Kingdom: The Complete Series

by Steven William Hannah

  Then the room is filled with the sound of hollow clicking – the sound of an empty pistol. Mark looks down and sees the same thing: bullet riddled overalls, but no blood. He flexes his chest outwards and takes a breath, relieving the built-up tension in his muscles. As the air floods his veins once more, he feels himself relax.

  Seeing the fear in his attacker's eyes is all that he needs. He strides forward across the silent room and pushes the bloody-grimaced shooter back with such force that he crashes through the wooden door and tumbles into the next room screaming; the injured man that he was carrying drops to the ground, mumbling and grasping at his ribs.

  Mark steps over him and crosses into the kitchen. Lying on the wooden floorboards in a halo of wooden splinters is the shooter, hand clamped on his chest and teeth bared in pain.

  Mark glares down at the shooter and bends to pick him up; he shies away as though Mark is on fire.

  “Why couldn't you just leave me alone?” snarls Mark.

  Hands on his collar, he lifts him into the air until his feet are off the ground.

  “Wh-what the hell -” he manages through strained breaths as Mark looks him in the eyes.

  “You've ruined my life,” he says, his voice low and trembling with anger. “The King is never going to leave me alone now – or my mother. He's never going to let me live in peace.”

  Mark clutches him by the neck, the skin around his chin bunching up like a slack jumper. The man's feet are off the ground and he is staring down in horror at the janitor, who holds him in the air with one hand. Mark's vision begins to blur as a rush of blood goes to his head, the vodka igniting his temper.

  “You couldn't just leave me alone, could you?”

  Sirens blare outside, announcing their presence; Mark stops squeezing and the wolf's eyes roll back with relief.

  The building is filled with the sound of organised men shouting orders. He hears the metallic clatter of firearms being loaded and readied, and the crash of boot-heels on concrete. His head begins to swim and his focus fades as the alcohol burns in his veins.

  Time is running out. Mark stares into the frightened eyes of the shooter and urges him:

  “The King. Where can I find him?”

  “Can't tell...” the man mutters, trembling.

  Mark leans over him and repeats himself, gobs of spittle dripping from his snarling mouth.

  “Where can I find the King?”

  “P-Pocket,” the man manages, and Mark roots through the pockets of his leather jacket. The footsteps echo from the stairwell and into Mark's flat through the open door. He hears orders being shouted.

  Mark finds a small card with an address and a set of dates on it. He slides the card inside his overalls and walks back into the hallway.

  He stops.

  He finds himself under the gaze of a heavily armed squad of soldiers wearing dark face-masks.

  “Don't move,” says the front soldier. Behind him is a hallway filled with assault rifles, shotguns and grenade launchers in the arms of unflinching men without faces. The injured man lies on the floor to Mark's right, pretending to be unconscious.

  Through the gaps in every face-mask, Mark sees very human eyes looking back at him. He sees uncertainty in them, and takes a deep breath.

  “I have things to do first,” he says, looking through his own empty room at the broken window. “I'm sorry.”

  The front soldier gives the order:

  “Take him.”

  The air explodes around him, and Mark raises his arms and throws himself at a sprint into the room as shots catch him in the back and ribs, knocking the wind from him again, throwing him into the wall. He hears them flood into the room behind him, screaming commands as he runs.

  Leaping onto the windowsill like a prowling cat, the cold evening air kisses his face. He looks down.

  Three stories, then the cold, hard concrete of the alleyway.

  Mark hesitates, and the soldiers make the decision for him.

  A volley of shots hit him in the small of his back. His scream is cut short as he is thrown flailing out of his window, into the silence below. The janitor, his tattered overalls streaming behind him like torn flags, plummets to the concrete.

  Episode 3

  Against the Clock

  Chloe stares into the varnished wooden floor, trying to avoid the gaze of the King across the desk.

  Between them, embedded in a cabinet, is the harsh light of a television screen, playing the news at a low, mumbling volume. Watching it as the seconds pass, the King points and sighs like a concerned mother.

  "Goodness me, look at this violence."

  Chloe sees the aerial recording of a bridge over the River Clyde, all twisted metal and broken concrete, brown murky water churning around the supports as bodies are pulled out by armed soldiers. With a soft chuckle, the King reaches for a remote and turns the television off.

  The room is cast into silence.

  “You see what happened there? Soldiers had a guy cornered on the bridge. Next thing, entire bridge collapses. Now what on earth could have caused that.”

  Chloe says nothing, her mind filled with images of Jamie struggling out there in the smeared grey city with soldiers flooding the streets.

  Interrupting their silent thoughts, a silver phone buzzes and lights up on the desk. Chloe jumps and suppresses a gasp. The King lifts the sleek mobile phone to his ear whilst keeping his dark eyes on Chloe.

  "Yes?"

  Chloe hears a garbled voice filter into his ears like water. His emotionless face cracks into a grim smile.

  “Send him up immediately.”

  He places the phone on his desk, making sure it is at right angles to the pens and pencil laid out like sleeping soldiers. Leaning back in his leather chair, the King steeples his fingers. The cold light offered by the desk lamp seems to pass through him, leaving nothing but a silhouette.

  "Guess who's here?" he asks her.

  Chloe refuses to let her fear show. Beneath the desk, her knees are shaking and she has crossed her feet to stop them tapping on the wooden floor. Her thin jawline is clenched to stop her teeth from chattering together.

  “Jamie?” she asks through clenched teeth.

  The King gives her a curt nod and hums to himself.

  “He's on his way up.”

  “Good," she says, trying to avoid being drawn into a conversation.

  “He's very early, don't you think?”

  “He's good at his job."

  “Is he? Is he so good at his job, that he can get four cars to the garage without my man at the garage seeing him or the cars?” The King leans forward into the light. "He hasn't gotten me one car let alone four, Chloe.”

  The realisation sets in and Chloe feels her stomach go cold. The King smiles, satisfied by the fear in her blue eyes.

  “On the plus side,” the King whispers, "I hear they pay quite well for blonde girls. Maybe we can find you a buyer with more vanilla tastes -"

  “This isn't right," she feels the dam burst and the outrage comes pouring out, her voice shaking. “He's a good man, he worked himself to the bone for you. All he wanted was to get away from all of this."

  “For me? On the contrary,” the King cocks his head and smiles, “I believe that he did this all for you. You should be blaming yourself for your current predicament.”

  There is a muffled knock at the door before she can reply, and the King holds her gaze. Chloe fights against the overwhelming urge to turn around and look; she locks eyes with the King and holds his stare as footsteps fill the room behind her, feeling the ice in his eyes seeping into her chest like pneumonia.

  “My King,” a coarse voice announces itself. "This is your man."

  “Take the hood off.”

  The King motions behind Chloe, and there is the sound of fabric tearing, followed by a deep gasp.

  “Chloe.” The name slips out of Jamie's bloodied mouth like a secret.

  She hears her name and can no longer help it. Twisting
in her chair, she turns to see him -

  On his knees.

  With a gun to his head.

  Her smile fades to fear. “Jamie?”

  Behind him stand a firing squad of men with shining black pistols and sub-machine-guns. They have all clasped their hands around their guns, giving them the air of respectful professionals.

  Jamie, his jacket gone and his white shirt stained with flecks of blood, smiles at her as a single droplet of claret fluids runs from his right nostril and stains the top of his lip.

  “You made it,” the King says, scraping his chair back with a cutting whine and standing at his full height. He walks past Chloe, letting a dry, cold hand brush over her neck, making her shudder away. “Vince at the front door said that you needed to see me. He said you had a 'game-changer' for me.”

  Jamie nods, saying nothing else. His hands have been tied behind his back with something and his head lolls with his shoulders – he seems out of breath, his hair wet and his face shiny with perspiration as if he had ran a marathon. He just nods.

  “Our man at the garage hasn't given us the all clear yet,” the King says, standing over Jamie and looking down upon him. “You haven't gotten me my cars, have you?”

  The King rests a large, ringed hand on Jamie's slick hair and looks at him with something resembling sympathy.

  “I got you something better,” Jamie assures him.

  One of the men sneers and mutters: “A nosebleed?”

  He barks a sickly laugh until the King shoots him a look that silences the room, one hand still on Jamie's head. He looks down at Jamie again.

  “What did you get me, Jamie?”

  “Cut me loose and I'll show you,” Jamie urges him.

  The King seems to weigh this up and then, hanging his head down and shaking it, takes his hand from Jamie's skull.

  "Cut you loose," he says to himself, rolling the words over like a cigar between his lips. He motions to one of his men out of sight and is handed a small, heavy knife so sharp that it seems to hum as it moves through the air, cutting the silence apart.

  He weighs it in his hands, and then paces behind Jamie with heavy, echoing footsteps.

  "Ok. I'll cut you loose, Jamie," he says, his voice coarse with regret.

  Jamie sees Chloe, tense and trembling on the edge of her seat. He sees a questioning look in her eyes, and gives her a brave nod as her eyes drift to the King standing behind him.

  Jamie feels the King's fingers slide under his jaw and tilt his head back.

  “I'm am actually very sorry about this,” laughs the King.

  The knife catches the light in the corner of Jamie's eye, and he hears a scream leave Chloe's mouth. She is leaping out of her seat towards him, despair painted across her face.

  Then she is frozen.

  Sound fades to silence as though Jamie had paused a video of this very moment, and he feels his heartbeat quicken. The King is suddenly a statue, and Jamie squirms out of his hold and stands up on aching knees. He turns and wraps his bound hands against the King's frozen knife, cutting himself free with a thief's finesse.

  His heart pounds in his ears as he feels time begin to accelerate again, the sounds growing like a pressure in his skull. It feels as though he is trying to grab onto a single moment and hold himself there against an ever quickening river current. His nose runs red with fresh blood and he wipes it away as he moves forward and grabs Chloe around her waist. Jamie forces himself to slow down, to take a deep breath and calm himself: as he does, time slows again.

  A second has passed.

  Chloe feels light to him in his new, timeless world, as though she is made of paper. He lifts her and turns to make for the door. In the second that has passed, the King has noticed his absence – his eyebrows are arched in surprise as the knife passes through thin air.

  The flow of time rages against Jamie as he moves towards the door. It feels like he is swimming upstream, exhausting himself the harder he goes against the current. With every breath, fresh blood splutters from his nostrils – he can taste it in the back of his throat. Chloe is draped over his shoulder in a fireman's lift, getting heavier by the second.

  He needs more time.

  As he passes the executioner's squad at the door, he grabs a pistol from someone's hand and turns. Time is building up in his skull like water at a dam, aching to burst. He turns around and points the pistol at the King – at his head.

  Then at his heart.

  The trigger is heavier than he can pull.

  Jamie points the gun downwards and pulls the trigger.

  Flying in silence like an arrow, the bullet blows the King's knee to splinters. Time begins to seep through the cracks in Jamie's concentration, and a silent scream escapes the King's mouth, getting louder with every passing moment like an approaching train.

  Jamie throws himself and Chloe through the door and slams it shut.

  The crash of the wood brings the flow of time with it.

  He hears screaming and shouting muffled by the door. Chloe's ear splitting cry continues as he puts her down. Her wet, red eyes take in their surroundings and her mind goes blank as the scream trails off. Her jaw is slack.

  “What -” she begins.

  “Don't ask." He takes her hand and pulls her down the corridor. "Just run."

  They flee down a narrow corridor that smells like medicine, lit with cold white lights and old, chipped plaster. Clamouring voices surround them as though they are caged in by riots. The crashing of doors being thrown open echoes down the corridor. Jamie drags Chloe down an open stairwell into the gloom of the lower floors.

  They barrel around and around, down into the damp darkness where the lights don't quite work.

  “They took me up nine flights of stairs,” says Jamie. “Keep count.”

  With his mouth slack and hanging open to breathe, Jamie can taste the blood from his nostrils dripping into his mouth with every step – he wants to throw up, coughing up bile as he breathes.

  Orders ring out above them, and the battle-cries of an eager hunting party follow them down the stairwell. A burst of sub-machine-gun fire erupts like lightning from above, and the couple flinch away from the banister as it explodes, coughing splinters at them.

  “They're heading downstairs," comes a voice.

  “Lock the exit down," yells another. "Use the shutters."

  “Are you hurt?” Jamie tries to turn and ask Chloe, but she's pushing him to keep going; she nurses a bloodied arm marked with splinter-cuts.

  “Don't stop running,” she pushes him forward.

  They can hear the staccato crash of boots on the stairwell above them now, countless footsteps pursuing them into the depths. Jamie feels the fear like a hot iron band around his heart – he's sweating, breathless, his nose is gushing claret blood that's stained the front of his shirt like a red tie.

  Heavy clangs begin to rhythmically punctuate the sounds of the chase.

  “What's that noise?” she wheezes as they run.

  “I don't know.”

  The floor count in his head finally reaches nine and he leads Chloe away from the stairs, down a hallway that he remembers the distinct smell of: tobacco and gunpowder – probably where the King's guards live.

  There are no windows down this hallway – the only light is artificial.

  “Not much further...” he begins, but he trails off.

  The sound of their footsteps fades to nothing as they come to a breathless stop.

  The hallway should end in a wooden doorway to the lower levels. Instead, there is a single, featureless slab of steel blocking their path. Jamie runs a hand over it, fighting to get his breath back. His hand leaves a bloody smear across it.

  Chloe hits the metal with a clenched fist.

  “We're trapped,” she whispers.

  Jamie turns and points the pistol back down the hallway, towards the stairs. He waits for movement, trying to urge time to a halt again – but nothing comes. Each second arrives regardless of his efforts.


  “Jamie?” Chloe asks him. He can hear the fear in her voice. "What do we do?"

  “I'll get us out of here, don't worry."

  She steps forward and presses herself against him, and he puts an arm around her whilst his other keeps the gun aimed down the hall.

  "You shouldn't have come here," she says, her voice shaking. "You should have just left Glasgow, twenty-four hours is enough to get far away -"

  He cuts her off with a long, cold stare from his bloodshot eyes.

  "We leave together or not at all," he says.

  “I don't want it to end here."

  "I'm sorry I got you into this – it went a lot smoother in my head."

  She says nothing, but presses her forehead against his neck.

  “Just get us out of it," she whispers, "and we'll call it even.”

  Mark's eyes open. His vision is blurred like a rain smeared camera lens. The coppery tastes of bile and blood catch in his throat as he draws breath, and the most familiar feeling in his life hits him: hangover. His pulse pounds in his head and he can sense every cell in his body groaning at him.

  Somewhere nearby, a neat-cut voice says:

  “We've got target four – bullets don't do much to him but he's out cold – left a crater from a three floor drop. Definitely the guy we're after, but his nose was bleeding, so send a chopper and a Trespasser unit to collect him, medical too.”

  Shapes begin to swim into focus: tall black shadows surround him like coffin bearers staring into his grave.

  One of them has a hand to his ear, and he drops it and tells the other shades:

  “They're sending a Trespasser unit, about one minute out.”

  “Sir, he's waking up -” one of them shouts, alarm ringing in his voice.

  Immediately the clatter of carbon fibre weaponry fills Mark's ears, and his groggy, drunken mind catches up. He remembers the thugs in his flat, preparing his execution; he remembers the fire taking his body and his mind and moulding it into something stronger; he remembers the strength flowing through his bones, the thud of bullets crashing into his skin to little effect.