The Wraiths of War

by Mark Morris

  As the shape-shifter’s rope-like appendage rose almost gracefully from my pocket, its tip curled around the ‘old’ heart like a long black finger, I tried to project my will into the heart, tried to impel it to react, to burst into life and fight back.

  But nothing happened. Either the heart was too weak and decrepit to respond or it needed a physical link between us to do so – needed, effectively, to match its energy to mine to complete a circuit and create a charge.

  When the door to Lyn’s room smashed open, I assumed at first that the shape-shifter had ripped it from its hinges, perhaps prior to making its escape. Turning my head towards the sound, however, my chin scraping the carpet, I saw the door had been shoved open from the outside and that Dr Bruce was now standing on the threshold, her arms outspread, her eyes wide and fixed, as if her mind, presented with the impossible sight in front of her, had checked out, shut down.

  I opened my mouth, intending to shout a warning to her to get out, but then an extraordinary thing happened: Dr Bruce’s body began to glow. It flared into life like an energy-saving light bulb, and within seconds was glowing so brightly that I could no longer make out the doctor’s features; could only, in fact, vaguely discern the shape of her body within the nimbus of radiance that engulfed her.

  Just as extraordinary as the light emanating from her was the fact that the shape-shifter was reacting to it, shrinking back. The tendrils of its tarry flesh that were closest to her body were flinching and drawing themselves in like a slug poked with a stick.

  And then, like the shape-shifter before her, Dr Bruce’s body exploded. Light erupted up and out of it, though it was a light that seemed sinuous, thick, purposeful. It was as if lava, bursting from a volcano, had become sentient; as if molten rock was creating a semi-fluid, multi-limbed form for itself. I saw it fly at the shape-shifter, gained a fleeting impression of two vast leviathans clashing together in combat. Then the radiance became overwhelming; my eyes began to smart, and I was forced to shut them.

  I lay prone and unmoving as the battle raged above me. At least, I assumed it was raging; the combatants were silent. Indeed, I felt encased in silence – a silence that was profound, that blocked my senses; a silence that was like being underwater, or sinking in mud. I only knew the battle was over when the silence was broken by the discordant clamour of breaking glass, and I suddenly realised that I could move, that the tendrils that had been pinning me to the floor had released their grip on me. Groggy and bruised, I sat up and tentatively opened my eyes.

  I was facing the row of windows overlooking the hospital grounds, one of which – the one the shape-shifter had been sitting beside when I’d entered the room – had burst outwards in a cascade of shattered glass. Not only that, but the anti-suicide bars across the window had been snapped and twisted back as if they were sticks of liquorice. Through the window I could see a long, undulating ribbon of black birds – crows perhaps – staining the dusky sky. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I got the impression they were ragged, panicked, in retreat. Within seconds the flock had become a speck in the distance, and then it was gone.

  Shifting my attention back to the room, I saw Dr Bruce lying on the carpet at the foot of the bed. She was on her back, arms outspread, her white coat open like wings beneath her. Her eyes were closed and her thin, freckled face looked even paler than usual, but she was breathing slowly and steadily. Nestled in her right palm was the heart.

  Dropping onto my hands and knees, I shuffled towards her. ‘Dr Bruce,’ I said, and touched her shoulder. ‘Dr Bruce, can you hear me?’

  ‘Alex?’

  The voice came not from the doctor, but from behind me. I half-twisted to see Lyn emerging from beneath the bed. She looked confused, groggy, though I could see no blood or bruises on her face, no obvious injuries.

  ‘Hey,’ I said gently. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Can’t you remember?’

  She half-shuffled, half-rolled all the way out from beneath the bed and levered herself into a sitting position. But then, as if the effort had been too much, she slumped back against the bed frame, blinking, and put a hand to her forehead.

  ‘Whoa,’ she said, her voice thick and slightly slurred. ‘I feel dizzy. And a bit sick.’

  ‘Deep breaths,’ I said, as I clambered to my feet. For a few seconds I felt dizzy too, but then it passed. I crossed the room and went out of the open door to the small bathroom on the opposite side of the corridor. At the side of the sink Lyn’s yellow toothbrush was standing upright in a transparent plastic cup. I removed the toothbrush, rinsed out the cup and filled it with water. Then I crossed back into her room, walked across to the bed and crouched beside her slumped body.

  ‘Here you go,’ I said, handing her the cup. ‘Drink this. Sip it slowly.’

  She took the cup with a trembling hand. ‘Thanks.’ After several long sips of water, some of which trickled down her chin, she lowered her arm until the cup was resting on her thigh, and tilted her head back.

  ‘Better?’ I watched her closely, hoping that whatever had happened to her wouldn’t set back the progress she’d been making in recent weeks.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, though she sounded drowsy. ‘Much, thanks.’

  I wondered again whether to ask her what had happened, then decided against it. I didn’t want to push her. If she wanted to tell me she’d do so in her own time. Leaving her to recover, I moved across to Dr Bruce, took the heart gently from her limp palm and dropped it into my jacket pocket. I touched her shoulder and said her name again, but she didn’t respond. I hesitated a moment, then slid one arm beneath her neck and the other beneath her knees, and lifted her up. She was heavier than expected – or perhaps I was weaker than I’d thought – and at first, as I straightened up, I staggered forward, thinking I was going to drop her. Then I recovered, and carried her over to the bed. I laid her gently on top of the duvet.

  ‘What’s happened to Dr Bruce?’ Lyn asked.

  ‘She’s going to be fine,’ I said. ‘She saved us.’

  ‘From what?’

  I hesitated, then decided to risk it. ‘The Dark Man.’

  Lyn was silent for a moment, then she asked, ‘How did he escape?’

  I crouched in front of her, took her hand in mine, and said gently, ‘He tricked me. I was careless. But he won’t get far. He’s weak and we’re strong. He’s scared of us.’

  ‘I saw a light,’ said Lyn, and she lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Was it Dr Bruce?’

  ‘Yes.’

  It was hard to read her expression, to judge how all of this was affecting her. I consoled myself with the thought that at least she wasn’t catatonic, or panicking, or obviously scared. Levelly she asked, ‘What is she?’

  ‘She’s… a guardian,’ I replied, saying the first thing that came into my head. ‘She’s here to protect you.’

  I glanced at Dr Bruce, who was still sleeping peacefully. Lyn’s question was a good one. Who or what was Dr Bruce? Could she be my equivalent to the Dark Man’s shape-shifter? Had a future version of me, using the heart, either created my own shape-shifter to protect Lyn, or imbued the doctor with shape-shifting powers? She had clearly been stronger than the Dark Man’s shape-shifter – but why? Because she had been created with the ‘young’ heart, whereas the Dark Man had created his Wolves using a heart that was older, weaker? Could this also explain why Frank had been able to repel the shape-shifter’s assault in the basement of Commer House? It all seemed to add up – and it made me think again of what my future self had told me when he’d stopped me from preventing Kate’s abduction: that I didn’t have to be a victim, that I could create my own destiny.

  Perhaps, then, the Dark Man had created his Wolves of London only when he had realised the power of his obsidian heart was waning, and that to hold on to it he might need guardians to protect him, or warriors to fight for him. And so in retaliation I had created – or would create – my own ‘Wolves’ using the heart when it wa
s younger, stronger, more powerful.

  If this was true, then it was a delicate balance of power – and one which at this moment was tilted in the Dark Man’s favour. Was the fact that he was currently in possession of the younger, more powerful heart, whereas I was lumbered with the older, weaker version simply part of the existing timeline or a dangerous variation on previously established events that might, for me, have far-reaching and disastrous consequences?

  Whatever the answer, Dr Bruce’s timely intervention had taught me one thing – that I couldn’t be complacent; that as long as I knew there was still work to be done, I couldn’t simply sit back, accept my lot and hope for the best.

  No, I had to be proactive. In order to set events back on the ‘right’ path (as I saw it anyway) I had to pursue the Dark Man; I had to do all I could to retrieve ‘my’ heart.

  ‘Where did she come from?’ Lyn was asking. ‘How did she know about the Dark Man?’

  ‘The heart gave her some of its powers,’ I said, wondering whether, by speaking the words, I was making them true. ‘Dr Bruce doesn’t know about the Dark Man, not consciously anyway, but the part of the heart that was sleeping inside her knew that she would be here to protect you if ever you needed it.’

  Lyn’s wide-eyed expression made me think of a child whose imagination had been captured by a fairy story. ‘And she did protect me, didn’t she?’

  I nodded. ‘She did.’

  Lyn twisted her head to look at Dr Bruce’s serenely sleeping face. ‘Will she be all right?’

  ‘She’ll be fine. She won’t remember anything about what happened. When she wakes up she’ll carry on as normal. She won’t even wonder why she’s been asleep on your bed.’

  Lyn turned back to look at me. ‘So what do we do now, Alex?’

  I felt a flash of déjà vu, only this time it was the real Lyn I was talking to. ‘We go after the Dark Man. We hunt him down. Because we’re stronger than he is. Together we’re stronger, and we can beat him. Do you believe that?’

  Her eyes gazed into mine, and for a moment I saw, quite clearly, the beautiful young woman I had fallen in love with. Then she nodded, breaking the spell. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I believe you.’

  I slipped my hand into my jacket pocket, withdrew the heart and pressed it into her hand. She put down her cup of water and wrapped both hands around it, as if it was a small animal she had been instructed to protect.

  In turn I wrapped my own, larger hands around hers.

  ‘Find him, Lyn,’ I told her, and leaned in to kiss her forehead. ‘Find the Dark Man.’

  FIFTEEN

  PUNCH AND JUDY

  It was only the second time I’d travelled using the Dark Man’s old heart, and as before, it was a rough ride. It was like being administered with a drug that scrambled both my senses and all notion of linear time, whilst simultaneously being hurled around on a particularly violent fairground Waltzer.

  After a pummelling, bruising journey that seemed, conversely, both instantaneous and interminable, I found myself deposited… where? With my senses mostly out of action, all I had to cling to at first was the vague notion that I had a solid surface beneath me, and another one at my back. As self-awareness slowly returned, I realised two things: one, that the surface behind me was cold and hard and smooth – a wall? – and two, that I was sliding down it, as if my unresponsive legs were crumpling under the weight of my upper body.

  Was Lyn with me? I had no idea. I blinked my eyes, but my vision stubbornly refused to clear. I wasn’t blind; I could see moving shapes, shifting light, colours that bled into one another. But I couldn’t make sense of anything. And neither could I pick out individual sounds from the clamour that filled my head. I tried to call out, but didn’t know whether I’d managed to make the sound that I’d intended, or even whether I’d moved my lips. I felt detached from too much of my body.

  And then a black, crippling wave of nausea surged up through me, overwhelmed me, and even my limited sense of my surroundings dissolved for… how long? Seconds? Minutes? I stayed conscious, though, which I told myself was a good thing – even if the notion of oblivion did at that moment seem preferable to how I was feeling.

  Eventually – though in truth it may only have been seconds – the wretchedness in which I felt I was drowning began to ebb. Thank God for nanites, I thought, spluttering to the surface, certain that without their protection, and with the heart in the condition it was, I’d probably be dead of acute organ failure by now, the journey having damaged my system beyond repair. This time when I blinked my vision began to clear, the blurred shapes in front of my eyes becoming more sharply defined. At the same time the clamour in my ears began to separate into individual sounds, a weave of words spoken in a mixture of human voices. It was chatter, conversation. I was in the midst of a crowd. I could hear laughter, the chink of glasses. A party? Then I became aware that one voice was louder than the rest, and its tone was different – not jovial, but shot through with a shrill edge of distress. It was repeating one word over and over. A short syllable followed by a letter. Al. X. Al. X.

  At once my fuzzy thoughts tuned in, as if I’d broken through the membrane of sleep and snapped back into the waking world.

  Alex. That was what the speaker was saying. My name!

  I suddenly became aware that my arm was hurting, that it was being squeezed as though in a vice.

  ‘Ow,’ I said.

  A pale oval loomed in front of me. Something black blossomed in it.

  ‘Alex.’ I realised that the black thing was a mouth. ‘Alex, can you hear me?’

  ‘Lyn,’ I said, and as if I’d uttered the magic word the pale oval became her face. She looked scared, confused, her eyes flickering with panic. The vice crushing my arm was her hand, wrapped around my wrist and clinging on as if she feared I might disappear like smoke if she let go.

  ‘Alex,’ she said. ‘We’ve moved. We’re not where we were. I don’t know what’s happening.’

  Her voice was thin and shrill. I cursed myself for not preparing her better, though in fairness there hadn’t been time.

  ‘I know,’ I said, ‘but it’s all right. The heart’s looking after us. It brought us here to find the Dark Man.’ Then a thought struck me. ‘Where is the heart, by the way?’

  Irritably, as if I was worrying about trivialities, she patted my jacket with her free hand. ‘It’s in your pocket. I put it back there when we… arrived.’

  My faculties were returning quickly now. I thought I’d come round to find myself sitting on the floor, but in fact I was slumped in a chair beside a small round table, Lyn across from me, so close our knees were touching. Had I found the chair myself, perhaps guided by some instinct of self-preservation, or had Lyn helped me into it? Certainly she seemed less affected by the rigours of the journey than I was, physically at least. Once again then, it seemed that even though I had handed the initiative to find the Dark Man over to her, I was the one who had suffered the brunt of the heart’s effects – presumably because, as its guardian, it was my mind, my energy, my resources it had linked with and utilised to bring us here.

  But where was ‘here’? I looked blearily around, absorbing what information I could.

  There were lots of people and noise. The people were drinking and smoking, and mostly paying us not the slightest attention. There was a bar to our left, a crowd gathered around it, waiting to get served. There were plenty of other small tables, like the one beside us, with laughing, chattering groups seated around them.

  A pub. We were in a pub. But the air was thick with smoke; it hung over us like a blue-grey net. And only a few people were talking or texting on mobile phones. But they were not the sleek smartphones that most people carried about nowadays. These were chunky little grey Nokias, like the first phone I’d owned back in… when was it? The early 2000s?

  I was trying to remember when the smoking ban had come in – 2005? 2006? – when Lyn said, ‘But the Dark Man’s not here. He can’t be. But we’re here
.’

  She looked stricken. Not just scared now, but terrified. Her statement was odd. It didn’t quite seem to make sense. Was she losing it?

  I took her hand in mine as if to anchor her, the one that wasn’t still squeezing my arm hard enough to leave bruises. Gently I said, ‘Yes, we are here, Lyn. But the Dark Man must be close by too. Otherwise the heart wouldn’t have brought us.’

  She shook her head rapidly from side to side. ‘No, no, I don’t mean we’re here. Me and you. I mean…’ But her voice petered out, as if she couldn’t find a way to express herself. She scowled in frustration, then half-rose from her seat, tugging at my arm to get me to stand with her. ‘Look. Look.’

  ‘Look at what?’ I said, allowing myself to be pulled upright in order to humour her, to stop her becoming more manic than she already was.

  ‘I have to show you something.’

  ‘Can’t you tell me?’

  ‘No, I have to show you.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said gently, ‘but try to be calm. Take a couple of deep breaths.’

  For a moment she looked at me uncomprehendingly. Then her taut features relaxed a little.

  ‘I’m fine, Alex. Really. It’s just… well, I’m freaked out by this.’ She wafted an arm to indicate our surroundings. ‘But no more than anyone else would be in my situation.’

  I smiled and said, ‘I’m sorry. This is my fault. I should have prepared you for this. I meant to, but everything was a bit… frantic.’

  She nodded distractedly and tugged at my arm again. ‘Just look at this and tell me I’m not delusional.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There, look. Over on that table near the door to the Ladies. Tell me what you see.’

  She was deliberately keeping her face averted from whatever she wanted me to look at, as though afraid the sight might send her over the edge. I swept my gaze across the chattering throng of people. Using the door to the Ladies as a marker, I glanced down…