At the foot of Arthur's Seat, Church and Tom watched the growing conflagration with an odd mixture of dismay and relief.
'It all depends on the others doing their job now,' Church said, coughing as the wind gusted charred, sooty air into his face. 'I hope Veitch got out.'
'If he did, he had God on his side. If he didn't, there's nothing we can do for him now. Nor for the girl.'
Church bit his lip, said nothing. Then he covered his mouth with his handkerchief and set off in the direction of the rendezvous point, praying silently that someone would be there to meet them.
Shavi and Laura were sitting morosely on South Bridge when the attack began, still trying to make head or tail of what had happened at Rosslyn. Laura was concerned at how badly Shavi had been affected by the experience, which lay heavily on the already deep scars of his encounter with his dead friend. Neither thing would go away easily; during their short walk she had seen him continually glance into empty doorways or down shadowed alleys, as if someone were standing there. But the moment Holyroodhouse exploded, all that was forgotten. They ran back through the deserted, snowy streets to see what was happening, only to be knocked flat on their backs by a blast of heated air as another house went up in flames.
'This is too dangerous,' Shavi said. 'We need to be away from here.'
'He did it!' Laura could barely hide the jubilation in her voice. 'I knew the old bastard would pull through!' She watched the Fabulous Beasts for a moment, tracing their flight path back to Arthur's Seat. 'Church-dude-a hero, not a zero.' She brushed hair away from her eyes, grinning broadly. 'At least one of us isn't a fuck-up.'
Her pleasure was sharply interrupted by a terrible sound of pain and anguish that left them both clutching their ears. 'What the fuck was that?' she said when it had died away. But Shavi was already slipping and sliding through the snow closer to the Royal Mile.
Laura caught up with him at the vantage point they had occupied before. The source of the sound was two Fabulous Beasts, circling, blasting the spot where Maponus and the Cailleach Bheur had been involved in their titanic struggle. At ground zero was an enormous smoking crater, so hot at the core the stone was turning to molten lava. To one side lay what Laura guessed was the Blue Hag, but her shape seemed to be shifting constantly, desperately trying to hold on to the appearance Laura knew. A blizzard whirled frantically around the tight core of her being where a blue light glowed brightly; the awful sound came off her intermittently, like an alarm threatening imminent meltdown.
Of Maponus she could see nothing at first. But then the smoke cleared to reveal a terrible sight: the beautiful god was also in semi-fluid form, but whether it was because of his own madness or the ferocious heat of the blasts, he had been transformed into a twisted, grotesque shape from which three faces and several limbs protruded obscenely. His mouths opened and closed noiselessly, the silent screaming even more disturbing than the Blue Hag's shriek. Laura wondered why his writhing was so constrained until she saw he was half-fused into the wall of a house.
'He has fallen!' Shavi said triumphantly.
But the words had barely left his lips when a smell like frying onions filled the air and the dim golden light that always suffused Maponus' skin began to grow slowly more intense. The god's skin began to melt from his bones, then the bones themselves, and the odd things that vaguely resembled organs, all of them dissolving into one pure white light. The shapeless radiance pulled itself into a tight orb as it released itself from the wall and then began to move away across the debris.
Another blast from one of the Fabulous Beasts blinded them with a shower of dust and choking smoke for a moment, and when it had cleared they saw the Bone Inspector loping more like a beast than a man across the rubble in pursuit of the diminishing white light.
'Do you realise what this means?' Shavi said, aghast. 'He cannot be destroyed. None of them can.' His face was drained of all blood.
Laura grabbed his arm and began to pull him away; the heat was so intense she could smell her hair singeing. 'There's nothing we can do now.' She had to shake him hard to stop his protests. 'Mister Freak is on his tail. He can carry the can for a while.'
'We have a responsibility-'
'That's all we do have! Later, before I hit you with a rock. You've gone all Apocalypse Now combat crazy, and if you start mumbling like Marlon I really will be forced to cause pain.'
Shavi fell silent, but his eyes remained troubled.
'This isn't over,' she continued. 'Think of it as a brief retreat, right?'
'It is not over,' he agreed firmly.
Veitch and Ruth had barely moved several yards along the ramparts before they had once again become transfixed by the Fabulous Beasts.
'Shit, they're blowing the whole place up!' Veitch wrapped his arms around himself to stop shivering; the water from the well freezing on his clothes and hair made him resemble a walking snowman.
Ruth watched carefully for a moment, then said, 'They're coming this way.'
Witch grabbed her arm and dragged her to the Lang Stairs, and although they were lethal with ice and snow, he took them three at a time. At the bottom he paused briefly to scan the Middle Ward. The Fomorii patrol were rooted near the Cartshed, their waxy human faces turned to the approaching threat. Their statue-like appearance was emphasised by their lack of emotion, but in one second they began to change, the flesh and clothes falling away as horns and carapaces and bones began to emerge amidst a sudden cacophony of monkeyshrieks. Mid- transformation, they scattered like a disturbed ants' nest.
Their stomachs were turning, but Ruth and Witch were already moving down to the Lower Ward before the change was complete.
'I'll never get used to that,' Ruth said queasily.
Veitch paused near the Gatehouse and Old Guardhouse. 'Maybe we can sneak-'
The words caught in his throat as the Fomor guard emerged from the doorway and barked, 'Arith Urkolim!' the moment he caught sight of Veitch. The Londoner tensed, torn between going for the crossbow or the sword, knowing either would be useless as the Fomor advanced relentlessly.
But before he could move, the glaring, reflected light from the snow suddenly darkened and a deep shadow fell over them. It was accompanied by what sounded like giant sails unfurling in a heavy gale.
Ruth dragged him back just as the oldest of the Fabulous Beasts swooped down in a blaze of glittering bronze and green scales. The Fomor and the Gatehouse were caught up in a furious firestorm that left Veitch and Ruth huddled in the snow, choking for breath as liquid fire and rubble rained down all around them. The crashing of mighty wings grew even more intense above them. Ruth rolled on to her back and peered through the billowing smoke. Four Fabulous Beasts were circling the castle.
'Let's move,' she choked.
They clambered to their feet, shielding their faces from the blazing ruins of the Gatehouse. 'We'll just have to put our heads down and run,' Veitch gasped.
The flames closed around them for a second, the heat searing their lungs, but then they were out in the bleak, snow-swept Esplanade, slipping and sliding down the slope towards Lawnmarket.
Behind them they heard the terrible sound of the Fomorii raising the alarm. Ruth glanced back briefly and saw Calatin standing on the battlements of the Upper Ward, shrieking at the darkness that surged around him, pointing in fury at the circling Beasts.
'I hope those monsters don't hurt the Beasts,' Ruth said.
Her fears were unfounded. A second later the purifying fire rained down from the heavens. The entire castle was engulfed in an inferno of living flame. Stone which had stood firm for centuries flowed like water or exploded in the instant heat. The lights popped out and windows crashed in.
Ruth and Veitch scrambled down the Royal Mile, trying to put distance between them and what they knew was to come. Ruth guessed the Scots Guards must have had an ammunition store in the castle, for a moment later there was an explosion that felt like the city was being levelled. They were knocked flat on their faces by the pressure wave, which also drove them momentarily deaf. In a world of eerie silence, Ruth rolled over to see a column of fire reaching up to the heavens where the castle had once stood. It shimmered red and gold as the Fabulous Beasts did soundless rolls and turns around it.
At the base there was an odd sight. The flames there were blue and they reached deep into the core of the rock on which the castle had stood.
