The Last Line Series One

by David Elias Jenkins

It’s not going to hold.

  Usher forced himself to look up, his eyes stinging and throat on fire. The shield was crumbling now, battered under the anti thaumaturgic energy of the bomb.

  The noise was deafening, a thousand crashing oceans pouring down upon them. The heat singed their hair and skin. The air in their lungs felt like burning methane.

  Then suddenly, like smoke sucked out of a depressurising aeroplane, the mist seemed to be sucked into the remains of the shield itself. The shield began to take on a reddish hue, and then it vanished.

  There was silence.

  Usher was struggling to stay conscious, but he saw that in the clear light of day most of the forest around the mansion had been razed to the ground.

  He tried to push himself up on his elbows but his strength was gone. His head was dizzy and his eyes struggled to focus. Looking around him, he saw the rest of Empire One rolling on the ground, covering their ears, retching and coughing.

  He caught Ariel’s eye. The young investigator was bleary eyed and coughing, but he found enough strength to push himself up into one knee for a moment and take in his surroundings, before collapsing back onto the ground again. He looked up at Usher, forced a pained smile, and raised a single thumb. He shook his head incredulously.

  “It held. The shield absorbed it, almost all of it. That Debruler is a fucking genius.”

  Usher returned the thumb and then collapsed back onto the grass.

  He could hardly will himself to move a muscle.

  Then he saw a figure emerging from the mansion. A tall red haired man that seemed to be carrying a suitcase sized polished black box. He strode through the sea of writhing bodies, walking close to Usher as he passed.

  Usher tried to reach out a hand to stop him but he had no strength left.

  The figure stopped as it saw Usher’s faltering hand.

  Cavell looked down at him. In his hands he carried the Bones of Lilith. The essence of a power the world had not seen for thousands of years. Something Usher had absolutely no idea how to stop.

  Cavell smiled at him then his face melted and reformed into that of his wife. She smiled down at him in a mocking grin. It sickened Usher to see a face he had once loved stolen and abused. Then the face melted again and became a featureless wound of raw flesh. The doppelganger’s true form.

  Usher tried to swipe at it again but he could not even begin to stand up and his blow had no more power than a child’s.

  The doppelganger held up the casket of bones, opened its mouth an in a voice thick with blood it said.

  “Thank you for my family.”

  Usher watched as the creature strode past him and out into the smouldering forest of tree stumps, soon vanishing into the haze as it went to seek its master.

  Usher rolled over and stared up at the blue sky above him. In the far distance he thought he saw a couple of specks that could have been helicopters. He laughed and sucked the blood from his teeth.

  Ah the rescue team is here. Excellent.

  Usher could do no more than lay there on his back in the grass, trying to catch his breath. His whole body was just pain.

  He tried to drift off, imagine a time long before he knew that the world was populated by monsters. He imagined being in a park when he was still at school, laying on his back after being out playing all day, with nothing to do but hang out with friends and with the whole of his life stretched out before him.

  The sound of the approaching helicopters brought him back.

  He could never un-know what he had learned. Never go back to being one of the billions of people unaware of what waited for them in the dark. But it was his job to protect those people. And this time he had failed.

  We’re supposed to keep them separate. We’re meant to stand between all those people and the things we fight. There’s no one else to do it. We’re supposed to be the last line.

  And now they’ve crossed it.

  Usher forced himself up onto his knees and looked at his team, his real family. They were all alive. That at least was good.

  They could fight another day.

  He could see in their faces that they were struggling with the same conflict he was feeling. They’d lost a battle and they didn’t like losing one bit. They had allowed the wolf to cross the threshold and now it was loose to hunt people as it pleased.

  They were down but they would get back up. They would hunt the Necromancer to the ends of the earth or cross over to the Unseelie side themselves if they had to.

  Usher dreaded to think what evil was about to be unleashed in the world by allowing the Unseelie to recover those Bones. He knew it wasn’t good news.

  Usher made a promise to himself that he would give his last breath to correct this mistake. He knew every one of his men was feeling the same.

  Empire One needs to get square with the house again.

  As the helicopters came in to land in the mansion grounds, Usher realized that the stub of his cigar was beside him on the grass and was still smouldering.

  Well what are the chances of that? The lucky few indeed, eh.

  With shaky hand he picked it up and placed it between his lips.

  He blew a fine trail of smoke upwards into the blue sky.

  I’m gonna finish this cigar. Then I’m gonna hunt every one of you bastards down.

  The padded white door remained locked, as it had all day.

  The absent minded singing of a child lost in play drifted through the little viewing grille;

  The ragtime goblin man

  He comes around and softly sings a ragtime tune

  I know he followed me

  He’ll catch me sure

  And they’ll be a ragtime swoon.

  He’s beside me, hide me hide me

  I can feel his breath, oh I’m scared to death

  He will take me shake me

  Make me join his raggedy band

  Look out for the goblin man

  Look out for that hook in his hand

  That great big hook in his hand.

  There he is there he is there he is there!

  Mr Bugaboo, if he catches you

  He’ll beat you then he’ll eat you

  That ragtime goblin man

  The three burly orderlies and one ex-orderly-now-detective stood nervously outside in the corridor, glancing askance at the door.

  They had remained in a nervous vigil all day outside the room in Marksley Willows, a mixture of grim yet grand Victorian institution, lovingly papered over with peeling 1970’s wallpaper and decked with chequered linoleum, all set in acres of drizzly countryside. The terminus for children no one could control. The dumping ground for young boys and girls that were regarded as just a little too wrong, which caused some instinctive nausea and revulsion in the eyes of their parents.

  The rain battered down on the re-enforced windows as it had all that day.

  “They’re sending us a what?”

  Gary craned his thick neck and peered out of the rusting wire mesh that covered the window. He saw some distant headlights pass through the trees at the edge of the hospital grounds. The moon was retreating behind moody purple clouds. He waited for the crunch of tyres on gravel but it never came. Gary set his jaw and shrugged. Come on come on just get here will you!

  “Some kind of military intelligence prick, I dunno.”

  “Why would the Greenflies be interested in this demented little bastard?”

  Over by the door, Stan glanced up at his two larger colleagues.

  “Greenflies?”

  Gary grunted and scratched his stubble.

  “Army intel bods, the green slime. Met a few of them when I was a squaddie. Bunch of fast track graduates with nervous tics, if you ask me. ”

  Jim winked over at young Stan.

  “A top level horticulturalist I heard. A topiary expert. Nothing he can’t do with a pair of hedge trimmers.”

  “Scientist of some kind I’ll bet, expert on biological stuff, poisons and such. That little basta
rd in there has probably tried to engineer some kind of nerve toxin with those plants of his. Probably got us all hallucinating, that’s where all this could be coming from.”

  Stan chuckled to fit in.

  “Ah I see, so this guy they’re sending us, he’s not with the Greenflies, he just knows about actual greenflies. Top government gardener.”

  Gary shook his meaty head.

  “He’s not army as such, not any regiment they’ll acknowledge anyway. I heard it’s STG they’re sending us.”

  A man with a stringy comb over in a shiny polyester suit leaned against the peeling wall and lit up a cigarette.

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Don’t they have Youtube in the suburbs, Detective constable Paul? You never saw the Canary Wharf footage of those, er, those, Trolls?”

  “Nah I don’t read the comments, I hate internet trolls. Knock it off with the titles, it’s just me. It’s Paul. You’ve known me fifteen years you prick.”

  “No Detective Paul not that kind of troll. Actual Trolls. Footage was all over the web for weeks last year.”

  Stan nodded vigorously.

  “They hushed it up, done one of those whaddyacallethem? Dee reports.”

  “D-Notice. Yeah they swept the whole thing under the carpet. Like they did with that nuclear leak in Canada the other week.”

  Detective Paul Chalmers took a deep drag and sneered at them. He was nervous and his skin itched. He could smell his own sweat in the warm air between his suit jacket and shirt. He didn’t like being back in this place, too many odd memories. That horrible disinfectant smell masking decay that clung to your clothes all the way home. It brought back his unhappy years working here in an acrid wave of nausea. He hadn’t stepped a foot back in the depressing old behemoth of a complex since he left to join the police five years ago. He certainly hadn’t missed this bunch of bastards.

  “Oh fuck off and get a room Mulder and Scully. I’m not in the mood for your fake moon landings horse shit. All I ever heard for seven years was your ghost stories and conspiracy theories. Now at least I get bullshitted about real things.”

  Gary was undeterred.

  “Top secret bio-weapons research facility way out in the wild is what they think now. Some kind of nerve gas they were working on blew up in their faces, they had to scorch the whole town. Some place called Carnival. Forums are alive with stories about it.”

  Chalmers blew some smoke out followed by an acid belch.

  “Not that I’m doubting your sources boys, I mean it was on Youtube and you wanked over it together in a chatroom so it must be true, but this isn’t exactly in the same league as nuclear leaks and terrorist trolls in London is it? I mean, it’s just some Aspie who likes Bonsai trees. Why would it merit sending some government expert? I mean, think about it lads.”

  “Oh you don’t regard five missing kids as a big deal? Cos they’re not the cute, well behaved, middle class kids, right? Well merry fucking Christmas to you too Paul. You’ve come a long way since you actually had to pretend to care about this place and the delinquents in it. Typical soulless rozzer.”

  Paul flicked his head at the closed door and his comb-over shifted a little. The half muttered singing still drifted through the grille.

  Look out for the goblin man

  Look out for that hook in his hand

  That great big hook in his hand.

  “Listen to him. This kid shouldn’t even be here. He’s not just a violent little torag like the rest of them in here. He’s different. He’s spooky.”

  “He has learning difficulties Paul, he’s not spooky he just gets obsessed with things, it’s part of his problem.”

  Next to Gary, Jim shrugged his shoulders and his mouth twisted.

  “You can be as politically correct as you want Gary, the kid is absolutely creepy as fuck.”

  Paul raised his stubby hands.

  “Thank you Jim, voice of sense.”

  Gary snorted at them.

  “Maybe so, but he’s about forty kilos soaking wet, are you trying to tell me he’s the one been murdering and devouring the other inmates? Have you seen half the hard little bastards in here? Christ, I wouldn’t mess with most of them alone.”

  Jim cleared his throat.

  “Patients, Gary, we don’t call them inmates, remember.”

  Gary snorted. “Yeah but we all know the truth don’t we?”

  Paul Chalmers crushed his cigarette butt beneath a scuffed loafer and raised a hand.

  “This is a police matter. It’s a weird one but it’s still a crime and it should be us getting the credit. It’s just typical. They send the stuffed suits in and we all get shut out. Middle of the night as well, what’s that all about? They can’t send someone during office hours?”

  “Alright then Inspector Clouseau, give me your assessment? In all your three extensive years in CID chasing down criminals, have you ever, ever had to deal with anything as royally weird and fucked up as this? Any leads? Any idea where to start? I thought not.”

  “Well he’s stepping on our toes.”

  “I don’t care who they send, or whose toes he’s stepping on. If he can help us catch the sick bastard that’s doing this, he can take over your entire investigation if he wants. It’s public money and I’d rather it wasn’t spent on your crimefighter fantasies.”

  Chalmers was about to protest then his sloping shoulders sagged. He tried to blot out the soft singing coming from the little grille in the door, followed by a series of sharp little noises.

  Snip. Snip. Snip.

  “Sorry can we back up a bit? What’s the STG? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Above your pay grade Detective?”

  “No I just don’t spend all night every night trawling the internet for Nessie. Prick. What is it?”

  “The Special Threats Group. Super hush-hush branch of the military. Before the Iranian embassy siege the government only grudgingly acknowledged the existence of the SAS. But then it was all over the news, the cat was out the bag. Don’t think the yanks officially acknowledge Delta Force exists to this day. It’s like that. They’re all sneaky-beaky about this lot too. They keep changing its name every few years to one banal cover or another. These days it’s the STG.”

  Chalmers’ brow furrowed. “And they’re sending one of their boys here, to a school for the worst, most delinquent scumbag kids in Britain. Sure it isn’t the Special Needs group?”

  Stan waved a hand from his spot at the window grille.

  “Car’s pulled up outside.”

  “Journos? They’ve been hanging round the gates for days trying to get something on these missing kids.”

  “Nah, not that scum, car isn’t shitty enough. Big black Jaguar by the looks of it, tinted windows, very official looking.”

  “Who’s getting out?”

  “Couple of big dudes in suits and shades, bodyguard types. They look serious.”

  “Sunglasses? It’s a rainy December night in England. Fucking posers.”

  “No seriously Jim, these guys look scary. I think they’re packing heat.”

  Chalmers groaned.

  “Packing heat. Seriously Stan, kill yourself, just do it.”

  Stan shook his head.

  “No hang on, scrub that boys. Some total shitheap of a Citroen DS has just pulled up behind it. It looks like all the wheels might fall off at once. Some scruffy bloke just got out and dropped his glasses.

  Chalmers sneered. “This is a joke, right? This whole night is a bad joke. What’s he gonna do, douse the place in holy water? This is police work for police officers.”

  Gary squared his barrel chest up to Chalmers.

  “Look you may think the world is all in perfect working order cos you’ve handed out a couple of fixed penalty notices but I’m not blind like you. There are people, credible intelligent people out there who research this stuff. These guys are the real McCoy.”

  “People like you?”

  “People smarter than you or me.
It’s like global warming. Nobody except people who really study this stuff can see. Little changes, background changes. Happening over the last few years. Ghost sightings, disappearances, government cover ups. Don’t you guys ever read anything? All these internet memes, they’re springing from somewhere. Some people are actually seeing these…these things.. Reality is changing.“

  Jim slapped a hand on his forehead and pinched his nose.

  “I really cannot take this anymore Gary. Always like this on a nightshift. It starts out normal then you sink into this weird, conspiracy theory horror film bullshit. It’s boredom mate, and gullibility. I’m just waiting on the day you come into work and tell these boys you’ve found Jesus, just a matter of time.”

  “So you don’t believe in ghosts Jim? After all the things the staff have seen here over the years? ”

  Jim sighed.

  “Mate, I work in a dilapidated, Victorian era formal asylum for the criminally insane, that’s now a care facility, in the loosest possible terms, for mentally disturbed and violent youngsters. The power doesn’t work half the time, I rarely get a phone signal, and we’re thirty miles from the nearest town that is little more than a collection of thatched hamlets housing inbred Wickerman sheepshaggers. Do you think, if I had the slightest superstitious bone in my body, I would even consider working somewhere like here? No. I’d be in Starbucks. Sixty miles away. ”

  Paul grinned showing nicotine stained teeth.

  “He has a point.”

  Stan shrugged.

  “He does Gary, if I was the superstitious sort this place would scare every shade of shit out of me. The noise from the plumbing alone would scare most folk away.”

  “Well not to point out the obvious boys, but we don’t need anything supernatural for this establishment to have become a dangerous place to be. There’s the little fact of, oh I don’t know, five missing teenagers, that Inspector Turncoat here is treating as murder. We may have a genuine honest to God serial killer amongst the staff. Shit he could be sitting in the staff room eating child stew and waiting for me to take my break right now. I don’t mind telling you that I am shitting myself over this.”

  “Now now boys, We haven’t established yet if this is just a missing person case, or if foul play is involved, but..”