Clovenhoof 03 Godsquad

by Heide Goody

  “Surely you don't think that a war can happen that quickly?” asked Em.

  “I don't know,” said the woman, “but there will be no food left soon, I need to stock up for my family. Please move.”

  A man was pressing from behind, so Em moved out of the way.

  “What happened in the Middle East?” she asked.

  “Nobody knows, but the whole place is burning,” he said. “All the major powers are moving their forces there. You have family? Get them somewhere safe and stock up on food, that's my advice.”

  “Pablo, it's in God's hands now,” called a man from the road.

  “God’s hands?” scoffed Em. “Yes, if you put it that way, I’m sure the missiles will start flying at any moment.”

  “This is not a nice area,” Matt pointed out as he wove through the narrow streets near to the old dock of Marseille. “Sure you don't want to find somewhere else?”

  “The Couteau Noir is where I'm going,” insisted Joan.

  “Dressed in full plate armour? Okay.”

  “I know you don't believe my story, but that doesn't change anything. I have a mission to complete.”

  Matt sighed. Joan was so tied up with her delusion that he knew she would do whatever she felt was necessary. If he'd learned one thing about her, it was that she was bone-headedly stubborn and persistent.

  Joan opened the glove box with her free hand and rummaged through the contents.

  “Here it is. Bar Couteau Noir,” said Matt, looking at the dark café front within a rundown arcade of shops and businesses. “What are you doing there?”

  “Recruiting,” said Joan. “Park here.”

  Matt parked the car between two rows of mopeds and turned to Joan. Could he possibly talk her out of her plans, maybe convince her to take a few minutes to calm down and reconsider? What was the quote from the Ferris Bueller movie?

  “Hey Joan, Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop —”

  “Keys!” she barked. Matt pulled the keys from the ignition and handed them to her. Joan produced a plastic cable tie that Matt recognised. He gave a low groan.

  “Really? You plan to handcuff me?”

  “Yup,” said Joan and waggled the end of the sword in his face to emphasise the point.

  He held out his hands and she fastened them together.

  “Out of the car, we need to put you in the boot.”

  “Joan, this is a Fiat 500. I won't fit in the boot,” he said.

  “You'd better figure out a way, otherwise I'll chop you up into pieces to make it easier. I'm in a hurry, remember.”

  “You wouldn’t hurt me.” Matt got out and walked around to the rear of the car anyway.

  Matt looked up and down the street, hoping to see someone, anyone who would act as a witness or potential rescuer. There was no one, only the sound of gulls and the faintly foul smell of the docks. Joan popped open the tiny boot. She looked inside and looked Matt up and down.

  “You'll get in there, if you really, really try hard.”

  “Joan, please.”

  “I'd start trying if I were you.”

  The wolf followed the scent into a small enclosed yard, where firewood was stored. There was a small group of dogs in a rough circle. They were communicating in the usual manner of pheromone signatures and small yips. An elderly spaniel had the floor.

  We need to discuss the difficult times we may face. We must share what we know and be vigilant in our guard duties, both for the humans and each other. The humans are very afraid. You can smell it on them. They fear a coming cataclysm.

  What's a cataclysm? asked a young beagle.

  It's like when there's nobody there to throw the stick.

  The dogs all lowered their heads.

  We must comfort the humans and remain alert to the possibility that they will need our help.

  At that moment a small terrier noticed the wolf. A powerful blast of fear alerted the other dogs immediately and they all turned their heads towards the enormous intruder.

  The wolf stepped forward, prompting a fresh wave of fear, and some high notes of bravado, he noted. He wasn't one for idle chat, but he approved of this group and their spirit. He dropped the sausages in the centre of the circle and sat back on his haunches.

  Tuck in. You’re going to be busy.

  Joan pushed open the door of the bar. It was rather gloomy inside, and the current of air stirred up specks of dust that danced in the sunlight that streamed in behind her. She was surprised to find how familiar the place seemed. She’d stepped inside similar places during her earthly lifetime. Rough bars were rough bars and the general template hadn’t changed much over the last six hundred years. And, judging by the thick grime in the corners of the room, this particular example hadn’t been cleaned in those six hundred years either.

  The few patrons barely looked up, so she decided to address them all. Time was short and she wasn't sure how else to find what she was looking for.

  “I'm looking for some men. Real men who know how to handle themselves. I was told that this was the place.”

  A few heads turned her way, eyebrows raised.

  “One thing though, you must be happy to work under a woman.”

  There was an outbreak of sniggers. A man stood from a table near the bar and swaggered towards her. He wore rough canvas trousers and a knitted garment that had either been a sweater or a lobster pot in a previous existence.

  “Darlin', I got no problem working under you. Is that real armour you're wearing? You look like you'd shine up all right. Can I start now?” he said, thrusting suggestively and putting his hand on her arm.

  Joan didn't bother to raise her sword, she simply gripped the wrist of the hand that was on her arm and yanked it round behind the man's back, jerking it up savagely. The man howled in pain and she let him drop to the floor.

  “Anybody else want to treat me like a fool?” she said to the patrons of the bar, and the world in general.

  From two separate tables, men got up without making eye contact and scurried for the door.

  “Hey!” shouted the bartender. “You're scaring away my customers. Calm down or get out.”

  “Sorry,” said Joan. “Let me get a drink and see which of these fine gentlemen can help me.”

  She went over to the bar. The bartender looked at her questioningly.

  “Uh, beer please,” said Joan.

  “Beer,” nodded the bartender.

  “But not a strong one,” said Joan quickly. “I want the weak pisswater beer that people drank in the old days instead of water.”

  “Ah, you came to the right place then.” The bartender slid a glass across the counter.

  Matt was struggling with the cable ties. He'd tried the trick of angling his wrists apart when Joan tied him up, but she'd pulled them pretty tight, so he had very little room for manoeuvre. He had a secret weapon though. The rough bit they'd left on his boots when he got them re-soled. He'd caught his finger on it a few weeks ago, and had sworn that when he got a moment he'd file it down and that he'd go and give the cobbler a piece of his mind as well. Now, strangely grateful for his lack of follow-through, he worked his wrists across it to try and wear through the plastic. He had so little room, tucked into the boot of his tiny car, but he was able to inch it back and forth, and he knew he could free his hands eventually. Whether that was soon enough to keep Joan from doing something ludicrous was another matter.

  “You!” said Joan, approaching the roughest looking customer in the bar. “You look like a man who's seen hostile action.”

  The man raised his shaven head, a lavish scar across his eyebrow giving him a look of intense menace. He wore camouflage trousers with a faded t-shirt.

  Joan sat at his table, facing him.

  “I need to get into the naval base at Toulon,” she said. “Can you help me?”

  “Toulon,” said the man, his voice gravelly. “That's a well guarded place. Choose somewhere else. Save yourself some trouble.”

  “I
have a target,” said Joan. “His name is Simon, and it's imperative that I get to him. Can you help me or not?”

  The man pursed his lips and nodded. Joan glimpsed more scars on his neck as he did so.

  “I am Bruno,” he said, extending a hand.

  “Joan,” she said, shaking a hand that was rough and enormous.

  “So, Joan. What did this man Simon do to you, hmm? You want to get to him pretty badly.”

  “Oh, it's not really about me —”

  “I bet he broke your heart, yes?” said Bruno. “I once had my heart broken. I know how it feels.”

  Bruno still had hold of Joan's hand. He patted it gently and gazed into the middle distance in recollection.

  “She owned a flower shop in the Rue de Fraises. She would know a person's favourite flower the instant they walked in there. She had me down as an orchid man straight off. She had a talent for it, you know?”

  “Well —”

  “I don't ask for a lot in a relationship,” Bruno continued. “I bring in a lot of money in this trade, you know? A suitcase full at a time. All I ask of a woman is that she brings me a cold beer when I want one. Now that might be in a top Paris hotel, but it might also be in downtown Bogota, know what I'm saying?”

  “No, not really,” but Bruno was in full flow.

  “She could have had anything she wanted if she'd just understood that. Clothes, jewels, a pony.”

  “A pony?”

  “But no, she was all like I've got a business to run Bruno, I need to stay here. It gets to you, you know? Really gets to you. I want her to be a proper part of my life, share my passion. So I'm running my ass off, just trying to keep it together. I spend my nights wondering if her heart's really in the relationship when she can think about all these other things so easily. She would always be thinking about other people. That's just not right, is it? I mean, if you were with me, and you could have anything you wanted, would you want to bother with arranging flowers for your customers? Would you?”

  Joan tried to form an answer to that but she found that words wouldn't come.

  “I understand you being lost for words,” said Bruno. “I was too. Any time I got a moment between assignments I'd call her up, just to hear her voicemail. I almost blew my cover in Cuba when they traced my calls back to Europe. I was lucky to get away. Anyway, the final blow came when I’d just finished up a job in Africa. I'd been sent in to kill the Burundi finance minister, but my gun jammed at the crucial moment. I beat him to death with an office stapler and managed to crawl through a sewer pipe to freedom. Do you know what happened next?”

  “No,” answered Joan truthfully.

  “She told me that she was going to move in with her sister,” sobbed Bruno. “Her sister! The shame of it. You know the worst thing? The very worst thing?”

  “No. Tell me,” said Joan, chin in hand, resigned to listen to the rest of Bruno's sad tale.

  “Her sister had hay fever. Hated flowers. Hated them.”

  Bruno collapsed onto his forearms and sobbed uncontrollably.

  The interior of the church of Saint-Laurent in Aubenas was cool, but instead of the usual candle-fragranced calmness, there was an air of subdued panic. Twenty or so people were kneeling or standing, their faces filled with worry.

  Em’s attention was, as always, first drawn to the images of her son on the walls, in the stained glass. She never felt any urge to take photos of deliberate representations of the boy. It wasn’t just that thingsthatlooklikejesus.com didn’t accept such offerings. It wasn’t that these representations were any less accurate than the clouds, spills and burn patterns that she stored on her camera. She had no interest in these because they were public, they belonged to everyone; her stolen digital images were hers, ones that she had found…

  “Pew at the back's fwee,” said Francis and sat down.

  “Sod that,” said Christopher. He marched up the aisle, stepping past worshippers oblivious to his presence and rapped violently on the stone altar. “Oi! Gabriel! Can you hear me? I wish to speak directly to the archangel Gabriel. If I've got someone at the Non Specific Prayer Assessment Unit, just patch me through. Ask a supervisor if you don't know how. Right. Gabriel, we need a steer. Joan's gone off on one, so we need to know who's in charge now. I think we can probably agree I'm the man for the job. Just tell the others to do what I say. Amen.”

  Em looked at him in disbelief, but then her attention was drawn to Francis who was muttering his own prayer in the pew beside her.

  “Chwistopher's being unbeawable and I do find Em to be a little aggwessive. What you weally need, in my opinion, is for a man of twue faith to take charge of this mission, bwing it back on twack. If you could westore the wolf to my company I shall know you support my plea. Amen.”

  “Right,” huffed Em, sitting down and squeezing her own eyes shut. “Enough of this. Now listen, Lord. We don't speak all that often. You gave me the kid and then it’s ‘wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.’ You don’t phone. You don’t write. Anyway, you know my thoughts on the way you run things. I have something I need you to do right now though, so you'd better be listening. I need you to get these idiots off my back and give me a little support down here. There's a bit of a situation going on, and I could deal with it a whole lot better if I had a decent team. Sort it out, will you?”

  She glanced across at Francis.

  Francis made an exaggerated mime, while gesturing upwards with his eyes.

  “Oh, yeah. Amen,” she said.

  Em despaired at the other saints. Their selfish mutterings were really quite distracting. Then she realised that the voices that she could hear were coming from the congregation in the church. Silent prayers being sent up from the people all around her were appearing in her head. A woman wearing a brown dress faced the altar and prayed hard.

  — Mother Mary. I worry for my children. What can I do to keep them safe?

  Em sighed. She couldn't ignore this. She reached out with her own spiritual voice.

  — Your children have a loving mother who cares about them, she told the woman.

  — But the world is in turmoil. I'm so worried about the future.

  — Face the future with strength, knowing that, er – Mary swallowed her pride — Heaven's love surrounds you and your children.

  Em felt the balm of calmness that her words applied to the woman. The woman crossed herself and hurried out.

  “Okay,” she said to herself. “Nice work, Mary.”

  She sought out another of the voices.

  — The world feels so hostile. I am so powerless.

  — You are not powerless, said Em. — People are reacting to fear. If they knew the strength of Heaven’s love they would not be afraid. You should not be afraid.

  Em adjusted herself on the kneeler and concentrated on the other voices.

  Matt had freed his hands, but was still cramped into the boot of his car. He had tried battering his head against the upholstery of the back seat, but it simply bounced his efforts away. He imagined for a moment he had the wolf with him. The wolf would make short work of this, he’d simply rip it apart with his teeth. He took a tentative mouthful of foam and tore at it with his teeth. Particles came away in his mouth, making him gag, but it represented some progress at least. He spat the bits out and took another bite.

  “My name is Leon,” a man said to Joan. “Your friend is gone?”

  Joan looked around the bar for Bruno.

  “I think he’s gone outside for a bit of a cry.”

  Leon nodded.

  “Then it is possible that I can help you with your… problem?”

  Leon wore a sleeveless vest and she could see intertwining tattoo designs on his face, neck and down his back. She had never seen someone marked like this before.

  “Please,” said Joan and gestured for him to sit down.

  “Thank you,” said Leon. “You should know that I am a business man. I can almost certainly get what you need, but the price, it will be high.”
<
br />   “Not a problem,” said Joan, knowing she had no real choice. “Tell me one thing though.”

  “Yes?”

  “Is that a tattoo of an otter or a dolphin? The one on your shoulder.”

  “Is mermaid. Now. Let us talk business. My associates will be here shortly. I have business to conclude with them. Afterwards I can attend to your requirements. So, what do you need?”

  “First thing I need is men,” said Joan. “Five thousand if I’m to storm Toulon.”

  “Five thousand men? Five thousand may take some time. You need them all at same time?”

  “Yes, of course. In terms of hardware, I prefer old-school. A battering ram is a must.”

  “Ah. Chinese anti-tank missiles, you mean? Not a problem.”

  “Lances or pikes for all the men, obviously.”

  “I can get you a good price on Kalashnikovs,” said Leon.

  “Those will do. As many trebuchet as you can get hold of, too.”

  Leon hesitated.

  “Tre – what? Is Russian? Can’t say I am familiar with that name. Can you tell me what that is?”

  “Basic stuff,” said Joan, grabbing a napkin from the bar. “Let me draw you a picture. I bet you know it by another name. Look, you have an arm to throw rocks at the enemy and you propel it really fast with a counterbalance on the other side here, see?”

  Leon scrutinised the sketch and shook his head.

  “This is very primitive. There is little to recommend such a thing unless you need to assemble something in a hurry from local materials.”

  “Well I do!” exclaimed Joan. “Didn't I mention that this is really urgent? By the way, that cabbage on your arm is very realistic.”

  “Is rose, not cabbage,” said Leon. “Ah, my associates are here. If you will excuse me for few minutes I will come back and see what I can do to help you when I am finished.”

  He rose and met two newcomers halfway across the bar. These two were dressed in suits and wore dark glasses. They both carried strong looking metal briefcases. They spoke briefly to Leon in low voices and then all three of them went through a door to the toilets. Joan fetched another drink from the bar and waited impatiently.