by P M Cole
Lucas looked at me. "This was the plan, Cog. We have to go!”
“No!” I screamed and jumped from the steps back to the hallway floor, to a few feet from Charlotte who was wavering. Another stream of magic leapt from her, but this time it hit Hades and fizzled out. She fell to her knees.
“Go!” she said. “I can’t hold him off much longer!”
I ignored her pleas and tried to pull her to her feet, but instead a hammer-like fist slammed into me, sending me spiralling through the air and into the nearby wall. As my consciousness flickered, I watched Hades grab hold of the elderly sorceress, picking her up like a doll. He looked at me as he held her, a smile on his demonic face, then turned and threw her into the gateway to the other place, just before it shrunk out of existence.
Despite the pain and anguish flowing through my person, I staggered back to my feet and watched as Lucas and Daniel stepped towards the demon, blue fire cascading from the warlock and bathing Hades in intense heat, while Daniel's eyes were aflame, trying to consume the demon with pestilence and disease, but I could see both their efforts were going to be in vain. We had lost.
I focused my pain and got to my feet. Hades lunged forward towards the two men fighting for their lives, when a stream of metal formed in front of him, forming a wall, which he slammed into. It bulged, but I quickly wrapped the three inches of iron around him, pulling more metal towards it, thickening the barrier. I fell forwards towards the stairs. “Come on!” I shouted to Lucas and Daniel. They turned and pulled me up the stairs with them. Behind us the sound of metal warping and snapping rang out. As we rang along the landing, I tried to keep pulling the metal beams and pipes towards Hades, but he was breaking free as soon as they tried to restrict his movement.
We ran into the attic room. Downstairs we could hear the demon crashing up the stairs towards us. I was sure I could hear it calling my name. We staggered out onto the roof, where the dirigible’s cabin door was open, the large craft floating above us. The floor shook as if a tornado was let loose within the walls of Wraith manor. We climbed aboard and I sat in the pilot's seat, instantly increasing the power the steam engine was putting out, and we started to climb then stopped, jolting back to the ground.
“The rope!” I shouted.
Lucas pushed the door open and jumped out to the rooftop and ran to the reason we weren’t flying any higher.
Part of the roof disintegrated in an explosion of brick, wood, and iron, some of which hit the side of the dirigible sending us veering away. I looked back. What was left of the rope was still in Lucas’s hands, but he was half-buried under a heap of masonry.
I tried to steer us back towards the roof, when pinging noises accompanied sparks off the outside of the metal cabin. We looked down at the grounds filled with dark shapes of people and intermittent flashes of light.
“They’re firing at us!” shouted Daniel.
I looked back at the roof. There was a rumbling as bricks fell away and from the destroyed doorway to the attic, Hades emerged, looking up at us then back down to Lucas some yards from him.
I threw the throttle forward. The pistons surged in power, making the propellers spin even faster, and I banked us heavily towards the roof. We were accelerating quickly; I would only get one chance at this.
“What are you doing! We have to leave!” Colin shouted.
“He’s right Corine, fly us higher!”
“I’m not losing someone else tonight!”
I pressed a small button on the control panel, and a small door full of nails and other assembled small shafts of metal dropped with gravity, where I took control of them, and sent them with added vigour towards our attackers on the ground.
I struggled to keep us moving straight as we neared the roof, such was our forward velocity. “Take the control!” I said to Colin. He lunged for the wheel as I climbed out of my seat. “Just stop us from getting too low!”
I moved to the cabin door and kicked it open, then dangled my legs outside and pulled on a lever in the door frame. The glass of the window next to my head splintered as a bullet ricocheted off it.
A metal ladder fell out below me. I dropped a few rungs before catching one and kept on moving lower as the roof rushed towards me.
Hades realised what we were attempting to do and lunged towards Lucas who still hadn’t moved. Before the demon had taken his second step, the floor beneath him gave way and the metal beams and nails which I had been concentrating on, pulled him down into the building, while dust and debris flew up the other way.
“Keep it steady!” I cried out above, as the bottom of the ladder landed on the roof and I ran along, holding it with one hand, then got to where Lucas was. I frantically pulled the bricks from him and when I could see all of his body, his legs bloodied and twisted, I let go of the ladder and concentrated, causing the metal rungs to stretch and wrap around him. The ladder then sprung into the air taking the warlock with it. Like a spring recoiling it swept him upwards to the cabin door, where Daniel pulled him inside. I could hear the shouts and rage from the gaping hole in the roof. The policemen were storming the manor. It was time to leave. A pipe leapt from the rubble. I grabbed hold of it as it flew towards the dirigible, taking me to the open door into which I jumped.
Colin relinquished the controls, and I took us skywards, away from the manor.
“Where are going?” said Daniel.
“Northwards to Edinburgh.”
CHAPTER TEN
As we sailed through the clouds, onwards into the night the image of Charlotte being thrown like waste into the portal kept coming back to me. When it did, I would jolt, and then do my best to hold back the wave of emotion which always followed. The others were resting behind me.
I felt a hand on the top of my wooden seat and Lucas stepped through the gap and sat next to me.
Daniel had healed his broken bones and lacerations, but the dust and soot had left its trace across his ripped clothes. “How are you feeling? Maybe you should rest more,” I said.
He shook his head. “I’ve rested enough.”
“Why didn’t you tell me the plan was for Charlotte to sacrifice herself?”
“Because she knew you wouldn’t let her if we did.” He was right. “There was no other way, and there was something you didn’t know. I too was in the dark about it, until this morning. She was dying, Cog. Heather had aged her to a point where her body was failing. She wanted to use whatever she had left inside her to send Hades back. So you could be free of his influence.”
My throat tightened as another wave of emotion threatened to overwhelm me. “And it was all for nothing.”
“It almost worked. The gateway was open, but he was too powerful. We threw everything we could at him, but it wasn’t enough.” He looked out the window at some lights hundreds of feet below. “Where are we going?”
“Edinburgh.”
“Scotland? Why… Oh, you’re going to try to find the council?”
“Athena told me to go to them, that it was our only chance. So that’s where I’m going.”
“But we already know they were hunting Chronus. Whatever he thought he would find there, he did not. Why do you think it will be any different for us?”
My head flicked to him. “And what else do you propose we do?”
He looked away and sighed. “Perhaps our only option is to leave the shores of this land, make our home elsewhere. Maybe if we did that, he will leave us alone.”
“He will never stop coming for me, Lucas. We will look for this council and hope that it will give us some answers as to how to defeat him.”
“And if they want to hunt us as well?”
“Then maybe we will leave.” It was a lie, but I needed him to have some kind of hope. There had to be answers in Edinburgh.
Lucas nodded. What he saw in the hallway, I could tell shook him to his core. We had seen Hades in his truest form, and I now realised I was not just fighting for my own survival but for everyone’s.
�
�I’m sorry about what happened to your home…”
He sighed again. “It’s just a house…”
I looked at him and smiled. “Once this is over, I will help you rebuild.”
He smiled too then looked out of the window. “We are landing soon?”
“What? No, we have hours of flying left.” I looked out of the window on my side. The occasional huddle of orange glows appeared to be nearer. We were also no longer in the clouds and appeared to be descending. “Take the wheel,” I said to Lucas, then stepped back between the seats and pushed the cabin door open. The rush of wind woke the other two.
“What’s going on,” said Colin.
I looked down at some streets lit by gas lanterns. We were definitely about to land whether we wanted to or not. I held onto the door frame and leaned out, looking up at the large envelope, but it was so dark I couldn’t see any damage. “Hand me a lantern,” I said to Daniel who was seated next to one of four sources of light in the cabin.
He did and I leaned out once more and held it aloft. I swore on seeing a piece of fabric flapping about ten feet away from me. I leaned back in handing the light back to Daniel. “One of the bullets must have pierced the envelope.”
“Are we going to crash?” said Colin.
“Land yes, Crash, not if I control our descent.” A number of lights were now visible below. We were moving across a town.
“Umm… Cog… you see that correct?” said Lucas pointing towards the spear like shadow directly aligned with our flight path.
I looked at the cathedral spire coming towards us. “Perfect…” I said under my breath. I got back in my seat and throttled back the fans, slowing our forward momentum. We drifted forward towards the top of the ancient building. I looked over my shoulder. “I’m going to need someone to climb down the ladder, with the rope at the back of the cabin, and grab hold of the spire as we pass it.”
There was silence.
“Now! Before we miss it! Or we’ll end up in the trees or in someone’s back yard!”
Lucas went to get up, as did Colin, but Daniel had already got the door open. He pulled on the lever releasing the ladder which dropped, then climbed down onto it.
“Colin, feed him the rope! We’re almost upon the spire!”
Colin picked up the heap of rope and dropped it out of the doorway, into the howling wind.
The iron spike at the top of the spire was now only yards below us. I heard a muffled shout.
“More to our right!” shouted Colin.
I made the appropriate correction on the wheel.
“That’s it! Stay there…”
We jolted forward but continued to fall gently through the air. The green iron roof of the cathedral rose up towards us.
“Colin, let go of the rope or we’ll tilt, and tell—” I didn’t need to finish as Daniel scrambled back through the doorway. There was a loud bump as the cabin landed, then after some rocking came to a rest.
I blew my cheeks out with a breath. “Well done everyone.”
“Where the hell are we?” said Daniel.
“We’ve been flying for around three hours, somewhere in the midlands I think.” I reached into my coat and pulled out my pocket watch, the hands said 11:14 p.m. “We need to find a tailor.”
“There won’t be any open at this time,” said Lucas.
“I’m afraid we are going to have to convince one to open,” I said. “Once dawn breaks, we will be a little conspicuous on this roof…”
I lifted Auto up from the foot well and looked into his gemstone eyes. “Find me a tailor.”
With a chirp I handed him back to Daniel who let him fly free, out into the night.
“I wonder if they are looking for us here as well… wherever ‘here’ is…” said Daniel.
The cabin fell silent as each of us were taken by our memories back to what transpired just a few hours earlier. A question came to me, but one that seemed pointless. I went to ask if Charlotte could have survived in that horrible place, but instead there was a clattering of metal wings and Auto flew into the cabin, landing on the back of one of the empty seats.
’T…a…i…l…o…r…N…o…r…t…h.’
I climbed between the seats. “Someone needs to stay with the dirigible.”
“I’ll stay,” said Daniel. “I’m quite exhausted.” He briefly smiled. I had no idea how his powers worked, but after what he did for Lucas, I had the feeling that healing took its toll on him.
“Good. We shouldn’t be more than an hour.”
“What do I do if someone sees this craft and tries to talk to me?”
“Tell them that we are part of a local travelling fair, and this is one of the attractions.”
He smiled again. “OK.”
“Auto, go back out and keep watch around the dirigible, if you see anyone coming, warn Daniel.”
Auto flew back out into the night.
Soon, Lucas, Colin, and I were scrambling across the roof, then onto a lower one, then dropped the eight or so feet to a frost-covered muddy path. We did our best to keep the flame from our single lantern covered so as not to alert any onlookers nearby, and we hurried between gravestones, and out onto a pavement which had a light dusting of snow.
A single gas lamp lit the entire street, illuminating a series of shops but none were what we needed.
“Next street along,” I said, and we made haste past the shop windows, some of which already had some Christmas displays. We came across a shadow laden alley, but it was heading north so I moved up it quickly, the others following. It widened and a number of shops became apparent. Within them a wooden sign proudly announced. ‘Frimley & Son’s, Leicester. Tailors. Est. 1845’.
I looked at the second-floor windows of the Georgian building, none of which were lit.
“We should go around the back,” said Colin.
“No,” said Lucas. “That will alarm them even more.”
As he and Colin argued over the best way to wake up Mr Frimley or his son, I knocked as heavily as I could on the front door. A light almost immediately came on in the second-floor window.
I suddenly realised I had no money. I looked back at Lucas as sounds came from the other side of the door. “Have you got any—”
The door swung open. A diminutive man with small round glasses and wearing sleeping attire looked at me through the flame of a candle. “What do you want?”
“Umm… I am in need of a tailor,” I said.
He still look confused then looked at the door, which had the opening times clearly painted on the surface. “At this hour?”
“It’s an emergency!” said Colin, not helping.
Lucas stepped forward. “What my children are trying to say, is that we are in need of some leather hides, and we will pay handsomely for them. We are passing through your town, and unfortunately cannot wait until morning. We apologise for the inconvenience and will reflect that in our recompense.”
It was an eloquent request, despite the fact that he looked like he had been dragged from a pile of rubble, which he had.
The man rubbed his chin. “Pay handsomely eh…”
I still had no idea if Lucas had any money on him. Looking at the state of his pockets I couldn’t imagine he did.
The man looked at all of us once again. “All I got is five hides out back. Ten shillings. Half the money up front. Then you get them.”
It was enough to pay for twenty hides, but we all nodded anyway.
“Thank you, sir. Please allow my children and I, to go collect the required payment and we will return shortly.”
The man frowned and closed the door.
We had only walked away ten or so feet, when I turned to Lucas. “You don’t have ten shillings!”
“No, but… I noticed what looked like a safe in the back of his shop…”
“You want me to pay him with his own money!” I said, trying not to shout.
“What choice have we got?”
I sighed then quietly walked b
ack to the tailors. Luckily, he seemed to have returned to the upstairs, but the light from the second floor gave me just enough of a view of the black and green iron safe where Lucas said it was. I shook my head and focused on the door of the small secure box. It resisted my efforts until I realised, I needed to feel the mechanism, rather than trying to force it. I quietened my thoughts and felt the bolts in the door and one by one slid them back, then rotated the outside handle. The safe door then promptly sprung open. I couldn’t see what was on the shelf, but I could feel the weight of some metal. I pulled it free, floating it across the shop floor and closed the safe, when the shop door opened.
The tailor stepped out onto the cold slabs. “Back already?”
“Err…” A small black velvet bag hung like Damocles sword above the tailor's head. I walked towards him, making him step backwards and pointed towards a dark grey suit on a peg just behind him. “Oh, that’s nice, how much is that?”
He turned and I flung the bag through the air and into Lucas’s hands. “That’s not for sale, young lady.” He turned back to face me as Lucas pivoted away, no doubt pulling the necessary coins from our newly acquired horde.
Lucas stepped forward with a small pile of silver coins. “Five Shillings as agreed.”
“Hmm…” said the tailor still suspicious. “Wait here, I’ll go get them.”
“And twine!” I shouted out as he went to walk away.
“What?” he said, half turning back.
“We also need twine. As much as you can spare.”
He frowned. “I’ll see what I have.”
A short while later we were back on the cathedral roof, a pile of hides at our feet. “Stand back, this shouldn’t take long,” I said, concentrating on the torn area.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When dawn came, I resisted waking any of the others, wanting to enjoy the splendour myself as we floated just above the low-level clouds. At this height they looked pink and were a grand spectacle against the cobalt blue of the sky. The scene soothed my thoughts regardless of my anxiety and recent memories fighting for more attention.
