The Power of Five Oblivion

chairman followed. The two guards remained below. Matt was still alive but the breath was rattling in his throat. Blood was running down into his eyes, which were dazed and out of focus.
    “It’s time to finish the performance right now,” the chairman announced, speaking directly to Richard but loudly enough for everyone else to hear. “I’d say the boy deserves a rest. But we want him to take away some very special memories of what happened here today, so you can say goodbye to him before we kill you.
    “This is where it ends for you, Mr Cole. But not for him. I think it’s important for you to know this. When you’re dead, we’re going to take your little friend somewhere quiet and let him recover. I’d say it’ll take a couple of months. There are a lot of broken bones in there. But we’re going to look after him really well, and in the end, he’ll heal. He’ll get strong.
    “And then we’re going to do this again. We’re going to bring him in here and we’re going to tie him up and start all over again. And again, and again, and again – we’re going to keep doing it for the next one hundred years. He’ll be an old man and we’ll still be working on him. Can you imagine that?
    “So why don’t you say goodbye while you still can? Then we’re going to kill you in front of him. But in a way you’re lucky. You only get to die once.”
    The chairman gestured. The crowd was still silent, hoping that Matt would speak, maybe cry for mercy. Matt’s lips were cracked and swollen but they seemed to be moving slowly, trying to form words. No sound came out.
    Richard glanced at the chairman with more loathing than he had felt for anyone or anything in his life. He knew now exactly what he had to do. He understood at last why he had been given the knife.
    Before anyone could stop him, he took two steps forward, pulled it out of his belt and, looking Matt straight in the eyes, plunged it into his heart.

LONDON (HOLLY)
    I will never forget those terrible last moments at St Meredith’s church.
    My heart was already pounding as we slipped out of the house where we’d been hiding … number 13, although I never found out the name of the street. Everything was very quiet – it was still early morning – but in a way that made me even more nervous. There was so much wreckage, so many broken-down buildings and rusting cars, that I could almost feel the ghosts wandering along the pavements. And there must have been millions of those. It was incredible to think that in the space of less than ten years, a whole city could have been reduced to this wasteland. But then I suppose in other parts of the world, with earthquakes and super-volcanoes, it had happened in minutes. I can’t even begin to imagine how London had been before the terrorists came. I just don’t have that much imagination. What I saw that day was just the vaguest impression of a city, a few scraps blowing in the wind.
    We came out into the road, or what was left of it. I could make out some of the white lines painted in the middle and the yellow lines, which used to mean you weren’t allowed to park, but they were partly concealed by dust and debris, and actually it was impossible to tell where the road was or where it went. The church was very close to us, only a hundred metres or so away, and as it was just about the only building that was still standing, more or less intact. It seemed enormous. It could have been a monument to the whole dead city of London. There were bits of shops and offices on either side of us, so we weren’t completely exposed. But like everyone else, I wished Jamie had chosen a time when it was darker or rainier to bring us out.
    “Stay close,” Will said, speaking in a whisper.
    I didn’t need to be told. I had Amir and Ryan in front of me. Simon and Blake were in front of them. Jamie was next to me. And the two brothers, Graham and Will, were behind. Jamie and I had each been given a gun too and I hoped that if I had to use mine, I’d be more effective than I had been on the Lady Jane . To be honest, I was glad to be surrounded by so many armed men, and as we moved down the street – quickly but carefully, looking in every direction – I did my best to stay right in the middle.
    The attack, when it came, was completely unexpected. It didn’t come from shape-changers, the evil policewoman or anything to do with the Old Ones.
    It came from dogs.
    It was probably quite by chance that they found