by Philip Webb
“If you are listening to these words, then I have failed. I cannot say why the sleepers were not woken – the ship would not answer my pleas. It acts only to keep forty-nine sleepers watching over the world. It is so very ancient, and I fear that it has become twisted and locked into a secret dream of its own. For it is true, if the sleepers were to wake and take their place on the Earth, then the ship would be alone forever. Never trust it.”
She pauses then to glance over her shoulder at the setting sun.
When she turns back, her face is wet with tears. “If I cannot take back the shuttle now, then it falls to you to free the other sleepers. Peyto, my son, if one day you hear this message, I love you now and for all the time I have left. Good-bye, and live well.”
Halina pulls the flinder free from her neck. Behind her, the warriors raise their spears and bellow out a terrifying war cry. Then she tips her head back, opens her mouth, and swallows the flinder whole. And in a moment the trees and the sunlight and the warriors have all just gone.
And we’re standing right back in the museum and it’s like time ain’t moved on much, cos Gramps is just picking himself up off the floor.
But around us on all sides stand Vlad troops, rifles raised, their sights homing in on us.
Footsteps ring out across the floor, and the soldiers step aside to make way for someone, the first Vlad woman I’ve ever seen in the flesh. She’s dressed in black combat gear like the others, but she ain’t armed and she ain’t wearing a helmet, and somehow she’s letting you know she don’t need these things. Only one half of her face is showing in the sunlight, but that’s enough to see that she is one snake-hearted female. Her hair is white-blond, swept back and tight to her head. The one unblinking eye I can see clocks the scene, giving nothing away, still and deadly. It hits me then that she’s the dark, flip side of Halina – a leader just the same, but fed on so much power and death that there ain’t an ounce of her soul left. And where Halina was all heart and guts, this one looks like she’d bin half the human race just to add five minutes to her own life.
Something dawns on me then, something strange. Cos I ain’t moved a muscle but I’ve just seen two crowds of warriors, and two chieftain women, and the gap is five thousand years or five minutes, take your pick.
Gramps stumbles forward then.
“I told you – no guns!” he cries. “I told you I’d bring you the artifact. Now let the children go.”
He trips as he speaks and his pistol drops onto the floor. And someone opens fire.
I throw myself to the ground, dragging Wilbur with me. When I look up again, Gramps is flat on his back leaking blood everywhere, and I know by his glassy stare that he’s dead.
VLAD HQ
“Cease fire!” barks the woman. I try to hold it together for Wilbur’s sake, but it ain’t easy. I’m so mad with rage that I want to charge these soldiers down, even though I know it’ll get me killed. Somehow, clutching on to Wilbur keeps me back.
His frightened voice just about tears me apart. “They killed Gramps.”
I can’t say anything. I just stroke his hair and hold him tight.
The woman steps closer and looks at us like she’s working out how to do us in without getting her hands dirty. I look at those hands, in leather gloves the color of liver.
“Stand … up!” English obviously ain’t her first language and she spits the words out.
I get to my feet, helping Wilbur up, too, and all the while I stare at her, drilling her with my hate. But then, over her shoulder past the ring of troops, I spot a shadow flitting across the corridor.
“You give this artifact to me,” orders the woman.
Out of the corner of my eye I see that Wilbur’s holding it. The light spouts from his fist.
“Hand it over, Wilbur. We ain’t got no choice now.”
He shakes his head slowly.
“Hey, listen. We done our best …”
“They can’t have it,” he whispers to me.
The woman steps forward. “Give it to me, child.”
But Wilbur ain’t budging.
“It’s not yours to take!” he shouts.
She marches forward to grab hold of him. And Wilbur does something then that I can hardly believe. He throws his head back and, just like Halina, he downs the flinder in one. To show it’s gone, he opens his gob wide.
And then it all kicks off.
The woman starts firing orders, and soldiers grab us both. I wrestle and squirm and bite as hard as I can, but a sharp punch in the mouth puts paid to all that. Next thing, these boffin types are swarming round Wilbur with machines, and one of them pulls out a long dagger.
“Stop!” I scream.
Another punch knocks all the stuffing out of me. As I gulp for air, I can see the terror has gone from Wilbur’s face – he’s just blank. It’s a look I’ve seen before. Then his eyes start to flicker and draw up into his eyelids …
“Leave him alone! He’s having a fit!”
The boffin rips Wilbur’s clothes down to bare skin with the dagger. And I’ve got to do something, anything.
“You don’t want to do that!” I yell. “You’ll lose it!”
The woman turns to me slowly. “You should start talking or this man start digging.”
“He just swallowed it to protect it! It’s alive,” I go. “You kill my brother, you’ll kill the artifact. You’ll never get it, I swear!” The words just spill from me cos I’ve got to say something …
“Scan him! Is it alive? Check!”
One of the boffins holds a machine to Wilbur’s belly and frowns. “It’s gone,” he goes in a fancy English accent.
“Gone? Where?” shouts the woman.
“It must … be a part of him somehow. The boy … He’s unconscious. His heart rate is low but … stable.”
The woman narrows her eyes at me for a moment. “Tell me – how we can take this artifact, then.”
“He’s got to give it up on his own. I can talk him into it, but you start chucking knives and guns around, you’ll scare him so bad, he’ll just shut you out!”
The woman squats down to be closer to me. Her dainty nose flares for a second like she’s taking in my smell, trying to sense the lie on me. Her lips curl back and for an instant I see her teeth – very white and small.
“What is your name?” she goes at last.
I try not to wilt under her gaze. “Cass Westerby. That’s my brother, Wilbur. I’ll get him to give it up, I swear. But you got to give me time … to get through to him.”
I can see she don’t trust me. But still she mutters something to the boffin with the knife and he stands back. Then she cracks out a few orders, and a soldier hoists Wilbur over his shoulder like a sack of meat.
“Hey, go easy with him! He’s just a kid!”
More soldiers haul me to my feet and frog-march me toward the stairs.
I snatch a last look at Gramps slumped by the side of Halina’s box, his head angled to the ceiling, eyes open and glinting in the sunlight.
As we round the corridor to the top of the staircase, I try again to pull free so I can see Wilbur behind me. And there, crouching in the shadows behind the base of a statue, I see Peyto. Our eyes lock for a moment, and I see how calm he looks. Like he’s gonna get us out of this fix no matter what.
And slowly, I shove the panic down.
The soldiers march us out into the street beyond the museum courtyard to where three jeeps are parked. I get bundled into the back of one, but Wilbur is carted off someplace else. I kick off about that – screaming and scrapping till they shoulder me down so hard I can barely breathe.
As the jeep pulls away, the woman’s heartless face looms right up to mine. There ain’t no windows in the back, and in the dark her eyes are like holes all the way through her head to the shadows behind.
“Cass, if you fight again, I order them to break your fingers. You understand?”
Not so much a threat, more like a fact.
“I seen
Wilbur like this before! He gets fits sometimes. I’ve got to be with him …”
“Enough!”
I stir up all my fire then, all my hatred.
“I swear to you, lady – you hurt my brother, just one hair on his head, and I’ll bring the power of that artifact smashing down on you.”
A slight smile plays over her lips then. “So you can do that, can you, Cass? Why not do it now?”
“I’ll figure it out.” I stare at her and drag up the lie from somewhere – a way to threaten her. “You’re making a mistake, I swear. Cos it works for us – us alone.”
“Very interesting. Perhaps I make a deal with you.”
She turns away from me and snaps some more commands into a radio. The crackle of other voices shoots out over the rumble of the engine. And you can just tell this is a doddle for her – operations and missions, controlling people and situations, soaking up every last detail. I’ve got to rile her somehow, get under her skin, give her something to fret over.
The journey is long and slow. I can’t see much cos they cuff me to the wheel arch, but I feel the jeep slide from side to side – maybe it’s steering around abandoned cars in the road. And if I’m right, that means we’re heading farther into unscavved London – probably north, farther away from the river.
I close my eyes and try to think. What would Peyto and Erin be doing right now? Maybe they’ve found Halina’s body. Peyto’s bound to figure it out. He’s been sure his mother is dead, but it’ll be a shock all the same – to remember her young face, and then to see that she’s been gone for thousands of years. I think about him peering into that box, staring at the bones, all hope for her draining away …
After about an hour, we come to a straight section – no potholes or obstacles, so maybe the Vlads have repaired the road. Then the jeep slows up, and I hear the tires crunching over gravel as we stop.
They uncuff me and haul me out into a square. I’m dazzled at first by the sunlight and I can’t see Wilbur. I shout his name out just in case he’s come round by now, so he knows I’m there, and I get a jab in the kidneys for my trouble. Then I’m marched toward the front of a tumbledown mansion. Just once I manage to twist round to check my surroundings. Behind the jeeps is a wall of concrete defenses banked up with rolls of barbed wire. The one checkpoint gate I can make out has two watchtowers overlooking the trees beyond. So we’re outside of London – or maybe in one of the big parks. On either side of me, bunkers are dug into the old gardens, and poking through the sandbags are machine-gun posts. So this is where the Vlads have their HQ.
There’s a grand sweep up to the entrance of the house – marble steps and fancy pots, though the plants in them are long dead. Through doors carved with dragon heads we come to a gloomy hallway and more stairs covered in moth-eaten carpet. Paintings line the walls – chubby little angel kids, lords and ladies sitting on rearing horses.
Several dingy corridors and flights of stairs later, I’m shoved into a room and the door slams behind me.
I stand there in the silence, all whacked out, my thoughts running ragged. The room is empty apart from a mattress, a flagon of water, and a bucket to wee in. Purple wallpaper hangs down in mildewy leaves, and above me a chandelier trails with cobwebs. At the bars of the window, I look out onto an empty courtyard. But whatever is in the rooms across from me is hidden behind long curtains.
For a while I think about Gramps. He ain’t even gonna end up in a crusher now. The Vlads have found their precious artifact – scavving days are over. I figure he’s just gonna lie there – food for the cats and dogs and flies. I want to forget that he sold us out. I just want to remember times when he looked out for us near his hut in the woods. But it ain’t easy. And though it hurts to think of him dead, no tears come for him.
The mattress is so rank that I can’t put my head near it. It stinks of other prisoners, their sweat and fear. So I curl up in one corner of the room and try to go over what’s just happened, how I’m gonna get me and my brother out of here. For hours and hours I think. But hard as I try, nothing springs to mind. And though I stare at the bare floorboards, that ain’t what I see in the end. Cos my head’s up on that ancient hill again, surrounded by trees that have long since fallen. Halina’s there, looking right through me. And the unearthly glow of her flinder is rising between us, so bright now, bursting over the shadows.
THE OKHOTNIKS
Wilbur stands on the river, floating away from me, the water unfurling round his ankles. And he’s singing – such a brave and sad song, answering my cries, his voice trembling in and out of the wind. I come awake slowly, clinging to the dream as it fades, not wanting to let it go back to wherever it’s come from. And the echoes of it stay with me but it’s weird, too, cos I ain’t never even heard him sing.
I’m hunched up, hugging my knees in a tight curl, and it’s murder to stand straight. All the cramps of the night break out of me in a fit of shivering. I have to push through a layer of ice before I can drink from the flagon. I check the countdown cuff, and the marks have faded so much I can hardly make them out. Only when I turn it toward the window do I see that there’s just four bands left. Four days. I figure it’s disguising itself so the Vlads don’t notice, and somehow that gives me hope.
Outside it’s a cloudless winter day, and the roofs of the courtyard are dusted with frost. From overhead comes the drone of helicopters, though I can’t see them. The courtyard is still in shadow, and covered not with stones but sand, raked up here and there in a figure eight.
Then as I stare down, a horse and rider come into view. I can tell it’s the woman officer by her white-blond hair. She’s swapped her uniform for riding boots, tan trousers, and a loose white shirt. The horse is a tall gray with a clipped mane and tail, a feisty creature, not at all like our nag Sheba. It skitters sideways, tossing its head, and the woman has a time settling it down. Then just as the horse falls into line, she spurs it off, racing across the courtyard at breakneck speed. It looks like a suicide charge the way they gallop toward the far wall, but then, right at the last moment, she tugs at the reins and leans into a turn. The move is so tight, I figure they’re going to plow into the sand, but she judges it perfect, righting herself and pulling away harder back toward me. Now I can see her face, set in concentration, her hair flowing free. She hangs forward, perched on the stirrups, egging the gray on at a furious pace, before dipping into another turn. I watch her do maybe twenty circuits, always following the same line of hoofprints, till the horse starts slipping, making mistakes. Then she pulls up and brings it into this slow prancing, the forelegs just seeming to float in midair. I ain’t seen no one ride a horse like that – it’s all about total control, the way the horse does her bidding.
She dismounts and then, from the edge of the courtyard, another figure appears. It’s taller than the horse and it moves in powerful hops, like a monstrous bird. At first, I can’t make out whether it’s even human. And then I remember Fred the pigherd and his stories of machine-men. It’s a girl, I realize, not much older than me, very thin, with long pale hair. But every part of her body is trapped inside a huge body-shaped frame. It’s like a cage. The arms and legs are made of battered black steel, all wired up at the joints with tubes and whatnot. Her bare feet dangle into armored knees that hinge backward, the way a bird’s legs bend. Her real body is pinned up in bands of black strapping that keep her in place inside the cage. It’s like she’s being cradled – a rag doll waiting to be brought to life. Only her feet and her face are free.
As I gaze down, one armored hand moves up to push the hair from her face, and it’s strange, cos a movement like that should be so carefree, so easy. And yet she performs it, like a dancer, so aware she’s doing it. She reaches out to stroke the horse, but it jerks away all nervous. The woman is speaking to her, but I can tell the girl ain’t really listening, and after a stable-hand leads the horse away, her outstretched hand just hangs in midair long after anyone else would’ve let it drop.
More w
ords pass between them, not that friendly from where I’m standing, then I catch the woman glaring up at me. I want to draw away from the window, but I stay there, forcing myself to glare back, even as the girl disappears into the house. And to me it’s as clear as the morning air – today is gonna be a duel between me and this Vlad officer.
First I dust myself down, then I clean up with what’s left of the water. All the while I’m thinking hard. Cos everything’s important now, from that fancy piece of riding to the girl in the frame showing up.
The guards come early, six of them armed with rifles. Just half an idea comes to me as we move through the house to the ground floor. And I’m thinking the lies I tell now have to be just perfect or she’s gonna break me just as sure as she broke that horse.
I’m led into a dark room overlooking the courtyard. A fire blazes at one end where a table is laid for two. The officer is seated, togged out in her uniform and gloves now, the hair slicked back once more. She don’t bother to look up as she tucks into a plate of breakfast while a servant pours her a hot drink. The smells are proper inviting – eggs and toast and the smoky aroma of the drink, which is new on me.
“Sit down, Cass.” An offer, not an order.
I wait, wondering whether to take it up. My guts are groaning for a bite to eat, but I ain’t ready to jump to nothing she says.
“Sit down. Eat.”
She waves vaguely at the breakfast all piled up.
I lean over and swipe the plate she’s scoffing from, then settle down opposite her. She stops chewing and looks at me for the first time, just the slightest hint of respect in her eyes.
I polish off the egg and toast, and stash a couple of pastries for later. The servant pours me some of the black stuff from his silver kettle. It’s bitter but good and hot, stronger than nettle tea.
When I’ve finished, I go, “Where’s my brother?”
“He is safe. He sleeps –”
“I want to see him.”
“Not possible.”
“I told you, the only way I can help you is to talk to him …”
