Doctor Who_ The Taint - Michael Collier [72]
But what good were strength and vindication at last when you were stuck here - in a place you'd almost managed to convince yourself didn't exist?
A part of him wanted to believe he was finally round the twist, to give in, but no: he'd never let that soft-shandy side of him have its say. All his life, he'd been right. Hadn't he been right that the world was plotting against him?
Hadn't they taken his family away? He'd killed, and he'd beaten, he'd done what was right - what he'd been told to do. Voices in his head.
The coppers, the judge, they'd all just laughed. Oldest one in the book, they'd said. When Taylor had smashed his head against the dock, trying to make the voices start again, they'd still thought he was putting it on, couldn't bear to let him go to a nice cushy hospital instead of a cell. They'd wanted him bad.
The devil had liked him bad, it had seemed, but then he'd got bored, had abandoned him. Wasn't much Taylor could do locked up and pumped full of drugs, was there? But whatever anyone said - and they all tried it, doctors, nurses, his wife - he'd been right. The voices had been there, and the devil had been inside him. He'd just given up and gone away in the end, that was all. The evidence was plain to see if anyone cared to look: Peter Taylor, on his tod, nothing and no one at all inside him now.
That wasn't so bad, really. It gave him the freedom to do whatever he wanted, as soon as he got out of here.
He punched the softly glowing wall in frustration, feeling his knuckles tear on the crystals. Suddenly, as if summoned, a man was with him - a golden man, wearing a big round helmet of scorched metal. He looked like...
Taylor wanted to say like an angel, but they didn't exist, he knew that.
Taylor stood up, saw himself in the blackened globe, his own features distorted, bent out of shape.
The golden man held out his hand to Taylor, who found himself offering his own. It was taken, and Taylor felt a whip crack of energy as gold fingers closed around his wrist. He became aware of his own pulse, thudding in his ears, drowning out all sound, and then the fingers of the angel's other hand gripping the base of his skull. A voice, a strange harmonic voice, sounded up inside him, as if it weren't just his ears hearing the sound but his whole body. Maybe this man was an angel. His words were everywhere.
I speak of a people far distant, who once dwelt in paradise, it said. The people had endured so long that units of time became meaningless, and they became gods. The earth was forsaken for the heavens. Oracles such as myself that could divine the mysteries of the heavens found favour with our gods, and did share in their righteousness.
Then, untold centuries ago, we proved ourselves unworthy seers. A cataclysm occurred that split the heavens. Ruination was visited upon the gods. So many tumbled from the skies and were fallen.
The heavens were all but empty, then we saw that strange portals had opened in the sky. Through them came a plague of devils, that stripped the flesh of the gods and swallowed all life.
The gods made themselves men so they might reach bell, the domain of the Beast, unhindered. There, they did battle. And the Beast were afraid.
The men had once been gods, and hell could not hope to match their holy fury. The demons began to perish.
Knowing their number did dwindle, the Beast escaped the gods, and took bell with them to wrap round other worlds, to cast souls beyond counting into their infernal pit, until all life everywhere was spent.
The oracles became the messengers of the gods, spreading their word and destroying the devil in his many guises.
You are of the chosen. You are a prophet. I shall mend you and make you whole, fill you with the strong voice of the gods.
Words and vision blurred together. It was as if Peter Taylor awoke from a trance, but he knew he had to be dreaming still.
'Push off,' he told the golden man. 'Devils speak louder than any of your poxy gods.'
A needle sprang from the finger of the angel,