The Wraiths of War

by Mark Morris

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Mark Morris

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  One: God

  Two: Your Country Needs You!

  Three: Cosmic Balance

  Four: Changing History

  Five: Basic Training

  Six: The Witch

  Seven: No Man’s Land

  Eight: Trench Warfare

  Nine: Heidrich and the Heart

  Ten: Home is Where…

  Eleven: In Limbo

  Twelve: Big Moment

  Thirteen: Nightcap

  Fourteen: Find Him

  Fifteen: Punch and Judy

  Sixteen: A Screech of Rage

  Seventeen: The Crossroads

  Eighteen: A House of Nightmares

  Nineteen: Into the Future

  Twenty: The Missing

  Twenty-One: The Great Barnaby

  Twenty-Two: Wonder Woman

  Twenty-Three: Moving On

  Twenty-Four: Friday 10 December 1948

  Twenty-Five: Visiting Hours

  Twenty-Six: All Our Yesterdays

  Twenty-Seven: The Same Rain

  Twenty-Eight: The Belly of the Beast

  Epilogue: Tuesday 2 October 2012

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  ALSO AVAILABLE FROM MARK MORRIS AND TITAN BOOKS

  OBSIDIAN HEART

  Book One: The Wolves of London

  Book Two: The Society of Blood

  Obsidian Heart Book Three: The Wraiths of War

  Print edition ISBN: 9781781168745

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781781168776

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: October 2016

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Mark Morris asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  Copyright © 2016 by Mark Morris

  Visit our website:

  www.titanbooks.com

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  To Gary and Emily McMahon, with love.

  “I got some bad ideas in my head.”

  ONE

  GOD

  As soon as I opened my eyes, I thought: I’m dead.

  Around me I could see only white. I could hear no sound. When I took a breath the air smelled of nothing at all.

  Is this what death is? I thought. A white nothingness? No pain? No sensation?

  Or maybe I was in limbo. Maybe I was awaiting sentencing, poised between one direction or the other.

  I didn’t know whether to panic or just lie there. I didn’t know whether I was even capable of panicking – or of any emotion, for that matter.

  I felt… empty. Did I even still have a physical body? I could see, and I could breathe, but was that only a memory? Were my senses the equivalent of phantom limbs? And if so, how did I feel about that – assuming I could still feel, of course?

  Nothingness was better than pain, wasn’t it? Well, wasn’t it? My last memory was of excruciating agony, of vomiting blood as my body turned inside out.

  Anything had to be better than that. I’d suffered enough in my life to know that when it came to a choice between suffering and death, death was preferable.

  But that was when I’d thought of death as oblivion, not awareness. Maybe, though, this was what death truly was? Eternal awareness. But awareness of nothing.

  The thought was terrifying. Or at least it would have been if I’d thought myself capable of terror.

  I decided to close my eyes, and was thankful to find I could do so.

  When I opened them again, God was sitting next to me.

  He was smiling. He had white hair and a white beard. Blue eyes in a wrinkled face.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, only mildly surprised to find I could speak. ‘Is it good news or bad?’

  ‘Good,’ God said. He was wearing a nice suit. It fitted him really well. It was a pale blue-grey colour that made me feel calm.

  I sighed in relief – or at least in my head I did. ‘Thank fuck,’ I muttered, and then realised I’d sworn in front of God. I clenched my teeth in apology.

  ‘Sorry. That just came out. It’s just that I’m glad I’m not going… down there. I mean, I’ll admit I’ve done some dodgy things in my time, but overall I think—’

  ‘I’m not who you think I am, Alex,’ he said. ‘I’m not God.’

  My mind felt like thick soup stirred slowly in a pot. I tried to think about what God had said. Was he trying to catch me out? I smiled – in my head, I smiled.

  ‘You must be God,’ I said, trying my hardest to remain respectful. ‘If you’re not him, how did you know that was who I thought—’

  ‘You’re still woozy from the procedure. Look again.’

  Procedure? What procedure? I stared at him. His face looked familiar. But maybe that was because God looked like someone we all knew when we finally met him. Aren’t we all supposed to be created in his image, after all? Aren’t we—

  Then the clouds parted and a shaft of light beamed straight down, and everything became clear.

  ‘Fuck,’ I said again.

  God shrugged as if to say: Sorry to disappoint you.

  ‘When do I grow that beard?’ I asked.

  The older me, who I’d mistaken for God, shrugged. ‘A few decades down the line.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ I said, ‘you’re old. You’re the oldest I’ve ever seen you.’

  ‘Why do you think I left it so many years before coming back to this moment?’ said my future self. ‘It was to delay these insults for as long as possible.’

  But he was smiling. He wasn’t really hurt by my comments, he’d been expecting them. After all, he must have spoken them himself years back, when he was me.

  ‘So I’m not dead then?’ I said, and realised that although I was pleased, I also felt wearied at the prospect of more life, more struggle.

  ‘Not now,’ my future self said. ‘You were, though. Technically. For about thirty-two minutes.’

  ‘Thirty-two minutes?’

  ‘Give or take.’

  Fuck. I’d been dead. Another thing to tick off the bucket list. The thought struck me as funny, and I sniggered.

  ‘So where am I now?’

  ‘A better question would be when.’ He paused, as if giving me the opportunity to brace myself. ‘You’re in the future, Alex. 2097.’

  Whoa. I wanted to say it, but the information hit me like a punch between the eyes, making my thoughts spin.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’d known that with the heart I could travel through time. I’d used it to go back into the past, so it was only natural that it could also be used to go the other way, into the future.

  Even so. The future. The great unknown. It seemed more impressive than the past, somehow, and more frightening. From the perspective of the present the futu
re didn’t exist, whereas the past did. You could read about the past; there were records, artefacts, photographs, graveyards full of people who had lived and died…

  The future, though, had no bones to make it real.

  ‘2097,’ I said, as if testing whether, by speaking the date, I could make it seem more real. I couldn’t.

  My future self looked sympathetic. ‘I know exactly how you feel. Give yourself a minute. Let it sink in.’

  I looked up at the white ceiling. I was becoming more physically aware of myself now, but I still felt disconnected. I thought about raising my left arm, and then, with a slight mental effort that was normally so natural I didn’t even have to think about it, I turned the thought into a command, at the same time tilting my head to look down the length of my body.

  I was covered with a pristine white sheet, making me think of a body in a morgue. I watched as my arm rose into view. I looked at my hand and flexed my fingers, then curled them into a fist.

  I felt okay. Despite my last memory before waking up here – the pain, the vomiting – I appeared to have suffered no lasting ill effects from my use of the heart.

  Unless I was partially paralysed. Or under heavy sedation to allay the pain.

  ‘What’s the damage?’ I asked.

  My future self spread his hands, as if to say: See for yourself.

  ‘It was extensive,’ he said. ‘But you’re fine now.’

  ‘Fine? How can I be fine? I thought I was dead?’

  ‘You were. But future technology is a wonderful thing. Death is no longer fatal – or not always anyway.’

  I tried to process what I was hearing.

  ‘So what are you saying? That I’m… bionic? Like Steve Austin in The Six Million Dollar Man?’

  ‘Nothing so crude. I seem to remember that when I was your age, I’d at least heard of nanotechnology; I knew the basic principles. Am I right?’

  I nodded. ‘Technology on a tiny scale, yeah?’

  ‘Not just tiny,’ he said. ‘Atomic. Molecular. We’re talking quantum-realm mechanics here.’

  I shrugged, irritated at my future self’s slightly patronising attitude. Had I always been like this? ‘Whatever. I was never much good at science, as you know. But long story short, I’m guessing it was nanotechnology which saved my life?’

  My future self confirmed it with a slight raising of his wiry white eyebrows. Then he lifted his hand, in which he was clutching something I recognised.

  My notebook.

  The one in which I jotted down all the dates and times a future version of myself had appeared, so that I’d know what I needed to do when the time came. It also contained other, less specific details of things I knew I needed to do, like set myself up in Victorian London so that everything would be in place when I arrived, and pay off my older daughter Candice’s boyfriend’s debt to the drug dealer who might otherwise endanger Candice’s life.

  ‘I’ve written it all down,’ he said. ‘Dates and times, both yours and mine; the details of this place; everything you’ll need when you get to where I am. It’s an important one, this, Alex. Forget it and we won’t be here.’

  ‘All right,’ I said – snapped, in fact. ‘I know. You don’t have to spell it out.’

  Unexpectedly he laughed. ‘I know exactly what you’re thinking. And you’re right. I am a condescending twat. It comes with age. And experience.’ He gave me a meaningful look, though whether it was laden with pity or envy I couldn’t tell. ‘You’ve got such times ahead of you, Alex. Such times. That’s if you play your cards right, of course.’

  ‘Any pointers?’ I asked. ‘Any advice?’

  He drew in his lips so tightly I couldn’t see them through his beard. His shoulders hunched in apology.

  ‘Can’t say a word. I mean, who knows where we’ll be if I do, eh? Or rather, where I’ll be.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘No surprises there. All right, at least tell me about this nano stuff. Where are we, by the way?’

  ‘Stuttgart.’

  ‘In Germany?’

  ‘Do you know of another one?’

  His retort was more teasing than sarcastic. I said, ‘But why here in particular?’

  ‘Because it’s the global centre of excellence for the application of medical nanotech.’ He winked. ‘Nothing but the best for us, old son.’

  ‘So what is it, this nanotech? Does it mean I’ve now got millions of tiny robots running around inside me?’

  ‘We,’ he said, tapping his chest. ‘They’re still in here.’

  The thought made me feel queasy. I raised my hand again and stared at the back of it, as if half-believing I might actually see the nanites jumping under the surface of my skin like fleas.

  ‘So where are they?’

  ‘Everywhere,’ he said, as if enjoying my discomfort. His smile widened. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get used to them – or the idea of them, at any rate. And they do nothing but good. It’s all thanks to them you’re here talking to me.’

  ‘So what do they do exactly? Apart from bring you back from the dead?’

  ‘They repair you. Anything goes wrong with your body, they rush in and make it right again.’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Within reason. As long as your injuries aren’t too severe. I mean, you get your head lopped off or you get smashed to bits by a tube train, that’s your lot. But anything less drastic, they’ll keep your system ticking over and undertake instant repairs. They’re a preventative measure against cancer, heart attacks, strokes…’ He wagged his finger at me. ‘But that doesn’t mean you’re immortal. The nanites have their limits, plus they won’t last forever. Even they’re not immune to entropy.’

  ‘What about when I use the heart?’ I asked.

  His smile reappeared. ‘That’s the beauty of it. You can use it more or less with impunity now. It will still make you feel ill, but the nanites will repair you, and quickly. This is the freedom I know you’ve been looking for. The magic formula. The big turning point.’ His smile became a grin. ‘Feels good, doesn’t it?’

  I stared at him in wonder. Yes, it did feel good. More than that, it felt wonderful. It opened up a whole new vista of possibilities.

  ‘So what do I do now?’

  He grabbed my hand, and at first I thought he was going to squeeze it, or clasp it between both of his, but then I felt something hard and cold and weighty being pressed into my palm.

  I knew what it was immediately. The obsidian heart. It moulded itself to the cup of my hand as though that was its natural resting place.

  ‘You go on,’ he said. ‘You pick up your journey where you left off, and you go on, and you get through it.’

  He said nothing more, but I could see in his eyes just how tough this next stage of my life would be, and how it troubled him, and how he pitied me.

  ‘Is it going to be really bad?’ I asked.

  His face seemed to sag, as though he’d been trying his best, but was no longer able to hold back the terrible weight of memory. At first I thought he wasn’t going to answer me, and then finally he said, ‘If you’re careful, and if you’re lucky, you’ll get through it.’

  There was a part of me that wished I had died. A part of me that wished I didn’t have to do this. But I had no choice. If I wanted to keep my life on track, if I wanted to prevent a catastrophe that would affect not just me personally, but those I loved, I had to travel back in time, almost two centuries, to 1914.

  I had to meet and befriend a man called Frank Martin.

  I had to fight alongside him in the trenches of the First World War.

  I had to watch him die, and then I had to use the heart that I now clutched in my hand to bring him back to life.

  TWO

  YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU!

  ‘Oi, you! Yes you, you little runt! How old are you then? Bloody Hun’ll have you for breakfast, son, and still have room for seconds.’

  The voice was raucous, the tone ugly, and the laughter that followed it uglier still
. I stepped to my right, peering ahead of me, up the length of the long queue of men stretching all the way down the street and around the corner from the recruiting station.

  It was August 14th 1914, and Britain had been at war with Germany for just over a week. Despite the season it was cold and drizzly, the men who were waiting in line with me hunched against the blustery, side-swiping wind, caps or trilbies on their heads, fags hanging out of their mouths, hands jammed into their pockets. We looked like an audition queue for an Andy Capp movie. The thought made me smile, though if I’d voiced it I’d have been met with blank faces, as it’d be another forty-odd years before the character would make his debut in The Daily Mirror cartoon strip. During the week or so I’d spent in this time period, acclimatising to the unfamiliar surroundings, I had come to the conclusion that the early twentieth century was a time of bad suits and bad haircuts. Most of the clothes the men wore (mine included) were grey and baggy, the trousers sagging at knee and crotch, the waistbands high and so loose that if they hadn’t been held up by braces they’d have been puddling around our ankles. Beneath their shapeless, workaday jackets, a lot of the men wore home-knit jumpers over grubby white shirts, their Adam’s apples bobbing above tightly knotted ties.

  The men of Great Britain had greeted the declaration of war with a kind of gung-ho euphoria that was terrifying to behold. From my viewpoint their naivety seemed child-like, no doubt based on the fact that, in this day and age, information about the harsh realities of war was very much at a premium. There was no Internet, no TV, very few movies. There weren’t even many photographs – not ones that were publicly available at any rate – and the newspapers I’d eagerly sought out were composed of little more than dry facts, densely and tediously presented.

  People didn’t seem to read books all that much either – not the general workforce, at any rate. The penny serials, or penny dreadfuls, which recounted lurid tales of pirates and highwaymen, had been popular during Victoria’s reign, and were still popular, but even the works of, say, Charles Dickens were priced beyond the pockets of most working people. And though contemporary writers like James Joyce, Thomas Hardy and E.M. Forster were becoming more well known, books still tended on the whole to be heavy, daunting things, used by the rich to line the shelves of their libraries and read only by scholars and academics.