Kristin (17 page)

Twenty-five

Prime Minister Andrew Devlin sat at the head
of the long, mahogany table in the Cabinet Room of Ten Downing Street. To his immediate
right was General Sir Ashley Valentine, head of the British Army, and to his
left United Nations President, James Bathurst. Further down the coffin-shaped
table Aldous Waldegrave, the Archbishop of Canterbury, faced Cardinal Cezar
Valdez.

Devlin leaned forwards and
formed a flexing apex with his fingers. ‘Let me be absolutely sure I understand
what you’ve just told me, just in case I ... misheard you. You’re saying that
this woman, this girl ... isn’t human?’

‘She is a child of God,
just like the rest of us,’ Waldegrave replied. ‘But she has no soul. It has
been replaced by something quite terrible.’

‘Replaced ... by what?’

‘By the opposite of all
that is good in mankind. By the antichrist.’

Devlin sat bolt upright.

‘Prime Minister,’ Bathurst
said. ‘We understand you have video footage of the Special Air Service
Manoeuvre?
Prime
Minister
?’

Devlin tore his eyes away
from the portrait of Sir Robert Walpole above the grand fireplace. ‘Yes ...
yes, that’s correct.’ The premier
 
pressed a button on a gold panel and a screen unfurled from the ceiling.
He looked round the table slowly and then prodded a second button to start the
digital projector.

They watched in horror as
the hail of ammunition riddled Kristin’s body, lifting her from the ground. The
men of God turned away in disgust. And then the assembled observed her
impossible rebirth, her revenge. The recording ended and silence held sway.

‘Prime Minister?’ Valentine
said, eventually. ‘
Sir
?’

Devlin stared at him
wide-eyed. He hadn’t seen the footage before and his mind was in turmoil.

‘We’ve never known anything
like this before, there’s no precedent. It isn’t humanly possible to withstand
an attack of this magnitude — even if she’d been wearing a vest. We’re
talking about hundreds of rounds, sir.’

‘ ... Are you telling me
that this person is
immortal
, General?’

Valentine could offer no
answer.

‘Then how can we ever win?
If we’re to assume that she is responsible for everything, how on earth do we
stop her?’

‘Her possessor will not let
her perish,’ said Cardinal Valdez. ‘It won’t allow her to be harmed in any way.
She’s it’s host, its earthly body, its vehicle for existence, its means to
enable it to achieve its purpose.’

‘What is its purpose,
Cardinal?’

‘To overthrow Christianity,
to deliver humanity itself to hell, and if we don’t act quickly it will
succeed.’

Bathurst patted his pockets
until he found his cigarettes and took one out. ‘Does anybody mind? Prime
Minister, gentlemen, I believe there’s little doubt now, however hard it may be
to accept, that this girl, this presence in our midst, is the real enemy of humanity.
What we’ve witnessed here in this room this morning — countless
other
 
incidents connected to her
actions — can’t be explained by the use of mind control methods employed
by the Islamic terrorists as a form of modern warfare, as we’d first suspected.’
He drew deeply on the cigarette and filled the air with its smoke. ‘I feel
that, overall, we were ... in error ... reaching the resolution we did. In
actual fact, I believe we’ve made a terrible mistake.’

‘
Resolution
? What resolution was
reached?’ Waldegrave asked.

He smoked the cigarette to
the butt and looked pensively around the table before replying. ‘The security
council reached a unanimous decision ... in view of the repeated refusal of
the
 
administrations of Afghanistan
and North Korea to admit United Nations disarmament teams — and in light
of our belief that the Islamic group
had
successfully engineered and unleashed some
type
 
of psychological warfare upon
the West in preparation for the enforced conversion of Christianity to Islam
— the Security Council reached the unanimous decision to launch
pre-emptive nuclear
 
strikes on
Kabul, the northern region of Afghanistan, Pyongyang, and the missile base in
the Kangwon province of North Korea.’

Waldegrave’s complexion
turned powder white.

‘Such neurosis,’ Valdez
whispered, through trembling lips. ‘Hysteria that has now manifested itself as
insanity.’

‘You have its exercised its
will, played directly into its eager hands,’ Waldegrave added, condemningly.
‘This is what it sought,
 
for man’s
loathing of his fellow man to become an irreversible sickness, for it to
destroy itself. Now it knows its work is nearly complete.’

‘
But why now
?’ Devlin asked. ‘Why has it
chosen now to visit us, Archbishop?’

‘Man has become so
iniquitous, so warring, his heart filled with such hatred. Your United Nations
Council was charged with the safeguard of international society and yet its
representatives
  
freely
determined to attack human beings with weapons too terrible to contemplate, the
horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki forgotten. The presence sees this as weakness
of spirit, an opportunity to
 
gain
absolute mastery of the human race.’

‘How do we stop it? How do
we kill her?’

‘To kill this woman would
neither be the solution nor morally acceptable. To kill is to break the sixth
commandment of God and we will have no part in that. Instead, we must draw out
the evil that has invaded her soul and destroy it.’

‘But how do we do that?’

‘We’ve arranged to fly to
Rome this evening,’ Valdez said. ‘There we will meet the remaining leaders of
the Christian church in Europe, those who are unscathed. We shall assemble at
Saint Peter’s Basilica, in Vatican City, and believe that our combined presence
in a place of such religious significance will bring the devil to us. Upon its
arrival we shall exorcise the abomination from the soul of this beleaguered
woman.’

Devlin leaned forwards, his
chair creaking, and stared at Bathurst. ‘ … How much time, Mr Bathurst?’ he
asked, his throat painfully tight.

The United Nations
President stared vacantly into space.

‘How much time is left?’

‘
Mr Bathurst
?’ Valentine prompted.

‘ ... Twenty-four hours.’

The clerics hung their
heads.

‘Go back to New York at
once,’ Devlin instructed. ‘Reconvene the Security Council. Use your influence,
do whatever you must,
  
but in
the name of God get this monstrous decision overturned.’

‘But sir, their threat
to us will remain,’
Valentine warned, urgently.

‘Yes, I know, but I’m going
to put my trust in them as human beings.
We
will not be responsible for starting a
holocaust.’

Twenty-six

The thirteen men of the church waited, arms
linked, in a resolute
  
line beneath
the great dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica, protecting the beautiful papal altar
that glinted warmly in the early morning light under Bernini’s magnificent
canopy of gilded bronze. Facing towards the atrium, the Door of Death and the
Holy Door beyond, the brevity of their respiration was palpable.

When the vile enigma
entered the basilica, drifting through the dense wall of travertine stone
between the two entrances, there were gasps of dismay, hastily uttered prayers,
and two of the
  
elders wilted
as the Beast’s presence sapped their strength.

Aldous Waldegrave shuddered
with revulsion as she slid down the brilliant marble nave, snorting like a pig,
slavering onto the cold stone.

She reached them and passed
along their line, examining each man in turn, inhaling his fear. Then she took
three backward steps. ‘A crude ploy,’ the Beast grunted. ‘I might have guessed.
The men of God arrayed against me, seeking to wash the girl clean of me. Fools!’

Cardinal Cezar Valdez
stepped forwards. ‘ ... Dear Lord, I beg you to release this woman from the
dreadful curse that has befallen her. Please help us this day to remove the
rotten manifestation from her ... ’

‘Motherfucker! I shall
dwell forever within her mortal shell. I shall abide, always, within the hearts
of everybody, everywhere.’

Aldous Waldegrave braced
himself, his eyes stinging with sweat. ‘ ... In the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy ... ’

‘Tell the Son to go fuck
himself!’

‘ ...
and the Holy Ghost, I command that you leave this ... ’

‘COMMAND? WANKER! Thou
shalt not command me!’

‘ ... body, and return to
the confines of hell.’

‘Dost thou think it makes
any difference if thou art one or so many? If thou wert a thousand, a million
strong, if every bastard on Earth prayed with thee I would still not be
expunged, not whilst such doubt of allegiance prevails within the spirit of
man. Many have welcomed my coming and bid me stay. Thy violence, thy greed,
feeds my soul and makes me strong.’

Armando Vasquez, the Bishop
of Valencia, crept forwards with trepidation and reached out to lay his hands
on her. The Beast acted swiftly, using materialized thought to sever his
fingers at the first
 
knuckle, and
he fell to the immaculate altar, blood gushing, his screams resounding in the
cavernous cathedral.

‘
So simple
,’ it wheezed. ‘So easy for me
to stop thee harming her. Now, use those mushy organs of thought thy maker gave
thee and join me, heart and soul, or go to meet him.’

‘In the name of the Father,
the ... ’

‘Ah yes, keep trying ...
that’s it!’ it rumbled, spitting bile into Valdez’s face, burning his eyes.

But their prayers began to
unsettle it. It felt as if it were caught in a vacuum, as though it were being
sucked out of the flesh and
 
bones
of the girl, from the existence, the security she provided. The collective was
stronger than it had expected.

‘PIOUS ARSEFUCKERS!’ it
shrieked.

‘ ... and the Lord will
protect this woman’s ... ’

‘Leave her be!’ it begged.
‘Canst thou not feel her pain?’

‘ ... soul from the
darkness that has forced itself upon her.’

She clutched her head and
squealed, acidic drool splattering onto the brilliant marble. Her shadow of
pure evil could sense that it was being drawn out, that it was coming to an end
after millennia. It was time to act.

It allowed its poison to
flow freely into their minds and watched
  
as they set upon one another with shocking barbarity.
But it spared the one it surmised to be their leader, the one with the purest
speech, making him observe the carnage, helpless.

A young cleric lifted a
golden ciboria above his head and brought it crashing down upon Valdez’s head,
splitting it open like a melon. Two senior members of the church, men who had
no reason to hate each other, grappled viscously. They spat, they struck, they
kicked, they gouged, and the Beast felt the noose around its neck loosen.

One by one the men
succumbed to the irrepressible rage that burned within their souls, until all
but two of them had perished and the altar was awash with their blood.

Waldegrave stared into Valdez’s
scorched eyes as life departed them, and his shoulders started to shake.

She stood over the
defeated, kneeling man. ‘A valiant effort, I suppose,’ the Beast muttered,
begrudgingly, masking the unprecedented fear it had experienced moments
earlier. ‘But humanity has fallen to me, now its future will be entirely of my
making. What wilt thou do, clear-tongue, now that thy co-conspirators lie bloodied,
dead?’ It encouraged her to run her fingers through his sodden, white hair.
‘Wouldst thou live in my world?
Couldst
thou
,
I wonder
? Perhaps, with a little help from me.
But no ... thy time has passed.’

She placed two fingers on
his forehead and the Beast passed a charge of electricity through them into his
his brain. Waldegrave’s eyes rolled up until they were white. He shook
violently and toppled forwards stiffly, smoke blowing from his open mouth, and
his tears stopped.

The Beast elevated her attenuated body in a
vertical trajectory
  
and its
physical make-up altered, enabling it to amalgamate with
  
the atoms of the brick dome and
materialize into the bright morning light on the other side.

Kristin held on to the
masonry of the dome in desperation. A strong gust of wind blew her forwards and
she clawed at the lead flashing as the ground so far below spun dizzyingly; she
didn’t like being this far from terra firma and she could feel the Beast revelling
in her anxiety.

Scared
,
bitch
? it
cackled.

She pulled herself up above
one of the decorative windows and braced her bleeding, shoeless feet against
its tiny roof, wedging herself in position. Her knees trembled against her chin
and she started to hum, comfortingly to herself as the mighty bells below her
tolled solemnly for the clerical hierarchy her black shadow had made murder one
another in cold blood.

The Beast laughed long and
hard inside her head, and she shifted her weight towards the edge, just enough
to silence it.
So
much bloodletting
,
so much pain. Such confusion
,
such distortion of character. Such gratification
—
pleasure
akin to her
newfound
  
sexual pleasure. It
had been wrong
,
inhuman, but she
’
d been too tired to fight
,
simply doing what her impious counterpart told her
to do. But no more
.

Kristin made a decision.
She would need to be very quick. She dislodged her feet, closed her eyes, and
thought briefly of a man she seemed to remember.

Kristin
! it screamed.
Kristin
,
ahhh
,
sweet Kristin
,
beautiful girl
,
we are a good partnership
,
wouldst thou not agree
? ... ‘A good
partnership? Bastard! You instruct me to maim, murder, make me spread your disease
of the human spirit. You’re nothing but a parasite, and you must be stopped.

‘There has to be a limit to
the degree of injury my mortal body can withstand and I don’t believe I would
survive such a fall. I’m going to jump from this great height and this time
you’ll perish with me.’ ...
Kristin ... listen to me
!
...
‘And just for one moment in time, just
before I hit that long, red roof, I’ll know
your
fear.’

She pushed back against the
dome, stood giddily and looked down. Saint Peter’s Square swirled, rotated into
a diagonal, then vertical plane and she fell back, nauseous, weak. ‘ ... Who is
he?’ she groaned ...
Who is who
,
sweet Kristin
?
...
‘The man in my head?’ ...
Him
?
His name is Thomas. He waits for thee
,
beautiful
Kristin
,
that
is why thou must not do this ...
‘What does he mean to me?’ ...
If thou givest
thy word thou wilt not leap
,
I shall tell thee.
She knew she could never
jump. ‘I give you my word.’ ...
Thou lovest this man. Thou hast given thyself to
him
.

Its words were meaningless
to her. She couldn’t remember any love, given or received. She couldn’t recall
the moment of indescribable pleasure that had created the most powerful thing
in all time.

Far below she could see a
woman pointing up at her. She was screaming hysterically, prostrating herself.

Why dost thou hesitate
?
Go
see the whore
,
go meet thy supplicant
,
thy disciple
! it urged, snatching control back
from her.

She stepped from the dome
but didn’t fall. Instead she entered the torturously painful spinning tunnel of
light with dread as she’d done so many times before ceasing, momentarily, to
exist in tangible form.

At the end of the
kaleidoscope Saint Peter’s Square drew close; she could see the emotional face
of the worshipper clearly now.

Molecular reformation came
at a price even greater than disassembly
and her transient being screamed as
organs, bone and muscle were reborn and meshed once more. When the process was
complete she found herself twenty feet from the woman, who darted forwards and
threw herself at Kristin’s feet.

‘
Dea mia, mia salvatrice,
tiene il mio destino le mani
!’ she cried.

‘Come si chiame?’ the Beast
asked.

‘Flavia.’ She kissed her
soiled feet over and over again as the Beast translated the foreign tongue.

‘Thou shalt be well
rewarded, Flavia, for thine shalt be a world of perversity, cruelty and death,
a world without compassion, without love.’

Others joined Flavia in her
acclamation. But there were also cries of dissent and condemnation.

‘SEI
TIRANNO!’

‘STREGA!’

‘My family have already been
subject to these things,’ Flavia said, averting her eyes as she slipped her
fingers beneath the thick coat shielding her from the impossibly cold Roman
weather. ‘Perversity, when my husband Claudio first felt the immoral physical
need of our beautiful daughter, Antonietta. Cruelty, when he was compelled to
act upon his unnatural impulse. And death, when she stuck a knife through his
heart and then slit her own throat.
I
’
m so glad I could sense you would be here this day
... rot in hell you fucking bitch!’

She pressed a button
triggering enough Semtex to destroy a small building, and both women were blown
to pieces.