Agent of Equilibrium

by N. J. Mercer

  It was not purely good fortune that had allowed him to evade his enemies; he had anticipated a moment such as this and made appropriate arrangements which included a car in a hidden location that would facilitate any flight.

  Once in the relative safety of the populous city centre he had found a hotel, and despite the late hour he managed to convince the staff to put him up for the night, playing on their sympathies with a story about having his car stolen.

  This had all occurred last night, and the Disciples had not yet caught up with him. This emboldened Martin. He was still free, and that was all that mattered because tonight he would penetrate their lair to find Rachel.

  He cruised through the Glasgow streets in his hire car. Above him, the clouds were gathering and gradually obscuring the night sky, hiding the celestial bodies that had previously been so clearly visible. Last night, the streets had been filled with processions of drinkers and revellers; at present, there were only diffuse groups of merry stragglers who wandered on and off the road as they pleased, the weekend was over. Martin hardly noticed them as he drove to the train station. His mind was repeatedly going through the plan, trying to cover all eventualities. He hoped Rachel would be ready; she didn’t have to do much, just open the window. Hell! She doesn’t even have to do that, Pete could do it. Just be ready to leave, Rachel, he thought to himself.

  Martin rolled to a halt by the pickup area near a broad figure wearing a long coat who was smoking beside one of the train station exits. On seeing the car, the man put out his cigarette, lifted a bag from the ground and casually walked over. He opened the door and slipped into the passenger seat, placing the bag by his feet. He had been given a description of the vehicle and its number plate earlier in the day.

  “All right, sunshine,” croaked a deep voice from a smoker’s larynx.

  Without a word, Martin stuck out his hand for a quick shake before driving off. “How was the journey, Pete?” he eventually asked the burly cockney.

  “Shit,” was the reply. “I’m getting old; just can’t stand crowds any more, bloody train was packed from the start of the journey.”

  “You took a chance coming by train, Pete. If there was a delay or cancellation or something I would have been fucked.”

  “You can just as easily have delays and get stuck on the road these days. Anyway, the train is good. I pay for my ticket in cash, and as long as I keep my head down, away from the cameras, it’s anonymous; bleeding surveillance everywhere these days. You know they have cameras that can track your number plate now?”

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “Just a few things we might find useful.”

  “So, you ready for this, Pete?”

  “I was born ready, mate,” said Peter Pike with a laugh.

  Martin remained edgy, tense; Pete, the seasoned campaigner, appeared perfectly relaxed. He was showing no more sign of nerves than if he were going out for a drink or a meal, thought Martin, and he found this comforting. He informed Pike that it would be a fairly long drive from Glasgow to the old house – and Rachel.

  Once they were out of the city, Pike started firing questions at Martin. They had been over it all already, but he was a professional and Martin knew details were important to him. He answered all of Pike’s queries, telling him the height of the perimeter wall, describing the gates, and he confirmed that there were no dogs or barbed wire; this last piece of information worried Pike.

  “Why are you looking so anxious? No fucking dogs or wire – that’s good isn’t it?” asked Martin.

  “It’s good,” replied Pike, “it just seems so wrong though. A big place like that; I mean what have they got? Cameras? Alarms? Or like most people out in the country – fucking shotguns?”

  From the look on Pike’s face, Martin could tell that it was a serious concern. “Pete, there’s no cameras, there’s no alarms and as far as I know, no shotguns. Look, I won’t lie to you; I have been in the house, and I have never seen that stuff. I know the people who live there and they’ve never mentioned anything about weapons to me. It’s a small community out there, nothing happens – they have big houses, some land and not much else. If there’s any guns, knives or even police, just get the fuck out of there. I brought you along to help me get in and out, not to get caught or shot. Besides, we won’t even be going into the building itself, just up to the window I told you about.”

  Pike nodded, seeming reassured, and gave his persistent analysis of the details a break. They drove on into the Highlands, eventually leaving the A-roads to follow a route that was mostly made up of twisting, tree-lined mountain passes. Most of the journey was spent chatting and laughing about old times or listening to the radio; they harassed each other about their musical tastes and enthusiastically disagreed about which station to tune in to. Martin welcomed the distraction, although it was only fleeting, and the atmosphere soon changed again.

  “We’ll be there in about ten minutes, Pete,” he announced, and he witnessed all the recent frivolity in Pike’s mood evaporate in an instant as his friend mentally prepared for the work ahead.

  “Make sure you stop just where you told me you would, all right? I mustn’t lose my bearings.”

  “Sure thing,” Martin replied.

  There were no more questions; it was time to put the plan into action. The road ahead was lit by their headlights and whatever pale illumination the almost full moon projected through hazy cloud cover. It was approaching two a.m. Martin couldn’t remember the last time they had passed another vehicle. He felt Pike’s silence and saw him wistfully observing the bleak beauty of the landscape; driving through it at night felt like a journey into another world. Martin too was silent, not because of the scenery – he was contemplating the task ahead.

  Their route became very narrow, trees hung low overhead, and branches scraped the side of their vehicle whenever it veered from the middle of the road. There was not enough room for two cars to pass without one pulling over to the side; at this hour, in this location, it was unlikely that they would encounter any. A few minutes and two left turns later, Martin slowed the car down until it just rolled along at a jogger’s pace. He was concentrating on the roadside.

  “We here, then?” asked Pike.

  “Yeah, just looking for my spot,” Martin told him.

  Pike took off his seatbelt and stretched. The earlier, relaxed exchanges between the friends were long forgotten. Martin looked at Peter Pike, who appeared deadly serious, face and eyes like a hawk’s; he was ready to do what he did best, breaking in.

  “Here we go,” Martin said. He steered the car onto a patch of flattened grass beside one of the bends in the road, a passing place for vehicles travelling along this narrow course. Martin pointed out how well their car was hidden here amongst the surrounding woodland, invisible until you were about ten feet away. Peter Pike nodded appreciatively.

  “Okay, Pete, get your shit together. Beyond these trees is the wall and then beyond that it’s the house,” said Martin, pointing into the depths of the roadside woods.

  Pike looked to where his friend was indicating. “Can’t see fuck all yet,” he said as they both got out of the car, his eyes unable to penetrate the darkness.

  Martin opened the boot; Pike took off his long coat and placed it inside. He put on a black fleece which he had been carrying in his shoulder bag; it was less cumbersome and more suited to the job at hand. Martin was already dressed in a dark tracksuit.

  “Lead the way,” said Pike in his conspicuous cockney accent, handing Martin a flashlight from the shoulder bag. With torch in hand, Martin stealthily ducked into the woods and Pike followed. Martin kept looking over his shoulder to make sure his friend was keeping up. Pike did not look as lithe as Martin remembered him, time had taken its toll; however, his movements were as agile as ever, and he followed cat-like through the dark woods without falling behind. After about fifty metres the perimeter wall came into view, and in his eagerness, Martin stumbled over some large roots; Pike caught him
, and they moved on without losing any momentum. On reaching the wall they spoke in whispers.

  “Right, Pete, here we are, mate. You said you had a few ideas about what we should do now.”

  Peter Pike nodded thoughtfully; he was carefully observing the wall, measuring it up. “You said there’s a gate not far from here?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Take me to it; I don’t like the look of the wall, it’s too high. If we need to get out in a hurry we’re fucked. I think busting open the gate is the best option.”

  Martin swiftly led Pike along the perimeter wall until they reached the metal gate. After spending hours staking out this house to try to find Rachel alone, Martin felt as if he knew the wall better than the interior of his own flat.

  “Keep the torch low,” Pike ordered as he looked through the gate into the garden. Martin did as asked and watched Pike observe the great house.

  “You know what, Martin? At first, I didn’t believe you when you said there were no dogs. I thought that out here in the country they all kept them. Since I haven’t heard a single bark or growl, I think you might actually be right. They don’t even have any modern security features; there’s no alarm to this gate, and I can’t see any sign of CCTV. It’s ridiculous!” Pike reached into his shoulder bag and retrieved what looked like a small, silver Thermos flask from it. “Hold that torch steady now,” he told Martin.

  Pike unscrewed the lid of the flask and a smoky vapour poured insidiously over its top edges. Martin watched, intrigued, as he lit his friend’s work with the torch held low and still as requested. Pike placed the flask on the ground, and from a small plastic case that was also in his bag he produced a long glass pipette. With this device, he drew up some of the flask’s smoking content and squirted it into the keyhole of the lock; he aimed the rest at points where the lock sat in the heavy frame of the gate. There was a sizzling sound whenever the liquid from the pipette made contact with metal.

  “Acid?” Martin asked.

  Pike, engrossed in what he was doing, simply nodded. The metal sizzled and corroded while he carefully packed away pipette and flask, ensuring the latter’s lid was screwed on tight. They both stood there watching the lock for about a minute. Martin awaited instructions from his friend.

  “Okay, I’ll grab the gate here, and you push when I push,” Pike said. He was gripping the metal bars around the lock, and together they used their combined body weight to apply steady pressure to the compromised barrier. There was a small amount of resistance that soon gave way with a dull popping sound. They eased the gate open. It squeaked a little so Martin lifted it slightly off its hinges in Pike’s direction and it was quiet again.

  “Kill the torch,” ordered Peter Pike before he took it off his friend and put it into the shoulder bag again. From here on, they relied on Martin’s memory and the sporadic moonlight to guide their way towards the house.

  Old habits die hard, and Pike’s eyes scanned all around for signs of a camera or alarms, anything that might catch them; there was nothing. Together, they closed in on the house steadily.

  “Nice garden,” commented Pike.

  Martin smiled to himself, amused that even in these circumstances Peter Pike found time to appreciate such things. They stopped briefly behind a row of dense bushes, and Martin pointed towards the grand old building at the centre of this large expanse of ground they were in. It was about a hundred metres from them. Peter Pike looked at it solemnly.

  **

  Its slumber disturbed, the thing beneath the ground stirred. It was the vibration from their movements that had roused it. It was very sensitive to touch. Once they had entered the garden, it could feel their breathing, their hearts beating and even sense the electrical energy of their brainwaves. It could feel all this from its home under the soil by way of its many sensitive, powerful limbs that spread like a network of pipes throughout the whole garden, encircling the house and hidden from view. The Bar-Shiyq recognised one of the intruders; the other was an unknown. Its small brain ticked away. It had been a while since it truly feasted; for too long it had fed merely on creatures of the soil. Occasionally, the master had thrown it a sacrifice; tonight, all that looked like it would change.

  **

  “The lack of security does worry me; there’s not so much as a floodlight here,” whispered Pike suspiciously as the pair moved from cover to cover. Martin stopped beside a large privet hedge; they had managed to work their way around the garden to face the front of the house whilst still maintaining a safe distance.

  “There!” said Martin. “That’s the window.”

  Pike gazed thoughtfully at the huge building in front of him. Its façade was flat except for the portico that covered the great entrance door and the steps that led up to it. The house possessed three symmetrical rows of large rectangular windows, one for each floor; smaller windows were built into the roof. It was the very middle window above the portico that Martin had indicated.

  Peter Pike took it all in for a few moments before speaking. “We can use one of those pillars with the blocks carved into it to get onto that little roof above the front door. The one beside the plant climbing up the wall will be best, once there we get the window open. You said the girl would be waiting?”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” confirmed Martin. “The other bedrooms are at the back of the house so as long as we keep quiet nobody should spot us.”

  Martin, still looking towards the window, waited for his friend to say something; all he got in response was a stifled grunt. He turned around to see Pike’s face looking pale, his eyes wide and filled with sheer panic; he was tugging at his left leg with both arms.

  “Pete! What the fuck is going on?!” exclaimed Martin on witnessing his friend’s distress. He was barely able to keep his voice down to a whisper.

  “I don’t know, something’s caught my leg. I can’t fucking move,” said Pike, straining fiercely. His leg suddenly jerked downwards, pulling his foot into the ground, and he whimpered from the pain. “Fuck me! Fuck me! What’s going on?” he begged as he tried to suppress cries of agony.

  Confused, Martin weighed up the risk of shining the torchlight to find out exactly what the hell was happening against the possibility of giving themselves away by doing so. Another downwards jerk of Pike’s leg and another stifled cry of pain made up his mind. He fumbled through the bag that was still hanging from his friend’s shoulder, looking for the torch. Once he had it, he shone it on Pike’s leg and took a sharp intake of breath. Martin cringed at what he saw, and now Pike too could see what it was that had him.

  “Oh, bloody hell! What the fuck is going on, Martin? Did you know about this?” asked Peter Pike, tears of pain and fear filling his eyes. Martin, terrified and unable to shift his gaze from the horrific sight, shook his head. Pike’s left leg was buried underground up to the knee. Wrapped around it, extending all the way up to the middle of his thigh, was a thick tentacle covered in leathery skin. It was about six inches in diameter where it emerged from the soil and tapered to a point at its very end, Martin could not help wondering how much thicker the limb became if one followed it underground to its source – whatever that was. The thin pointed tip moved very slowly back and forth. Martin watched helplessly.

  “I swear, Pete; I don’t know what the fuck that is.”

  “Well, get it off me! I can’t feel my leg any more. There’s a knife in the bag.”

  Martin searched Pike’s shoulder bag by torchlight and pulled out a serrated hunting knife. He took it and started to hack at the tentacle, producing only superficial lacerations in the thick, leathery hide. He couldn’t get any deeper so he started to stab instead and only achieved a similar result. Changing tack, they tried to peel away the tapering end of the tentacle from the leg together; it shifted slightly then returned to its original position as soon as they became tired and let it go.

  “Try the acid,” said Pike in an agonised whisper, a look of desperation accompanying the fear already wri
tten all over his face. Martin put the knife into his pocket and reached into the bag. As he was about to wrap his fingers around the silver flask, it moved away suddenly, along with the bag and his friend. A downward jerk had pulled Peter Pike’s left leg into the ground right up to his buttock; there was a sickening ‘thunk’ as Pike’s hip was dislocated by the impossible splits he was forced into. He screamed in agony, all previous caution and any attempt to remain concealed thrown to the wind in his blind panic. Martin looked around nervously, expecting unwelcome company from the house.

  Pike was about to play his last card. Reaching under his black fleece he pulled out an automatic pistol and started to shoot wildly into the ground and at the tentacle; all this achieved was a further series of rhythmical jerks and with each one his body was swallowed, twisting and writhing, deeper into the earth. Each yank was accompanied by the sound of ligaments tearing and joints popping. He was pulled into the soil with his lower limbs twisted at unnatural angles. By the time his upper body came to lie against the ground, he was screaming uncontrollably. More tentacles emerged and wrapped themselves around him; Martin vainly tried to pull Pike away from the monstrous grip and stopped only when he heard the inevitable commotion from the house. A door opened and distant agitated voices became audible alongside his friend’s ululations.

  He turned to run, hoping that Peter Pike would use the last bullet on himself; he knew the poor man did not stand a chance against whatever evil lurked within the ground. He was already blaming himself for his friend’s fate and was far too shaken by what he had seen to attempt any heroics. Fear was his only functioning emotion now and self-preservation his only thought, not for entirely selfish reasons – he had to stay alive to help Rachel.

  In sheer panic, Martin ran through the night, heading as quickly as possible back to the gate in the perimeter wall through which he had entered. He tried to duck behind trees and remain under cover as much as possible.