‘And this is in the future?’
‘The near future.’
Bilis stood between them. ‘That is why I took your team out of the action, Jack. While I keep them suppressed, the corruption cannot occur.’ He pointed to the box on the table. ‘It’s a prison, Jack. The Light and the Dark need to be drawn into it, to continue their eternal battle in a prison. The Light is willing to make the sacrifice to save this world, to save the Rift. Are you?’
Jack looked at Bilis. At Greg.
‘No. No, I’m not. Because I don’t believe a word you say.’
Ianto was sitting on the pavement, the crowds milling around him, his head in his hands.
A mime tried to reach down and pull him up and, as Ianto looked up to refuse, the mime simply flickered, like a faulty light.
The effect on the mime was devastating. He hit the ground with a colossal smack, and Ianto was at his side in a moment.
Events like this – always a St John Ambulance man somewhere to hand.
‘Help,’ he called out.
Then he frowned. The mime simply melted away in his hand, and in his place was a bunch of tiny spots of bright light. Like the ones that had occupied him when Bilis had held him.
Ianto backed away, and careered into a man who’d been watching him.
‘Did I just see what I thought I saw?’ asked the man.
Ianto pulled himself together, Torchwood training taking over. ‘Not sure what you mean, sir.’
The man looked at him and smiled. ‘You have to be Ianto Jones. The suit, the neatness.’ He paused, then smiled. ‘Jack’s fond of you. My name is Idris.’
Ianto knew immediately who he was talking to. ‘From the Council?’ How lame did that sound?
Idris laughed. ‘You could say that. I came looking for Jack.’
‘Not seen him,’ Ianto said, more truthfully than he’d have liked. The memory of that dream was still raw.
A hand touched his shoulder.
‘Good to see you back in the land of the living, Ianto,’ said Jack. ‘Hi there, Idris. Good job on the paperwork. Where’s the diary?’
Idris smiled at Jack. ‘In my bag. Along with…’ He brought out another set of papers with a flourish. ‘The real translation!’
Jack nodded. ‘Took a gamble that my reading Welsh was better than my spoken Welsh. And you were right – it fooled Bilis long enough. Thank you.’
Ianto suddenly hugged Jack, tightly, and didn’t let go. He whispered into Jack’s ear. ‘What does “Revenge for the Future” mean to you?’
‘If I knew that, I’d be a happier man. Another thing I’d like to understand.’
‘Yes?’
‘That.’
Jack was pointing at the people in the street. Clowns, magicians, tricksters – and all the general public who had come to see them. All standing watching the three men. Their eyes gone, replaced by burning fierce light.
Except five people to one side. A mum, dad and child, an old lady and the Kabuki living statue performer Idris had seen earlier.
Their eyes were gone, too, but replaced by a dark blackness. No light – the very opposite of light – and from within came something darker than the most powerful black hole.
‘Tosh?’
Ianto looked at Jack and then at the Kabuki.
And under the make-up and clothes, yes, it was Toshiko.
The light-embodied others turned to look at the five newcomers.
‘This isn’t going to be good,’ muttered Jack.
He grabbed Ianto and Idris and bustled them into number 6 Coburg Street.
In the room, the outside still cut off by the olive drapes, Bilis and the shimmering form of Greg waited.
Jack crossed to the window. ‘Let’s shed a little light, shall we?’ He threw open the drapes and turned to Bilis.
‘Well?’ said the old man.
‘All right, so maybe there’s some truth in what you told me, Bilis. What do we need to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said simply.
‘What?’ shouted Ianto.
Bilis sighed. ‘This is your fault. All of you. I protected the Light. Abaddon protected the Light. The diary please, Mr Hopper.’
Idris looked to Jack, who nodded. He passed the book to the old man.
‘You read it I assume. Any clues?’
‘To what?’
‘Idris, what did it say?’ asked Jack quietly.
And Idris told them what Gideon ap Tarri had seen, how Bilis had given him the diary and pen and instructed him to have it buried with him. ‘The last thing he said was he was going to try and escape from the Scottish Torchwood guy. That was it.’
Bilis was running his hands over the diary. ‘Yes, this is it. The protection is still here.’ He looked at Greg Bishop’s ghostly form. ‘Thank you.’
Before Jack could say anything, Bilis had opened the book, and Greg’s form immediately dissipated. A blur of light shot into the pages of the book, briefly forming written words that soon faded.
Bilis looked at Jack, an expression of pity on his otherwise serene face. ‘He died in 1941, Jack. They just kept his essence alive. If it makes you feel any better, you chose the right man to love. He was, in every way, a good man.’
Ianto was looking at Jack, but the older man was ignoring him.
‘What has happened to Tosh?’
Holding the book to his chest, Bilis closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked almost sympathetic. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘She is lost to the Dark.’
‘Not on my watch she isn’t,’ Jack said.
Outside, the assembled crowds, both white-eyed and dark-eyed, took a step in unison towards the house.
‘OK – that’s creepy,’ Ianto said.
‘Saw that in a Michael Jackson video once,’ said Idris. ‘They were zombies, too.’
‘Bilis?’
‘It’s the age-old fight, Jack. Evil versus… Well, there’s such a grey area between good and evil really isn’t there? One man’s demon is another man’s god.’
‘Jack,’ Ianto grabbed his sleeve. ‘I had a dream.’
‘Oh God, it’s Martin Luther King,’ Idris muttered.
‘Is this the time, Ianto?’ Jack wondered.
‘Yes, Jack, it is. Light versus Dark. The lights. There were lights in the Rift storm.’
Jack recalled what he’d seen on top of Ty Stadiwm the night before. He was getting cross, because it kind of tied in with what Bilis had been saying, and Jack’s biggest fear right now was that Bilis was right and this was all a consequence of what he’d done months ago.
He looked Bilis in the eye. ‘To hell with consequences, Bilis. If I stopped every time I opted to save human lives, stopped to think about who I was saving or what I was saving them from, I’d never move. Never decide. Be caught with an endless stream of possibilities, probabilities and maybes ahead of me.’
‘Welcome to my life, Jack,’ Bilis said.
‘I will not apologise for destroying Abaddon. I will not apologise for the fact that by destroying him we closed the Rift and brought everyone back to life. Some of those people are probably standing out there today. I did not fail them then, and I’m damned if I will do it now.’
Bilis took a breath. ‘The Light and the Dark, Jack. We don’t need to imprison them both! We can split them up, trap the Dark in the box I showed you, and release the Light into the Rift. From there, they will return down below where they belong, keeping Pwccm imprisoned for eternity. Because, however evil you believe my Lord to have been, you do not want Pwccm released in his stead. And that’s what you disturbed, Jack. In destroying Abaddon, the other Beast and his Dark warriors were able to imprison the Light. I saved some of them, kept them in the box. We can do a swap, because Pwccm has been foolish enough to send his soldiers into this dimension to fight the Light.’