Qualia Page 17

  Taking a closer look I realised that various bones had also been broken: three of his fingers were at odd angles; his right wrist felt grating and wobbly; one shoulder was so out of alignment it could only have been a dislocation; and there was an odd depression in his side that was almost certainly indicative of at least two snapped ribs. I could only speculate what internal injuries there might be.

  Sitting back on my heels I studied the man. He obviously had to have medical help as soon as possible. His breathing was shallow, a line of blood and spittle dribbled, bubbling, from the corner of his mouth to join the growing and diverse pool of bodily fluids that were rapidly spreading across my floor. That carpet really was never going to be the same again – and I’d only had it put down last year.

  Dragging my mind away from mundane idiocies I dithered. I couldn’t heal him; those injuries were far too serious. I wouldn’t even know where to start. I had to get him to someone who could help him. Frustrated, I dropped my head into my hands and tried to still my circling thoughts.

  I had to get him to Hell. I was fairly sure that Jarroh – Alice’s doctor – would help me out. At least he’d be able to identify the bits that were broken. As I stared, Graham Latimer twitched slightly then, with a rattling sigh, his chest fell and he stopped breathing.

  ‘No, no, no, NO.’ It seemed to be the only word I could think of and I screamed it at him over and over again as I patted and shook the inert body. Well, now I really didn’t have any choice: I had to try and heal him here and damn the consequences. Things certainly couldn’t get any worse. Reaching over my shoulder I dragged out my knife and, quickly running through the steps I’d taken with Alice, I prepared to try and repeat the procedure. I’d done it once – surely I could do it again.

  Taking a deep breath, I took the knife in my left hand and tried to recapture those feelings of building energy. I couldn’t do it. A little voice just kept telling me that even if I healed him, I’d be so drained and exhausted Metatron would just walk in, take him and there’d be nothing I could do about it. I wouldn’t even be able to get him away. Ignoring my screaming little doubts I managed to convince myself that I’d stored enough energy and, making sure I kept my eyes closed (I certainly didn’t want to see that there was no glow to my knife), I held my shaking hand against Graham’s chest and whispered, ‘Return.’

  There was nothing. Deep down I knew it wasn’t going to work. Almost sobbing with frustration I opened my eyes and tried again. ‘RETURN!’ I screamed down at the body then waited. Still nothing. As the miserable lump in my throat grew, I realised that I was crying. I’d screwed up yet again. I took a huge shuddering breath and, trying to still my palsied knife hand, I pressed it once more to his chest and whispered, ‘Please, please heal.’

  My shaking hand dragged the knife in a haphazard jagged scratch across the already tortured flesh. Fresh blood welled into a long line of shining, ruby spheres. As usual, all I’d managed to do was make things worse. I took the knife away and thrust it back into its sheath. ‘Oh come on, don’t die on me, what am I going to tell Carly?’ Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I knelt back on my heels and wondered what I was going to do.

  I checked the man’s pulse. There was nothing, all quiet; he was almost certainly dead. It was odd though, the blood from the scratch I’d inadvertently given him had begun to creep up his chest. That was impossible, wasn’t it? Unable to stop myself I leant forward to watch its progress.

  Graham Latimer sat up in one swift movement and screamed. Throwing myself back out of his reach I screamed with him. His undamaged eye opened and he stared blindly at a point behind me, his expression both pained and terrified. The lights blew out leaving us in darkness. With only that never-ending scream for company and my heart beating like a madman playing a steel drum I paddled backwards until I hit the wall then, unable to go any farther, I began to edge along it hoping to find the door – anything to get away from that terrible sound.

  The small shallow cut extended in both directions, its progress marked by silver light that fizzed and hissed as it moved. Up over the collarbone it ran like a ladder in a pair of tights, along his chin then around towards the left ear. His filthy hair stood away from his head, a dark dandelion of static electricity. The other end of the cut extended down, doglegging around his stomach, disappearing as it plunged beneath the waistband of his soiled underwear: The screaming continued.

  As much as I wanted to run, I found it impossible to look away and stifled the urge to hide under the table as Graham Latimer began, quite literally, to split in half. It was as though someone was using a cutting torch on him. Through the crack in his body tiny but brilliant lights began to erupt into the stinking, thick air of my living room. Electric blue, neon purple, white and deep red all burst from the gaping wound to flicker and rotate – mad fireflies born from human skin. The lightshow spun round and round. Occasionally one small light would be flung from the body where it would flicker and die as another took its place.

  As the travelling crack reached his throat Graham’s voice cut off mid-wail. The sudden silence was even more terrifying than the screaming. He began to shake, twisting and turning, his split mouth open in that soundless agony. I still hadn’t moved. I couldn’t move.

  Distantly, I heard a banging on the door, then the letter box flapped – a jarring metallic noise at odds with the insane and silent lightshow taking place before me.

  ‘I know you’re there.’ Mr Morris had his face to the letter opening. ‘My wife’s in hospital, you know. I need my sleep and you – you inconsiderate prat – are watching horror films! Turn it down!’ The flap banged shut, then immediately opened again. ‘You turn that down or I’m calling the police.’

  Ignoring him I kept my horrified gaze on the glowing figure, noting each change with a morbid curiosity. The crack, having reached the limits of its journey, suddenly erupted into a frayed crazy paving of glowing slashes and curves, a lit map of every vein and artery in the human body. The lights ran like water over every inch of exposed skin, even separating his hair into many sparkling partings. The swiftly changing colours became a pulsing glow, so bright it hurt. Then, still in almost absolute silence, the whole thing rose toward the ceiling. Hanging about two feet from the ground the figure began to rotate. Small splashes of light, flung from the body, landed on the floor where they inched away like worms before silently exploding in little starburst flares. The figure turned. I watched and, as my initial terror began to ebb, I struggled to my feet to get a closer look.

  Before I could move, the body hanging before me exploded violently and silently outward throwing me once more to the floor. A mixture of fast travelling light and what appeared to be small pieces of burnt paper erupted outward in a wave, each dark mote flared for a moment burning quickly and brightly before it blinked out. The very air tasted greasy. Throwing my arm across my face I squeezed my eyes shut and watched the after images of lines and curves dance in red patterns across the inside of my eyelids. When I opened them again the room was in semidarkness.

  I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the sudden twilight. I tried to make out the details of the man’s silhouette that, despite having literally exploded only seconds before, still hung, rotating slowly, suspended in midair. Its slick, wet skin glistened dully, showing reflections from the streetlights outside; those safe, yellow balls of light, a solid and physical reassurance that all was well in the “normal” world. The man – it was quite obviously a man – hung in space, eyes closed, his head resting on his left shoulder and his long arms dangling at his sides. Pushing myself away from the wall once more I peered at the figure, trying to work out if he was alive.

  Single tongues of flame at his head, heart, groin and hands burst simultaneously to life. These tiny dancing motes of light multiplied and accelerated until bright wheels of fire span freely over his body. As the burning figure rotated, the skin at each shoulder blade bulged outward – small volcanic eruptions pulsed and bubbled, becoming brighter a
nd brighter until the flames glowed white.

  As the skin on each shoulder finally split, he flung his head back and an unearthly sound issued from the open mouth. A thousand fog horns, the crash of a massive storm, the sound of lightning hitting an unstable mountain, an avalanche – all of this and more heralded the slow unfolding of huge, trembling black wings. The first beat of these wings sent out a shockwave rather stronger than the flap of a butterfly. Finally the silence was broken.

  The sudden howling wind that swept around the room pinned me to the wall. Picking up books and other small items it swatted at me as I struggled to get away. Putting my head down I leant into the tempest and tried to hold onto the wall. Breathing was becoming difficult as my chest was compressed by the energy being flung from the figure that hung in perfect serenity, wings aloft, twisting gently in its own pool of light.

  Taking as deep a breath as I could and, borrowing what I needed from the howling maelstrom, I attempted to create a barrier. It seemed to work and, having created it, I pushed it away from my body to act as a shield. But as I pushed forward I felt the wall behind me shudder and, even over the howling wind, heard a rather sickening creak. Ignoring the interplay of the forces I was creating, I gave my barrier a final thrust in an effort to protect myself.

  I felt the bricks behind me first bow then crumble and, in a rain of falling masonry, pictures and dust, I was hurled backward through the adjoining wall to land winded and gasping onto the flower-patterned carpet of the Morris’ front room. My shield vanished.

  As I lay there, coughing occasionally to clear the dust from my protesting lungs, I realised that although I had a ringing in my ears and there was the occasional sound of a late brick tumbling to join the rest of the rubble, general silence had finally fallen. The assault seemed to have finished and, apart from something sharp in the small of my back and a rare first-edition copy of Grimms’ Fairy Tales on my chest, I seemed to have come through the whole thing pretty much unscathed. I carefully looked around.

  Kicking away various bits of masonry, I rolled over and began to drag myself out of the mess. Clambering to my feet, I blew the dust from the book and placed it carefully in one of my deep jacket pockets before beating dust out of the rest of my clothes. I futilely rubbed streaming eyes with the back of my hand trying to work out if it was dust or concussion that was causing my failing eyesight. Staring through the gap I realised that the dark figure in the living room had also fallen prey to the book and brick whirlwind that had felled me. No longer floating in his quiet paranormal bubble, he had fallen heavily into the mess and was currently lying on the carpet, unconscious and covered in what appeared to be the “C” and “D” authors from my fiction collection.

  Mr Morris appeared in his hall with Henry at his heels. They both stared, horrified, into the living room. ‘What the hell have you done?’ he shouted. ‘You … you … you …’ His mouth hung open. ‘What happened?’

  I rescued the Prince of Darkness, then he exploded and cursed both our houses. I shook my head – nope, that wasn’t going to wash, and I couldn’t really claim innocence as I had one leg on my side of the wall and one leg on his. I searched desperately for something to say and came up with the oldest excuse in the book. ‘Gas, I think.’ My voice sounded like a can of rusty nails being shaken about. I coughed in an effort to clear the dust from my lungs. ‘Definitely gas.’

  He spluttered and advanced. ‘You’re paying for this, you useless layabout.’ He stared horrified around the room. ‘You’d better have insurance.’

  I didn’t have time for this. I staggered toward the book-covered figure. I was just about to reach out to him when a sudden crash from the hall made me turn to face yet another threat.

  ‘Joe!’ Carly shot through the front door. ‘We have to go – now!’ She stopped and stared around. ‘What the hell happened here?’ Shaking her head she tripped and staggered over the rubble to grab my arm. ‘It doesn’t matter. Joe, he’s coming, we have to go NOW!’

  ‘Who?’ I couldn’t think. I was still coughing, my eyes were still watering and a recently dead man on my floor looked as though he might be breathing again.

  ‘Metatron!’ Carly shouted as she tugged on my arm. ‘He’s coming.’ Releasing me she hurdled the rubble to stare at Graham. ‘Joe! We have to get back!’

  It was too late. With the sound of splintering wood and tortured hinges the front door was ripped away and Metatron, as I’d never seen him, swept into the house. No serenity, no halo, no pristine white wings – this was a being of pure fury and revenge; a true angel of the host. Eyes blazing and hands hooked into claws it came towards us at a frightening speed. Howling and screaming, there seemed to be very little of my old boss behind those hard yellow eyes.

  Grabbing Graham with one hand and Carly with the other, I didn’t even think about what I was trying to do – I just tied a knot in the world and opened a doorway straight to Hell. Metatron’s howl of fury followed us right up until I slammed the door shut.

  ‘– id you do? What did you DO?’ Carly was screaming as we appeared in her apartment. Wrestling her arm from my hand she collapsed onto the sofa gasping, her eyes wide and her hair on end.

  I slumped and staggered as Graham’s still unconscious body sagged toward the floor. Ignoring Carly’s hysterical babbling I took a good look at him. The man was clean, completely naked. There were no cuts, no torn skin; he wasn’t stabbed, he wasn’t bleeding and he wasn’t broken; he also wasn’t Graham Latimer.

  Letting him slide gently to the floor I backed away. I tried to get Carly’s attention by flapping a hand at her but she was still ranting about close encounters and narrow escapes. This man was taller than the poor insurance salesman, well muscled but slim, younger. Even in repose he was handsome with his strong jaw, high cheekbones and full lips. Graham’s dark hair now sported a single white stripe that ran from crown to jaw; his hair had also grown long – the razor-cut fringe flopped over his slim, defined eyebrows.

  ‘Joe!’ Carly snapped at me and, when I took no notice, she snatched a mug from the table and threw it at me. I jumped as it sailed past my head to smash against the door.

  I tried to look at her but my eyes kept sliding back to the man on the floor.

  Infuriated, Carly thumped the sofa. ‘Joe, JOE.’ She looked around for something else to throw. ‘Don’t ignore me – you could have killed us all! What did you do to make Metatron go all psycho?’

  ‘He’s changed.’ I pointed down at our unconscious guest.

  ‘What?’ Carly raked her fingers through her hair and then leant forward and peered over the coffee table. ‘What the hell do you mean he’s changed?’

  ‘That’s not Graham Latimer.’

  ‘What? You grabbed the wrong guy?’ Gritting her teeth, she ran another hand through the dust-filled haystack of her hair fluffing it into some mad lion’s mane.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then what?’ Carly stamped around to stand in front of me. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Where’s Latimer?’

  ‘He exploded.’

  ‘He did what?’

  ‘I tried to heal him but I cut him by accident and he just cracked up then exploded.’ I shrugged. ‘That’s what knocked the house down.’

  Carly just stared at me with her mouth open. ‘What the fuck are you talking about? I don’t understand a word you’re saying.’ She closed her eyes for a moment, exhaled and then started again. ‘Who did you take from Metatron?’

  ‘Graham Latimer.’

  ‘And who did you cut?’

  ‘Graham Latimer.’

  ‘And who the hell is this?’ All semblance of calm vanished and her voice rose to a bellow.

  ‘I don’t know!’ I screamed back at her.

  ‘Well, who do you think it is?’ Carly gave me a shake, forcing me to tear my eyes away from the floor and focus on her face.

  I thought for a moment then, gently disengaging her fingers from my jacket, I held on
to her wrists. ‘Carly, I think it’s Lucifer.’ I’d managed to get my voice down to a shaking whisper.

  Carly shut her mouth with a snap and stared down at the unconscious man. Her face paled.

  ‘It is.’ The deep voice from behind us caused us both to jump and scream like a couple of spooked nine-year-olds.

  Belial looked mildly surprised at our reaction then, shaking his head, he crossed the room to study the unconscious man. ‘That is definitely Lucifer,’ he confirmed.

  Carly stared at the sleeping man. ‘This is the Morning Star?’

  Belial nodded. ‘I remember him well.’ He focused on the Lord of Hell for a moment. ‘I don’t think I ever saw him asleep though and he used to have white hair.’ Belial picked up the one white lock and, rubbing it between his fingers, murmured to himself, ‘I remember him being taller.’

  Carly grabbed his hand and pulled him round to face her. ‘Father, how did he get out? What’s Metatron going to do? When’s he going to wake up and what are we going to do when he does?’ She finally had to stop to take a breath.

  ‘Hey.’ Belial gave her a quick hug. ‘One problem at a time.’ He turned to me. ‘Joe, how did this happen?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I flopped into an armchair with a sigh. Carly winced at the cloud of dust I created; I really needed a shower. I explained everything, from leaving Hell to getting back here again. Belial and Carly stood in silence throughout.

  When I had finished, Belial took another long look at Lucifer. ‘Did you say Metatron had used the knife on him?’

  I nodded then took mine out from its sheath. ‘It was that one from the box – similar to this but it didn’t have these markings on it.’ I pointed to the sigils carved deeply into the blood gutters.