Sentinel

by Joshua Winning

  “Course I trust you,” Nicholas said. “You’ve always been there. I think that woman back there was going to kill me – you stopped her.”

  “I merely slowed her down,” Sam grumbled, again in that quiet tone, as if he hoped that Nicholas wouldn’t hear him.

  “She was strange,” Nicholas commented. “When I looked into her eyes it felt like the whole world didn’t exist anymore, and I didn’t care.” He looked up at Sam, ignoring the set stoniness of his jaw. “She was... different, wasn’t she? Not normal?”

  “Yes,” Sam relented. “You remember I said there are things in this world that are secret. She was one of them.”

  “Why did she kill the bus driver?” Nicholas probed. The encounter in the upturned bus had left him with more questions than ever before. He’d seen somebody die right in front of him – he was a witness to a murder. He shivered, and for once it wasn’t because of the weather.

  “I don’t know,” Sam said flatly.

  “You do. You know things, and you won’t tell me,” Nicholas persisted. “You know things about my parents; about where we’re going; about that woman back there in the bus. And I don’t understand why you won’t tell me anything. You want me to trust you, but–”

  “Enough!”

  Sam whirled on the boy.

  Taken aback by the outburst, Nicholas stared up at the old man. The expression on Sam’s face startled him – his eyes were wide with desperation.

  “Please, boy,” Sam appealed softly, “that thing back there in the bus is hunting us, and we need to get as far away from it as possible.”

  “But... you killed her.”

  Sam shook his head. “She won’t stay down,” he said. “I’ve come across things like her before and they never stay down.”

  “Was she a...” Now that he had to say the word, Nicholas felt foolish, but there was no other way of putting it. He thought about what he’d gleaned from the Sentinel Chronicles, those journal entries that hinted there was something more to this world than he had ever imagined. Sam had always told him stories about monsters. What if they hadn’t been stories?

  “Was she a demon?” Nicholas asked.

  “Near enough,” Sam said.

  “So all that stuff you said on the bus about monsters not being real was just for my benefit, then.”

  Nicholas could feel his tenuous grip on reality slipping. Perhaps it was the cold, or the fact that his life had already been turned upside down by his parents, but it felt good to finally have something resembling an answer, no matter how outlandish it was.

  “I’m sorry, lad,” Sam said, and his apology sounded genuine. “I really think–”

  “What’s a Sentinel?” Nicholas continued. “Do you kill things like that? Stop them?”

  Sam didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  Slowly, Sam nodded. Rather than feeling vindicated, Nicholas suddenly felt ill. There were evil things out there. A whole world he knew nothing about. He’d lived alongside it his entire life and he’d never even noticed it.

  “And my parents?”

  “No more questions,” Sam said. “Your parents kept these things from you for a reason. The less you know at the moment the better. Trust me, you’re safer that way. You’ll get your answers soon enough. First we need to get to safety.”

  Nicholas held the other man’s desperate stare. Sam had kept things from him so far, what made this any different? His shoulders slumped when he realised he really didn’t have a choice in the matter. Finally Nicholas nodded and they started trudging through the snow once more.

  When a few moments had passed, Nicholas said: “I never knew you owned a rifle.”

  Sam coughed. “Yes, well... The less said about that the better, eh?”

  Nicholas grinned and hurried after him.

  *

  From the outside, the church looked almost pleasant. Soft scatterings of snow had settled snugly in all the right places, affording the hallowed edifice a festive, Christmas card quality.

  Inside, however, was a different matter. Many years had slipped by since those with faith enough had worshipped here. If possible it was even colder inside the building than out – the very stones of the church held a chilly charge that had accumulated through the long lonely years. The wind groaned through the empty window frames, humming between the crumpled pages of the hymnbooks.

  Into this forbidding place a figure took a couple of faltering steps. A side doorway gave a creaking objection as it was heaved shut and Malika moved down the church aisle. She got barely three feet before she was forced to lean against one of the pews, clutching at the bloody wounds in her torso.

  “Where is the child?”

  A voice shivered through the building.

  Malika’s feline eyes flashed to the altar at the other end of the aisle. An unfamiliar emotion stirred within her. Dread. Diltraa did not take kindly to failure and she wasn’t looking forward to the consequences. He was an Adept, an emissary of the Dark Prophets, and as his Familiar it was Malika’s duty to ensure that his designs were carried out. In that, she had failed.

  Sucking the air in through her teeth, a brief, terrible expression contorted her enchanting countenance. The blood that stained her dress began to move of its own accord, snaking upwards and then seeping back through the ruby material, re-entering the gunshot wounds. Presently all traces of blood vanished, and Malika shook her crimson locks out with a sigh. She straightened and glided down the aisle.

  “The child has eluded us,” she offered softly.

  Leaves skated about her feet as she scanned the austere surroundings for her master. She traced the gloom of the pulpit over to the altar before finally settling on the confessional booths that occupied a space beneath one of the few remaining intact windows. There, in the darkness that gathered inside the confessional, her keen sight discerned a shape.

  “Explain,” the figure in the booth croaked.

  Malika paused a few feet from the cubicle. She stood with her head held high, but the tones that she spoke in were deferential and melodious.

  “He was not alone. Another came to his aid.”

  “This was a surprise?” challenged the rasping voice. “We knew the boy would not travel unaccompanied, the subjects of the Trinity are not quite so dim-witted as you fancy.”

  “The man was armed,” Malika returned frostily. “You would have me snatch the boy while riddled with bullets?”

  “Insolence!” the voice screeched. The confessional trembled.

  Malika bowed her head quickly. “Forgive me.”

  “You have squandered a golden opportunity!” raged the voice. “The child was all but served on a platter and you flee at the first indication of defiance? Has the fire dwindled in you so?”

  Malika absorbed the scathing words.

  “I was foolish,” she acquiesced. “Time was that none could face me and walk away alive. It will not happen again.”

  “Indeed. Mistakes will not be tolerated. Too much is at stake – already time is running thin.” There was a pause. Then the rasping voice intoned: “Step closer.”

  Malika raised her eyes. She attempted to pierce the shroud of darkness within the confessional, yet even her sensitive sight was denied access there. Blinking, she took a step towards the booth.

  “Closer,” the voice rattled.

  Malika edged closer still. The form within the confessional became a little clearer, and two dim lights glimmered frigidly as they observed her.

  “I was rash and thoughtless,” Malika said, searching to appease the thing within the booth. “I understand the magnitude of our undertaking. I will not fail you again.”

  “And yet you failed tonight,” Diltraa whispered. “And now my careful plans lie ruined. I should tear the fickle heart from your breast.”

  Finally the demon lord emerged from the confessional. But the face of the creature didn’t fit the voice that had lashed from the darkness. It
was the face of an eight-year-old boy. Dressed in a fitted, dust-speckled black suit, partnered with a black tie and shoes, the child’s features were pale and stretched, cheekbones sharp as razors. There was a confidence and maturity about the boy that is not usually associated with one of his tender age. The dry lips sneered arrogantly and the eyes shone bone white. Here, then, was the vessel that the demon Diltraa had chosen in which to reside – the body of a dead child. Malika had retrieved it from its grave herself. Clawed away the earth and prised open the coffin. She’d been disappointed that the corpse was so fresh – it had barely begun to decompose.

  “You’ve weakened in the presence of man,” Diltraa said coolly, observing his Familiar. “The follies that permeate their pointless lives have left a mark on you. They’ve sapped you of your effervescence.”

  The demon child sniffed the air and its features contorted in disgust. “The stench of humanity is all over you,” he spat.

  Dropping her gaze, Malika swept to her knees before him.

  “The years have weighed heavy,” she admitted. “But never for a second did I stray.”

  The boy circled his prostrated Familiar and slowly drew a rusted dagger from his sleeve. He clenched the corroded blade in his small fist.

  “Have you fashioned a cosy nest for yourself with a mortal man?” he goaded. “Does he tell you he loves you? Does he put his hands on you? Is he the one responsible for taming the miserable beast that now cowers before me?”

  Malika trembled almost imperceptibly at the demon boy’s needling, but she refused to be riled into anger. Let her lord vent his frustration, she deserved every one of those barbed words. Besides, she’d endured worse.

  “I fear that you have outstayed your welcome,” Diltraa mourned, pacing slowly. There was something awkward about the way he moved, as if the foul thing that had seized control of the corpse had yet to familiarise itself with the mechanisms of a human body. As a result, the demon’s movements were clumsy and ungainly. Ugly to look at.

  “The many years of your immortal life have afforded you a blind confidence and you answer to none but the whim of your own black heart,” the child spat.

  “I am forever indebted to you,” Malika returned evenly. “I owe you all.”

  “Would you betray me, I wonder?” Diltraa continued. He paused before her and tugged at her chin with his ashen hand. “Is that the truth behind your failure? Would you knife me in the back even as you return me to this pathetic world?”

  Malika peered up into those bleached, bottomless eyes, her quick mind searching for anything that might spare her the ultimate demonstration of her master’s wrath.

  “I have something,” she murmured finally.

  “You should have the boy for me,” Diltraa condemned, sneering at her as he pulled her face closer to his.

  “This could lead us to the boy.”

  Diltraa paused, curious. After a moment, he released his grip on the stooped figure and clasped his hands behind his back.

  “I am waiting,” he said.

  Not daring to stand, Malika reached into the folds of her dress and extracted a small object.

  “I discovered this as I stumbled, wounded, from the vehicle in which the boy travelled,” she purred. She raised the object before her, seated like a church offering in her hands.

  The demon lord took the object and turned it over. It was a battered brown leather wallet.

  “What use is this?”

  “It belongs to the man who protects the boy,” Malika said softly, confident that this would pique her master’s interest.

  Squinting down at the worn object in his grasp, Diltraa flipped the wallet open. He flicked casually through the pockets before discovering a card that bore a photo of a grizzled old man. The name on the license read: SAMUEL WILKINS.

  Malika gazed up at the boy, a half smile on her ruby lips.

  “Find the man and the boy is ours,” she said silkily.

  The demon child pondered the wallet for a moment longer, committing the face of the man to memory. Then he turned his glare on Malika.

  “It is possible that my plans are salvageable,” he mused. “And it would seem that you have not yet exhausted your uses.”

  Malika nodded, the slash of a smile quivering. Her sharp mind had often served her well; it had sustained her through the years in even the bleakest of situations. Diltraa had been right in his estimation of her confidence; the numerous decades that Malika had shadowed the world had educated her considerably and she had become a mistress of manipulation.

  Diltraa stroked his Familiar’s cheek and she turned her full beauty on him.

  “The Harvesters have organised in my support; already Snelling has proven worthy. All is not yet at an end.”

  “You shall have the boy and your fury shall rock the Earth,” Malika soothed.

  “Yesss,” the boy whispered, his warped features darkening. He pocketed the wallet. “Forget the boy, he is beyond our reach for now.”

  The demon child paced before the confessional.

  “I have located the whereabouts of the Rewe; you will obtain it for me. Everything must be set in motion with haste.”

  His youthful face stretched awkwardly, as if something beneath the surface was still reconciling itself with this new form of bone and muscle.

  “I need to feed.”

  *

  “I don’t get what’s going on with this weather,” Nicholas grumbled, his tired legs beating an ever-wearied course through the snow. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Not much does these days, lad,” Sam said gloomily. Despite this, the elderly man’s mood seemed lighter since his earlier outburst – Nicholas expected that the distance they’d placed between themselves and the bus was responsible for his more pliant temperament.

  “But it’s the middle of the summer, this is insane,” Nicholas argued. He was exhausted and colder than he had ever imagined possible. He knew they had to press on, though; the thought of another encounter with that woman was not a welcome one, no matter how unlikely it was that she’d survived the gunshots. His head was still attempting to catch up with everything that had happened. Sam was a Sentinel. Which meant his parents probably were, too. But what did that even mean?

  Suddenly gripped by a thought, he rummaged in his trouser pocket. It was empty. Annoyed, the boy realised he’d lost his mobile phone in the scuffle.

  Typical. Here they were, trudging out into the wilds of the countryside, frozen stiff and possibly being stalked by some bloodthirsty fiend, and he didn’t even have his phone. He probably wouldn’t get any network reception out here anyway, he told himself. It didn’t help, though. As the cold crept into his shivering bones, he felt completely disconnected from the world.

  “Japanese folklore,” Sam began conversationally, brushing snow from the brim of the fedora, “tells of a female demon named yuki ouna. A sinister menace, she inhabits snow storms and causes travellers to become lost in their confounding depths, never to emerge again. I wonder if she is to blame for this irksome phenomenon.”

  Nicholas smiled inwardly, appreciating the old man’s story. It seemed an age had passed since Sam had last shared one of his tales.

  “Then again,” Sam added soberly, “we could simply be experiencing the fabulous fickleness of British weather.”

  “Let’s hope,” Nicholas said. “I’m not sure we could handle another demon lady.”

  Strangely, Sam didn’t seem to hear this. He stared off into the distance.

  Nicholas followed his line of vision and saw that new wooded outcrops had emerged on the horizon, their snowy outlines merging almost imperceptibly with the sky.

  “Not far now,” he told the boy.

  “Thank g–” Nicholas began. But before he could complete the sentence, Sam grabbed hold of his arm and brought him to a standstill. “Wha–?”

  “Shhh,” Sam cautioned. He cocked his head to one side, as if straining to hear something.

  A familiar pang of app
rehension reverberated through Nicholas. Then the sound came to his ears, too – a soft, careful rustling. The boy tensed at the prospect of another attack – he was sure he didn’t have the energy for a second confrontation.

  The rustling subsided.

  “What do you think it is?” the boy breathed. He eyed a nearby hedgerow – the sound could easily have come from there. Every muscle in his body tensed and blood thumped in his ears. Then he noticed that the snowy ground below the hedge had been disturbed, and the boy relaxed as he recognised the marks in the dirty snow. He made to move toward the bush.

  Sam squeezed his arm, but Nicholas pulled free. “It’s okay,” he assured him.

  As Sam’s hold doubtfully slackened, Nicholas crept over to the bush. Bending down, he reached out a hand and drew aside the lowest branches.

  Two impossibly large yellow eyes blinked up at him from a thatch of bunched black fur.

  “Meeeeew.”

  “They were just cat footprints,” Nicholas said cheerfully. He held his hand out toward the animal curled up beneath the bush. It shivered against the chill wind. Twigs were caught in its fur and it looked like it hadn’t had a good meal in days.

  “Easy!” Sam rushed to the boy’s side. “Don’t touch it.”

  Huddled in its hiding place, the cat sniffed at Nicholas’s outstretched fingers.

  “It’s just a cat,” Nicholas said, reaching toward the animal.

  “No!” Sam cried, and the cat recoiled from the outburst.

  “What?” Nicholas demanded.

  Sam took a breath and rolled his eyes. “Evil takes many forms,” he hissed. “We can’t trust anything out here.”

  Nicholas regarded the old man incredulously; had he lost it completely? Whatever Sam was going on about, though, his expression was grave. Bemused, Nicholas looked at Sam, and then the cat, and then back again.

  “But…” he murmured. “But it’s just a cat. Look, it’s freezing.”

  The creature peered up at the boy and his heart went out to it. There was nothing evil about the pitiful thing.

  “We can’t leave it out here,” Nicholas said. “It’ll die.” And before Sam could utter another word, he pulled the cat out. It was skinny, little more than a kitten, and Nicholas pressed it to his chest, zipping his jacket up over the animal so that its furry head poked out under his chin. Grateful, the cat huddled against the warmth of Nicholas’s torso and purred.