The Dungeon & Christmas With the Executioner

by Ian W. Sainsbury

  The Boy tucked the gun into the waistband of his filthy trousers. No need to shoot out the microphones. He wanted the guards, or—hopefully—Winter, to hear him next time they listened in.

  Bedlam Boy didn't need any light to see inside the compartment. He remembered precisely where each item was placed. He removed the contents of the hidden shelf methodically, laying them out on the floor behind him. With the compartment stripped bare, he knelt on the sawdust in front of his treasure, picking up each item.

  It took him twelve minutes to get ready. His grin broadened. He stepped under the microphone and started singing.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Bedlam Boy stepped out of the darkness. Always important to make a first impression, and he'd thought about this outfit for a long time. He wanted to inspire fear in those who saw him, but he also wanted to have fun, and if a what the hell reaction bought him an extra split second, that was a bonus.

  Mostly, though, he wanted to look bad-ass.

  He wore a samurai-style helmet, and a loose-fitting martial-arts outfit that could accommodate some athletic moves. Everything black, of course. He carried the handgun in his left hand, and a submachine gun in his right. On top of the ninja suit, spare clips for the weapons crossed his body on a harness. The small rucksack was a concession. It spoiled the overall image, but its function was utilitarian. He had a serrated hunting knife in a sheath on his left hip. His wrists, forearms, and shins were covered with dull black polyethylene body-armour pieces, 3D printed to the Boy's specifications. Tool steel blades lined each piece of armour like lethal corduroy.

  The first two guards died before getting a proper look at him. The smaller, stockier guard—Christopher, the one who administered the controlled asphyxiations—was granted a few extra seconds to appreciate the sight.

  Fighters know their strengths and weaknesses. If they aren't cognisant of both before engaging an opponent, their education will be brief and brutal. The Boy's enemy, well-trained and aggressive, didn't hesitate. Christopher moved in close, trying to negate the extra reach of the taller man. A good play, usually. He grabbed Bedlam Boy's right wrist with both hands. Wrist bones are delicate, and someone who knows how to manipulate them can bring the most powerful opponent to their knees. Again, usually. Not today.

  Christopher screamed when his fingers closed around the Boy's wrists. The rows of sharpened steel blades that ridged the armour sliced into his flesh, leaving vivid crimson parallel lines on his palms and fingers when he jumped away. His cry of agony became a frothy gurgle when the Boy slashed the sharp edge of his armoured forearm across the exposed skin of his neck.

  As the guard twitched and spasmed, slumped against the wall, bloody hands pressing against the fatal cut in his throat, Bedlam Boy looked for, and found the camera in the anteroom.

  He made sure it got a good look at him. Kabuto helmets didn't just provide protection during the battles of feudal Japan. They inspired fear, with facial armour often designed to make the wearer appear to be a demon. Bedlam Boy had embraced this feature. His zunari-style kabuto, made of the latest lightweight anti-ballistic materials, included all the defensive aspects of the ancient samurai design, including overlapping plates to protect the neck. The mengu, or facial armour, covered his features from nose to chin. He was a grinning demon. Which was as it should be. Because, at that moment, every available synapse in Bedlam Boy's brain was focused on his immediate plans: to rain down bloody, savage, terrifying revenge on the men who had butchered his family. Anyone who stood between him and them would die.

  The Boy had smeared ash around his cheekbones and forehead, and his dark green eyes burned like embers of a supernatural fire. This ash had been decanted into a small tin box from a vase in the Soho lockup, brought to the dungeon when he'd dug out his secret compartment. The vase had belonged to his mother, the ashes inside all that was left of her.

  He stared into the camera, letting any watchers drink in the sight of what they had brought into their home.

  "I'm coming for you."

  He holstered the handgun, took out the hunting knife, and, kneeling next to the dying guard, sawed off his thumb.

  Bedlam Boy walked out of the anteroom, ignored the stairs leading to the main house, instead entering the underground garage next door. Nine of the twelve parking spaces were occupied. The dirty white van that had brought him waited next to a dark grey SUV. A row of anonymous German saloons lined the opposite wall.

  Only one camera. A burst from the submachine gun destroyed it.

  He looked for Winter's midnight blue Mercedes, finding it parked nearest the doors, away from the others. The Boy sprinted across and tucked a magnetic tracker under the rear bumper. Winter might run, in which case it was best to have a contingency.

  The Boy pressed the button to raise the garage door. As it rolled upwards, clanking, he pressed Christopher's severed thumb against a security pad. Bedlam Boy helped build this house, memorising the blueprints. And he was about to give himself another advantage. The door next to the security pad clicked open, and he stepped inside. The cramped room contained the junction boxes for the house's power supply.

  It was too small a space to risk firing a weapon. The Boy took a grenade from the rucksack, removed the pin, shoved the heavy metal egg among the cables and left.

  Three seconds before detonation.

  Cautious footsteps approached from the house.

  He ducked behind the van as the door from the house opened, putting his hands over his ears. The explosion blew the door off the small room, and the van rocked on its axles, creaking.

  Silence and darkness arrived together. He breathed it in. His rage was so concentrated it burned away every imperfection, leaving behind a pure warrior engineered to kill.

  The Boy took his hands away, listening for the voices behind the door to the house. Two men. Which meant others would approach from outside, in case their prisoner made a break through the garage. He had planned for that. He'd even opened the door for them.

  The voices from the house debated whether to go back for torches. Voice one promised to cover the other if he entered the garage. Voice two wondered if they might swap roles. Voice one pointed out the lack of light. If he moved fast he'd be fine, as the cretin wouldn't be able to see him.

  The cretin. Nice.

  Voice two demurred, but after voice one made a specific threat involving testicles and a hammer, he changed his mind.

  The garage doorway was visible as a grey rectangle. Outside, it was cloudy, the darkness almost as absolute as inside the garage. An orange tinge came from the myriad London streetlights beyond the lake and the woods.

  Bedlam Boy had no supernatural powers, no demonic ability to see in the dark. Nevertheless, darkness was his element, his home. His sanctuary.

  The Boy listened, hearing the truth of things. Born in nothingness, in utter blackness, he had learned to listen, at first, like a baby does, hearing every sound, unable to separate one from another. He began to differentiate noises, separating voices from a dog barking or a car engine starting. Soon he parsed the sounds further, discerning first the difference in pitch between male and female, then more subtle differences of cadence, rhythm, and texture separating one speaker from the next. For much of his early existence, all sounds were equal, the thwick of an opening refrigerator as important as an angry shout outside.

  But Bedlam Boy knew how Tom Lewis experienced the world. When Tom heard the hundreds of sounds that surrounded him, he screened most of them out. If someone spoke to him, he ignored the music from a radio next door. The Boy could choose another way of hearing. It began with perceiving the entire soundscape. If one sound became more important than another, he focused on it, but not at the expense of everything else in the audible spectrum. He did it now, allowing his awareness to open to his surroundings.

  Voice two rushed through the door, rolling on the dusty concrete. No scuff of palms on the floor meant he was likely holding his gun with both hands. Simultaneously,
footsteps approached from outside, soft wet grass giving way to coarse-grained gravel.

  Bedlam Boy's most recent check of Winter's household security, three weeks earlier, revealed no change in the routine. Winter had a female assistant who lived in the house. The guards worked twelve-hour shifts. Four outside the house, two inside. David and Christopher, his daytime jailers; both dead, along with a third, unknown, guard.

  Torch beams played across the garage entrance, coming from both directions. A classic pincer movement. Two beams from each side. One guard already in the garage, another behind the door to the house.

  Six in total. And the amount of cars suggested visitors. Which meant Bedlam Boy was confronting more enemies than he had anticipated. Which, in its turn, meant more violence, more bloodshed.

  More fun.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Winter and Strickland were pragmatic men. Those who rose to the top in organised crime did so through a finely balanced mix of leadership and management ability, an unwavering focus, and, when necessary, an excellent set of practical skills. Winter was a good shot. In his youth, he'd been a brutal hand-to-hand fighter. He fought dirty, not that he would have labelled his approach so judgementally. In the early empire-building years, he had been put to the test twice. Both fights left him bloody and injured. His opponents weren't as lucky, and the manner of their deaths contributed to his legend.

  Winter knew Strickland's sole trader business model required him to keep his physical skills honed. As he'd grown older, he adapted his methods. These days, his hits were clean, methodically planned, and undramatic. His reputation remained unmatched.

  When Winter and Strickland watched Scott, David, and Christopher die at the hands of the creature that emerged from the maw of the dungeon, they didn't waste time on speculation. Incredible as it seemed, Tom Lewis was now armed, and—judging by the speed and efficiency with which he'd killed three men—well-trained and ruthless. They focused on facts. Explanations would come later, after they'd put this lunatic in the ground.

  Winter opened the general channel on the intercom. "Everyone to the house. Armed intruder in the lower level. Shoot on sight. Gatehouse. You're group one. Enter the garage from the north. Patrol team, you're group two. Enter the garage from the south. Drive him back into the house."

  He pictured the six remaining men left in the building. Capable, but not exceptional. Scott had been the golden boy. But all the talent and training in the world means nothing when your opponent puts half a dozen bullets in you.

  "Penny, give every man a handgun and two clips each. Split into three more groups. Group three to the garage. Group four, secure the hall. Group five, take the kitchen and back door. All radios on channel two. Only use them to report a sighting. Penny, with me."

  Winter opened his gun cabinet. No one entered his house armed. Not even Strickland, his Beretta tucked in the glove compartment of his car. Winter handed him a Glock and took one for himself. They both checked the weapons, sliding full clips into place.

  The various groups headed for their positions.

  The explosion in the garage registered as a muffled thud. The lights died as Winter and Strickland reached the study door.

  "Smart," said Winter.

  Strickland answered without turning. Both men kept their voices low, and their sentences short. "Generator?"

  "Not anymore, if that explosion was the control room."

  Explosives. Surely Lewis wasn't working alone. But there'd been no security breach, no alarm from the invisible perimeter.

  If he was alone, then the village idiot was not only not an idiot, but dangerously intelligent. Lewis had blown up the generator. He was following a plan. Meaning Tom Lewis deliberately let himself be captured. Winter became aware of a strange sensation in the pit of his stomach, a kind of lazy flutter. Excitement. Or fear. It had been so long since he'd experienced either emotion, he didn't know which. At some level, he knew, he welcomed the novelty. A worthy opponent. That would be a first.

  Penny's voice. "Winter?" He hadn't been born with that name. He had chosen a new surname when he left home, enjoying the association with a cold, dark season during which everything died.

  "Here," he said.

  If the first explosion registered as a thump, the next was more like a giant hand punching the house. The entire building shuddered once, then settled.

  Winter and Strickland exited the study, their eyes adjusting to the gloom. As they stepped onto the landing and joined Penny, the situation downstairs worsened.

  Down in the hall, group four waited; one man crouching three feet from the front door, the other eighteen feet away, his head and shoulders a dark blot obscuring the pale tiled floor. Both pointed guns at the open door and the stairs to the anteroom, dungeon, and garage.

  A few seconds after the explosion, a cloud of dust billowed up from the basement, filling the hall. The front door opened, and a metal object rolled onto the tiles.

  The object hissed, releasing more smoke and an acrid stench. The men downstairs coughed uncontrollably.

  One cough turned into a wheezing scream and a liquid gurgle.

  A single shot rang out.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Three minutes earlier

  It was a good place, a comfortable place. The home of his enemy, but dark now, and full of the dead. Some of the dead still breathed, still moved, still whispered into radios, and pointed guns. The knowledge of their deaths had yet to reach their central nervous systems, but it wouldn't be long. Bedlam Boy would share that knowledge and they would fall before him like harvest wheat.

  The torch beams didn't reach his hiding place as he crouched behind the van, but he resented the light all the same. It ruined the darkness, like someone shouting in the middle of a cello recital.

  He took a slim black box the size of a cigarette packet from a pouch on his ammunition belt. It had two buttons, and a small antenna which he slid out.

  The Boy watched the swing of the torch beams in the van's wing mirror. The man who'd rolled through the door from the house gestured angrily when a torch picked him out. He crawled back to the door, gun held ready.

  The rest of the men searched the garage, shining torches under each car. The Boy estimated they'd reach his position in twenty seconds.

  After ten seconds, the Boy pressed the first button.

  Back in the dungeon, an mp3 device began playing through the battery-powered speaker placed beside it on the shelf.

  Bedlam Boy smiled at the sound of his own voice.

  Still I sing bonnie boys, bonnie mad boys,

  Bedlam boys are bonnie

  For they all go bare and they live by the air,

  And they want no drink nor money

  "He's doubled back. He's in the dungeon."

  At a hissed command, the light-wavers left the garage, handguns braced against their torches, heading for the singer.

  The Boy squeezed out from behind the van and ran for the garage door, his bare feet whispering on the concrete.

  Timing was important now, but it didn't have to be perfect. He pictured the men flanking the dungeon door. Cautious, especially when their torches picked out the three corpses in the anteroom. No one wanting to go in first. They'd take turns waving their lights, getting a glimpse of the room beyond. They wouldn't see the loudspeaker because he'd propped a piece of plastered wood in front of it.

  Any time now, someone would get brave. Probably counting down from three on their fingers, going in shooting, aiming into each corner.

  As he left the garage and sprinted to the front of the house, Bedlam Boy heard shooting. The soundproof walls made gunshots as dramatic as twisted bubble wrap.

  He pressed the first button on the device again, turning the mp3 player off. Timing the next interval relied on guesswork. There would be a moment's confusion as the shooter wondered if one of his bullets had found its target. When no one returned fire, others might enter the room. The shooter, or one of his colleagues, would shine th
eir torch around the room. They wouldn't find a body. But they would find a pile of pale objects stacked up on either side of the door like miniature sandbags. They might wonder what they were looking at, confused, perhaps, by the thin metal rods sticking out of the putty, looking like a child's sculpture of a giant hedgehog.

  Then someone would recognise the rods as detonators, or the putty as plastic explosives, shout a warning, and they'd try to run.

  No one could run that fast.

  Bedlam Boy pressed the second button. The resulting whomp made him stumble as he rounded the corner to the front door.

  He slowed as he approached the house. Smoke from the explosion drifted into the hallway. He shrugged off the rucksack and removed two canisters. When he replaced the rucksack, he pushed a tube through a hole in its side, feeding it through to his face.

  Inside the demon-shaped mengu covering his nose and mouth, he flicked a switch. He was now breathing his own air supply. He completed the precautions with a pair of goggles.

  Time for stage two.

  Bedlam Boy opened the front door and threw in the first canister, springing back. The smoke had already disorientated the guards. The gas disabled them completely. He found the first guard spluttering, struggling to breathe. The Boy remedied the situation by cutting his throat.

  He looked up, seeing three figures at the top of the stairs. Invisible in the smoke, he pulled out his handgun, aimed, and fired.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Strickland saw the flash of the muzzle through the rising smoke. He was aware of movement to his left, where Winter and Penny stood on the landing alongside him, but his attention remained on the danger below.

  He returned fire. The Glock 19 Winter favoured held three more bullets in the clip than Strickland's usual Beretta, but its trigger guard was uncomfortable. He emptied fifteen rounds in a tight circle around the area of the muzzle flash, re-accustoming himself to its recoil.