The images of Paul and the two children came floating into her tired mind. She hoped he’d found them. That they were safe.
“Open up!”
The voice called out just as she was beginning to sink into sleep, accompanied by a loud thumping at the clinic door. Kicking, rather. Strong, rhythmic bangs.
Cathy rose, her head spinning slightly, and opened up. She felt afraid, but refused to show it. Two of the Warden’s men irrupted through the door, carrying a third man on a stretcher. They shoved her aside, and stood in the centre of the room.
“Wha–” Cathy began, as she closed the door. But a foot blocked it. She turned and saw his eyes, first. Deep, penetrating, sharp. The rest of him came into focus, and Cathy realised she was staring at the Warden himself. “May I?” he asked. Cathy hesitated, as if he’d posed a complicated question. She stepped aside, with a quick nod.
“We need your help, Ms–?” he began, his eyes and cloak sweeping across the room.
“… Abbott,” she said. “Cathy Abbott.”
“Our doctors – two of them – are busy elsewhere. This man,” he waved a hand at the one in the stretcher, without shifting his eyes from Cathy, “was in some sort of coma. He has woken up, and we need you to take a look at him. Administer any necessary medicaments. He’s clearly confused, but I intend to speak to him.”
She considered the shivering figure, the bandages wrapped around his head, the cast on his arm. “You’re aware that I’m not a doctor?” she asked.
The Warden nodded. “Yes, I am. But I am sure your expertise will suffice.” He spoke directly, with no hesitation, as if reading from a script. Might as well be, she thought, he’s like a character out of a film. Except, he can pull it off. No doubt about it.
“What if I refuse?”
“You won’t,” the Warden said. And the matter was settled, she knew it immediately. Somehow, she knew she wouldn’t oppose them. Not yet, anyway. “This man,” he continued, “this sick man, needs your help, Ms. Abbott. Shall we proceed?”
“All right,” she said coldly. “This way.” She guided them through the hallway to the visiting room. The two soldiers lifted the man carefully, and laid him on the examination bed.
“What happened to him?” she asked, as she bent over, studying the bandaging.
“Fell down the stairs,” one of the men said, and Cathy couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. Sounded odd, like an excuse.
The man’s lips trembled. “Girl…” he said through a whisper. The others silently exchanged meaningful glances. Cathy noticed, but said nothing. “What girl?” she asked.
“Your job is to assist him, not interrogate him,” the Warden said. He stepped forward, peering over the man. He laid a hand (a very neat, clean hand, Cathy noticed) on his chest, and said, “I am your Warden. Speak. Tell us about the girl.” The wounded man looked up through narrow, frowning eyes. When he saw who was leaning above him, his mouth widened. Immediately, he did his best to bow, awkwardly lowering his chin until it touched his chest. Cathy somehow expected the Warden to tell the man to skip the formalities. He didn’t.
“Is it true?” he asked. “What the men are telling me about the girl, the one inside Bately Castle?”
“Yessir,” the man replied, his voice weak. He continued through long, painful pauses. “I – I was chasing her. Them… two of them, it was. A little boy, too.”
Cathy was suddenly alert. They’re talking about Alice and Adrian. What could they possibly want from them? Why is this so important?
“Continue,” said the Warden. It was impossible to tell what his thoughts were. His expression never seemed to veer from that confident, but meditative, air.
“In the corridors… running… I reached out, grabbed her. The jumper she had on… it tore off… I saw it. I saw it, Warden… on her skin.”
They were all utterly silent now, all ears hungry for this man’s words.
The Warden nodded. “Go ahead. What did you see?”
The man breathed in. He was in pain. “It was the sign, sir. On her skin. Just like–” he trailed off. Seemed to pass out.
“Get him back!” called one of the men.
“There’s little I can do for him that your own doctors haven’t done already,” she said. “Ease his pain, maybe, but nothing else.”
The Warden looked at her. Or so she thought. It’s hard to tell, with this man. He never seems to simply look at things. It’s like he’s studying everything he rests his eyes on. After a beat, he dipped his chin, nodded towards the medicine cabinet beside her. “Do what you can.”
As Cathy opened the cabinet, an idea struck her. Her hand hovered from the small bottle she was about to grab, over to another one. She moved quickly, feeling their eyes pinned to her back, hoping they hadn’t noticed. She removed a disposable syringe from its paper bag, and began to draw the transparent liquid from the bottle.
They watched her as she gently rolled up the wounded man’s sleeve. Before injecting him, she cleared her throat. This is an idiotic idea, Cathy. Don’t do it. But it was too late. She pressed her thumb against the plunger, and watched the drug flow out of the syringe, and into the man’s arm. Then, she stepped back. Turning to the men she said, “I’ve injected him with a lethal drug.”
The two soldiers’ mouths dropped open. She didn’t know how the Warden was reacting. She couldn’t bare to look at him. “If I don’t inject the antidote, which I have here, in this medicine cabinet, he will die in less than three minutes.”
Silence. Cathy bit her lip. Awaited their reaction. What if they decide to torture you, you idiot? Force you to administer the antidote? She considered this for a second, and came to the conclusion that three minutes weren’t enough for them to do her any harm. Not too much, in any case.
Three minutes is far more than enough, should they decide to kill you. But there was nothing she could do about that.
“You stupid bitch,” one of the men spat out, stepping towards her, fist raised. But the Warden extended an arm. “Wait,” he said. Cathy brought herself to look at him. There was no apparent anger on his face. Only the slightest of smiles, as if he were amused by her little stunt. “What do you want, Ms. Abbott?”
Cathy cleared her throat. “I want you to leave. You and your people. All of you.” She frowned, tried to make herself sound determined, brave. “You go away, leave us in peace. Get out of Bately, without coming back.”
The Warden sniffed, caressing his chin with thoughtful fingers. “I understand. And what would you do, once we’re gone?” his curiosity seemed genuine.
“Ah–” Cathy began. But she couldn’t come up with an answer. I’m improvising here, you bastard. Haven’t thought that far ahead.
“Interesting,” the Warden whispered. “Your silence. It’s interesting.” It sounded like he really meant it.
The other men’s eyes were flicking from Cathy to their comrade on the bed. She could sense their unease.
“He is going to die,” she said, nodding towards him. “I can guarantee you that. He needs the antidote, if you want him to survive.”
The Warden threw an indifferent glance at the man on the bed, then looked up at her. There was no urgency, no concern whatsoever in his eyes.
Heck, I’m more worried about this man than he is.
Seconds ticked by. She felt her heartbeat grow steadily. The other men were fixing their furious stares on her, but no one spoke.
Yes Cathy – he is going to die, unless you do something about it.
“Oh damn,” she said, finally. With swift, nervous movements, she squatted by one of the lower shelves of the cabinet, fumbled around among the medicines, knocking them all over the place (I’ll have to sort them out again now, good job me) and, after a desperate second in which she thought she’d lost it, that this man would really die because of her foolish plan, she found what she was looking for. Cathy quickly unwrapped a new syringe, filled it up, and under the Warden’s impassible stare, administered the antidote.
&
nbsp; “He’ll be unconscious for a while, now,” she said, her eyes low. She could feel the eagerness with which the two other men wanted to lash out at her, beat her. But they wouldn’t, not until their leader ordered them to.
To everyone’s surprise, the Warden pivoted gracefully and began to leave the room. “I’ve heard enough, in any case,” he said. With a last dirty glance at Cathy, the others hurried after him. She followed them, walking slowly, feeling stupid and reckless.
The Warden reached the door, then spoke again. “Ms. Abbott, someone will come and collect that man in the morning. You needn’t tend to him throughout the night, if you don’t wish to.”
She didn’t reply.
Turning to his men, he said, “Put together two teams. Three men each. We’re going to locate the child.”
They’re going after the children. They want Alice, and I can’t warn her, she thought with a chill.
“I want that girl, understood?” then he stopped, dark eyes darting over to Cathy.
He doesn’t want me to hear this.
“Quite a little exploit you pulled on us, Ms. Abbott,” he said, changing the subject. His voice was surprisingly gentle, now. There was a slight accent to it, the hint of a foreign inflection, but Cathy couldn’t pin it down. “I know you don’t believe me, but you will come to see things the way I, the way we all, do. I promise.”
Cathy sniggered. “You’re not going, but I will.” It was a weak retaliation, but she realised it was true. What was left for her here, anyway?
The Warden suddenly looked surprised. “Oh no, Ms. Abbott,” he said, almost apologetically. “I can’t allow that. No one else is leaving this town. Not alive, anyway.”
Before Cathy could say anything, before she could even think of something to say, he turned and left, his men scuttling along after him, their black uniforms quickly fading into the night.
Chapter 18
The Enemy of Thine Enemy
“Are you sure, Father Paul?”
Alice eyed the chaotic stretch of tents, bungalows and camper vans before them. There was a bus too, one of the old red double-decker ones. It stood, battered and rusty, in the heart of the camp.
No need for the ’Father’ bit any more, Ally, Paul thought, without correcting her. The three of them stood at a distance, and although his intention hadn’t been that of concealing their presence, Paul couldn’t help but feel exposed.
He sighed. “I’m quite sure, Alice,” he looked down at her, considered her wide, troubled eyes. “As much as I can be.” No point in lying. There might have been a better way, but their choices were few. If they hoped to return to Bately one day, this was their best option. The best he could come up with, in any case.
A sudden itch crept along his leg. The psoriasis, he thought. It’s getting worse. On my legs too, now. He resisted the temptation to scratch it. It made things worse, when he did.
“We can’t go back to Bately,” Adrian said, meditatively. “Not with those soldiers there.” The boy looked up at Paul with the same hesitant resolve he felt. “Let’s try.”
Paul nodded, and held the children’s hands in his own. The dog (whom Alice had named Laika) pawed along beside them, circumspectly sniffing the air.
With a deep breath, Paul led the three of them into the ’Wraith Pack.
* * *
“Look who I found nosing about.”
Ana looked up. Sixfingers, one of the larger female ’wraiths left, pushed a man towards her. He stumbled across the metal floor of the container and almost fell.
She heaved her boots off Jake’s desk, lay down the note she’d been turning over in her fingers, and set her gaze upon him. She recognised him almost instantly, despite the makeshift bandage covering his right eye. It was the priest, the one from Bately.
“What happened to your magic voodoo Jesus clothing, priest?” she asked with a chuckle. “Finally figured out your god isn’t bothered with the lot of us down here, have you?”
His sad smile surprised her. He peered down at his mud-caked shoes, and said nothing.
“I could have you killed,” she said. “It would be easy.”
He looked up at her. At first, she thought she’d scared him. But there was something else in his eyes. Concern. He turned behind him, towards the container’s entrance. Ana tilted her head, peering past him. Two shivering children stood there, guarded by another ’wraith. The priest looked back at her. Please don’t frighten them, his expression said.
Ana tapped her fingers on the desk. “What do you want here?”
He opened his mouth, about to say something, then stopped. He was staring at her, eyebrows drawn close. “I – I know you,” he uttered. “You were at the meeting, with Luke.”
Ana ground her teeth, looked away.
“Did he–” the priest began. She shook her head, tears gathering in her eyes. Wiping them away, she said, “Yeah. The meeting. That healer… he played us all, didn’t he?”
They shared a brief, sympathetic glance. She noticed the man was shocked to hear about Luke. Genuinely shocked. “The other priest, Claudio” she said, “he tried to save Luke. Did his best, I’m told. Saved another one of us though. He made it back to the Pack, told us about things – the men in black.” She hesitated, then added, “But your friend, Claudio, I don’t think he made it, either. Dimwit says the flames where everywh–”
Paul had gripped the back of a chair, opposite Ana. Looked like was about to lose his balance. “Luke –,” he whispered. “Claudio tried to help him, did he?” She read the concern in his eyes. He’d lost one friend, and the fate of another was uncertain. “May I sit?” he asked her, gesturing towards the chair.
Ana nodded. “Go on.” Then, to Sixfingers, “Leave us alone. Get those kids something to eat, show some Pack hospitality to ’em, will you?” The burly ’wraith left the container. They were alone.
“He did play us,” said Paul. “Jeremy…” he trailed off.
“We never believed the whole cure thing. Not here in the Pack – but your Bately ’wraiths, they did. They wanted it so desperately to be true. Some of us hoped too, I suppose, but we didn’t fall for it.” Her voice became feeble for an instant. “Except Luke, of course,” she said. “He really wanted… I don’t know what he wanted, but I’m sure it was something good.”
Paul met her eyes. “I’m sure it was.”
“Jake, the Alpha ’Wraith, all he was interested in was getting a hold of Bately, you know.” Ana let out a long sigh, as if there was no point in going over all this. In fact, there wasn’t. “Why did you come here, priest?”
He slowly shook his head. “I thought maybe there were enough of you left. I hoped we could somehow organise, get Bately back. Drive out the Warden’s people and live there together. Like it was before.” He raised his palms in the air. “But it was silly of me. I see you suffered even more than we did.”
“What are they like, these men in black?”
“Organised. Capable. There are many of them. Not sure how many, but many. And I don’t think they’re only in Bately. I–” the priest hesitated for a second, before continuing. “–I’ve run into them before, elsewhere.”
“Yeah. There are more of them,” Ana said, with an eye on the notes scattered everywhere.
“Although,” said Paul, “this Warden… I think he’s their leader. Not the leader of the men who attacked Bately. I mean, the leader of these people, all of them.”
She raised an eyebrow. “How can you be sure?” she asked him. “And why would he be in Bately? They’re all over eastern England. Might be all over what-was-Europe, for all we know. If he is the boss of this load of people, why is he here?”
Paul pinched his chin, pensively. “I don’t know. But there was something about him – something sinister, but powerful,” his words were drifting off. He suddenly looked up. “I’m sorry. I – anyway. No point really in talking about this, I suppose. There aren’t enough of you, and there isn’t much we can do.” He slowly pushed back his
chair. “If you’d let us go–”
She raised a finger in the air. He stared at her in silence, as she picked up a note, one among the many littering the surface of the desk. It was the one she’d been studying so seriously when they brought Paul in.
Ana rose, walked slowly towards the pigeon cages behind her. She gently removed one of the birds, and fastened the little metal tube to its leg. Then, she rolled up the small sheet of paper and slipped it inside the tube, screwing its top back on. Her movements were unhurried, ponderous, as if about to do something she might regret.
“Come,” she said to Paul, as she walked outside. Once their feet were in the mud again, she held her hands aloft. With a flutter of wings, the bird was in the sky, veering elegantly towards a destination it knew, and she did not.
“That Bately thing,” Ana said to Paul, eyes glued to the pigeon. “Let’s try it.”
He frowned. “But… there’s not enough of you. We would–”
“There are tens of thousands of us,” she interrupted him. “And I’ve just summoned them.”
Chapter 19
The New World
The new world was hostile, humid and oblivious of the old.
But, thought the woman in the gas mask, you could still catch glimpses of that previous life, from time to time. Distant images, lacking focus and certainty, like a shimmering mirage beyond the sands.
These fucking sands.
She was kneeling beside the car, eyes fixed on the tire. She held them there, preventing them from drifting up, towards the rotting bodies inside the vehicle. Even with the windows closed, the stench drifted through, lingering in the air. Maybe she was just imagining it, though. Surely it couldn’t penetrate the gas mask, could it?
Her hand slipped from the cross wrench, smacked against the rusty door of the car. “Shit,” she gasped, trying to shake off the pain.
This was a good find, Jacob would be proud of her. Lots of spare parts, in this old car. All she needed was a piece to take back to the mines. Proof of her find. She took to the wheel with the wrench again, bending over, using the weight of her thin body to try and get the nut to budge. Hard work, this. Her muscles ached, tendons in her neck taut. She pushed, grunting and grinding her teeth, trying to get the dam thing to twist.
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