So easy to forget how different she is…

He took a step towards Ghota, but the man raised his hand and shook his head.

‘You’re fine where you are,’ said Ghota, ‘but I can see you’re hesitating, trying to think if there’s some way you can talk your way out of this. You can’t. You’re also thinking if there’s any way the boksigirl can do what she did to the men she killed. She might be able to kill a couple of them, but it won’t work on me. And if she tries it I’ll make sure she doesn’t die for weeks. I know exactlyhow fragile the human body is, and I promise you that she’ll suffer. Agonisingly. You know me, and you know I mean what I say.’

‘Yes, Ghota,’ said Palladis. ‘I know you, and trust me, I believe every word you say.’

‘Then hand her over, and we’ll be gone.’

Palladis sighed. ‘I can’t do that.’

‘You know what she is?’

‘I do.’

‘Stupid,’ said Ghota, drawing his heavy pistol with such swiftness that Palladis wasn’t sure what he’d seen until the deafening bang filled the chamber with noise. Everyone screamed, and went on screaming as they saw what the gunshot had done to Estaben.

It had destroyed him. Literallydestroyed him.

The impact pulped his upper body, hurling it across the chamber and breaking it apart over the chest of the Vacant Angel. Ribbons of shredded meat drooled from the statue’s praying hands and sticky brain matter and fragments of skull decorated its featureless face.

Maya screamed and Roxanne threw herself to the floor. Weeping mourners huddled together in the pews, convinced they were soon to join their loved ones. Children screamed in fear and mothers let them cry. Roxanne looked up at Palladis and reached for the hem of her hood, but he shook his head.

Ghota flexed his wrist, and Palladis found himself looking down the enormous barrel of a weapon that could obliterate him. Coils of muzzle smoke drifted from the gun, and Palladis could smell the chemical reek of high-grade propellant. The dim light of the temple reflected from an eagle stamped on the pistol’s barrel.

‘You are next,’ said Ghota. ‘You’ll die and we’ll take the girl anyway.’

Palladis felt his body temperature drop suddenly, as though a nearby meat locker had just opened and gusted a breath of arctic air into the chamber. The hairs on his arms stood erect, and he shivered as though someone had just walked over his grave. Sweat beaded on his brow and though every one of his senses was telling him the chamber was warm, his body was shivering like it had on the nights he’d spent on the open plains of Nakhdjevan.

The sounds of frightened people faded into the background, and Palladis heard the snorting, wheezing emphysemic breath of something wet and rotten. Colour drained from the world and even Ghota’s colourful tattoos seemed dull and prosaic. The cold air bloated the chamber, a sudden swelling of icy breath that seemed to swirl around every living thing and caress it with a repulsively paternal touch.

Palladis watched as one of Ghota’s thugs stiffened, clutching his chest as though a giant fist had reached inside his ribcage and squeezed his heart. The man turned the colour of week-old snow and he collapsed into a pew, gasping for breath as his face twisted in a rictus mask of pain and terror.

Another man fell as though poleaxed and without the drama of his comrade. His face was pulled tight in a grimace of horror, but his body remained unmarked. Ghota snarled and aimed his pistol at Roxanne, but before he could pull the trigger, another of his men shrieked in abject terror. So stark and primal was his scream that even an inhuman monster like Ghota was caught unawares.

Colour flooded back into the world, and Palladis threw himself to the side as Ghota’s pistol boomed with deafening thunder. Palladis didn’t see what he’d shot at, but heard a buzzing crackle as it hit something. More screaming sounded from the far end of the chamber, frantic, urgent and terrified. Palladis squirmed along the floor between the pews, knowing something terrible was happening, but with no idea what it was.

His breath misted before him, and he saw webs of frost forming on the back of the timber bench at his side. He flinched as Ghota fired again, roaring with an anger that was terrifying in its power. The sound of his rage went right through Palladis, penetrating to the marrow and leaving him sick and paralysed with terror.

No mortal warrior could vent such battle rage.

Pinned to the floor with terror, Palladis wrapped his hands over his head and tried to shut out the sounds of terrified screams. He kept his face pressed to the cold flagstones of the temple floor, taking icy air into his lungs with every terrified breath. The screaming seemed to go on without pause. Shrieks of terror and pain, overlaid with angry roars of thunderous defiance in a strange battle-cant that sounded like the fury of an ancient war god.

Palladis remained motionless until he felt a drop of cold water on the back of his neck. He looked up to see the frost on the back of the bench was melting. The freezing temperature had vanished as swiftly as it had arrived. He felt a hand touch his shoulder, and cried out, flailing his arms at his attacker.

‘Palladis, it’s me,’ said Roxanne. ‘It’s over, he’s gone.’

Palladis struggled to assimilate that information, but found it too unbelievable to process.

‘Gone?’ he said at last. ‘How? I mean, why?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Roxanne, peeking over the top of the bench.

‘Did you do it?’ asked Palladis, as a measure of his composure began to return. He pulled himself upright and risked a quick look over the top of the bench.

‘No,’ said Roxanne. ‘I swear I didn’t. Take a look. This isn’t anything I could have done.’

Roxanne wasn’t lying. Ghota was gone, leaving a greasy fear-stink in the air and a fug of acrid gunsmoke.

Seven bodies lay sprawled by the entrance to the temple: seven hard, dangerous men. Each one lay unmoving with their limbs twisted at unnatural angles, as though they had been picked up by a simpleminded giant and bent out of shape until they broke. Palladis had seen his share of abused corpses, and knew that every bone in their bodies was crushed.

‘What in Terra’s name just happened?’ said Palladis, moving to stand in the centre of the temple. ‘What killed these men?’

‘Damned if I know,’ said Roxanne, ‘but I’m not going to say I’m not grateful for whatever did it.’

‘I suppose,’ agreed Palladis, as heads began appearing over the tops of benches. Their fear turned to amazement as they saw Palladis standing amid the ruin of seven men. Palladis saw the awe in their faces and shook his head, holding his hands up to deny any part in their deaths.

‘This wasn’t me,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what happ…’

The words died in his throat as he looked back down the central passageway of the temple towards the Vacant Angel. The viscera that had been blown out of Estaben’s guts hung from the statue like grotesque festival decorations, and Maya wailed like a banshee at this latest agonising loss.

For a fleeing second, it was as though a pale nimbus of light played around the outline of the statue. Palladis felt the lingering presence of death, and was not surprised to see a leering, crimson-eyed skull swimming in the dark-veined marble of the statue’s face. It vanished so suddenly that Palladis couldn’t be sure he’d seen anything at all.

‘So you have come for me at last,’ he whispered under his breath.

Roxanne was at his side a moment later.

‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing,’ said Palladis, turning away from the statue.

‘I wanted to thank you,’ said Roxanne.

‘For what?’

‘For not letting them take me.’

‘You’re one of us,’ he said. ‘I’d no more let them take you than anyone else.’

He saw the disappointment in her eyes, and immediately regretted his thoughtless words, but it was too late to take them back now.