The Dark Master of Dogs

by Chris Ward

  ‘Well, look at this,’ Kurou said. ‘A little family reunion.’

  Patrick looked up. The figure beside him, at least a head taller, lifted veiny, clawed hands and removed a hood.

  Race’s eyes stared at him over the snarling of a dog’s snout.

  Patrick’s vision wavered. His brother was there and then not there as he crashed to the floor.

  When he awoke, he was naked and strapped to a gurney. He wouldn’t have recognised the masked man in a doctor’s coat and mask leaning over him, were it not for the monocle still covering one eye.

  ‘Aha, we have life,’ Kurou said. ‘I’m afraid you took a little turn back there.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Just a little light testing. I’m so delighted to have completed my family set. What an opportunity you have given me.’

  Patrick tried to move, but only his head wasn’t secured. He glanced down at his chest and saw wires all over him.

  ‘I’m something of a magician,’ Kurou said with an air of pride. ‘An old world spin doctor, a master technician, an auteur … you name it, at some point I have achieved every pinnacle of mastery.’ He paused, lifting one hand into the air. It was covered with a plastic glove which had ripped through in several places to reveal Kurou’s unnaturally shaped fingers.

  ‘Yet, what has it gained me? I am a recluse, an outcast, a societal reject. Not a street in the land could I walk down during day and receive less than derision, while at night inspiring terror. It is you and your kind—your perfectly formed kind—who have rejected me and left me on the fringes of a world falling apart, a world which my own vision might have the capability to repair. Are you not, sire, a modest member of society?’

  Patrick wasn’t sure how to respond. ‘I’m just a man,’ he said.

  ‘Yes!’ Kurou punched the gurney, and Patrick felt the tug of dozens of wires attached to his body as the metal shook. ‘You are just a man, and I … am just a crow. Shunned, despised, picking at the scraps of the world, while forever plotting how to fly without being shot down.’

  ‘Can you let me go?’ Patrick said.

  Kurou leaned over him. A tuft of feathers just under his seeing eye lifted and fell with his breathing. ‘Now, why would I do that?’

  ‘Because I came here looking for help.’

  Kurou’s thin lips parted in a hideous sneer. ‘Does anything about me give you the impression that I am some kind of Samaritan? Have I somehow failed to explain what mechanisms make me tick, sire?’

  Patrick felt on the verge of hysteria, and despite the hopelessness he felt, he forced a smile.

  ‘I think you are still a student,’ he said.

  ‘A student, you say?’

  ‘Still learning things. Is that right?’

  Kurou gave a theatrical wave of his hands. ‘When one stops learning, one dies,’ he said.

  ‘I want your help to find my girlfriend,’ Patrick said, his voice shaking as though he were trying to a make a pact with a devil determined to throw him into a cooking pot. ‘My brother … that thing you made my brother into … can it track?’

  Kurou throw his arms in the air and howled with laughter. ‘Can it track, sire? Who is the jester in this room, you or me? Of course it can track. That’s the very point of its existence.’

  ‘Can it track a moving vehicle?’

  Kurou frowned. ‘Can it … are you testing me, sire?’

  ‘My girlfriend stole a man’s car and took off. Can it track a scent traveling at speed in a moving vehicle?’

  Kurou frowned. ‘I’m not sure.’

  Patrick sensed an opportunity to beat on the man’s fragile mentality. Despite the fear he felt, he tried to show a look of disgust.

  ‘What do you mean you’re not sure? What kind of a scientist are you? You built that thing and you didn’t even test it?’

  Kurou scowled. ‘You mock me, sire?’

  ‘I only mock what deserves to be mocked. Help me find my girlfriend, and prove how good you are.’

  Kurou appeared to be thinking. ‘I think it’s time for you to be a little quiet,’ he said.

  Before Patrick could response, a syringe had appeared in Kurou’s hand. A needle pricked Patrick’s shoulder, and the world went black.

  When he awoke, he was no longer strapped to a gurney but sitting up in a chair, a towel covering his body from the chest down. When he tried to move his skin felt tight, as though someone had removed part of it during a long night.

  ‘Ah, welcome back, sire.’

  Kurou stood by a line of filing cabinets, dressed in the conjuror’s regalia of their first meeting. The monocle now covered the sighted eye, the patch the blind one.

  ‘What did you do to me?’

  Kurou gave a coy smile. ‘Nothing much; just ensured the return of my investment. You see, I have decided to take you up on your offer. I will allow a little family reunion. Your brother will accompany you in your search for your girlfriend, but after she is found and her safety achieved, I would like a little favour.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You will return here, and do something for me.’

  Patrick stared at Kurou. ‘What?’

  ‘I haven’t yet decided.’

  ‘And you give your world that you will let me save Suzanne?’

  Kurou nodded. ‘In this day and age, my word is as valuable as any.’

  Patrick sighed, aware he had no choice. ‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ he said.

  Kurou spread his hands. ‘Fantastic. Then let the games begin.’

  31

  Suzanne

  Suzanne tried to concentrate on the road, but whenever she found herself bumping along narrow country lanes, with only the overgrown hedges to avoid on either side, her thoughts constantly turned to the events of the last few days.

  Both her body and her heart ached. Less than a month ago, she had been in school, idling away the time before her final exams, sneaking out at night to spend time with Patrick beneath clear, starlit skies.

  And then her father had disappeared, and the world had shifted.

  She had been raped, beaten, had a noose hung around her neck, seen men die, lain on her back to save her dying half-sister, and now abandoned Patrick, the only constant through it all.

  The events of the last couple of weeks had pushed them both to breaking, and she had found things out about his personality that she didn’t like, and no doubt he felt the same. Yet, through it all, she only felt more strongly about him, and realised that above everything else, she loved Patrick Devan more than anyone else in the world.

  Lying together in the country house, she had thought that as long as they stayed together, everything would be okay.

  But now they were apart.

  Kelly, sitting in the half-reclined passenger seat beside her, groaned. Her young half-sister, whom Suzanne barely knew, had become her priority, her reason to keep pushing forward. She barely knew the girl, yet Kelly’s suffering was Suzanne’s fault, and she had to try to make it right.

  Because if she didn’t, she had nothing left.

  ‘Keep driving,’ she muttered.

  The car was electric like the one they had taken from the country house, but its battery was fully charged, with a couple hundred miles of potential range. Suzanne, though, had no real plan, and knew that if she went into any built-up area, she would be immediately noticed, and the DCA would close in. No doubt they would be even harder on her than before, but while Suzanne feared no brutality, she was terrified of what might happen to Kelly.

  After driving around for a while, she decided on a vague plan to head for the coast. They were only a few miles from the Bristol Channel, and if they headed due west they would eventually encounter the remote fishing villages along the Atlantic coast. Suzanne had only seen the sea on a couple of occasions, but where there was water there were boats, and boats offered a way out of the country that a car didn’t.

  So the coast it was.

  She didn’t really know
where she was going, and there was no map she could find in the car, but by checking her position through open gateways that looked down on the Somerset Levels, she managed to keep in a rough westerly direction.

  And then, as the day began to fade, she spotted water in the distance. A few minutes later, she passed a dirty sign that said “PORLOCK BAY”. Rolling hills gave way to a wide semi-circle of beach with a quaint fishing village nestled around it.

  Suzanne took a small lane leading into forest and pulled up at a secluded viewing point that looked down over the village. It looked so retro it was almost otherworldly, untouched by the corruption and political strife that was overtaking the rest of the country. The roads were in place, fishing boats sat moored along a little weir, and there was no sign of the DCA.

  Beside her, Kelly groaned again. Suzanne started as her sister opened her eyes and looked up.

  ‘Are we there yet?’ Kelly muttered, before breaking into a tired burst of laughter. She looked about to say something else, but her head lolled and her eyes closed.

  Suzanne felt her sister’s brow. She was still highly feverish, so she shook Kelly awake and forced her to drink some bottled water. Suzanne then lowered Kelly’s seat completely flat to create a makeshift bed, then draped a jacket over her.

  She pulled out of the viewing point and drove on a little way until she came to a small forest road. She turned down it, driving through bushes that had nearly overtaken the road. It ended a couple of hundred metres in at a towering pylon no longer supporting any electricity cables. As sure as she could be that their car would be undiscovered, Suzanne whispered to Kelly to stay put, then climbed out and locked the door.

  If there was any help to be found in the village, she had to look for it.

  After half an hour of walking downhill, backtracking to ensure she remembered how to find the car, and following the distant lights of the village, she came to the outskirts of Porlock. The village was one main street along the beachfront with a few smaller residential streets leading away. There was no sign of any people, but Suzanne recognised a few shops and businesses and then came to something utterly banned in her own town: a pub.

  The sound of voices came from inside, but Suzanne didn’t dare go in. She glimpsed people through a window, chatting amicably, drinking what appeared to be alcohol, and generally enjoying themselves. Whatever stain the government and the DCA was leaving on the rest of the country was yet to spread here.

  She left the pub behind, continuing up the road. Everything was closed, but she passed a couple of general stores, and then, at the end of the main street, a place that made her eyes light up with excitement.

  A doctor’s surgery.

  It was of course closed, but signs in the window gave opening hours, and it looked well taken care of. Suzanne peered in through a window and saw a neat waiting room inside, at the back a little counter from where medicines would be dispensed.

  She took a step back and sized up the window. A couple of feet square, she could just about fit through.

  A loose rock from a low stone wall around the neighbouring garden looked big enough. Suzanne took off her sweater and wrapped it around the rock to muffle the sound.

  As she hefted it, ready to slam it against the window, a shuffle of feet came from behind her.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  Suzanne turned, lifting the rock to use as a possible weapon, but it slipped out of the sweater and landed on the corner of her foot. She twisted sideways, ending up in a heap on the floor.

  ‘Christ, not much of a burglar, are you?’

  ‘Don’t hurt me,’ she said, looking up into a face shadowed from the streetlights by a deerstalker hat. ‘I just … just … my….’

  The figure squatted down. It was a man in his mid-thirties, with a kindly face soured only by eyes that had a distant look about them, as though he had seen too much he wanted to forget.

  ‘I’m a doctor; I wouldn’t hurt you. But who are you and what the fuck are you doing trying to break into my surgery?’

  Suzanne looked up again, but when the man smiled, lifting his eyebrows at the same time, all she could do was burst into tears.

  ‘Look, you can save the excuses about why you’re in whatever predicament you are,’ the doctor, who called himself Frank, said. ‘I don’t really give a shit, because there’s little injustice you can tell me about that I haven’t seen with my own eyes. This country’s being eaten from the inside out, and if Maxim Cale gets in power, it’ll only get worse, despite what people seem to think.’ He handed her a cup of tea. Suzanne drank, tasting the pang of something exotic.

  ‘Cinnamon,’ he said, noticing her look. ‘It was the best substitute for brandy I have to hand. It’ll give your immune system a boost, if all those quack doctors are to be believed. If nothing else, it’ll warm you up.’

  Suzanne whispered a thank-you as she took the cup with both hands. ‘My sister is hurt,’ she said. ‘She has an infected knife wound.’

  They were sitting in a little kitchen in a house connected to the surgery. Black curtains entirely hid the world outside, but in the quaint, cramped room Suzanne felt safer than she had in a long time.

  ‘It’s a good job I saw you,’ Frank had told her after letting her inside. ‘The windows are wired up to a security system. Porlock would have been crawling with DCA within five minutes of you breaking that window.’ He glared at her. ‘I knew you weren’t from round here because locals know better.’

  ‘I was desperate,’ she said, and his nod told her that he understood.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘our medicinal supplies are severely limited. Very little is imported now and British companies are charging a premium few doctors or patients can afford. I’ll give you what I can, but I can’t guarantee it’ll be strong enough to work.’

  He got up and went through a connecting door into the surgery. After a couple of minutes he returned carrying a small jiffy bag. As he handed it to her, Suzanne counted four unmarked pills.

  ‘One when you get back tonight, then three over the course of tomorrow. Come back again tomorrow night and I’ll come up to take a look. If you bring her down to the village you’ll arouse suspicion. You know you need a permit to stay here? How you got around the roadblocks is beyond me.’

  Suzanne shrugged. ‘I took the scenic route, I suppose.’

  ‘You’ll note these are unmarked,’ Frank said. ‘There’s a reason for that. While I believe you, I don’t trust you. And if you’re playing me for an idiot, you’ll find these impossible to sell on.’

  ‘How can I trust you? How do I know these are what you say they are?’

  Frank grinned and winked. ‘Because I’m a doctor. Would I lie?’

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘Hope, that’s all most of us have these days. Can you find your way back in the dark?’

  ‘I found my way down here.’

  ‘Be careful. You’re not the only runaway I’ve seen in these parts of late, and others might be a lot more dangerous.’ He opened a cupboard and pulled out a box, which he rummaged through. ‘Take this.’

  He handed her a metal tube with a button on one end. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Taser. Point the flat end at what you want to zap. Won’t kill anyone, but it’ll give you a few seconds’ head start. It’s police-issue.’

  At the mention of the police, Suzanne felt a sudden hot flush, as though this were all a trap.

  ‘Where did you get it?’ she said.

  Frank grinned. ‘Black market. A doctor’s best friend.’

  32

  Tommy

  The guards were dead.

  Tommy, walking a few paces behind Nevin Reynolds, kept his gun held to his shoulder, in case the Huntsmen had missed anyone. The corridors of the small insurance firm were deserted, the memory of the three hardmen left behind to guard what was a cover for a trafficking boss and one of Tommy’s main rivals now nothing more than a few patches of blood.

  The Hu
ntsmen had dragged the corpses away into a side room. Tommy, unwilling to know what they were doing, had closed the door. It had been a small mercy for the guards that the Huntsmen were so efficient none of the guards had even seen them coming.

  ‘Here,’ Nevin said, pointing into an office room. He frowned, looking away, and Tommy wondered what savagery he would discover.

  Claude Auteur was crudely tied to a chair. A man who Tommy offered a grudging respect in person but hated behind his back, he was missing one eye and part of his face. Visibly struggling to control himself, he stared up at Tommy out of his remaining eye.

  ‘You’re late on your payment,’ Tommy said. ‘And for that reason I’m shutting you down.’

  A shaking arm rose, but Tommy kicked it away before the man could get off a shot. As the gun Claude had been holding clattered away across the office floor, Tommy made a mental note to tell Kurou to remind the Huntsmen that guns were dangerous. While they might be able to take a few shots, he could not.

  ‘I’ll make you a deal,’ Claude gasped. ‘I hear you’re helping some runaways. I can get them into London and make them disappear … for a small fee.’

  A week earlier, Tommy might have considered it, but now Patrick’s betrayal continued to make itself known in his aching knee. Even so, on some levels he understood the ungrateful little bastard. The kid was young, he was desperate, and his girlfriend was a stunner. Plus, he was family. If Tommy ever caught up with Patrick, he would beat the living shit out of him, but afterward would take him for a drink.

  ‘That deal has passed,’ Tommy said. He lifted his gun.

  ‘Wait!’ Claude groaned, holding up a hand. ‘We can work something out.’

  Tommy shook his head. ‘I know little birds were whispering that Tommy Crown had fallen on hard times, but that was bullshit. Speculation. You cancelled your payment. That’s not just rude, it’s insulting. I’ve had your back for years, Claude.’