through with energy like storm lightning. On either side of the doorway, a gargoyle crouched in an alcove.
Redlock crept past him, gesturing at them to keep pace. “Keep together,” he mouthed. “Watch your backs.”
Warily, they slipped from the protection of the crazed tree canopy. Ecko scanned the wall tops, aware of his vulnerability – he felt insect small, sniper fodder. A rat at the bottom of a fucking fractal maze.
Closer still – until the gargoyles could be seen clearly.
One was a stone figure, female, naked, her long hair streaming back from her carved face, holding her head to the wall. Her stone eyes looked straight out over the garden, unblinking.
Redlock’s hand tightened to white-knuckled tension at the sight of her, but Triqueta was staring, narrow eyed, at the other figure.
Male, long hair intricately woven, elaborate scarring like some serious fucking body art. His face was narrow chinned, oddly triangular, one long, delicate hand was half outstretched.
“He’s alive,” Triq said softly. She moved to look up at him, peer into his face. Like the woman, his eyes stared at nothing and the stone had closed over his mouth and nose.
“No shit.” Ecko had kicked his heatseeker – he could see the warm contours of colour, writhing manically beneath the blue stone exterior. Impossibly, the man was struggling, noiselessly, frantically. On some level beyond the physical, he was completely conscious and fighting to be free. “Happen to have a chisel on you? A road drill?”
“How does he do this?” Triq’s voice was pale with horror. “Men onto horses, flesh into stone. Carved metal cara– Oh by the Gods.”
The heat signature had fluctuated, flickered at the sound of her voice.
“He’s Kartian,” Triq said, almost a whisper. “The scarring shows his craft-rank and family.”
“So...?”
Triq stepped back. “Kartians of rank are metalworkers, craftmasters.” Her expression was set. She tipped a single washer into her hand. “Looks like you’re staying there, sunshine. Give you some time to think. All the time in the world, in fact...”
“Best place for him,” Redlock said.
“He’s gonna get real fucking bored,” Ecko said, grinning. “Shame.”
The colours screamed at them – desperate, doomed. They were walking away from him and he knew it.
“All of this,” Triq said, “is really starting to piss me off. Everything’s twisted... forced, corrupted. Life, the cycles of the elements, the seasons – it’s distorted, the air
Redlock said, “Triq – easy. I know you’ve –”
“Stuff it, Red. Enough horseshit.”
She moved swiftly, slamming the rotted door to the ground. She stared grimly into the cathedral, past rows of silent, stone figures to the blaze of power at the centre.
“Did you hear me?” It was a challenge. “Come out, you damned coward! I’m done gaming – come out!”
It rebounded from the walls like the Banned’s war cry, like the harsh sound of the blade in Tarvi’s back.
“Impulsive wench,” Redlock muttered, chuckling. “Can’t say I blame her. You with me, Ecko? Let’s go mess this bastard up.”
“I hear that.”
Ecko wrapped a hand round the hard edges of Lugan’s lighter and they entered the cathedral together.
* * *
A blazing pillar, a conduit of flame.
Even from as far away as the huge building’s centre, it seared his face like an incinerator, blinded his heatseeker to an almost-white magnesium flare. His anti-daz kicked, he checked, left and right. The ranks of rotted stone statues were all too familiar and he so
The bastard had an army, mustered in ranks and waiting for the call to action.
Great.
“Was this the point?” Ecko’s soft rasp was aimed at the flatscreen he couldn’t see, his watchers, his judges.
Ahead of him, Triqueta was a shadow against the firelight.
“Face the Big Bad Boss with no kit, no weapons, no adrenaline? In London, I could take this out in three minutes flat. And you fucking know it!”
He raised his voice, added his challenge to hers.
“Show us whatcha got, Maugie. I’m the last person in the world you’re gonna scare with
There was no response. The statues didn’t move.
Ecko snorted. Ahead of him, the massive blaze seemed to shift with a life of its own. Its light danced from the walls.
And it was beautiful.
His attention compelled, he found himself addressing his questions towards it.
“What’re you teachin’ me here – teamwork, humility, resource?” His voice scraped like a handful of pebbles. “Do I triumph over Evil with wit and sticky tape – ?”
“Who’re you talking to?” Triq dropped back beside him.
“Keep moving.” Redlock muffled a cough with the back of his hand.
They walked forwards, the blaze on their faces, the ranks of silent, stone soldiers to either side.
Triqueta muttered, “We’re going to get jumped any second...”
But Ecko barely heard her. The pillar of flame was still growing – reaching almost to the cavern roof. This close, it was too hot to look at, yet it pulled his oculars as hard as it pulled the compass in his pouch.
He said, “Or do I find some truth in the Final Showdown – and go on to Save the World?”
There was a figure within it, indistinct, yet powerful and glorious.
And it called him by name.
It sent sparks through his blood, illuminated his weakness, touched him, stroked his soul with impossible insight. Fire was domination and recognition, destruction and statement – but it was defender and protector, warmth and security, love – the family he’d shunned as a child, the acceptance he craved and scorned.
Tamarlaine Benjamin Gabriel, the slender, pale no one who had surrendered his humanity to become a comic-book anti-hero – become the Ecko, the nightmare, the ghost in the darkness – and it shone upon his darkest heart, the desires he dared not form. It saw them, took them and offered them back to him.
Champion, more than human, phantom and legend and costumed icon – untouchable by pain, unreachable by love. The public knew him: they devoured his headlines and were amazed by his deeds... but they never reached him. He was enigma and mystery, in complete control of his own reputation.
The creature answered him.
Hear your loneliness, I. Understand.
Eliza had taken away everything he’d acquired, everything that gave “Ecko” validation. In its place, she’d been peeling him back to Tamarlaine. She’d tempted him with physical love. Now she offered him – what – family?
