Rollerskater: Armageddon


I | II | III | SSI | IV | V | SSII | SSIII | VI | VII | SSIV
VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | SSV | XIII | SSVI | XIV | SSVII | XV | SSVIII | XVI | XVII


This instalment contains graphic violence, body horror and themes of suicide.

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Nasmeen Osmani started as she heard the sound of the door being smashed in.

Her immediate instinct was to shout to the others, but she feared damaging her vocal cords, impairing her abilities. She needed to be able to do damage. Instead, she leapt off the settee and darted into the spare bedroom.

“I assume that’s not the postman?” Chelsea asked.

“What’s the plan?” Nas asked.

Dolly Mixture stood, making her pinafore neat, checking herself in a mirror. Nas wasn’t sure if this was a nervous habit, or she just really wanted to look good before facing the music.

“We’re going to have a polite chat and clear up the misunderstanding,” she said, smiling. “Get yourselves ready.”

There was another bang at the door. Dolly swung her long legs over the side of the bed and pressed her feet into slippers.

Daisy had been sleeping on the floor of the spare bedroom in this flat, owned by Chelsea’s aunt and uncle. She tried her best to reassure Nas. It didn’t matter. Nas could see how frightened she was. It was written all over her face. She really didn’t want to go back to wherever they’d taken her.

There was one more bang, a final bang that brought with it a cool draught of early summer morning. The four of them departed the spare bedroom and went to face the invaders.

There in the hallway stood six burly men, who pointed guns and barked orders. Nas heard a lot of “fuck” and “move” and “now”.

In response, the four of them raised their hands.

“Excellent work,” a voice said, from outside.

Dolly seemed to recognise the voice.

“No,” she said, through gritted teeth.

There were several long moments. The speaker came into their midst.

He was a tall man, but hunched over. He walked with the aid of a cane. The left side of his face was badly scarred, his left eye covered by a black eyepatch. On his head, he wore a mauve beret, and on the lapel of his jacket, there were the embroidered words:

CAPTAIN
SAID-MI5

“So you didn’t die, then,” Dolly said.

The Captain did not smile. He merely patted his pocket, reached into it, and retrieved an inhaler, taking a puff.

“You ran me over with a motorcycle,” he said. “I suffered a collapsed lung, permanent damage to my hip joint and femur. Then, you disfigured me. I do not find this funny. In fact, I find this quite unfunny. The doctors say I made a remarkable recovery. I do not think they understand how much pain I feel every time I move.”

Nas looked to Dolly. Her face was stoic, but Nas had lived with her long enough to know that, under that placid exterior, she was terrified.

“And do you know something?” the Captain continued. “Despite that, I saved your life, Dolores Mykhailiuk. Had you killed me, there would be a smoking crater in Wiltshire, right now. It was me who called off the launch. Are you not grateful for my clemency?”

Dolly said nothing.

“Fuck me, you’ve somehow got even creepier,” Chelsea interjected.

The Captain did not laugh, only stepped towards Chelsea. Without the hunch, he’d have easily towered over her, and Chelsea was not a short woman.

“Your barbs will not save you, Miss Rose. I suppose you haven’t heard. Operation Harmony is now in effect. I am in control of every arm of government, de facto, until the present crisis is resolved. Do you understand what this means? As of this morning, you have no right to a trial. There exist none who can judge me for what I do here today, other than Her Majesty The Queen, and I do not believe she will object to my using drastic means to keep her subjects safe.”

There was a long, cold silence.

“So…that’s it?” Dolly said. “You’re going to execute us?”

“Yes,” the Captain said, succinctly. “And I’m going to make you watch the others die, just so that you can die knowing that it is your fault.”

The matter-of-fact way in which he said it showed that he meant it. It was chilling.

Dolly had tears in her eyes.

“Y-you know…there’s just one thing wrong with that plan,” she said.

“Yes?” the Captain said. “And what might that be?”

Dolly’s face hardened, and Nas knew at once that the tears had been an act.

“There are six people living at this address.”

tink tink tink tink

GRENADE!” someone shouted.

There was a bright flash and a loud bang, which was appropriate, given that the name of the device that had been thrown into the hallway from the living room was “flashbang”.

A soldier, half-blinded, raised his gun and fired it, but soon found his arm ensnared. He couldn’t see it, but Nas could.

White tendrils extended from Daisy’s back, and her eyes glowed an iridescent rainbow. She disarmed the soldiers with ease, placing the guns into the hands of the four women.

“Let’s move,” Chelsea said. “Everybody split up!”

And that was how Nas ended up running through South London with no shoes on, while holding a carbine submachine gun, with Daisy following behind her.

It was remarkable how much heavier these things were than in the movies, she thought, as she dodged around broken glass on the pavement.

She had never felt more free.

*

In rural Wiltshire, just over ten miles south of Swindon, there was a small village. Its name was Avebury, and it was one of many sites in Wiltshire where the ancient and modern collide. The village was a quiet place, visited by the curious and spiritually inclined, who came to marvel at the ancient earthworks and stone monoliths, erected in time long past for reasons now forgotten to history.

It was on another quiet day that Douglas Baird arrived in the chapel garden at Avebury, clutching a bloody corpse that had, until a few minutes ago, been Prime Minister.

Already, on the field over the brick wall, he could see them, others of his kind, watching, waiting, standing by the stones in anticipation.

No longer needing to hide his strength – for his meek façade was intended solely to allow the perfect moment to decapitate the British government – he leapt the wall, dragging the corpse with him, dropping it into the field.

There was a female, dressed in red silk, her black hair hanging loose about her shoulders. He met her well and kissed her.

“Are preparations underway?” he said.

“Yes, Exalted One,” she replied. “Is it true? Is the time at hand?”

“Yes, sister, I believe it so.”

A male, young-looking and tawny-haired, bearing the freckles of his former flesh incarnation on his eternally youthful cheeks, smiled at him.

“You, brother,” Baird said. “Do you have it?”

“Yes,” the young male said. “We shall show it to you soon.”

“Excellent,” Baird replied. “Then we can begin.”

The vampires howled and whooped with joy, for they were soon to be in the presence of their dark and terrible god, and, oh! He was starving…

*

Liberty Parish stood in a patch of nettles in the woodland, pinching leaves off the stems. She recalled a rhyme her father had told her, once. Tender-handed stroke a nettle, and it stings you for your pains; grasp it like a man of mettle, and soft as silk remains.

These nettles just stung her, no matter how hard she gripped them.

Her father had never criticised her in such strong terms before. She hated herself for it. Her father, returned from his imprisonment, and her first act, or close to it, had been to disappoint him.

She heard footsteps behind her and turned.

Her father’s legs were hairless, as were his arms, his chest and his back. The only hair on his body, so far as anyone could see, was on his head. He hadn’t even grown a beard in all that time away. He seemed so much more put-together. What was she doing wrong?

Liberty sat down, drawing her stung knees up to her face, and turned away from him.

“Libby,” he said. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, sullenly. She felt embarrassed by herself. She was very nearly twenty-one now, and it seemed unbecoming to still be behaving like an adolescent. But she held fast to it. She really did feel cross with someone, and she didn’t want to admit it was herself.

Her father sighed.

“I understand if you are upset by my disappointment, but surely, you must understand the reason why.”

“Yes,” Liberty said. “I tried to shirk my responsibility to look after people. What do you want me to say? I hate it out there. All the cities and roads and noise. It stinks, Dad.”

“It is not for you to decide if the world is worth saving,” her father said.

“That’s not what I meant. Leave me alone.”

“Libby…”

“I said leave me alone!

Liberty’s field of view became framed by blue light for just a few moments, and she knew that she had once again invoked that part of Great Ur that still resided within her.

Her father bowed his head solemnly. In all his life, he had never once raised his voice or struck Liberty. He knew that the cure for incorrect thought and action could not come from incorrect thought and action. So he only took a deep breath through his nose, and out through his mouth.

“What is really bothering you?” he said.

She felt like cursing him, because he had her figured out, and that infuriated her for some reason.

She sighed.

“There was this boy,” she said, slowly. “And…something happened between us.”

Her father raised his eyebrows momentarily.

“Those urges are perfectly natural,” he said. “You know this.”

She wrinkled her nose.

“No, we didn’t do that,” she said. “We had this homunculus with us – Monica, he called it – and we ended up trapped inside its internal matrix.”

Her father nodded, slowly.

“Our base patterns commingled,” Liberty said, sighing. “And then when we came back, the homunculus was different. It had…feelings. But the worst part…”

She shook her head.

“The worst part is that it called me its mother.”

Her father seemed to freeze a few moments. Then he clasped his hands behind his back and began to walk in the direction of a large oak.

“Where are you going?” Liberty said. “Are you upset with me?”

Her father unfurled his twelve wings, using them as ballast to help him clamber up the tree. He seated himself on the bough. Liberty unfurled her own wings and flew up to join him.

He was silent a long time. Her father liked to pause before speaking at any length, so as to avoid stuttering or muddling his words. Then, finally, he spoke.

“You were a foundling,” he said, softly. “Given to me by the sky. Just as I was given to my father by the earth. You came to me only a day after he died.”

“There can only be two of us at a time,” Liberty said. “One half, always raising the other.”

“Yes,” her father said, thoughtfully. He took Liberty’s hand in his own. “That is why we look so different. It is part of our pact with the strings. We raise strangers, not our own offspring, for to raise a stranger is to raise a child unconditionally, without the bond of blood. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” Liberty said. “But I don’t understand. There must only ever be two of us.”

“Perhaps,” her father said. “But you cannot reject a helpless child because you don’t like the look of it.”

He looked hard at her, and she almost flinched from his gaze.

“When the time comes, Libby, it is your responsibility to do the right thing.”

Liberty nodded.

“I love you, Daddy,” she said.

“I love you, too,” he said. “Now, we must be going. There is something terrible afoot in Avebury, and we don’t have much time to stop it.”

*

Monica Eno didn’t understand what was happening. To even less of an extent than usual.

She had asked her father to explain multiple times, but every time he had told her, not right now, we’ve got to get somewhere. Somewhere called Tottenham Court Road.

The main problem, she noted, was that every corner they rounded had either policemen or soldiers, which she understood to be enemies. She wasn’t sure why her father wouldn’t let her simply blast her way through, but he just kept telling her to stop asking questions and move. So, that’s what she did.

She missed the pigeons.

They entered a place called Seven Dials, taking a diversion, that was according to Harri-Bec, the nice lady from the train. She thought that was quite interesting, because most places in London had silly names that didn’t fit what they actually were at all, but Seven Dials really did consist of seven roads, like spokes on a wheel, radiating out from a central point.

They passed a shop that sold records, and another with a picture of a monster out front, and then they were on Shaftesbury Avenue. Further up, there was the clatter of gunfire.

“Shit,” her father said. “Which way?”

“Stacey Street,” Harri-Bec said. “We can try to get to Tottenham Court Road that way.”

“Let’s go, then.”

They moved across Shaftesbury Avenue – it was very quiet, there were no cars – and darted into the side-road.

And then Monica stopped.

“Monica, come on,” her father said.

“Wait,” Monica said. “Don’t you feel that?”

“Feel what?” Harri-Bec asked.

Monica could see something in the centre of her vision, but couldn’t look directly at it.

It looked like a big red circle.

And it was getting closer.

*

K-Os arrived in Avebury to the sounds of a demonic carnival. Left and right, there were vampires playing discordant music, dancing and singing.

She knew, of course, what this place truly was. She had hoped it would never become important.

The village of Avebury was founded on top of the Great Seal of Ur, a powerful ontological binding that closed out the infinite hunger of Geb from the rest of space and time. And the vampires had taken it over.

She rushed through the assembled crowds, past frightened onlookers. Somewhere was the sound of dripping liquid.

She made it to a great field across the way, and there, at the centre, was Douglas Baird and the crumpled body of Barnabas Mortimer, surrounded by others of Baird’s vampire kin.

“Ah,” Baird said. “I was wondering when you would turn up. Had difficulty finding us, I expect. For someone so ancient, your knowledge of the strings is remarkably limited. Still, you’re just in time for the opening ceremony.”

“I warned you,” K-Os said. “Whatever you’re planning, I am going to stop it.”

“Oh, but it has already begun,” Baird said, turning to the others. “Please. Bring it to me.”

K-Os turned, and beheld a large wooden chest with leather clasps, being carried across the field towards them. The chest was set down, and Baird knelt before it, releasing the clasps.

We have come to raise Him!” came a shout from the earthworks, a crowd all in unison. “We have come to save Him!

Baird threw open the chest.

Inside it was a long, cylindrical object, with an end that tapered to a point, not unlike a pneumatic drill. It had two holes in its top. Baird reached in and hefted out the device, bringing with it two tubes filled with red human blood.

K-Os knew at once what it was.

“The device is ready!” Baird called, to great uproar.

“Stop this,” K-Os said.

Baird screwed the vials into the top of the device.

“The Blood of Ur is ready,” Baird said.

Of course. That was why they had taken both Blake and his daughter captive. It seemed too obvious, in retrospect.

Since the Episode, Baird had been manipulating matters to ensure that they could take blood from Blake and from Liberty.

It had been the blood of Ur that had formed the Seal, the very same blood that now coursed in the veins of his ontological heirs. That blood formed a bio-key. It had sent Great Geb away, and now it would bring him back.

Two of the vampires rolled the corpse onto its back, its eyes glassy and staring up at the clouded sky.

Blood flowed out of the vials into the tubes.

No. It could not be.

“In the exalted name of the Blood Moon,” Baird said, “I consecrate this slaughter.”

With his strength, he drove the pointed end of the device through the empty hole in Mortimer’s chest, where his heart had once been, into the earth below it. The device sat, seemingly inert, for a few moments.

She had but a brief time in which to act.

She manifested the Sword of Jerusalem, that great and powerful weapon which had protected her for millions upon millions of years.

She charged forth, raising the sword.

“Yes,” Baird hissed, flashing his red teeth.

As she brought it down, it suddenly occurred to her that none of the vampires had attempted to restrain her.

Why hadn’t they attempted to stop her?

She had a realisation just a few moments too late.

She tried to stop herself, halt the sword’s arc in the air, but she had already set herself on the path, and there could be no divergence.

The Sword came down on the device, and instantly, it was wrenched from her grip.

It no longer belonged to her.

Her golden skates lost their lustre, changing to a deep and ugly red, the colour of dried blood.

She had given her greatest source of power willingly to Great Geb, and that was all he needed to tear himself free.

The Earth cracked and sundered, churning around them.

In every atom of her being, K-Os felt something great, terrible and wrong begin to claw its way back into the world.

The skies darkened. Magma spat from fissures in the earth. The ancient stones fell. The foundation of every standing structure within the stone circle was instantly shattered and sank into the Earth, as though devoured by a great maw that now opened beneath them.

For a brief instant, K-Os caught a glimpse of a great white machine-city rising from the ground. It was a shining fortress of crystal that appeared to have no bottom and no top, the final great work of Ur and the strings. It was the true form of the Seal.

She could only watch, mute, as the machine, impossibly large and complex, was torn asunder.

And in the sky above, faint at first, there appeared the form of a red sphere that seemed to blot out the Sun.

Then the sky darkened, and all was lost.

The Blood Moon had returned at last, and it was K-Os’s doing.

“The Great Seal of Ur is undone!” Baird cried, jubilantly. “Now beginneth Armageddon!”

*

The blood-dimmed tide was loosed.

Liberty and Blake Parish screamed and fell in a dark sky, their bodies wracked with a burning pain that seemed to pulse from every vessel. Their very blood was being turned against them, now, corrupted. Blake could not speak for the pain, but he did not need to. Liberty already knew that the worst had happened.

Great Geb was free.

*

Dolly Mixture and Chelsea Rose hid in a railway arch, clutching guns. The sky had darkened, and it began to rain. Chelsea Rose shivered, and Dolly put an arm around her.

“Dolly,” Chelsea said. There was no trace of humour in her voice. She sounded hollowed-out and terrified. “…I think something really bad just happened.”

A van came around the corner, and soldiers jumped out of it, pointing guns and shouting.

There before them stood the Captain.

“Are you quite finished?” he asked.

*

In the sky, a red sphere appeared, and the sky went the colour of slate, as if someone had instantly turned off the Sun and plunged the world into eternal night. All at once, the three of them looked up above the tops of the buildings around them, and saw a red circle in the sky.

“The Blood Moon,” Harri-Bec surmised. “It’s here.”

“Oh no,” Monica said, in a very quiet and frightened voice.

Almost instantly, Socks felt something like a migraine, as if a person had inserted a hot glass needle into his head.

He shouted, bent double, and vomited.

“Dad!” Monica shouted.

“Oh God,” Socks said. “Oh God, can you see that?”

He looked at the other two, the muscles of his face tensed into a horrible rictus.

“No,” he said. “Just me.”

His nose began to bleed.

“That thing in the sky,” he said.

He could see things, things he could not describe, things that lashed and gyrated and twitched like flesh, but passed through solid matter as if it were not there. It was indescribable, but for one thing.

It was red.

Red as blood.

And it was covering the entire Earth.

“That’s not what it really looks like.”

He pointed to the sphere, despite the pain.

“That’s just its shadow.

*

“Stop, or I’ll shoot!”

Shit.

They were caught in an alley. Nas remembered Manchester, the guy who could make copies of himself.

Her arms ached from carrying the gun.

Everything went dim. For a second, she thought it was exhaustion, a change in blood pressure, but then she looked up.

The sky had darkened, and in the centre of it was a red sphere.

The soldier who had caught them followed her line of sight.

“What the fuck?” he said. “Is that you doing that?”

“No,” Daisy said. “I don’t know what that is…”

The soldier turned away from it.

“Never mind,” he said. “I’ll let the Captain know once I’m finished with you.”

He pressed the butt of the gun against his shoulder, his finger hooking around the trigger.

Then he began to scream in agony.

Fuck!” Nas shouted.

The man doubled over, dropping the gun to the ground, wracked with pain.

“Oh God!” the soldier wailed. “Oh God, what the fuck—”

His flesh cracked and split, breaking open.

Before them, he was transformed into a beast of scaly red crystal. He looked like a walking scab, which moaned in agony with every movement.

The creature used whatever remained of its eyes to look down at what had once been limbs, and issued a horrible shriek of sorrow.

It charged at them, leaving them little time to react.

*

Liberty had never known terror like this.

The brief time she spent in the captivity of vampires was horrible. What she experienced now was truly beyond description. It was like someone had set the inside of her body on fire, but she still lived. Even with the guidance of the strings to guide her, it was a struggle to escape.

Her father gasped and moaned, beating fists against his chest in an effort to avoid succumbing to the pain. She watched a plane fly past and go pinwheeling down to earth, crashing against the ground. She covered her eyes and cried.

When she opened them, she saw something terrible.

Four roads, all leading towards a vast circle in the earth, which now burned uncontrollably. It was as if a volcano had spontaneously erupted underground, taking with it an entire patch of countryside.

She knew that what she beheld now was the Great Seal of Ur, undone, and its prisoner, Great Geb, now escaped.

On the outskirts of the town were military vehicles. Clearly, someone had called for help just before the Seal had been obliterated.

“Circle around,” her father called.

“Can we restore the Seal?” she asked.

There came no reply.

“Dad?”

But her father only banked into a curve, making his descent.

*

The Captain had been waiting for this moment, ever since waking up in that field, almost too injured to move.

“Please,” Dolores Mykhailiuk said. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I don’t care,” the Captain replied, checking that his Desert Eagle was loaded. “There is no point in begging for mercy, Miss Mykhailiuk. We have reached the end.”

The Captain raised the gun.

“Don’t,” Dolores said. “Don’t. Don’t!”

Darkness fell.

The Captain hesitated.

Dolores Mykhailiuk cast her gaze upwards, yelped, and covered her mouth.

“What is it?” Chelsea Rose said. “Dolly, what have you seen?”

The Captain did not want to turn. Because he knew what he would see. But he had to. He had to know that it was real.

He turned, and there in the sky above him was a red sphere, hateful and angry, like a great eye staring down at him.

The Captain lowered the gun.

“Captain?” one of the soldiers said. “What is that?”

The Captain only stood, silently, gazing up at it. It hung there in the sky, a false sun.

The Captain heard a trilling in his pocket. He looked down at it.

So that was how it would be.

He looked back at Dolores and Chelsea, and reached for the satphone, answering it.

“Captain of SAID-MI5,” he said, hoarsely.

“Captain,” said an unfamiliar voice on the other end. “I’m here in Wiltshire with a reconnaissance squad.”

Wiltshire. Where it all began. The voice continued:

“We were called here after reports of an explosion in Avebury.”

Avebury?

“What is the situation, soldier?” the Captain asked, hesitantly.

The voice tried to stay dispassionate, but began to waver.

“Captain…there’s nothing left of it. The whole village is on fire. It’s all gone.”

The Captain was silent.

“What do you mean, soldier?” he wheezed.

“The standing stones are – wait…”

A pause.

“Oh, Jesus Christ—!”

The sound of tearing metal and breaking glass.

“Oh God—!”

Gunshots.

Click.

Silence.

The Captain looked at the phone, then at the pistol in his hand, then to his soldiers.

It’s Hell, sir.

“Captain,” said the same soldier as before. “What are your orders?”

The Captain did not reply. He only looked at the two women, standing frightened and cold in the rain, and punched a number into the satphone, then put the earpiece to his ear.

“Identify,” said a terse voice at the other end. It was a woman’s voice.

“This is the Captain of SAID-MI5,” he said. “Operation Harmony is in effect.”

“Understood. Your voiceprint has been verified.”

“Thank you,” the Captain said. “Initiate Protocol Omega.”

The other soldiers gasped.

“What’s going on?” asked Chelsea Rose.

The Captain ignored her.

“Target is Avebury in Wiltshire,” he said, so softly he wasn’t sure if the mouthpiece would pick it up. “You are to do this immediately and without question. Do you understand?”

The woman on the other end was quiet a few moments.

“We will prepare the launch when the order is given,” she said.

The Captain paused a few moments.

Execute,” he said.

“Verified,” the woman said. Her voice trembled slightly. “May God help us all.”

The phone clicked off, and the Captain dropped it to the ground.

“What did you just do?” asked Dolores Mykhailiuk.

The Captain looked at her in a daze, moving his jaw as if to speak, but nothing came out.

He reached up, removed the mauve beret atop his head, and let it fall to the ground.

He felt a very strange impulse, then.

He began to laugh. He laughed unrestricted and uncontrolled. He laughed more in sixty seconds than he had laughed in his entire lifetime.

He laughed until he felt tears run down his right cheek.

Then, saying nothing, he pressed the barrel of the Desert Eagle to his chin.

Captain!” a soldier shouted, leaping at him.

The Captain pulled the trigger.


Another time, another place…


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Illustration is a montage of photos by Tom Barrett, Phyllis Poon, Bernd Dittrich, Alina Grubnyak and Steven Cordes on Unsplash

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ARC FOUR: BLOOD MOON
I | II | III | SSI | IV | V | SSII | SSIII | VI | VII | SSIV
VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | SSV | XIII | SSVI | XIV | SSVII | XV | SSVIII | XVI | XVII