by G Mottram
‘Do Touched agents get… used like that all through the Watch?’ he asked.
Anna narrowed her eyes at him, perhaps assessing if he was on side with her father’s training methods or not. ‘Not exactly – over there, advanced student teams pair up with experienced hunters on real missions deep in the mountains. That won’t work in Britain – most of the Brethren we’ve managed to find here have been in cities and towns so we can’t… practise hunting them in front of half the UK population.’
‘So you ship them back to the abbey where your murdering them won’t be seen?’
‘Yes, Jason, that’s right,’ Anna said. ‘If they’re Touched, they’re as good as dead already and the alternative is we send out untried teams to be slaughtered or Touched themselves.’
Jason dropped his eyes from Anna’s stare. This was all part of what Dad had tried to protect him from. He needed to face it, learn about it all.
‘You said there’s more Touched agents over here now. That must mean…’
‘… there are demons in Britain. Well done, Lightning,’ Anna said, visibly trying to lighten the mood.
Jason chewed his lip. ‘I guess I sort of imagined all the demons were in Eastern Europe somewhere.’
‘Now wouldn’t that be nice and neat? Unfortunately for us, the demons go wherever their summoners go and that means most of Europe.’
‘Only Europe? What about America, Australia and so on?’
‘Demons have problems crossing over water, even high up in planes. They’re really weak when surrounded by any water, especially seawater. However, it seems they’ve found a way of coping with crossing over to us - maybe the channel tunnel makes things easier for them.’
Dozens more questions bubbled up in Jason’s brain but Anna put a finger to her lips. ‘Enough talking for now – it’s time to shoot stuff. You’re going to just love Joshua Mann.’
They put the remains of their lunch on a trolley that had been wheeled outside and followed a meandering line of other students across the lawns and into the trees. A minute later they arrived at the firing ranges.
Half the students from the refectory including Fast Eddie, Oliver and Erin were grouped in a large clearing between three buildings. The largest structure was low-roofed, thick walled, triple glazed and perhaps forty metres wide and over a hundred long. The other two buildings were smaller - one low and flat and the other thin and two storeys high.
‘Those two are for simulations – like the pub and hotel in the training halls.’ Anna explained, nodding at the smaller buildings. ‘They’ve got pop up targets and all sorts - just like in the movies.’
The door to the main building opened and the students filed inside. The place was huge and housed perhaps thirty shooting lanes which were dark for their entire length but with a spot-lit, man-size target at their far end. The shooting gallery end was dimly lit in red light and, despite the size of the place, it was almost claustrophobic.
‘Welcome to my playground.’ said a computer-geek type voice rising up from the front of the small crowd of students. ‘Of course, it is quite a dangerous playground… one where you will probably get killed if you don’t follow my rules.’
Jason stood on tip-toe to get a glimpse of the instructor. He’d bushy brown hair, small pig eyes and was short and scrawny.
‘For those unfortunates who do not yet know me, my name is Joshua Mann – I am Mr Brash’s chief fire-arms instructor here at Darkston Abbey.’
Mann paused for a moment. He’d three assistant instructors standing behind him all cradling machine guns.
‘As most of you know, we train in two basic weapons – the Kalashnikov AK47 machine gun, and the Heckler and Koch MK23 pistol. Most students cannot handle a Kalashnikov well enough to be considered safe; however, we will allow you to try. Today’s trials will confirm which weapon you are allocated for our forthcoming showdown with the Brethren. Now, choose a lane and don’t touch anything.’
Eddie and co. were at the front of the group and eagerly dashed off to secure three lanes together. Jason followed Anna somewhat less enthusiastically.
For the next five minutes he tried to concentrate as Joshua Mann belaboured basic safe-firing instructions for both weapons in his derisive tones. Finally he gave them all ear defenders, which pleased Jason no end until he realised they were fitted with a tiny internal speaker so they could still hear their instructor’s learned voice.
Finally, Joshua Mann ordered everyone to take a pistol to the lanes and begin shooting at the targets.
The kick-back from the first four or five shots took some getting used to but then, to Jason’s immense surprise, using the hand gun - the MK23, Mann had called it - began to feel natural to him. He could judge the aim quickly and accurately and the weight of the cold steel seemed to fade away. When he pressed the switch to zip the target back Anna whistled in admiration from the next lane.
Next up was the Kalashnikov and within a minute Jason proved to be a disaster with it. Even trying to stick to short bursts, the butt hammer-drilled into his shoulder and the muzzle seemed to jerk everywhere. He hit his own target with about ten percent of the rounds, the rest decimating the targets to either side or thudding into the concrete roof and floor. Joshua Mann took the Kalashnikov away and gave him back the pistol with a patronising shake of his head.
They stuck at it for over an hour. Motorised belts whipped the targets to different distances and back to the shooter to check their score. Jason quickly became consistently accurate with the pistol, grouping most the magazine’s eleven rounds closely together even on a thirty metre target. His success even brought a pursed-lipped nod from Joshua Mann before he took the gun off Jason, reloaded it in a flash and grouped all eleven bullets in the target’s forehead after increasing the range by 10 metres.
‘Still some way to go, sonny,’ Mann said, handing back the pistol and turning on to stroll down the gallery.
‘Silly man,’ Jason mumbled, staring at a spot just between Joshua’s shoulder blades, ‘turning his back on a boy with a gun.’ Reluctantly he returned to shooting down the range at the cardboard targets.
Halfway through the session, Marakoff joined them in the firing range. He took both a pistol and a Kalashnikov and found an empty lane about five stations away from Jason without even glancing in his direction.
Jason did his best to watch the former ghost surreptitiously between shots. Marakoff was deadly, particularly with the pistol. Target after target was burst apart through the forehead or heart. Joshua Mann kept stopping to watch the former ghost’s prowess and seemed to shout a lot more at the students.
At last they were ordered to stop and make safe. As they gathered by the door, Marakoff strolled over to Jason.
‘You are Jason Willow, yes?’
Jason nodded. ‘Mr Brash said you used to work with my grandfather.’
‘Yes indeed – a fine man. He would have liked to see your shooting today. I am pleased to meet you.’ Marakoff held out his hand.
Jason shook hands. Something hard pressed into his palm.
‘A pity your father didn’t continue to show such… dedication to the fight,’ Marakoff said.
Jason gripped whatever Marakoff was passing to him with his thumb and pulled his hand away, angrily. ‘I don’t want to hear this – my father risked his life countless times for the Watch.’
‘This is true, but there are few of his power left to us – he should have stayed hunting until he could do it no more,’ Marakoff said, rubbing his injured leg. ‘I hope you will be more loyal.’
Jason turned away, mumbling under his breath. Joshua Mann stood by the door, watching them with the hint of a smug grin on his face. ‘Come on, hot-shots,’ the instructor said as Marakoff shrugged and returned to his practise, ‘time to feed your ugly faces.’
Jason handed back the pistol and was the first one out. He shivered despite the early evening sunshine streaming into the clearing. The next time he shot a pistol it might be at Brethren agents sw
arming out of those trees.
In his pocket he closed his fingers around the thing Marakoff had passed to him. It felt like a small piece of paper, tightly rolled up. He skirted around the simulation building and ducked into the trees. No one seemed to take any notice of him but who knew how many cameras were covering the area? He found a particularly large trunk and sank down behind it.
It was a note. Jason opened it and frowned at the rounded, girlish writing style:
Dear Jase,
I haven’t had a chance to catch you on your own for ages. Please meet me in the trees behind the guesthouse tonight at eleven o’clock. Don’t go out through the front door or cross any light as there are cameras everywhere and they’re bound to ruin things for us. I can’t wait to go out with you.
Love… you know who xxxxx
P.S. It is probably best to destroy this note because they don’t like students getting together. x
Jason shook his head. Really subtle! Either Marakoff had hidden his real feelings for him very well or he was trying to disguise the note as a love letter in case it was found.
He quickly ripped the note into shreds and buried the pieces in three different places. Then he walked back into the clearing.
‘Why were you skulking off into the trees?’
Jason jumped. Anna was watching him as she stretched out her arms and shoulders. Most of the others had already gone.
‘You’re not upset about what that ex-ghost prat said about your dad are you?’ Anna asked, straightening up.
‘What? Oh, no – your… Mr. Brash warned me that he might say something like that.’
‘Fair enough. So you were wandering around in the trees because…?’
‘Uh… you know… too much water at lunch.’ Jason said.
Anna started working out her neck, rolling her head slowly back and forth. ‘There’s a toilet block just there – see?’ She pointed without looking to a small, wooden annexe with clear male and female toilet signs fixed over the door.
Jason shrugged.
‘Honestly, boys and peeing up against trees. Do you ever grow out of it?’
Jason grinned sheepishly. ‘Just our way of marking our territory.’
‘Lovely – well no holding hands with Aunty Anna before you’ve washed them.’ She stopped stretching and straightened up, groaning like a granny. ‘I hate shooting, it makes me so bloody tense.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Jason said, doing a few half-hearted stretches of his own.
‘You were pretty good with the Heckler though,’ Anna said, ‘it might just be worth having you around after all’.
‘I aim to please.’ Jason said.
‘Such a wag,’ Anna grinned. ‘Come on, let’s clean up and eat something.’
‘Sure,’ Jason said, looking away. If he left the abbey with Marakoff tonight, this might be the last meal he ever had with Anna.
***
Finally it was dark.
Eddie and the others had joined them at dinner but the mood in the refectory had changed from excited to sombre. They’d all been told to return to the guesthouse as soon as they’d finished their meal and at eight o’clock a young, spikey-haired, security guard began knocking on each room to click the students off an electronic register. The guard had been in a hurry – his face was all tight lines and his voice a little too high. After the visual check, the doors were locked. It was a good job Jason had been planning a different exit to meet Marakoff.
Now Jason checked his watch for what must have been the hundredth time that evening – half past ten.
‘Time to go,’ he said to himself and stuck the pin transmitter Sergeant Smith had given him on the underside of his pillow. If anyone was bothering to monitor the student pin transmissions tonight they would think he was still safe and sound, tucked up in his room. The downside was if he was caught outside without it, Smith had told them they could be shot on sight.
Jason stopped chewing his lip and focussed on the positive – he was meeting with Marakoff the ex-ghost, they wouldn’t get caught.
He’d been going over his plan for this escape for the last two hours. He couldn’t just walk out the front door. As Marakoff had warned, the area was heavily covered by image-enhancing cameras and he was locked in his room now anyway. It would have to be the windows.
For the twelfth time, Jason touched the open button to his large bedroom window and, as before, it opened to about ten centimetres then stopped. He nodded, turned his small television on and flicked to MTV. ‘Love in an Elevator’ by Aerosmith rattled out of the small speakers. Perfect. Jason increased the volume a little and went in to the bathroom.
The long, narrow window was already open. He drew in breath, concentrated on one of the steel bars fixing the bottom corner of the window to the wall and jabbed his right index finger straight at it. A pencil thin bolt of solidified air thudded into the wall and small chunks of plaster and brick burst into the bathroom. He tugged the bar free of the debris. He did the same to the bar on the other side and pushed the window open.
The way was clear. Coughing a little at the brick dust floating in the still night air, he went to turn down the music in case anyone came knocking to complain and then hoisted himself half out of the narrow window.
The central courtyard below was as still and dark as a mass grave. The yew tree, which was usually spot-lit, was now only a dark silhouette against the lighter walls. Heavy cloud which had been building slowly all evening obscured any moonlight. Everything seemed to be on his side apart from the fact that he was hanging out of a window two floors above some very hard paving slabs.
Jason reached out a hand and formed a large air block in front of him and dropped the needle-thin support column to merge with the slabs below. He pulled himself out on to the shimmering platform of air and scanned the windows around the court. Most were locked shut and all were curtained with the odd chink of light escaping from a few. The spikey haired guard taking the register had told them to keep their lights low and curtains closed.
Quickly Jason formed block after block to step up and onto the roof edge.
Now he couldn’t use the air steps any more. The support columns needed somewhere stable to merge with and slanted, crackable roof tiles weren’t a good option. However, he’d already thought of the solution.
Silently, he formed an air-plank which rested on the tiles and butted up against one of the stone gargoyles. He scuttled up his air-beam to the top of the roof and then used the same trick to get down to the gutters on the other side.
There he waited, studying the ground below. A few drops of light rain began to fall, icing down his neck and back. He smiled tightly to himself. The conditions were perfect for his escape – cloud-darkened sky and now rain to cover any noise.
The hundred metres of lawn between the guesthouse and the wooded valley side was brightly lit by floodlights and covered by CCTV. Everywhere would be closely monitored tonight and there were bound to be guards patrolling in the woods.
Taking a deep, calming breath Jason formed his first air block a foot out from where he crouched. The support column dropped twenty metres to the grass below and sank deep into the ground.
He stepped off the roof. The block wavered on its super-thin support and then steadied. Quickly Jason formed the next one and the next. Even at this height, forming the blocks and supports was almost second nature to him after the hours of practice with Schmidt. He just tried not to think of the drop below.
When he reached the tree line, his nose almost touching the outer branches of a huge pine, he stopped and crouched down on his small platform of air. For a count of sixty he stared into the tree shadows below, listening and waiting. Then, daring to feel pleased with himself, he began to slowly “melt” the base of the air-column under his block. It was jerky at first as he hadn’t practised this one much with Schmidt, but ever more quickly, he descended from the tree tops down to perhaps three metres. Although he was half hidden in branches, floodlight still dappl
ed over him but he forced himself to stop again and listen. All he could hear was the soft hiss and spatter of drizzle.
Jason lowered himself to the ground and stepped silently into the woods.
Hands locked around his mouth and throat and he was dragged backwards into the tree-dark.
***
‘It is me, Marakoff.’
Jason breathed out slowly and let his Gift fade – Marakoff had been a second away from having two elbow blasts to the stomach. The hands slipped away and Jason turned around. He could just make out half a silhouette.
‘Nicely done, Jason.’ Marakoff whispered, ‘You left your pin in your room, yes? I forgot to remind you in the note.’
‘Yes,’ Jason said, rubbing his throat. He’d no idea the rangy Marakoff had such strength. ‘Nice note, by the way – I didn’t know you cared so much.’
‘Perhaps it is that I am shy, yes?’
Jason grinned, despite their situation.
‘Now,’ said Marakoff, ‘we need to move quickly – there are guard-teams everywhere but fortunately the ghosts are not patrolling – they are on stand-by with their teams.’
Marakoff kept turning his head slowly this way and that as he whispered. He seemed to be using his ears, more than his eyes to search in all directions.
‘Is Miranda okay?’ Jason whispered. ‘Is Dad back yet?’
Marakoff began to answer then put a hand over Jason’s mouth and froze. After a minute he spoke again. ‘A patrols is close by. Yes to both questions but we need to get out now or your father may get himself killed coming into the abbey to fetch you.’
‘What? Why?’
‘We are not sure how far Alan Brash will go to keep you here.’
‘He wouldn’t touch Dad, though.’
‘I hope not. Now - enough explanations. No more speaking and follow exactly in my footsteps.’
Before Jason could ask anything else, Marakoff was fading into the night and all he could do was try to follow. The man was nearly invisible in the dark woods and silent, even over the fallen twigs. In less than a minute Jason had lost him.
