Black Feathers

by Joseph D'lacey

  Hard on the outside, thought Skelton. Soft on the inside. And mine. All mine.

  The cell system below the Monmouth substation was extensive but by no means the largest Skelton had seen. Many in London were four or even five times the size. There were mass holding cells for those just passing through and single cells for longer-term collectees. There were enough well-equipped interview rooms that twenty individuals could be processed simultaneously. An incinerator ran day and night to accommodate waste.

  Skelton still hoped keeping the Blacks under lock and key might be enough of a lure to bring the lost little boy in. Gordon was no street kid and he was used to the love and attention of his kin. A boy alone in the countryside or in the town with the nights drawing in: how long would his nerve hold? How long before he ran back to Mummy? Long before he reached the four cells where the Blacks were held, Skelton had formed a plan. He would keep them all alive for a little while longer.

  Pike walked a little behind him, almost like a dog at heel, disciplined, dangerous and loyal. Skelton grinned to himself but the movement in his facial muscles caused him to wince in pain. He couldn’t think of his robbed left eye without hate squirting into his veins from some deep poison gland he hadn’t known he possessed. God, but he would make the boy suffer when he got hold of him.

  Skelton and Pike stood on the gravel outside the Black residence and waited for the final search to be completed. This time the ten Wardsmen inside the house were leaving nothing untouched. They arrived with hammers and crowbars. Doors were torn off their hinges. Walls were stripped of their paper in search of hidden stores. The attic was scoured and so was the basement. Floorboards were lifted. Carpets ripped up. Everything of value was removed.

  Skelton listened with satisfaction at the sound of breaking wood and glass. All the while he worried the edges of his bandage, trying to get at the itch beneath it. As the day passed, his finger had wormed under the tape, and his nail could now agitate the crusty black stitches at the outer edge of his left eye. The itch never quite went away, and his fingernail explored deeper all the time.

  Pike watched without expression, but twice during the day when food was offered, he turned it down and Skelton gleefully devoured the taller man’s portion, not noticing the grey pallor of Pike’s sunken cheeks. Nor did Skelton notice the watery gruel of pus on his cheek until a drop pattered to his lapel, causing him to fumble for his hanky and mop his face and coat. Even this didn’t prevent his finger from seeking to explore the maddening pruritis where his eye had been.

  “Shame about Angela Black,” Skelton mused. “We could have used her.”

  Pike shrugged.

  “She wouldn’t have lasted long on the road anyway,” he said.

  “I suppose not. Frustrating, though, Pike, because she’d have made a difference. Didn’t take much to turn her. She must have hated her brother, eh?”

  Pike said nothing.

  “And then she dies. Without her, luring him in will be that much harder.”

  “We can use the other one,” said Pike in monotone.

  “I don’t know. Judith Black will take some persuading, I think.”

  “So let’s persuade her.”

  Pike’s eyes caught Skelton’s and momentarily flickered with dead light. Skelton’s heart raced to see it. He was about to ask Pike about his proposed methods when Knowles, one of the Monmouth Wardsmen, trotted up to them.

  “There’s no sign of the boy. Doesn’t look like he’s been back. We found some more hoarded items behind a panel in the attic – food, water and ammunition for the shotgun. There was cash under the floorboards in the study. Other than that, nothing.”

  “Remove everything of value,” said Skelton. “Then take all their animals into the house.”

  The Wardsmen worked with less enthusiasm to bring the hens, geese, goats and pig indoors, even though the animals were tame and didn’t particularly resist. None of the men were able to avoid muddying or fouling their otherwise pristine grey raincoats. Skelton grinned at their muttered oaths. Even Pike’s teeth peeped, a brief flash of tainted ivory, from behind his flat lips for a moment. When Skelton moved off towards the rear of the property, Pike followed, his limp unimproved. As they made their way between the apple trees towards the green door in the garden wall, Knowles caught up to them.

  “What now, Sheriff Skelton?”

  “Burn it. But don’t hang around watching the fire like a bunch of kids. I want you to recommence the search immediately. Exactly as I’ve outlined. Understood?”

  Knowles frowned.

  “Shouldn’t the animals be redistributed?” he asked.

  Skelton leaned close, causing Knowles to recoil.

  “The sooner the people starve, the sooner they’ll do as they’re told.”

  “Yes, Sheriff.”

  “Pike and I will retrace the boy’s last footsteps before he disappeared. I want to see if he’s left anything behind.”

  “The bridleway?” asked Knowles.

  “Correct.”

  “But we’ve already checked that very thoroughly, Sheriff.”

  “I want to see it for myself.”

  Knowles appeared to be about to add something before deciding against it. What he actually said was:

  “If you need any assistance out there, Sheriff, I’ll send whoever’s nearest.”

  “We’ll be just fine, thank you, Knowles.” Skelton watched Knowles nod, about-face and hurry back to Hamblaen House. “I don’t like that man.”

  Pike shrugged and forced open the green door. This time the hinges of the garden entrance gave up and the door fell out of its rotting frame. Pike let it drop to the ground and Skelton stepped through. Rags of black smoke began to rise from the house and, for a moment, he watched as the flames lanced up below twisting smoke-devils. Skelton turned away and waddled towards the bridleway as the first squeals and bleats of panic escaped the house. After a few paces, he glanced back to check on Pike. The grim cast of his partner’s face was like a sculpture.

  The tunnel mouth came into view around a bend, marking the end of the bridleway.

  Skelton reached it first and began to check the area. He stopped and stood straight when he heard Pike’s uneven gait over the rough, weed-infested ground. The man approached with his good leg taking a decent-sized, straight step, but he had to lift his wounded leg by raising his hip and swinging it forwards. Regardless of this encumbrance, Pike moved like a thing programmed. He was focussed and inexorable and it was beautiful to watch him, advancing as though he was wrought of pistons and gears and unyielding, lifeless materials. The man was terrifying. Never had a human been so much like an engine. Pike was his tool, his machine, fuelled by duty, loyalty and the desire to inflict pain. Pike would always do exactly as he was told. Skelton’s heart beat a little faster.

  When Pike arrived, there was a tiny slick of sweat at his hairline. He looked a little nauseous but said nothing.

  “So, this is where he ran to?” asked Skelton.

  He watched Pike’s brain replaying the events.

  “He came up this path but he was ahead of me, making ground. I lost sight of him.”

  “Do you know how far he came? Did he make it to the tunnel?”

  “I can’t say.”

  Skelton nodded to himself, lips clamped tight. They’d come close and they’d missed a very good opportunity. If anyone else had allowed the same thing to happen, Skelton would have made sure they were disciplined. But the ferocity of the boy’s attack had taken them both by surprise. The fourteen year-old, and a puny one at that, had shown real fight. Still, they were forewarned now; Gordon Black would never surprise them again, nor would they ever be under-prepared for an encounter with him.

  Skelton glanced around and noticed how a space near the tunnel’s mouth had been cleared of rocks. Looking closer, he found entry marks in the ground.

  “He must have slept here,” he said, pointing. “Far enough away that he’d be out of sight but near enough to easily ret
urn.”

  Pike saw the marks too.

  “What did he do with his tent?” he asked.

  Skelton looked around.

  “What would you have done?”

  Pike gestured with his chin into the darkness of the tunnel.

  “Quite right. There’s nowhere else except the ditch under the hedges. But why risk getting wet gear when you’ve a perfectly dry place right beside you?”

  “Then why didn’t he pitch tent in the tunnel? Safer. Drier. Out of the elements.”

  “Fear, Pike. Fear of the dark. He camped here and returned to the house, leaving his gear stashed inside the tunnel. He had to come this way in order to pick up his stuff.”

  Pike shook his head.

  “Why lead us straight to it? Wouldn’t he have hidden somewhere else until we’d gone and then come back?”

  Skelton could see the logic, but what difference did it make?

  “He still had to come back here at some point, whether we were here or not. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “So when he came back what did he do?”

  “He went into the tunnel to fetch his gear,” said Pike.

  “Let’s take a look.”

  The tunnel’s opening gaped like a monstrous throat, and Skelton hesitated, experiencing a moment of unease as he crossed its threshold. Chained in the flooded dungeon of his subconscious, a paralysing fear of the dark writhed like a vast eel. He’d done much to overcome his weaknesses over the years, to forget them – Ward training had eradicated almost all of them – but something about the silent, observant life in darkness still disturbed him. Mastering himself, lest Pike notice his nervousness, he strode into the blackness.

  Only a few paces in, he stopped. The light of day plainly showed recent disturbance to the ground.

  “What do you make of that, Pike?”

  The giant moved in closer, his limp eliciting pride and protectiveness in Skelton – and something else he wasn’t ready to name. From his lofty vantage Pike surveyed the earth beneath their feet.

  “There was a disturbance here. Not a fight. More of a struggle.” Pike’s eyes roved the shadowy tunnel mouth; he switched on his torch. “This is the print of a size ten, standard-issue Ward brogue. Over here, the prints of smaller hiking boots.” After a few more seconds he made eye contact with Skelton then looked away. He retreated towards the light. “The boy was here. He went up against one of ours. Neither was seriously hurt.”

  Skelton moved after him, glad to leave the sucking darkness behind.

  “Wait, Pike. What else?”

  “That’s it.”

  “But if neither was injured, what happened?”

  Pike’s words were a flat hiss of escaping pressure.

  “Someone let him go.”

  “Not one of our men,” said Skelton.

  “Couldn’t be,” said Pike.

  “One of the Monmouth crew, then.”

  Pike’s silence said it all. Skelton knew his partner believed in the Ward. It was his life. The very purpose of his existence. Even to utter an accusation toward another within its ranks was to commit some small betrayal of the whole. The Ward existed in every nation of the world, and their remit was to protect the world from the coming age of darkness at any and all costs. Now that the prophecies showed England to be the land from which the darkness would spread, the mission had fallen to Skelton and Pike. The responsibility rested squarely on their shoulders. Pike, Skelton knew, carried that burden in a very special way – it was like a power source. The idea that one among them might have made a mistake was shame enough. To think that they had a traitor in their number was far worse. Pike took it personally. Everything was personal with Pike.

  “And I think I’ve an idea who it might be,” said Skelton.

  Pike ignored this.

  “We need to search the tunnel.”

  Skelton cleared his throat.

  “You and I can’t do it,” he said. “We don’t have the equipment.”

  Skelton reached into his pocket and withdrew his grey mobile. One bar of reception winked in and out of existence. He dialled Knowles but the call failed three times. Instinctively, he looked into the sky. There was nothing to see, of course. He threw the phone into the hedge.

  “What are you doing?” asked Pike.

  “Accepting the facts,” said Skelton. “Haven’t had a signal anywhere we’ve been for a week. Christ knows what we’ll use from now on. Bloody carrier pigeons or something.”

  He walked away. Pike followed, the sound of his footsteps determined but broken.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “To fetch some high-power torches and a few more men,” said Skelton.

  Pike grunted behind him and stopped. Skelton turned back.

  “What is it?” He asked.

  “Make sure Knowles is one of them,” said Pike.

  44

  The rain fell steady and hard, and soon the comfort and dryness of the previous few days was a distant memory.

  Gordon tried not to think about the events which brought those dry, safe days to an end. But from time to time a flash of the strangest or most painful of those moments would enter his mind and blot everything out: the mutilation of Brooke’s hands, the sound her father made when he found her, the blood caked to her buttocks and the backs of her thighs, the smell of the earth as they dug her grave.

  When he was angry, and he was angry for much of the time, he remembered how the attackers had died. Death had been almost comical: a man trying to pick a tiny pellet from the artery in his neck, a raging man speaking of love. And the one Gordon had killed. What he remembered of that was only the sensation of punching his knife blade hard and high and the disbelief at its effectiveness. He was fairly sure the tip of the knife had stopped against the man’s spine. So deep. So very, very deep. He could recall the intimate warmth of the man’s blood coating his right hand, but he didn’t even know his victim’s name.

  He expected the rain to chill him, but it did not. Wherever his new power came from, it made him warm as well as strong. His pace never faltered, though he climbed both gentle and steep slopes. And though the rain slickened the rocks and turned the earth to mud, his footsteps were sure and solid. His waterproof jacket had a peaked hood, which he tightened to his head with hidden straps, and it kept most of the rain out of his face.

  He chewed smoked game as he walked. Around him the world was cloaked in swirling cloud, low and grey and heavy with moisture. Sometimes the landscape emerged, to reveal moments of deep-green vegetation or glistening black rock, perhaps a distant grove of trees or glimpse into a valley, but mostly the world was shrouded and wet, and Gordon was glad not to see too far into it. He put as much distance between himself and his past as possible. Somewhere, the Ward were searching for him; on the path behind him right now, perhaps. He would walk and he would search until he found the Crowman. Only that could save his family. It was the one thing worth doing in the world.

  Either that or lie down and give up.

  45

  After three days of walking with barely a break, Gordon’s newfound strength had waned and his hike became a trudge. He watched for signs of followers and other travellers but saw none. Exhaustion settled on him and when he found a decent spot, he decided to stop a while and build himself up again. He pitched his tent in the shelter of an outcropping of smooth stone. The rock formed a barrier against the wind, which was strong everywhere else on the hillside, and the overhang kept the rain off.

  The view east from his camp was expansive.

  Standing on the far side of his fire, approaching a ledge which gave onto a steep drop, the space between him and the horizon was abundant with England’s varied splendour, and yet the land was somehow drab and spent-looking. Immediately below the ledge were the leafless tops of trees on a steep hillside. Their canopy angled swiftly away from him – to fall from the ledge would be to break every bone long before he hit the ground. Beyond the deciduous forest
there was a thicker band of pine, richly green despite the approach of winter. Beyond that, only visible in a few places, was a dark snake of river, this side wild, the other flatter and more habitable. There was a small town beyond the flood plains of the river. Gordon could see the steeple of a church and plenty of houses.

  On the roads around the village no cars were moving. All seemed still. Beyond the town and its environs, the land rolled out in a patchwork of sick-looking fields. There was a dullness over the Earth and he couldn’t put it down to the cloud-filtered light. In the distance to the left and right were other villages and hamlets, and far away, almost straight ahead, there was a larger city skyline, little of which could he make out. The closer to the horizon his gaze travelled, the more low vapour was in the air and the less distinct were the features of the land. At the edge of his visible semi-circle of world, the land and sky merged in a haze.

  Far to his left, which was north, and on this side of the river, a thin genie of smoke rose above the pine forest. From here it was impossible to tell if there was a house hidden by the trees or a bonfire or someone’s camp. He had the feeling it was the latter, however – the middle of a wood was a better place to hide than it was to build a home. Going to the town was too risky and unpredictable. It could be crawling with the Ward. Taking a peek at the wooded encampment seemed a far safer option.

  When he’d regained his strength, he planned to investigate.

  Smoke rose from the pine trees all day.

  Gordon spent time climbing the smooth-skinned rocks overhanging his camp and wandering from place to place on the hillside. He found thickets laden with sloe berries and filled his pockets with the ones he didn’t eat straight away. Every now and again he would stop and scan the land around him for movement. All he ever noticed was the same thin wraith of smoke above the pines, sometimes pushed over by the wind, others rising vertically before thinning into nothingness against the ash-grey sky.