Thy Fearful Symmetry (15 page)

“He is not. He is on a sabbatical, contemplating his immortal soul.”
Ahhh Ambrose
, he thought,
the truth shall set you free
. “Others might be wise to follow his example.”
 

“Aye, but Father, we want to pray! Have you seen the Clyde? You've got to help us!”

Sympathy creased Ambrose's face. “There's no help I can give you, my son. Your fate is in better hands than mine. As for the power of prayer…” Ambrose trailed off, struck by an idea. It was risky, but why not? Where better to hide, than in a crowd? Pulling the large steel key to the heavy front doors from his pocket, he held it out for the man. “What's your name, boy?”

“Bob, Father.” It came out
Boab
. “Bob Miller.”

“Robert then. In these dangerous times, a proper Christian name is a defence against evil, Robert.”

Bob's eyes lit up with hope. “Aye Father.”

“The doors are closed because we fear looters, Robert. We fear that the sins of mankind will be unleashed upon God's house.” With his free hand, Ambrose clasped Bob's shoulder. “I shall place my faith in you. Take the key, Robert. Open the doors. Let them come to pray. I ask only that you dissuade those who would leave the nave from doing so. They have no business in the private areas of the church. Will you do this for me, Robert?” Doubt clouded the man's eyes, so Ambrose gave him a final nudge. “I have no earthly payment for you, Robert, but know that you will be rewarded in Heaven.” Leaning close, he whispered in the man's cauliflower ear. “You will not be waiting long, for that reward.”

Nodding eagerly, his chins puffing in and out like an accordion, Bob snatched up the key and waddled towards the nave, the weight of responsibility looking odd on such unlikely shoulders. Ambrose watched him close the door to the nave behind him, and then glanced upstairs. “I've found us a guardian, love,” he whispered with a smile. “Reassuring, isn't he?”

The heavy front doors scraped the stone floor, and the buzz of voices followed, as the crowd piled in. No longer the only closed church in Glasgow, St Cottier's had blended even further into the background. It was as much as he could do to hide her, and he ignored the little flash of guilt at abusing Calum's former position. It was an odd, unfamiliar emotion, and he didn't understand its significance.

It wasn't going to be enough. If everything they touched was dissolving to nothing, the universe itself unravelling in abhorrence at their continued survival, how long would it be before the stone and mortar of the church was gone? How long before the phenomenon was obvious from the outside, and drew attentions they wanted to avoid? Every step forward he took sent him backwards, all because he had chosen to trap himself there. Wondering what was keeping Calum, needing the thing he was retrieving more than ever, Ambrose gritted his teeth and set about looking for the shattered window, so he could seal himself more securely into his self-made prison.

Calum snapped awake, lurching from deep nothingness to full recall in the space of a second. Before he had a chance to open his eyes, the swollen pain throbbing through the side of his face brought the memory of the swinging golf club, and he managed to keep them closed. The pounding of his head was not the only pain afflicting him. Imagining how he might have fallen (
how long ago?
), he pictured himself collapsed amidst the rubble, and the sharp press of plaster fragments on his flesh confirmed that he was probably right. His hands and feet were bound.

Footsteps on the far side of the room, accompanied by the sound of drawers dragging open and being rummaged through, told him his attacker was still present. He felt the absence where the small rectangle of the box had filled his pocket. Was there nothing that he could be trusted to get right?

“I know you're awake,” the man said, conversationally. “I’m not sure how. Just a feeling. I can’t describe it any better.”

Calum opened his eyes. The man was kneeling before an ornate cherry wood cabinet with oriental designs swirling over it. His back was to the fallen priest, and he didn't bother to turn.
 

“What do you want from me?” Calum was surprised at the fierceness in his own voice. Going from God's slave to God's burned up adversary within twenty-four hours, having been threatened by archangels and demons, after considering suicide and watching blood flow through the heart of his city, he was tired of being the universe's whipping boy.

The man glanced over his shoulder. “Sorry. We haven't been introduced. My name's Clive Huntley. Ambrose might have mentioned me?” A smile of mad hope blossomed over the man's lips. Calum stared at him, determined to let nothing slip. Having already told the man that he was housing Ambrose, he had to do everything in his power to reclaim control of the situation. On the floor near his head was his wallet, but he knew he had no ID with his address on. As he had been unable to wear his dog collar, and unwilling to try picking up a crucifix, there was nothing that might connect him to the church.
 

“There's nothing to worry about you know. I'm on the side of the angels.” The smile died on Huntley's face. “If you really do know where Ambrose is, you have to tell me. The angels know he's being hunted. They want to protect their own. They've sent me to find him, so they can get there before Satan. I'm a little bit against the clock.”

Calum was only partially listening. Whoever this man was, he certainly wasn't there at Heaven's bequest, or Calum would be recognised for who he was. The fact that he seemed to think Ambrose was an angel was confusing, but not something to worry about now. Outside, the light was failing, which meant he had been unconscious for at least five hours. Though he strained to hear past Huntley's ramblings, there was no sound of the woman who had sobbed earlier. That stubborn silence fuelled his rage at the impotence he felt. A speck of worthlessness in a vast universe, he was tired of contributing to events only through his mistakes.

Clive rose to his feet, and smiled down at Calum. The ex-priest paused at the sight of that face. Dangerous, yes. Deranged, certainly. Beneath though, lurked a tragic, hunted fear, and Calum wondered for the first time who this man had been before gods and monsters became part of his life. Was this the fate awaiting Calum, a fractured reality reshaping moment to moment? Was he just a tool through which others could meet their goals?

Clive sighed. “It would be much easier if you just tell me where he is.” His hands twitched, and suddenly his eyes were full of tears. “I've become quite good at getting people to tell me things.” With that cryptic morsel, he stepped into the bedroom. Calum heard him rattling through the chest at the end of the bed, and imagined him tossing that small skull aside with contemptuous disrespect.

That image finally innervated him, and he set his hands, bound behind his back, to searching the floor around him. Reaching with a desperate frenzy, his probing fingertips brushed chunks of plaster aside in their search. He rolled as quietly as he could to give himself greater reach, his rage making him numb to the digging agony of the twine biting his wrists. Frustration brewed as he failed to find what he had seen in the rubble earlier. Surely Huntley didn't have the presence of mind to have moved the damn thing?

Suddenly his fingers were resting on wood, and the heat made him snatch his hand back. The last creature he knew to have touched the charred symbol was Ambrose. Whatever hope he'd had that the breaking of the crucifix would render it inert was gone. Maybe that would work to his benefit, and there was a faster way to get free than hacking away with the sharp end.

Rocking backwards to get a better grip, he seized the snapped base of the cross, tilting it backwards so the upper struts rested between his wrists. White heat poured into his flesh, and he held his breath to cage the scream he wanted to give. Unable to stay focussed on the door, he closed his eyes, knowing he would be able to hold on for only seconds more.

Calum didn't feel the twine burn away, but suddenly his wrists were free. To his shock, even as he pulled his arms round to his front, he couldn't release his grip on the cross, which glowed with a faint red light utterly disproportionate to its heat. He dragged his hand across the floor to dislodge it, watching carpet fibres smoulder. The light dimmed as the wood lost contact with his cursed flesh.

Calum released the breath he had been holding, looking at his blistered, weeping hand with dismay, unable to twitch even one of those fingers. A clatter from the bedroom reminded him that he didn't have the luxury of time. With his right hand, only lightly burned at the wrist from the twine, he plucked at the knot binding his feet. Poorly tied in the first place, it fell apart after only a couple of tugs.

Calum climbed to his feet, reeling with triumph. Holding his bad arm in front of him, keeping his hand away from his body, he crept to the ornate cabinet, taking a large marble ashtray in his right hand, and craned his head round the edge of the door.

Huntley was resting on his haunches, staring at the now empty chest, the contents scattered across the carpet beside him. Though he had his back to the door, he wore confusion in the tension at his shoulder, the tilt of his head. Perhaps he was wondering why an angel would have a drawer stuffed with satanic tools and props.
 

Calum cracked the ashtray down on the back of Huntley's head just as the man twitched with awareness of his presence. The impact hurt all the way up to his shoulder, but it was worth it to see Clive's dead weight drop to the carpet. Calum didn't care if the man really was dead. Later, he might have his regrets, but staring at the body at his feet, watching blood ooze through hair and drip down the neck, there was nothing in him but a savage joy.

Looking up, imagining the evening sky beyond the ceiling, the clouds drifting by, the stars beyond them, he took a deep breath, and gave vent to his feelings. “See that, you smug, arrogant bastard? I did that. I did that on my fucking own! I don’t need you!”
 

Ambrose's box was in Clive's pocket, and he yanked it out, knowing that whatever happened, he would never again be a part of Christ's flock. If they would have him, he would join Ambrose and Pandora in whatever exile they were undertaking, and deal with his afterlife when he reached it. It wasn't just Clive Huntley he had escaped. It wasn't just twine that had shackled him.
 

Calum hurried into the flat next door, sure that the woman he had heard earlier would be dead. Seeing her lying on the couch, blood pooled on the leather and soaking into the cream carpet, he knew he was right, and felt his stomach clench around his victory, snaring and weakening it.

When her eyes snapped open, crystal blue against the smeared blood surrounding them, his shriek of fright drowned out her own desperate hitch of breath.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

By the time Gemmell and Summer got back to the station it was late afternoon, and the situation on the street was worsening. Driving from the West End to the city centre had taken hours of careful working against the crowds. Even when they reached the station itself the chaos continued. A crowd of hundreds blocked access to the street, frightened people wanting reassurance, or protection, or any of a hundred minor requests fulfilled. Fortunately, the rear of the station was largely deserted, and it was with real relief that they drove down the ramp to the underground car park and heard the automatic gates rattle shut behind them.

The ops room was a debacle, as harried officers tried to field constant telephone queries they couldn't hope to satisfy. Gemmell suspected that the men and women doing so, stressed though they appeared, were secretly glad to be where they were, instead of trying to deal with the chaos outside. Glancing at Summer, seeing her wonder how they were going to accomplish anything at all, Gemmell sighed and strode forward, clapping his hands.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention?” Some stopped what they were doing, others scarcely noticed he had arrived. Gemmell took a breath. “Boys and girls, your attention please! It is not a bloody request McCliesh, put that bloody phone down right now! Everybody! Phones down and leave them off the bloody hook!”
 

A panicked clatter filled the room as a dozen handsets hit desks, and then there was shocked silence. “Thank you.” Gemmell stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I'm not going to ask for a situation update, because it's fairly fucking obvious that nothing's happening. Why are you answering the bloody phones? THAT WAS RHETORICAL, MCLIESH! DON'T YOU DARE TRY TO SUCK UP TO ME, YOU ARSEHOLE!”
 

Turning to the wall, rolling his eyes for effect, he managed to sneak a sly wink to a stunned looking Summer without anybody else in the room noticing. Sometimes, a reputation for foul temper was a useful tool.
 

Turning back to the room, he sucked in a breath. “Let me update you. Thousands of people are trying to call us to say the water's gone red and funny tasting. We know that. Stop answering their calls. If the Incident Room number weren't in the paper because of the Huntley escape, we wouldn't be getting any at all. From now on, the phones stay off the hook. Gives me peace to think, and thinking, boys and girls, is something I'd like you all to experiment with over the next few hours.”

Now that he had their attention, he relaxed a little, leaning against the back wall. The faces he was looking at were calmer than they had been, but more importantly, were focussed. Focus was going to help them get through this madness. “As of this moment, I'm putting all specific operations on hold, including the Huntley escape. If you see him in the street, haul the bastard in. That's as much as I want anybody here doing, unless somebody higher up than me tells you otherwise. I want this room empty. Everybody here, DS Summer aside, is hitting the streets. Congratulations. We're going to reintroduce your footwear to the pavements.”

Groans began from corners of the room. Gemmell's eyebrows shot up. “The alternative is staying here with me, and I'm not terribly good company right now. McLiesh and Simpson, you don't have a choice. I want you operating this room. Keep the landlines off the hook and distribute your mobile phone numbers to the team. Everybody else, out in twos. The first thing I want is some calm around the station. Make that happen, and liaise with uniform. If the street isn't an oasis of bloody tranquillity by the time I leave here, I'll be inviting every one of you to my office for a chat. Do I make myself clear?” There was ripple effect of frantic nodding. “Well? Why am I still looking at your faces? I should be seeing your arses trooping out the bloody door.”