The fog trembled again, but Cal still stared at Shadwell, too intrigued to retreat. It was perverse, to be vexed by trivia when a power of an Angel's magnitude was within spitting distance. But then the Mooneys had always been perverse.
That's my gift to the world,' Shadwell was declaring. ‘I'm going to destroy the magicians. Every one. I don't sell any longer you see. I do this for love.'
At this mention of selling, Cal recognized the change in the man. It was sartorial. Shadwell's jacket, the jacket of illusions which had broken Brendan's heart, and doubtless the hearts of countless others, had gone. In its place Shadwell wore a new coat, immaculately tailored but bereft of raptures.
‘We're bringing an end to illusions and deceptions. An end to it all -'
As he spoke the fog shuddered, and from it there came a single shriek, which was cut off abruptly. De Bono: living and dying.
‘ ... you fucker...' Cal said.
‘I was deceivedI Shadwell replied, untouched by Cal's hostility. ‘So terribly deceived. Seduced by their duplicity; willing to spill blood to have what they tantalized me with -'
‘And what are you doing now?' Cal spat back. ‘Still spilling blood.'
Shadwell opened his arms. ‘I come empty-handed, Calhoun,' he replied. That's my gift. Emptiness.'
‘I don't want your damn gifts.'
‘Oh you do. In your bones you do. They've seduced you with their circus. But here's an end to that sham.'
There was such sanity in his voice; a politician's sanity, as he sold his flock the wisdom of the bomb. This soulless certainty was more chilling than hysteria or malice.
Cal realized now that his first impression had been mistaken. Shadwell the actor had not disappeared. He'd simply forsaken his patter and his hyperbole for a playing style so plain, so minimal, it scarcely seemed like a performance at all. But it was. This was his triumph: Shadwell the Naked.
The fog had begun to chum with fresh enthusiasm. Uriel was coming back.
Cal took one more look at Shadwell, to fix the mask in his mind once and for all, then he turned and started to run.
He didn't see the Scourge reappear, but he heard the car explode behind him, and felt the blast of heat which turned the snow to a warm drizzle around his head. He heard Shadwell's voice too - carried crisply on the cold air.
‘I see you... ‘ he said.
That was a lie; he didn't and he couldn't. The fog was for the moment Cal's ally. He fled through it, not caring much in which direction he went as long as he outpaced the gift-giver's brute.
A house loomed up out of the murk. He didn't recognize it, but he followed the pavement until he reached the first crossroads. The intersection he knew, and took off back towards Chariot Street by a labyrinthine route designed to confuse his pursuers.
Shadwell would guess where he was headed, no doubt; the living fog that concealed the Scourge was probably half way down Chariot Street already. The thought gave speed to Cal's feet. He had to get to the house before the fire. Suzanna's book was there: the book she'd given into his hands for safe-keeping.
Twice the ice underfoot brought him down, twice he hauled himself up again - limbs and lungs aching - and ran on. At the railway bridge he clambered over the wire and up onto the embankment. The fog had thinned out here; there was just the snow, falling on the silent tracks. He could see the backs of the houses clearly enough to count them as he ran, until he reached the fence at the back of his father's house. He clambered over, realizing as he ran past the loft that he had another duty to perform here before he could make his escape. But first, the book.
Stumbling through the ruins of the garden he reached the back door and let himself in. His heart was a lunatic, beating against his ribs. Any moment the Scourge would be outside, and this - his home - would go the way of the Fugue. There was no time to retrieve anything of sentimental value, he had seconds only to gather the bare essentials: maybe not even that. He picked up the book, then a coat, and finally went in search of his wallet. A glance at the window showed him that the street outside had vanished; the fog was pressing its clammy face at the glass. Wallet secured he raced back through the house and left by the route he'd come: out of the door and through the tangle of bushes his mother had planted so many springs ago.
At the loft, he halted. He couldn't take 33 and his mate with him, but he could at least give them a chance to escape if they wanted to. They did. They were flying back and forth in the frost-proofed cage he'd built for them, perfectly alive to their jeopardy. As soon as he opened the door they were out and into the air, rising through the snow until they found the safety of the clouds.
As he started along the embankment - not back towards the bridge but in the opposite direction - he realized that he might never again see the house he was leaving behind. The ache that thought awoke made the cold seem benign. He paused, and turned to try and hold the sight in his memory: the roof, the windows of his parents' bedroom, the garden, the empty loft. This was the house in which he'd grown to adulthood; the house where he'd learned to be the man he was, for better or worse; here all his memories of Eileen and Brendan were rooted. But in the end it was just bricks and mortar; evil could take it as it had taken the Fugue.
As certain as he could be that he had the picture before him memorized, he headed off into the snow. Twenty yards on down the track a roar of destruction announced that he was a refugee.
Part Twelve. Stalking Paradise
‘Western Wind, when wilt thou blow, The small ram down can rain'' Christ if my love were in my arms And I in my bed ogam!' Anon, 16th Century
I
A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS
1
If there was any pattern at all to the events of the day following, it was of reunions denied by chance, and of others just as capriciously granted.
Suzanna had decided the previous evening that she'd go up to Liverpool and re-establish contact with Cal. There was no use in circumspection now. Events were clearly approaching a crisis-point. Cal had to be warned, and plans made - the kind of plans that could only be made face to face - about how they could best protect Mimi's book, and their lives, in the coming storm. She tried calling him ‘til about midnight, but nobody answered.
In the morning she rang Apolline, fresh from Salisbury, to tell her what she'd seen and learned at the Shrine of the Mortalities. She was prepared for Apolline to reject the information Immacolata's spirit had offered, out of contempt for its source, but that proved not to be the case.
‘Why shouldn't we believe it?' she said. ‘If the dead can't be honest, who can? Besides, it only confirms what we already knew.'
Suzanna told her she planned to go to Liverpool, and talk with Cal.
‘You won't be alone up there,' Apolline informed her. ‘Some people went looking for raptures in your grandmother's house. You might want to find out if they had any luck.' ‘I'll do that. I'll call you when I've seen them.' ‘Don't expect me to be sober.'
Before setting out Suzanna tried calling Chariot Street once more. This time her call received the number disconnected tone; the operator could not tell her why. The morning news bulletin would have answered the question, had she switched on the radio; the television would even have shown her pictures of the patch of blasted ground where the Mooney house had once stood. But she tuned in too late for the news, only catching the weather-report, which promised snow, and more snow.
Attempting the journey by car was, she knew, a certain disaster. Instead she took a taxi to Euston, and the mid-morning train North. Just about the time she was settling down for the four-hour trip to Liverpool Lime Street - which in fact took six - Cal was half way to Birmingham on the eight-twenty train via Runcorn and Wolverhampton.