by Wilson, Mark
dEaDINBURGH:
I
by
Mark Wilson
Paddy’s Daddy Publishing
Prologue
Edinburgh, Scotland
2051
Joey regained consciousness, becoming slowly aware that he still lay on the grass, beneath her. She hadn’t left him. Whirling, jabbing her Sai, leaping and kicking, she was a lethal whirlwind of blows and strikes and death. Centimetres from his prone body she did what had to be done. That’s what she always did. He rolled over from his back onto his side, curled his body inward and ripped off his right boot. One glance at the red stain blossoming out across the fabric of his sock from the big toe of his foot told him that it was all over. The nail had been bitten through. He watched the blood spread, detachedly noting to himself how like a poppy it looked with his toe at the centre of the blood flower. Why is she still here?
Glancing across at his left hand, he noticed that an injury he’d taken there was bleeding freely also.
Trying to stand, he braced himself with the palm of his right hand pressed into the mud and blood, but found that his legs weren’t listening and crumpled back to the ground. He tried twice more to stand before she kneed him in the shoulder, knocking him back to a curled position. She’d fought harder still and made a three-second gap in the fight to turn her attention to him. Three seconds was three times as long as she’d need, but that’s how she was: well prepared. He’d taught her that. They’d taught each other so much in the too-little time they’d spent together.
Instead of the terror he’d expected, a peaceful acceptance slid over him. He didn’t raise his hands to protect himself and he didn’t close his eyes. Placing one foot either side of him in a strike position, she raised her third Sai, the deadliest, swirled it around in her palm to a stabbing position and threw herself at him. As she struck, he did close his eyes. Not for himself, not to welcome the black darkness he still missed from Mary King’s Close, but for her. She shouldn’t have to look in his eyes as she killed him. Silenced him.
Thank you, Alys, Joey’s voice whispered inside his head. Outside, Joseph MacLeod was still.
Edinburgh
Scotland
2047
Chapter 1
Joey
Eyes still closed, he rose from his concrete bunk, sitting and rotating his hips to swing his legs out and over the edge of the sleeping space. Feeling the concrete crunch beneath his booted feet, Joey stood and took the three steps to his right before reaching out to pick up the box that lay on a shelf fixed to the ancient walls. Despite the darkness, he was unhurried and his hands found the box of wax crayons first time. With his other hand Joey flicked open the box and ran the tip of his index finger along the uniformly arranged crayons, searching for one that was a little shorter than the others. Finding his crayon, he tossed the box back into the darkness, hearing it thump onto the shelf as he fished his disposable cigarette lighter from the pocket of his denims.
Although he hadn’t opened his eyes since waking, Joey clenched them a little more tightly in anticipation of the coming light. Sparking his lighter, he turned his face away from the glare that hurt his eyes, even filtered red through his eyelids. Bringing his hands together, Joey lit the end of a crayon and slowly peeked open his eyes, allowing them to adjust to the light. He smiled wryly to himself as he registered that the little, bright flame’s colour didn’t match the candle’s purple colour. Despite having lit hundreds of crayon-candles to break the darkness over the years, part of him still hoped each time for something other than the uninteresting, standard orange flame.
Holding the crayon-candle out from his body, he reached behind a dresser, touching the edge of his bow which he’d concealed there. On confirming the safety of his only belonging, Joey left the crypt his family occupied and made his way through the black alleys towards the main chambers where Communion would be taking place later that day. Watching the glow from his makeshift candle dance cheerfully along the walls as he walked, he smiled to himself, satisfied. He had a few chores to do and the Children of Elisha to feed, but if he worked quickly he hoped to have enough time to take a trip up to the surface and along to the castle’s esplanade to practice before Communion began.
It’d been three months since the last Communion; three months since he’d heard a voice that didn’t vibrate with dryness, dust and hunger. The voice of someone alive. The only sounds he’d heard in those weeks had been scraping of boot on stone, of the residents walking through the darkness of Mary King’s Close, the underground town they lived in; those and the groans of the dead as they pressed against the fences and roamed the cobbles above.
The Brotherhood, who’d taken him in as an infant, had taken vows of silence and of servitude to the risen dead, whom they called the Children of Elisha. Believing that the meek had finally inherited the earth, The Brotherhood believed that the Children of Elisha were God’s chosen and that The Brotherhood were spared solely to serve them.
As lonely as Joey felt sometimes in the darkness of The Brotherhood’s crypts, it was the only life he’d ever known. Despite not wholly subscribing to their dogma, he partook in their ceremonies and traditions out of respect and gratitude. Mostly he took part out of boredom. As a fifteen-year-old, he was given a little leeway with the traditions and allowed to wander around above ground, but this was expected to change when he was eighteen and took his final vows of servitude.
Rounding the next corner, Joey noted that some light was visible now in the tunnel system. This meant that the torch-lighters were doing their work in preparation for the Communion ceremony. Communion week was the only time the residents bothered to light the torches, preferring the gentle light of a candle, or a crayon, to find their way around the maze of underground streets.
“Elisha’s blessings on you, Young Brother.” The man, a torch-lighter, made a circle with his right hand in the centre of his chest as he spoke.
Joey returned the gesture which The Brotherhood used to symbolise the infinite life of the Children of Elisha.
“And also upon you.”
Despite not liking the torch-lighter much, he had to admit that it was good to hear a living voice again.
“We’ll see you at Communion, Brother Joseph?” It was more an accusation than a question.
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Joey supressed a grin.
At one time he and the torch-lighter, a nineteen-year-old named Bobby, had run together through the underground crypts and the cobbled streets of the Royal Mile above, ignoring the disapproving glares of the elder Brothers. Now that Bobby was a fully-inducted member of The Brotherhood he didn’t have time for fun. Bobby was too busy honouring and feeding the dead and punishing himself for being alive, along with the rest of them.
Joey couldn’t imagine never going to the surface again; never seeing the sun or the moon or feeling the fresh Edinburgh air cut into his face. His adoptive father expected – no, that wasn’t right – hoped that he would settle down, as Bobby had, when his time came. As grateful as he was for being given a home by The Brotherhood, Joey had no intention of confining his world to the dank crypts. His refusal, when it came, would most likely mean that he had to leave Mary King’s Close and everything he’d ever known, but he reckoned that it was better to be alone on the surface with the dead than in silence and servitude with those below.
With a final scowl, Bobby turned his back on him and reached up to touch the flaming torch in his hand to the freshly prepared one on the wall. Joey resisted the urge to kick his ladder and moved past him.
“Have fun, Bobby,” he offered as he left.
Continuing along to the main chamber, Joey mechanically completed the chores he’d been assigned: clean the altar, fill the bowls, and decant the Carrionite into th
e wooden bowl. By the time he’d completed his tasks, he reckoned that he had enough time before the ceremony to take a trip up to the Castle esplanade with his bow for some practice.
Most of the tunnels and crypts on the route back to his cell were now lit and glowing orange. Despite the number of flames blazing throughout the underground town, little in the way of heat was added to the environment. It didn’t seem to matter how many fires were lit or clothes worn. Down here, the cold rock absorbed every ounce of heat and a person’s bones remained chilled. It was a miserable place to exist but the thought of his imminent trip to the surface lifted Joey’s spirits.
Joey suddenly became aware of someone nearby, in the tunnels up ahead. A scrape of leather on stone, that whistle. The figure, clad in leathers, boots and gloves with his ever-present satchel over his shoulder, blades in sheaths on this thighs and the white rectangle of his vicar’s collar peeking out from the neck of his black shirt, stood passively staring at Joey.
Padre Jock.
Reputedly a minister before the dead rose, Jock was afforded a respect and position that no one else in Mary King’s Close came close to. Although not a member of The Brotherhood, Jock had lived there in the crypts with them for as long as Joey could remember. Aside from himself and a few of the younger, more insolent kids, Jock was the only other person who would regularly venture up to the surface. Joey would’ve liked that about the old padre, if only he didn’t give him the creeps.
Often when on the surface, and occasionally here in the crypts, Joey would hear or sense Padre Jock watching him from the end of a tunnel or a street. Whenever Joey looked up or waved at Jock, the padre would disappear round a corner only to reappear later, watching passively until he was seen again.
Padre Jock had watched him so often that Joey had started to feel a little odd when the cleric wasn’t a few streets behind or ahead of him. The man never said a word to him. Whenever Joey had tried to talk to him, or shouted at him to get lost, Jock simply threw the boy a disdainful glare and disappeared.
Nervous as he was, Joey was in a hurry and didn’t have time for the old man’s nonsense.
“Is there something you want, Padre?”
Jock threw him the same scowl he always did and turned to depart. Joey felt his anger rise and decided to provoke him.
“Gies a wee look at of your Bible,” he shouted at Jock’s back.
Instantly Jock whipped around and covered the short distance between them. Bringing his face level with Joey’s he scratched a finger along the top of his satchel, filling the tunnel with a screech of nail on leather. “You of all people do not want to read my… Bible,” Jock whispered calmly.
Up close, Joey gained a new appreciation for Padre Jock. The man was huge, at least six-four. Joey swallowed a lump from his throat, lowered his eyes to look at the satchel, and then lifted them back to Jock’s face. He was scared but he was more angry than frightened and forced his voice to remain steady. “Everyone says you used that Bible in there to beat a group of the dead into silence. I want to see it.”
It was true. Everyone did say that Jock had killed a church full of the Children of Elisha, his former flock, by bashing their brains in with his Bible on the day the plague hit, but no one had ever asked him to verify the story. No one spoke to Jock at all.
The two of them stared at each other for several very long seconds until Jock broke the moment by releasing a loud, mocking laugh that echoed along the crypt’s walls, startling Bobby further along the tunnel.
“Ha! It’s about time.” Jock smiled a smile that to Joey was more disturbing than his scowl and melted back into the darkness.
Joey released a long breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding, shook his head and started back towards his crypt to retrieve his bow. If he hurried there would be enough time before Communion to practice with it.
Chapter 2
Alys
Standing from a crouch Alys leaned back, stretching her vertebrae to their maximum extension. She gave a few sharp turns to her left and her right, loosening off her hips. Finally Alys leaned forward and down, wrapping her arms around the backs of her legs, bringing her forehead to her shins.
Jennifer sighed. “Every time, Alys? You won’t always have time for that nonsense, you know.”
Alys was sick of her mother’s sharpness and performed the routine simply to provoke her. She was the most accomplished fighter in her age group, and better than the classes senior to hers also, but nothing ever seemed good enough.
“Just limbering up,” she said flatly.
Her mother pursed her lips.
“Does an animal limber up? Do the dead limber up?”
Alys ignored her and took her ready stance. Jennifer sighed and assumed her own ready position. Stepping forward, Alys delivered a series of sharp blows with her hands, alternating between her mother’s face and chest. Jennifer blocked each of them easily, but she was supposed to. Alys had used the flurry as a cover for the kick she shot out at Jennifer’s knee. This too failed to connect as the older woman slipped her front foot back ten centimetres, causing Alys’ kick to jab into the ground. Jennifer stepped onto her daughter’s front foot, trapping it and preventing her daughter stepping away from the vicious hammer punch she flashed out with lightning speed.
Standing over her prone daughter, Jennifer checked her watch.
“Five seconds this time, Alys. You’re getting better.”
Alys glared up her for a second before picking herself up out of the mud. She spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground a few centimetres from her mother’s feet.
“Again,” she demanded.
Jennifer smiled her approval and moved in to deliver another lightning blow to her daughter’s face.
An hour later Alys stood in the centre of the practice plot. Dripping with sweat and with the smell of her own blood in her nostrils, she glared at Jennifer who stood calm and impassive; just as she’d been when their practice had begun.
“Again,” Alys growled.
Jennifer approved but no shred of that approval showed on her face.
“No,” she said simply and walked away. As she left, she briefly turned back to face her daughter.
“Remember to take the offering up to The Brotherhood’s gates.”
Alys didn’t reply, choosing instead to stand in the rain and let it cool her anger as it washed away the sweat and blood she’d shed. The rain and cold of an Edinburgh autumn was as familiar to her as the sunshine and relative warmth of its springtime. Her life had been lived, exposed; farming, fighting and living under canvas, here in the beauty of Princes Street Gardens. Most of her community believed that they were free. Free to farm and eat and train and live under the Edinburgh sky in the shade of the craggy castle. Alys just felt trapped.
The only way she could leave the Gardens permanently was to convince her mother that she was ready to become a Ranger. That she could fight. Still standing in a ready stance, fists quivering and face up towards the falling rain, Alys finally relaxed her bunched-up muscles. Standing simply with her weary arms at her sides, something glinted and caught her eye. She looked up towards the Castle’s Esplanade, noting that he was there again. She’d never once been allowed to venture outside her community’s fences. The farthest she’d walked was to deliver the Garden’s offerings up to The Brotherhood’s gates on the Royal Mile.
Alys couldn’t understand why her people continued to feed the reclusive Brotherhood and had grown to resent them. She’d been taught to fight, to earn her place in the community, and to fight to keep it. Her community didn’t allow men inside its gates, believing that their weakness was a risk. So why were they helping feed a group of men who were too deluded to grow or scavenge their own food? Yes, she resented them, but most of all she resented the boy with the bow.
The first time she’d seen the boy had been on a food run up to The Brotherhood’s gates on Bank Street around five years ago. She’d been ten years old and had dutifully carried the container of f
resh foods to the gates, traipsing sullenly alongside her mother. After Jennifer had placed the food at the fence line, she’d turned and begun making the short journey back to Princes Street Gardens. Out of curiosity, Alys stayed.
She’d never seen a member of The Brotherhood. She’d heard plenty of stories – of how they lived in their crypts, how they worshipped the dead, wandered among the dead creatures and even fed them their own blood – but hadn’t see one of the men in person. It wasn’t just their strange lifestyle that drew her; she hadn’t seen a male since her father had gone. She’d asked her mother many times in the early weeks following his departure, and several times in the intervening ten years or so, but always received the same gruff reply from Jennifer.
“He’s just gone, Alys.”
So she’d waited, around the corner, peeking at the fences from behind the edge of a building. After a few hours a boy had appeared. He was dressed in simple, slim-legged black denims, a long-sleeved black T with his thumbs poking through holes at the ends of the sleeves and a trash bag with holes cut for his arms to slip through. Over his head a hood concealed most of his face, but a few locks of very blond hair strayed out from underneath. Warily he’d come close to the fence, opened the gate and retrieved the offering. As quickly as he’d come, he left again.
Alys couldn’t say why but she waited in that same spot a little longer until eventually the same boy appeared once more. He stood at the fence, staring at her. This time, he didn’t look nervous.
“Hello? Are you still there?”
Alys’ eyes opened wide at his greeting. She’d been taught that The Brotherhood wouldn’t or couldn’t speak. Guardedly she came out from her spot and approached the fence.
