A Gathering of Saints by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788636230
Publisher: Canelo Books
Published: 2019-05-23T00:00:00+00:00

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The Number stood in the deeper pools of darkness offered by the spreading branches of the trees in St Michael’s Yard and watched the moon rise over the soaring spire of the cathedral. His first sight of it in the last of the daylight only a few hours before had been an epiphany, a moment of the purest truth, the completion of every anguished thought and moment that had brought him here. All fears and doubts had vanished in that instant. This was the hub of the wheel, a spike of holy stone at the centre of the centre, a dark sword uplifted to pierce the heavens.

He’d known the numbers would be perfect even before he bought the little shilling pamphlet from the hawker on Bayley Lane. Three hundred and one feet high from base to tip, the foot of the tower thirty-one feet on a side.

Staring up at it now, beams of light from the moon raking down through the thin, scudding clouds and cutting through the arched rows of windows, turning them to gold, The Number could feel his heart expanding and the blood scouring through his veins like liquid fire.

Two months ago, after the Wren courier had discovered him pawing through her motorcycle panniers, he’d felt sure that his power had been taken from him. Her death and the false ritual of her sacrifice that had followed were nothing more than a mark of his failure – a humiliating mockery.

Now he knew that it had been only an obstacle presented to test his determination and his resolve, a final skirmish before the real battle was finally joined.

It had been difficult, and more than once during the last eight weeks he’d thought of abandoning the task, admitting to the depth of his weakness and forfeiting himself to his demons, but in the end he had triumphed and found another path. This was his reward. The blinding truth that had eluded him for so long: his perfection would come only out of chaos and from that chaos the partial would become complete.

He watched the moon, his guide and mirror. Like him, it lacked only a final sliver of light to become whole. Soon now the last would be revealed and he would know. All the world would know and he would find his perfect peace.

No detail had been overlooked. He’d arrived early that morning and gone to the proper address on Cherry Street in Radford, not far from the gasworks. He’d identified his quarry then followed him to work on foot and by tram. He waited patiently until the day was over then followed him home again, keeping a careful distance as they went along the ancient medieval streets and narrow byways.

In the early evening his chosen victim left the cramped little cottage on Cherry Street and went into the city once again, pausing briefly at a public house on Pond Street, then continuing on to the Gaumont Cinema.

They were showing the new American film Gone With

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