Laura pulled Shavi over to one side. 'This is a nightmare. They're either going to starve or go outside and get slaughtered.'
'We are in the same predicament.'
'Yes, but they're not like us. They're normal people. That shit is part of our job description, not theirs.'
Shavi still couldn't comprehend how much she had altered. Not so long ago she would have been advocating self-preservation at all costs, and now she was urging them to accept their responsibility. Could someone really change that much? 'You are right,' he said, smiling. 'We owe them what little hope we have, at the very least.' He turned to the sallow-faced man. 'Are you in charge here?'
He shook his head. 'You want Professor Michell, I suppose. He's not really in charge. But he makes decisions. Any decisions that need making.'
'Then,' Shavi prompted, 'could you take us to him?'
The nave was beautiful and awe-inspiring, with fabulous monuments on either side. An air of solemnity hung over it. As they passed through, brief hope flared in the eyes of the refugees. Some held out their hands like the Victorian poor, silently begging for food. A Nigerian woman, overweight in a too-tight coat, offered a tentative smile, her eyes flooded with tears. Children stared blankly into the shadows. A girl in a blue dress, Sunday-best smart, as if she'd been on her way to a special function when her life had been arrested, said, 'Have you seen my mummy? I'm waiting for her.' Babies shuddered with sobs drained of tears. Shavi and Laura tried to offer reassuring smiles to the first few, but the emotional cost was too great and they averted their eyes for the remainder of the long walk.
To distract herself, Laura nodded to a monument in the centre of the nave. 'What's that?'
'The tomb of the Unknown Soldier.' Shavi had stood in front of it before, but this time it was laden with meaning. 'An unidentified British soldier brought back from a French battlefield during the Great War. He represents all the victims of that great tragedy, indeed, all the lowly warriors who have since given their lives in conflict.'
Beyond the nave were the aisles to the choir, which was also packed with refugees. Shavi paused to examine the monuments that lined the walls. Now everything he saw was filled with so much meaning, the emotion was welling up and threatening to overflow. 'This is what we are losing,' he said gravely. 'Not fast cars and computers and mobile phones. This is what truly matters.' He pointed to each monument in turn. 'Elgar. Purcell. John Wesley. William Wilberforce. Charles Darwin.' He pointed towards the south transept. 'Down there, Poets' Corner: Chaucer, Auden, Shakespeare, Shelley, Blake, Keats, Dryden, Spenser, Jonson, Milton, the Brontes, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Coleridge, Dickens, Kipling-'
'Don't get maudlin on me, Shav-ster,' Laura said gloomily. She wandered off ahead.
Eventually the sallow-faced man brought them to St. Edward the Confessor's Chapel, the sacred heart of the abbey where its most precious relics lay. Here a man in his sixties, with shoulder-length, straggly grey hair, sat wearily in a Gothic, high-backed chair. He was painfully thin, his wrists protruding skele tally from the fraying arms of an old, woollen overcoat. Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, his face suggested a man burdened by the greatest of worries, but underneath it Shavi saw integrity and intelligence.
The sallow-faced man hurried over and whispered in his ear. Without looking up, the Professor gestured exhaustedly for Shavi and the others to approach. When they were in front of him, he cast a brief eye over them, but if he felt any shock at the sight of the Tuatha De Danann, he didn't register it. 'More strays sheltering from the storm?' His voice was achingly tired.
'We are here to confront the invaders,' Shavi said.
He counted them off silently. 'So many of you. Did you really need to come so mob-handed?'
'We're only part of it,' Laura said. 'The best part, sure, but there are others. Lots of them. There's a war going on.' She gestured towards the Tuatha De Danann. 'These-'
The Professor acknowledged them with a nod. 'Old gods made new again. I expected they were around, though I haven't seen any of them till now.'
'Who are you?' Shavi asked.
'The wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time.' He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes for a long period. 'An academic. Just what the world needs now. Even better, one versed in anthropology.' He laughed bitterly.
'So how did you get the top job?' Laura watched the sallow-faced man slope away.
'Someone had to do it. Not that there's anything to do, apart from preventing everyone from killing themselves. Though even that may be an exercise in futility.'
The Tuatha De Danann shifted awkwardly until Baccharus silently motioned to Shavi that he was taking them back to the horses.
'So, introductions. My name is Brian Michell. And you are?'
Shavi and Laura introduced themselves before briefly outlining what was happening in the city. Michell listened thoughtfully, nodding at the correct moments. When they had finished, he said, 'When I first saw those horrible things out there I knew they were the template for all the worst things in our old myths. There was something inexpressibly ancient about them, something laden with symbolism. It was only a matter of time before the ones responsible for the other archetypes appeared.'
'You'd get on well with our own old git,' Laura said. 'Same language, same old bollocks.'
'I still haven't worked out why they haven't come in here to tear us apart.'
Shavi explained as best he could about the Blue Fire, but Michell picked up on the concept quickly. 'Good old woolly-minded New Agers. I always knew they were on to something. The spiritual wellhead, eh? Then I suppose it's only natural this place is a potent source of it. It's been a sacred spot for as long as man's been around, so the legends say. A divine island in prehistoric times, bounded by the Thames and the two arms of the River Tyburn that's now buried in pipes. The old Isle of Thorns, sacred to the Druids. Later, sacred to Apollo, where his temple was sited. Home of numerous other now long-lost religious monuments. And still giving up all it has to our generation. Amazing.' He forced a smile.
'What have you been doing for all those people?' Laura asked.
'Ensuring the little food we had was distributed fairly. Not much to do in that quarter now. In the early days, mediate in disputes. Try to keep them from taking their frustrations out on each other. They turned to me because they thought, being an educated man, I know about things. Now isn't that a laugh? I haven't even been able to look after my own life. The wife, God bless her, left long ago. Sick of all my cant. And the booze, I suppose. Haven't had a drink since I came in here. Now isn't that a thing? They should have examined my curriculum vitae a little more closely.'
'Whatever you say, I am sure you are the right man for the job. You have held them together,' Shavi said. Michell shrugged, wouldn't meet Shavi's eye. 'I would like to talk to them,' Shavi continued.
Michell chewed on a flayed nail, his eyes now fixed on Shavi's face. 'And say what to them? I don't want you making their last days any more miserable.'
'He's not going to do that.' Laura grinned. 'Shavi here's the preacher-boy. He's going to uplift their souls.'
'I want to tell them there is still hope.'
The Professor winced, shook his head. 'I think we've all had enough fairy stories.'
Shavi rested a hand on the Professor's thin fingers, which felt unbearably cold. 'I ask you to trust me.'
A tremor ran through Shavi as he ascended to the pulpit and looked down at the array of pale faces turned towards him. There was too much emotion there. It made him feel he wasn't up to the task, not even slightly. I am just a London boy, he wanted to say. Not a shaman, not a hero, not a saviour.
But after a moment, his heart took over and the words flowed to his mouth without any thought. 'For centuries, this has been a place of miracles..
They made their base in one of the Sir Christopher Wren-designed twin towers on the western side. Outside, night had fallen; without any lights in the city, the Abbey felt like it was suspended in space.
The Tuatha De Danann settled easily in one corner of the gloomy old room and rested their eyes. Shavi was still not sure if they actually slept.
'That was a good thing you did,' Laura said quietly as she, Shavi and Baccharus sat around a stubby candle from the Abbey's store. 'You could see it in their faces. What you did for them… amazing. I couldn't have done it. No one else could have done it.' She gave Shavi's thigh a squeeze. 'You missed your calling, preacher-boy.'
'Hope is a human essential.'
