“Yes…yes no more mistakes.”
Lord Bramley leaned back in his chair with a hearty grin.
“Well, I don’t know about you but I certainly feel that’s cleared the air somewhat eh?”
He re-lit a fat cigar, turning it slowly around in his mouth and puffing smoke from the corner of his lips.
Xzaza replaced his dark glasses and the awful weight of a thousand eyes was lifted from Bellingham’s soul. He pulled himself out of the vortex and found himself back in the room, in the comfortably familiar surroundings of the Blackmore Club, in his favourite armchair. With a slightly shaking hand he poured himself a large brandy from the decanter.
Bellingham didn’t feel well at all.
“There was something else I wanted to ask you…er…all of you about if you are listening.”
Xzaza smiled.
“Every one of my brothers is listening. Go on.”
“I’ve heard troubling rumours of…other supernatural creatures appearing on Earth…ones that are opposed to you. Are you certain that on your side of things, everything is running smoothly? Is there anything we should know about?”
Xzaza was still and silent for what felt like a very long time. Bellingham began to feel increasingly uncomfortable. Beside him, Lord Bramley just sat grinning and enjoying his cigar, the man’s supreme confidence unshakeable.
Finally Xzaza spoke.
“Those other creatures that you speak of. They are no threat to us. They are few in number, and by the time our plans are in action, we will have mopped the last of their resistance up.”
“Quietly of course? Discreetly?”
Xzaza cocked his head like a hungry predator.
“Oh yes Mr Bellingham. As quiet as a mouse. You will not even know that we are there.”
9
It was Thursday and the streets of London were thronged when an Angel and a Devil decided to tear each other to pieces right there in the old city.
People present didn’t respond as expected. There was no panic and scurrying for cover. Most Londoner’s survival instinct was overridden by their disbelief. Many of the younger ones thought that they had strayed onto a movie set. London was a popular location for summer blockbusters and it was conceivable that a flick was being shot in Piccadilly Circus.
What their teenage brains did not register was that special effects were normally added afterwards.
The origin of the vicious fight was the Shaftsbury Memorial Fountain, which stood there in the centre of the busy junction topped by its statue of the sensual winged figure of Anteros, the avenger of unrequited love. As the brawlers burst through, it exploded in a shower of masonry and a hiss as the rain around it turned to steam.
Prior to this it had been a Thursday panning out like any other. A hop from London’s theatre district, tourists were passing through on their way to Covent Garden and Shaftesbury Avenue. Book buyers were pouring out of Waterstones the bookshop. A well-known author of Paranormal Romance had been visiting for a signing session and then at 19:42pm, a fissure in reality was ripped open and two large winged figures tumbled through.
All the lights went out. Car engines stuttered and died. The flash of thaumaturgy acted like an EMP in the world of physics.
The only light was the glow emanating from the skins of the two beings. For a few moments they crouched there with swords drawn in the middle of the road. They were as disoriented as the onlookers, having been fighting only a few moments before in another place entirely.
The Angel was first to rise, shaking pain free from her limbs. Spreading her silvery feathers, the Angel spat blood onto the windscreen of a Ford Focus and glared across at her nemesis. Inside the car, a family of four peered through the ruby tinted glass at the tall creature. It lost its balance and stumbled against the passenger door, knocking the car several feet across the road with a metallic screech. The Angel placed a gauntlet on the bonnet and righted herself. She roared across at the devil.
“Here?”
The other creature struggled to rise from the rubble of the broken fountain. It leaned on its sword and rose to spindly legs. It flapped its torn wings, sweeping up a cloud of concrete dust that obscured it in a ghostly sandstorm. It spat a gobbet of green blood onto the pavement.
“It’s as good as anywhere.”
In a supreme act of dissociation from the danger around him, a Japanese tourist in a yellow Mac stepped forward, busily clicking his camera in front of the shrouded devil. He spoke incessantly as either some kind of talismanic mantra or in excitement at the notion of showing his holiday photos when he got home. He never did.
The devil stepped forward from the mist and skewered the snap-happy tourist through the sternum. It lifted him off his feet and rested the swordstick over its shoulder like a city gent on a stroll. The tourist spasmed over the devil’s shoulder like a pinned butterfly in its death throes. His finger twitched out three final photos in time with his faltering heart. The last was an accidental selfie.
The devil stepped forward out of the steam, a few metres away from its opponent. It was not a man, but its scuffed pinstripe suit and demeanour indicated male. Around his head, ropes of black hair writhed in an unseen wind. At the end of each thick plait was a snapping serpent’s mouth.
The winged female gritted her teeth and advanced. Their swords clashed, sending a shower of sparks out across the road. People ran now, cowering behind cars and in shop doorways. Even the slowest teenagers were realizing that this was no movie set.
Again and again their swords rang together, grunts of effort mixed with curses issuing from the creature’s mouths. The armoured Valkyrie was larger and stronger, but blood was leaking from between the plates of her left thigh. She lunged for the demon and caught him with a slash cross the chest, opening up his suit and painting his pale skin with a fine black line, which began to ooze green slime. The demon cried out and took a faltering step backwards but the Valkyrie had overreached. Her wounded leg gave and she stumbled forward onto her knees. The demon seized the opportunity and thrust out with his thin sword. It pierced her chest and slid out her back in a spurt of blood. She gasped and dropped her sword, her eyes wide with shock. The demon pushed forward and drove his sword deeper, grinning at her with his parasite mouth. The vipers around his head drew back in a mocking hiss.
“I bet that’s in interesting sensation, Valkyrie.”
Ursula spat blood at his face and grinned through the pain.
“I’ve had better and deeper.”
The demon twisted the thin blade and Ursula tried to scream but the air was taken from her lungs. She lashed out with her armoured fist and caught the demon in the throat. He released the blade and staggered back, choking and spluttering. Ursula slowly fell back as her knees folded beneath her. The spike protruding from beneath her shoulder scraped the concrete and held her there propped up like a bizarre sculpture. She tried to lever herself up but her strength was failing and the pain was exquisite. The stricken Valkyrie could only watch as the spindly demon found his breath and stood up grinning at her.
“You think your friends on this revolting realm were going to be here waiting for you, Ursula? They’re on their last legs, they have been for a long time. It’s finished. Your friends here are the last line of defence and they are last to be swept aside.”
Ursula wheezed in a part lungful of air.
“…No…They won’t fall…”
The demon shrugged and wiped green blood from the corner of his mouth.
“They’ve already fallen. They just don’t know it yet. They are not even safe from their own kind now. You have no more allies.”
Mr Styx plucked a long shard of glass from his own body and traced his finger along its edge. Then he advanced on the fallen Valkyrie to open her throat.
Behind him, a shimmer in reality radiated outwards from the broken statue.
Something burst through the Thin Spot, the rain hissing into a cloud of steam as it crossed over. It was roughly canine in shap
e but the size of a lion. It skidded into a cluster of discarded motorbikes and scraped its claws tight to slow itself.
The creature snarled as it pounced and struck the devil in the back with its forepaws.
Mr Styx was flung forward, his wings fallings around him like a leathery cloak. The snakes that grew from his head like living dreadlocks hissed in rage and fear. The huge creature crouched on the cobbles, its head turning from its fallen mistress to the winded demon. For a moment its savage countenance softened and it winced like a puppy at the blood pouring from sword lodged in the Angel’s chest.
Ursula reached out a hand and touched its big brown snout. Through gritted teeth she forced a pained smile. “It’s alright Maximillian. All is well, boy.”
The lupine monster flicked out a pink tongue and lapped medicinally at the blood on Ursula’s fingers. Then its features darkened as it turned to the cause of its mistresses’ pain.
Mr Styx was righting himself with one wing, slowly rising to his feet with one hand outstretched and another reaching for the poisoned stiletto dagger he kept in his boot.
“As you are, lapdog. I am no sheep to be herded.”
The monstrous dog bared yellow fangs and leapt at him. Mr Styx tried to take off but his damaged wings were shredded and could gain no purchase. He rose a few feet but Maximillian’s jaws clamped down on his hoofed leg, snapping it like a dry twig and dragging the devil back down into busy London.
Mr Styx viciously stabbed his dagger into the shoulders of the dog again and again, blood spraying out with each thrust, but Maximillian was not about to let the foul creature escape no matter what the damage to itself. With a final squeeze of his jaws, Max crunched through the devil’s femur and the leg bent at a gut wrenching right angle between his teeth.
The devil howled in pain with a noise that echoed up through the streets of Soho.
With a wrench of his thick shaggy neck, Maximillian slammed the creature down onto the bonnet of a Black Mercedes. The shocked Middle Eastern driver’s hands locked onto the steering wheel and could not let go. He pushed his legs so hard into the foot well in an effort to gain distance that he broke the driver’s seat and began to slowly recline.
Mr Styx lay there in a huge dent in the crumpled bonnet, one wing and one leg snapped and seeping green blood. However as the giant dog lurched forward to deliver a death bite, the snakes upon the devil’s head thrust out and bit deep wounds in the beast’s sensitive snout. Maximillian yelped and drew back, shaking his head as if to dislodge a wasp. Mr Styx rose to slit the beast’s throat whilst it was distracted and the poison took hold. He drew back his dagger and aimed for the important veins.
Suddenly his weapon was spun from his grip by Ursula’s blade. She stood there in the midst of the traffic, covered in blood and unsteady on her feet. The sword still protruded from her chest and back.
Mr Styx turned his strange featureless head towards her, the eyes of his snake tendrils dimly lit with spite. They hissed at her in unison.
With a sharp flick of her wrist Ursula the Valkyrie lopped off three of the hissing snake heads. The demon went rigid with shock and pain.
Ursula forced a bloody smile.
“Don’t hurt my dog, leech.”
Mr Styx broke into a sharp laugh, masking his acute pain. Green lifeblood ran down the white mask of his ‘face’.
“Your dog’s dead and so are you. Look at you, sky vermin… You’re stuck like a pig…. Do you know how much venom was on that blade?”
Ursula felt her legs begin to buckle beneath her.
Not. Yet.
“It takes more than a little Unseelie blight to disgrace my blood, serpent.”
Mr Styx broke into a wracking cough. Some of his internal workings were failing and the remaining snakes were writhing in death throes about his skull.
“You know that’s not true. You’re alone Valkyrie, and you will die far from home. You will not last a day with my taint in your veins. So good luck in your important business.”
My skin is on fire. My brain feels like it boils in my skull like a steaming kettle.
Can I even take this pain for another hour?
She placed her blade against the white skin of Mr Styx’s neck.
“Time to go back to the Dark.”
Mr Styx slightly bowed his bizarre head in a gesture that was both elegant and spiteful.
“At your word, Overseer.”
With a sudden slash the Valkyrie removed the old bloodsucker’s head and it landed with a wet slap on the bonnet of the Mercedes. As soon as it was separated from him, the head began to dissolve in a glutinous green mass. His body quickly followed, oozing from the sleeves of his once immaculate suit.
Ursula staggered back and only stopped herself falling when she reached out and felt the coarse wet fur of the giant wolf-creature nuzzle by her side. His snout was swollen and the fur between his shoulders matted with blood. Ursula smiled down at him and nodded.
“You poor lad. What a mess I’ve let you get in…. I promised I’d get you back to him in one piece… Will Usher ever forgive me?”
Maximillian raised his wet nose into her neck and licked her blood clean.
Ursula steadied herself and looked around. There were hundreds of people pressed against the windows of the nearby buildings. More were crouched behind cars and buses. Sirens blared nearby and blue lights reflected off windows down near Trafalgar Square. All around there was the glow of countless cameras taking pictures and filming. Ursula silently cursed.
Empire One is not going to like this.
Maximillian nudged Ursula and winced.
The tall Valkyrie nodded.
“Yes, I know boy. They won’t understand. We have to go.”
Metropolitan Police armed response vehicles screeched to a halt and tactically positioned themselves at the junction of each road leading to Piccadilly. Officers with ballistic shields and G36 carbines took up cover behind their vehicles. Shouts of armed police echoed across the night towards Ursula.
She stood there in the middle next to the shattered fountain, alone in the world apart from a thaumaturgy-warped German Shepherd that belonged to the only friendly face she knew on planet Earth. The poison raced through her veins. It would have killed a human in less than ten seconds. Ursula was made of sterner stuff. She agreed with the Unseelie’s calculations.
She would be dead in a day.
Ursula clamped her fangs together and grasped the handle of the unholy blade that skewered her and protruded from her back. She cried out in pain in a way she had not since she was a nestling girl as she dragged the metal spike free of her body. It scraped rib all the way out. She threw it on the tarmac and her legs nearly gave again.
Come on girl. Be a good soldier. Stay on your feet.
Maximillian was bleeding badly and clearly in pain himself. He was whimpering softly in an almost puppyish way, but he held her firm with his densely muscled flank.
Ursula looked behind her to the gaping ragged hole in the concrete where the fountain used to be. The Thin Spot had punched down as well as out and there was a deep hole into whatever subterranean world lay beneath this human city. Ursula was caught between a hail of bullets and a leap of faith.
She rubbed the dog’s ears and it looked up at her.
“We’re hurt boy, but we still have work to do, and about a sunset to do it in. Got a bit more left in you Max?”
Max licked her hand.
Good boy.
Ursula closed her eyes and folded her damaged wings. With her unnatural senses she heard the triggers move on the carbines all around her, heard the hammers hit the percussion caps of each round.
Then she leapt back into the hole and was lost into the ancient layers of London.
10
Northern England: 20:29hrs
Usher’s black Jaguar pulled up in front of the iron gates of the old manor.
The muddy tyres crunched across the gravel and ground to a halt. Usher lowered his window and killed
the engine. An old silence rested over the landscape except for the wind whispering through the woods and the croak of a few crows scattering up from the redbrick wall ahead.
A lonelier place Usher could hardly imagine.
It’s certainly no place to die.
Through the old gates Usher could see the remains of the manor at the end of a long empty driveway. The blood-streaked sky cast the building in silhouette, jagged beams and crumbling walls jutting starkly against the setting sun.
It looks exactly like they described it. A place where you put people to forget they exist. An oubliette. What kind of poor souls ended up here?
Usher hadn’t forgotten about one soul who did. The soul he was here to either find or avenge.
There were no more patients in the manor and no more staff. Not since the fire. Most of the staff had escaped with shock and minor burns. A couple of brave orderlies and one local police officer had bravely gone back in to the burning building to rescue a few unaccounted for children. They were never seen again. Not all the children were found, but no grieving families cried for inquests about their deaths. Most of the residents of the institution had no caregiver to miss them.
Probably a good thing the missing ones had no family. Not truly knowing the fate of your child is the worst thing on Earth.
For years the place had suffered with faulty wiring and cheap 1970’s upholstery. Fire had crept up through the floors and ceilings from the basement of the Victorian firetrap and filled its lonely voids turning linoleum into napalm. An eerie haze had hung around the ruin for days after the blaze, hot dust and asbestos shimmering in the air like a mirage. The exposed innards of the manor spilled out onto the gravel and its charred ribs creaked in arthritic pain. But it stood.
Usher had been driving for two hours since his last rest stop near civilization. Stale coffee and a limp egg sandwich in a motorway service station that reeked of damp cloth dragged over Formica. He pinched his nose and rubbed, easing out the strain of the long journey.
He was here later than he wanted to be, but it was a holiday weekend and the traffic around the nearest big town had been a nightmare. He hadn’t planned on arriving here when it was almost dark.
The Last Line Series One Page 67
