“Move,” Gareth said calmly as he shifted towards the side of the Reading Room while drawing his blade. Erin grabbed me by my shoulders and pulled me away until I was behind her. Dan started screaming as he stood up and tried to run with his hands tied behind his back. As the giant strode towards us, Dan tried to sprint around it by running along the side of the hall towards the exit, ducking behind a souvenir counter. But he had underestimated the monster’s reach; the Fomorian leaned over and grabbed him with one hand. The monster dangled the hysterical thug over its own head while opening its massive jaws. Gareth sensed his chance and he charged while swinging his sword.
The Fomorian was too quick though, and casually swatted Gareth away like a pesky fly with a single backhand. Gareth was thrown sideways and landed in a heap near the stairs leading up to the Reading Room, his sword clattering to the floor beside him. The giant then bit Dan’s head off and threw the body over its shoulder. Bits of blood and entrails dripped down from its mouth.
“Go!” Erin hissed as she pushed me away. She then ran up to the giant and delivered a swift kick to its pillar-like right shin before the monster could react. The Fomorian howled in pain as it staggered backwards.
“You can’t bloody leave me here!” Ollie screamed as he looked at me with desperate eyes. I ran back to where he was, grabbed him by the arm and we both started running towards the opposite side of the hall.
As we ran I couldn’t help but look back. Erin had gotten behind a ten-foot-tall electronic display and suddenly picked it up, rushed forward and bashed the creature’s torso with it. That digital signage must have weighed at least several hundred pounds but she had lifted it up and swung it like it was made of cardboard. The giant had fallen on its back and she took the opportunity to run sideways to tend to her father.
The next thing I knew, Ollie launched his right shoulder into me as he tackled me down onto the floor. The force of the blow knocked the wind out of my lungs and I lay gasping on the ground in agony.
“Take that, you little tosser,” he hissed as he started to get up. Pieces of glass suddenly fell all around us as another Fomorian landed beside him. This second creature was quite short, no more than five feet tall, but it had a very squat body. Its melon-shaped head was bigger than its shoulders, and it had stubby arms and legs that made one wonder how it could even walk about. The monster was naked and it had grayish skin, like chiseled sandstone. Its open, serrated mouth was sort of like a frog’s.
Ollie screamed as he drew back but a long, snakelike tongue shot out of the little creature’s mouth and wrapped itself around his neck. The gangster fell to the floor and thrashed helplessly as I slowly got up. I could barely think; my breathing was slowly coming back to normal. A part of me really wanted to help the poor man, but the other half felt like just leaving him to his fate after he had blindsided me.
In the end, I knew I couldn’t live with the thought of leaving anyone like that, so I made a grab for the creature’s long tongue. I wrapped my hands around the membrane; it felt like holding onto a slippery snake as I struggled to get it off of Ollie. The Fomorian reacted by withdrawing its tongue back into its mouth, and the long, muscular organ slipped right through my fingers. I stood by helplessly as the creature prepared to unleash its built-in weapon against me. That was when I realized that I was about to die.
But just as the creature’s tongue sprang out of its mouth, Erin pushed me away and caught the membrane using her own hands. She shifted her body and pulled at it with all her strength. The creature shrieked in pain as its own tongue was torn loose from its mouth and it began to waddle away using its stumpy legs. The long tongue had a life of its own as it squirmed and wriggled about like a headless worm. Erin untangled her hands from the membrane and threw it across the hall. I moved over to where Ollie was lying and checked to see if he was okay. His eyes were open and it was clear that he had been strangled to death. My body began to tremble.
The next thing I knew, Gareth was standing behind me, pulling me up by my elbow. He had a large bruise on the left side of his forehead. “We need to go, lad. Erin was able to knock out the big chap, but we don’t want to be here when it awakens.”
I nodded meekly. They both sensed that I was in shock, so they led me away. We left the museum through the King Edward entrance on Montague Place.
Chapter 8
The steaming cup of tea lay in front of me as I sat alone in the dining room. We had made it back to the Arthurian hideout without further incident. Amy started asking me about Mark as soon as we got back in, but Gareth took her aside while Erin sat me down and brewed some tea. I stared blankly at the small grooves on the wooden table, my mind still in a daze. The events that had occurred just a few hours ago kept replaying themselves in my memory. I couldn’t think about anything else. My mind started asking questions to my subconscious as it tabulated all the choices I could have made and their uncountable consequences. This wasn’t the first time I had seen people die. The first shock had happened as soon as the Fomorians overran my neighborhood, and I saw soldiers and helpless people being slaughtered from my bedroom window. I remembered the time I wandered through London right after that too, when I was alone and frightened. There were corpses on the street and in houses that I dared not enter. Then I encountered that evil wizard Amicus Tarr, and my own sister nearly died before my eyes. Yet this latest event had shaken me to my very core. Dan and Ollie were gangsters, and they attacked Mark and me, but in the end I realized that they were just trying to survive, they were no different than anyone else. A very small part of me was glad they had met an untimely end, but the rest of my being felt ashamed for having even thought of it. I kept thinking if only I had reacted sooner, I might have been able to save Ollie’s life at least. Or perhaps I may have also been able to save Dan’s life by stopping him before he started to run away from that giant Fomorian. Then it all came back to the beginning, and I kept wondering whether I should have taken Ray’s warnings about the impending invasion seriously. If I had been a bit more understanding, then perhaps even my best friend would still be alive today.
The thought of Ray quickly reminded me of my ritual and I took another cup from the set and poured some tea into it. After putting in the customary four lumps of sugar, I set it facing the empty chair beside me.
Gareth walked into the room and sat down on the other side of the table, facing me. His right hand held an ice pack and he would occasional rub it on his bruised forehead. “I had a friend back in the military who did a similar thing, Steve. Although he used two shots of whisky instead. Are you acknowledging a mate of yours?”
“He was my best mate,” I said softly. “Without him I wouldn’t have made it this far. He saved Amy’s life as well. If only I had done something different, then perhaps he would still be right here with me.”
“You’ve got to put away those regrets, laddie,” he said as he took off his scabbard and placed it on the table. “You can’t keep second guessing the past. Time has moved on, you must look to the present and the future now.”
My lips trembled. “I just keep seeing what happened over and over again. It’s like a never-ending horror movie that just keeps replaying and never stops. I can’t even close my eyes.”
“Then you must keep busy in order to put something else in your mind,” Gareth said. “We’ve all lost someone we cared about since this whole thing started. What matters now is that we’re still alive and we can keep on fighting. We can preserve the memory of those we lost inside of us and carry on. I’m sure that is what your best mate would’ve wanted.”
I attempted a thin smile. “You’re right, my sister said the same thing. And Ray did too, when he said his final goodbye to me.”
Gareth sensed my spirits picking up as he smiled back and poured a cup of tea. “You’re a remarkable lad. You stayed calm and even tried to guide that gangster away from danger. It’s a pity you’re not a few years older, I could teach you some fighting moves that would really help.”
/> “Why can’t you teach them to me now?”
“No offense lad,” he said. “But you lack the strength at this stage for any major physical confrontations. It’s best you leave that sort of thing to Erin and myself. When we take on the firm, you need to stay behind us because they’ve got guns.”
“You got taken out by that Fomorian rather quickly,” I said as I pointed to the sheathed blade on the table. “Did you get that sword out of a museum or something?”
“I actually found it in the otherworld,” Gareth said. “It used to belong to a Fomorian until I bested him in single combat.”
“Is that sword, like, magical then?”
Gareth shrugged before sipping his tea. “I’m not really sure. All I know is that it can wound and even kill Fomorians. I have to admit I underestimated the reach of that giant. I guess I’m a little more out of it than I thought.”
“This otherworld that you ended up in, were there Fomorians there?”
“Yes. I believe it was one of their pocket dimensions or something like that,” Gareth said. “It was a land of flowing rivers and high, snow-capped mountain ranges. I ended up living in a cave for many years while I raised Erin.”
“How did you get back to earth?”
“Through a portal that I accidentally stumbled upon. It was fortunate that Erin was with me, otherwise she might still be in that other place,” Gareth said. “When I returned to this world, it seemed that time had barely passed. The years I spent in that otherworld only took a few weeks to pass by in this world.”
I was very intrigued now. “Do you think these Fomorians were sort of like stuck in these otherworlds before something brought them back over to us? Did you find any clues about their history in their books or anything?”
“I really don’t know the answer to that, Steve,” Gareth said. “The Fomorians didn’t seem to have any sort of writing, just an oral tradition, like the ancient Celts. Their entire culture centers on war and magic. The only sort of designs they make are strange patterns on stones and such.”
“Any ideas on what those designs are about?”
“I’m afraid not,” Gareth said. “I’m not an archaeologist or a magician. But if only we could get into contact with anyone who specializes in that field, then maybe we could get more information.”
I nodded. “I also wanted to ask you about Erin. When I saw her fight those monsters at the museum, I was absolutely amazed at what she could do. Her strength seemed superhuman.”
“Growing up in the otherworlds must have done something to her physique,” Gareth said. “That’s probably the best explanation I can think of, since I’m not a doctor either.”
“If I could ask, what happened to her mother?”
Gareth stood up and strapped the scabbard to his waist. “You may ask, but I’d rather not talk about what happened to her mother, if you don’t mind. Now we need to get ready. Surrey may only be a little over thirty miles away, but it will be dangerous to get to by car.” With those words, he strode out of the room.
What should have been only an hour’s drive to Surrey ended up taking nearly three times as long. Gareth would drive in spurts, his Land Rover darting from one end of a street to another, all the while driving underneath garages and into underground parking areas. The only time we would actually speed down the motorway with our headlights on was when we entered into a tunnel, but we sometimes had to maneuver around abandoned cars so that took a bit of time as well. When we finally made it into the countryside, Gareth opened the Rover’s sunroof and Erin would occasionally stand up and peer out into the sky. Any time we were out in the open, Gareth kept the headlights off and we would speed up until we got underneath the midnight shades of trees along the roads.
I sat in the back with Amy, since this time she had insisted upon tagging along with us. She had been keeping quiet the whole time. I sensed that she was awfully worried about Mark and she couldn’t take being cooped up in the hideout any longer. We spent a long time arguing about whether she ought to come with us, but in the end she wouldn’t take no for an answer. Amy was under strict instructions to stay by the car at all times until the coast was clear.
As we drove rapidly across an exposed road, Erin stood up again and stared out into the sky. This went on for a few minutes until we got onto a road that was lined with trees again. Then she sat down once more. We had passed a sign that said Chobham was less than a mile away.
I leaned forward so that I could speak in Erin’s ear. “Why do you keep standing up like that?”
Erin glanced at me before fixing her eyes on the road again. “I keep watch over the skies.”
I shook my head. “But why? I don’t understand any of this. What’s with the erratic driving and all that too?”
“As I’ve told you before, Steve,” Gareth said as he drove, “the Fomorians are attracted to cars.”
I peered out in front of us. “So what? Some of those monsters don’t even have legs. I doubt they would be able to catch up with any car going at full speed.”
Gareth turned and looked back at me. “It’s not the Fomorians on the ground that we worry about. It’s the flying ones in the air. Those things will pick speeding cars apart like a flock of seagulls attacking a bunch of helpless little sea turtles.”
I sat back, stunned. I glanced over at Amy and our eyes met, but it was dark in the interior of the car and I couldn’t read her expression. Right at that minute we saw a lit-up mansion a few miles away through a gap in the trees along the road. The Rover continued forward until we got to a back road, then Gareth turned the wheel and we drove on for another half a mile along the dirt path before he stopped the car underneath a copse of trees.
We spent the next half hour slowly making our way towards the mansion grounds on foot. From what Gareth had told me, Belasco House was once the abode of a famous but aging rock star. It had been abandoned shortly after the Fomorians invaded, but then the Pleasant Firm took it over. Since the entire countryside was in darkness, the light emanating from the mansion itself was an obvious beacon as we finally made it to the outskirts of the property.
All four of us crouched down behind the tree line and stared at the tended grounds that faced the rear of the building. There were standing stones that were strategically half buried in a circular arrangement which ringed the house. Strange, wavelike patterns had been carved on the five-foot-tall rocks, and they glowed like green neon lamps in the darkness. The mansion walls were inlaid red brick along with white-trimmed windows that were over ten feet tall. The central part of the mansion had a massive balcony on the second floor. There were four black men milling about by the rear courtyard, and each one of them was armed with a military rifle slung over their shoulder. They all had golden torcs visible on their necks. They were most probably the Barney Boys, but I didn’t see Twaine Osei among them.
“Let’s just observe them for a while,” Gareth whispered. “Once we’ve made a headcount and pinpointed their locations, we can find a way to get in there.”
“I’m going to check out the front,” Erin said softly before moving away and disappearing behind some foliage.
A few minutes later, one of the glass doors behind the balcony opened and a squat, middle-aged man walked out onto the veranda. Like the others, he wore a tracksuit and had a silver torc around his neck. He puffed on a cigar and cradled a wineglass in his other hand as he stared out into the night. As I looked at his grizzled hair and the wrinkles on his tanned cheeks, I recognized him from the news reports I had seen months before. The man was undoubtedly Archibald “Archie” Greene, the firm’s leader. He was shorter than I expected, although I couldn’t really be sure since he was fifty feet away, but he was most probably only a shade taller than me.
Amy moved sideways until she was right between Gareth and me. “Where do you think they’re holding Mark?”
“Can’t be sure, lass,” Gareth said without taking his eyes off of them. “My guess is he’s probably down below in a basement r
oom somewhere. I doubt those villains would put him up in a room in the upper part of that house.”
“I count five of them, and Archibald’s brother Owen is most probably somewhere inside. I know of another Barney gang member and he might be in the mansion too. But at least they don’t seem to be on the alert,” I whispered.
“Aye, laddie,” Gareth said. He was cradling a machine pistol in his arms. “That means we still have surprise on our side. All we have to do now is figure out a way to get inside without them noticing.”
That was when I remembered the yellow pebble in my pocket. “I think I can create an effective diversion; stay here,” I said as I started moving to the east side of the tree line. Within a few minutes I had made it to the side of the house. I took the pebble out and looked at it closely in the twilight of the woods. I wasn’t exactly sure how this was going to work but I remembered Myrddin telling me to throw the pebble and count three seconds. But as to where or how to throw the nugget he didn’t exactly tell me. I decided against throwing it out onto the grounds because if Myrddin did materialize out in the open, he would most certainly be shot. Instead, I turned around and threw it a few feet behind me, then silently counted to three.
And then nothing happened. I frowned as I started moving around the shrubbery, trying to locate the yellow pebble. Perhaps I had thrown it the wrong way, or maybe I should have said a magic word or something. As the minutes passed, I was beginning to wonder if that madman had merely lied to me. Then I heard laughter behind me and I quickly turned around to face the edge of the tree line once more.
It was indeed Myrddin. He was standing at the edge of the manicured grass, his bare toes digging into the dirt. “Throw the pebble, yes you did! And here I am to do as you bid!”
I hurriedly jumped out and grabbed him by the elbow, leading him back behind the shrubs. “Please be quiet,” I whispered, ducking my head and indicating that he should do the same. “There are armed bad guys around. I need your help to draw them away so we can go in there and rescue my sister’s boyfriend.”
The Fomorians Page 10
