The Burning Man

6

Laura sat on the top of a dune and stared into the heat haze hanging on the horizon. The desert stretched out as far as the eye could see in all directions, as desolate as her heart. She smelled the odour of carrion long before the jackal appeared around the foot of the dune and sat on its haunches on the slope just below her. Its glittering, intelligent eyes fixed on her and it said in a low voice, ‘Laura, with the chosen name DuSantiago.’

This made perfect sense to Laura. ‘Got it in one.’

‘You are lost. You have been lost all your life. Is that correct?’

Laura didn’t answer.

The jackal looked to its left where a six-year-old blonde girl was being hit with a Bible by a woman. The girl was crying, but trying to smile through the tears.

‘Were you a dutiful child? Did you follow the path of right?’

‘You’re joking, aren’t you? First chance, I was out of there with one mission: take whatever life had to offer.’

A thirteen-year-old Laura swallowing an E before lying down to have sex with a long-haired man with a back covered with tattoos.

She watched herself in coitus. ‘I never did get his name,’ she said dispassionately. ‘You always remember your first time. I wish I could scrub it out of my mind with a wire brush.’

Another jackal wandered around the foot of the dune and settled to gnaw on a thigh bone.

‘Did you give back for the life that had been given to you?’ Anubis asked.

‘The life given to me?’ Laura snapped. ‘A mum who beat me into next week from when I was old enough to walk, and a dad who sat back and watched, making sympathetic noises and doing nothing. Yeah, it was one big celebration.’

‘Did you have any friends?’

‘I had myself.’

‘Did you honour your parents, who brought you into the world and nurtured you?’

Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘Let’s see that, shall we.’

To her right, she lay on the sand while her mother carved Jesus loves you into her back with a kitchen knife. ‘No, I don’t think I honoured them.’ She wiped her tears away with the back of her hand, leaving a gritty trail of sand on her cheek.

‘What value did your life have?’

Laura watched numerous scenes play out of her drinking, taking drugs, having sex, committing petty crime. ‘None,’ she said. The weight on her heart was growing heavier by the minute.

More scenes unfolded, desperate and pathetic.

‘You agree that your existence was worthless?’

‘Yes.’ She stifled a sob. She had always known it, deep in her heart.

‘You have squandered that vital resource given to all living things?’

‘Yes, yes, yes! I always knew life was pointless. I learned my lesson well.’

Behind her, the sound of heavy movement. Fear bloomed inside her, taking root in the despair. She didn’t dare look around as the cold shadow fell on her back.

‘Does anyone stand with you?’

No,’ Laura sobbed. ‘Who’d stand with me?’

‘We would.’

Laura saw Church standing next to her, Caledfwlch in his hand, the blue flames licking gently in the desert breeze.

‘Lives are filled with disappointments and failures. It’s easy to focus on them, and once they’ve happened, they’re always there, tugging at your memory. It feels as if you can’t escape them.’ Church gently brushed the hair from Laura’s forehead.

‘You have no authority here,’ Anubis said.

‘It doesn’t matter what happened in Laura’s old life,’ Church continued regardless. ‘It doesn’t matter what flaws she still carries around with her — the kind of flaws we all carry. Because she’s aspiring to be something better, and that’s what really matters. She pretends she doesn’t care about anything, but we can all see the truth. She’s chosen to walk this path. She’s put her life on the line for others. She’s risked everything when there appeared to be no hope of ever winning. But do you know what the real proof of her value is?’

‘You have no authority here.’ Anubis’s words turned to an animal growl.

‘She’s found friends, the kind of friends you rarely make, who would lay down their lives for her.’

Laura thought she would cry.

‘You have no authority here,’ Church said. ‘We’re Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. We stand for Life. And I’m taking Laura away from here now.’

‘The judgment is not complete!’ Anubis bared his teeth and howled. As the furious sound rolled out, the desert melted away and the desolation faded with it until Laura was lying back on the slab.

‘Hello, darlin’. That’s going to leave a nasty scar.’ Hunter stood on the other side, pretending to be aloof.

‘You love this, don’t you? Playing the big hero saving the girl,’ she croaked.

‘Yeah. It’s my job.’

‘I think we should save the witty repartee until we are actually out of here,’ Shavi said as he lifted Laura off the slab. ‘I’m going to bind your chest with mummy wrappings,’ he said to her gently.

‘Good old Shavi,’ Laura replied dreamily. She felt as if she was slipping away.

Osiris rose from his throne. ‘I expected more of the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. You stand here in the Court of the Two Ma’ats before the lords of the greatest of the Great Dominions. No stealth, no cleverness, just futile bravado. Now you will all be judged, and afterwards the Pendragon Spirit will be torn from you, and you will be devoured by the daemon Ammut.’

A shiver in the dark at the back of the chamber.

‘Your legend gone for ever. Everything you did, everything you stood for, forgotten. And this will eternally be the world of the Devourer of All Things. Without magic. Without hope.’

‘He’s got a point,’ Hunter said. ‘How were you planning to get out of here?’

‘I was planning on them recognising our superior ability and just letting us leave,’ Church said.

‘Can you two cut the comedy routine and get us out of here,’ Laura croaked. ‘I’m starting to feel in desperate need of a serious drink.’

Church and Hunter shared a brief look. Beyond them, Laura saw the gods not in the shapes they had given themselves, but in the essence of their power, their animal-totem wildness, so uncontrollable and destructive that any one of them could crush Church or Hunter in an instant.

‘Thanks for trying, guys,’ she said weakly.

She wondered why Church was looking towards the door. When it swung open, she realised he had arranged some kind of diversion to help them escape.

‘Always the man with the plan,’ she whispered. Now that she was off the slab, pain was creeping into her limbs.

Church’s expression grew dark.

The door crashed against the stone wall and a young Egyptian man came sprawling in. Behind him walked Etain, her dead eyes fixed on Church, and behind her came Veitch, his blade of black fire pressed against the nape of Etain’s neck. His anger was barely contained.

‘Jack Churchill, you bastard,’ he snarled. ‘You’re not going to rest until you destroy everything that matters to me, are you?’

‘Etain came to us, Ryan. You’d better ask her why she did that.’

Confused, Veitch glanced at Etain, but didn’t ask the question. He removed his sword from her neck and brandished it at Church. ‘You and me. Now.’

‘Slightly busy just at the moment.’ Hunter gestured to the gods, but Veitch could only see Church.

‘I beat you the last time we fought, Ryan. I killed you.’

Veitch grinned. ‘You were meant to. It got me just what I wanted.’ He advanced, taking in Laura, and Shavi, kneeling next to her and binding her wounds. ‘Come on. Now.’

‘I’m not going to fight you, Ryan.’

‘You don’t have a choice.’

Now grave, Hunter said, ‘If we don’t get Laura out of here, she’s going to die, no matter how special she is.’

Laura heard the concern in his voice and smiled.

‘You’re saying that like I care,’ Veitch spat.

‘I think you do,’ Church said. Laura could tell he was fighting not to reveal his true feelings about Veitch. ‘You used to care a lot, for all of us,’ he continued. ‘Those kinds of feelings don’t go away. They just get buried beneath all the crap.’

‘Is that what you call what happened to me?’ Laura met Veitch’s eyes, but he looked away. ‘No chance,’ he continued. ‘It’s too late.’

A scuffle outside the door ended with Ruth bursting in, the other Brothers and Sister of Spiders scrabbling to hold on to her.

‘Ryan, don’t be an idiot!’ She grabbed Veitch’s shoulder to hold him back.

‘Ruth, get over here!’ Church called, elation and concern fighting in his voice.

At Osiris’s command, Anubis and a hawk-headed god approached. Laura tried to warn Church, but her voice was now too feeble to carry.

‘Don’t let Laura die,’ Ruth said to Veitch. ‘You have the power to save her. You can do something right.’

‘Why should I?’

‘Do it for me.’

Veitch wavered. ‘Will that change your mind?’

‘I don’t know. It might.’ Ruth’s voice had grown quiet, almost disappearing beneath the growl that issued from the back of the room.

‘You are unreliable, Brother of Spiders,’ Osiris boomed.

‘That’s not my name.’ Veitch hesitated, then turned to face the gods. ‘I’m not standing with you,’ he said to Church. ‘As soon as we’re out of here, I’m going to end this.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ Church said.

‘As unlikely as it is that I’m the voice of reason,’ Hunter interjected, ‘but do you want me to do a quick headcount and tell you how seriously we’re outnumbered?’

‘I always keep a little something in reserve,’ Veitch said.

Hunter grinned. ‘You’re a man after my own heart, Veitch.’ He removed something from his shirt that he kept hidden in his palm.

‘You and that utility belt, Hunter,’ Laura whispered. ‘Always full of surprises.’

‘That’s me, baby. And when we’re out of here, I’ll show you another one.’

‘I’ll hold you to that.’ Laura’s vision dimmed. She couldn’t tell if Hunter’s bravado was just for her sake.

God, I’m dying, she thought. Shavi dragged her towards the door, pausing to finish binding her wounds with unsettling urgency. She tried to offer him words of comfort, but she began to slip in and out of consciousness.

Distantly, she heard Osiris issue an order and there was wild, terrifying movement from the back of the chamber. She heard Ruth scream. A freezing shadow fell across her as Ammut rushed from the shadows.

Everything began to come in flashes, like snapshots dropped before her eyes. Disconnected sounds came and went like the surf. There was a small explosion and the room was filled with acrid smoke. Hunter said something about thanking Omari and the Egyptian Secret Service. The Egyptian man was beside her saying, ‘Will she live?’ and Shavi hushed him.

And then she had the most amazing vision of Blue Fire and black lightning flashing across the room. Church and Veitch were involved in a graceful, athletic fight with the daemon, ducking, leaping, their blades slashing in shimmering arcs.

When her gaze fell on their target, she dry-retched and her brain would accept no clear images of it, but she had residual flashes of fangs and red, hateful eyes.

And then Hunter loomed over her, and he was grinning as she always remembered, but there was an intense, incongruous sadness in his eyes.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I can’t feel it any more.’ But he didn’t appear to hear.

‘Get her out of here,’ he said urgently to Shavi. ‘She’s going.’ He kissed her gently on the lips with a surprising tenderness that she hadn’t seen in him before. She remembered what Osiris had said in the oasis about both of them being lost, and she wondered oddly if they were now found.

He put his lips to her ear. ‘I-’

She never heard the rest.