Once again he tucked the small ball between his teeth and cheek: warm, flexing. Ready to bite.
They followed the flow of people towards the opening that led to sunlight and blue sky, and alongside the staggering architecture, beautiful painted ceilings that would put the Sistine Chapel to shame, and sculptures that seemed to exude a life of their own, Jonah noticed signs of the advanced technology that he knew existed here – floating lights, glimmering laser-fields, and prayers relayed into his mind without sound. The prayers’ tone made him queasy. They shimmered with righteousness.
Unabashed at his nakedness, Jonah and his Inquisitor approached the opening at the end of the hall, and the wide stone arches framed Jonah’s first view out onto this new Earth. For a second the sun was blinding, a comforting warmth on his skin and a prickling distraction in his eyes. But after he had blinked a few times he could see, and he was perhaps not as surprised as he should have been. He’d been prepared for this, after all. And perhaps, having already seen wonders, he had been numbed against more.
He had seen St Peter’s Square a hundred times on television and in newspapers, but little had prepared him for its sheer size and splendour. An atheist all his life, still Jonah had found great beauty and splendour in religious architecture – some of his favourite buildings were cathedrals and churches, and while others were looking at the cross on the wall, he would be wondering at the tunnels, bodies, treasures and mysteries buried beneath his feet.
The square was filled with Inquisitors and their charges. They formed several lines on either side of the Vatican Obelisk, which was topped with a globe, the Earth beautifully wrought in coloured, textured metals. The lines moved forward quickly, the head of each disappearing inside a large structure built on the steps below St Peter’s Basilica. This was something else that Jonah had never seen: an intricate marble-clad building with a gold-domed roof, three main entrances onto the square, and smaller openings leading directly onto the Basilica steps. From here the line of naked, smooth-skinned people was directed up the steps and into the Basilica. Guided by their Inquisitors – in some cases helped along physically – their naked skin was stained with free-flowing blood, and even from this distance he could see that their faces looked wrong – noses snoutlike, eyes bulbous. The steps beneath them were stained black with old spilled blood, the marble having absorbed it over however long this had been happening until it looked as if the Basilica itself was bleeding, black blood running down into the square where worshippers had once sought to gather. These new worshippers were unwilling, and torture was their introduction into the ways of this world.
‘Soon you will meet the Holy Fathers, and your acceptance into our Church will begin,’ the Inquisitor said.
Jonah smiled, and nodded. And he knew at last when his time would be.
Friday
1
COLDBROOK WAS FULL again, its air thrumming with fear, people hustling urgently from place to place, and Holly could feel the pressure of danger beyond the walls and above the ceilings. There was little sense of safety, and no feeling that they could stop running. This pause was a breath between screams.
More Gaians had been brought through to help guard the facility, and the adults – the Unblessed, and the others who’d come in with the convoy – were taking it in turns to eat and rearm. The bikers had lost their leader, but Hitch had said they were all part of a new gang now: survivors.