Coldbrook

4

Jonah had never been to Italy. Wendy had always wanted to go, but for some reason something always got in the way. Usually his work. Now he was there, Roman sun warming his skin and the layer of matter that had been sprayed there through the doorway. If he looked up at the sky, with its wispy clouds and light blue depths, everything could almost be all right.

He was in line with his Inquisitor, and close-up he felt distant from all those other naked people. Some were distinctly human, others less so — higher-browed, taller, more heavily muscled. On distant Earths, along the string of universes, evolution had taken different tracks. As well as making them all appear vulnerable, the nakedness was also a barrier of sorts, making them ironically less than human in Jonah’s eyes.

Perhaps part of it was that he knew he would be killing them all — soon. All these people brought from their Earths and their Coldbrooks, perhaps the last of their lines, chosen by their Inquisitors to oversee the infection of a new world, and he would turn them all into zombies. He would be wiping out so much intelligence, so much rich ambition and original thought and probing philosophy.

So it was easier to look at the ground or the sky, or the looming, grand buildings that would witness the culmination of his and Drake’s plan.

The curved walls and grand columns around St Peter’s Square had been covered with small writing, and he was too far away to read it. Perhaps it was scripture, or this world’s perverted version of what scripture should be. Higher up he saw planes’ contrails crossing the sky, the aircraft themselves moving incredibly quickly. Objects that he’d thought at first were birds hovered over the square, flitting here and there, and they glinted where they caught the sun. He guessed that they might be airborne cameras, and he averted his stare in case someone perceived his intent.

Men and women in colourful uniforms — orange, yellow, blue — stood at seemingly random points around the square, both at the edges and close to the central obelisk and fountain. They were in pairs or small groups, chatting and lounging against statues or walls, but Jonah sensed their alertness. He had seen photographs of the Swiss Guard, and even in his reality their ceremonial role was only a small part of their purpose. He imagined that here they must be a full fighting force. He turned his gaze away from these people as well. Their casualness disturbed him.

Holly would have hated this place, with its bastardisation of all she thought of as pure and precious, and Jonah craved to discover what could have gone so wrong. Despite his lack of belief, even he could see that these devout souls had betrayed their philosophy and made themselves godless. Did they really think that they were performing God’s work? And how had this world’s beliefs become so twisted? One of their holiest places had been turned into a factory of death, and they continued praying at the site of their greatest blasphemy. He was sad that he would never know the truth and, even if he did, that it would soon die with him. He might have been part of one of the most ambitious experiments in history — Coldbrook, and its brave, doomed journey — but some things would always remain a mystery to him.

Perhaps, as with people, there were some realities where evil was endemic.

The stone paving beneath Jonah’s feet had been smoothed and grooved by the passage of countless feet, and he wondered just how long this had been going on.

A flurry of movement further along the next line caught his attention. A tall middle-aged woman stepped aside from her Inquisitor and spun around, kicking out at its head. She missed, though the Inquisitor had not appeared to move. And in the blink of an eye she was gone. The seemingly relaxed guards sprang into action, grabbed her arms and legs, and dragged her away. She started shouting, but one of them thrust something into her mouth. Blood splashed. Cut out her tongue, Jonah thought, and he, like all the others, turned away.

He rolled the ball in his mouth, the trigger that held the key to this twisted place’s doom.

For all of you, he thought.

Jonah would be dead within minutes. And his solitary regret was that he would not stay down.