Belonging

by P M Cole

  With a moment's thought, I looked up and then at the Fury. The rest of the roof detached and swept upwards crashing into the winged nightmare. It screamed in pain, disappearing into the gloom that was creeping across the sky. But I was not done. Lucas looked on in amazement as the five-foot square piece of metal sheet warped and splintered into hundreds of darts, each a few inches long. I walked forward, climbing up the small hill of coal, and looked back along the tracks. Hades' small army of flying creatures were still there, still trying to catch us. The swarm of daggers floated above me, and in a sudden burst I set them free. They sailed through the air and within a second slammed into those chasing us. As if they had crashed into a wall, the demons fell to the snow-covered ground, and as our speed kept on increasing our would-be assassins became swallowed by the coming night.

  *****

  I leaned against the right window of the cab, holding my coat tight around me. Every part of me was as frozen as the landscape we were passing through. Opening the furnace door to pile more coal in momentarily eased the chill, but as soon as the door closed, it was like being plunged into the icy waters of a lake. Lucas was similarly disposed, leaning against the opposite side. Both of us taking turns to look along the track and further to see any flashes of light on the horizon. So far there hadn’t been.

  Hades must have known we were coming for him, but if he had detonated the bomb, we had seen no evidence of it. Was he waiting for me to arrive? Wanting me to see how much death he could cast upon my home? I wouldn’t be surprised. I hoped his arrogance would be his downfall. Either way, every yard we got closer to London, was a yard closer to stopping him.

  I thought back to Mr Gladwell, and the morning I read him the story of the Haywards being mugged. I wondered how different my life would had been if that had not happened. I couldn’t help but feel though, even if I hadn’t read that newspaper article, I still would have ended up on this roofless train hurtling towards London to send a god back to his previous realm.

  “Do you know what station in London we come in to?” shouted Lucas.

  “I have no idea. It doesn’t matter as long as we get there.” I pulled the fishermen’s watch from my coat. 5: 46 p.m.

  “Any plan for what happens if the bomb goes off just as we arrive?”

  I shook my head. It was an honest response. From my dream a week earlier, there was nothing anyone would be able to do if they were too close. And we were definitely going to be that.

  “So, the plan is to distract Hades, while I cast the unbinding spell, and then when the time is right, we detonate the bomb, which somehow doesn’t kill us all?”

  I nodded.

  He looked away. “Right.”

  “If we fail it won’t matter anyway.”

  He snorted out a laugh. “That’s not much of a comfort.”

  As the wheels pounded the iron tracks below us, taking us ever closer to our fate, I smiled. He was right, it wasn’t, and that’s why we had to succeed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  As the shovel-shaped front of the train I had conjured from my imagination tore through mounds of snow, the lights of the capital beckoned to us, just tens of miles ahead. We were almost at our destination.

  Both of us had become buried within our own clothes, but that still did not stop our eyelashes becoming frozen sticks, which fractured on opening and closing our eyes. Apart from Hades, if the journey had been any longer, the conditions themselves would have been enough to put an end to us.

  I noticed the track we were on had become just one of many, and at the top of the steep embankments homes and taller buildings stood to attention.

  As bridge after bridge passed over us, I tried to get a sense of where we were, but somewhere in North London was the best I could do.

  “I think we will need to stop soon!” I shouted between nattering teeth.

  Lucas nodded, or shook I wasn’t sure which. He leaned out, looking forward along the tracks just visible in the dark. His eyes suddenly widened.

  “What is it?” I shouted. Instead of waiting for an answer, I did the same on my side, the force of wind causing me to narrow my field of view, but it was still enough to see there was something wrong up ahead.

  “We’re heading for trouble!” he shouted.

  Standing on a bridge, lit by the street lamps was a huge human form, but this was no larger than average person, for they stood almost as tall as the lamp next to them. Suddenly they jumped down onto the track, and even with the roar of the engine in front of us, I could hear the sound of metal being pulled apart.

  Realising what was about to befall the train, I pulled hard on the brake lever, causing us to fly forward into the front of the cab. My elbow cracked one of the glass dials, but I was more interested in getting the train to stop before we came to whatever the giant had done to the track. As the tender pushed against us and the carriage the same behind it, I extended my thoughts out to the wheels and pistons doing my best to slow their movement, as I did, the momentum pinned me to the metal wall. As the wheels screeched in defiance, I had no idea if my efforts would be enough.

  The engine shunted, but we slowed to a stop. Then the ground shook, and something bellowed out ahead of us. I gathered my strength and both I and Lucas peered out of the open doors of the cab.

  “It’s an ogre!” he shouted. His hand briefly came alight with flame, but then stuttered and quickly distinguished. “I don’t have the magic in me to—”

  The cab suddenly lunged to the left, the world around us and the engine, tipping over. I managed to scramble towards the tender and climbed up then leaped free as the whole train became detached from the rails, and I landed heavily on the ice-covered gravel to the side of the tracks. The air filled with an almighty crash, as the carriage, tender, and locomotive all slammed into the snow and dirt.

  In the gloom, moving in and out of shadow I could see the leviathan of a man, his tree-like arms letting go of the front of the engine. He then swung his head in my direction. I was his next target.

  He thundered towards me, his torn and ragged clothes flapping in the wind, each forward step sending a judder through the ground.

  I focused my thoughts, but I was still so frozen that the pain of that was overcoming my efforts. The shovel that had somehow been thrown free, flew through the air and pinged off the creature's beige skin-coloured skull, without him even noticing.

  Was this to be my fate? Our mission ending on some forgotten embankment in north London. I redoubled my concentration, but I was too late, and his shadow loomed over me.

  “Argh!” The ogre boomed out into the night, then staggered back with his hand covering a stream of blood running down the right side of his face. Auto buzzed around his head, swaying, and ducking beneath the giant man’s swipes, although now he only had one eye to try and catch the mechanical bird with.

  I still only had seconds. I felt the train engine with my mind and started to rip it apart. Pieces of metal pulled from the main frame of the locomotive, melted together and then slammed into the towering creature, wrapping around his arms and legs, and bringing him to the ground. I got back to my feet as he struggled to do the same, but I tightened my metal grip on him, tighter and tighter until there was a snap, and he fell, motionless.

  “She’s a witch!” shouted a man above me. I looked up to an audience of casuals, some with lanterns.

  Ignoring them I ran across the track, first going to the engine cab. Lucas was nowhere to be seen. I then ran along the carriage.

  ‘M…o…r…e…B…a…d…C…o…m…i…n…g…!’ chirped Auto above me.

  “Can anyone here me!” I shouted as I got to the rearmost door. No one replied but I could hear movement inside.

  I climbed into the horizontal open doorway. Colin was kneeling next to someone, but I couldn’t see who. As I went to move forward, a noise came from behind, and I whirled around. Lucas fell forward into the carriage, blood covering his face. Caught between which way to move, I moved further into the
carriage, walking across broken glass where the windows used to be. Melanie and Colin were kneeling next to Gloria, the former crying. Colin looked up at me with red eyes.

  “Where’s Daniel!” I screamed. “He can heal her!”

  “I can’t bring the dead back,” said Daniel, behind me. “But I tried anyway.” I turned around as he walked away towards Lucas.

  “Try again!” I demanded.

  Melanie sprang up and pushed me back against the awkwardly positioned seat. “You did this! You killed her!”

  ‘B…a…d…C…o…m…i…n…g…!’ chirped Auto from outside one of the broken windows above me, which snow was now falling through.

  “We have to go! There’s more of Hades' creatures coming for us!” I said, just a few inches from her face. My expression softened. “I’m sorry, but we have to go!”

  Her lip trembled. “I won’t leave her!”

  For a moment I was a sea of conflicting emotions, then numbness started to creep across my battered mind. Too many times I had seen tragedy, and I knew the only way to stop it from happening again was to keep going.

  Lucas climbed onboard the carriage, seemingly in better shape. “Then we take her with us. Help me carry her.”

  Colin who appeared to be thankfully unscathed, lifted Gloria’s body, along with Daniel and Lucas, and we all moved along the carriage into the deteriorating weather conditions outside. Nearby was a muddy path and a set of stairs which moved up to the street above. Police whistles rang out in the distance. We needed to leave before we had more problems to deal with. Daniel placed the fallen witch over his shoulder, and we all staggered onto the path, and then up the brick steps, splitting a small crowd of onlookers at the top of it, who instinctively stepped back.

  A carriage rolled by; the driver seemingly oblivious to what had happened just yards down the slope. I ran out in front of the horses causing them to rear up.

  He grumbled something in my direction as one of the doors opened and a man holding onto his tall hat peered out. A railing from a nearby metal fence flew through the air and hovered in front of the driver who looked at it hypnotised, then as if waking from a dream, jumped down. The passenger, seeing the same, also quickly made his escape.

  “Everyone inside!” I shouted. As they climbed onboard carrying Gloria inside, I looked at Lucas. “Can you get us to Holborn and my shop?”

  He nodded and jumped up to the front of the carriage, taking the reins. I moved up the steps, closing the small door behind me and sat heavily. We surged forward, parting more of the crowd as coppers appeared, pushing through those standing around.

  We careened around the corner, the wheels sliding on the freshly laid snow and onto the wide main road. The streets were strangely deserted of traffic, while a deathly white blanket of snow had rounded all sharp edges, apart from the ones it created itself on ledges. Most shops were boarded up, and those that braved the icy conditions were hidden beneath their multiple layers of clothing.

  As Lucas encouraged the horses to move us through the desolate streets faster, there was mostly silence in the carriage, with Melanie silently sobbing while holding her sister. A part of me wanted to do the same, but other emotions within me were more powerful. I needed revenge for all the misery my father had brought upon myself and so many others.

  I started to recognise some of the buildings moving past, and just as I leaned forward to get a better look we stopped. We were parked in the side road which the alley to the back of my shop came from.

  I jumped out onto the frozen street and held the door open for the others to help Gloria down. I then led the way into the alley and pushed open the back gate. I half expected some new horror to be waiting in the yard but, thankfully, it was only full of shadows. I ran forward, feeling my way through the gloom, then opened the back door with the key which was hidden under a nearby slate. We all moved inside, and they placed Gloria down.

  I knelt before Melanie who had found Mr Gladwell’s old chair. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. All of this is my—”

  She shook her head. “No… no… this is his… your father's fault.” She looked more directly at me. “You are not to blame. You have been trying to stop him all this time. I think a part of me thought it was all a game, but I was so very wrong.”

  “You can stay here with your sister. I think you will be safe.”

  She stood as I did. “Just promise me when this is over, Hades will be dead or banished from this realm?”

  I held her hand. I wanted to lie, to tell her what she wanted to hear. But all I had left was honesty. “I will do everything I can to make that happen.”

  Colin appeared with a blanket, which he dropped over Gloria’s body.

  “We shouldn’t stay here for too long. They will probably be coming,” said Lucas.

  I looked around the four ashen faces. “I think we should split up. I’ll go with Colin.” I looked at Lucas and Melanie. “Both of you make your way to the cathedral.”

  “We can take the tunnels, there are—”

  Lucas shook his head interrupting Colin. “They will expect us to take the tunnels. We should all go over ground but keep to the shadows. Use the back alleys wherever possible. St Paul’s is no more than thirty minutes, even in these conditions.”

  “We should take different routes as well,” I said. “I’ll go directly down Holborn and over the viaduct and come in to the Cathedral from the north. You both come in more southerly with Daniel. If I’m right about what’s there, it will be heavily guarded.” I looked at the tall blonde man who had been leaning on the frame between the rooms, looking away from us, and into the shop. “Are you prepared to fight Cassandra and the others?”

  He nodded without looking at me.

  I looked at Lucas. “And can you do the spell?”

  Melanie moved towards him. “I will lend my magic to his, but I have to find Katerina. Do you think she will be there?”

  “I don’t know, but if she’s not we will find her after.”

  She nodded.

  “I need some of your blood…” said Lucas.

  I looked around the worktop where I had prepared food, and pulled one of the knifes from the wall. I drew it across a part of my palm until the blade contained a trickle of blood and handed it to him.

  He stashed it inside his coat. We all took one final look at each other then left.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Colin and I moved into a sliver of an alleyway, the end of which gave us a glimpse of our destination. Pillars, stone arches, and a huge dome majestically receded into dark clouds. A myriad of shops, most with their windows covered with wooden boards sat to the left and right of us, and there was no sign of any living thing in any direction.

  Our journey from the shop hadn’t been long but the recent death had made it arduous. Each time I felt grief come upon me, threatening to drag me down to a place I would not recover from, I dug my nails into my palm, the pain bringing me back to my surroundings.

  “They gotta have some monsters guarding the main entrance,” Colin said, his breath forming small puffs of white mist. “Could do with some of the Ratters right now…”

  I placed my hand on his shoulder. “When this is over, we will find them. You should maybe hang back here—”

  His expression turned to derision. “I’m not leaving your side!”

  I sighed. “I might not be able to protect you!”

  “You might be some goddess, or something, but you can’t do everything, see everything. That’s where I can help!”

  Auto chirped from the window ledge above. I looked up and smiled. “Yes, I’m lucky to have you too.”

  I nodded. “OK, but please be careful."

  He nodded.

  We walked forward, keeping as close to the walls and boards and in shadow as much as possible. The soft snow masked the sound of our footsteps, but that made the silence even worse. We arrived at a junction at the end of the row of shops, the Cathedral now only tens of yards away. On the
other side of a small alley which ran across us, was a small wall, with hardly any snow on it. Something looked odd about the scene, then I realised it should have had iron railings as well, but they had all been stripped away, no doubt in preparation for my arrival.

  I looked at the northerly entrance to the building. A wooden door stood at least twelve feet in height, behind six pillars and a series of stone steps. It appeared firmly closed, and I had no intention of breaking through it, at least not yet.

  Colin nodded to the right of the steps. “I think there’s an entrance to the crypt over there.”

  “We’ll try that.”

  We ran forward past where the iron fence should have been, and onto the icy stone slabs. A series of small windows sat at the base of the building. From one of them, a dim glow emanated. We fell to our knees and tried to see inside, but the glass was covered in frost. I looked around and quickly spotted a staircase descending into the ground.

  The steps were slippery, and we made good use of the handrail as we made our way down to another wooden door, this one more human-sized in its dimensions. It also had an iron handle and lock which I broke without hesitation. Pushing the door back revealed a narrow space of stone walls. Before entering I looked back to Auto perched on the steps we just came from. “Find the others; if they see you, they will know we are here. Try not to be seen by our enemies!” He fluttered into the air as flakes of ice fell around us.

  I looked back to the doorway and swore, realising I was alone. Colin had gone on ahead. I walked into the crypt, closing the door quietly. A single lantern cast the stone arches, alcoves, and sarcophagi containing the heroes from the past, into stark relief.