Giles watched what would be the King’s last show with Tommy. The teenager looked so strong and healthy, with his mother’s eyes and his tufty, brown hair. He had a girlfriend too, a redheaded firecracker called Jenny. The couple sat wrapped in each other’s arms. Giles grinned.
“Can you believe it’s actually sixteen years now that we’ve been broadcasting here in Albion? Sixteen years, ladies and gentlemen!” Jason King sat behind his desk and soaked up the audience’s applause.
“Hell, I never thought we’d last the time it took to fly over.” Mike, the leader of the house band, replied.
“Well, ha, that was one heck of a flight,” the host chuckled, waiting expertly for a break in the studio’s laughter. His timing, as always, impeccable.
“And the city, Mike, the city has just come on in leaps and bounds, leaps and bounds.”
“Woooh! Yeah!” a member of the audience hollered. Giles giggled.
“You know, just last week I was taking a walk down Market Place and I saw a guy…making Cheesenuts.”
Giles was laughing so hard he gripped his sides.
“That’s right. Nuts made from cheese, ladies and gentlemen. That’s how far we’ve…”
“Hold it, cut!” one of the floor directors was waving his hands. “We’ve lost the signal. We’re off the air.”
“We’ve stopped broadcasting?”
Another technician spoke over the speakers from the broadcast tower above. “It’s not us, it’s them! Everything’s gone down. It’s like the whole world’s gone dead!”
They called that day The Fall because, after it, it was like you were watching the snow fall on a silent planet. Even when the storms subsided there was still no word from the world outside. No phones rang. No emails were passed. No text messages or tweets exchanged.
Soon the refugees began arriving, but none had an explanation for what had happened – at least, none that made any sense. They just said no one should leave the city, but there was never any danger of that. By the following summer people were beginning to get used to the idea they were on their own, when one afternoon Giles and Tommy were out hunting deer beyond the fortress walls.
Giles slapped at his neck. “Damn midges!” he whispered.
Tommy had a buck in his sights. He’d probably shoot it too if he ever stopped talking long enough to squeeze the trigger. “Can you believe it Dad? I’m actually going to be a father!”
“I know, son! I’ve got to admit, you’ve grown up so much. I’m so proud of you.”
“And Jenny’s great, isn’t she, Dad? I mean, I know we’re young and everything, but she’s going to make such a great mother.”
“She really is. You know, I think your own mother would… What’s the matter Tommy?”
When Giles looked up the tattooed tear by his left eye creased so much it went flat. His son was bleeding. Bleeding by the nose, bleeding by the mouth, bleeding even out of the corners of his eyes.
The blood plague had arrived.
This, then, was how the world would end.
Giles reached out for the photograph in the kitchen. The suds dripped from his fingers and trickled down the glass of the frame. The moans of dying people in the bar had stopped, but he was still too afraid to leave the kitchen.
Would Six be among the bodies? Was she dead too?
All his life Giles had been surrounded by death, and yet his memories seemed eternal. How he wished they would fade like the image on the photograph, but instead they haunted him, and all he could do was cry like a coward, his tears spilling into the sink like raindrops in an endless ocean.
Like the monsoon in Hong Kong.
Giles Haast was eating a burger on his way to work, negotiating the city’s elevated walkways. The sky was thick and dark with a hint of green. It was a morning like any other, when his wife called.
“Hey sweetheart, how’s it…”
“Giles, I’m in trouble!”
By the time he’d reached Marie’s building the police said they’d evacuated everyone they could from the bank. The terrorists had locked everybody in from the fifth floor upwards. Marie was trapped on level twelve.
And the bombs were loose.
A massive crowd had gathered, too many for the officers to hold back. Giles sprinted free of them and bound up an escalator into the building. Marie was talking to him on the phone. He could see her frightened face screaming at him on the video display.
“Giles, my swipe card, it won’t work!”
“I’m coming!”
“No, you can’t! You have to leave me! You have to look after Tommy!”
As he reached an open-plan office on the third floor, Giles saw it. From a distance it was almost cute. Its little blue legs bouncing up and down as it hurtled towards him, its cartoon eyes bulging, its arms outstretched in a child-like embrace. Giles took his chance. The monkey bared its stainless steel teeth as it jumped at him. Giles kicked it, hard, sending it flying back across the office.
“Giles, what is it?”
“It’s some kind of toy!”
“That’s the bomb, Giles, that’s the bomb! They’ve shown them on the news! You have to get rid of it!”
The monkey came again. This time Giles wrenched a computer terminal from a desk, attempting to smash it into the robot, but the monkey ducked and knocked him off balance. The bomb was upon him then, Giles sprawled on the floor. He grabbed at it, the blue fur of its body soft in his hands, but the robot thrashed wildly, slashing at him with retracting claws. Its mouth bit down on Giles’s left fist and spat out his little finger.
“Arrrrrrrggggghhhhh!”
“Giles? Giles? What’s going on?”
Giles dropped the toy onto his chest and it bit again, but this time caught the man’s video tie in its mouth as well as shirt and skin. The electric jolt the tie gave off sent the monkey bowling backwards and Giles pounced, grabbing the power cable from the ripped computer with his bloody hand and plunging it into the bomb’s mouth. Sparks caught between the plug and the metal teeth. The monkey shook violently for a second, and then lay still.
“Giles, you have to go.”
“No, I’m not leaving you.”
Giles picked up his phone and stared at the face of his beautiful wife. Both of them were crying now.
“That bomb’s still active, it just needs a trigger, and that’s probably running around here somewhere too. You have to get it out.”
“But…”
“I love you.”
“I’m scared, Marie.”
“I know. I am too.”
Giles gathered the smoking monkey up in his jacket and was running down the escalator at the base of the building when another of the devices went off. The mid levels of the bank – eight through twelve – exploded in a shower of glass and rubble.
Giles watched as vast lumps of concrete rained down on the water of old Hong Kong Harbour. It looked like Armageddon.
Marie.
Tommy.
And now Six.
Giles couldn’t save any of them.
The old cook looked up to see Tucker standing in front of him in the kitchen. His young face looked sickened behind the visor of his anti-contamination suit.
“Giles, what happened?” the boy said.
Giles Haast extended his hands to the knight, both palms facing upwards. “It’s my fault,” he said simply.
“It’s all my fault.”
Chapter Twenty
TUCKER watched Sir Justice as the sheriff shook his head, his filthy hair swinging. “There’s no sign of the girl. We can’t find her,” he told the council.
“What, and there’s no way of tracking her?” the King asked.
“It’s impossible,” Sir Justice replied, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. “Even Jon tried but you cannae do it. Those tunnels go on for miles, your highness, and half of them are full of water anyhow.”
“But we’re sure she’s still alive?” the King countered.
“Yes!” Tucker blurted o
ut. He hadn’t meant to but what else could he say? He couldn’t let himself believe that Six was dead.
The flickering torches of the castle’s grand hall lent heavy shadows to the King’s Table. Tucker’s knees jumped manically beneath it as he gazed upon the councillors’ grim faces. Carol Lee was there, of course, Jon Way, the Duke and Duchess of Luton, Aldred the druid, Professor Chandler, and Edwin Manifold, the city’s clerk. He never knew who the three councillors dozing in armchairs were.
The Duke of Luton smiled courteously and played with his moustache. “I’d hate to hurt anyone’s feelings but can we really be sure of that?”
“No,” Sir Justice shook his head again. “I’m afraid we cannot.”
“She could have escaped?” Carol Lee offered.
“If the knight escaped then why isn’t she here?” the sheriff frowned. “But I think it’s safe to say the killer wouldn’t have taken her without a reason, considering what he did to the rest of the bar.”
Professor Chandler sat next to Tucker. He was the oldest person in the city after the King, though neither claimed to remember their ages. He was frail and skinny, wheelchair bound, with a few white hairs left on his pink head, and he smelled faintly of antiseptic ointment. He extended a bony finger with a long nail, which he rapped on the table. “So, we’ve lost the last Knight of Truth?”
“We’re still searching for her, Professor,” Jon Way answered loudly as Professor Chandler was quite deaf. “But we haven’t given up hope.”
Aldred the druid crossed his arms, his grey beard twitching. “Hmmph,” he said, looking down upon Edwin Manifold who was busy stroking Missus Wiggins, the council’s cat. “If you ask me that girl was lost long ago. Why, by the power of Odin, was she not forced to come before the council earlier? Obviously she had something to do with Lord Truth’s disappearance.”
“Suck my cheesy balls! That’s not freakin’ true!” Tucker was on his feet. “You don’t know what you’re talking about you great ugly...”
“Point of order, please!” the clerk exclaimed, the cat jumping from his lap.
“Easy, Mister Tucker,” Sir Justice said quietly, gripping the boy’s shoulder.
Tucker had had no sleep. Once they’d given up searching for Six he’d returned to the broadcast tower alone. There he’d spent the remainder of the day looking through the news library for references to exploding monkeys, as Six had asked him.
He’d found nothing.
“I’m sorry,” Tucker said miserably. “But we’re wasting time here. We need to rescue Six and we need to do it now. Then she’ll tell us what happened at Parliament and you’ll know she’s innocent,” the boy glared at the druid. “And you can wipe my arse with your beard if I’m wrong.”
“Sire!” Aldred the druid started.
“That’s enough,” the King said, still wearing his turquoise and mauve tracksuit. “And may I remind you, Mister Tucker, that you are a guest of this council and, as such, should behave accordingly. That kind of language will not be tolerated.”
Tucker looked down to see the tail of Missus Wiggins curling around his leg, her gold bell gently tinkling as she purred. Sir Justice too peered under the table at the sound. Cats, for some strange reason, always seemed to like Tucker. “Yes, your highness,” Tucker mumbled.
Edwin Manifold stared at him jealously.
“Now,” the King continued. “What the freaking hell happened this morning?”
The sheriff sighed and rubbed at his tangled hair with a bloodstained hand. “We can only assume that the plague victim I shot yesterday somehow survived, your highness. As the chosen protector of the city I take full responsibility.”
“Nonsense, Wilfred,” the King reached over to the sheriff. “No one’s blaming you, but is there a link between this and the incident with my granddaughter?”
Sir Justice looked up and stared into the King’s clear eyes. “None that I can prove. At least not yet.”
The professor pushed his black plastic spectacles so they slid further over his large ears. “What about the victims in the bar, Jon? Do they exhibit any trace of the blood plague?”
“Thankfully, no Professor,” Jon Way replied. “All the wounds were clean. Neither the bar, nor the victims, showed any trace of the EB-13 originally witnessed in the visitor.”
Carol Lee sat next to the magician. “How were they killed?” she asked hesitantly. “Was there any sign of a weapon?”
Sir Justice grumbled in his seat. “The attack was merciless, Captain. The twelve victims at the bar, as well as the two at the burial mounds, were all killed with a brutality I’ve never seen before, yet there’s no sign of a weapon. He ripped through those people with his bare hands and slaughtered everyone he touched. Some of them are mere carcasses.”
“We, er, we found a rucksack with some of the visitor’s clothing in it, stowed away in the tunnel at the burial mounds,” Tucker added quietly. “I think the wardens may have chucked it down there, ready to steal it before they were killed.” The boy looked up at the group. “In one of the boots there was a small plastic bag and we found another one by the body. Both had contaminated blood in them.”
A collective gasp took hold of the table. “You mean this man wanted to fail his blood test at the gates? He wanted to be shot?” the Duchess of Luton said.
“It appears so,” Jon shook his head, “but this is no man, Duchess.”
“Then, by oak and mistletoe, what is he?” the druid exclaimed.
“How could he possibly know about our security systems?” Edwin Manifold cried.
“More importantly, how could he have survived being shot?” Carol Lee asked, as the council erupted in a myriad of other questions, accusations and recriminations.
None of this is getting us anywhere, Tucker thought as he felt the Professor tapping his arm.
“How did our intruder get into the city, my boy?” the old man asked.
“Using those same service tunnels, Professor, he came up right under the bar.” Tucker shouted over the din.
“But how did he know how to use them?”
“The wardens had already opened one up, ready to use themselves. Maybe he just guessed?” Tucker shrugged. “But he obviously knows something about our security, why else would he be wearing those blood bags in his shoes?”
“Why indeed, my boy, why indeed?” the Professor pondered, stroking his upper lip. “First Lord Truth and now this. One must wonder,” he looked up at Tucker, his blue eyes made gigantic by his spectacles, “just who one can trust, eh?”
Tucker flinched and looked across at the King, who was busy kneading his brow. Should I tell them of Six’s suspicions? he thought. Just what was Giles doing anyway, hiding out in the kitchen like that while everyone outside was getting sliced and diced?
The boy slowly became aware that Jon Way was looking at him, the magician’s face silent amid the clamour of the council. Tucker had forgotten his crystal.
“Are you sure you actually shot him, Sir Justice?” someone said.
The King punched the table with his arthritic hand, the heavy wood barely registering a sound. “Shit, people, that’s enough!” he barked, but the councillors paid little attention.
“Order, order!” Edwin Manifold finally scolded.
Jason King looked weak and tired, his right hand shaking as he sipped at a glass of water, waiting for the council to quieten. “Jeez, you guys are making this harder than that Madonna interview in 96,” he mumbled.
The Duchess sniggered.
“Jon, help us out here,” the King turned to his son-in-law. “You’re the brains in this outfit, what the hell’s going on?”
Jon Way’s attention returned to the council. His expression was calm, almost placid. He exchanged a glance with Sir Justice before he spoke. “Wilfred believes we’re under attack, your majesty, from outside forces beyond this intruder. I happen to agree with him.”
The other councillors began murmuring before he’d even finished a sentence. The Duke of
Luton shook his head. “Under attack from who, Jon? There’s nobody out there. Oh, the odd refugee maybe, but what else? It’s been thirty years since The Fall and we’ve heard nothing from the rest of the world.”
“We all know how long it’s been, Duke, but maybe things have changed outside Albion?” Jon’s face reddened below his mirrored shades. “Lord Truth’s death, the incident with my daughter, these murders - they’re too much of a coincidence to...”
“The world outside is dead, your majesty,” Aldred the druid, his arms still folded, leaned back in his chair and spoke directly to the King. “We’ve never received any replies to our distress beacon. The knights’ scavenger missions have shown us nothing to indicate we ever will. This intruder is just an anomaly, nothing more.”
“The consultations we’ve performed, your highness! Numerous reports and polls and never yet have we concluded that something’s out there,” Edwin Manifold sniffed before burying his nose in his handkerchief, Missus Wiggins once again curled on his lap.
“We know this planet was on the brink of environmental catastrophe before The Fall,” the Duchess added, “locked in wars that could never end, trapped in financial meltdown, and then there was the blood plague. What could possibly have changed?”
Sir Justice said nothing, yet Tucker could sense him bristling beside him, his head low and his face swathed in shadow.
“Well, we’ve survived,” Jon Way said petulantly. “Surely it stands to reason that others have too?”
“But this is getting us nowhere, Sire,” Carol Lee replied. “With all respect to Jon and Sir Justice this council has been through these theories before. We need to focus on the problem at hand, not get caught up in old arguments.”
“I agree,” the King nodded. “All right, so what do we know about this killer? What are his motives?”
“Isn’t it obvious, father?”
The great hall’s torches fanned wildly as Buckley beat his wings, swooping onto a stave in the corner of the room. All heads turned to see Serena Way walk down the stone stairs behind him. She looked pale, her face drawn, as if death itself was following behind her.
The Last Days Page 16
