17.2

 “Yabamiah.”

The voice was hollow. It sounded of the spaces between stones deep underground; the argument of spirits within forgotten tombs; the wails of the Elderfolk in the ancient halls. It was deep, resonant, and, giant though he was, the sound loosened the cords holding Paul’s bladder tight.

Steve’s reaction was to put his fingers in his ears, dropping the still-wrapped cross that clattered from his hand down to his feet and further, down the three stairs to where Paul was holding their flatmate. He hummed loudly in an off-key until the reverberations of the word died away. He peered upwards, toward the gathering darkness in the hall above. “Is that who’s up there?”

Roisin felt the power inside her pulse again — a sharp, electric jolt that made her gasp. The cross came to rest at the level of her arms, and she reached for it, snagging one end of the wrapping between her first two fingers and pulling until the cross inside spun end-over-end and unwrapped completely, whereupon she could see the fragments of prisms spilling from its handling-polished surface. She opened her palm and pulled at them, absorbing them as easily as a lifelong addict absorbing liquid morphine.

Paul’s face was specked with blood. “That was her,” he said, his voice trembling with pain and horror. “Roisin… Roisin is one of them.” He shrieked as he fell backwards, and only stopped himself tumbling down the last few stairs by holding tight to the handrail screwed to the wall,

Steve turned at the commotion, only to be knocked forward as Roisin raced past him, heading upwards. “Roisin! No!”

Below him, sitting half-legged on the bottom stair, one leg spayed out to the side, Paul moaned softly. “It’s not her, mate. She’s gone. She’s become…” His voice lapsed into unintelligible mutters.

Steve took a finger from one ear, cautiously. “Become what?”

The assistant stared up at him. “One of them. How could you let her get so close to the artefacts?”

Steve hesitated. “She’s not one of them, though, is she? Or at least, she’s one of them but… different.”

“Different how?” The assistant stepped past Paul. “I saw the wings.”

Steve shook his head. Her wings shimmer in a different way. They have the echo of light, without the light being present within them.”

“What are you talking about?” The assistant pressed the cross into his hand. He glanced down at it, sadly. “I have to stop this.”

“How?” She peered fearfully up the stairs, where the hallway above was so brilliantly it looked as if it had caught fire, if floorboards and wallpaper were smokeless fuels.

Steve let go of his second ear. “By giving them both an easier target.”

The assistant turned to him, raising her voice above the maelstrom of buffeting winds. “What does that mean?”

Steve crouched in front of her, using the stair wall to avoid the worst of the wind. “It means I need to use something stronger than the fragment.”

The assistant’s eyes widened. “Stronger? You said the cross was the strongest one.”

“The strongest one I have,” Steve said. “But not the strongest I can get hold of.”

The assistant closed her eyes, her face creasing in consternation. “They’re fighting — and she’s losing. She’s hopelessly outclassed. It’s like a baby in front of a giant anaconda.”

“I know,” Steve said. “That’s why I have to do this.”

The assistant shook her head. “Do what? What are you going to use?”

Steve stood slowly. “A piece I’ve never shown you. My ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card.”

The assistant turned her head away as another surge of wind sent a wave of dust and sand down the stairwell.

Steve blinked away the stinging in his eyes. “Go down to Paul. Get him outside.”

“Won’t the other thing be outside?”

“Not any more.” Steve pulled something out of his pocket. A clay pipe, a match to the ones found all over archaeological sites, only this one was complete, and the bowl looked like a gargoyle on a Norman church.

The assistant’s eyes widened, and she bolted down the stairs, taking two at a time and picking up Paul, who was easily twice her size, like he weighed no more than a loaf of French bread.

Barely waiting to check she’d gone, Steve lifted the pipe to his lips and blew. If he was expecting it to sound a note, he didn’t show it, but the air shifted, bringing the scent of hot springs and volcanic mudholes.

Something moved on the landing right in front of him. A

A gap in the world.

A gap between thought and word.

A doorway, thirty centimetres square.