Church felt another frisson. He didn’t know enough about the Northern gods to anticipate the threat of a corrupted Loki, but the excitement evident in the crowd made him think it would be worse than he could imagine.
Salazar began his ritual before the crystal skull. Church threw off his overcoat and removed Llyrwyn from the harness on his back, but was still unsure how to proceed — there were too many people in the room to attempt to storm it. His window of opportunity was closing rapidly. If he didn’t disrupt the ritual before the god arrived, he wouldn’t stand a chance.
Light shimmered across the ceiling and walls from the now radiant skull. Shadows danced. The Libertarian and Salazar both moved back as the air began to peel open.
As Church searched for a line of attack, he heard a voice at his ear: ‘Over here.’ In the confusion of light and sound from the ritual, he presumed he had imagined it, but his attention was drawn to a store cupboard on one wall. It had been closed when he arrived, but now the doors hung open. Inside was a large box of the flares the workmen carried in case of emergencies while they were working on the rails.
As Church ignited one flare, he saw that Loki had emerged from the rift and Salazar was in the process of opening the Anubis Box. In the glare of the skull it was impossible to get a clear view of the god, but Church could still feel the power crackling off it.
Church thrust the lit flare into the full box, kicked open the door and hurled the makeshift bomb into the midst of the rapt crowd. He slammed the door briefly as the box ignited with a thunderous explosion.
When he darted inside there was horrific confusion. Men were on fire and screaming, and the air was filled with thick, foul-smelling smoke. Gripping his sword, Church drove through the stumbling bodies.
Salazar appeared out of the billowing clouds. As he had done once before, Church swung his sword and cleaved the thing from shoulder to hip. The blade met as little resistance as he expected. Spiders gushed across the floor.
And then Church was at the table where the crystal skull burned with an intense inner power. Beyond it, Church glimpsed feral eyes and a face marked with black runes carved into it by the Anubis Box. The god let out a bestial growl.
Church brought his blade down on the crystal skull and shattered it in an explosion of white light. Half-blinded even though he had shielded his eyes at the last, Church fumbled for the box. When his fingers closed on it, he ran to the wall, hoping to follow it around to the door while everyone else was disoriented by the smoke. Instead he came across another door. He wrenched it open and entered a shaft with a winding metal staircase.
When he was halfway up it, a chilling growl echoed from the darkness and the stairs vibrated from heavy footsteps in pursuit.
6
Church emerged from a manhole cover onto a hellish street. All around buildings blazed out of control. The heat seared his lungs and smoke choked his throat. Burned bodies, their identities, even their sex, unrecognisable, lay amidst piles of rubble. Searchlights washed back and forth across the night sky against the backdrop of the interminable drone of bomber engines.
Church futilely tried to get his bearings. A fire engine sped into the street, bell ringing. The fire team leaped out to perform their individual responsibilities with well-oiled efficiency.
One of the firefighters ran up to Church. ‘Oi, mate — you all right? You get caught in the blast?’ Before Church could answer, the fireman’s gaze fell on Llyrwyn. ‘Bloody hell. What you doing with that?’
Another bomb fell a couple of streets away, and they both ducked to avoid flying debris. When they rose, the fireman was looking past Church with mounting terror.
Loki was rising from the manhole further down the street. At first it was difficult to tell whether the god was closer to man or beast, for it moved slowly and menacingly on all fours, its grey hair streaming behind it. Its pupils were golden and filled with a wild frenzy, and its lips were pulled back in a snarl from pointed teeth.
‘What the bleedin’ hell is that?’ the fireman said.
‘Get out of here.’ Church thrust him away.
Loki broke into a lupine lope, accelerating with each step. When it leaped with a ferocious roar, Church threw himself to one side. The god continued to the fire engine and with one swipe of its talons tore the side of the vehicle wide open. The firemen who had been directing a gushing hose towards one of the burning buildings dropped it and dashed away. The hose snaked around and the full force of the water hit Loki in the chest. The god flipped over backwards and was driven against the burning house. The wall rocked and then came crashing on top of him.
Church had his chance to flee, but he was distracted by cries from one of the houses just being licked by the conflagration that was rapidly leaping from building to building. The firefighters were distracted trying to wrestle the thrashing hose under control.
Church dashed to the house and kicked open the front door. The interior was already thick with smoke and the heat was intense.
‘Anyone there?’ Church called. A weak, coughing voice answered from the kitchen. An elderly woman was sprawled on the floor next to the open trap door leading to the cellar that she had been using as an air-raid shelter. Church scooped her up in his arms and carried her out into the night. Two firemen took her from him and carried her away.
Church had lost his advantage. Loki rose up from the burning pile of rubble, showering bricks and mortar across the street. Flames licked all around the god, so that it resembled the Devil in some medieval painting.
Powerful muscles bunched in its legs as the creature propelled itself across the street towards Church. A chilling howl escaped its mouth as Loki transformed fully into an enormous grey wolf. The beast’s slavering jaws just missed Church’s neck. Church managed to swing his sword enough to clip the wolf’s haunches. As it went down, he threw himself upon it.
But instead of grasping wolf fur, he found himself sprawling on a nest of writhing snakes. Their heads rose as one, snapping for his face. Church threw himself off them, venom sizzling on the back of his hand.
As he scrambled to his feet, he heard a voice calling, ‘Church! Over here! I can help!’ Jerzy stood further down the street.
Church ran towards him as Loki began to reconfigure into another shape. ‘How?’ Church gasped.
Jerzy smiled. ‘This is the punch line.’
From high overhead came the whistling of a falling bomb. The firemen were already taking cover, but there was nowhere for Church to run. Behind him, Loki was loping in his direction.
Suddenly, the ground beneath his feet gave way and Church plummeted into the dark. The fall was only around ten feet and he landed hard with a splash. The stink told him he was in the effluent of one of the Victorian sewers, its integrity already damaged by the blasts.
The bomb hit a split second later. The explosion stunned him even in the depths of the sewer, but the fall had saved his life. Choking and spluttering, it took him a few moments to scramble out over the debris thrown into the hole.
A crater lay where Loki had been. Further along the street some unrecognisable shape was lowering itself into the manhole from which Church had exited the underground system; disappearing into the dark to lick its wounds, ready to return another day.
Jerzy was nowhere to be seen, but Church didn’t think for a minute that he had died in the blast. Some other power was at play here. In his jacket pocket, Church felt the cold, malign presence of the Anubis Box. With the skull destroyed, it had been a victory. A great one.
One of the firemen rushed up, bleeding from a shrapnel cut on his forehead. The others were unharmed. If Loki hadn’t driven them back, they would have died in the bomb-blast. A confluence of coincidences that were not coincidences.