Eventually he’d been taken to the temple where the senior acolyte told him the package was waiting. The chamber walls were made from thousands of slim metal reinforcement rods welded together, the inside of a bird’s nest woven out of iron twigs. Its altar was a tight-packed mound of rusty spikes, their tips all shaved down to the same length. Twin flames rose out of the bristling metal at each end, long yellow tongues dancing in the gloom. Pews were composite roof planks nailed to a variety of pedestals. The sect’s usual runes were still on the walls, but they were barely visible now. A single new slogan had been sprayed everywhere: Night is coming. On the walls, on the ceiling, even on the floor.
Kilian was made to enter alone, his little escort clustering round the thick doors behind him, giggling wildly. His annoyance dropped away as he walked quietly towards the altar, replaced by growing nervousness. Three figures waited silently for him behind the altar, clad in black robes. These garments had none of the embellishments or pentagons usually favoured by senior sect members. If anything it made them appear even more menacing than usual. Their faces were almost lost inside the large hoods. Flickering yellow beams from the candles would occasionally reveal a feature within two of the hoods: bloodshot eyes, hooked nose, wide mouth. The third hood could have been empty for all that Kilian saw. Even when he reached the altar, he could see nothing inside that night-like cavity of fabric.
“The High Magus sent me,” he stammered. “You’ve got a package for me, yeah?”
“We certainly have,” a voice said from somewhere inside that veiled hood.
Alert now, Banneth ran the voice through an analysis program, though ordinary memories of voices were a notoriously unreliable source for such verification programs. Nonetheless, it showed remarkable similarities to recordings of Dexter’s voice. Kilian trembled as the hidden figure slowly held out an arm. He was almost expecting a pistol nozzle to poke out at him. But it was just a snow-white hand that emerged from the voluminous sleeve. A small plastic container was dropped carelessly on the altar.
“Our gift to Banneth. I hope it is useful.”
Kilian scooped it up hurriedly. “Right. Thanks.” All he wanted now was to get the fuck out of here. These guys were almost as creepy as Banneth.
“I am interested that the High Magus is carrying on as though nothing is happening.”
Kilian didn’t know how to answer. He cast a glance over his shoulder, wondering if he should make a dash for it. Not that he could ever get out of the chapel unless he was allowed to. “Well, you know how it is.” He shrugged lamely.
“I certainly do.”
“Sure. I’d better get this back to her, then.”
“The Night will fall.”
“I know.”
“Excellent. Then you will join us when the time comes.”
“My serpent beast is strong.”
A head emerged from the hood, the darkness slowly washing backwards to expose more and more features. “You’ll need to be,” Quinn said.
Banneth froze the image. No doubt about it. Skin as white as snow, eyes infinite pools of black—though that could have just been emotion-aggravated exaggeration. But it was Quinn.
The High Magus smiled thinly as the image hung in her mind. The fierceness which had once so animated him, and fascinated her, was gone. If anything, he looked rather stressed out. Crinkled lines radiated away from the corner of his eyes, while those sweet cheeks were rather sadly sunken.
She concentrated her thoughts, focusing on the personality traits of one individual. Dexter’s in Edmonton. One of my acolytes encountered him three days ago.
Ah. Thank you,western europe replied.
The ten ships in the convoy emerged above New California, immediately confirming who they were to Monterey’s SD command. For once the hellhawks accompanying the frigates hadn’t raced on ahead. They were quite content to let the convoy commander break the bad news they were carrying.
Where’s Etchells?hudson proctor asked once the four remaining hellhawks had checked in.
We don’t know,pran soo said. He left us to scout round the antimatter station. He will probably emerge soon.
You’re sure the Confederation destroyed it?
The frigates were still there. They saw it explode.
A fact which the convoy commander was very reluctantly confirming to Monterey. The news was all around the asteroid within thirty minutes, and down to New California’s cities in roughly the same timescale. Word spread across the countryside within a couple of days. The more remote Organization asteroid settlements lagged behind by anything up to a week. The last ones actually got to hear about it from Confederation propaganda broadcasts—who damn well weren’t going to miss that opportunity.
This time Emmet Mordden refused point blank to be the one who had to tell Al. So the senior lieutenants decided that Leroy Octavius should be awarded the honour. Their unspoken thought as they watched him waddle out of the asteroid’s command centre was that he too would chicken out and simply tell Jezzibella.
A lifetime juggling temperamental personalities in the entertainment industry had left Leroy wise to that option. Knowing that Jezzibella was the only guarantee his own precious body and soul remained intact, he simply couldn’t permit her position to be weakened. Leroy gathered his courage and went down to the Nixon Suite. Walking along the last few metres to the doors his legs had more than a little wobble of apprehension. The two gangsters on guard outside picked up on his emotions, and studiously avoided eye contact as they opened the big doors for him.
Al and Jezzibella were having breakfast in the conservatory, a long, narrow room with one wall made entirely of curving enhanced sapphire, which gave a slightly bluish tint to the view of the planet and stars outside. The opposite wall had vanished beneath a trelliswork of flowering vines. Pillars running the length of the conservatory were transparent tubes, aquariums filled with the strange and beautiful fish from a dozen worlds.
There was only one table, a broad wrought iron oval, with a vase of orange lilies in the middle. Al and Jezzibella sat next to each other, dressed in identical aquamarine bathrobes, and casually munching toast. Libby was limping round the table, pouring coffee.
Al looked up as Leroy came in. His welcoming smile faded when he caught the anxiety in the obese manager’s mind. “You don’t look too happy, Leroy, my boy. What’s eating you?” Jezzibella glanced up from her history book.
Leroy took a breath and plunged in. “I have some news. It’s not good.”
“Okay, Leroy, I ain’t gonna bite you because those wiseasses dumped a shitty job on you. What the fuck’s happened?”
“That last convoy we sent to the antimatter station just made it back. Thing is, the Navy was there waiting for them. They blew it up, Al. We’re not going to get any more antimatter, not ever.”
“Jesus H Christ!” Al’s fist thumped the table, bouncing the crockery. Three slim scars throbbed white on his cheek. “How the hell did they find out? Ain’t nothing we do more careful than sending the convoy to the station. Did the last lot get followed?”
“I don’t know, Al. The frigates’ll dock in another ninety minutes; maybe the captains’ll tell us more.”
“They’d fucking better.” Al’s fists clenched. He stared at the starfield outside the conservatory.
Leroy hesitated, glancing at Jezzibella. She inclined her head silently to the door. It was all the permission Leroy needed; he ducked his head at Al, and shifted himself the hell out of there as fast as his thick legs would allow. Jezzibella waited patiently, not saying anything. By now she was well used to the cycle of Al’s moods.
After a minute in which he could have been frozen, Al roared: “Fuck it!” and smashed a fist down on the table again. This time it had his energistic power behind the blow. The iron bent alarmingly. Plates, jam pots, cups, and the vase went sliding down the new valley to crash together along the fold. He stood up fast as the boiling coffee splashed onto the floor with the lilies. His chair legs caught on the tiling. “FUCK!” Al spun round and kicked the chair, sending it flying into the curving sapphire window. Libby whimpered in fright, cradling the milk jug as if it alone could protect her. Jezzibella sat back, holding on to the coffee cup she’d saved. Her expression was strictly neutral.
“Goddamn motherfucking shit-eating bastards! That was my goddamn station. Mine .” He put both hands under the buckled table and shoved it upwards. The entire thing went somersaulting along the conservatory. Crockery tumbled away to smash against the floor. Libby cowered as one of the heavy metal legs flashed centimetres above the bun of her grey hair. “Nobody takes my property away from me. No Body! Don’t they know who the fuck they’re dealing with here? I’m not some chickenshit small-time loser pirate! I am Al goddamn Capone. I’ve got a fleet that kicks the shit out of whole planets, for Christ’s sake. Are they fucking insane? I’ll blow that whole stinking pennyass navy of theirs out of the goddamn water. That knucklehead Ruski admiral is gonna get a baseball rammed so far up his ass he’ll be pitching it out of his mouth.”
“Space,” Jezzibella said firmly.
“What?” Al whirled round and bellowed at her. “What did you fucking say to me?”
“You’ll blow them out of space. Not water. We’re not on Earth now, Al.”
He pulled a fist back. It shook violently as he held it over her. Then he swung round and punched one of the tall aquariums. The glass shattered. Water and a shoal of long purple fish poured out of the big hole, splattering the hem of his robe.
“Shit. Goddamn.” He danced backwards, trying to keep his house slippers out of the water.
Jezzibella calmly lifted her feet off the tiles as the tide swirled round her chair. Fish started wriggling frantically over the mosaic, their movements skidding them against the planters. “Did you have antimatter when you started?”
Al was watching the fish in mild perplexity; as if he couldn’t quite understand where they’d come from. “What?” he demanded.
“You heard.” She deliberately looked away from him, and gave Libby a gracious smile. “Go and fetch a bucket, or something, there’s a dear.”
“Yes, poppet,” Libby said nervously. She scurried away.