Grave Girl (29 page)

Ten minutes later, as the bus pulls out of the station, Sam stares out the window and watches as familiar places flash past one final time. She sees all the bars and nightclubs she's stumbled out of, all the street corners where she's sat while guys tried to pick her up, all the alleys where she's run to throw up. Eventually, the bus passes through the small square next to the church, and Sam sees that there's no activity outside the church. The cleaner has obviously taken Henry away, and by now the child is probably being looked after by a social worker.

"Bye," Sam whispers, as tears start to stream down her face.

Part Seven:

Gardening at Night

Prologue

Three months ago

"My God," Vanessa whispered, "that's just about the cutest baby I've ever seen."

Smiling, Sandra reached down and ran a finger under the child's chin. After hours and hours of crying, the kid had finally fallen asleep, although his face was still a little red from all the exertion. The sound of his bawling had sent most of the other staff running from the office as soon as the lunch break began. Only Sandra, the social worker assigned to the case, had stayed behind, along with Vanessa, who'd come down from another department to meet the new arrival.

"How'd the check-up go?" Vanessa asked.

"He's fine," Sandra replied. "The doctor said he couldn't remember the last time he saw such a healthy baby. It's like a miracle."

"I'll never understand what's wrong with some people," Vanessa continued with a hint of sadness in her voice. "Abandoning a new-born on the steps, out in the cold. I swear, more and more these days, people treat children like their commodities. Don't like your new phone? Change it for a better one. Don't like the fact that you've got a child? Just dump it somewhere and hope someone finds it." She sighed as she stared at the baby's sleepy, scrunched-up face. "What kind of heartless person could take something so wonderful and just leave it on the street like it's a piece of trash?"

"But -"

"It's true! The bitch just chucked her son away. She probably thought he'd get in the way of her partying lifestyle. I swear to God, people haven't got their priorities straight these days."

"Maybe she couldn't afford to raise him?"

"You mean she wanted to spend her money on booze and clothes." Vanessa paused for a moment. "Probably drugs as well. There are people out there who just fuck anyone they can find, and when they get pregnant, they just view it as a minor inconvenience. The bitch is probably already back out on the party circuit. I bet she barely even remembers giving birth, and I'll bet you any money in the world that she doesn't know the name of the father."

"Maybe she was assaulted," Sandra suggested.

"Maybe," Vanessa sniffed, "but in my experience, most of the time this kind of thing happens because the mother just can't be bothered. It's a sad reflection of modern morality."

"You don't know that," Sandra said quietly, refusing to believe that a mother could be so heartless about her child.

"He's just lucky that the cleaner came to work at the church," Vanessa replied, keeping her voice down. "Otherwise, he could have been out there for hours. The way the weather's been lately, he could have frozen to death. Then there are the rats. My God, have you seen the size of the rats you get around Leeds these days? Some of them are the size of small dogs! I dread to think what might have happened to this kid if he hadn't been found quickly."

"Well, he
was
found," Sandra said with a smile. "Let's just be thankful for small mercies. You can't focus on all the things that
could
have gone wrong."

"It's no way to start a life," Vanessa said with a sigh, "but at least things can only get better from here. New-borns are the easiest to place. You know what people are like. They want a fresh canvas, so they look for a kid who's basically as close to birth as possible. They'll be positively fighting over this little darling. I'll get started with the paperwork this morning, and if we're lucky, this little guy'll have a new family by Christmas."

"His name's Henry," Sandra said quietly.

"How'd you reckon that?"

"It's written here, on the fabric," she continued, lifting part of the white shawl to reveal the spot where the name Henry had been written in thick black marker pen. "His mother must have put it there before she left him. If she didn't care about him, would she bothered to do that?"

"Maybe it was already on the shawl," Vanessa pointed out. "Maybe she
stole
the shawl!"

"She cared!" Sandra insisted. "You can't deny it! Whatever else this kid's mother did, she wasn't the Devil incarnate!"

"Well, I'm not sure about that," Vanessa replied sniffily, "but the thing is, when a family adopt an abandoned baby, they often want to choose the name for themselves. It's part of the whole 'blank slate' thing. Most times, they just want to scrub out any connection to the birth mother and put their own stamp on the kid."

"Henry's a nice name," Sandra said. "He should keep it."

"It's a perfectly fine name," Vanessa said with a sigh, "but babies do better when they're offered without a name. Allows the new family to feel like he's really theirs, if you see what I mean. They won't want any traces of the kid's old life. If they ask, I'll tell 'em his name, but otherwise, his chances of being adopted are much better if he's a blank slate."

"But it's the only thing his mother gave him," Sandra replied. "His name, and his shawl."

"Well, we'll have to get rid of the shawl too," Vanessa said sternly. "I'll get a fresh one from the cupboard. This baby's mother lost all rights to any connection when she dumped him on the steps of a church and ran off into the night. Our job is to focus on the baby's needs." She paused for a moment, waiting for Sandra to reply. "I know you're kinda new to this line of work, but you can't afford to start daydreaming about the mother in a case like this. She's gone. They never come back. Focus on the kid."

"What if she
does
come back?"

"She won't. When was the last time you heard of a case where a mother came back after abandoning her kid? I've been here for ten years, and I've only ever known two mothers who changed their minds after dumping their children. In most cases, they disappear forever." She paused for a moment. "Besides, she abandoned the kid. You think she's got a hope in hell of getting him back? With any luck, she'll never come looking, and if she does, she won't get very far."

Sandra smiled sadly. She knew Vanessa was right, but that didn't mean she had to like the situation. Henry seemed so helpless and so alone, and it felt wrong to take away the weak connection he still enjoyed to the woman who'd given birth to him. When he was found, he still had his umbilical cord attached, although it had since been removed by a doctor. Henry's mother, whoever she was, had clearly been in a hurry to get rid of him.

"Come on," Vanessa said with a smile. "This is good news. We have trouble placing older kids, but this one's gonna be off the shelf in no time. He never even has to know about all this. His new parents might not even tell him where he came from. Sometimes I think that's best. Why bring in the extra drama when you can just let life unfold peacefully instead? How would you feel if you found out that your birth mother dumped you on some steps and left you to die?"

"I know," Sandra said, as the baby wriggled a little in his shawl. "I just can't help wondering what kind of person could abandon such a cute little thing. She might be suffering too, you know."

"I'll tell you what kind of person," Vanessa replied. "A waste of space. I don't care about any extenuating circumstances. You dump a kid, you're trash. No excuses. She might have given birth to the poor little guy, but she's not his mother. Not really. She lost that privilege when she placed her own happiness ahead of the safety of her child."

"Maybe she was just scared."

"Bullshit. She was a bitch. For all she knew, this baby could have died on there on those steps. I guarantee you, after she ran away, she didn't even look back."

"He was wrapped up pretty well," Sandra replied, "and maybe it wasn't a coincidence that the cleaner turned up. Maybe the mother knew he'd be along, and she times everything so Henry would be found?"

"You're giving her far too much credit," Vanessa said firmly. "If you want to work here, you need to harden your heart. There's no room for tears when it comes to the mothers. Wherever that bitch is right now, I hope she knows she's going straight to hell."

Chapter One

Today

"How long do we have to wait?" Sam asks, staring up at the roof of the rocky underground cavern. "It's been quiet for a while now."

"Patience," Faraday replies. "When he's dealt with them, he'll come and get us. Until then, we just have to wait down here and hope for the best. Sparky knows what he's doing, but he needs us to keep out of his way -"

"But if -"

"He'll come and get us when it's safe!" Faraday says firmly. "The fact that he
hasn't
come for us means that he's not finished yet. I'm sure he's got everything under control, but we risk causing more problems if we start going up there. He's got enough to deal with, and the last thing he needs is to have to make sure we're safe as well. I assure you, Martello's a great warrior. He'll be fine."

"Or he's dead," Anna says. Sitting over by the wall, with her knees drawn up almost to her chin, she's spent the past few minutes picking maggots out of her arm and setting them free to wriggle helplessly on the ground. Holding one up and examining it for a moment, she frowns. "Gross." She glances over at Sam and Faraday. "What? It's true. You keep saying Sparky'll sort it all out, but what if you're wrong? Maybe the reason it's so quiet up there is... Well, there were a lot of those creatures, and there was only one of him."

"Nonsense," Faraday replies snappily.

"But -"

"Nonsense!" Faraday says again, this time raising his voice. "You don't know what Martello can do. I appreciate that you've been dropped in the middle of all this, but you're far from an expert. I've seen him in action. He's dealt with much greater forces in the past. He's fought in some of the greatest battles that have ever taken place, and he's never even endured so much as a cut or a scratch."

"Anna's right," Sam says. "Or at least, she
might
be. He's not invulnerable, is he? I mean, he's not made of flesh and blood, and I know he's supposed to be pretty tough, but there were so many of them. Even if he managed to fight them for a while, he'd have got tired eventually."

"He's too smart to be brought down by a group of Volks," Faraday says. "He's too strong."

"But maybe they surprised him," Sam continues, "or maybe they had back-up." Looking up at the ceiling, she tries to imagine the scene in the cemetery. "How much longer are we going to sit down here? What if he doesn't come for us in the next couple of hours? What if we get to tomorrow and there's still nothing? Are we gonna wait a week?"

"We don't
have
a week," Faraday replies, walking over to the edge of the precipice and staring down into the dark pit. "We have twelve, fifteen hours at most before this beast wakes up, and if that happens, it doesn't matter what Sparky has or hasn't done. There are some genies, Ms. Marker, that simply can't be put back into their bottle."

"So why are we just sitting around?" Sam asks. "Why don't we get on with making sure the Devil doesn't wake up?" She pauses for a moment, shocked to find such crazy words coming from her mouth. "I mean, there's got to be a way, right?" she continues. "You're the expert. Don't you know what to do? Isn't there something written in one of your books, or some kind of legend?"

"I'm working on a plan," Faraday replies.

"How's it going so far?"

"I'm still working on it."

"You haven't got anything, have you?" She waits for an answer. "You don't know what to do."

Faraday opens his mouth to respond, but instead he pauses for a moment. "When the cemetery was built," he says eventually, "it was never expected that the Devil would remain in his grave forever. It was simply felt that this was the best way to keep him down there for the longest possible period of time. Everyone understood that he'd rise again one day, but no-one thought it would happen so soon. It was assumed that there'd be hundreds, maybe thousands of years to go before..." He continues to stare down into the pit for a moment. "This is the end of the world," he says finally. "If he rises, he'll rip everything apart. His mind alone is strong enough to burn the planet to a crisp. There'll be no arguing with him, no chance to fight. It'll all be over. To him, humanity is just a collection of ants, scurrying around on the surface of his grave."

"How did they get him down there in the first place?" Sam asks.

"The records have been lost."

"Great. How convenient."

"Sarcasm won't help," Faraday replies darkly. "We need to maintain clear heads, which means we have to focus on the task at hand. Pure logic is the only tool at our disposal. We just have to work through the various permutations and determine the best path."

"You make it sound like an algebra problem," Sam says.

"All I know," Faraday continues, "is that keeping him down there is going to be infinitely easier than letting him wake up and then trying to send him back. The latter would be a hopeless task, but the former... We might just have a chance."

"So we have to make sure he
doesn't
wake up," Sam says firmly. "We have to find some way to make him stay the hell down there."

"That's the idea," Faraday replies.

"But it's impossible, isn't it?" Anna suggests, still picking maggots from her arm. "Don't bullshit us. It's clear from the way you're talking. He's already waking up, so we're all dead." She pauses for a moment. "Well, I'm
already
dead, but you know what I mean." Suddenly, a smile spreads across her face. "Hey, you know what? Being dead isn't so bad! I mean, apart from the maggots and stuff. Even if the Devil
does
get up and start smashing everything, you'll both just end up like me. Is that really the worst thing in the world?"

"Anna -" Sam starts to say.

"No, seriously," Anna continues. "I just realized! Why does it matter to me
what
happens? I'm already dead, so what's the Devil gonna do? Kill me again? And it's not so shabby." She turns to Sam. "Seriously, there's no reason to be scared. You'll get used to it soon enough. There are maggots, and sometimes a few bits fall off, but once you get over the initial shock and wrap your head around it, you can kind of deal with it. Just go with the flow!"

"The flow of being dead?" Sam asks skeptically.

Anna shrugs.

"The only reason you're still here is because the cemetery is consecrated ground," Faraday replies darkly. "Do you think that will remain the case once the Devil rises? This whole place is going to be the first part of the planet to be sucked dry of its purity, and when that happens, you'll turn to dust."

"Oh," Anna says, looking a little startled.

Deep below, at the bottom of the pit, something stirs, as if some kind of huge beast is slowly starting to move, and the walls of the entire chamber shake for a moment before silence descends once again. There's no mistaking the power and size of whatever's down there, preparing to rise again.

"Bad dream?" Sam asks.

"What does the Devil dream about?" Faraday replies.

"Maybe he's just misunderstood?" Sam suggests. "I mean, maybe he's not so bad? He might just..." Her voice trails off as she realizes that this is one theory that's not going to fly.

"I often dream about being naked in public," Anna says suddenly. "Maybe that's what
he
dreams about too. Or cheer-leading. I dream about that sometimes."

"He's been asleep for thousands of years," Faraday says darkly. "He won't wake up immediately, but the process has definitely started. We don't have long left." Looking up at the ceiling, he pauses for a moment. "Even if Martello has dealt with the Volks, there'll be more creatures to come. I don't..." He pauses, and it's clear that he has no idea what to do next. No ideas, no plan. Nothing. "This is all happening too soon," he says eventually. "I needed more time to plan. I needed to go through the books. The answer was in there somewhere, but everything moved too fast and now there's no time."

Hearing another rumble from deep within the pit, Sam looks down into the darkness and recognizes that she can't rely on Faraday to come up with a solution. If the Devil finally wakes up, the cemetery will be the first part of the world to be destroyed, but soon everything else will follow. Every place is going to be destroyed, and every person is going to die, even those who were supposed to be safe. Taking a deep breath, Sam can't help but realize that the repercussions of the Devil's return are going to be felt by every living creature on the planet.

"Henry," she whispers softly.