Church held his breath and listened: nothing but the wind.
And now Baccharus would be hurling another coal to the foot of the stairs and retreating again. This time Church thought he heard the rattle of the coal. The guard would be advancing down the stairs like the onset of a winter night.
Church couldn't breathe. He shifted from foot to foot as the adrenalin made his body shake with repressed anxiety. Slowly he began to twirl the thong around him, taking care not to clatter the weapon against the walls. Swish. Swish. A gentle breeze.
Another coal tossed from the security of the shadows. This one rolling almost to the guard's feet. Now it had a suspicion of what was happening. But it was not scared. It created fear, it did not know it.
Events happened like a house of cards collapsing. Baccharus appeared round the corner, a blur of gold, not slowing as he approached Church, ducking beneath the whirl of the weapon in one fluid moment. Church suddenly spinning like an Olympic discus thrower, faster and faster until he feared his vision would be too blurred to see the Fomorii approaching. The star singing to him, a plaintive tune. And then the shadows at the bend becoming filled with something even darker than shadows; that sickening stink, the roar of a jet taking off punctuated by a monkey shriek. Something so huge it filled the entire corridor, moving with the speed of a racehorse; a shape that had tentacles, then teeth, then silver knives, fur then scales, then nothing but an absence of everything.
Church whirled one final time, then snapped his wrist to release the star. The weapon was like a glimmering light in the void as it tore through the air. It ripped through where the creature's arm should have been and something heavy fell to the floor. The monkey shriek grew more high pitched.
Church's mind was clear of everything but the star. Back and forth, up and down, he chased the pin-prick of light, tearing the beast apart. Things fell; the floor grew sticky beneath his feet. The smell was unbearable, part of it the odour of his boots being corroded by the thing's essence. His heart zinged as relief flooded in; he was actually doing it. But he had to be careful. Not too good. He had to keep the thing alive, at least long enough for him to get into its head. A pang of guilt hit him at the suffering he was inflicting on another living thing.
The shrieks were cut off and the beast crashed to the floor. This was the most dangerous moment. It was still alive, but he didn't want it so alive it could still kill him with its dying blow.
Baccharus brought up a torch so he had a better view of the sickening havoc he had wreaked on the body. He tried to avert his eyes, but it was all around.
"It is time." Baccharus's words gave him a gentle push, but were at the same time supportive. He steeled himself and stepped forward.
His sizzling boots slid in the grue. A tendril flapped wildly before curling around his legs. In a moment of panic he kicked out wildly. The tendril flew off and continued to judder aimlessly.
He had no choice but to climb on the body, which was sickeningly resilient beneath his feet. His boot slipped into a hole that felt like a sucking bog. He withdrew it with an unpleasant slurping sound.
Finally he reached the point where he guessed its head would be. There was certainly a raised area with what appeared like eyes rolling back and forward in its dying spasms, but they were as black as oil, glinting with an inner light which was inexplicably black too, but of a different quality. Fighting the nausea, he bent down and brushed his fingers against the skin. Although he couldn't begin to describe the texture, it felt so unpleasant his stomach rolled and he truly thought he was about to be sick. When the queasiness had passed, he placed his hands near those shivering eyes, closed his own lids, and concentrated.
He was caught aback by the speed and severity of the reaction. One second he was fighting back his disgust at his surroundings, the next he was sucked violently into a surging river of crude oil, immersed in a vile stench that was part chemical, part excrement, feeling revulsion in every fibre of his being at what his senses told him. It was such a totally overwhelming experience he felt he was living it; the corridor, the Night Walker, Baccharus, all disappeared from his mind.
He was swept along in the black stream, choking, not from a lack of oxygen, but from the sensation that his body was being suffused with such Evil his very spirit recoiled. The abstract was given form by his mind as a complex mix of feelings, strangulation, a feeling that something vile, like human brains, was being forced into his mouth, that his skin was being touched by the innards of a loved one's corpse. The rush was amphetamine-fast, pulled this way and that so dramatically he didn't have a second to think. He was fighting, for his life, for his sanity, sure he would never get out again.
And then he felt the full force of what had only been hinted at before: the awful, alien intelligence that linked the Fomorii. Spiders burrowed deep in his brain. There were no words, no images that made any sense to him, but there was an intense impression of that thing's thoughts. He was swamped with a soulshattering despair as it cruelly disseminated the point of view that there was no meaning to anything, no reason for anything to exist, that it would be better if nothing existed at all.
He saw through multifaceted eyes London cast in negative: bodies piled in the streets and the Thames running thickly, white shadows reaching into buildings and hearts. He glimpsed the world from a hundred thousand eyes, and more, the Lake District, the Welsh borders, the South Coast, the Midlands, moving out with the tramp of an infinite marching army ringing all around.
Even more sickening was that the longer he was in it, the more he could control, picking eyes here, then there. And eventually he saw through eyes that looked out over Wave Sweeper and soaked up the oily impression of intent.
His body prickled with cold sweat. He was Fomorii, and it would never, ever let him go. The vibrations that convulsed him grew stronger and stronger, until he thought he was beginning to shake apart…
He hit the floor hard, driving the wind from his lungs. It took a second or two for the black oil to drain from his mind, but daemonic voices still rang in his ears, even when he saw Baccharus's face above him.
"Jesus." He choked; a mouthful of bile splattered on the sizzling ooze that ran from the now-dead Fomor.
"Find peace, Brother of Dragons."
"I was one of them… I couldn't get away…"
"Your face told me what was happening. I thought I would never be able to break the spell."
Church took several deep breaths, then put his head between his knees, but he couldn't shake the squirming in his brain.
"I know what they're going to do," he gasped.
Baccharus helped him to his feet. "You saw?"
"Saw… felt… whatever." He heaved in another breath, trying to keep the nausea at bay. "Are they really a part of me? Is that it? For the rest of my life?"
"We are all a part of everything, and everything is a part of us."
"That doesn't sound like one of the Tuatha De Danann." He rested on Baccharus as the god led him away from the corpse. "I saw something… a structure… a geometrical shape that seemed to disappear into other dimensions… glowing ruby, then emerald."
"The Wish-Hex." Baccharus's voice was suddenly so dismal, Church snapped alert.
"But it wasn't just that," Church continued. "I got a hint of something about disease… a plague…"