by Jenna Grey
“Best get her out of here,” Blaine said. “We can’t afford to attract attention.”
But Polly couldn’t move, her feet rooted to the blood-soaked floor.
The world seemed to kaleidoscope around her, and she was plunged into a green world that totally disoriented her. She murmured a ‘No,’ but it was too late, she was lost to this world. She didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to see those men die.
“You can see what’s going on, can’t you?” Finn said.
Polly was still adjusting to her new reality, disoriented by the movement of the person whose body she now inhabited. He moved with stealthy grace, keeping low, trying not to make too much sound as he crunched the gravel underfoot. The creatures would hear the slightest sound.
“Yes. I’m looking through the eyes of one of the men,” Polly said. “I can see through his eyes. It’s so strange – everything is green and luminous, like being underwater. It’s hard to see clearly. I’m not afraid, not really, but there are so many dead. How could these creatures kill so many, so easily? Concentrate, I must concentrate, mustn’t let my mind wander...”
This world was lost to her entirely then, and she let her body be guided to the side entrance, tucked away from the mayhem. It didn’t matter where her physical body was; she was in the tunnel looking out into the darkness.
She closed her eyes and felt a shudder of real terror wash over her. She was lost in that green confusion of shapes and felt totally disoriented. She was moving through the darkness and fast approaching the train; two men were moving into the front, and two to either side.
“This isn’t right,” the man beside her said over the radio, the words stuttering between gasped breaths. “The train’s all torn up, like there was an explosion. This is all wrong.” He sounded panicked, finally realising that they were in way over their heads.
A voice came over the radio.
Describe what you see.
“There’s a body on the tracks. I think it’s the driver. It looks as if he was thrown through the cab window; it’s shattered.” Polly could see the shape on the tracks – it had to be the driver, lying face down. “The driver’s cab’s all torn apart, ripped open like it was tin foil.”
“The metal’s caved in, looks like whatever caused it was external. It looks as if it was slammed into by some huge external force. That was no explosion, the whole front of the train has imploded, the metal crushed in. This is fucked.”
The man beside her stopped in his tracks. Polly didn’t, the body she inhabited pressed forwards, hissing back over his shoulder to his comrade.
“Pull yourself together, for fucksake. People are dying in there.” Polly said, no, not Polly; someone else spoke the words, she had no control over them. Leroy, his name was Leroy Jackson, this man whose body she inhabited.
She could hear thoughts inside her head, his thoughts, not hers.
Once the driver’s hand was off the dead man’s handle, it would have triggered the brakes, and the train stopped between the two stations.
Polly could see great tears in the metal now, claw marks, but the size of them – they looked as if they’d been mauled by a T Rex, massive gashes two feet long and as wide as a man’s hand.
No dog made those marks.
She could feel panic setting in, Leroy was barely holding it together. He had been trained for all sorts of operations, but this, this was something so far from anything he had ever encountered before. The man beside him rallied and caught up with Leroy.
There are people in there that need us.
“We’re going in,” Leroy said.
They were almost at the train now, and Polly scrambled up onto the mangled metal, making her way inside, her breath coming hard to her, heart pounding, terrified now. There were bodies, body parts everywhere, just the same as on the platform. Leroy scanned around, totally focused, not letting his concentration waver for a second. His training took over, his instincts overriding his fear. Nothing mattered but the mission.
“I can’t see any signs of life; they’re all dead, dozens of them.”
There were voices over the radio, the other members of the team, garbled, afraid, and Polly couldn’t untangle them. Leroy tried not to react, tried not to give way to his fear, but Polly could feel it, a terrible terror almost overwhelming him.
Then there was mayhem, fur and fangs, a great shape lunging at him. His friend, Rob, dropped at his side; he knew he was dead. He tried to bring up his rifle to shoot, but it was smashed from his hand by the sweep of a great clawed paw. Leroy, Polly, felt pain, a terrible searing pain as claws ripped through the flesh of their shoulder. Leroy turned and ran, ran until Polly thought her heart would burst, out into the dim light at the end of the tunnel.
Polly was suddenly back in this world, disoriented, terrified, gasping for breath. She dropped to the ground, half conscious. Leroy had collapsed at the tunnel entrance, covered in blood, terribly wounded, but still alive.
“I’m sorry, sorry Sarge; I had to bail, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what the hell those were, but they’re not fucking dogs,” she heard him say before he dropped. The paramedics got him onto a stretcher and Polly watched as they struggled to stop the bleeding. He was going to live, but he was never going to see active duty again, poor sod.
She was suddenly aware of Bert kneeling beside her. She must have collapsed, but hadn’t even noticed.
“Come back to us sweetheart, come back. What happened? One moment you were there and the next you were gone.”
“Hel wanted me to see; she wanted me to see the misery I’ve caused.”
“Now that’s enough of that. You aren’t responsible for any of this. There was nothing we could do for those men, nothing. Their death isn’t on our conscience.”
Polly knew he was right, but she still felt the guilt.
“He had a family, young kids, I’m glad he’s alive at least. I think that my being in his body saved him. Hel wanted me to see it all, and he had to live for that to happen.”
“Then thank God for―” Finn began.
He never got a chance to finish his sentence.
“They’ve gone,” Bert said. “They’ve simply gone.”
Polly froze for a moment and looked back towards the tunnel, trying to focus her befuddled senses. Bert was right. All she could feel was a cold emptiness coming from the darkness. The creatures really had gone.
“I suppose they’ve done what they set out to do,” Finn said. “Hel just wanted to make a point, and she’s certainly fucking made it.”
Polly was still watching the tunnel, trapped by that terrible darkness. Noises were coming from inside, the sound of voices, and piteous sobs, the crunch of feet over gravel. People were coming out of the tunnel, battered remnants of humanity, most of them bloodied and wounded, some of them being carried by others, but they were alive. They looked like an army of zombies.
“We couldn’t get out the other way,” one said, “The tunnel was blocked. Someone told us we had to come out this way, that this way was safe now.”
The man had terrible injuries, his shoulder ripped open. A couple of paramedics helped him up onto the platform where he fell into their arms, unconscious. Polly watched them carrying him away on the stretcher and wondered if he would be added to the list of the dead. God only knew how they were going to work out just how many had died here, count the heads she supposed because in some cases that was all that was left of them.
Bert stopped another man as he passed and asked:
“Who told you it was safe?”
The man, his eyes glazed and in deep shock, just stared blankly at Bert for a moment, then said:
“Some man, I didn’t see him on the train. He just walked through from the carriage where the dogs were, and told us it was safe to come out now.”
Bert let the man go, and he stumbled off, dazed and still lost in the nightmare.
“What are you thinking?” Liam asked.
Bert shrugged.
; “Oh, perhaps nothing, but it could be that we had a helping hand from somewhere. We know that nobody walked into that tunnel, so where did the man who told the survivors to leave come from?”
Finn helped Polly to her feet and turned her to face the exit.
“Let’s get out of here. There’s nothing more we can do here,” Blaine said. “I need to put a call through to the office. I’ll catch you up.” Polly couldn’t get to the entrance fast enough.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“.... It is still uncertain what the final death count will be, but at present, the fatalities stand at sixteen, with many seriously injured. One thing is certain; this is the worst London Underground disaster since the King’s Cross fire in 1987.”
The newscast over, the car radio began to spew out music that none of them wanted to hear, an oldie but not so much a goldie under the circumstances. The Dave Clark Five: I’m in pieces, bits and pieces.
“Oh for fucksake,” Finn said. “Switch it off.’ Bert obliged, and an uncomfortable silence suddenly filled the car. Bert was riding shotgun, with Polly and Finn huddled on the back seat. Finn’s arm around her was cold comfort, though. Images still smashed into her head, blood and brains, and bone and other, worse things.
“That news report was bullshit,” Polly said indignantly. “There were way more bodies than that. I saw loads more than sixteen bodies on the platform, and there were probably that many again on the train. How can they think they’ll get away with a lie like that?”
“They don’t have any choice,” Finn said. “People might believe that sixteen people were killed by a pack of wild dogs, although it’s bloody unlikely, but nobody could expect them to believe the real figures.”
“But how could they possibly hope to cover it up? Someone will get a hold of the real figures,” Polly persisted, outraged.
“They were taking the bodies out through the other entrance straight into vans; only a few people will know how many were loaded,” Blaine said. “The government will cover it up, they have to if they don’t want there to be widespread panic. Can you imagine what the reaction would be if people found out the truth?”
“So you agree with what they’re doing?” Finn asked.
Blaine went quiet for a minute.
“What would you do?” he asked.
Finn slumped back in his seat, conceding defeat.
“The government ordered that the autopsy results on your uncle and the others that died with him in that warehouse be put down to a gas leak.”
Finn grunted a laugh.
“Well, what the hell could they tell the general public, anyway? Ancient Norse gods and demons from Hell breaking through to this reality? How many strait-jackets would they need for that? The world’s gone fucking mad,” he concluded.
Blaine looked so tired, but then Polly guessed that if she could see herself in a mirror, she looked a lot worse.
“Most people really couldn’t handle that sort of knowledge,” Blaine said. “But I’ve come across things that even you wouldn’t believe, and I’ve learnt not to pass judgement. The police are flat earthists. They don’t believe anything they can’t see, hear or feel. You might be surprised what I’m willing to believe.”
He glanced in the mirror, back at Finn who gave him a nod back.
“So that was Hel’s brother, Fenrir? It just seems so weird having a wolf that can think like a hum―”
Bert cut in.
“No, not a human. Trust me, that creature does not think like a human.”
“All I know is that what I felt was dreadful.” Polly said. “It was as if all of the evil in the world had suddenly come together in one place, and all I could feel was the need to kill.”
“Oh my dear, there is so much anger in that accursed family, that’s hardly surprising,” Bert said.
“Hel has two brothers, doesn’t she?” Blaine asked.
“Indeed, Fenrir and Jormungand, the sons of the god Loki and the giantess Angrboða. They can both take human form when they wish – Fenrir can change into that giant wolf. The legends say that the old Norse gods chained Fenrir to prevent him from running riot through the nine mythical realms, which includes our own world, Midgard, but it seems that if he was ever chained, he’s free now. A lot of the old legends are probably purely myth, but I do believe that he was bound to Helheim by the Norse gods to stop him from causing trouble to many worlds. Fenrir is called ‘The devourer of worlds’. He destroys everything in his path.”
“What about his brother?”
“Jormungand is as dangerous as Fenrir, perhaps more so. They call him The Great Beast. He can take the form of a huge sea serpent. There’s no telling what havoc he could cause if he ever got free.”
Finn gave a little chuckle.
“Nice to know we have such good things to look forward to. Have we got any razor blades?”
“We’re not dead yet,” Blaine said, pointedly.
Finn gave him a disparaging look.
“No, just losing, big time.”
Bert made some tutting noises.
“Oh, now come on, that’s not the way to win wars. We aren’t doing so badly. We still have a few tricks up our sleeve.”
Blaine raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t you think it’s about time you told me what they are?”
Bert gave a chilling smile.
“Indeed. I think it’s time we told you the whole of it... and you did the same.”
“I hope you’ve got plenty of Hobnobs – you’re going to need them.”
Polly couldn’t get out of the car fast enough, back into the sanctuary of the magic shop. As soon as she stepped over the threshold, she felt it, a strange thrumming sensation of protective magic, keeping the place safe from malevolent spirits. She thought that Bert must have only placed it there recently, probably as a direct result of Hel’s very unwelcome visit; otherwise, she was sure that malevolent bitch would never have been able to get in. Whatever, it made her feel better, knowing that once she stepped inside she was safe from Hel and whatever else that creature deigned to send against them.
They settled into the cluttered back room, Blaine into the old squashy armchair, which he seemed to have appropriated, Finn perched on a table and Polly and Bert seated on what was left of two hard-backed wooden chairs. Bert had made the obligatory cup of tea and Finn had topped it up with something a little stronger to steady their nerves. Right at that minute, Polly would have been happy to drink brake fluid if it numbed her enough to get rid of those terrible images that continued to assault her.
“I feel tainted somehow,” she said, “As if all that death is clinging to me. I don’t think I’m ever going to feel clean again. I’d really like to go and have a bath.”
“I know, sweetheart, if you want to go up, you go, We can explain everything to Jack,” Bert said. “You don’t need to be here.”
“No, I can wait,” she replied.
Bert nodded and turned to Blaine. Polly had no idea what exactly Bert was going to say to him; surely he wasn’t going to tell him everything?
“Time to reveal all, then,” Bert began. “Although where to begin I have no idea. Perhaps I should just start and see where I end up. Let me see now... About 15 years ago Winchard approached me and asked if I would help him find a magical artefact, an ancient stone, called the Hellstone. It was said to be able to free not only the dead from Hell but demons as well, allow them to roam the earth freely. Imagine how much power that would give someone, to call up a legion of demons to do your bidding. I refused, but I couldn’t just leave it at that. When Polly told me that her uncle had a stone of power in his possession, I had to know if it was the Hellstone. We travelled up to York to try and find the final resting place of Sigurd Thorgeirsson, the last person we know of to have had possession of the stone.”
Blaine nodded and gave a smug smile.
“Confession time. I already checked out your movements for the last few days. You booked tickets up to York and stayed at the Shangri-l
a bed and breakfast? Sorry, but I needed to get a full picture.”
Bert chuckled amiably, flapping a hand at him.
“Oh, I quite understand. Yes, that’s exactly what we did. Unfortunately Gaunt had indeed already found the Hellstone at Sigurd’s burial site, but what he didn’t know was that there was another stone and that one he didn’t find. Luckily we did.”
“Another Hellstone?”
“Oh no, my boy, something far better. This one is called the Torinstone, and it’s the exact opposite of the Hellstone. It has the power to send people to Hell, the same way the Hellstone could bring them out from it. And we found it amongst Sigurd’s possessions.”
“Thank God Gaunt missed it. If he’d got that one as well, I daren’t think what we’d be facing now.”
Bert gave a contemplative smile.
“Yes, it’s almost as if some higher power lent a helping hand to provide us with the weapon we needed to stop Gaunt from going through with his plan.”
Blaine’s face stretched to a wide grin, a look of dawning realisation crossing his features. He gave a long ‘Ahh’ as the revelation hit home.
“That’s what happened to those people at the warehouse.”
Bert looked just a little too pleased with himself.
“Indeed, we sent them where they belonged,” he said. “They didn’t suffer, and it was self-defence.”
There was a moment’s silence, and Blaine just sat, sipping his tea, staring down at the cup as if it might feed him his next line if he stared at it hard enough.
“You don’t have to justify yourself. They deserved to go to Hell.” He hesitated again, his face set in hard lines now. “Unfortunately they didn’t stay there.” He waited for some sort of reaction, but there was very little. “You knew that already.”
“Yes, we knew that already,” Bert said. “It seems we both kept our secrets.”
“Well, no harm done,” Blaine said. “The truth of the matter is that Gaunt and his cronies may have shuffled off this mortal coil, but they’re not dead in any real sense of the word. The bastards have returned to this plane of existence, and they’re body snatching. Dalbert Winchard took the body of a young police officer. I saw him do it, but didn’t realise what was happening at the time. If I’d been quicker off the mark, I might have got the bastard there and then, but it took me by surprise. Now it’s more or less certain that he’s moved on and he’s inhabiting another body. Gaunt, I’m pretty certain, is possessing a man called Ernest Block. I daresay the other members of his coven have either done the same or are well on the way to getting their new bodies, and I have no idea at all who, or where, they are right now. For all I know Gaunt and Winchard might have moved on again. Safer for them to switch bodies a few times, to throw people off the trail.”
