He could hear it ticking in the endless quiet. Ticktocking away the seconds, turning past into present into future. The Brimstone Boys raised their awful heads, their grinning mouths stretched wide in soundless screams. Dust fell endlessly through golden light. The floor grew solid again, spitting out Fisher, and the walls rushed in on either side. The ceiling fell back to its previous height. And the Brimstone Boys crumbled into dust and blew away.
Hawk looked around him, and the corridor was just as it had always been. The silver light pushed back the darkness, and the floor was solid and reliable under his feet. Fisher picked up the throwing knife from the floor before her, looked at it for a moment, and then slipped it back into her boot. Barber put away his sword and shook his head slowly, breathing heavily. Hawk turned and looked back at Winter and the sorcerer Storm, who seemed to have completely recovered from his daze. In fact, he was actually smiling quite smugly.
“All right,” said Hawk. “What happened?”
Storm’s smile widened. “It’s all very simple and straightforward, really,” he said airily. “The Brimstone Boys distorted reality wherever they went, but they weren’t very stable. They could play all kinds of tricks with space and probabilities and the laws of reality, but they were still vulnerable to time. The ordered sequence of events was anathema to their existence. It was already eroding away at them; that’s why they looked so ancient. I just speeded the process up a bit, with an augmented timepiece whose reality was a little bit stronger than theirs.”
“What was all that nonsense you were spouting before?” demanded Fisher. “I thought you’d gone off your head.”
“That was the idea,” said Storm smugly. “They didn’t see me as a threat, so they ignored me. Which gave me time to work my magic on the watch. I could have been an actor, you know.”
He stretched out his hand, and the watch flew through the air to nestle snugly in his hand. Storm checked the time, and put the watch back into his pocket.
“Heads up,” said Barber suddenly. “We’ve got company again.”
“Now what?” demanded Hawk, spinning round to face the darkness, and then freezing on the spot as he saw what was watching them from the edge of the silver glow. A human shape, formed of bloody organs and viscera, but no skin, stood trembling on legs of muscle and tendons but no bones. Its naked eyes stared wetly from a flat crimson mess that might once have been its face. It breathed noisily, and they could see its lungs rising and falling in what had once been its chest.
“Johnny Nobody,” said Hawk. “Poor bastard. Are we going to have to kill him too?”
“Hopefully not,” said Winter. “We’re going to be in enough trouble over Who Knows and the Brimstone Boys. With a little luck, we might be able to herd this thing back into its cell. It’s supposed to be strong and quick, but not very bright.”
And then something pounced on Johnny Nobody from behind and smashed it to the floor. Blood spurted through the air as its attacker tore it apart and stuffed the gory chunks into its mouth. The newcomer looked up at the SWAT team, its mouth stretched in a bloody grin as it ate and swallowed chunks of Johnny Nobody’s unnatural flesh. What upset Hawk the most was how ordinary the creature looked. It was a man, dressed in tatters, with wide, staring eyes you only had to meet for a moment to know their owner was utterly insane. Just looking at him made Hawk’s skin crawl. What was left of Johnny Nobody kicked and struggled, unable to die despite its awful wounds, but incapable of breaking its attacker’s hold. The crazy man squatted over the body, ripping out strings of viscera and giggling to himself in between bloody mouthfuls.
“Who the hell is that?” asked Fisher softly. “One of the rioters?”
“I don’t think so,” said Winter. “I think we’re looking at the original occupant of Messerschmann’s Portrait.”
“I thought he was supposed to be some kind of monster,” said Hawk.
“Well, isn’t he?” said Winter, and Hawk had no answer. The SWAT leader looked at Barber. “Knock him out, Barber. Maybe our sorcerers can do something to bring his mind back.”
Barber shrugged. “I’ll do what I can, but bringing them in alive isn’t what I do best.”
He advanced slowly on the madman, who looked up sharply and growled at him like an animal. Barber stopped where he was and sheathed his sword. Moving slowly and carefully, he reached inside one of his pockets and brought out a small steel ball, no more than an inch or so in diameter. He hefted it once in his hand, glanced at the madman, and then snapped his arm forward. The steel ball sped through the air and struck the madman right between the eyes. He fell backwards and lay still, without making a sound. Barber walked over to him, checked his pulse, and then bent down beside him to retrieve his steel ball. Johnny Nobody twitched and shuddered, leaking blood and other fluids, and Barber’s lips thinned back from his teeth as he saw the raw wounds slowly knitting themselves together. He moved quickly back to the others, dragging the unconscious madman with him.
“About time we had a little luck,” said Winter. “Johnny Nobody’s in no shape to give us any trouble, and we’ve got ourselves a nice little bonus in the form of our unconscious friend here. At least now we’ll have something to show for our trouble.”
“Winter,” said Fisher slowly, “I think we’ve got another problem.”
There was something in the way she said it that made everyone’s head snap round to see what she was talking about. Thick tendrils of the dirty grey cobwebs had dropped from the ceiling and were wriggling towards Johnny Nobody. The bloody shape struggled feebly, but the grey strands whipped around it and dragged the body slowly away along the floor into the darkness, leaving a trail of blood and other things on the stone floor. Hawk looked at the thick mass of cobwebs covering the walls and ceiling, and made a connection he should have made some time back. He looked at Winter.
“It’s Crawling Jenny, isn’t it? All of it.”
“Took you long enough to work it out,” said Winter. “The rioters must have opened its cell and let it out. Which is probably why we haven’t seen any of them since. According to the reports I saw, Crawling Jenny is carnivorous, and always ravenously hungry.”
“Are you saying this stuff ate all the rioters?” said Fisher, glaring distrustfully at the nearest wall.
“It seems likely. Where else could it have got enough mass to grow like this? I hate to think how big the creature must be in total.”
“Why didn’t you tell us what this stuff was before?” said Hawk. “We’ve been walking through it all unknowing, totally at its mercy. It could have attacked us at any time.”
“No it couldn’t,” said Storm. “I’ve been shielding us. It doesn’t even know we’re here.”
“There wasn’t any point in attacking its outer reaches,” said Winter. “It’d just grow some more. No, I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen. Since Johnny Nobody is undoubtedly heading for the creature’s stomach, all we have to do is follow it. I’m not sure if Crawling Jenny has any vulnerable organs, but if it has, that’s where they’ll be.”
She set off down the corridor without looking back, hurrying to catch up with the dragging sounds ahead. The others exchanged glances and moved quickly after her. Barber carried the unconscious madman over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. It didn’t seem to slow him down any. Hawk glared suspiciously at the thick mass of cobwebs lining the corridor, but it seemed quiet enough at the moment. Which was just as well, because Hawk had a strong feeling his axe wasn’t going to be much use against a bunch of cobwebs.
They soon caught up with the tendrils dragging the body, and followed at a respectful distance. Storm’s magic kept them unseen and unheard as far as Crawling Jenny was concerned, but no one felt like pushing their luck. Hawk in particular was careful to keep to the center of the corridor, well away from both walls. He found it only too easy to visualize hundreds of tentacles suddenly lashing out from the walls and ceiling, wrapping up victims in helpless bundles and dragging them off to the
waiting stomach.
Eventually, the tendrils dragged the body into a dark opening in the wall. Winter gestured quickly for everyone to stay where they were. Barber lowered the unconscious madman to the floor, and stretched easily. He wasn’t even breathing hard. Winter moved slowly forward to peer into the opening, and the others moved quietly in behind her, careful not to crowd each other so that they could still retreat in a hurry if they had to. The silver light from the corridor shone brightly behind them, and Hawk’s lip curled in disgust at the sight ahead. The narrow stone cell was filled with a soft, pulsating mass of mold and fungi studded with lidless, staring eyes that burned with a horrid awareness. Sheets of gauzy cobwebs anchored the mass to the walls and ceiling, and frayed away in questing tendrils. As the team watched, two of the tendrils dropped Johnny Nobody’s writhing body onto the central mass, and a dozen snapping mouths opened, crammed with grinding yellow teeth. They tore the body apart and consumed it in a matter of seconds.
“Damn,” said Winter. “We’ve lost another one.”
“So much for Johnny Nobody,” said Barber quietly. “Poor Johnny, we hardly knew you.”
“I don’t know about you,” said Hawk quietly to Winter, “but it seems to me that swords and axes aren’t going to be much use against something like that. You could hack at it for hours and still not know if you’d hit anything vital.”
“Agreed,” said Winter. “Luckily, we should still have one incendiary left.” She looked at Barber, who nodded quickly, and produced another of the glowing stones from his pouch. Winter nodded, and looked back at the slowly pulsating mass before her. “When you’re ready, Barber, throw the incendiary into one of those mouths. As soon as the damned thing’s swallowed it, everyone turn and run like a fury. I’m not sure what effect an incendiary will have on a creature like that, but I don’t think we should hang around to find out. And Barber—don’t miss. Or you’re fired.”
He grinned, murmured the activating Word, and tossed the glowing stone into one of the snapping mouths. It went in easily, and Crawling Jenny swallowed the incendiary reflexively. The SWAT team turned as one and bolted back down the corridor, Barber pausing just long enough to sling the unconscious madman over his shoulder again. A muffled explosion went off behind them, like a roll of faraway thunder, quickly drowned out by a deafening keening that filled the narrow corridor as the creature screamed with all its many mouths. A blast of intense heat caught up with the running figures and passed them by. Hawk flinched instinctively, but Storm’s magic protected them.
Rivulets of flame ran along the walls and ceiling, hungrily consuming the thick cobwebs. Burning tendrils thrust out of the furry mass and lashed blindly at the running SWAT team. Hawk and Fisher cut fiercely at the tendrils, slicing through them easily. Burning lengths of cobwebs fell to the corridor floor, writhing and twisting as the flames consumed them. Charred and darkened masses of cobwebs fell limply from the wall and ceiling as a thick choking smoke filled the corridor. Storm suddenly stumbled to a halt, and the others piled up around him.
“What is it?” yelled Hawk, struggling to be heard over the screaming creature and the roaring of the flames.
“The exit’s just ahead,” yelled Storm, “but something’s got there before us.”
“What do you mean, ‘something’?” Hawk hefted his axe and peered through the thickening smoke but couldn’t see anything. The flames pressed closer.
Storm’s hands clenched into fists. Stray magic sputtered on the air before him. “Them. They’ve found us. The Pale Men.”
They came out of the darkness and into the light, shifting forms that hovered on the edge of meaning and recognition. Smoke drifted around and through them, like ghostly ectoplasm. Hawk slowly lowered his axe as it grew too heavy for him. His vision grayed in and out, and the roar and heat of the fire seemed far away and unimportant. The world rolled back upon itself, back into yesterday and beyond.
Memories surged through him, of all the people he’d been, some so strange to him now he hardly recognized them. Some smiled sadly at what he’d become, while others pointed accusing fingers or turned their heads away. His mind began to drift apart, fragmenting into forgotten dreams and hopes and might-have-beens. He screamed soundlessly, a long, wordless howl of denial, and his thoughts slowly began to clear. He was who he was because of all the people he’d been, and even if he didn’t always like that person very much, he knew he couldn’t go back. He’d paid too high a price for the lessons he’d learned to turn his back on them now. He concentrated on his memories, hugging them to him jealously, and the ghosts of his past faded away and were gone. He was Hawk, and no one was going to take that away from him. Not even himself.
The world lurched and he was back in the narrow stone corridor again. choking on the thick smoke and flinching away from the roaring flames as they closed in around him. The rest of the team were standing still as statues, eyes vague and far away. Some of them were already beginning to look frayed and uncertain, their features growing indistinct as the Pale Men leeched the pasts out of them. Hawk glared briefly at the shifting figures shining brightly through the smoke and grabbed Storm’s shoulder. For a moment his fingers seemed to sink into the sorcerer’s flesh, and then it suddenly hardened and became solid, as though Hawk’s touch had reaffirmed its reality. Shape and meaning flooded back into Storm’s face, and he shook his head sharply, as though waking from a nagging dream. He looked at Hawk, and then at the Pale Men, and his face darkened.
“Get out of the way, you bastards!”
He thrust one outstretched hand at the drifting figures, and a blast of raw magic exploded in the corridor. It beat on the air like a captured wild bird, and the Pale Men were suddenly gone, as though they’d never been there at all. Hawk looked questioningly at Storm.
“Is that it? Wave your hand and they disappear?”
“Of course,” said Storm. “They’re only as real as you allow them to be. Now help me get the others out of here.”
Hawk nodded quickly, and started pushing the others down the corridor. Their faces were already clearing as they shook off their yesterdays. Smoke filled the corridor, and a wave of roaring flame came rushing towards them. Storm howled a Word of Power, and gestured sharply with his hand, and a solid steel door was suddenly floating on the air before them. It swung open, and the SWAT team plunged through. They fell into the corridor beyond, and the door slammed shut behind him.
For a while, they all lay where they were on the cool stone floor, coughing the smoke out of their lungs and gasping at the blessedly fresh air. Eventually, they sat up and looked around them, sharing shaken but triumphant smiles. Hawk knew he was grinning like a fool, and didn’t give a damn. There was nothing like almost dying to make you feel glad to be alive.
“Excuse me,” said a polite, unfamiliar voice, “but can anyone tell me what I’m doing here?”
They all looked round sharply, and found that the madman Barber had brought out with them was now sitting up and looking at them, his eyes clear and sane and more than a little puzzled. Storm chuckled suddenly.
“Well, it would appear the Pale Men did some good, in spite of themselves. By calling back his memories, they made him sane again.”
The ex-madman looked around him. “I have a strong feeling I’m going to regret asking this, but by any chance are we in prison?”
Hawk chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. It’s only temporary. Who are you?”
“Wulf Saxon. I think.”
Winter rose painfully to her feet and nodded to MacReady, who had been standing patiently to one side, waiting for them to notice him. As far as Hawk could tell, the negotiator hadn’t moved an inch from where they’d left him.
“Mission over,” said Winter, just a little breathlessly. “Any trouble on your end, Mac?”
“Not really.”
He glanced back down the corridor. Hawk followed his gaze and for the first time took in the seven dead men, dressed in prisoner’s uniforms, lying crumpled o
n the corridor floor. Hawk gave the unarmed negotiator a hard look, and he smiled back enigmatically.
“Like I said: I have a charmed life.”
I’m not going to ask, thought Hawk firmly. “Well,” he said, in the tone of someone determined to change the subject. “Another successful mission accomplished.”
Winter looked at him. “You have got to be joking. All the creatures we were supposed to capture are dead, and Hell Wing is a blazing inferno! It’ll cost a fortune to rebuild. How the hell can it be a success?”
Fisher grinned. “We’re alive, aren’t we?”
Back in the Governor’s office, the SWAT team stood more or less at attention, and waited patiently for the Governor to calm down. The riots had finally been crushed, and peace restored to Damnation Row, but only after a number of fatalities among both inmates and prison staff. The damage to parts of the prison was extensive, but that wasn’t too important; it would just give the inmates something to do to keep them out of mischief. Nothing like a good building project to keep prisoners busy. Not to mention too exhausted to think about rioting again.
Even so, it probably hadn’t been the best time to inform the Governor that all his potentially valuable Hell Wing inmates were unfortunately deceased, and the Wing itself was a burnt-out ruin.
The Governor finally stopped shouting, partly because he was beginning to lose his voice, and threw himself into the chair behind his desk. He glared impartially at the SWAT team, and drummed his fingers on his desk. Hawk cleared his throat cautiously, and the Governor’s glare fell on him like a hungry predator just waiting for its prey to provide an opening.
“Yes, Captain Hawk? You have something to say, perhaps? Something that will excuse your pitiable performance on this mission, and give some indication as to why I shouldn’t lock you all up in the dirtiest, foulest dungeon I can find and then throw the key down the nearest sewer?”
Guards of Haven: The Adventures of Hawk and Fisher (Hawk & Fisher) Page 45
