The Power of Five Oblivion

don’t mind. I’m glad he came.” Scott tried to smile. “It’s good to see you again, Richard.”
    “It’s good to see you, Scott.” Richard tried to sound as if he meant it.
    “So here we are again.” Scott made a gesture. He was wearing gloves. All his clothes looked brand new and expensive.
    “You said you could help us,” Matt said.
    “That’s right, Matt. That’s what I said.”
    At that moment, Richard knew with absolute certainty that they shouldn’t have come. The boy who was talking wasn’t the Scott they had known. He seemed to have aged ten years – not in appearance but in the way he stood there, the way he talked. Skua Bay was a cold, arid place but it suited him well. Scott had been touched by evil and it had contaminated him. The boy he had once been was already dead.
    “How many people were there camped out on the ice?” Scott went on. “Two thousand? Three? I guess quite a lot of them died this morning. What a waste of time that was! Who persuaded them that they had the slightest chance of winning the battle? I hope it wasn’t you, Matt. Because if it was, you have an awful lot of blood on your hands.”
    Matt didn’t reply.
    “You do realize that the whole lot of them could have been killed,” Scott went on. “By the way, that was a neat trick you pulled, breaking the ice. That was you, I suppose?”
    “Yes.”
    “It still wouldn’t have stopped them. The Old Ones could have jumped right over if they’d wanted, and kept coming. In fact, right now they could be out there, destroying the boats one by one. But that’s not going to happen. That’s the good news, Matt. Nobody else has to die.”
    “And why is that, Scott?” Matt asked.
    “Because that’s not what they want. What’s the point of ruling the world if there’s nobody left in it? They didn’t set up Oblivion and all the rest of it because they wanted to fight the World Army. They set it up because they wanted you.”
    “And how are they going to get me?”
    “They already have.”
    The words could have been a signal. At that moment the beach came alive, suddenly exploding out and taking shape around them. They had been there all along, in front of their eyes. They had seen them without seeing them. Flies, in their millions. The entire cliff face peeled away. It wasn’t black at all. It was white. The whole surface, every last inch, had been made up of more flies, clinging to the snow. Richard hardly dared to breathe. The air darkened as the insects poured down on them, cutting off the sea and the sky, blocking out the light.
    Scott had betrayed them after all. Richard saw the flies beginning to take the shape of fifty men, an entire platoon. Already he was pulling out his gun. He knew it would be useless against the soldiers. Even when they were solid, a bullet would pass right through them … he had seen as much in the battle, earlier that day. But they weren’t his target. He would kill Scott for what he had done. It didn’t matter that he was a Gatekeeper. He deserved to die.
    You can’t shoot me, Richard. You can’t move .
    Scott hadn’t spoken the words. He had thought them. Richard felt him inside his head and instantly his arm came to a halt with the gun only half-raised, still pointing at the ground. He tried to step forward but his legs wouldn’t obey him. He couldn’t even shout. He was locked into place, forced to watch the trap close in.
    Fifty metres out at sea, Lieutenant Greyson saw the ambush and swung the Zodiac round, hitting the throttle. At the same time, he shouted into his radio transmitter. “Mayday! Mayday!”
    Five rapid-response skimmers were already being launched, just as Cain had promised. But the Old Ones had been prepared for this too. In an instant, a creature appeared, plummeting out of the sky. It was a bird – but not one that belonged in this part of the world and it was a hundred sizes too big. Black feathers, a white collar around its neck, a curving beak … the bird was a South American condor. It swooped down over the Zodiac. One moment Greyson was there, leaning forward with his hand on the outboard motor, the next he had gone and the Zodiac was spinning in circles with nobody to guide it. It was impossible to say if he had been knocked into the sea or devoured. The condor let out an ear-splitting screech and soared back into the clouds. The other marines held back, knowing that if they tried to cross the water they would only die.
    Matt was still