The whole fight had lasted about five seconds.
Mac rolled off and got to his feet. Norton lay there, clutching at his collapsed throat, gasping for air. The assembled Blood Hunters roared in triumph.
It’s a measure of how used to this kind of thing I’d become that while everyone was watching my best friend die, I took the chance to get to Mac’s discarded gun. I dived forward, landing on my broken arm, reaching for the gun with my semi-good hand. Yep, the drugs were wearing off. That hurt.
Gareth the guard stepped forward and kicked me under the chin before I could reach the weapon. I was flung backwards off the stage. I fell hard and lay on the hall floor, winded, next to Norton. We looked into each other’s eyes. I could see all the fear and panic and horror in his, as they widened, dilated, and died. The crowd kept cheering.
Mac’s leering zombie face appeared over mine.
“Well done,” he said, shouting over the din. “One more corpse for the cause. Hope you’re proud.”
At that moment I finally accepted it. We were finished. We’d lost. I had no clever plan to fall back on, no trap to spring, no argument to put forward. I felt the darkest, blackest despair. I was beyond weeping or begging for mercy. There were no more sarcastic comebacks or flippant putdowns. My friends were dead or captured. I was a broken wreck. Everything I’d tried to achieve had been destroyed. I’d failed my friends, my father, myself. All I had to look forward to was a creatively stage-managed death. And I was okay with that. It’d be kind of a relief.
I got my breath back and slowly rose to my feet. Mac faced me across Norton’s cooling body, one mad eye gleaming with triumph. I spat in it. He just laughed.
I looked over his shoulder at the kneeling captives. Rowles’ face a mask of cold fury, Green weeping, Mrs Atkins staring blankly into space. I wanted to tell them how sorry I was, but it wouldn’t have meant a damn.
“Loser,” said Mac, taunting me. I didn’t reply.
David called for silence and the noise died away. The cult leader rose to his feet and addressed us.
“Brother Sean has brought great credit to our crusade. He led us out of our hermitage and set us on the true path. And now, brothers and sisters, he has brought us to a place of refuge and sanctuary, where the chosen can abide in peace through the Tribulation. This place, once a school, will become a beacon of hope for all the world. Children will study here under our guidance, learning of the one true faith. Here we shall train acolytes and pilgrims, preachers and reapers. The good word shall spill from this hallowed place like a flood and it shall sweep away all the cattle from our lands and make us safe. Hallelujah!”
The Blood Hunters howled their hallelujahs in response. David pointed at me. “Bring that child to me.” I didn’t wait to be grabbed and herded. I walked to the steps and mounted the stage again.
“No!” shouted Mac. “You promised me! You said I could do it!”
David silenced Mac with a look before turning to me.
“Young man,” said David. “You were given an opportunity to join us, but you rejected it. Instead you tried to silence my holy voice. This cannot go unpunished.” He gestured to the men in the wings. “Fetch rope,” he said. They didn’t even have to move, they just reached out and grabbed a rope that dangled from the gods. One of the guards walked out onto the stage holding the rope, which came easily, because it was only anchored to a wheeled pulley way up high. David took the rope and bent down, tying it around my feet.
He motioned to the guard, who walked back into the wings and unlaced the other end of the rope from the metal peg that secured it. Then he hauled on it, and my feet went out from under me. I crashed to the stage, face first. I felt one of my front teeth shatter. I was pulled upwards until I dangled in the air, suspended so my head was level with David’s.
I could see Mac in the crowd. He looked agitated.
Slowly, meticulously, David stripped naked. Then he took a knife from one of the guards and walked centre stage. He spread his arms and addressed the crowd.
“In the fountain of life I shall be reborn,” he intoned.
The Blood Hunters replied: “Make us safe.”
“With the blood of the lamb I wash myself clean.”
“Make us safe.”
“From the source of pestilence comes our salvation.”
“Make us safe.”
“Life for life. Blood for blood.”
“Make us safe.”
He turned towards me, cradled my head and moved to kiss me.
“I’ll bite your fucking lips off,” I growled. He backed away.
“I thank you for your gift,” he said.
Then, suddenly, the right side of his head wasn’t there anymore. He reached up to feel his face, as if he were confused at what was trickling down his cheek. Someone in the crowd started to scream. David’s hand came away from the gaping wound and he held the bloodied fingers up in front of his face, trying to focus on them. He emitted a bark of laughter and said: “As if by magic!” Then he collapsed in a heap.
Mac stood on the right side of the stage, smoking pistol in his hand.
“You promised!” he shouted at David’s crumpled form. “You fucking promised! He’s mine. I told you that and you promised.”
The fallen cult leader craned his head to look at Mac. He gave a sick, gargling laugh and blood bubbled up out of his mouth. “Safe now,” he gasped. And then his head fell backwards, lifeless.
While all this was going on my eye caught a flash of movement as the door to the balcony swung open. I couldn’t see anybody emerge. It didn’t swing shut, but it was pushed further open, as if someone else was entering. Then again and again it swung a little shut but was pushed back open. There were people crawling onto the walkway overlooking the hall, hidden from view by the waist-high wooden guard rail. Who the hell was up there?
The crack of David’s head on the wood jolted the guards out of their shock and they ran at Mac, machetes raised. He gunned them down. While they were still falling, he turned to the screaming crowd and fired over their heads. “Shut the fuck up!” he yelled. Silence fell. “I’m in charge now, right? You!” He pointed at one of the Blood Hunters in the wings. “Cut him down.” The Blood Hunter didn’t move. Mac waved the gun at him. “Now!” Still he didn’t move. Mac paused, seemingly unsure what to do in the face of this refusal to comply.
It was as if his head suddenly cleared and he realised the position his unthinking rage had placed him in. He’d just killed the religious leader of a group of insane cannibals, all of whom were armed. And they were all looking at him.
“Nice one, Mac,” I said. “Good move.”
There was a collective roar, a guttural explosion of fury from every Blood Hunter in the hall. Then they rushed him. They could have shot him, but I guess there was something about wanting to inflict the pain personally, needing to feel the kicks and punches landing. Some of them even threw their guns aside as they ran. Like a tide, the cultists swept left and right to the stairs and streamed up them onto the stage. I was ignored, forgotten. Mac fired, mowing some of them down as they approached, but it was no use. They fell upon him and he screamed as he vanished beneath a flurry of fists.
Two things happened at once. The boys and men who’d been held prisoner ran forward and grabbed all the discarded weapons they could; and an army of girls appeared on the balcony above us.
Matron stood directly opposite and above me on the balcony, machine gun pointed down. To her left and right, flanking the room on all three sides, were fifteen young girls, all similarly armed.