by crime The King of Terrors (a psychological thriller combining mystery
‘If that’s supposed to tempt me from the True Path I’d forget being a missionary and stick to your day job,’ he said sardonically. ‘If you had one.’
‘Yeah, well, one wrong move from you and I’ll show you where the True Path really is. How far?’
‘Quite a distance yet.’
‘Why here? Why Mam Tor?’
‘Because Doradus wishes it,’ he said, as if she were stupid to question it.
They clambered steadily uphill along the snaking, narrow track till the ground started to level out, and not soon enough, thought Caroline. The air was decidedly chillier, the mist being shifted along by a stiffening breeze. Something dark and squat loomed menacingly out of the gloom and she realised it was a stone cairn marking the summit of Mam Tor. Some yards beyond this marker another barely recognisable form emerged.
‘That’s far enough,’ she said, and the man stopped dead in his tracks.
‘She’s here, Camael,’ the man called.
Caroline squinted against the dark, her eyes looking furtively around her. She took a step or two closer. The mist thinned and the shadowy blob separated out into two distinct figures. Charles Rayne was on his knees, his head bowed, and all but naked save for his underpants. He was shivering uncontrollably. Behind him a tall, lean figure became visible, a deathly pale face framed by long, dark hair.
‘I’d be very careful, Caroline,’ said Camael. ‘Little more than two yards to your left, and a mere three feet from my right, there’s a drop of a few hundred feet. You wouldn’t want to lose your footing, would you?’
* * * *
49
The Things We Do For Love
Gabriel moved cautiously to stand a little closer to Camael. She covered them both with the gun. She saw how Rayne’s body was covered in weeping lesions and sores. ‘That’s far enough, Gabriel,’ she said. ‘What have you done to my father, you bastard?’
Camael looked down at the old man. ‘Let’s say he had a little too much sun yesterday. It doesn’t agree with him, does it?’
‘Let him go.’
A veneer of a smile spread over his lips. He grabbed Rayne by the hair and hauled him to his feet. The naked man stood trembling with the cold, his arms folded tight against him. He looked desperately ill, thought Caroline, her stomach tightening in anguish, dark patches of blood on his body, his face looking red and sore.
‘Let him go?’ he said. Then he gave a light laugh. ‘You know I can’t do that just yet.’
Rayne lifted his head. ‘I told you to stay away,’ he said, his voice cracked and dry. ‘Why did you come?’
Camael yanked Rayne’s head sharply. ‘Quiet, old man.’
Caroline’s jaw stiffened. ‘Let him go now or I’ll blow your brains out!’
‘No doubt you would. I think, however, it’s time for a little negotiation, don’t you? You have something I want, and I have something you want. Let’s say that in return for the old man’s handover you let me have the woman and her son.’
She shook her hair. ‘Sorry, no can do.’
Camael gave Rayne a shove closer towards the invisible cliff edge. ‘One more push and he’ll fall to his death. You don’t really want that, do you? All you have to do is tell me where I will find the woman and her son and your father, such as he is, will go free. Refuse and over he goes.’
‘If you do that then you’re a dead man, Camael. So is your friend.’
‘Death doesn’t scare me, Caroline,’ he said. ‘And killing me, though it will give you a modicum of pleasure, will not bring your father back from the dead. Where are they?’
‘Don’t tell them, Caroline!’ Rayne wheezed painfully.
‘What are they to you anyway?’ Camael continued. ‘What does it matter that they live or die?’
Caroline was sizing up the situation. She couldn’t rush Camael with her father a step or so from the edge of the cliff. She couldn’t risk a shot at him as the visibility was so poor, and even if she hit the man then she wasn’t certain she’d be able to get one off at Gabriel in time.
‘The woman is dead,’ she said. ‘Died of her wounds yesterday.’
‘And you expect me to believe that?’ Camael said.
‘It’s the truth. Lambert-Chide’s men killed her. One thing is certain; she doesn’t have to worry about you guys ever again.’
‘And Davies?’
‘You’re going to be so sorry you crossed me,’ she said.
‘Empty threats,’ Camael said, shaking his head. He pushed Rayne’s resisting body. ‘One last chance,’ he said coldly. ‘I will do this, mark my words. Where is Davies?’
The mist cleared a little and a dark maw opened up a few inches away from Rayne’s bare feet. Camael stared intently at Caroline and she stared right on back in a non-verbal standoff, the gun still held rigid in her outstretched arms. She shook her head decisively, her eyes filling. ‘I won’t,’ she said.
‘Won’t or can’t?’ he said. ‘Too bad.’
His hand grabbed Rayne’s neck and he was about to give him one last shove when a voice broke out of the dark.
‘Wait, Camael!’
Out of the mist she saw another figure step forward, blurred and indistinct. He looked to be wearing a long, grey Burberry coat, the collar turned up against the chill night air. Camael dragged Rayne brusquely back from the edge, holding him in front of him like a pale, quivering shield. Caroline swung the gun over to the shifting ghostly shape.
‘You’d rather watch your father die than give us Davies,’ the man said. ‘That’s interesting.’
‘Who are you?’ Caroline asked nervously.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve actually developed feelings for the man? Actually care for him, so much so you’d even sacrifice your own father?’
‘Nobody is being sacrificed tonight,’ she said defiantly. ‘Let my father go.’
The figure came closer, but the face was still largely hidden from her. ‘Ah, the things we do for love!’ he mused. ‘Poor Pipistrelle here; he devoted his entire life to a love that could never be consummated, never even be revealed. Isn’t that true, old man? Well did you hear that? She’d dead. Your Venus is no more. With the help of your lovesick devotion she led me a merry dance for decades, but alas that is all over now. I rather enjoyed the thrill of the chase, tracking down the last of the line, so to speak.’
‘So who are you?’ she asked again. ‘Are you Doradus?’
Her comment was met with an icy silence. ‘I’ve been impressed by your work, though, Caroline,’ he said at length. ‘You’ve managed to run rings around everyone. I could use skills like that. Let me put to you a proposition: join me, tell me where Davies is and not only will I let you have this pathetic little old man, I will give you riches and power beyond your wildest imaginings. I need people like you.’
Caroline took a slow step to one side, trying to get a better angle on Camael with the gun, but he mirrored her movement and kept hidden well behind Rayne.
‘I must say I am flattered, to be addressed by Doradus himself. What an honour!’ she said, trying to play for time. ‘Or is that Benedict Jones? Because that’s what all this is about really, isn’t it? You’re like the woman and Davies. You don’t die. The way I figure it, the reason you’ve been obsessed with tracking such people down over the centuries is that it’s difficult to be God’s Chosen One if there are more exactly like you. That strike a familiar chord? Call them Serpentiles, call them what you will, you can’t escape the fact that you’re one of them. And these morons who follow you hankering after a place in your New Eden, well that’s a load of balls and you know it. When the nasty little bug you’ve been developing hits the streets they’ll all die, like the rest of us. There’s no place set for them at the Eden table, is there? But Davies, people like him, they’re resistant to viruses so they’ll survive and you can’t allow that to happen, can you? You want the place for yourself.’
The man grunted. ‘You have some imagination.’
‘It’s one of
my better points.’
She noticed how he’d put himself some distance away from Camael and the others, the eddying mist all but swallowing him up.
‘Much as I’d like to talk all night, I don’t have the time. We’ll determine soon enough whether the woman is dead or not. Davies, however, is very much alive. Hand him over.’ He was met with stony silence. ‘You really want to see your father dead?’
‘We all die sooner or later,’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘You can’t win, you do know that, don’t you? The odds are stacked against you.’
Whilst her attention had been on Doradus she hadn’t noticed Gabriel pulling out a gun. Where the hell had he had that, she thought? Had Camael handed it him? She cursed herself. ‘The odds are I’ll at least get a couple of you. Starting with you, Doradus.’
‘It needn’t come to that, Caroline. Give me Davies. It’s all I ask for now. You and your father can walk free.’
‘Free? That will never happen,’ she said. ‘You’ll come for us sooner or later. You can’t have him,’ she said with finality, her arm stiffening.
‘Then there is no other option,’ he said. ‘You’ll both have to die tonight.’
‘Maybe it’s time to rethink that, Doradus,’ another voice called out of the mist from the direction of the stone cairn. ‘Seems I’ve just changed the odds.’
‘Gareth!’ Caroline said. ‘What the hell are you doing here? I told you to stay behind!’
He remained behind the cover of the cairn, hidden from view behind the shadowy block of stone. ‘What is it with you and orders?’ he said.
‘How long have you been there?’ she said.
‘Long enough. You know, things are starting to fall into place. What I want to know is how Inspector Styles managed to die and be on top of Mam Tor at the same time.’
Caroline’s face flushed through with confusion. ‘Styles? The officer that died with Stafford in the fire?’
‘That’s the one,’ said Gareth. ‘Seems Styles and Doradus here are the one and the same, is that not right, Doradus? I might not be able to see you properly but I’d recognise that voice anywhere.’
‘At least you’ve saved me the trouble of coming to look for you, Davies.’ He took a furtive step backwards, into the mist. ‘Well you know how it is, every now and again it pays the Chief Executive to go down to the shop floor to see how the prols are doing.’
‘And the guy who took your place, the one the police conveniently identified as you?’ Gareth asked.
‘A nobody. The world is littered with nobodies.’ Doradus’ form appeared to grow ever more indistinct. ‘Stafford had his chance but he refused to call it a day. And I rather liked the irony of it all, meeting his end like Rayne’s grandfather did, at the hands of his nark. Except there was no nark.’
‘I still don’t get it,’ said Gareth, trying to keep a bead on Doradus but it was getting increasingly difficult, ‘why’d you put yourself to all the trouble? You needn’t have done that. You could have sent one of your many cronies to do the job for you. What was so special?’ He looked across and saw Caroline moving slowly, taking up a better position. He was trying to keep attention from her but she spoke up.
‘I was thinking that too,’ she said. ‘I reckon when you got wind that she could actually have children, after you discovered Davies was possibly her son, your plan changed. Instead of killing her you suddenly realised you had a potential Eve on your books, didn’t you? OK, so I guess you’d already thought about female company, keeping some poor women alive in some way, but Evelyn, well she was very special. An immortal that could have children. She might also be God’s chosen one. A potential breeding machine to help reboot a decimated planet for all time. I mean, beats all those lonely night, too, doesn’t it? It’s damn tough on a guy, being the New Adam and all. Where’s the fun in that?’
Doradus was quietly melting into the dark. ‘I did find it rather fitting that Mam Tor stands for Big Mother,’ he said. ‘It adds a touch of drama to proceedings, don’t you think? It’s a shame if she’s dead. Such a missed opportunity. But if I can drag you back to our little soiree – it appears the dynamics of it have changed somewhat. Most interesting.’ He turned directly to face Caroline. ‘It’s down to you. Your last chance. You can either side with me and hand Davies over or you can watch your father thrown off a cliff. There’s still a chance for you. You don’t have to die for such a worthless man.’
Rayne lifted his head. ‘Don’t listen to him, Caroline.’
She looked at him, her resolve beginning to melt like wax in fire. ‘Father,’ she said quietly. ‘I can’t…’ The gun began to droop.
‘I love you,’ said Rayne, his lips bleeding, dripping onto his bare chest.
In that instant he turned, grabbed a hold of Camael and threw himself off the cliff, Camael screaming wildly as they tumbled down into the black void, the mist spiralling in a vortex where they’d stood.
‘No!’ she screamed loudly, darting forward instinctively. Too late she saw Gabriel raise his gun, her attention momentarily diverted to the cliff edge.
A shot rang out and Gabriel jerked sideways, the bullet from Gareth’s gun catching him in the arm. Caroline raised her own gun and sent two shots into Gabriel’s chest. He collapsed instantly with scarce a sound. Gareth dashed from the cover of the cairn, turning his attention to Doradus who had run into the dark. He was lost to the mist almost at once. Gareth let off a couple of quick shots into the night and gave chase.
‘Be careful’ Caroline called, and with one last look at where her father had disappeared, her grief turning to anger, she ran after him.
Gareth made out a vague shape ahead. He fired on the run but missed. He was painfully aware that the edge of the cliff ran close by but he, like Caroline, was driven on by rage, by the need for vengeance. She was right; the old Gareth was dead.
He could hear her close on his heels, every now and again calling out to him. But he was drawn blindly to finding Doradus. It had to end, he thought; one way or another it will end tonight.
The mist lifted briefly and he saw Doradus some way ahead. Gareth stopped, took careful aim as Caroline had taught him, and he was about to pull the trigger when Doradus disappeared from view downwards, as if a trapdoor had opened and swallowed him up. He heard a muffled scream then the sound of raining stones. He went to the spot and realised it was a very steep scree slope, dropping down into the dark below. For a split second he saw Doradus, half rolling, half sliding, down the rocky incline. He let off all the remaining rounds in his gun till it clicked on empty. There was no sign of Doradus now, only the dull crunching of stones and rocks. He was about to leap into the void after him when Caroline’s hand pulled him back from the brink.
‘No, don’t do it! You’ll kill yourself!’ she said.
‘I have to make sure he’s dead,’ he said.
‘He can’t survive that. He’s dead.’
‘I have to see him dead!’ he said, his eyes filled with tears of fury.
They heard the harsh sounds of tumbling rocks in the distance below them. Then it fell silent. Gareth sank heavily to his knees, letting the gun fall to the grass, his chest heaving. ‘You could have saved him,’ he said. ‘You could have saved your father’s life simply by handing me over.’
‘We can’t stay here,’ she said, her voice emotionless. Then she hit him hard across the head. ‘You didn’t have to put yourself in danger, too, damn you! You could have been killed!’
For a few seconds they stared in silence, down into the unfathomable maw. He got shakily to his feet. ‘Love and loyalty is all,’ he said under his breath.
‘What?’
‘Something an old friend used to say.’ He sighed, rubbing his eyes. ‘Where do we go from here, Caroline?’ he said. ‘What if I’m no more immortal than any other man on the street? What has all this madness been for?’
‘One of those things,’ she said.
He looked deep into her eyes. The shield had gone
up again. She was on automatic. He didn’t have her steely resolve, he thought. And what if he really was immortal? How could he face all that? He thought about what Lambert-Chide had said about the King of Terrors being death. Then he thought about his mother, the look of a woman beaten down by untold years on the run, in hiding. The King of Terrors wasn’t death, he thought bleakly; it was living forever.
‘I don’t think I can do this all alone, Caroline,’ he said, the adrenaline used up, his legs going weak. ‘I don’t know how.’
She looked about her. Listening intently, her senses sharp. ‘We can’t hang around,’ she said. Then touched his arm. ‘You’re not alone. You’ve got me.’
‘I can’t lay my burden on you, Caroline,’ he said sullenly.
‘You’re not going to get all sulky on me?’ she said sharply. ‘We’ve got a long haul ahead of us. It’s not over by a long chalk. Even if Doradus is dead, his work isn’t. So I can’t be doing with sulky.’
He stiffened, straightened his back, flexed his shoulders. Picked up the gun and brushed dirt from it. ‘Don’t worry, I’m ready. I guess.’
‘That’s my little soldier,’ she said. ‘Well don’t just stand there; get your arse in gear!’
She led the way at a pace, the mist curling around them as they faded into the night.
* * * *
50
Dear Reader,
Firstly, thank you for purchasing The King of Terrors.
If you enjoyed this novel, I would be grateful if you could take the time to let other people know and put a review on Amazon. I personally read them all and take every review very seriously. As readers your thoughts and insights are extremely valuable.
Secondly, I already have plans for a sequel to The King of Terrors called A Return to Eden. However, that depends upon whether you as a reader would want a sequel. I therefore await your views on the subject! Would you like to see a follow-up novel, or should it end where it left off?
