‘Jesus Christ,’ the chancellor said in a hushed, sickened tone.
The bone-creature moved like a rattlesnake to grab a soldier standing off-camera. There was a roar like rocks falling on metal and the soldier was whisked aloft as though he weighed nothing. Bony protuberances rose mysteriously from the creature’s body before shooting out rapidly to impale the soldier. The screams were worse than the deafening bouts of static. The camera wavered, but the operator remained true to his mission.
Once the soldier was dead, the creature pulled his body close. It looked like a hug for a departed but respected enemy, yet within seconds it was clear what was really happening. The soldier’s bones gradually burst through his skin to be absorbed into the body of the thing that had killed him, drawn, almost magnetically, into the depths of the form. What remained was tossed aside with a soft, squishing sound that the camera picked up with sickening detail.
The audience was rooted in horror. The General, who had viewed the footage twenty-seven times, searched their faces, seeing the same emotions he had felt himself with each subsequent viewing.
A hand with long, unnaturally thin fingers appeared in the middle of the screen. It was apparent to everyone that it was made of insects and other small, wriggling creatures. A honey bee crawled near the wrist. Beetles and flies, brown and amber centipedes, wasps and midges, all together in one seething morass.
The hand moved forward rapidly towards the camera lens; a jagged flash of white, then black.
Silence fell on the room for a long moment, then Manning asked, ‘What kind of a defence can you mount against something like that?’ Her question was followed by supportive mutterings.
‘A robust defence, the best we have,’ the General replied without revealing the anger he felt at her defeatism.
‘What are you planning, General?’ Reid was thoughtful, unruffled, his expensive pinstripe suit an echo of another time.
‘We’ve mapped the terrain and the location of the enemy’s force. They’ve made no attempt to hold a defensible position-’
‘They don’t care,’ Manning interrupted.
The General ignored her. ‘A direct assault could decimate them.’
‘Conventional weapons?’ Reid asked.
‘For the time being. I’ve made no secret of my disdain for the so-called supernatural artefacts that you’ve been amassing since the Fall. If Mister Kirkham — or anyone, for that matter — can convince me firstly that they work and secondly of their reliability in a battlefield scenario, then I will obviously put them to good use. Until then, we utilise the tried-and-tested methods.’
‘They didn’t work at the Fall, so why should they work now?’ The foreign secretary looked as if he was about to cry.
The General tried to keep his rising anger in check, but it was becoming difficult. ‘It’s a matter of application and strategy-’
‘You tried a tactical nuke at Newcastle,’ Reid noted.
The General gritted his teeth. ‘As I said, if any of the so-called experts at our disposal can find an unorthodox weapon that works, I will use it. The onus remains, as it has done since the Fall, with the Ministry of New Technology.’ Or the Ministry of Magic as the squaddies contemptuously called it, the General thought. It had proved a useless distraction from the outset; nobody could get any of the artefacts to work effectively, and it was unlikely they ever would. If they were still functional, there was a mechanics behind them that no one could grasp.
‘What about the local population?’ Manning asked. ‘Do we need to arrange evacuation?’
‘Intelligence suggests that the enemy has already wiped out all civilians in the immediate vicinity. There’s a portion of Scotland to the north-west under the control of an organisation called Clan McTaff. They used to be a group who dressed up in medieval garb and the like for battle re-enactments of the fantasy kind.’ The General shook his head wearily. ‘Obviously they were extremely well equipped for life after the Fall.’
‘What are you saying? That fantasy gamers shall inherit the earth?’ Manning noted with sarcasm.
The General ignored her. ‘They’ve established a small, sustainable community but they don’t appear to be under any immediate threat. The enemy seems to be directing its attention towards the south-’
‘Towards us,’ Reid noted.
‘A decapitation exercise would be standard practice,’ the General said. ‘Destroy the Government, all resistance falls apart.’
‘You’re ascribing them human motivations,’ Manning said. ‘How can you even begin to guess what they’re planning?’ Her eyes were cold, hard and distrustful.
The General remained calm. ‘Leave the military planning to me, Ms Manning. You concentrate on doing whatever it is you do best.’ He checked his watch. ‘Now, I think the PM is waiting for my assessment. I hope I can count on your full support.’
‘What else can we do?’ the foreign secretary said resignedly. ‘Bang the drums loudly. And off we go to war.’
Mallory’s whole body ached from the wounds he had sustained on Cadbury Hill and then from his rough treatment at the hands of his captors. But he had experienced worse, particularly in the grim days during his training as a Knight Templar at Salisbury Cathedral when the Church authorities had decided he was a troublemaker who couldn’t be trusted to keep the Faith. He’d survived then and he’d do so now. Life had hardened him since his younger days, the times to which his subconscious would never allow him to return. Before, the death of the woman he loved would have left him broken and pathetic; now his grief was an icy foundation deep inside him. On it he piled cold hatred and bitter thoughts of revenge, building a temple through which he would find an exit.
But even there, in his bleak cell, the miserable, haunting image wouldn’t leave him alone. A burst of fire in the darkness, like the breath of a Fabulous Beast. It would break into his mind unbidden, stirring the deepest recesses of his memory where all the nasty things lay hidden. A notification of his death, now tied inextricably to the death of Sophie. Death was all around him, all the time.
The emotions around the memory had grown even more intense, as if Sophie had helped him to keep them in check, and now that she was gone the door had been thrown open wide. Sometimes he would pummel the side of his head to try to drive the desperate thoughts away, or bite his lip until the blood ran.
And sometimes in his weaker moments he felt as though he was falling apart. A hard focus on revenge for Sophie’s murder was all he had to cling to.
The room was spartan: a chair, a chemical toilet, a cheap collapsible bed. He guessed it had been an office once, before the powers that be had turned it into a holding cell. There were others nearby; every morning and night he could hear his jailers moving along the corridor, silently distributing food. Yet the sounds that came from the other cells disturbed him immensely: inhuman shrieks and cries, an alien cacophony. He was in prison with beasts. Was that how his captors perceived him?
The chains on his wrists suggested so, though they’d only been put on after he’d attempted to kick the door down and then head-butted a guard. Some people had no sense of humour.
Mallory’s face hardened at the sound of drawing bolts. The door swung open to reveal the man who had led the team that had captured him, the most unlikely leader of a security force that Mallory could imagine. He’d heard the guards mention his name — Hunter — but they all spoke of him with a respect bordering on fear, despite his dandyish appearance.
‘Here for the torture?’ Mallory said.
‘We don’t do torture as a rule, but keep asking — you might convince me to make an exception.’ Hunter closed the door with a surreptitious glance into the corridor. ‘Unofficial visit. Stand at ease.’
Mallory clanked the manacles attached to his ankles. ‘Quite the comedian.’
‘I like to keep the prisoners entertained. Raises morale.’ Hunter spun the chair around and sat on it backwards.
‘You know I’m not going to answer any que
stions — with or without torture.’
‘Fair enough. Then you die with us.’
Mallory eyed Hunter obliquely, but couldn’t read the truth — or otherwise — of the statement.
Hunter stared at his boots for a second or two, then said, ‘I’m sorry about your girlfriend. I mean that. She shouldn’t have died. The wanker who did it has been punished. Severely. I know that won’t make it right, but I reckon that to the kind of bloke you seem to be, it will mean something.’
‘And how are you getting punished? You were his leader. I thought that’s where the buck’s supposed to stop.’ The cold anger in Mallory’s voice made Hunter look up sharply.
The two of them stared at each other, measuring, judging. Mallory saw some of himself in Hunter, but that didn’t lessen his feelings.
‘Don’t come here talking about Sophie,’ Mallory said eventually. ‘It’ll only make me want to kill you quicker.’
‘All right, I won’t talk about her. But I meant what I said.’
‘You know what, I’m sick of authorities messing with my life. Back in Salisbury it was the Church. Here it’s little boy soldiers who still think the rule of Government means something. Have a look at the world out there: it’s chaos, everywhere. You’re just playing at this, pretending it’s still like it was before the Fall, while reality passes you by.’ Mallory felt his repressed emotions about Sophie fighting for release. He forced himself to remain calm. ‘Why have you gone to all this trouble to bring me here? I’m a nobody. You’re just wasting resources-’
‘You’re not a nobody. You’re one of the most important people in Britain at the moment.’
Mallory grew still; he could see the seriousness in Hunter’s eyes.
‘Do you know what I mean?’ Hunter pressed.
When Mallory said nothing, Hunter stood up to face Mallory on his level, cracked his knuckles, then proceeded to pace while he spoke. ‘I’ve just come back from Scotland. We’ve been invaded. I don’t know what they are, but they’re worse than all the things that came with the Fall. A friend of mine, he was warned by some kind of Higher Power. It told him we’d been noticed.’
Mallory flinched. Hunter saw it from the corner of his eye and struck like a rattlesnake. ‘You’ve heard it, too.’
Mallory considered not replying, but it was pointless. ‘I met one of the gods on my travels. She said the very same words. We’ve been noticed. Something is rising up from the edge of the universe to destroy us.’
‘Well, it’s here. Or at least the advance guard are. I saw them. Things don’t look too good.’
‘You want the honest truth? Now that Sophie’s gone I don’t really care. Maybe it would be better if the whole human race was wiped out. Even after we’ve been taught a nasty lesson by nature, we’re still venal, malicious, hypocritical, back-stabbing, selfish killers.’
‘That’s just me. Don’t judge everybody by the same yardstick.’ Hunter quickly realised that his feeble attempts at humour weren’t working and changed tack. ‘OK, you say that now, but I reckon that deep down you don’t believe it. I’m a good judge of character, have to be in my job — life or death decisions, see? Not like meeting someone in a pub. And I say you’re decent. Someone who’d do the right thing in any situation. And what proves me correct is that you’re a Brother of Dragons. Whatever power put you in that exclusive club is going to go for good men and women. Not a little bit good. The best. Heroes. That’s quite a pedigree, and I’d say it’s a huge burden to shoulder, but you’ll live up to it or you wouldn’t have been chosen in the first place. See — circular logic when you say it like that.’
Mallory lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. Suddenly he felt weary. Obligation. Responsibility. That’s all it had been for so long. He wanted a rest.
‘Another thing,’ Hunter continued. ‘This thing that’s noticed us… I reckon it’s the reason you exist. The Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, defenders of humanity, were created to stop this thing that wants to eradicate us. Make sense?’
‘Here’s a little irony,’ Mallory said. ‘There are rules of Existence you don’t even know about. Patterns. Things have to be in place for everything to work, like some big magic ritual. And for the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons to do their business, there has to be five of us. And you’ve killed one. So congratulations. When they take stock of who doomed the human race, your name will be at the top of the list.’
‘So what are you saying? If there aren’t five of you, it’s all over?’ Mallory could see Hunter’s mind whirring. ‘What about the last five? The ones who fought at the Fall?’
‘You know the stories — two of them are dead-’
‘But three of them are still around somewhere.’
‘I don’t think it works like that.’ Mallory was going to say more, but he could see that Hunter was no longer listening to him. After a moment, Mallory continued, ‘So all this, Sophie’s death, it’s all about the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. Because you short-sighted, meat-headed, pig-ignorant politicians and soldiers think you need to control us to get us to do the job charged to us by some authority much higher than you.’
Mallory had clearly struck a nerve. ‘There’s been a lot of stupidity done in the name of politics. Don’t expect any better of this regime,’ Hunter said.
As Hunter stood up to leave, something struck Mallory forcibly. ‘What’s going on here?’ he asked. ‘This chat wasn’t sanctioned, was it? If you’d been sent here by your superiors, you wouldn’t have come alone. There’d at least have been someone taking notes.’
‘You’re not as dumb as you look.’ Hunter smiled, giving nothing away, and slipped quietly out of the door.
Hunter raced through the empty halls. He found Hal drinking whisky alone in his room, staring out through the frosted panes at the snow-swept college grounds.
‘Everyone’s looking for you,’ Hal said, his words slurred. ‘The troops are shipping out tonight.’
‘Never mind about that.’ Hunter snatched the whisky bottle from Hal and took a long draught. ‘I’ve got a job for you while I’m gone.’
‘What? Refile your CD collection?’
‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’re not the one going to his death.’
‘Don’t say that!’
Hunter was taken aback by Hal’s unusual passion. ‘I want you to use all the many — and I’m sure there are many — skills at your disposal to find out what you can about the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons-’
‘What?’ Hal’s face looked unnaturally white in the candlelight.
‘Old members, new members. There’s supposed to be five of them. We’ve identified two. See if you can dig up any secret files-’
Hal shook his head. ‘I’ll never be able to do it.’ It was a lie: Samantha had already offered to help.
‘Don’t be so defeatist. I know I love drama, but this is for real: it’s life or death. I’m counting on you, Hal.’ Hunter’s eyes narrowed; he could see something in his friend’s face. ‘What is it you’re not telling me?’
‘Nothing.’ Hal looked back out of the window.
‘If you know anything about these people, now’s not the time to keep it from me-’
‘I don’t know anything,’ Hal replied firmly. ‘I just don’t think you’re going to have much luck finding the other three. Needles in a very big haystack.’
For the first time, Hunter felt a barrier between himself and the man who had been his only real friend for the last few years. He was surprised how sad it made him feel.
‘Come on, you’d better see me off,’ Hunter said. ‘I don’t want you developing a Wilfred Owen complex later, so best get all the tears out of your system now.’
They made their way out of the college buildings in silence. The troops were preparing for dust-off in the Deer Park behind Magdalen, the stink of oil and gasoline on the night wind powerfully evocative in a way they would never have imagined a few years ago, when it was commonplace. There were twenty troop choppe
rs lined up on the makeshift airfield, the snowy perimeter marked by flares and burning oil drums.
‘Not much of an army,’ Hal said.
‘This is just the top brass and intelligence.’ Hunter mentally checked off his ammunition and felt the weight of the pistol at his hip. ‘We had troops stationed in Rochdale and Barnsley and they’ve already been mobilised. Should have made camp by now.’
‘You think you’ve got enough men?’ They both knew the fatality figures during the Fall and there’d been numerous problems with recruitment since.
‘We have what we have. They’re well armed.’
‘I don’t know how you can be so optimistic, Hunter.’
‘Nobody ever achieved anything by aiming low.’
The General marched past with his coterie, heading towards the nearest chopper, then paused and came back to Hunter. ‘We’re counting on you.’
‘I know.’
The General met his eyes for a moment, and Hunter was pleased at the degree of defiance the General saw there.
‘What was that all about?’ Hal asked when the General had disappeared into the chopper.
‘I’m going to be leading a small team behind enemy lines once they start the frontal assault. Cut a few hamstrings, that kind of thing.’
‘You’re mad. That’s suicide.’
‘It’s my job. I can’t start moaning about it when it gets tough.’ He shrugged. ‘Actually, it’s the job of the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, but in their absence it looks like it comes down to me. Chief substitute for the saviours of the universe. I suppose that’s something.’ Hunter thought Hal was going to cry.
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