she found herself in a situation like this but now there was no question in her mind that she could. It was a nature thing. A primal instinct to protect what was yours. She took another step back, opened her mouth to warn the man one last time, then an object banged against her side.
The movement was so fast she didn’t even feel the pain until the blade was sliding back out from between her ribs, so sharp and sudden that it snatched the breath from her mouth as quickly as the man took the gun from her hand.
She felt confused, like everything was happening to someone else and she was just watching. Warmth spread out from the burning pain in her side and she looked down at the red bloom spreading over the white of her coat.
Blood. Her blood.
The sight of it shocked some sense back into her and she took a ragged breath ready to scream but a strong hand clamped over her mouth and dragged her further back into the shadows behind the dumpster.
Carrie watched Eli holding the woman tightly, making sure her blood spilled away from him and onto the snow and not his boots. When her body went limp he laid her gently on the ground and patted down her pockets until he found the keys.
‘Shame,’ he said, standing up and moving over to the car.
‘Just bad timing I guess,’ Carrie said, inspecting the blade of her knife and wiping it with a handful of snow.
‘I didn’t mean her,’ Eli pressed the button on the keyfob and the car thunked as the central locking disengaged. He opened the back door and nodded towards the interior. ‘I meant her.’
The backseat was crammed with boxes of groceries, rolls of bedding and a couple of laundry bags overflowing with baby-girl clothes. The owner of the clothes was wrapped up tight in a quilted snowsuit and strapped into a kiddie car-seat, asleep, a single strand of blonde hair escaping from beneath a hand-knitted woollen hat.
Carrie moved over and watched the tiny chest rise and fall, eyes moving beneath the lids as she dreamed her little-girl dreams. Carrie's hand found Eli’s and she wrapped all of her fingers round one of his but he pulled away, reaching across the tiny sleeping form to pick up a pillow from the pile of bedding. ‘Look away, honey,’ he said, ‘you don’t need to see this.’
She opened her mouth to speak but then thought better of it. Eli was right. This was no world for a little girl to go through without a mother by her side, she knew that much herself, and this little poppet was sweet and innocent enough to pass straight into heaven, no questions asked. Eli was doing her a favour, a great favour, by doing this thing for her. He was so kind and strong where it really counted, in the heart – and that was why she loved him.
‘Suffer the little children to come unto me,’ she said, reaching out to gently tuck the lock of hair back under the woollen hat. Then she kissed Eli on the cheek and turned away.
V
And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains and the mighty men … hid themselves.
For the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?
Revelation 6:15–17
62
Gabriel drifted in and out of consciousness. At times he raved, howling and bucking against the bindings, other times he was calm enough to converse with the doctors for minutes at a time, giving them insights into how the infection felt, like a drowning man describing the experience in snatched breaths to someone in a nearby boat before another wave engulfed him and dragged him back under. He fought, he screamed, he scratched and he cried – but he did not die.
Athanasius watched it all from a seat by the bed. He was there at night when the flicker of candles and flambeaux cast ghoulish light across Gabriel’s face, and in the day when the sunlight streamed through the huge rose window, dappling the damned with colour. The beds surrounding them emptied and filled, over and over as the tide of sickness ebbed and flowed, and more and more people entered the mountain. First it was those who had rested in quarantine in the Seminary. Then new faces began appearing, steady in number, their brief stay always numbering a day or two at most and always