Ruins

by Joshua Winning

  She didn’t stop until she was out on the street, pausing only to scan the car park for more police officers. There weren’t any, so she ran.

  She ran, ran, ran, her breath catching in her throat, the screams of the people on the platform deafening her, even though she’d left them far behind.

  Finally, she was forced to stop. Rae crouched in a side street, hiccupping up sobs. The faces of the people she’d almost killed filled her vision. Their derision turning to fear. The wails as she tore away the platform’s roof.

  She hadn’t wanted to. She hadn’t meant to.

  Were they hurt? Dead?

  Rae forced herself to breathe deeply, to curb the sobs.

  It had been a glimpse of the future. If she didn’t get herself under control, she’d become even more volatile. She’d already killed, and she’d kill again. She couldn’t let that happen.

  Run, the familiar voice urged.

  No.

  She couldn’t run anymore. She’d run her whole life and where had it gotten her? She had to find a way to control whatever it was that churned inside of her. It’s what Twig would have said. He’d seen what she could do in the alley and he hadn’t run away. But he was dead, and there was only one person left in the world who wasn’t afraid of her.

  In a daze, Rae staggered up the street. The museum wasn’t far. Filled with resolve, she hurried into the Market Square and finally reached Moyse’s Hall. Sweaty and bleary-eyed, she careened into the lobby.

  A man looked up from the desk and relief washed through her. He was still here.

  “You’re back,” Laurent smiled.

  *

  An hour later, Rae sank onto the edge of the camp bed in the office, her hands wedged under her legs. She’d told Laurent everything. She hadn’t cried again. She felt more clear-headed than she had in years.

  “I’m going to help you,” Laurent said softly, his arms crossed as he leaned against the wall.

  She stared at her lap, broken, sapped of any defiance. “Thanks.”

  “You have a powerful gift, Rae. You can help people.”

  She caught the scoff before it blurted out. All I do is hurt people.

  “I killed Kay,” she whispered, unable to keep it inside anymore. “She was my friend. The only one... She taught me how to get by on the street. I killed her.”

  “Tell me what happened,” Laurent said. There was no judgement in his voice.

  “She wouldn’t stop going on. She wanted to know how I ended up on the street and she wouldn’t leave it alone.” Rae’s throat constricted. Her rules for survival fell apart before her eyes.

  Don’t make friends.

  Don’t talk about your past.

  Don’t tell anybody what you can do.

  Don’t show weakness.

  Don’t let the monsters see you.

  They were useless now. They’d been useless all along. All they’d done was cause her pain.

  “She kept pushing and pushing... I got angry...”

  Laurent crouched before her. “The world is sick,” he uttered mellifluously. “There are things out there far worse than you, believe me.”

  “They sound terrifying.”

  He laughed. “You have no idea. What I said about monsters is true. They’re everywhere and they’re multiplying. If you directed that power at them, there would be no stopping you.”

  Laurent wanted her to become a fighter? Rae didn’t know what to think. She was so tired. She’d fought before – the streets were a breeding ground for petty squabbles – but never using her power. She didn’t think she’d ever want to. She’d seen the monsters that scrabbled about at night and they were hideous, stinking, terrifying. She couldn’t possibly face them.

  If Laurent helped her control the churning, though...

  He didn’t need to know that she couldn’t fight.

  “What do we do?” she asked.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  BREAKING IN

  NICHOLAS EXAMINED A WALL IN DAWN’S purple bedroom. It was plastered with more documents than he could count. Posters. Maps. Newspaper clippings. Photographs. Star charts. There were pins and bits of string zigzagging in determined lines. It was exactly like the walls he’d seen on cop TV shows where the movements of serial killers were tracked in desperate, meticulous detail.

  “Do you believe in fate?” he asked.

  “I didn’t used to,” Dawn said, seated at her desk, bathed in the glow of her laptop. She was so quiet, but he didn’t mind. He sensed that Dawn only spoke if there was something important to say. She wasn’t like other teenagers, most of whom seemed to spend their time making as much noise as possible.

  “But you do now?”

  Dawn took a swig from a can of fizzy drink. “I don’t want to. It’s stupid and sentimental. A way of explaining something we don’t understand.”

  “Like?”

  Dawn shrugged. “Vikings rationalised things that couldn’t be explained by creating the norns; they were mythical beings that wove the fate of men and gods like it was a grand tapestry, a story in cloth.” She paused. “I don’t believe in fate... but how do you explain the fact that I’m here at the same time as Laurent and you and that girl. We all ended up in the exact same place for different reasons, but we’re all connected somehow.”

  “Maybe it’s like a mathematical equation,” Nicholas suggested. “Probability or something. No matter how improbable something seems to be, there’s still a probability, no matter how tiny, that it could happen.”

  “I like that.”

  “Or Laurent’s here because he wants to throw me the goriest birthday party ever.”

  “It’s your birthday?”

  “In...” Nicholas counted in his head. “Two days. Wonder what he’s going to get me.”

  Dawn fiddled with the can. “At first I thought he’d come for me,” she admitted softly. “I saw him for the first time last week and I thought maybe he’d come to finish me off.”

  Nicholas didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t offer any comforting words, so he inspected one of the newspaper clippings tacked to the wall. “That why you didn’t talk to me when I got here?”

  Dawn picked at her nails. She shrugged. “Scared, I suppose.”

  “Of me?”

  “No. That it was time to fight again. I didn’t want to be part of it.”

  “You don’t have to be.”

  “Like I have a choice anymore.”

  Nicholas understood. The stage was being set for a battle that would affect everybody. Dawn had as much right to fight as he did.

  “What’s it like?” he asked. “Growing up knowing about all of this stuff?”

  “What’s it like not knowing?”

  “Good point. Your nan know you’ve done that to your wall?”

  Dawn shrugged again. Nicholas leaned in closer to one of the newspaper articles. It reported a robbery at a rich bureaucrat’s home in France. An expensive Chinese vase had been taken.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  Dawn swivelled her chair. “Oh, just something I thought might be relevant.”

  “How?”

  “Well, you know I tracked Laurent after Cambodia? Or, tried to. Paris was one of the places he stopped off at. I don’t know how long he was there, but nothing particularly interesting happened in that period. No bombs, no strange deaths. But that vase was stolen from Andre Bisset’s home. He’s some important art collector. The vase is old and valuable, but nobody’s seen it since.”

  “You think Laurent took it? Why would he do that?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Dawn said, returning to the laptop and typing. “But it has a strange history. Ah!” She slumped back in her chair, apparently defeated by something. Nicholas ambled over. Dawn had hacked into the local council’s database and was attempting to find the entrances to the catacombs beneath the town.

  “Find anything?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Dawn said, sounding annoyed. “I think the tunnels were built
before anybody ever heard of a blueprint. The monks used them.”

  Nicholas lowered himself into the wicker chair by the window. So much for Sentinel training. He couldn’t even find something a layer of tarmac away. And Esus thought he was capable of raising the old gods. With his broken arm, he could barely even tie his shoelaces. They had looked online for anything about the word ‘Tortor’, too; the word the hideous old crone at the school had uttered. All that came up was that same Latin definition: Tortor meant executioner or torturer.

  “Do you think it’s possible? Raising the Dark Prophets?”

  “Nobody’s succeeded so far,” Dawn said.

  “Laurent thinks it can be done.”

  “Laurent’s nuts.”

  “And Esus thinks I have the power to wake up the Trinity. How does that even work? I mean, do I ring some sort of supernatural alarm clock?”

  “If we knew that, we wouldn’t be here.”

  “How much do you know about the Prophets?” All Nicholas knew was that they were the baddest of the bad. They’d been banished by the Trinity to a hell dimension, but they wanted back in.

  “Nobody knows exactly what they are,” Dawn admitted. “There are illustrations of them as dragons, as men with horns, as goat-footed monsters. There are always three, though. That’s the only consistency between any of the theories.”

  “Three Prophets. Three members of the Trinity.”

  “That’s generally how it works. The universe loves symmetry. Matter and anti-matter. Yin and yang.”

  They heard the front door go.

  “That might be Sam,” Nicholas said, hopping to his feet. What he’d sensed about the tunnels made him anxious. The whoops of excitement and the bitter tang of blood. Something big was happening down there – it could be happening right now. “Come on,” he said.

  They went downstairs and into the lounge. Sam sat in one of the armchairs. His arm was bandaged and he rubbed his forehead wearily.

  “You okay?” Nicholas asked.

  “Long day,” the old man said. “How’s the arm?”

  “Annoying. What happened to yours?”

  “Malika.”

  Nicholas felt winded. “You saw her? What happened?”

  “She’s the one responsible for the gauntlets,” Sam said. “We found one of her dens. We escaped, but by the time other Sentinels arrived to apprehend her, she was gone. Burned the place to the ground.”

  “So she’s still out here?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Nicholas chewed his lip. It was bad enough that they had Laurent to go up against without Malika out there scheming, too. Was she still after him? She’d tried to make him kill Jessica when she broke into Hallow House. Would she try again? He envisioned a vulture hovering over a wounded animal. If Malika was working with Laurent, she probably wasn’t breaking much of a sweat. She’d observe the world’s dying spasms, then pick its bones clean.

  He wanted to know more, but he had to tell Sam what he’d discovered. “We figured out where Laurent’s hiding. He’s using the tunnels.”

  “Tunnels?” Aileen asked apprehensively, coming into the lounge with a tea set.

  “The ones under the town; the ones you told me about,” Nicholas elaborated. “He’s using them to get around. Or at least we think he is. He must have the girl down there, the one Esus wants me to find. The seeing glass... I think something’s happening down there right now. Something big.”

  “The Bury tunnels,” Sam breathed, straightening in the chair. “I thought they were a myth. Do you know a way in?”

  Nicholas shook his head, frustrated. What if Laurent had already started whatever he’d planned? What if they were already too late?

  “There are entrances all over town,” Aileen chimed in, setting the crockery down on the coffee table. “If the old wives’ tales are to be believed. That reminds me of old Mr Pearson. I used to help out at one of the cafes on Abbeygate Street and my boss, Mr Pearson, he used to talk about a funny trapdoor in the cellar that led into some tunnels. Used to joke they went all the way to Australia. Wasn’t known for his sense of humour, Mr Pearson...”

  “Which cafe was that?” Sam asked.

  “Now let me think,” Aileen mused. “Yes, it’s called Abigail’s now. They changed the name when Mr Pearson died. I don’t know anybody there these days, though.”

  Nicholas recognised the glint in Sam’s eye.

  “We’re going out again, aren’t we?” he asked.

  Sam got to his feet. “Aileen, call as many Sentinels as you can. Tell them where we’re headed. I’ll phone Liberty.”

  The landlady bustled quickly from the room and Nicholas noticed Dawn moving for the hall.

  “Thanks,” he said, stopping her in her tracks. “For, you know, today.”

  Dawn looked embarrassed and nodded, then disappeared.

  Sam paced into the hall and picked up the phone. Nicholas heard him talking and replacing the phone into its cradle.

  “Liberty knows where we’re going,” the old man said as Nicholas joined him. He popped the battered grey fedora on. “You can never be too careful, especially where people like Laurent are concerned.” He didn’t question what Nicholas had sensed about the tunnels. Sam was trusting him completely, which made Nicholas jittery. What if it was a trap? What if his vision was wrong? They could be going to their deaths.

  Before he could talk to Sam about his uneasiness, though, the elderly man had stepped out the front door. Nicholas hurried after him, their footsteps ringing in the alley. Sam clasped his satchel and rifle, Nicholas squeezed the Drujblade at his hip, reassured by its presence.

  “What if it’s bad down there?” he asked. He thought of the whoops and cheers. “What if Laurent isn’t alone? She could be down there.”

  “Remember what we talked about, the different types of battles? This is pure reconnaissance. We’re gathering information only.”

  “And if we’re caught?”

  “We fight. You know how to use that dagger?”

  Nicholas nodded. He couldn’t tell if he was being cowardly or canny by questioning Sam. This was what Sentinels did, after all. They had to stop Laurent. But Sam looked desperate. So far, Laurent had eluded them and this was the first break they’d had. Nicholas understood Sam’s urgency, but that didn’t quiet his nerves.

  “You sure you’re alright?” he asked. He dreaded to think what the bandage on Sam’s arm was hiding.

  “Fine, lad.”

  For the first time, Nicholas was worried for him. Sam seemed to have forgotten he was seventy-one years old. He had to be more careful. Nicholas was glad they were investigating the tunnels together, though he wasn’t sure how much help he’d actually be if they had to fight.

  What if Malika really is down there? he thought.

  Anger trembled beneath his ribs. He’d hoped he’d never see Malika again. He’d been naïve to think she would simply retreat, though. She was a vicious monster, and he was learning that those sorts of things wouldn’t stop until they were put down.

  How could they defeat Malika, though? She was wily and resilient. Nicholas had watched Sam burying two bullets in her, neither of which stopped her for very long. If she was working with Laurent, or worse, the Prophets themselves...

  Nicholas realised he was clenching the Drujblade at his side so tightly that his knuckles hurt.

  “Ah, here we are,” Sam breathed.

  They were halfway up Abbeygate Street. Abigail’s cafe was quaint with an old-fashioned hanging sign. A hand-drawn cup of coffee emitted tendrils of steam that spelled out the business’ name. Net curtains were pleated neatly in the window.

  The street was quiet as they approached the door. They were lucky – there were no restaurants at this end of the street. A murmur of voices floated from a few hundred metres away as diners chatted over their evening meals. Nicholas and Sam were tucked out of sight by the door.

  “Eyes, lad,” Sam said. Nicholas nodded, standing with his back to the
cafe and watching the street. He heard the old man using his lock-picking kit for the third time in almost as many days. The moon peeked interestedly over the chimneys above them.

  Nicholas heard the door open and hurried into the cafe with Sam. A curtain on the back of the door shielded their activities from the street. The moment they began walking between the tables, which were stacked with upside-down chairs, an ear-piercing shriek filled the cafe.

  They had triggered the alarm.

  “Blast,” Sam yelled over the noise. “I’d hoped there wouldn’t be one. We need to move quickly.” He hurried to the back of the cafe and Nicholas followed. They found nothing more than a small kitchen, so they returned to the shop front.

  Had Aileen been wrong? Nicholas didn’t want to doubt her, but with the alarm wailing, he began to panic. Any second now the police would arrive. He felt sick. He’d never had a proper run-in with the police – the night he’d been found sleepwalking in the snow in the wake of his parents’ deaths didn’t really count – and there would be no way of talking their way out of this.

  The alarm screamed at him.

  Out, out, out, it shrieked.

  “Here,” Nicholas called, spotting a square in the floor by the coffee machine. He tugged at a metal ring with his free hand and lifted the trapdoor. Steps led down into the cellar.

  “Good lad,” Sam said, descending first.

  Nicholas hesitated, recalling the basement at Snelling’s. He didn’t have a choice, though, and Sam hadn’t exactly blanched at the thought of another basement. Gulping down his uneasiness, Nicholas clambered down the steps, finding it difficult to squeeze through the cramped opening with his broken arm.

  At least the alarm was muffled down here. The cellar was cramped and stacked full of boxes illustrated with coffee beans. A door at the back led to another stock room.

  “Where is it?” Nicholas asked, his desperation mounting. “Where’s the trapdoor?”

  “Move those boxes,” Sam ordered evenly, setting his rifle down and heaving one of the cardboard obstructions out of the way.