nearer.
And the Blue Fire rolled out across the city, joining up with the Fiery Network, and with it flowed Church's thoughts and hopes and prayers. The Wayfinder had lit the way for the very essence of his being, the part that had been transformed from base lead into gold by his experiences at St. Michael's Mount. Deep in his subconscious, encoded in his spirit, was the link he had with the vital energy that flowed into everything. He was, finally and truly, its champion, the Brother of Dragons. He was One.
When he had achieved what it became apparent that he had to do, he broke the link and put the Wayfinder aside.
'Tell me that did some good,' the Bone Inspector said.
Church looked up at him with bright eyes. 'The Fabulous Beasts are coming,' he said.
Chapter Twenty
Shavi and Laura hung out of the window high up on Westminster Abbey to get a better view. At first it looked like birds moving across the rooftops, until they saw the drifting smoke and mist rolling away mysteriously before them. The occasional breaks in the cloud cover became a broad swathe, allowing sunlight to flood in across the ancient monuments and modern office blocks of London, spotlighting what they could now see were figures on horseback preceded by a pack of baying hounds.
'The Wild Hunt,' Shavi said, recalling the last time he had seen them at Windsor, shortly before his death.
The unearthly red and white dogs bounded effortlessly across tiles, leaping the gulfs between buildings as if they were nothing. The Hunt thundered behind, Cernunnos in his Erl-King aspect at the head, blowing the horn, the horses galloping an inch or more above the roofs.
And the Hunt was not alone. The Dark Sisters, Macha, Badb and Nemain, swooped like ravens across the skyline, and beyond them Shavi could just make out the Morrigan, harbinger of war.
'Look.' Shavi pointed to a commotion amongst the Fomorii near the Government offices off Great George Street. Black Shuck, the devil-dog that always heralded the Wild Hunt, tore through the Night Walkers with huge jaws that could rend metal.
The Hunt descended on the gathered Fomorii army, ripping back and forth until they had cleared an area where they could stand and fight. The Dark Sisters swooped from above and the Fomorii fell wherever they chose to attack. But it was the Morrigan that chilled Laura's blood the most. She walked amongst the Night Walkers as if she were strolling in the park, and whichever beast she passed crumpled to the ground, dead.
Laura and Shavi looked at each other; neither of them needed to speakthey knew the attack had given them the opportunity to break out. The Professor, who had been about to return to the detritus of humanity sheltered below, understood too. 'How on earth do you propose to get out there?' he said in horror. 'You'll die. Of course you'll die.'
'Thanks for the pep talk, granddad. That's got me all jazzed up.' Laura snickered to herself as she ran her fingers through her hair to spike it up.
'These times demand more of us,' Shavi said, smiling. 'From our conversation last night, I would guess you never imagined you would be a leader of men, a rock that holds a desperate community together.'
'I'm not a leader.' Michell looked out at the now-raucous fighting. 'No, you're right. I was shaping my life to end it in the dustbin.'
'And now you feel better about yourself. Now there is hope.'
He nodded. 'How strange that it takes a world falling apart to make us become better people.'
'The life we were leading seduced us away from the things that mattered,' Shavi said. 'We thought society, technology, money, were offering us something better, but instead we ended up indolent, bored and depressed. This has been a terrible time, but if we find a way through it, something good will come out of it. A better life.'
'There's something undeniably sad that we can't get back on the tracks without experiencing such suffering.' The strain had made Michell emotional; tears flecked the corners of his eyes.
'It is the human way. But we do learn. Good does come out of bad, although at the time of suffering it is impossible to see what good there might be.'
'If you two are going to keep talking, I'll just wander off and slit my throat. Jesus, analyse, analyse. Start living, for God's sake.'
Shavi flashed a secret smile at Michell, who winked in return. 'Come on, then,' he said to Laura. 'I guarantee you won't find it boring from here on in.'
'Are you sure you know what you are going to do?' Shavi asked as they stood at the Abbey door with Michell ready to swing it open.
'Why don't you patronise me a bit more, you big, poncey shaman?' Laura's face was moody, with a hint of apprehension. 'Offer to do somebody a favour and what do you get? Nag, nag, nag.' She squatted down and bowed her head, balancing herself with one hand in front of her. 'Okay, granddad. Put those creaking joints to use.'
The Abbey was suddenly filled with the deafening clamour of battle. Laura knew if she looked up she would be too terrified to act; for all that Cernunnos had transformed her, she was still the frightened, unconfident woman she had been for most of her life.
She surprised herself by containing her fears; necessity was a great moti vator, she thought. In her meditative state she had no problem accessing that corner of her mind she characterised as a brilliant green screen. It gave her a great sense of pride to see it, a feeling that she was doing the right thing. Environmental activism had been all she had ever truly believed in, and the thing she felt might actually balance out the weighty debit side of her life. And now, she thought, nature had paid her back by giving her a reason to live.
It started small. Hairline cracks ran out from her fingers where they touched the stone. Beyond the Abbey walls, they grew into fissures in pavements and roads; further on, a street lamp swayed, then crashed to the ground. The Fomorii nearest to her were thrown this way and that as the ground went into upheaval.
From the long-hidden soil beneath, green shoots sprouted, rapidly growing into a tumbling thicket of vegetation that moved as if it had a life of its own: bushes and vines, brambles, flowers, reeds, and then saplings that became trees, rowan, oak, yew, hawthorn.
Shavi gasped in amazement. As the abundant flora became thicker, the Fomorii were driven back and a path formed within the greenery, now stretching across Parliament Square. 'Can you keep this up?'
'Not for long. It's knackering. But I can do it enough to get us through the worst of it. Then, I'm sorry to say, we'll have to run. Unless you can call up some badgers.' She looked up finally and smiled with pride at her achievement. It was quickly replaced by a dark determination. 'Okay,' she said. 'Let's go.'
They glimpsed the carnage the Wild Hunt, the Dark Sisters and the Morrigan were inflicting on the Fomorii forces, but then they were across the Square and heading along the Embankment. After all the choking smoke of the city, the aromas of the vegetation were invigorating, and died away too soon, but the streets beyond were empty and Laura was already growing weak.
Shavi put an arm round her shoulders to support her as she shakily came to a halt in the middle of the road. 'I'll be fine in a moment.' She could already feel the Blue Fire working its wonders in her limbs. 'You know what? If we get through this, I think I'm going to come back and turn the City into a garden.'
Shavi gave her a hug, but he knew as well as she that the chance of them coming back were still very slim. Ahead of them lay the deep shadow cast by the ominous black tower rising out of the east. With a shiver that had less to do with the cold, they moved into it.
The journey through the tunnels to Tower Hill tube station passed in a blur. Before, Ruth had found that when she was using her new abilities she became so focused the real world was almost a distraction. Now the power was sucking her further and further from life into a place that was like a waking dream, where she could do anything; where the power defined her completely.
But as she gradually made her way up the frozen escalators, she began to slip back to how she had been. The realisation of the near-fugue state that had taken her over terrified her, as did its implications, but it was wiped
