crops. When they destroy the insects, the things the insects feed on then live, flourish and grow stronger. With no natural predators, they mutate.’
Jack moved to pull the drapes open, to let some light in.
Bilis clicked his fingers, and suddenly Jack wasn’t facing the window, he was facing the opposite wall. Angrily he turned around again.
Bilis just smiled at him, a teacher addressing a slightly dim pupil. ‘You have to understand, everything in this house is mine to control, even you. You will listen to me because, out there, I can’t control anything, but in here we can talk. We are… protected.’
He pointed to the box on the table.
‘The essence of what I am here to protect. It was dying, spent and exhausted, trying to fight a battle it could no longer win because someone had taken away its insects. Or its demons, to use your vernacular, gauche as it is.’
Jack sat in the armchair and tried to open the box.
‘Jack?’
‘Greg?’
The apparition of Greg Bishop was facing him and, in the room, able to see it clearly, he realised the outline of his old friend and lover was constructed from tiny lights.
‘Natural halogens,’ Bilis said. ‘Back in 1941, I needed a vessel to keep them from dying, to give them something to focus upon, to construct a new existence around. Mr Bishop had the diary in his hands, he became their vessel.’ He clapped his hands. ‘Lemon juice! Of course, Mr Hopper has the diary, and you asked him to find out what it said. I never managed that, you see.’
Bilis reached for the papers Idris had given Jack, flicked through them, and angrily tossed them to the floor. He swung around to Jack, suddenly angry, light blazing literally in his eyes. ‘I need that diary, Jack. It contains the solution.’
‘It contains words, Bilis. That’s all. You had it when you gave it to Tilda Brennan.’
‘No, you fool. I never had it. The Torchwood Institute had it, they defiled a grave to acquire it, because they wanted to release what was in it. That’s why it took Greg Bishop here. I didn’t do that, Abaddon didn’t do that. Greg’s death is entirely on your conscience because none of this need have happened if you hadn’t destroyed Abaddon.’
‘I destroyed Abaddon this year. What happened to Greg was in 1941.’
‘Revenge for the future! It was a message. Contained in the ink the diary was written in. It is not in the words, it’s in the ink. I gave the diary to a trustworthy man who owned the area where the Lords fought for control of the Rift, where my Lord Abaddon faked defeat so he could prepare and gain strength. This place, Tretarri.’
Jack stood again. ‘So let me get this straight. A fight in the nineteenth century between two creatures for supremacy over the Rift. Abaddon was one of those. And he apparently lost. You gave some guy the secret to releasing Rift energies that foretold the future and, when Torchwood got in the way, you needed me to sort it out. By lying, deceiving and killing my friends, you got me here, today, in the hope that somehow I’d do what? Bring Abaddon back?’
Bilis shook his head. ‘Abaddon was the Devourer. His role in life, in eternity, was to destroy the Darkness. You stopped that.’
‘He killed hundreds.’
‘They were irrelevant!’ Bilis was almost shouting now. ‘Insignificant insects, food to keep him sated so he could achieve the apotheosis of his mission. To protect the Rift from the Dark.’
And Jack remembered the lights he’d seen in the Rift storm the previous night. Blobs of light and dark.
‘They live in the Rift, Jack. Beings of pure halogen, elements of intelligence, at war for millennia. Abaddon was protecting the Light from the invasion of the Dark. And you stopped it.’
Jack thought about this. ‘Where is the Light now, other than here creating images of Greg Bishop?’
Greg’s ghostly form turned to Jack. ‘I saw the future, Jack. I saw all those potential ifs, maybes and buts. The Dark will be released by your team in the future. Corrupting your people until they build an empire of Darkness over this world, so they can feed. I’m sorry, Jack, I couldn’t intervene, the Light is so weak. It needs hosts, otherwise it will die. And the Dark will live.’
‘And this is in the future?’
‘The near future.’
Bilis stood between them. ‘That is why I took your team out of the action, Jack. While I keep them suppressed, the corruption cannot occur.’ He pointed to the box on the table. ‘It’s a prison, Jack. The Light and the Dark need to be drawn into it, to continue their eternal battle in a prison. The Light is willing to make the sacrifice to save this world, to save the Rift. Are you?’
Jack looked at Bilis. At Greg.
‘No. No, I’m not. Because I don’t believe a word you say.’
Ianto was sitting on the pavement, the crowds milling around him, his head in his hands.
A mime tried to reach down and pull him up and, as Ianto looked up to refuse, the mime simply flickered, like a faulty light.
The effect on the mime was devastating. He hit the ground with a colossal smack, and Ianto was at his side in a moment.
Events like this – always a St John Ambulance man somewhere to hand.
‘Help,’ he called out.
Then he frowned. The mime simply melted away in his hand, and in his place was a bunch of tiny spots of bright light. Like the ones that had occupied him when Bilis had held him.
Ianto backed away, and careered into a man who’d been watching him.
‘Did I just see what I thought I saw?’ asked the man.
Ianto pulled himself together, Torchwood training taking over. ‘Not sure what you mean, sir.’
The man looked at him and smiled. ‘You have to be Ianto Jones. The suit, the neatness.’ He paused, then smiled. ‘Jack’s fond of you. My name is Idris.’
Ianto knew immediately who he was talking to. ‘From the Council?’ How lame did that sound?
Idris laughed. ‘You could say that. I came looking for Jack.’
‘Not seen him,’ Ianto said, more truthfully than he’d have liked. The memory of that dream was still raw.
A hand touched his shoulder.
‘Good to see you back in the land of the living, Ianto,’ said Jack. ‘Hi there, Idris. Good job on the paperwork. Where’s the diary?’
Idris smiled at Jack. ‘In my bag. Along with…’ He brought out another set of papers with a flourish. ‘The real translation!’
Jack nodded. ‘Took a gamble that my reading Welsh was better than my spoken Welsh. And you were right – it fooled Bilis long enough. Thank you.’
Ianto suddenly hugged Jack, tightly, and didn’t let go. He whispered into Jack’s ear. ‘What does “Revenge for the Future” mean to you?’
‘If I knew that, I’d be a happier man. Another thing I’d like to understand.’
‘Yes?’
‘That.’
Jack was pointing at the people in the street. Clowns, magicians, tricksters – and all the general public who had come to see them. All standing watching the three men. Their eyes gone, replaced by burning fierce light.
Except five people to one side. A mum, dad and child, an old lady and the Kabuki living statue performer Idris had seen earlier.
Their eyes were gone, too, but replaced by a dark blackness. No light – the very opposite of light – and from within came something darker than the most powerful black hole.
‘Tosh?’
Ianto looked at Jack and then at the Kabuki.
And under the make-up and clothes, yes, it was Toshiko.
The light-embodied others turned to look at the five newcomers.
