Kingdom

by Andy Tilley

  To punctuate his frustration Dr Hill slaps an open hand onto the door and it booms. Jonathon is glad of the noise, uses its reverberation to cover a deep breath that he has been lingering on the edge of taking for the last five minutes. He doesn’t yet know who the man they are talking about is but he does know that he is their leader, the one the others are waiting for instruction from and more importantly the man who is holding his sister captive.

  ‘Look, don’t get pissy with me Jeremy, I‘m only bloody asking! And it’s okay for you. You’re the one who he contacts but I’m left in the bloody dark every time unless you tell me something. And tonight isn’t quite the same deal now is it? Or you wouldn’t be phoning me at work and telling me to get my arse down here on a Wednesday night now would you?’

  Jonathon knows Jeremy Hill (the GP who investigated and prescribed cures for both his eczema as a child and acne as a teenager) and he’s staggered; not only by his doctor’s apparent involvement in all this but the fact that Hill’s professional mannerisms appear to have remained intact, uncompromised by the foulness of his actions. For example, he’s folded his arms whilst listening to Young’s whining but they are held smug and loose, draped onto his waist just as he would before admonishing a spotty kid for picking and squeezing. It’s the doctor’s voice too that he’s using still, not the evil hisses one might expect from a kidnapper. This surgery voice is perhaps more sinister to Jonathon; clinical and deliberate and too smooth not to be sly.

  ‘My my my, here it is again. Can you not just leave it alone for Christ’s sake? And let’s be honest, I know that you have never been happy about my relationship with Thomas, the fact that he trusts me more than you to keep this all together, but you have to remember that it’s nothing personal Tom. It’s just that Thomas and I have history. And yes I know that you have as much as me at stake here but the bottom line is this. I am the one who specified and supervised the installation of the equipment. I am the one who can do the procedure. In short Tom, I am the one who Thomas Chevalier trusts to save his daughter.’

  Hill’s conceit cranks up the tension so tightly that Jonathon begins to feel all but invisible. The men have locked narrow stares and in doing so presented an opportunity that the young, heroic spy simply has to take. Edging forward, staying as low as he can, Jonathon breaks cover, soon relying only on the milky gloom to keep him from view. He isn’t quite sure what he intends to do but he is certain that something has to be done. To do it he needs to get closer and as a flustered Tom Young finally speaks, Jonathon slowly steps on.

  ‘Oh is that right Jeremy? So what you’re really saying here is that I’m just the side kick, the fat copper who loses the paper work and makes out dodgy reports? Well let me tell you something Dr smarty bollocks, I’m more than that! I am fuckin’ more than that d’you hear!’

  The disjointed paved floor that Jonathon creeps across cracks and crisps as each of his footfalls splinters winter debris. Fortunately the cold noise doesn’t have the energy to interrupt PC Young’s heated tirade.

  Only fifteen paces away, maybe less, when Jonathon’s slow motion attack (because that’s what this is he has decided) is suddenly frozen to the spot by sharp movement ahead. Tom Young’s arms have jerked, springing his hands from the warmth of deep pockets. They’re waving menacingly now and loaded with something that he had hidden there in his coat. Whatever these objects are he’s using them to threaten his accomplice, all the time continuing to shout.

  ‘Because I, my snooty friend, am more than just your bitch. I am in fact…..’

  In an instant Young’s mood switches and his rant takes a weird, theatrical pause during which he steadies his hands, pushes them forward and reveals what he holds there for the doctor.

  ‘Da daaaa.! The man with the midnight pies! Want one?’

  In each of the copper’s hand there is indeed a pie; a pork pie Jonathon judges from the packaging. The humour with which they have been served relaxes the men for the first time tonight.

  ‘So come on doc, don’t fight it. You know you want one too now don’t you? Come on, come and join me on the fat side.’

  The laughing policeman continues to clown around, weaving one of the pies through Hill’s craving gaze. Hill simply shakes his head, smiles but eventually accepts this tasty peace offering when Young eventually stops teasing him with it. In the gloom, Jonathon shakes his head too, embarrassed that he had cowered from two small pastries in such a way but with only seven paces left to his target, he soon refocuses. It is the first of those seven steps that breaks the twig that makes no more noise than the others had but (being closer as it is) emits a snap sharp enough to turn heads.

  The doctor is the closest and is the first to spot Jonathon. He shouts and the race begins. Jonathon launches himself forward but the frosty ground immediately slides from beneath him and his attack stumbles. Hill backs away adding precious, defensive distance and Jonathon loses heart; he can see in the doctor’s face that without the surprise or the speed needed to threaten him, the man has decided to stand his ground, lower his stance and prepare to grapple the boy. But Jonathon is able to lunge one more time, reaching out and grabbing Hill’s raised elbow, turning the doctor around whilst at the same time wrapping an adrenalin pumped arm around the doctor’s neck. The move is completed with a clean jerk backwards as Jonathon drags Hill off balance and into his control.

  ‘Don’t you dare fuckin’ move Young or I‘ll snap his fuckin’ neck you hear! Now where’s my sister you piece of shit!’

  PC Young’s training kicks in and it impresses the hell out of everybody. He’s already adjusted his stance, feet set wide and stable and now he is slowly raising his forward arm to present a calm, outstretched hand. This act of pure professionalism would have been so much more impressive if he didn’t still have a pie in it.

  ‘Okay now son, let’s just calm down shall we? It’s Jonathon isn’t it? Jonathon Stevens.’

  Hill tries to twist as he hears his attacker’s name but Jonathon tightens the grip around his captive’s neck, squeezing the words that were forming there into a breathless grunt.

  ‘Hey now listen Jonathon, seriously mate. Just relax a little will you? The man can’t breathe son and I’m sure that you don’t want that now do you? He won’t try to escape again, you’ve proved your point.’

  ‘Where’s Ruby! I know she ain’t dead and I know you know where she is you bastard so tell me or I swear to god I will break his neck!’

  ‘Now would be a good time.’

  Jonathon’s confusion lasts only as long as it takes Uncle John to swing the metal bar that strikes his head and drops him to the floor. As Jonathon rolls there, arms wrapped tightly around his mop of bloody hair in an effort to contain the pain (that will surely burst his brains if he releases it!) he hears Hill say something that chills him to the bone.

  ‘Get the little bastard down to the lab. I’ll deal with him there.’

  Consciousness is drifting away from the fallen hero now, melting into the frozen dark ground that he lies on and faster than he can reel it back. The last thing that Ruby’s brother ever sees of the world above ground is a huge steel door sliding open.

  Chapter 22

  I would have thought that my relentless battle to survive both my grief for the love I’ve relinquished and the black shadow of ascension looming over my short life (darkness now the only thing that I share with Rose) might have kept hunger away. But they haven’t. Less than an hour into this monumental journey and I need to stop at the services to grab snacks. I feel so guilty caving in like this; delaying my mission to protect Rose so that I can stuff a cheese and pickle sandwich into my mouth. But that’s Cristian Chevalier. I’m renowned for it amongst family and friends, this need to eat like clockwork. I remember playing one of those truth or dare card games (which I’m sure are designed to cause arguments between drunken partners and wreck parties). My cousin Helena asked the question of me then; would you consider eating human flesh if you were stranded in the wilder
ness. I didn’t even think about the answer, said that if I was ever plane crashed onto some Andean mountain top then I would be sautéing the pilot for lunch; day one, dead or seriously ill. Everybody had laughed, but I was serious; missing a meal simply isn’t an option for me. As I restart the car (struggling to find the ignition and at the same time trying to unwrap the sandwich) a thought hits me. Will I be as ravenous when I become the monster that I am soon to be? A shiver rattles my spine and a voice in my head echoes something that poor Jack had casually mentioned to me as I drove him to his death back at the asylum.

  ‘Cristian, you’ve heard that old saying you are what you eat haven’t you? Well, just remember son, if you do go through with this, we are what you will eat. No blame or shame to it mind, just a simple fact that’s all.’

  I wonder, how many humans will I need to feed on each day to keep me satisfied? How many cancer ridden stroke victims will I leave behind the next time I visit a service station to fill up, only not on lead free but souls? Damn this feels weird! Without even realising it I’m looking at people differently and already a part of me wants to be inside them, hunt down their essence and take what I need from it. I can’t tell whether it’s my own dark subconscious that’s creating these desires, making me stare and wonder like this (now at the young dad strapping his baby into the rear seat of his Renault over by the toilet block) or if it’s the silkie inside that I swear knows its time is approaching. A swift shake of the head spills cheese from my mouth and brings me back to the road just in time to spot the rabbit. Feet reflex and slam into the brakes giving me a hard jolt forward but the furry little rascal distance enough to hop safely to grass verge where he settles and continues to stare. Very strange and a little unsettling too. I mean why the hell would a rabbit be glaring at me so intently like this? And then it strikes me.

  ‘Setantii. I wondered when you’d show up.’

  Setantii wouldn’t have dared leave my safe passage north to chance, no more than she is able to interfere in the decisions I have to make but I don’t come across her again until Carlisle when I have to swerve sharply to avoid clipping a large cow’s head that’s poking out from its field half way around the bend. The back end of the car tries to slide to the front but I manage to hold it there, smoking behind me as the tyres carve a lazy rubber ‘s’ onto the tarmac.

  ‘Jesus Christ Setantii! Are you trying to fucking kill me! Right, that’s it.’

  Furiously I throw the car into reverse and back up ten yards or so to where the cow has pushed itself over the hedgerow, head protruding a ridiculously long way into the carriageway. I lower my window, strain to reach out and up, get nose to huge wet nose so that I can be sure I will be heard.

  ‘I know you’re in there Setantii! And if you want me to get to Sule Skerry safely then you just better keep your bloody distance you, you stupid…..you stupid cow!’

  There is hesitation mid rant as I realize how ridiculous my behavior must seem to anyone who might happen to witness it! By the time I’ve finished shouting at the cow I can see in its eyes that it has already been emptied of silkie. Even so, the animal still remains rooted to the spot with its head held dangerously close to passing traffic. The poor animal is confused, wondering why the farmer is shouting like this and why its head has stopped chewing grass to poke through the hedge instead. I can’t help but smile as I continue on.

  Soon Glasgow approaches and the countryside greens that have been sliding smoothly past my car window during the last sixty miles or so begin to judder and stall, gradually morphing into concrete greys. Initially I was hopeful that the staring animals in the fields and woodlands would have been left behind in the green but as I wait at a busy junction I’m startled by a curious cat, leaping onto and strolling confidently across the bonnet before taking a seat on top of post box next to the car. The cat stares at me whilst I wait for the lights to turn. He’s a scraggy old thing and tired looking too except for the light in eyes that burns a vivacious green, just like those glass cats eyes marking my way through the pitch black country lanes that brought me here. Night falls quickly at this time of the year. I should have been thankful for its cover too but as I leave the city lights behind (on route to the ferry at Scrabster) I start to suspect that perhaps the dark isn’t my ally after all, that because I am more difficult to track through the night the animals that search for me have had to reinforce their numbers. Ten miles out of Glasgow and this theory is soon confirmed simply by a sharp rise in the frequency with which I can spot those spying eyes. As far as I’m aware the rabbit the cow and the cat had been the only animals to watch me this far (and that during nearly two hundred miles of travel) but these twisting forest roads weaving me through the Scottish lowlands present a different challenge to Setantii, especially at night. Every second mile I see her, dark conifers pricked with lights either at their base or high in the branches. Further still and the number doubles, trebles until the presence of pairs of tiny green lights (set back from the road since my argument with the heifer) becomes so mundane that I’ve come to all but ignore them. That is until half way around a tight, loch side bend I’m confronted by a sight that draws my breath and brings the car to halt.

  To my right stands a loan fir, huge and dark. The tree is rooted on the tip of a narrow spur of land that juts into the still black water for a hundred feet or more. Viewed through a misty night this silhouette could easily be mistaken for the mast a tall ship (set to sail upon a midnight voyage), an image that’s re-enforced by the mass of lights adorning every branch giving this shadowy sail an eerie green, ghost ship hue. It is so striking that I’m compelled to leave the car, squelch across sodden ground towards it. As I approach the lights become animated, blinking occasionally or shuffling along perches as though rippled by a light a breeze. Closer still and I can here soft flaps as the owls jockey for position. There must be a hundred of them at least.

  ‘Why Setantii? Why have you brought so many to this place?’

  As I stand here beneath them, waiting for an answer (that I suspect will never come), another thought enters my mind. Perhaps this isn’t all Setantii’s work. Oh she’s amongst them for sure, but the more I look the more I become convinced that each of these birds hasn’t been brought here by Setantii alone, that in reality each of them contains a different silkie. But surely that would mean that individual entities have traveled from god knows where to be part of this throng, at this specific place and time. Why on earth would such intelligent beings do this? There must be a reason, something here that I don’t yet understand!

  Turning my head upwards to look around the tree again I get a better idea of numbers. There are more than I initially thought; those birds that are sat toward the back of the tree can only be seen intermittently when they bob or twist their heads to view me through the branches. I continue with my inspection, top to bottom and half way down the tree I finally notice a peculiar affect that my interest in them has. It seems that every time I hold my gaze on a small group the green light in their eyes dims a little. It doesn’t go out but it definitely dims. I skip to the bottom branches to see what is goingon and there, yes it happened again; the eyes of the three birds perched closest to me darken a little as they look away, ever so slightly but enough to dull the shine. The only word that I can think of to describe the feeling that I have is one of being revered. Yes, that’s it! Ridiculous it maybe but that is why these silkie have gathered here! Unmistakably, these creatures revere me and my knowing smile is met with a steady brightening throughout the tree, surely in recognition of this insight. As the lights continue to intensify their glow a soft green sheen leaves the tree, drops slowly down and I allow it to wrap me in its soft, warm energy.

  In all the years that I have lived I have never once entered a room and declared proudly that I am human. I have never sat alone, drank wine by the fire and contemplated my relationship with the rest of my species or for that matter even considered that I belong to the human race. All I have ever been is Cristian Chevalie
r. But tonight all that is changing. Stood here bathed in this soft green light I feel a yearning inside slowly rise, enticed to the fore by the awesome sense of power and wisdom that is cascading down upon me.

  And so finally I understand. I have my answer as to why so many have come before me tonight. They are here to show me what I can be a part of and for the first time in my life I want to belong to a species.

  I want to be Silkie.

  Chapter 23

  ‘Did you see it daddy?’

  Christine’s question isn’t fully heard but it is sufficiently excited to lift Thomas Chevalier’s head from his text messages.