“Over here!” shouted Tamara from behind the bar.
Alfie ran over and helped up the dazed barmaid, who looked around at the wreckage and shrugged.
“Rubbish job anyway,” she said, grabbing a bottle of whisky and sauntering out.
Brian scanned the bar for exits. “We won’t be alone for long. Where’s Freya?”
Tamara pointed at a large freshly dug hole in the floor behind the bar. “Our troll friend made her own way out.”
“She can burrow tunnels too?” marvelled Tony. “Trolltastic.”
Alfie knelt down and peered into the dark abyss of the troll tunnel. It seemed to plummet a long way before levelling out, like a water slide at a fun park, only much slimier and smellier.
“Where do you think it goes?” he asked.
Gwenn the raven flew past the pub letting out a warning “Gronk!” The Viking patrol was right outside.
“Knowing Her Majesty, I’ve got a pretty good idea where,” said Brian, booting Alfie up the backside and into the hole.
Beneath the Houses of Parliament, Hayley massaged the feeling back into her fingers. She had lost track of how long it had taken to wheel the three holdalls of gunpowder along in the dark. The floor of the large tunnel was uneven and full of potholes, and LC’s warning about the unstable nature of the explosives rang in her ears at every step. She’d had to keep count of the paces she took, so that she would place the bags in exactly the right spot, directly beneath the chamber of the House of Commons. It was hard work, but at least now she was actually DOING something, she thought. Not just sitting in her flat waiting for a rescue that was never going to come. Even so, Hayley didn’t relish the idea of the damage she was about to wreak. Parliament and the politicians who worked there before the invasion may not have done much for her, but she hated doing something so violent to such a historic place. She wondered what her gran would have said about it, and hoped she would have understood. Because if it worked, and they destroyed the Raven Banner, no one would be hurt – except a few Viking draugar, and they were dead already – but millions of people would be freed from Lock’s berserker curse.
She connected the fuse and wound the wire back down the tunnel as far as it would go. Her arms might have been tired, but her legs were fine, and she was confident she could sprint back to the exit in time. A sudden strange smell reached her nose – a wet, fishy odour – but she dismissed it. Who knows what’s died down here over the years, she thought, and shuddered. Or it could just be leaking through from the Viking hordes above. She flexed her fingers once more and took out the matches. One strike was all she needed, and as she lowered the flame the fuse burst into light, fizzing as it burned. It was the light from the burning fuse that gave Hayley her first good look at the troll standing over her. The giant green monster roared at her and stamped the fuse out with its foot. Hayley screamed and stumbled backwards, colliding hard with the wall and falling down. Which was just as well, as Holgatroll’s next move was to swing her mighty right fist in Hayley’s direction, thumping into the wall instead, sending rocks and dust raining down on both of them.
“BLOW UP MY BANNER, WOULD YOU?” yelled Holgatroll.
Hayley swallowed her shock long enough to get to her feet and take off down the tunnel. The raging troll fell on to all fours and thundered after her. Running blind, arms outstretched, Hayley realized she must have lost her head torch when she fell. If she hit something now it would be game over, but she couldn’t afford to slow down. Suddenly she heard another scream, getting closer – someone else was down here, but where?
Bang! From nowhere, a body collided with her in the darkness, sending her tumbling head over heels to the ground. Winded from the fall, Hayley didn’t even have time to look up and see who had floored her before she was grabbed by the ankle and hoisted off her feet by Holgatroll.
“Let me go!” shouted Hayley, dangling upside down.
“I’M GONNA SMASH YOUR BRAINS OUT!” bellowed Holgatroll.
Suddenly torchlight blinded Hayley and Holgatroll as more bodies tumbled from the troll tunnel.
“Your Majesty, we had a deal!” cried Brian. “Now put her down!”
The troll grunted and huffed, but dropped her catch and shrank back into the form of the Norwegian queen.
“I’m not used to being made to wait,” snapped Freya, tying up her long blonde hair. “And it’s a good thing I didn’t, or your friend here would have blown the place sky high.”
Hayley sat up, rubbed her neck and looked, bewildered, at the group emerging from the dark before her – Brian, Tamara and Tony.
“Brian? Queen Tamara?”
Brian gazed at the fuse leading to the bags of gunpowder. “Kept yourself busy, I see, Hayley,” he said, pulling her to her feet.
“I … I don’t understand,” she spluttered.
“Ha!” laughed Tony, “If that's blowing your brainbox, wait till you get a load of this.”
He stepped aside and Hayley saw for the first time the figure that had tumbled into her from the troll tunnel. Dishevelled and bruised, but unmistakable.
“ALFIE?!”
Alfie wiped the mud from his eyes and beamed at her.
“Long time no see.”
Richard couldn’t remember what it felt like to be totally human. Now when he transformed back from being the Black Dragon, the impression of scales never completely left his body, but lingered like supernatural acne. The fire burned day and night deep in his throat, and his back ached constantly where the wing tips poked through at the shoulder blades. His fingernails and toenails were thick, sharp and curved, more like talons. His eyes remained flushed with red and yellow, and his tongue had begun to split at the tip like a snake’s. His mind was different too. He could no longer shake off the lizard part of his brain that worked on instinct, fuelled by hate and always searching for prey. He was scared that if a cure didn’t come soon, he would never be himself again, instead for ever trapped inside the beast. Worse still, Ellie had seen it. She had been the one person he cared about who still knew him as just Richard, her brother. Not any more. He’d seen her eyes, wide with terror as the Vikings dragged her back to the dungeons. She would never see him as anything more than a monster again. He had lost her too. There was no one left for him now.
Richard found Lock in the Keep, covering his mirror, the sound of buzzing flies still fading away. But if he was hoping for a sympathetic ear, he didn’t get it.
“Right now we have bigger problems than your body issues,” said Lock.
“Why? What’s happened?” asked Richard.
“It seems that Colonel Blood failed in his mission.”
“Alfie’s still alive?”
“Yes. What’s more, he’s back. There was a disturbance near the Tower last night.” He nodded to the mirror. “Our mistress has a certain insight into these things and she has confirmed it. King Alfred has returned to his kingdom. Our enemies are regrouping.”
Richard screwed his hand into a tight fist, his rock-hard talon-nails drawing blood from his palm. “You should have left Alfie to me in the first place,” he hissed. “I’ll hunt him down.”
Lock looked him up and down, impressed. “That’s more like it. Rage suits you so much better than self-pity. And when our mission is complete and our mistress resurrected, she will make you well again.”
“She can do that?” asked Richard.
“Her power knows no bounds. She will make you the greatest king this world has ever seen.”
Hayley had been too shocked to hug Alfie when she first saw him in the tunnel beneath Parliament. Everyone had talked over each other in the chaos – Brian working hard to persuade Freya to wait till they had recovered Alfie’s Defender armour before she launched a raid to regain the Raven Banner and instead to burrow them a quick exit back to street level, and Tamara asking Hayley if she had been hurt during her encounter with Holgatroll, while Tony wittered on about how they should get out before the Vikings found them.
It wasn’t until they had
retreated from the tunnel, leaving the gunpowder where it was, and rejoined the cab convoy outside, that Hayley found her voice again.
“You’re supposed to be dead!” she blurted at Alfie, thumping him for good measure.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” said Alfie, rubbing his chest. “I thought you’d be pleased!”
“It’s been months – we thought you were at the bottom of the sea! Do you have any idea what it’s been like here?”
“I’ve not exactly been on holiday myself, you know. We were nearly killed about five times trying to get back!”
Brian, sitting opposite the bickering pair, nervously scanned the abandoned streets as the cab whistled along with its lights off.
“All right, you two, maybe save the lovers’ tiff till we’re safe, yeah?”
Alfie and Hayley stared at each other, red in the face, then folded their arms and looked out of opposite windows. In the second cab following close behind them, a grumpy Freya told Tony to shut up for the third time as he pointed out yet another famous London landmark. Later, after a nervous few minutes in an alleyway near Hayley’s tower block, waiting for a berserker patrol to move on, the group finally made it to the safety of the flat. But if Alfie was hoping for a warmer reception from the Lord Chamberlain, he was to be disappointed.
“Your Majesty?!” he blurted on seeing Alfie and the others pour inside. “What on earth are you doing here? This is a disaster!”
Before Alfie could reply he was flattened by a hundred and forty pounds of yapping, licking wolfhound as Herne barrelled into him.
“Good to see you too, boy. OK, Herne, take it easy!” said Alfie, sinking to the floor under the furry assault.
LC was equally shocked to see Brian appear, ushering Tamara, Tony and Freya inside.
“Lord Chamberlain,” nodded Tamara, curtly.
LC regained his composure and nodded back. “I can see that this evening is to be full of revelations. Perhaps a round of tea, Hayley?”
“Ooh, yes please, I’m gasping!” said Tony.
Freya handed LC her coat and marched into the kitchen, sniffing the air. “Ugh, tea – you people’s answer to everything,” she said.
Later, in the living room, they all found seats where they could. Tamara and Brian took the sofa, while Freya (eating her seventh uncooked chicken drumstick) had claimed the only armchair and grudgingly allowed Tony to perch on one arm. Alfie sat awkwardly on a footstool, knees almost reaching his chin. Herne curled at his master’s feet, nudging his hand with his nose every time Alfie stopped stroking him.
The Lord Chamberlain paced up and down by the window like a fretting caged bird, pausing every few strides to peek through the curtains.
“Sorry, LC, but isn’t it a good thing that Alfie’s come back?” asked Hayley. “Even though I’m still mad he didn’t call,” she added with a smile at Alfie.
“Ha!” was all LC could muster in reply.
“This is no time to keep things to yourself, LC,” said Tamara. “You didn’t even seem that surprised to see Alfie just now. Why not? Didn’t you think he was dead?”
LC turned his attention from the window to the room, mouth pursed tight and eyebrow arched like he had no intention of talking. But after a leisurely throat-clearing and tie-straightening, he did. “Your observation is not without merit, Queen Tamara.”
“Wait, what?” said Hayley. “You knew Alfie was alive?”
“Suspected,” said LC. “But I did not wish to get your hopes up, Miss Hicks.”
“Wow, thanks for treating me like a grown-up,” said Hayley, slamming her mug down on a table.
“It was simple deduction,” LC said, checking the window again. “Events have forced me to accept that I was perhaps rather hasty in dismissing Queen Tamara’s theory about who is behind Professor Lock’s campaign.”
“You mean Hel?” asked Tamara.
“Who?” asked Hayley.
“Ancient Norse goddess,” whispered Alfie. “Seriously bad news. I’ll explain later.”
“Impossible!” gasped Freya, standing up so fast that Tony unbalanced the chair and toppled off.
“Oh yeah, we probably should have mentioned that to you earlier, sorry,” said Tony from the floor.
Freya swatted his hand away, her gaze fixed on LC. “Please tell me this Lock is not trying to revive the plague goddess.”
“I’m afraid, Your Majesty,” continued LC, “Lock’s every move has been one more step towards resurrecting Hel and bringing about the cataclysm that would come with her.”
“Just like I always said. Apology accepted, old pal,” said Tamara with a wry smile.
LC sniffed. “You may have been in the right, but that does not mean your actions haven’t made things worse.”
Tamara threw up her hands in exasperation. “You never change, do you?” she exclaimed.
“I still don’t understand,” said Alfie. “Even if you realized Hel was behind all this, why did that make you think I must be alive?”
“Because she is yet to return.” LC sighed. “Lock has inveigled his way into power, seduced Richard into doing his bidding and seized the kingdom. But still he has not completed the ritual and brought his mistress back to Earth. Why not?”
“Blue blood,” said Brian in a whisper. He looked at Tamara, horrified as she too realized the significance of LC’s words.
“Richard’s blood isn’t working,” she gasped, looking at Alfie, eyes full of fear.
“But … mine would?” asked Alfie.
“Yes, only a true king’s blood is powerful enough to free Hel from her imprisonment,” said LC gravely. He turned on Tamara and Brian. “And what do you do? You deliver His Majesty right to Lock’s doorstep! You should all have stayed lost.”
With that the air was filled with angry shouts and pointing fingers – Tamara blaming LC for his stubbornness, LC berating her and Brian for their “renegade” activities, while Freya yelled at all of them for bringing the world to the brink of a new Black Death. Hayley finally got everyone’s attention by turning the lights off. Only once they had all quietened down, did she turn them back on.
“It’s late and I’d rather not get any noise complaints from the neighbours, if you don’t mind,” she said sternly. “Especially the undead Viking ones!”
Alfie struggled to his feet, which took longer than he’d planned from the footstool.
“Maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing in the world to come back, but there are a lot of people who need help – people like my sister – and I’d like to be part of that, if I can.” Alfie turned to LC and Hayley. “I’m sorry if you’re not pleased to see me here. For what it’s worth, I missed you both. A lot.”
He sloped out of the room, followed by Herne. Hayley pulled her coat back on and shouldered a rucksack.
“Where are you going?” asked LC.
“Shopping,” she replied, and closed the door behind her.
At the market, business was slow. Traders lined the walls beneath the railway bridge, blowing on their hands and stamping their feet to keep warm. It was nothing like the thriving market Hayley used to go to with her gran every Saturday morning. Where there had once been long stalls piled high with a rainbow of fruit from all over the world, and racks of vibrantly patterned clothes, there were now scattered cardboard boxes only half-filled with tinned food, many without labels. There were grubby piles of used clothes and furniture broken up for firewood. Those with nothing to exchange begged for handouts, only to be chased away.
How much longer can people live like this? wondered Hayley as she scanned the sorry contents of another box. She knew she should be pleased that Alfie and the others were back – now perhaps the country had a chance. And she was happy that Alfie was alive – deliriously, ecstatically happy – so why couldn’t she show it? For months she had imagined him walking through the door as if nothing had happened and how she would hug him and tell him he was her best friend and how she’d never given up on him. But the truth was she had given up; s
he had thought he was gone for ever. And now here he was, alive and in the flesh, along with his new superhero mates, and as messed up as it sounded, she just couldn’t bring herself to forgive him for the agony his disappearance had put her through.
“You buying, or what?” barked a woman wrapped in a dirty white fur coat, as she lounged in an old deckchair next to her stall, looking Hayley up and down with heavy eyes.
Hayley pulled her scarf higher over her nose. The freezing weather at least meant she could hide her face without anyone thinking it was suspicious. There had been a “Wanted” poster of her on a wall near the estate and she didn’t know how many others the Vikings might have put up. She ran her fingers over the woman’s boxes, pulling out several old tins with faded labels – beans, peaches, soup – till she had as many as she thought she could fit in her rucksack.
“And how are you planning on paying for all that, love?” sneered the woman.
Hayley took a pair of silver-plated earrings from her pocket and handed them to the woman. The trader cast her eyes over them and tossed them back at her in disdain.
“Bloomin’ timewaster. Get out of here,” she snapped, clawing her tins back.
But Hayley stood her ground and pulled a sapphire ring from her pocket. It had been her grandmother’s, but she didn’t think Gran would mind. “Shiny things are for dull minds,” Gran used to say whenever they saw something they couldn’t afford in a shop window. The woman heaved her lumpy frame out of the deckchair, snatched the ring and inspected it.
“Are we good?” Hayley muttered.
The woman took one tin back from the pile, smiled and waved her away. As Hayley walked off carrying her heavy load, the trader called after her.
“You feeding an army or something?”
Hayley didn’t answer and hurried off.
Above the market, unseen on the disused rail bridge, crouched the hulking frame of former government agent Fulcher. She hadn’t really minded living out on the streets since the Viking takeover; in truth it suited her more than her old nine-to-five office routine. She was tougher than any wild animal and the day-to-day battle for survival didn’t faze her one bit. But what had happened to her partner, what their evil magic had done to him – that she did mind, very much indeed. Fulcher shifted her eyes from Hayley back to the market trader and watched as the woman slid the ring on to her finger, then packed up her boxes and hurried through the underpass and up to a passing berserker patrol. She waved her arms as she spoke to their human commander, pointing urgently back towards the market. Fulcher hunkered down, intrigued, as a Rolls Royce pulled up next to the patrol and wound down its window, revealing the face of Dean Barron. The patrol leader leant down and spoke to him, pointing to the nearby woman from the market stall, who smoothed back her greasy hair and waved. Barron stepped out of the car, pulling a berserker behind him on a heavy metal leash. The berserker was short, arms and legs bulging with muscles, grey skin crisscrossed with blue warpaint tattoos. He might have changed, but Fulcher recognized him at once. It was Turpin, her partner.
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