Chapter 44

THE SOUND OF WAR

With the policeman still pinned to his wall, Spencer wondered how much further Jack would take things.

He’d already butchered Paul and Michael Sharpley and Lethal Ellis. He’d made Spencer murder Jay-T, nailed the copper up in the flat, and then thrown a woman off the tenth-floor balcony for a laugh.

It wasn’t going well.

Spencer looked at the filth. Jack had driven nails through the cop’s wrists. Blood ran down his arms and stained the wall. His head hung on his chest, but he wasn’t dead yet. He lifted his head now and again and groaned. Sweat seeped from his black hair, down his face. He was only a few years older than Spencer. Twenty, maybe.

Spencer opened a can of beer and took a gulp. He stared at the copper again. He thought about things and decided there wasn’t much he could do.

He turned on the TV and the games console, and the flat filled with the sound of war as he played Medal Of Honor. The gloomy flat came alive with flashing images. Spencer stared at the screen, hardly blinking. His brain filled with carnage.

Animated guns barked. Animated bombs exploded. Animated men died.

Spencer stalked the streets of Kabul, killing, killing, killing.

Time went. It could have been a minute, an hour, a year. Spencer in his bubble and the world outside moving on. But the flat had suddenly grown colder, and the drop in temperature brought Spencer back to reality.

He paused the game and turned, and Jack stood there, dark and vast in the half-light.

“Where did you go?” asked Spencer.

“He’s here, Spencer. The one who prepared the way. My willing servant.”

“I thought I was your servant.”

“You’re my dog.”

“Nice.”

“I sense the evil in his heart. It’s like a lighthouse, pulsing. He has gifts for me. He has what he took from the seers. Gifts that will set me free.”