Part 23 (1/2)

April raced through the door with the words, 'They're inside!'

'Keep moving higher,' Carter told them.

'What's the point?' Ben roared. 'They're going to get us in the end!'

Elmo's calm eyes regarded him. 'The point is to give you enough time to reach your decision.'

'But what decision?'

'You're close. I can tell. Remember what I told you about the Sea of Thought?'

'To h.e.l.l with the Sea of Thought!' But beyond that Ben didn't have time to reply. Carter and April urged them through into the little pa.s.sageway that led from the stairs to the bedrooms. Carter jumped up to punch open the loft hatch. That done, he lifted himself up into it. Then he reached down to haul up April.

From the direction of the hallway came the clumping of feet. Trajan ran toward the top of the stairs to meet the foe.

Ben was faster. 'I'll hold them back. You stay with April!'

'No, I'm going to-'

'Trajan! Do you love April?'

Ben looked Trajan in the eye as the man nodded. 'I know you do,' Ben told him. 'I wish you didn't honestly love her, but I can see you do.'

'What do you mean?'

'Just get yourself into the attic!'

Trajan relented. He followed Elmo up into the void beneath the roof.

From the top of the stairs Ben could see the vampires tearing up toward them. The creatures swept the Misfires aside as if they were nothing but cardboard cut outs. A bulky figure stood beside Ben; this Misfire wore a bus driver's uniform. Even as the vampires climbed toward him the Misfires didn't flinch. Ben put his hand between the bus driver's shoulder blades and pushed. The thickset figure tumbled downstairs like a falling log. He struck more of the Misfires on the way down until something like a flesh and bone avalanche crashed down the steps sweeping the vampires back down to the ground floor. They howled with frustration. Ben saw how the maniacs raved and bit one another in the melee. Only it would be short lived. Once they'd untangled themselves they'd race up towards their intended victims once more.

Ben knew he had no weapons left to continue the fight there so he ran back along the corridor to the hatchway. From the opening in the ceiling a ma.s.s of arms hung down waiting to grab his hands and haul him up to what would be a precarious safe-haven. Probably, only a fleeting one, too. The vampires would soon batter their way in. What was up there to fight them with? Cobwebs and dust?

Ben held up his arms. Trajan took one hand; Carter the other. Together they easily hauled him up into the tiny attic. The boards between the rafters were crumbling, which afforded views into the bedrooms below. Even though it was gloomier here Ben saw the way April pressed her hands to her stomach. The hunger pains were building. She wouldn't be able to hold on much longer. As for Carter, he relied on sheer will power to talk rationally. Yet that edginess had crept back into him; his eyes wore a hungry, searching look. Meanwhile, Trajan had shut the trap door; there he crouched on it, no doubt hoping his own body weight would prevent the vampires pus.h.i.+ng it open from below. Some hope. Some poor, b.l.o.o.d.y hope.

Ben moved on his hands and knees with the sloping roof just above his head. Cobwebs dragged against his face, splinters from the rafters dug into his palms.

Beneath him, the vampires invaded the bedrooms. Through tiny holes in the plaster board he watched them attack the Misfires. But as soon as the vampires bit into them they knew there was nothing to satisfy their appet.i.tes in those dry veins. In contempt they shoved the immobile figures aside.

Then, as one, the vampires looked up. It didn't matter whether or not they could see the humans in the attic - they knew they were there. Ben saw the blaze of insane delight on the monsters' faces. And as one they thrust their hands upward. Instantly their outstretched fingers smashed through the ceiling boards in puffs of white powder. Trajan beckoned April from where he still held the trapdoor closed. She went to him. Although Ben noticed a different expression on her face. She'd reached that unstable borderland between sanity and madness. Soon the hunger would tip her mind over into unreason. But, equally, Ben saw that Trajan understood that. Trajan's love for the woman wouldn't stop him holding her until the end came.

Elmo appeared beside Ben as if he'd simply materialized there. And when he started speaking the vampires' attack became somehow distant, as if Ben and this ancient African visionary had stepped outside of the rules of time and s.p.a.ce. At that moment it seemed as if Elmo Kigoma and Ben were sealed in a bubble of peace.

'Ben Ashton,' Elmo said gently. 'A few hours ago I told you that my way of helping you and the people of London was to imagine a debate between my ancestors and my G.o.ds. I imagined my grandfather and his forefathers asked my G.o.ds to put right the damage Edshu had caused, then to eject Edshu from this worlda' His soulful brown eyes were hypnotic. 'I explained that I saw my ancestors argue with the G.o.ds that the people of London, and of this earth, were sorely tested enough by life itself. It wasn't necessary for Edshu to test them.'

'Yes, I remember. You told me that the G.o.ds reacted favorably to what your ancestors said. Buta'

'But what?' Elmo Kigoma smiled in his wise, caring way.

'But there was a man-made obstruction to the G.o.ds agreeing to what was asked.' All of a sudden Ben s.h.i.+vered. 'And I know what that obstruction was.'

'Really?'

'My selfishness. I loved April Connor.'

Movement. Yet slow movement. Some force r.e.t.a.r.ded time's flow. Black mist seeped into the attic. April had opened her mouth. It would happen gradually but soon her teeth would crunch through Trajan's throat.

Ben continued. 'My ego was so strong I refused to accept that she could genuinely love Trajan. But how can my loving April and wanting her to leave Trajan for me cause all this?'

'Remember what I said about you a.s.suming the role of warrior. Isn't a warrior someone who is tested to destruction?'

'You mean I've become the test specimen? Your G.o.ds are going to watch how I deal with this attack on us? And on London itself?'

'Why not?'

'But why should your G.o.ds from your village thousands of miles away be concerned about what happens here?'

A hand moved through the holes in the ceiling boards to seize Elmo's ankle. April's jaws had almost reached Trajan's throat. A dozen Berserker hands broke through between the rafters. But once more the motion slowed to a stop. This was the universe holding its breath; something, somewhere, had granted a pause in the headlong flow of life and death. A pause that would last only a moment.

Elmo's grave eyes fixed on Ben's. 'Why should my G.o.ds be interested in your well-being and that of London? Come, come, Ben. Deep down you already know. What's crucial here is that all G.o.ds and all ancestors, yours included, still live on in this place my people call the Sea of Thought. These beliefs I hold to be true. What happens now is up to you.'

Ben nodded; icy s.h.i.+vers trickled down his back as he began to understand. 'You told me about visualizing solutions to problems?'

'Yes.'

Ben closed his eyes for a moment. 'If I have been given the role of defending warrior I'm picturing the only thing that's in my power to stop this and to defeat Edshu.'

'What pictures do your imagination paint, Ben?'

'First look down at the vampires. What's happening to them?'

'They are dying.'

Ben gazed down through the holes that had been smashed in the ceiling boards. What had once been ferocious creatures had begun to shrivel. As their flesh fell from their faces they stumbled away. A tall vampire that gripped Trajan by the ankle simply shed its entire muscle structure to reveal a skeleton before it stumbled back to fall to the floor where it shattered.

Ben looked at April. As Trajan hugged her she smiled at him. That expression of hunger had gone. Carter studied his fingers as if seeing some transformation there.