always thought it was funny — me, a detective with ten years’ service, couldn’t see the evidence. I used to laugh at her.’ He tapped his head. ‘Last week she tried to kill herself. Nearly did it, too. Now she won’t talk to me.’
‘Don’t start with all that maudlin shit again,’ Tombstone said. ‘She’ll come round, I told ya. Give her time.’ He grinned, but he couldn’t keep his true thoughts from his eyes.
Nelson looked up to the summit of the Empire State Building at Church’s back. ‘I still think you’re crazy.’
‘Main observatory is on the eighty-sixth floor, another on the one hundred and second,’ Tombstone said. ‘You can see eighty miles on a clear day. They say.’
‘You’ve not been up?’ Nelson asked.
‘Don’t like heights.’
‘That’s not high enough.’ Shielding his eyes, Church tried to see to the top of the one-hundred-and-two- storey structure. ‘Can you get me out at the very top?’
After Nelson and Tombstone spoke to security, they returned to the car as Church and the others took the elevator as high as it would go. Steel steps led to a small, circular, windowed observation area with a ladder leading up to a hatch that gave access to the dirigible mooring mast.
Pressing her face to the glass, Laura looked out over the city. ‘Church-dude, it’s not often I agree with the Filth, but that detective is right. You are seriously fucked in the head if you’re going out there.’
With his alien eye, Shavi searched for some sign of the invisible maze, but found nothing.
‘What if those gods were just ragging on you?’ Laura continued. ‘There’s nothing out there. One step, one thousand four hundred feet to the pavement. My friend Church, a fine red mist.’
‘That’s it — give him a pep talk,’ Tom said.
‘I’ve come prepared. To a point.’ Steeling himself, Church stepped onto the ladder. ‘We don’t have a choice. We need the Second Key now. If you listen carefully you can hear the city talking, repeating one word over and over again, everywhere. The Void isn’t going to take any chances. It’s going to pull the plug.’
‘I can go,’ Shavi said.
Church smiled unconvincingly. ‘You get to have the second go.’
They all fell silent. Church nodded once, then climbed the ladder and went through the metal hatch.
‘Idiot or hero, you decide.’ Laura glanced back out at the dizzying drop. ‘I think I’m going to vomit. Look away.’
The rattle of feet on steel made them think Church was returning until a low sound like a badly tuned radio set their teeth on edge. Veitch stepped into the room, the black flames of his sword casting odd shadows.
‘Here we are again,’ he said. ‘All together one last time.’ Behind him, Ruth looked uncomfortable and Miller kept his eyes down selfconsciously.
‘How did you find us, you tattooed fuck-head?’ Laura said.
‘Me and Church are like brothers these days, didn’t you know? Even more than we were in the old days.’ He began to climb the ladder to the hatch. ‘Time to finish this.’
2
Back on Summer-side, the rain still sheeted down and ran in torrents along the winding, cobbled streets. The Court of the Soaring Spirit cowered in the face of the storm. Mallory led a small army towards the Palace of Glorious Light, just a hulk lurking in the darkness.
Axe in hand and ready for battle, Decebalus strode beside him, and at their backs were the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons plucked from hundreds of years of Earth’s history. They were still coming to terms with their freedom, but Mallory could tell the Pendragon Spirit was alive in their hearts.
With Lugh and Rhiannon at their head, the Tuatha De Danann were grim-faced. They, too, were trying to come to terms with the new status quo, but their task was more difficult. Their race was built upon the mythology that they were special, perfect, above all other creatures. To be told their survival depended on fighting and defeating one of their own destroyed the very foundations of their existence.
Lightning flaring overhead, Mallory brought them to a halt on the approach to the palace. ‘Go back to the Hunter’s Moon and look after Virginia,’ he told Jerzy. ‘If we don’t survive, get her out of the city. Try to find Church. Just keep her safe.’
The Mocker grasped Mallory’s hand fervently. ‘I see you are a great man, as great as my good friend Jack Churchill. My life has been better for having known you.’
‘Just get the drinks in. And look after yourself.’
When Jerzy had scampered away, Mallory turned to Lugh. ‘Are you ready?’
‘It is my sister.’ Lugh’s voice trembled, though his face remained emotionless. ‘I am not ready. I will never be ready.’
‘That place is a fortress,’ Mallory said. ‘Our only option is a frontal assault. If we can take Niamh by surprise-’
‘She will be ready for us,’ Rhiannon said. ‘She already knows that the Watchtower has been breached and that the prisoners are free.’
‘You should go back with Jerzy …’ Mallory began until he saw her affronted expression.
She held up her stump. ‘One missing hand does not make me lesser. It does not amount to one fraction of the scars I have borne throughout all my time.’
‘Of course. I’m sorry.’
‘Your instinct is to protect. I understand that. It is why you make a good battle leader.’
‘I just want to finish the job here and get back to my life.’
‘And I will say again,’ Lugh began, ‘this is a turning point in the relationship between Golden Ones and Fragile Creatures. Now there is hope for my people — because of you. We will not forget that.’
Mallory looked out over the wet rooftops of the jumbled city, rolling down towards the main gate.
‘What do you seek?’ Rhiannon asked.
‘I thought Sophie would be here. That old Craft business usually makes her sensitive to what’s going on.’ He shrugged. ‘She’ll probably be along when we need her most, just like the cavalry.’
‘You should speak to our troops,’ Rhiannon said.
‘They’re not my troops.’
‘Do it. They expect it. They deserve it.’
Reluctantly, Mallory climbed onto the crumbling stone base of a rune-carved obelisk and looked out over the ranks. Concentrated in one place, he could finally see what the Pendragon Spirit meant. The Brothers and Sisters of Dragons had the rough faces of country stock and the educated features of city dwellers, the formalised styling of the Reformation and the austerity of the nineteen-fifties; their expressions revealed their fears and bravery, doubts and arrogance; but all of them to a person exuded a quality of hope and a strength of character that suggested they would do what was right, whatever the personal cost.
Mallory drew Llyrwyn. The blue flames licked hungrily towards the looming, oppressive figure of the Burning Man. Everyone fell silent, watching him.
‘You don’t know me,’ he began, ‘and that’s probably how it should be. I’m a nobody. But I’m one of you. And that’s what it means to be a Brother or Sister of Dragons. Individually, we’re a mess. We’re filled with doubts and flaws and guilt and shame and personal failures. We can barely get through our own lives. But when we come together, when we support each other and contribute our strengths to one single, good end — watch out. Because that’s when we work magic.
‘This flame, this blazing Blue Fire, gives us our strength. But it also symbolises who we are when we unite. A beacon in the dark. A light that will never be extinguished.
‘Some of you haven’t had the chance to discover who you are, or what you’re capable of. You’re going to get that chance now. It’ll be scary and tough. But you’ll always have a Brother or Sister beside you, picking you up when you fall, protecting you when your guard is down, carrying you when you’re too tired to take another step. You’ll never be alone. Let’s enter this fight not as individuals, but as Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. And let’s come out of it winners.’
For one moment there was only the sound of the wind and the lashing rain, and then a cheer rose up.
