‘They weren’t your average looters,’ she said.
Mallory stared past her to the now furiously burning village. ‘I didn’t think they were. We’ve seen them all over. I thought they were just some sort of movement — like the Celtic Nation — trying to fill the void in society. But that V on their shirts — you know what it stands for? Veitch.’
Sophie stiffened in his arms, kept her face pressed into his shoulder. ‘Ryan Veitch?’
‘It’s like they worship him… some sort of saviour who’s going to come back and make everything all right.’
Sophie pushed herself away from him, uneasy now. ‘There are myths building up around all of the Five.’
‘But the wrong ones are building up around Veitch. He was the traitor, sold all the others out. Jack Churchill, the leader, died because of what Veitch did. These morons think that’s some kind of plan for living.’
‘Then that only shows what a responsibility we have. Existence, the universe… God, the Goddess… whatever you want to call it — it selects five people to be the champions of life at any one time. Five people from all the multitude. The last Five saved us from extinction after the Fall-’
‘And now we’ve got the job.’
Sophie heard the familiar note in his voice. ‘You still don’t want it?’
‘It’s not as if I have a choice. But it would have been nice to have been asked.’
Salisbury still preyed on Mallory’s mind even though he had left it behind six months ago. His time there at the cathedral had been one of hardship and suffering, as the Church desperately attempted to cling on in a world that had grown largely immune to its teachings.