Reality Dysfunction - Emergence

surrounding him. “Why this? Why do this?”

“The Ivets,” Horst said. Little Carter’s scarlet eyeballs were staring right into him, urging him to speak. “This is the inverted cross,” he said pedantically. It was important to be right in a matter like this, he felt, important that they should all fully comprehend. “The opposite of the crucifix. They worship the Light Brother, you see. The Light Brother is diametrically opposed to our lord Jesus, so the sects perform this sacrifice as a mockery. It’s very logical, really.” Horst found his breath was hard to come by, as if he’d been running a long distance.

Dimitri McBride crashed into him with the force of a jackhammer. He was flung backwards, Dimitri riding him down. “You knew! You knew!” he cried. Metal fingers closed round Horst’s throat, clawing. “That was my son. And you knew!” Horst’s head was yanked up, then slammed down into the spongy loam. “He’d still be alive if you’d told us. You killed him! You killed him! You!”

Horst’s world was turning black around the edges. He tried to speak, to explain. That was what he had been trained for, to make people accept the world the way it was. But all he could see was Dimitri McBride’s open screaming mouth.

“Get him off,” Ruth told Powel Manani.

The supervisor gave her a dark look, then nodded reluctantly. He signalled to a couple of the villagers, and between them they prised Dimitri’s fingers from Horst’s throat. The priest lay as he was left, sucking air down like a cardiac victim.

Dimitri McBride collapsed into a limp, sobbing bundle. Three of the villagers cut little Carter down, wrapping him in a coat.

“What do I tell Victoria?” Dimitri McBride asked vacantly. “What do I tell her?” The reassuring hands found his shoulders again, patting, offering their pathetically inadequate sympathy. A hip-flask was pressed to his lips. He spluttered as the acidic brew went down his gullet.

Powel Manani stood over Horst Elwes. I’m as guilty as the priest, he thought. I knew that little ratprick Quinn was trouble. But dear God, this . The Ivets, they’re not human. Somebody who could do this could do anything.

Anything. The thought struck him like a twister of gelid wind. It cleared away even the remotest feeling of pity for the wretched drunken priest. He nudged Horst with the toe of his boot. “You? Can you hear me?”

Horst gurgled, his eyes rolling around.

Powel let his full fury vent into Vorix’s mind. The dog lurched towards Horst, snarling in rage.

Horst saw it coming, and scrabbled feebly on all fours, cringing from the hound’s ferocity. Vorix barked loudly, his muzzle centimetres away from his face.

“Hey!” Ruth protested.

“Shut up,” Powel said, not even looking at her. “You. Priest. Are you listening to me?”

Vorix growled.

Everybody was watching the tableau now, even Dimitri McBride.

“It’s what they are,” Horst said. “The balance of nature. Black and white, good and evil. God’s kingdom of heaven, and hell. Earth and Lalonde. Do you see?” He smiled up at Powel.

“The Ivets didn’t all come from the same arcology,” Powel said with a dangerously level voice. “They’d never even met each other before they came here. That means Quinn did this since we arrived, turned them into what they are now. You know about this doctrine of theirs. You know all about it. How long have they been a part of this sect movement? Before Gwyn Lawes? Were they, priest? Were they all involved before his odd, unseen, bloody death out here in the jungle? Were they? ”

Several of the watchers gasped. Powel heard someone moaning: “Oh, God, please no.”

Horst’s mad smile was still directed up at the supervisor.

“Is that when it started, priest?” Powel asked. “Quinn had months to turn them, to break them, to control them. Didn’t he? That’s what he was doing all the time inside that fancy A-frame hut of theirs. Then when he’d got them all whipped into line, they started to come after us.” His finger lined up on Horst. He wanted it to be a hunting rifle, to blow this failed wreckage of a man to pieces. “Those muggings back in Durringham, Gwyn Lawes, Roger Chadwick, the Hoffmans. My God, what did they do to the Hoffmans that they had to incinerate them afterwards so we wouldn’t see? And all because you didn’t tell us. How are you going to explain that to your God when you face him, priest? Tell me that.”

“I wasn’t sure,” Horst wailed. “You’re as bad as them. You’re a savage, you love it out here. The only difference between you and an Ivet is that you get paid for what you do. You would have gone berserk if I even hinted that they had turned to the sect instead of me.”

“When did you know?” Powel screamed at him.

Horst’s shoulders quaked, he hugged his chest, curling up. “The day Gwyn died.”

Powel threw his head back, fists thrust into the sky. “QUINN!” he bellowed. “I’ll have you. I’ll have every fucking one of you. Do you hear me, Quinn? You’re dead.” Vorix was howling defiance into the heavens.

He looked round at the numb expressions centred on him, seeing the cracks opening into their fear, and the anger that was beginning to spark inside. He knew people, and these were with him now. At long last, every one of them. There would be no rest now until the Ivets had been tracked down and exterminated.

“We can’t just assume the Ivets are guilty like this,” Rai Molvi said. “Not on his word.” He glanced scathingly down at Horst. That was how Vorix took him unawares. The hound landed on his chest, bowling him over. Rai Molvi yelped in terror as Vorix barked, long fangs snapping centimetres from his nose.

“You,” Powel Manani said. It was spat out like an allegation. “You, lawyer man! You are the one who wanted me to ease off them. You let them have their A-frame. You wanted them walking round free. If we had done this by the book, kept those dickheads in the filth where they belong, none of this would have happened.” He called Vorix off from the panting, badly scared man. “But you’re right. We don’t know the Ivets had anything to do with Gwyn or Roger or the Hoffmans. We can’t prove that, can we, counsel for the defence? So all we’ve got is Carter. Do you know anyone else out here that is going to rip apart a ten-year-old child? Do you? Because if you do, I think we’d all like to hear who.”

Rai Molvi shook his head, teeth clamped together in anguish.

“Right then,” Powel said. “So what do you say, Dimitri? Carter was your boy. What do you think we should do to the people who did this to your son?”

“Kill them,” Dimitri said from the centre of the little knot of people who were trying to comfort him. “Kill every last one of them.”

High above the treetops, the kestrel wheeled and turned in an agile aerial dance, using the fast streams of hot, moist air to stay aloft with minimum effort. Laton always allowed the bird’s natural instincts to take over on such occasions, contenting himself simply to direct. Down below, under the almost impenetrable barrier of leaves, people were moving. Little flecks of colour were visible through the minute gaps, the distinctive pattern of a particular shirt, grubby, sweaty skin. The kestrel’s predator instincts amplified each motion, building up a comprehensive picture.

Four men carried the body of the boy on a makeshift stretcher. They moved slowly, picking their way over roots and small gullies, all of them labouring under an air of reluctance.

Ahead of them was the main body of men, led by Supervisor Manani. They walked with a bold stride. Men who had a purpose. Laton could see it in the stern, hate-filled faces, the grim determination. Those that didn’t have laser rifles had acquired clubs or stout sticks.

Trailing way behind everyone else the kestrel saw Ruth Hilton and Rai Molvi. Weak, dejected figures who never said a word. Both lost in their own private guilt.

Horst Elwes was left by himself in the small clearing. He was still curled up on the ground, shivering quite violently. Every now and then he would let out a loud cry, as if something had bitten him. Laton suspected his mind had gone completely. It didn’t matter, he had fulfilled his role beautifully.

Leslie Atcliffe broke surface ten metres away from the end of Aberdale’s jetty, a creel full of mousecrabs clamped between his hands. He rolled onto his back, and began to kick towards the shore, towing the creel. Rifts of gun-metal cloud were starting to slash the western horizon. It would rain in another thirty minutes, he reckoned.