‘But she was brilliant,’ Drake continued. ‘My father worshipped her memory, and he must have read her diary a hundred times. The experiments, the celebration when they made their first cast. The Inquisitor visiting her. That came over as a madness, of course, but now we know better.’
‘She’s viewed as a monster now,’ Moira said. Jonah was taken aback by such a comment, and surprised at some of their almost mystical phraseology – veils, monsters.
‘That’s not her fault,’ Drake said. ‘Understand, this is all gleaned from her diaries, with plenty of guesswork thrown in. But my father always said Kathryn had a unique mind. He said she was able to embrace the imagination in her scientific studies. She was even . . .’ He frowned.
‘She had faith,’ Moira sneered, as if the word tasted foul. Jonah thought that he would have to ask about that.
‘Maybe that made it easier for the bastard thing to take her,’ Drake said. ‘I’ve always wondered. Though she was a woman of science, she was also a slave to mysticism.’
‘So what the hell is that thing haunting me?’ Jonah said.
‘Someone who perhaps has a sense of humour. Your world had the Spanish Inquisition?’
Jonah nodded.
‘We believe that they are Inquisitors of the multiverse, from a version of Earth so thoroughly obsessed by and convinced of their own exclusive holiness that they cannot allow any other.’
‘Cannot allow?’ Jonah said.
‘Maybe they found the fury disease in one reality, grasped its potential, and encouraged its spread,’ Drake continued. ‘Or maybe they conceived and released it themselves. Nurtured it from world to world to destroy everyone not of their Earth.’
‘That’s . . .’ Holly shook her head.
‘Genocide,’ Jonah said.
‘Billions killed across the multiverse,’ Drake said. ‘Trillions. Beyond counting. Infected, and waiting to rise again to attack those not infected. Every Earth explores, and when they break through to what they think will be somewhere similar they find furies.’
‘And there aren’t many worlds still holding out,’ Moira said.
‘Yours is!’ Jonah said. ‘Forty years you’ve been surviving, and—’
‘You can hardly call it surviving,’ Drake said, his composure slipping. ‘It’s barely existing.’
‘You said we might be able to fight back,’ Holly said. ‘What did you mean? How can you defeat something that’s already won?’
‘Kathyrn Coldbrook’s diaries,’ Drake said. ‘She sensed something observing her even before she and my father succeeded with their first casting. In later entries she reveals her belief that her Inquisitor guided her towards success, though not quite the success he intended. And following our eventual infection he courted her, preying on her guilt with nightmare images that she noted in her diary. Some of which you might recognise, Jonah, were you to read it.’
‘I don’t think I want to.’
‘The last few pages are very confused. Painful to read. So much self-doubt as she denied what she was seeing, what the Inquisitor was doing to her. As he was luring her. It’s as if she was trying to keep hold of herself, but also being torn in other ways. And one day . . . she vanished.’
Silence descended, and Jonah glanced at the other three people around the table. Drake and Moira displayed a sadness that seemed to fit their hard faces well: a familiar emotion. Holly was staring down at her hands.
‘Bill Coldbrook died,’ Jonah said. ‘I took over his work.’
‘And have you ever felt watched?’ Drake said, leaning forward again.
‘Yes,’ Jonah said. ‘And so did Bill. I think that made him paranoid and drove him to suicide.’
‘And now an Inquisitor is after Jonah,’ Holly said.
‘They take you,’ Drake said. ‘That’s what Kathryn seemed to imply. Across secret bridges and through unknown wormholes those bastards have created with technology that must be so similar to yours, or ours. They take you back and convert you. And then you go out as one of them and oversee the destruction of another Earth.’
‘This was meant to be so special,’ Jonah said.