Arthur Quinn and Hell's Keeper

by Alan Early

  Beep, beep, beep.

  I didn’t think I hit ‘Snooze’, she thought to herself, going to turn off the alarm properly. But as she got closer to it, she realised the sound wasn’t coming from her clock. She turned slowly on the spot towards the beeping noise … towards her laptop.

  A map of Ireland filled the monitor and a red dot was blinking just off the Dublin coast. With each beep, the dot moved a pixel closer to the shoreline. The location of the webcam!

  She grabbed her phone from the bedside locker and hit the first speed-dial.

  ‘Arthur!’ she said excitedly as soon as he answered. ‘You’ll never guess what just happened!’

  Chapter Four

  ‘Where is it?’ Arthur exclaimed when Ash had told him about the webcam signal.

  ‘Just off the Dublin coast and it’s moving in all the time,’ she said into the phone, studying the computer screen. ‘I obviously couldn’t find it before because it was out of range of any phone or Wi-Fi signal.’

  ‘That’s assuming it is Fenrir and that he didn’t dump the webcam weeks ago.’

  ‘I don’t think he would. Even if he didn’t know how important it was, he seemed so nice that he’d want to take care of it for me until he could return it. Plus, if he did get rid of it, how is it at sea and moving inland?’

  ‘Maybe someone else took it …’ He trailed off. ‘But you’re right, it’s our only lead.’

  ‘What now?’

  Arthur looked at his watch. It was ten to eight; a train for Dublin stopped in Farranfore at five past, he knew. He could hear Joe bustling about downstairs, simultaneously preparing breakfast and making some sandwiches for his lunch. There was no way he’d agree to let Arthur take the day off school, but this was too important a chance to let pass.

  ‘I’ll get the train to Dublin,’ he decided quickly.

  ‘And mitch school? Why don’t you stay there and we’ll go and find him – me, Ellie and Ex?’

  ‘No!’ he said sternly. ‘It’s too dangerous for you. Wait for me.’

  ‘Too dangerous how?’

  ‘Because if you know where Fenrir is, there’s a good chance Loki will too. You have nothing to protect you. I have the pendant, I have the hammer. If Loki shows up they’re our only chance against him.’

  ‘OK,’ she conceded. ‘You’re right, I guess.’

  ‘If I’m going, I better go now or I’ll miss the train. I’ll be in Dublin around lunchtime. Can you meet me in Heuston Station and we’ll go from there together? And pick up the others on the way?’

  ‘Shouldn’t we take the Vikings?’

  ‘Just Eirik. We may need the element of surprise and I don’t think a hundred dead Vikings will help that. Plus Eirik can blend in better than the rest.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan. But are you go–?’

  Arthur hung up before she could finish her question. He didn’t like to be rude but he really hadn’t much time to spare if he intended to catch the 8:05 train. Luckily he was already showered and dressed, so he didn’t have to waste precious minutes doing that. He tipped his backpack over his bed, emptying out the contents. Books, stationery and pens all toppled out. He grabbed a T-shirt, hoodie and jeans from his wardrobe and a pair of Converse runners from the end of his bed and stuffed them into the bag. He figured a young boy in a school uniform would attract too much unwanted attention on the train, so he could change in the toilet once he boarded. He took some savings he had stashed in a worn sock in his bedside locker – it wasn’t much but should be enough to get him to and from Dublin. And finally he squeezed the hammer into the already full-to-bursting schoolbag.

  He put on a coat, swung the bag over one shoulder and crept downstairs. He stepped lightly, praying that Joe wouldn’t hear him.

  ‘Morning, you!’

  Damn! thought Arthur, walking in to the kitchen where his dad was laying slices of cheese across buttery chunks of crusty bread.

  ‘Morning.’

  ‘Where are you off to so early?’ He usually didn’t leave for school till half eight.

  ‘I’m meeting the guys,’ he said, making it up as he spoke. ‘We’re collecting some leaves for an art project.’ He was getting good at lying to Joe. Worryingly good.

  ‘OK. Don’t forget your lunch.’ Joe nodded at the two sandwiches already made and wrapped in tinfoil. ‘See ya later.’

  Arthur grabbed the tinfoil pack, turned to go, then stopped and looked back at his father. He felt a pang of guilt in the pit of his stomach.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Love you.’

  Joe looked up in surprise. ‘Love you too, son. What’s gotten into you?’

  ‘Nothing. I just … nothing. See you later.’

  A clear morning awaited him outside, but dark clouds threatened on the horizon. It was a mile from their house to the village. Usually it took him about fifteen minutes to walk it. But with just under ten minutes till the train left, he’d have to run. He waited until he was out of sight of the kitchen window before setting off down the road at a sprint. The hammer made the run awkward, as the bag hopped up and down against his back, thumping into him painfully. He made it to the station, panting and with shaky, quivering legs, just as the train pulled in to the platform.

  ‘Return to Dublin, please!’ he asked breathlessly at the ticket booth, shoving some money at the woman behind the Perspex window and keeping his good eye glued to the train in case it started to pull off without him. The woman gazed at him suspiciously before hitting some keys on a machine in front of her that spat out the ticket. He grabbed it more urgently than he’d meant to and leapt onto the train just as the electronic doors started beeping to warn passengers that they were closing. He leant back against the wall of the train, still out of breath, and watched as Farranfore fell behind him. He was finally on his way: to Dublin, to Fenrir.

  The fishing boat that cruised into Dublin Harbour was just like all the others. It was a trawler, mostly painted white, with a blue undercarriage. The paint was peeling in several places, showing patches of green and brown rust underneath. It was smaller than many of the other boats and would only take a three- or four-person crew to man it properly. The net was drawn in as it navigated into the port, but it was dripping wet and had obviously been used recently. The captain – the sole crew member of the vessel – steered the boat into a dock. When it was close enough, he grasped a couple of thick, coarse ropes and leapt onto dry land. Then he secured the ropes onto the mooring with a couple of tight clove hitch knots, tugging on them one last time to ensure the vessel wasn’t going anywhere before turning and heading away from the water. The name painted in navy cursive letters on each side read Drysi.

  Fenrir walked through the port, passing fellow fishermen, longshoremen, customs officers and even a few members of the US Navy on his way. None of them gave him a second glance. Though he was as broad and lofty as he’d ever been, his build wasn’t that unusual for a seafaring man. In fact, his slim waist and wide, strong shoulders made him the perfect candidate for a life at sea. He’d shaved off his thick beard and made a point of maintaining his appearance that way over the past month, so his jawline was smooth now, with only a faint five o’clock shadow. And he’d cut his hair short too. He hadn’t risked going to a barber’s so had had to do it himself, looking in the mirror and chopping clumps of black hair away with a pair of blunted kitchen scissors. It wasn’t exactly what he’d call fashionable, but at least it would disguise him from anyone on the lookout for a man with long hair and a beard. He wore a small red beanie hat over the ragged hair, along with boots, a pair of jeans, a checked fleece shirt and a waterproof waxed jacket.

  After escaping from Loki’s clutches during the mayhem of the explosion, he’d made his way straight to the boat. As soon as the battle at the tower had ended and the dust was settling, Fenrir had felt a strange mixture of relief and regret. If Loki had been angry when he’d first found him weeks earlier, there would be no end to the torture the god would i
nflict on him for actually standing against him. And so, getting to a new hiding place had been first on his agenda. He had seen the other wolves scattering in the aftermath of the battle and, though he liked many of them, he didn’t intend to invite them along. It would be much easier to hide one person than many. Off he had gone, by himself, through the dark of the night.

  He’d kept the boat docked in Dublin Harbour for years and no one – not even Drysi – knew about it. Despite limiting the wolves’ chances to leave the seclusion of the tower for decades, he had snuck off several times by himself for fishing trips over the years. It was as close as he could safely get to the thrill of the hunt. He’d spent the past month on the boat, just out of range of any phone or television signal. He hadn’t even bothered putting on the radio, cherishing the silence. He’d spent his days fishing, reading and simply looking at the water lapping at the side of the vessel, and he spent his nights worrying and wondering if this would all blow over soon and praying that Loki wouldn’t find him this time.

  His peace had been disrupted the previous night when Drysi had visited him in his sleep.

  ‘Father,’ she had said, her face filling his mind. Her eyes were shut but a third one in the middle of her forehead was staring at him. It was disconcerting.

  ‘Drysi,’ he could hear himself respond in his head.

  ‘Father, where are you?’ She seemed concerned.

  ‘I’m sleeping.’

  ‘I know. But where?’

  ‘Why do you want to know that?’

  ‘Meet me, Father.’

  ‘But … Loki …’

  ‘He … he abandoned me, Father. It was terrible; he called me a useless cripple and left me by the side of the road. And the things he did to people! The things I saw!’ She squeezed tears out of her closed eyes while her third one just kept staring.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Drysi.’

  ‘Meet me. Tomorrow.’

  He hesitated, not quite sure what to believe or what to think.

  ‘Please, Father,’ Drysi pleaded. ‘I miss you so much.’

  And eventually he said the thing that he most wanted to say, even if he wasn’t certain it was the thing he should say.

  ‘All right.’ His voice broke slightly. ‘I’ll meet you.’

  And here he was, on his way to meet his daughter. A part of him – a cold and logical part – screamed that this was all too simple, that Drysi had lied to him before and would do so again. This part of him was wary and on edge – the wolf ready to bolt at the first click of a hunter’s gun. And this small part of him had taken the precaution of slipping a flick-knife into his pocket. But another, bigger part of him – the man and the father – desperately yearned to believe Drysi, wanted her to be his good, loving daughter once more. This part of him wanted them to live together in a world where Loki was gone – dead or defeated, it didn’t matter: just gone. And this part of him, this foolish but hopeful part, refused to consider for a second that he was walking into a trap.

  ‘The train’s late,’ Ash said, checking the time on the little dashboard clock.

  ‘It’s not late,’ contradicted Ellie. ‘That clock is fast.’

  They were sitting in a 1960s pastel-blue Volkswagen Beetle. It belonged to the Lavenders’ parents. Ex had no problem ‘borrowing’ it from under the nose of their grandfather, who took care of them while their parents were away. He’d been getting very forgetful over the past few years and spent most of his days dozing in the drawing-room armchair, which had attained a deep granddad-shaped groove in the padding. Even though he was far too young to legally have a driver’s licence, Ex was more than capable behind the wheel and no one paid him a second glance as they sat parked outside Heuston Station.

  When Arthur had hung up on Ash that morning, she’d instantly called Ellie with her findings and told her of his plan to meet up.

  ‘There’s just one problem,’ Ash had said when she’d explained everything.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I have to shake off Detective Morrissey. He’s outside right now. If I head directly for the train station he’ll realise something is going on.’

  ‘Hmm … I have an idea.’

  They went to school as normal. Ash and Max took the bus and met Ellie and Ex outside the busy Belmont School. They smiled and chatted, laughing nonchalantly.

  ‘Can you see him?’ Ash asked with a big false grin on her face.

  ‘He’s parked a hundred yards away,’ answered Ex, who was also wearing a strained smile. Anyone who saw them would think he was looking at Ash, but in reality he was staring right past her at Morrissey’s red Toyota. As Ash had expected, the Garda had followed them.

  ‘We’ll go into class,’ said Ellie, just as pleasantly as the other two, ‘and stay until morning break. Then we’ll sneak off. He can’t wait for us all day.’

  ‘Won’t Miss Keegan be looking for us then?’ Ash pointed out, thinking of their soon-to-be worried teacher.

  ‘Of course. But I’d rather have her searching for us than Morrissey.’

  ‘Remember, Max,’ warned Ash, ‘you can’t tell anyone where we’ve gone.’

  ‘Can’t I come, though?’

  ‘No. It’ll be easier to get away with less of us going. You have to stay.’

  The school bell rang, beckoning them all inside.

  ‘Just keep schtum,’ Ellie reminded him as they followed everyone into the school.

  Although they had only intended on spending the first two hours of the day in class, time seemed to drag. Miss Keegan’s lessons – which usually managed to be both fun and informative – felt like torture today. Ash found herself peeking at her phone every couple of minutes – either to check the time or to see if there was any further movement on the webcam signal. An hour into the class, the signal stopped moving just on the coastline of the city. At the docks, Ash realised. She glanced at Ellie and Ex; they, too, seemed distracted. Ex was tapping his fingers on the desk impatiently while his sister kept pulling back her sleeve to look at the time. Luckily no one else in the class seemed to pick up on the tension emanating from them.

  Eventually the bell rang for morning break. The class thronged out excitedly, none more pleased than Ash, Ellie and Ex. From the front schoolyard, where the balls and Frisbees were soaring through the air, they could see the main road. A few cars were parked there but they saw no sign of Detective Morrissey’s red Toyota. They stood by the south-facing school wall, waiting anxiously. Then, when the bell rang to announce the end of break-time, they took their chance and sprinted off school property. During the hustle and bustle following break, no one saw them go.

  Ex had driven that morning and left the Beetle in a car park half a mile from the school. Ash saw the sense in parking it so far away: Detective Morrissey had seen Ash with the Lavenders and might know their car, so it was best to keep it out of sight. The three of them piled in and Ex sped off towards the city centre.

  With just a little time to spare before Arthur’s train was due, they’d stopped in Smithfield, parking by the Viking Experience. Ash had got out of the car and told the others to wait. She’d walked to the high-walled enclosure in the middle of the cobblestoned Smithfield Square. Murals of Viking life adorned each wall. It was the off-season so the park was closed now, but it was due to reopen in mid-March – in just a few days. She went straight to a fire escape in one of the side walls and banged the secret knock on the door. The youngest Viking, who’d been only seventeen or eighteen when he’d died, opened the door. Like the other dead warriors, he was tall with a slim, muscular physique. Unlike the others, his skin hadn’t receded as much but it was still quite brown and leathery. If he was going out in public, he usually covered it with layers of flesh-tone foundation. He was wearing a T-shirt and some jeans – being reanimated corpses, the Vikings didn’t feel the cold – that he had borrowed from the costume room. He looked at Ash with quizzical sunken eyes.

  ‘Eirik,’ she said, ‘we need you. There’s no time for make-up.�
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  He nodded, then disappeared into the complex, reappearing a moment later wearing a baseball cap pulled down low over his face and carrying a long-sword. It was rusted slightly but could still do a good amount of damage, especially with Eirik wielding it. He got into the passenger seat while the smaller pair of Ellie and Ash sat in the back. Then Ex sped off towards Heuston Station, where they were waiting now.

  ‘Look – there he is!’ said Ellie, pointing at Arthur coming out of the building. He didn’t have to look around for too long before spotting the blue Beetle – it was hard to miss.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, climbing into the back next to Ash. ‘Where are we headed?’

  ‘To Dublin Harbour,’ Ash said, showing him the GPS display on her smartphone.

  Clontarf had once been a village north of Dublin city. Fenrir could still see it in his mind’s eye as it had been: just a row of little huts. Even though it had been swallowed up by the city spread years before, it still retained some of its former charm. He had been the one to suggest the café to meet in. The Bridge Café was the one place he’d visited every time he had gone fishing. That all seemed like another lifetime now. The café was exactly as he remembered it. It was situated just on the corner of Vernon Avenue, a little blue-faced building with one wide window and a wooden painted sign overhead. He’d once heard the term ‘greasy spoon’ used to describe a café or restaurant that tended to be a bit rough around the edges and specialised in quick, fried food, and he thought it was a very fitting description for The Bridge. Inside, the walls were covered in tongue-and-groove panelling and painted bright yellow, and waxy chequered tablecloths were draped over the tables, which were packed too tightly into the small space. There was a counter at the back of the café with crisps, cakes and sandwiches on display and an open stainless-steel kitchen behind. Everything was covered in a fine layer of grease. Fenrir loved the place.

  Drysi was already there when he entered. She was sitting at the small round table nearest the window, with a glass of juice in front of her. She looked up when he entered, a little bell tinkling over the door. The café was busy and every other table was occupied. She smiled at him shyly.