Until the End Page 12

  “And he may fail.”

  “He might.”

  “What then?”

  “Then the world will end.”

  “Exactly — and you are at peace with that. You are happy to accept the deaths of over seven billion people. You are ready to embrace a world of suffering.”

  “I am ready to accept the world as it is, and as it will be.”

  “You’ve given in.”

  “I have not given in, as I have no war to give in to. I crave nothing, so I lose nothing.”

  “Whatever.”

  Om smiled.

  “Are you proud?” Lorenzo asked. “I mean, that you helped Oscar in a way we couldn’t. Are you proud?”

  “Are you proud that you have hidden every supernatural catastrophe the first-world has faced?”

  “You are avoiding the question.”

  Om took a moment.

  “I am pleased, not proud. I let go of pride long ago; it does nothing but fuel arrogance and a sense of superiority.”

  “And is that what I have, a sense of superiority?”

  “I have just always wondered… Why cover it all up? Why not just let the world know? Let them see the truth?”

  “Because that is not what faith is, and without faith we are nothing.”

  After a moment of awkward silence, the pilot announced that they had arrived and landed the helicopter. A few priests greeted Lorenzo and helped the body to the plane.

  It was astounding, the things this Church could do. Such as landing beside a plane at a busy airport and boarding without passports.

  They had power Om had never known, and nor did he need to.

  He boarded the plane and found a seat away from the gathering priests. The stares did not bother him, but he thought it was best to keep his distance following his conversation with Lorenzo.

  After a few minutes, the plane moved to the runway. It sped up, and they were in the air, aboard a lengthy flight that would take Oscar to The Devil, and would reunite Om with his opponent.

  39

  The knife in Oscar’s hand felt… wrong.

  Like it shouldn’t be there.

  Yet he felt compelled to hold it. Like he had to hold it, and that he should ignore every sense of irregularity about what he was doing.

  April, her mouth covered by skin, stared at him, shaking her head wildly.

  Her arms were on the table, and the wood of the table had somehow grown into restraints, fixing over her wrists, keeping her in place.

  Hayley smiled up at him, and he felt an overwhelming need to please her.

  He stepped forward, toward April.

  “That’s it, Daddy.”

  He edged toward her again.

  “A little more.”

  He reached her side, looking down upon the wretched bitch whose life deserved to end.

  Wait… the what?

  Wretched bitch?

  Life deserved to end?

  Why had he thought that?

  She was not a wretched bitch. She did not deserve death.

  Yet, as he looked down upon her, that was all he could think. All his warm feelings of love were there, but in a box at the back of his mind, buried, hidden away.

  “Now, Daddy.”

  He took a clump of April’s hair in one hand and tilted her head back, exposing her throat. The skin was clean, stretched, and ready. Such a delicate thing, a human neck. It's so reachable, and so easily destroyed.

  He held his knife back, stretching his arm, ensuring he had a large swing, big enough to get some force behind his weapon.

  “Hurry, Daddy. It’s time.”

  It was time.

  He was ready.

  He flexed his fingers to ensure he had a tight grip.

  “Destroy her just like I killed Father Jenson.”

  Oscar swung the knife downwards.

  Just as the tip was about to meet April’s skin, he stiffened his arm and stopped it.

  What did she just say?

  She killed Father Jenson?

  “Daddy, come on.”

  Why would a child talk about killing a priest?

  He looked at Hayley, horrified at what she had just suggested.

  “Why aren’t you doing it?”

  He remembered.

  She had killed a priest called Father Jenson. He had attempted to christen her, and she burnt his hand. He had confronted her, and she had murdered him.

  “Why are you looking at me like that, Daddy?”

  Father Jenson’s death had occurred just before she had made Oscar threaten April with a knife.

  And that wasn’t all she had done either…

  “I will not ask again, Daddy!”

  She made a woman tear her own child apart, and Oscar hadn’t even blinked.

  She had forced Martin to die trying to drown her.

  She drained the life out of April so she could live.

  Hayley was not a good child.

  In fact, she was not a child at all.

  She was Lamia.

  And Oscar would not be told what to do by a demon.

  “Daddy, I–”

  He took the knife from beside April’s neck and swung it at Hayley, plunging it into the side of her head.It looked like a child and, finding it difficult to let old habits go, Oscar felt momentarily sick for stabbing a young girl.

  But the appearance changed. The child-suit fell and Lamia revealed itself. Snakeskin tail, red eyes and the bare torso of a woman.

  Oscar swiped the knife again, plunging it into Lamia’s body, and repeated this, again and again and again, and his arm ached but he still did not stop.

  Flames sprung from Lamia’s body, forcing Oscar to close his eyes and turn his head away.

  When he opened them, she was gone.

  He was in Edinburgh. Below a church. Somewhere hidden away from God.

  He was on his knees, panting.

  He looked around.

  Someone was behind him.

  He ran his hands through his hair, told himself he just had to persevere, had to go through this, had to endure — then turned to see who it was.

  And there he stood, the next torturous reminder of Oscar’s many, many mistakes.

  “Get up boy,” said Father Connor O’Neill, “and stop acting the maggot.”

  40

  Despite not knowing where their opponent was, Thea and Henry had a good idea which direction to go in. The streets were full of them. People walking absentmindedly out of homes, out of shops, out of cars. So vacant, yet so determined. They weren’t running, but they were striding almost as fast as if they were.

  Every single one of them was heading in the same direction.

  A few onlookers stared out of their windows, marvelling in both wonder and terror. Watching, but trying to avoid being seen.

  A truck driver brought his truck to a sudden stop, stepped out, and walked with them.

  A woman ran out after her daughter, begging her to come back inside, insisting they would find her help; she just needed to stay at home.

  The girl swiped her nails at the mother’s throat, and she fell to the floor, choking. Not quite dead, but wounded enough to struggle for breath.

  “What is going on?” Henry asked.

  Thea stood still, on the high street of Cheltenham town centre, and watched the many walk past her. The crowd grew bigger the further through town it went.

  Thea tried to stay calm and think about this carefully. There must be lots of them because they were close to where they were gathering.

  Which meant the leader they were seeking couldn’t be far away.

  “How are there so many?” he asked.

  “Because they have all come here. April is close.”

  He hesitated, before asking, “Should we find her?”

  His question was weak. It was a reluctant question, where he was clearly hoping she said no.

  Unfortunately, the answer to his questions was yes.

  “The only way we can find her is b
y following all of them,” Thea said.

  “But when they are all together — what then? There are too many of them.”

  This was true.

  Thea had done mass exorcisms, but on buildings where the victims were enclosed, and with the help of Oscar, April, Julian and others. With so many of them, and all of them out in the open, it would be difficult.

  If they were to follow them, they were likely to follow them to their own deaths.

  Then so be it, figured Thea.

  The world would end either way, so if this was where the last resistance would be, then that was where it would be.

  Besides, she had promised Oscar she would not lose April. She intended to keep her promise as best as she could.

  “We just follow,” Thea said.

  “And what then?”

  “Just follow.”

  Thea had no idea about what then — they could deal with what then later.

  She took a moment to compose herself, then followed the crowd, feeling Henry reluctantly follow her.

  They continued through the town centre, through the smaller streets where they all packed together, until they reached the base of a hill.

  There were even more of them.

  It was no longer a crowd; it was a mass. Hundreds, possibly thousands, marching up the hill until they joined the back of a congregation — at which point they dropped to a single knee.

  Thea grabbed Henry and went to turn back. This had been a terrible idea.

  Then something grabbed her.

  She turned. One of the faces that had been so vacant a moment earlier was now full of rage.

  As she looked around, she saw all other faces changing too. All the demons that had been guiding the bodies were taking control of their hosts once again.

  Thea tried to shove the hand off, but another gripped her, and another, and another — until they hoisted her into the air, grabbing at every part of her body.

  She tried to look for Henry. They had lifted him too. Both of them were being carried overhead, with hands clutching at their legs, their chest, their arms, their throat — she could barely struggle. There was no escaping.

  She managed not to panic. The knowledge that they would die when the world ended anyway somehow made their imminent deaths a little less scary.

  They carried her up the hill and threw her to the floor.

  Henry collapsed next to her.

  They both looked up and saw it.

  April’s body was barely recognisable anymore — it was was still there as a vessel, but her skin was sagging, like a mask that melted, and her body was peeling. It was like The Devil was emerging from its cocoon into a creature all the more dementedly glorious.

  Thea dreaded to think what would happen to April’s body once the metamorphosis finished and she was no longer needed. It was already in the process of being discarded — would there even be anything left to save?

  Thea took out her crucifix.

  Henry did the same.

  “Remember, it can’t hurt us if we keep up the exorcism rites,” she urged him. “Are you ready?”

  Henry went to respond, but did not manage, for his crucifix was taken from him.

  As was Thea’s.

  They both floated into the air, The Devil grinning wildly as they did. He raised his arms and the two crucifixes turned to flames, burning to ash that settled into a mound upon the grass.

  The Devil opened its arms, and fire flew from its hands.

  Thea looked to Henry and, for the first time, had no words of encouragement or comfort.

  They held hands, preparing for the worst. Perhaps it was time they accepted their fate.

  41

  O’Neil clicked his fingers and they were back in Oscar’s kitchen again. O’Neil sat casually, watching Oscar, the heel of his right foot on his left knee, chewing something.

  O’Neil had appeared as a mentor to teach Oscar what it was to be a Sensitive, but turned out to be a fear demon — the actual demon, in fact, that opened Hell and begun the terrors they had spent the last year fighting.

  Oscar went to speak, but O’Neil raised his hand and silenced him.

  “Watch this,” he said, with the same imposter Irish accent he had portrayed before.

  April and Julian were suddenly there.

  Julian sat next to O’Neil, and April made their beverages. She placed a weak coffee in her place, a strong coffee in Julian’s, and a tea with four sugars in front of O’Neil.

  “No…” Oscar whimpered.

  He had not witnessed this conversation personally, but he knew of it. He knew what was about to happen, and he did not want to see it.

  If he’d have been there, instead of gallivanting away on his own arrogant journey, maybe this conversation would never have taken place.

  “Father, you said you had bad news on Oscar,” Julian said.

  “No, it’s not true,” Oscar insisted.

  “Ah, yes,” O’Neil said, ignoring Oscar’s protestations. “You are definitely Julian. He told me about you.”

  “He did?” Julian responded.

  “Yes, he did. Always curt and straight to the point.”

  O’Neil carried on talking, but Oscar shouted over him, drowning him out with cries of, “No, ignore it, it’s not true, don’t listen!”

  “That’s me,” Julian replied, his face stern, oblivious to Oscar’s voice and presence.

  “No, please…” Oscar begged.

  “You, April, you’re a little different,” O’Neil said, turning to the love of Oscar’s life. “He told me many a thing about you. Some of it wonderful. Some of it not.”“Oh?” April said.

  Oscar fell to his knees.

  He couldn’t bear to watch O’Neil tell lies to April that could destroy her affection toward him.

  “He said you were beautiful; eyes that could turn a man to stone — and I see that, oh, I do. He told me you are his strength, the reason he searches for answers, and the reason he goes on.”

  “He did?”

  “Yes, but he also said there were some downsides to your character. As there are in all of us.”

  “Oh?”

  “Don’t believe it, April,” Oscar said, running up to her and shaking her.

  She did not react to his touch. No response whatsoever. She remained attentive to O’Neil.

  “He said you were weak,” O’Neil said, and it was like a dagger had dug into Oscar’s chest. “That you let a demon baby into you and let it put you in a hospital bed. He said better women would not have let such things happen.”

  Oscar couldn’t watch this; he couldn’t listen to anymore.

  He turned and ran out of the kitchen but, as soon as he entered the next room, he was in the kitchen once again, seeing the look on April’s face as she bowed her head and felt ashamed.

  He ran out of the room again and reappeared once more.

  It seemed he could not escape this torment.

  O’Neil handed a piece of folded paper to the others.

  “He had me write this, then pass it on to you,” he said.

  O’Neil stood and left.

  Julian and April looked at the note. Oscar knew where it would lead them, but he could do nothing to stop them going there.

  The kitchen disappeared, and they arrived outside a brown brick house with a perfectly trimmed garden and flourishing flowers. A people carrier on the drive, a basketball net above the garage, children’s toys scattered along the lawn.

  As soon as April and Julian entered this house, in Oscar’s absence, they were entering a different realm. This was the moment that the balance would inevitably shift.

  Oscar knew this because he had entered this house to go after them and, without the Sensitives left on Earth, Hell was free to open.

  This was the moment he had never witnessed, but the darkest parts of his mind had forced him to imagine.

  He could not say this was when everything had went wrong, as everything had been going wrong for a while. But he coul
d say with certainty that this was the ultimate moment; the point at which they could not go back.

  This was all because of him.

  Because of his mistakes.

  Because of his lack of foresight and selfish quest. He and April should have been at home, taking care of each other, but they weren’t.

  The deaths that have happened because of this moment… So many deaths…

  He fell to his knees.

  He couldn’t do this.

  There was no way.

  He could not bear to relive these torments, these torturous memories, these moments of his past that provided such pain.

  But he had to.

  He had to.

  It was the only way to make up for it. The only way to conquer the anger it sparked inside of him.

  So he lifted his head.

  He was no longer in front of his house.

  He was in Purgatory. This was where he had spoken to Derek, just before he was plunged into Hell to face The Devil, only weeks ago.

  Only, it wasn’t him stood before Derek.

  It was April.

  “How do I get to Hell?” she asked.

  “April, you are not meant to be here,” Derek replied.

  And, even though it was another moment he had not witnessed, he knew what it was.

  And he knew that, should April have listened to Derek, things would be very different.

  THEN

  TWELVE YEARS OLD

  42

  Oscar had learned to be silent.

  He could not remember a classroom without Bertrand in it. It seemed that, whenever he went up a year and they divided the class into different classes, Bertrand would end up in his. The time he moved up a set in maths, Bertrand moved up too. When he moved from junior school to senior school, guess who was in his new tutor group?

  Bertrand didn’t even do that much. In fact, he barely approached Oscar.

  He was just always there. Staring. That same cocky, knowing grin.

  Oscar was scared that, should he speak, Bertrand would just laugh at him, and everyone else would join in.

  So he didn’t talk.

  Teachers spoke to his parents about his silence at parent’s evening. They couldn’t figure out why he was so quiet all the time, or why he was so shy. He wasn’t shy at home, nor was he ever quiet in his evening drama club, or when talking to relatives. It was just school that he seemed to retreat into himself.