Mallory eventually convinced her to come with him to Sophie, who provided a degree of comfort that was beyond Mallory. She gave the woman the last of the stew, which was devoured hungrily, while Mallory was sent out to inspect the farmer's traps. Most of them were filled with animals that had decomposed too far, but one contained a freshly caught pheasant. As he removed the dead bird, he couldn't prevent his thoughts from turning to the guilt that was eating away at him; the background buzz became a frenzy when he considered the repercussions of his decision to leave Miller to his fate. At the least, punishment would be severe, but Mallory had the queasy feeling that with Stefan's current frame of mind, he might have condemned Miller to death.
And all because he had responded like a spoilt child in his hurt that Miller had shaken his faith. It wasn't Miller's fault he wasn't the incorruptible person Mallory had imagined him to be, just so that Mallory could believe in goodness and decency and his own salvation. And it wasn't fair that Miller would be punished so terribly for shattering that illusion. In his own way, Mallory had been as bad as Stefan.
It had been one moment of stupidity, and if he allowed it to stand he'd be as bad as he had always feared; he'd be damned, for sure.
As he made his way back to the farmhouse, he began to piece together exactly what he had to do, but it was only when he saw the thin, broken woman sitting next to Sophie that he accepted completely the path that lay ahead of him. The woman could no more have abandoned her responsibility to her husband than Mallory could have denied Sophie. Selflessness, sacrifice, hope and salvation all sprang from one source, but he'd never been able to see it before because he'd never felt it before.
It could have been the exhaustion, or the hunger, or the fading memory of the Fabulous Beast, but his internal barriers crumbled and fell and he was suddenly struck by a blinding revelation, so simple in retrospect, almost naive, but so much predicated upon it. The consequence of what that realisation meant to him and those around him sent his thoughts spinning wildly.
The epiphany dragged back the memory of his grandfather and the dying bird he had relived so acutely in the Court of Peaceful Days, and now he knew exactly why the symbolism had struck him on a subconscious level. Everything was linked — that was the meaning of the Blue Fire — everything was valuable. And it was the duty of humanity to care for it all because by doing so it was caring for itself. All things were linked; and all tied into that little thing he felt for Sophie that from his new perspective was bigger than both of them, larger than the whole universe.
He stood watching Sophie and the woman for ten minutes while his thoughts raged. He felt liberated, his own burden beginning to lift as he realised that salvation was still within his grasp if he was prepared to take a leap into the dark for the sake of others.
The woman, who finally revealed her name was Barbara, ravenously devoured her steaming meat with an edge of desperation that made Mallory turn away. He never thought he'd see starving people in Britain.
Afterwards, the woman took in some of the bird for her husband, though Mallory would be surprised if he ate anything; he didn't seem to have long left.
'What's on your mind?' Sophie asked.
'Why do you ask?'
'You seem different.'
He picked at the remnants of the meat. 'The way I see it, we've got three options. We can run away together — you've already thrown that one out. We can go back to Salisbury and round up your people, lead them somewhere else to regroup.' He paused, his mouth dry. 'Or I can go back and try to put things right at the cathedral.'
She smiled as if she'd been proven right. 'This is about Miller, isn't it?'
'I've saved his life twice. The third's the charm. Truth is, he's lost without me.'
'OK,' she began thoughtfully, 'so what are you going to do? Waltz up and bang on the gates, ask them to stop being so naughty? Because otherwise it doesn't seem like you've got any alternative.'
'Yes, I have. I'm going to see the Devil.'
She drew herself up, alert, intrigued.
'On a very basic level, my enemy's enemy is my friend, and at the moment Stefan is definitely my enemy,' he explained. 'But the fact is, I don't believe Stefan's explanation, which is that the Devil is attempting to wipe out the Church in some final apocalyptic battle between good and evil.'
She smiled.
'What?'
'I don't believe in the Devil, anyway. Satan is a Christian invention, something the Church used to demonise my religion.'
'So if it's not the Devil, it's… something else. And if it's not the Devil, the motive Stefan identified goes too — it's not about good and evil. There's another motive.'
'What could that be?'
'All this started when the Blues brought back a relic to the cathedral,' Mallory began. 'I didn't think twice about it until I realised the authorities have been lying from the start to cover up the Church's use of the earth energy, something that might have been seen as ungodly… blasphemous. There's a history of geomancers in the Church who've been attempting to utilise this supposedly pagan force since the Christian Church first established itself, and they've always kept it secret,' he explained.
'What's this got to do with some relic?' Sophie asked.
'The relic is the bones of Saint Cuthbert, which had been kept for centuries at Durham Cathedral. Only I don't think it's the bones at all. That was just a smokescreen.'
Sophie's eyes narrowed. 'What have they done?'
'I think they stole something… something vitally important to all those supernatural forces lined up outside the cathedral walls.'
'What could they possibly have stolen that would have been that important?'
'No idea, but it's got to be something to do with the Blue Fire… something that amplifies its power. That's what the Caretaker was talking about when he spoke of something warping reality — pulling in all those new buildings… raising the dead… affecting people's minds. Something incredibly powerful. And the Adversary, whoever or whatever he is, wants it back. It all comes down to arrogance — the Church thinks it has some right to take this thing and use it. Instead of winning hearts and minds the slow, laborious way, it's using this mojo to boost the spiritual energy so that the Church quickly becomes a powerful force again.'
'Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys here, Mallory?'
'Well, they brought it on themselves… maybe they thought they were doing the right thing, I don't know. That doesn't matter now. But if we can convince the Devil that we can get back whatever it is he wants-'
'And you reckon you can reason with something that has the power to lay siege to the cathedral in the way that it did? I think you should go back to hammering on the gates and begging Stefan to be good,' she teased.
'Yeah, it's a risk, but you know me… I'm nothing if not confident in my abilities.'
'You're a big-headed bastard, Mallory,' she laughed. 'So how do we find this Devil?
'No,' he said, shocked. 'I'm going alone.'
'No, you're not.'
'Yes, I am. It's too dangerous.' If he'd believed she would attempt to go with him, he would have slipped off silently during the night.
'You're nothing without me, Mallory. You'd better get used to it.'
He could see there was no arguing with her. But it changed everything: failure was no longer an option.
Darkness fell. They'd stoked up the fire in the barn with any item of wood they could find and by then it was blazing merrily. Sophie snuggled under Mallory's arm, both of them buried beneath old sacking under the shelter of the eaves. A cold wind blew from the north, bringing more flurries of snow.