by George Mann
And then suddenly the avatar was free, and Albion once again walked before him. It stooped to retrieve its blade: an enormous, two-handed sword inscribed with indecipherable symbols, that Horwood had spent years tracing, his research finally leading him to a sealed well shaft into which it had been cast in the Middle Ages—the last recorded time that Albion had walked the land.
It stalked forward, and the trees around the edges of its hollow parted in a wave, leaves shimmering as the branches folded back to enable the avatar to pass. It stood for a moment in the brisk evening night, resplendent, a demigod raised from the ashes of history, and then it turned to look directly at Horwood, and he knew that something was terribly wrong.
The creature’s eyes no longer glowed with hope, but with cold, bleak menace. Spots of mold had begun to form upon its arms, and chest, and face, and its expression was dark and malign. It opened its mouth, and out spewed a stream of crackling black energy, like pooling oil that formed around its feet; an absence of light, the essence of midnight.
Around them, the flowers began to wither and die, wilting on their stems and desiccating, as if the avatar were somehow drawing all of the life from the surrounding flora.
It waved its arm in Horwood’s direction, and curling vines shot from the soil, swimming up around his legs, gripping hold of him with a ferocity that caused him to whimper in pain.
What had he done? What had he unleashed? Surely it shouldn’t be like this? Something had corrupted it. It had to be the Koscheis, the ones who had engaged in battle with it the other night. They’d poisoned it, somehow, infecting it with their malignancy.
“No,” he called. “I can put this right.”
But it was too late. The avatar was already striding off into the night, leaving an accursed trail of black in its wake—and Horwood, pinned to the ground by squirming vines, could do nothing at all to prevent it.
SIXTEEN
“Oh, thank God you’re back.”
Flora’s expression was ashen, and Gabriel could tell immediately that something was very wrong.
He, Ginny and Rutherford had arrived back at the hotel just a few moments earlier, taking the elevator to their floor—only to discover Flora pacing the corridor outside their room, flustered, disheveled and distraught. Her mascara had run with her tears, streaking her cheeks with black tributaries, markers of her anxiety and frustration. The hem of her dress, along with both of her knees, was thick with what looked like silt or sludge.
“What is it?” said Ginny, rushing to her side. “What’s happened?”
Flora fixed her with an alarmed stare. She was trembling, and Gabriel realized she must have been suffering from shock. “It’s Felix,” she said, her voice cracking with barely contained emotion. “They took him.”
“What? Who took him?” pressed Ginny.
“Those Russians,” said Flora. “The ones you were talking about, with the robes.”
Gabriel and Rutherford exchanged glances.
“Where?”
Flora chewed her lip. “The tunnels.”
“The tunnels?” said Gabriel. “You mean the Underground?” Flora didn’t answer, but he could see from her expression that she did.
“Alright,” said Ginny. “Let’s get you inside, and you can tell us everything. Don’t worry. We’ll get him back. I promise you.” She fished the key from her pocket and unlocked the door, ushering Flora inside.
Rutherford put a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder, holding him back for a moment. He waited until the door had swung shut before he spoke. “Look, I’m sorry to say this, Gabriel, but if the Koscheis have got him…” He trailed off, silently making his point.
“No,” said Gabriel. “I refuse to believe that. We’re going to find out exactly what’s gone on, and then we’re going after him. And God help any of those damn cultists if they’ve laid a finger on him.”
Rutherford nodded, but it was clear he remained unconvinced.
Inside Gabriel and Ginny’s suite, Ginny was administering a large brandy to Flora, who was perched on the edge of one of the armchairs, hugging herself. She looked up as Gabriel entered the room. “It was my fault,” she said. “If I hadn’t encouraged him…”
“You and I both know that Felix doesn’t need any encouragement,” he said. “He does what he believes is right, and damn the consequences—that’s what makes him the man he is.” Flora gave the briefest of smiles. “Now tell us everything.”
Slowly, she outlined everything that had happened that morning—how Donovan had led them to the abandoned City Road Underground station and forced their way in, how she’d insisted on going along with him down into those hellish tunnels, the strange growths they’d discovered, and how the Koscheis had come for them, folding out of the darkness through their glowing wheels of light.
“He told me to run,” she said. “To get to safety. He said he’d be right behind me, that he’d meet me back here. But he hasn’t come back. There’s been no word. No calls. Nothing. So I waited here for you.”
“How did you get away?” said Rutherford.
“Felix still had that gun you’d given him, and I saw him shoot one of them in the chest. He drew their attention as I ran. He covered my escape, put himself in harm’s way so I could get away. I didn’t stop running until I was all the way back here. I didn’t look back. I thought he was right behind me…” She’d curled her fists into balls on her lap. “I should have stayed with him. I should have helped him fight.”
“You did the right thing,” said Ginny. “He’d want you to be safe. There was nothing you could have done against those men.”
Flora looked her straight in the eye. “Do you think he’s dead?”
“No,” said Gabriel. He crossed to the wardrobe, flung open the doors and dragged out a battered leather case from inside. He carried it over to the bed, popped the latches, and threw the lid back. Inside was a black leather trench coat, a hat, a pair of red goggles, twin rocket canisters, and his flechette gun.
He sensed Ginny at his side. “I thought you left those in New York!”
Gabriel shrugged. “He’s a part of my life, Ginny. Wherever I go, he goes too.”
She put her hand on his arm. “Well, I suspect we’re all pleased about that.” She looked over at Flora and Rutherford. “So, what’s the plan? I presume we’re going after him.”
“Damn right,” said Gabriel. “Peter—I’ll understand if you can’t. You’ve got plenty to worry about already. But I’m not leaving my friend down there alone.”
“Oh, I’m coming with you,” said Rutherford. “Don’t you worry about that.”
“Flora?” said Ginny. “Are you up to showing us where it happened?”
Flora stood, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “I’ll damn well show you, alright. And I want a gun, too. I’m going to put a bullet in some of those bastards if it’s the last thing I do.”
Gabriel nodded, impressed by the steely tone and the bravery of the woman. She wasn’t a fighter, and she hadn’t chosen this life—but she was determined to get her husband back, whatever the cost. Gabriel could understand that. He’d felt the same way about Ginny, after what happened in Egypt. He understood that ire, that burning need for revenge, the need to cling on to the people you love and do anything in your power to keep them safe. “Ginny—those wards that Horwood gave you—do you think you could copy them?”
“Yes, I think so.”
He reached for his hat. “Alright. Ten minutes. Be ready.”
* * *
The door to the Underground station was still hanging open, just as Flora had left it. Everything seemed still and silent within; a deep, empty chasm, a wound in the heart of the city. The air emanating from inside smelled foetid and stale, causing the Ghost to hack and splutter as he stood in the doorway. There was something wretched about this place. He could feel it, standing there on the threshold. Something that caused his hackles to rise; something that wanted to repel him. Perhaps that was why he’d seen no sign of birds o
r rodents as he’d scanned the ticket hall. Instinctively, they wanted nothing to do with the place.
Behind him, Rutherford turned on his flashlight, sweeping beams into the darkness beyond. To the Ghost, wearing his night-vision goggles, they were like a weapon, cutting through the abyssal canvas to bleed light and color into the world.
He turned and gave Rutherford the signal. The Ghost was to go ahead, sneaking alone into the tunnels below, scouting ahead with his night vision while the others followed behind at a reasonable distance. That way, the Ghost would be able to alert them to any impending danger, or perhaps even deal with it himself. Assuming, that was, that he didn’t become embroiled in an ambush himself.
He waded forward into the inky black, his trench coat billowing out around him as he walked. It felt good to feel the heft of his flechette gun down the length of his forearm once again, to know that the cord for his rocket thrusters was just inside his jacket. More, though, it felt right. For the first time since he’d arrived in London, he felt like himself again. Although he’d taken steps in recent months to reconcile the two, distinct aspects of his personality—the hardened combatant of the Ghost with the carefully constructed playboy image of “Gabriel Cross”—it was true that he never felt more himself than when he was wearing his costume, taking control of his own life and destiny, making a difference. And now, here he was on the other side of the Atlantic, delving into the velvet darkness of a long abandoned train station in search of his dearest friend and the men who had taken him. Rarely had he felt more alive.
He crossed the ticket hall to the top of the stairs. Here, the darkness seemed to solidify, becoming ever more portentous. What was he going to find down here? The stench presumably originated with the strange growths on the tunnel walls that Flora had described. As yet, he’d seen no sign of them up here. But what about Donovan? Would he still be alive? He’d felt so certain earlier, back at the hotel, but realized now that it was all bluster, words of denial. He’d insisted Donovan would be alive because he wanted him to be.
He took the steps two at a time, silent, save for the gentle tap of his boots. Above, he saw the beam of Rutherford’s flashlight stabbing through the darkness as the others followed behind, and it reminded him of New York, and the view of the police blimps, searchlights rolling across the rooftops like a series of miniature dawns.
He reached the platform and turned left, following the path described to him by Flora. There was another reason he’d volunteered to go ahead of the others—there was every chance Donovan was being held as a lure. It had occurred to him that the Koscheis might have anticipated they’d come looking for their colleague, and were lying in wait a little further into the complex, ready to spring a trap. Flora had exhibited impressive resourcefulness in getting away from them, but he couldn’t help wondering if, in part, the Koscheis had allowed her to go, to get word out to him, Rutherford and the others, to bring them down here into the tunnel network before they were truly ready. If so, the Ghost wanted to be first on the scene. If they came for him, they wouldn’t be expecting Rutherford and the others hitting them as a second wave.
He leapt down from the platform edge, landing amongst the rails with a loud clang. He waited until the reverberations had ceased before he moved on.
Slowly, he entered the tunnel mouth. Even through the filter of his goggles he could see the iridescent colors of the mulch covering the tunnel walls and ceiling. It was almost as if he could see it breathing, as it oozed across the concrete and tiles like a living, thinking entity. It was deeply unnatural, and his every instinct told him to turn back, now, to get the others out of there as quickly as he could. It was as if the mulch was asserting some sort of malign influence, urging him back, leaving him feeling despondent, uncertain.
Instead, though, he forced himself to go on, edging ever further into the grimy tunnel. What had Donovan thought he was doing, coming down here without backup? He was lucky Flora was as resourceful as she was, otherwise they wouldn’t even know he’d been taken. The Ghost supposed he could understand Donovan’s impatience; as he’d said to the others back at the apartment, he was a man who always insisted on doing what he felt was right, and that morning, he’d been worried about the trail going cold, about losing sight of their prey.
There were just too many moving pieces, and none of it was quite making sense yet. It was clear the Koscheis were working to somehow undermine things in London—but what wasn’t yet clear was how, and whether they really did have help inside Rutherford’s organization. And what did the Underground have to do with it?
Even if Horwood was right—that the Koscheis were simply using their powers to create disruption, to further undermine the position of the Queen and her government—that didn’t explain the strange growths on the tunnel walls. He was certain the Koscheis were behind it, but to what purpose he had yet to fathom.
Up ahead, the tunnel swung to the right in a sweeping curve. Here, the walls were completely covered in the dripping mulch, and it had begun to grow over the disused tracks, too. He tried to avoid stepping in it as he wound his way deeper underground.
As he entered the straight on the other side of the bend, he noticed a series of large, bulbous growths attached to the left-hand wall, a little further down along the tunnel. They looked like nothing so much as giant chrysalises, webbed against the wall by strands of glistening mulch. The stench here was worse than ever, threatening to overpower him, and he reached for a handkerchief, tying it around his mouth and nose to offer at least a modicum of respite.
There were no lights in the tunnel, and no sign of any Koscheis. He decided to take a closer look at the chrysalises. He crept down the tunnel, sweeping the barrel of his flechette gun back and forth, half expecting glowing lights to form in the air at any moment.
He approached the first chrysalis. It was man-sized, at least as tall as the Ghost himself, and formed from the same weird vegetation as the growths on the walls. In fact, it seemed to the Ghost as if the mulch had simply shifted to accommodate something already on the wall, slithering over some obstruction, obliterating it entirely as it went.
He moved on. The second chrysalis was of similar size, but here, it became immediately apparent what the contents of the bulbous shell had originally been: a human woman. The Ghost fell back, grimacing at the grisly sight. He felt his stomach lurch.
What remained of the woman had been almost completely consumed by the mulch. Her head was jutting from the sticky membrane, half decayed, so that the flesh of the left side of her face had melded with the mulch. Even the bone beneath had become nothing but food for the vile substance, warping and twisting out of shape as it was slowly eroded. The right side of her face was largely unblemished, which, to the Ghost’s eye, made for an even more horrific sight. The skin was white and smooth, the eye open—although now glazed with a milky sheen—and the mouth open in a silent scream. Stark red hair erupted from what was left of her scalp.
He stepped back, looking the corpse up and down. The mulch had covered much of her body, now, with just her left hand still erupting through the glutinous layers, fingers clutching uselessly at the air.
Is this what had become of Donovan? The thought turned his stomach, and he hurried over to the third chrysalis. It contained the body of a man—thankfully not Donovan. The victim had been short, and fair-haired, with a full beard. Much of him was still intact, save for his stomach, which had burst open as the mulch had invaded, spilling its contents down the tunnel wall, where it had pooled on the floor in a festering puddle. Even now, the mulch was feeding on it, creeping down the wall to lap at the edges of the foul liquid.
He wondered what these people were doing here. He supposed the abandoned tunnel was as good a place as any for the Russians to dispose of the evidence of their operations; until recently they’d been keeping their presence in London low key, and whatever the disgusting mulch was, it was doing an admirable job of consuming the corpses. Presumably, the victims were all people who’d so
mehow got in their way, or discovered too much information for their own good.
The Ghost hacked, clearing his throat, unable to maintain his silence any longer.
“Gabriel?” The voice from behind him was weak, but familiar. He twisted on the spot, turning toward the opposing tunnel wall.
There, wrapped in a glistening web of mulch, was Donovan. He’d been pinned to the wall, spread-eagled, and despite the fact he seemed to have worked his left arm partially free, the mulch had already begun to slither over him, almost completely covering his right leg, and swallowing his foot up to the ankle on the left. It was climbing up the side of his neck, too, threatening to engulf his face. He was straining, trying to turn his head away from it.
“Felix!” He hurried over, trying to ascertain the best way to break the other man free.
“You took your damn time,” mumbled Donovan. He sounded relieved, if weary.
“You can thank me later. Are you hurt?”
“No. But I’m dying for a cigarette.”
The Ghost grinned. “Hold on and I’ll get you out of there.”
“Gabriel?”
“Yes?”
“About Flora… she was okay? She got away?”
“You did good, Felix. She got away, and came straight to find us. She’s fine. Scared, but fine. She’s been worried about you.”
Donovan heaved a sigh of relief. “She’s not the only one,” he said. “Have you seen what this stuff can do to a person?”
“Yes. Now hold still. I’m going to try to cut you down.” The Ghost unsheathed a blade from a leather sheath attached to his belt.
“I knew it,” said Donovan. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist bringing all of that with you.”
“All of what?” said the Ghost, with mock innocence. He raised the blade, trying to work out where to start cutting. Perhaps he’d do well to finish working Donovan’s left arm free first of all, so that Donovan could help to free himself more swiftly, too.
