Sudden familiarity stunted its sermon. ‘ ... Calvary?’

  ‘Leave this holiest of places!’ demanded a muffled voice.

  ‘Calvary! This location is known well to me from my past, from an early incarnation: It is here that my orders were carried out, the Christ put to death. And here will it perish anew, and for all time. But these surroundings differ from those images stored in my perfect memory. Why has this offensive monument to the Christ been erected around its grave? Where is the elevated point upon which I watched, enraptured, as the Christ inhaled its final breath, nailed to a cross of timber, its body bleeding and broken? All this must change!’

  The Beast withdrew its mortal being from the domain of the physical world, just enough to prevent her falling victim to its deadly action.

  There followed a dull thud of immense power that punched yawning holes in the thin matter of the pilgrims’ eardrums — a brilliant flash of light, a minute flame that expanded into a fierce conflagration, atomizing everything within the sepulcher and beyond. The blaze radiated outwards in a vast wave, surging through brick, mortar and human tissue until exhausted of permitted fuel. When it had subsided the Christian Quarter of the old city had been reduced to a barren, alien landscape of smouldering dust.

  After the ashes had cooled sufficiently the Beast returned Kristin’s body to the world and she looked down to find she was standing knee-deep in the embers of two thousand years of civilization.