Anno Mortis Page 17

  At the same moment, something opened in the darkness behind the altar - a deeper darkness like the gateway to nowhere Petronius had seen in the catacombs, the one Vali and Narcissus had tumbled through at the most opportune moment.

  There was no similar reprieve now. Something flew through the dark gate, but it wasn't human. It was barely there, like the sketch of a man in the air, strokes of pale light picking out his nose and wild hair and silently screaming mouth.

  The slave above the altar screamed too, a horrible bubbling sound. His limbs jerked and spasmed against their chains and his eyes rolled back in his head as the cut in his throat gaped like another mouth, wide and red.

  Some of the blood sprayed on Sopdet's face, dotting it with red freckles. Petronius saw her raise her other hand to wipe herself fastidiously clean while the rest of the blood jetted down. When it struck the body lying below, it stained the bandages scarlet.

  Petronius didn't realise he was running until he was right there, heaving at the corpse's arm, trying something - anything - to stop this before it was too late.

  But it already was. The red of the blood soaked into and then somehow through the bandages, leaving them pure white again, and the apparition from the gate followed, seeping into the bandaged corpse. For a moment a face was overlaid on the blank bandages, snarling and savage. Then that too disappeared.

  The corpse began to twitch, limbs jerking in a horrible echo of the slave's death throes.

  Sopdet smiled mockingly at Petronius as he backed away. Even Caligula looked horrified, finally realising what he'd allowed. Sopdet seemed to sense his doubt. "Wait," she told him. "Just wait."

  The corpse juddered one last time, arching its back until only its head and heels touched the altar before falling back down. Then its arms flexed and stiffened, reaching out to lever it upright. Its legs swung round, landing on the floor with a muffled thump.

  Sopdet flung her head back, letting out a scream of triumph that was high and strange, hardly human. Even the cultists flinched away from it, but the corpse moved on, joining the ring of twelve that now circled them all.

  Behind them, Petronius saw that the gateway to another world - to the underworld - was closing. The darkness within darkness narrowed, until only a man's arm could have fitted through.

  "In the name of Osiris, brother-husband of Isis!" Sopdet called.

  There was an echo, a buzzing sound that came both from the walking corpses and the insect-filled crates.

  The gateway in the air stopped narrowing. And now there was a light behind it, sickly and green. It glowed on the cultists' pale faces and on the blood-streaked knife Sopdet still held in her hand.

  "In the name of Horus, god-child of Isis!" she shouted, louder still.

  The corpses stretched out their arms and the air crackled between them. At first it was no more than a sensation, something that prickled the hairs on the back of Petronius's neck like the build-up to a storm. Then it broke. Streaks of blue-green lightning shot out from the corpses' arms, linking them together and encircling the living in an impenetrable, brilliant barrier of light.

  Petronius fell to his knees, Caligula beside him. The Emperor looked terrified. If the crackle of supernatural energy hadn't been so loud, Petronius thought he would have heard him sobbing. And so he should - he could have stopped this, if he'd chosen to.

  Behind Sopdet, the gate widened, the green light behind it brightening until it rivalled the lightning pouring from the corpses' hands.

  "In the name of Isis," she roared, "widow of Osiris, mother of Horus, guardian of life and death!"

  There was a crack as loud and sudden as thunder, and the gateway seemed to freeze in place. At its rim, the green light swirled and congealed, hardening into a gritty grey marble. It was a true gateway now, and the landscape beyond could finally be seen, a vast dark cavern, sprinkled with sharp rocks. In the distance, a broad and sluggish river flowed.

  There was something there, gathering. Petronius couldn't quite make them out, the forms tickling at his mind, like the half-remembered words of a song. Though they became no clearer as they drew nearer, flying at a terrible speed towards the gate, he realised what they were - spirits, like the one that had animated the corpse.

  He would have run if he could, if there'd been any possible escape. But the ring of corpses still circled them, though the lightning that linked them was fading, sparking away to nothing.

  The insubstantial spirits of the dead flew through the gateway into the living world. Petronius thought they'd come for him - that they'd possess his body as they'd animated the corpse on the altar. But they stopped behind Sopdet, hovering for a moment in which their faces became clearer, blank and hopeless, and then they plunged down and fell into the beetle-filled crates.

  Behind them, the landscape of death was lost once again behind a sick, green light.

  Sopdet lowered her arms, groaning, as if it was her own energy which had been used to power the ceremony, and was now drained. And, suddenly and unexpectedly, the circle of corpses slumped to the floor.

  Petronius watched, expecting a trick. Expecting them to rise again, stronger and more lethal than before. But instead they seemed to deflate, the bandages slowly sinking in on themselves until there was nothing more inside them, only a fine grey dust.

  There was a collective sigh from the cultists and the soldiers of the Praetorian Guard, part relief, part fearful anticipation of what might come next.

  "Is that it?" Caligula asked, voice quavering. "Is it over?"

  The captain of the guards shook his head. He was one of the few soldiers still standing, sword in hand. Most had dropped to their knees beside their Emperor. A few were sobbing. One was clinging to a young female cultist, his eyes darting from place to place, alert for the next threat, the next terrible, inexplicable occurrence.

  And for a moment, nothing at all happened. The loudest noise was the chittering of the beetles in the crates where the spirits of the dead had vanished, almost lost beneath the clash of metal against leather as the soldiers struggled to their feet. But gradually, the sound began to change.

  The hissing of wing casings rubbing against each other transmuted into the whisper of voices, thousands upon thousands of them. Petronius couldn't make out the words, but the tone was clear - cold and angry. Leaning on the altar, gasping for breath, Sopdet looked up and smiled.

  Petronius took a step back, then another, almost tripping over Caligula, crouched on the floor behind him. He kept his eyes on the crates, guessing what was coming, dreading it and powerless to stop it.

  Finally, like a cloud of darkness, the beetles rose into the air. A stench of shit and death rose with them and there was a blaze of green light from the gate behind. It lined their wings and sparked from their twitching antennae. And in the light Petronius could see faces, one face hovering over each beetle, and then narrowing, disappearing, somehow being sucked inside it.

  The beetles, he finally understood, were carriers - transporting the spirits of the dead through the living world. The buzzing cloud, thousands strong, hovered above their heads one final moment as the light within it died. And then the beetles stretched their wings and flew from the temple out into the streets of Rome.

  PART THREE

  Deficit Omne Quod Nasciture

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When Boda first heard the sound, she thought it was voices. They sounded angry and hateful, but after two hours in the pit she didn't care.

  "Help!" she shouted. "Please - we're in here!"

  "I don't think they can hear you," Vali said. He had spent the last hour sitting cross-legged on the ground, seemingly untroubled by their situation. Now she saw his face drain of colour, and a sheen of sweat stood out on his pale forehead.

  "Down here!" she yelled, making a trumpet with her hands to amplify the noise.

  Vali stood up, his long legs creaking as they unfolded. He grasped her shoulder hard, and shook. It startled her enough to silence her momentarily. He'd ne
ver laid hands on her before.

  "Don't attract their attention," he hissed.

  "Why not? We can't get out of here on our own. Even if it's cultists, we'll have a chance to fight them once they've rescued us. Down here we've got no chance at all."

  "It's not cultists," he said. His voice sounded weary, almost defeated. "It's nothing human - nothing living."

  And as soon as he said it, she knew that he was right. Why had she thought that those were voices? Now she could hear that it was the chittering of insects, thousands of them. The beating of their wings echoed down the tunnels until it was impossible to tell what direction they were coming from.

  Then they were there, a dark cloud hovering over the mouth of the pit. Boda didn't know why they frightened her so much. They were just insects - what could they do? But she remembered the beetles in The Book of the Dead, and guessed these were part of the Cult's plans.

  "We're too late, aren't we?" she said. "It's already happened."

  Vali just nodded as the cloud of beetles flew on, a smaller group detaching and swooping down towards them.

  Boda crouched, covering her eyes. The wings brushed her cheeks as they passed, but they didn't settle on her. She waited a second for something more, something worse. When it didn't come she slowly uncovered her eyes.

  Vali was still standing, looking down at the ground. Boda followed his gaze and saw the beetles burrowing - into the pile of corpses.

  A moment later, the corpses stirred. The earth covering them shook and slid aside, and the brown finger-bones of a dead hand curled around her ankle and pulled.

  A few of the beetles remained, hovering around the altar as the cultists slowly rose to their feet. Most were white and shaking, but a few were beginning to smile. Caligula dismissed them from his mind. They were merely Sopdet's tools, as she had become his. They could be rewarded or punished later as he saw fit.

  Sopdet looked at him, half smiling. "It's done," she said. "Thank you, Caesar."

  The Praetorian Guard were beginning to collect themselves, forming up in ragged ranks on either side of him. They hadn't exactly covered themselves in glory during the last hour or so, and their faces suggested they knew it. He'd have to punish some to educate the others, and from the grim set of their mouths several of them knew that too.

  "It's not done," he told Sopdet. "You have what you want. Whereas I..."

  She nodded. "Your sister, yes. I can sense her, waiting on the other side of the gateway. She's been waiting for you there from the moment she died. I can summon her through, but we need a body to house her. Although the spirits can animate anything that was once flesh, I imagine you might want a fresh corpse for her."

  Now that it was almost here - now that it was finally possible - he found himself shaking with excitement. Or was it fear? He couldn't tell. For a moment he thought about telling Sopdet that he'd changed his mind, that he wanted to wait a little longer. But what if the opportunity never came again?

  The cultists were an unpromising looking bunch. There were more men than women and the few women were more notable for their wealth and power than their youth and beauty. "You," he said, pointing to the prettiest and youngest of them. "Come here."

  She hesitated.

  "Your Emperor commands you," he said, and the soldiers to either side of him drew their swords.

  A man approached with her, probably her husband. She bowed, so low that her thick brown hair brushed the floor. "I am Publia of the Julii, and this is my husband, Antoninus. Your loyal servants." When she rose from the bow her eyes met his, desperate and pleading.

  Her husband gripped her arm. His long, melancholy face was pinched tight with fear. "Please, Caesar," he said. "We have slaves - young ones, pretty ones. I can bring them here in less than an hour."

  Claudius turned to Sopdet. "Tell me, once a spirit is embodied, can it move? Or is that it - stuck forever in the new body?"

  She smiled. "Once inside a scarab, the spirit is a free agent in the living world. It can move at will."

  "Good," Caligula said, and then to Antoninus. "Yes, bring your slaves. I'll choose the appropriate vessel for myself."

  The man sagged with relief as Caligula turned to his soldiers. "In the meantime, kill that woman for me. But do try not to damage her too much - a knife through the back would probably be neatest."

  Antoninus let out a choked cry of protest. He flung himself towards Publia, but it was already too late. She opened her mouth on what might have been a scream. Only a soft cough came, and then a flood of red-purple blood.

  Caligula looked down at her corpse, as the last of the life twitched out of it. To one side, his soldiers were holding back a sobbing Antoninus, but that didn't interest him. Publia's blood was gently steaming as it pooled around her. He watched and watched, waiting for his sister to appear. Nothing.

  "You lied to me!" he screamed at Sopdet. "You said that she'd come back!"

  The cultists surrounding her backed away, but Sopdet herself seemed unmoved. "Patience, Caesar," she said. "She's found her carrier - look."

  And there she was at last - at last. He could see the outline of her in the air, sketched in pale blue fire. She was screaming and his heart clenched. Did it hurt, coming back? But it didn't matter. She'd be here soon, whole again, and then he could ask her himself.

  Drusilla's spirit hovered for a moment, high above them. Then one of the cult's beetles flew to meet it and her form twisted and narrowed and slipped inside, between its wide mandibles.

  The beetle's wings whirred as it flew down towards Publia's body. Her mouth was still open, only a trickle of blood seeping from one corner. The beetle's legs pattered through the pool of fluid, leaving little red pinpricks on her cheek. Then it was inside her mouth. For a moment its back legs were visible, waving at them. There was a sudden stronger smell of blood and something meatier, the sound of chewing, and the legs disappeared.

  The smell of bile joined the stench as Antoninus fell to his knees and vomited, dry-retching when there was nothing left inside him to bring up.

  The chewing inside Publia's head went on for a few more seconds, and Caligula tapped his foot impatiently. Then, finally, she sat up.

  One of the cultists screamed, and a soldier dropped his sword. Even Caligula found himself jumping back. For a moment Publia's eyes were blank and staring, as if no more than a beetle's intelligence lived behind them. Her head swivelled, stiff on her neck, until her unseeing gaze settled on him.

  "Drusilla?" he said. His voice was a dry croak.

  Publia's dead body smiled. "Hello again, brother."

  Vali saved her, stamping on the skeletal hand and grinding its bones to dust. But there were more, hundreds more, a pit filled with them, and one by one they were all waking.

  "We've got to get out of here!" he said.

  Boda laughed, high and hysterical.

  He shook her, rattling her teeth. They made the sound of bone on bone, just like the bodies beneath them. She shivered convulsively and he shook again, shook her until she put her hands on his arms and pushed him away.

  "We can climb," he said. "The rock's soft - look." He dug his fingers in, above his head, and the stone flaked away until there was enough room to fit the tips of his fingers inside, but no more. "Your feet too!" he said, and she saw him kick a hole in the pit wall a foot above the floor, then hook his foot in it, using the finger-hold to heave himself up.

  But the corpses were pulling themselves up too. She saw one, skull bobbing on its narrow neck as its legs struggled free of the earth. She lashed out in terror, kicking the dome of the skull, and it broke off and flew to imbed itself in the wall behind.

  For the first time, something like reason triumphed over blind panic. They weren't invulnerable. They were just bone, and she'd hacked enough of that, even if it had been wrapped in flesh at the time.

  She drew her sword from its scabbard and swept it around her. Vali was four feet up now, above the blade's path, and she was able to spin in place, c
learing the pit of everything that had emerged.

  There were more, though, and still more beneath them. Another skeletal hand grabbed her foot, then another, and though she stamped them into fragments she knew they'd overcome her eventually. There were far too many of them.

  "Boda!" Vali shouted. "Climb!"

  She hesitated a moment, sword in hand. To climb she'd have to sheath it, and the thought of facing the legions of dead without a weapon was horrifying. But in the end, she had no choice. She slashed with the blade one last time, low and wide, giving herself a second's grace. Then she dug her fingers into the stone above her and pulled.

  Her legs flailed gracelessly against the wall. She hadn't thought to make a hole for them first and without any leverage there was no force behind her kicks. As she struggled something brushed against her leg. She looked down and saw an arm, brown and rotten, reaching towards her. It was blind, the head still buried beneath the ground. But she could see the skull's dome rising from the earth and soon it would see her.

  One more wild kick and her foot stuck in something. She realised that it was a hole Vali had dug on his way up. In the panic of battle she hadn't thought to literally follow in his footsteps, but she thought of it now. She could see him hanging, fifteen feet above her and slightly to her left. The pale oval of his face looked down on her as she reached her left arm out, running her palm over the wall until she found the dent he'd left.

  His fingers were broader than hers and the hole threatened to be too big, spilling her back to the pit's floor still far too close below. She grimaced and dug her nails in, then stretched her leg out and found a foothold before her handhold gave.

  Bone fingers closed on her calf. Every instinct screamed at her to kick out at them. She bit her lip and forced herself to stay still, only her right hand grappling above her for another hold.