thought this was just the land of the bleedin' dead.'
'Ryan. Hush.'
After several minutes, the dragging noise died away. From the echoes, Shavi estimated it had halted about fifteen feet away. All that remained was the sound of breathing, slow, rhythmic and rough. Although there wasn't even the faintest glimmer of light, he couldn't shake the feeling it was watching them with a contemptuous, heavy gaze; sizing them up, dissecting them.
At his side, Witch's body was taut. Neither of them knew what to do next.
'The rules of this place were formed long before your kind emerged from the long night.' The voice sounded like bones rattling across stone. Its bass notes vibrated deep in Shavi's chest; he felt instantly queasy, not just from the tone of the voice, but from the very feel of whatever squatted away in the gloom. 'No warm bodies, no beating hearts, no words or thoughts or ideas.'
'No. There's a deal. I was allowed to come here,' Veitch protested cautiously.
'You were allowed to cross over, but the rules of this place can never be transgressed. The living are not wanted. The dead rule here. And they will have no warm bodies spoiling the cold days of this land. They will have punishment.'
Shavi waited for it to attack, but there was only silence. He pictured it savouring its taunting before the inevitable. Here was not only intelligence, but also cruelty, and hatred.
'What are you?' Shavi asked. The hairs on the back of his neck had snapped alert.
'This is a place without hope for those who do not leave. Where behind is too terrible to consider, and ahead is an unwanted distraction. This is desolation, and despair. Misery and pain.'
'A land for those who prey on those things,' Shavi said.
'Here, the dead have their own existence, their own rules and rhythms, their own hierarchies and mythologies, fears and desires.'
The dark was so all-encompassing Shavi was beginning to hallucinate trails of white sparks and flashes of geometric patterns. The atmosphere of dread grew more oppressive.
'What are you?' There was no bravado in Veitch's voice. Shavi really wished he hadn't asked the question again; he was afraid the answer would be too terrible for them to bear.
'I am the end of you.'
Those simple words made his stomach clench. They were flatly stated, yet filled with such finality, hinting at a fate much worse than death.
Slowly it began to drag itself forward, an inch at a time.
'Wait,' Veitch said sharply. 'I was allowed to come here-you can't get away from that. And Shavi here, he's not dead-'
'He will be.' A blast of cold air.
'But he's not now. He shouldn't be here. What I'm doing… yeah, it might go against your rules-but against the bigger rules I'm doing the right thing. I'm taking him back. I'm making everything all right again.'
For a long period the mausoleum appeared to be filled with the soughing of an icy wind. Then: 'There is the matter of trespass.'
'What do you mean?'
'The dead want no reminder of the living. It makes them aware of what they have lost and what they have yet to gain. To remember makes their suffering even greater.'
Veitch sensed a chink in the seemingly inviolate position. 'So they want some kind of payback,' he said, warming to his argument. 'We can do that. Then you let us go, and everybody's sweet.'
'No!' Shavi gripped Veitch's wrist; the memory of the price he had paid for the deal with the dead of Mary King's Close was still too raw. 'You never know to what you are agreeing. Words are twisted so easily.'
Veitch shook him off. 'We have to cut a deal-it's the only way. There's too much at stake.'
'Ryan! You must listen to me-'
But Veitch had scrambled off in the dark. 'Go on then.' His disembodied voice filled Shavi with ice. 'What's the deal?'
There was silence from the brooding presence. Shavi couldn't work out what that meant, but he felt like it was swelling in size to fill all the shadows.
After a moment or two, Veitch repeated, 'What's the deal?'
'A hand,' the rumbling voice replied.
'Ryan, please do not do this. We can find another way.'
'A hand?' Veitch's voice was suddenly querulous. 'Cut off my hand?'
'A small price to pay for your friend's life.'
The price is too high! Shavi wanted to cry out, but he knew his voice would only tighten his friend's resolve. The sense of threat in that confined space felt like strong arms crushing his chest. They both knew their lives were hanging by a thread.
In the silence that followed, he could almost hear the turning of Veitch's thought processes as he considered the mutilation, what the absence of his hand would mean in his life, what the absence of Shavi would mean. There was an awful weight to Veitch's deliberations as he desperately tried to reach the place where he could do the right thing, whatever the cost to himself. Do not agree, Ryan, Shavi pleaded silently.
'Okay.' The word sounded like a tolling bell.
Shavi tried to throw himself between Veitch and the dark presence, but he misjudged his leap in the dark and crashed into the wall.
'Don't worry, mate. Really,' Veitch said. 'I know you'd do the same for me. Whatever you say, I know that. We've got bigger things to think about. That's what Church always said. I can do this. For everybody else.'
Shavi bit sharply on his knuckle to restrain his emotions. All he could do was make his friend feel good about his choice. 'You are a true hero, Ryan.' Shavi knew it was what Veitch wanted to hear, what he had wanted from the moment he had got involved with them.
Veitch didn't reply, but Shavi could almost feel his pride. 'Get it over with,' the Londoner said.
Veitch was trembling, despite the bravado he was trying to drive through his system. He still couldn't quite believe what he had agreed to, but from his position the lines appeared clear cut: Shavi was the better man; the world couldn't afford to lose him. What did his own suffering mean against that? Once they were back in the world, he'd take it all out on the Bastards. Bring on an army of them.
He threw off the shakes, set his jaw, and extended his left arm.
The first sensation made him shiver with disgust. Hot air on his hand, rushing up his forearm, then something wet tickling the tips of his fingers, brushing his skin as it enclosed his hand. The flicker of something that felt like a cold slug on his knuckles.
He closed his eyes, despite the dark.
The sharpness of needles encircled his wrist. The pain increased rapidly until the sound of crunching bones brought nausea surging up from his stomach. The noises that followed were even worse, but by then he had already blacked out.
He lost consciousness for only a few seconds, and when he came round there was heat in his wrist and the sickening smell of cauterised flesh. His left arm felt too light. Amidst the shock and the nausea, thoughts flitted across his head without settling.
And then he did capture one, shining more brightly than all the others: he had saved Shavi. Through his sacrifice, he alone.
'That's my part.' He didn't recognise the ragged voice as his own. 'Now you've got to let Shavi go.'
The wet, smacking sound churned his stomach even further, but he wouldn't allow himself to accept what was happening. When it had died away, the rattling bones voice returned, flat, almost matter-of-fact: 'Then he may go.'
A wave of relief cut through the shakes that convulsed him.
'But you must stay.'
Veitch couldn't grasp the meaning of the words. Shavi was yelling something, trying to grab at his arms, getting knocked away by a figure, more than one figure; not the monstrous presence, which was dragging itself back into the depths of the mausoleum.
He drifted in and out, his left arm by his side, trying to move his fingers.
