Timekeepers: Number 2 in Series

by Catherine Webb

  ‘You… you attacked…’

  ‘Do you know me?’

  Hindsonn shook his head.

  ‘I’m the man who tried to stop War from killing you. But War was strong, I couldn’t keep her back. You’ll never be free of her, Hindsonn. If you wake up and I’m here, she’ll kill you rather than let you talk. And if she discovers that I’m talking to you here, in your dreams, she’ll try to kill you again.

  ‘But the thing is, I’m not going to leave you alone. Not ever. So you can either tell me now, while there’s very little chance of War possessing and destroying you. Or you can wait until both you and she are strong enough to get up and fight, and we can go through the entire sword-knife-gun business and I’ll win, and you’ll get stabbed again but this time I don’t think you’ll live.

  ‘So save yourself from yourself, and tell me what I want to know. Who’s the link? Who do you report to?’

  ‘There’s… a phone box. Grunfrau Strasse… at five thirty.’

  ‘The Ashen’ia – have they all sold their souls to War, or are you the only one?’

  ‘No, no, they… they give to everyone. Fire, Water, War, Chaos… but not Time, never Time, we’re too scared of Time.’

  ‘Why do you want the Bearer of Light?’

  He looked up at Sam with a frown on his face. ‘Because… he can destroy any one of them at will. He can hold the universe to hostage.’

  It sounded so obvious, so simple.

  Sam stood there, rigid. He can hold the universe to hostage. ‘Why now?’ he asked quietly. ‘Why move on him now?’

  ‘He’s alone, he’s exposed. Before he had an army. Now, thanks to Seth, he has nothing. Soon he’ll have to stop running. Soon we’ll have him, and it’ll all be over, it’ll all be ours…’

  Tinkerbell is instructed to keep me alive. But if I learn too much, such as, say, what the Ashen’ia are and what they’re planning, he’s instructed to ‘bring me in’. The Bearer of Light can hold the universe to hostage…

  ‘Who are the master and mistress?’

  Hindsonn opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out except a high-pitched scream that seemed to go on for ever.

  In the real world, Sam opened his eyes. The scream was still there, but it wasn’t coming from Hindsonn’s tranquil face. It came from behind him.

  Sam pulled his hands away from Hindsonn’s cold skin and turned. The nurse had opened the door, seen him with Hindsonn, seen Marc handcuffed to the radiator, and screamed and screamed and screamed.

  Sam scooped up his gun for all to see.

  ‘No!’ yelled Marc, as Sam pointed it at the nurse, who went on screaming. Sam glanced at him, and saw the realisation spread across Marc’s face. The policeman knew Sam wasn’t going to pull the trigger.

  Hissing annoyance, Sam scooped up his things, turned and ran, knocking the nurse out of his way as he sprinted down the corridor. First left, first right, don’t stop running…

  Coming in sight of the exit, Sam slowed. There were four security guards on the door, looking very large and very imposing. He turned and fled, the way he’d come; they followed, breaking into a run. Reaching some stairs, he took them two at a time.

  Behind, people were yelling for him to stop, to little effect. That syllable had never been a great word of power. Sam reached the first floor and ran down a corridor at random. There was a sash window at the far end, and the light beyond looked so wonderfully bright, and the window itself just so open, that he saw no choice but to head that way. He pelted down the corridor, knocking into a janitor. The man’s mop and bucket went flying, spilling soapy grey water everywhere. Behind him Sam heard someone yell that they’d shoot. He got one leg out of the window as the bullet shattered the glass above his head. Jagged shards rained down all around him, tearing through his shirt and skin. He looked down, judged the drop to be about ten feet on to grass, and jumped.

  As he landed he rolled, cushioning the fall with magic. The impact still sent stars spinning through his head, and pain through his side. He’d landed badly, one leg bent under the other. Staggering up, he struggled to limp away at a run, blood singing in his ears, body screaming for a regenerative trance. His hands stung, from leaving muddy skid marks on the grass.

  Sam’s eyes fell on an ambulance. The driver was sitting in the front, but Sam had had enough of mortals. He clambered up to the man, surprised him with a punch in the stomach and, as he crumpled, dragged him bodily from the ambulance and on to the tarmac. The keys were in the ignition. Sam climbed into the driving seat, slammed the door, turned the keys and put his foot down, feeling his skinned hands burn on touching the cold steering wheel.

  The ambulance swerved out of the hospital car park and into the nearby traffic. Sam looked around until he found a promising-looking switch, and turned on the ambulance siren and lights. Traffic scattered to get out of his way as he careened at high speed down the main road, and away.

  Things, he decided, could have gone a lot worse.

  Grunfrau Strasse was a leafy byway off a small park in east Berlin. Its houses had once been grand. Large abodes with trees in front and gardens behind that had housed one family and its half-dozen servants now sheltered at least four or five families. Their ornate rooflines were dominated by a nearby industrial centre with a cluster line of dull metal chimneys pumping out invisible and highly toxic gases. The gardens were full of litter and disused kitchen appliances; at the kerbside the cars were small and many of them looked like they hadn’t been used in months. On the corner a pleasant little church had been replaced by a large concrete warehouse that no one used any more, in whose dark recesses bored kids experimented with illegal substances.

  Sam locked the ambulance doors, and lay on the stretcher in the back. His arms had been quite seriously hacked by the shattered glass, his ankle throbbed, his body ached all over. He let his eyes close, and drifted in the warmth of a regenerative trance, giving way to dull, voiceless thoughts.

  There had once been a Waywalker who’d sold his soul to a Greater Power. It had been before Sam’s time, when Balder was still alive. But Sam knew about it nonetheless. He’d asked questions.

  He’d asked Freya.

  He couldn’t remember how they’d got on to the subject. It was in South Africa, in 1944. They were sitting on the veranda of a small house in the middle of nowhere, watching the sun go down on a seemingly endless horizon. Drinking inventive cocktails, as far away as they could get from the wars in Heaven, Earth and Hell.

  Prohibited love. Freya could never love Sam, it was forbidden. He was the bastard Son of Magic, and an exile who more often than not had fought his own Heavenly brothers. She was a Daughter of Love and dutiful servant of the House of Valhalla. To love each other was unforgivable.

  That evening, both were prepared to forget such a thing. Sam especially was ready to shrug off any guilt. Guilt that he had defied Heaven, guilt that because of his defiance he and Freya could never love properly. His fault, not hers. Always his fault.

  ‘Did you ever meet Loki?’ Sam had asked.

  She slurped her cocktail. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was he like?’

  ‘Before or after he gave blood to Cronus, sold his soul?’

  ‘Both.’

  She sighed, and put her glass down. ‘Before, he was nice.’

  ‘Nice?’

  ‘Well, a joker. A prankster, but devoted to the House of Valhalla. He always had a dark sense of humour, but he could also be the perfect gentleman.’

  ‘What happened?’

  She shrugged. ‘He had views that… the House disagreed with. He said that Time was a harsh king, that any Prince of Heaven could step into Time’s shoes, become King of Heaven and redefine the universe. No more death, no more suffering, no more pain. We all thought he was joking, even his wife.’

  ‘Was he a good husband?’

  ‘And a loving father. But his sons, they spent a lot of time in Earth and Hell, and often he went with them. He saw things, I think, that
upset him. He wanted to know why Time didn’t put a stop to it all, why he let the bad things happen. Time replied that if Loki just waited another ten thousand years, he’d understand it all. Loki said people never changed. That some things were timeless, things like hate and anger and jealousy – that’s why they’d last for ever, and Time would have no power to destroy them. He grew angrier the more he saw, and as he grew more reactionary the House pulled further away from him. And that just made him more angry. He thought the House was too cowardly to try and change things. He remained a gentleman to the last, though. Passionate, but never violent, never rude, just very, very stubborn.’

  ‘He thought Cronus was a way out.’

  ‘Yes. He gave his blood to Cronus; he thought Cronus would give him power against Time, the power to fight back. He thought that if he let Cronus out, Cronus and Time would destroy each other and the universe would be free for him to step in and create his paradise.’

  ‘He was wrong, I take it?’

  ‘Yes. Cronus was afraid of Balder; he thought Time had persuaded Balder to use the Light against him.’

  ‘Had he? Was Balder really prepared to die for Time?’

  ‘I think so. At first he’d refused to use the Light on any terms – said it was an evil weapon. Then, when he realised exactly what Cronus was, he said he might use it if Cronus was ever freed. And Cronus heard these words, and he feared them. If he was going to be freed, he wanted to be sure the Bearer of Light wouldn’t be a threat.’

  ‘What was Loki like, after he’d sold out to Cronus?’

  ‘We didn’t know what he’d done.’

  ‘But you must have noticed changes.’

  ‘He was… arrogant. Also he was stronger, so much so that he didn’t notice what he did. He’d open a door and end up pulling the thing off its hinges. And he suddenly began to hate. He’d never hated in the past, but now when he looked at the Children of Time he did it with fire in his eyes. And when he saw suffering and pain he would yell, “This is not necessary, why do we let this happen?”, but no one really listened. Time summoned him once, told him he had the taint of Cronus inside his soul. But Loki just laughed and said, “Then destroy me!”’

  ‘And Time didn’t. Why?’

  ‘Some say Time wanted Loki to free Cronus. He’d looked into the future and seen a thousand destinies in which Loki opened the doors to Cronus, and Cronus, believing himself freed by an ally, escaped into the universe – only to be destroyed by the Bearer of Light. There were few futures, few indeed, where Loki actually killed Balder.’

  ‘But one of those futures came to pass.’

  ‘Yes. Loki didn’t start by freeing Cronus, as Time had expected. Instead, Loki killed the Bearer of Light. Time must have been terrified, as future after future faded and died, possibility after possibility shutting down around him. Leaving just Balder’s death everywhere he looked, filling his eyes. It’s said that Balder was the only child Time ever truly loved.

  ‘When people found out what Loki had done they hunted him down. They didn’t want Cronus to be freed if the Bearer of Light was dead. There were whispers that Time had been weak, that he’d let his love for Balder blind him to the fact that his own son wasn’t strong enough to use the Light against Loki. When they found Loki, they locked him away.

  ‘He’s locked up to this day, the taint of Cronus still on him. But Time won’t let Loki die. He wants him to suffer for what he did. And, rumour is, one day he might want to use him again.’

  ‘For what?’

  Freya shrugged, not meeting his eyes. ‘Perhaps Time has another plan to destroy Cronus. Perhaps he thinks another Bearer of Light might stand more chance than Balder did, and this time Cronus will be destroyed.’

  Sam stared at her, his mouth dry. She glanced in his direction, saw the horror in his eyes and grinned nervously. ‘Or perhaps not. Who knows?’

  ‘Time knows,’ said Sam.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied thoughtfully. ‘I suppose he does.’

  SIX

  Phone Call

  L

  ater that afternoon, Sam woke from his trance. He sat up in the ambulance, blinked to clear his head and tenderly felt his ankle. Not a twinge. Nonetheless he took his time in getting up.

  Under one of the seats he found a jacket with luminescent stripes and the ambulance service badge of the serpent and staff. It was heavy, and a bit big for him, but he pulled it on, slipping the gun into a pocket.

  Outside, the local call box was just a phone under a tiny glass shelter next to a large green recycling bin. Sam leant up against it, trying to look casual, and watched the road as if the phone box was nothing to do with him.

  At exactly five thirty, the phone rang. Sam waited a few rings, then picked it up. A voice said in French, ‘I heard the first bluebird of spring.’

  Damn. Bloody word games. The idea of code words had seemed so silly, he’d not considered it. He snapped in German, ‘Hindsonn is in hospital, he was knifed.’

  Silence. Then someone said, also in German, ‘Who is this?’ A woman’s voice, accented with a language Sam couldn’t recognise, and impatient, suspicious. Its snap of authority made him picture the German equivalent of the world of wellington boots, hunting and a lot of talk about cricket.

  ‘My name is… Marc. I work with Hindsonn. He’s in intensive care.’

  ‘What are you doing on this phone?’

  ‘Hindsonn told me to come here. He said he had a message to be delivered urgently. A matter of death, he said —’

  ‘Who attacked him?’

  ‘A large man. Red hair, looked like a ton of bricks.’ Name of Thor, surely. Let’s see if I can get my brother into trouble…

  ‘What’s the message?’

  ‘I don’t know. He gave me a floppy disk, told me not to open it, just pick up this phone. Look, if this is something to do with Hindsonn’s attacker…’

  ‘Leave the disk by the phone and go.’

  ‘But I —’

  The line went dead. Sam put down the receiver and tried to think, very fast.

  The answer was in his bag. The notebook he’d bought in London was backed with cardboard, and Sam made quick work with his dagger of cutting out a more or less square shape that might pass, momentarily, for a disk. He stuffed it into the envelope Franz had made for him and shoved it into the gap behind the phone.

  In the ambulance he waited.

  After two hours it was getting dark, the sky grey-blue, going on black. The yellow streetlights were flickering on and off as if undecided which way to go. Sam began to doubt if anyone would come.

  When the car pulled up he didn’t even notice. He only saw the man reaching behind the phone for the envelope because at almost that moment the little white light in the booth flicked on.

  It illuminated a grey hood over a hidden face. The man was stockily built, and wore outsize leather gloves, as if to hide as much skin as he could. There was a glimpse of red hair under the hood before the man hastened back to the car. Sam jotted down the number plate and watched as the car pulled out. He didn’t want to crowd the man. Only when the car was about fifty yards away did he start the ambulance engine and follow.

  They swung out into thick traffic, and for ten minutes or so they edged round a maze of one-way systems and traffic lights. Eventually the traffic picked up speed, but Sam was careful to keep at least two vehicles between him and the car in front. As the evening darkened, the road became a bypass, sweeping east into a hinterland of railway sidings, disused factories and lifeless housing estates.

  On a minor road now, the city became just a blur of light in the driving mirror. Trees grew all around, creating a tunnel over the small spot of Sam’s headlights. He felt terribly exposed, his vehicle the only other one on the road, and all the more noticeable as an ambulance in this remote place.

  Sam slammed on the brakes as the road turned a corner. There was the car, parked by a wide metal gate into a field. Of the driver there was no sign. Sam parked the ambulance on
the side of the road where it would be obscured by a line of trees. He got out slowly, wary of a trap. The darkness was total: no moon, not a light, not a star to illuminate the fields around. There seemed no distinguishing feature in this empty landscape, not a building, not a —

  His internal radar gave a little beep. He frowned, and concentrated. Yes. There was a building, a shape in the darkness, no lights on inside it, and just behind it… a Portal.