One Paladin slipped into the cell and stood against the wall, covering her with his rifle. The sergeant and another constable took her upper arm and pulled her to her feet.
Between the local bobbies, with armed Paladins fore and aft, she was escorted from the cell, up a flight of stairs, and along a corridor.
A blue armoured van was drawn up to the rear exit of the station. The bobbies eased her into the rear of the vehicle and into a barred cage. The two armed Paladins sat on fold-down seats outside the cage. The rear doors were slammed shut and the vehicle set off.
Ajia squatted in the cage and closed her eyes.
Chapter 30
MAJOR DOMINIC WYNNE needed a break, a decent roll of the dice, a smile from Lady Luck.
Because recently his fortunes had gone from bad to worse.
On a professional front, the last two operations he’d mounted had ended in abject failure, with the humiliating defeat of his finest men by a rag-tag band of folkloric renegades.
And Harriet Drake had decided, for some reason, to withdraw her sexual favours.
He missed her like hell.
Or did he? Did he actually miss Harriet, the person, or did he miss the psychological pat on the back he’d awarded himself for shafting the boss’s wife?
The fact was, he wasn’t getting any from that particular source, and his ego was bruised.
And, to put the tin lid on it, Derek Drake was being more than a little brusque with him of late. Was it possible, he asked himself, that the Prime Minister had got to know about his dalliance with Harriet?
Then, just when Wynne was expecting a call from Drake with word of his demotion, Lady Luck chose to smile on him.
Not once, but twice.
The first was in the form of a call from Lieutenant Noble.
“We’ve got her, sir!”
“What?”
“Snell. We’ve got her.”
Wynne could hardly believe his luck. “Well done, Lieutenant. But how…?”
The trail had gone cold. Snell and the others had vanished after the massacre at Bradford.
“Well, it was couple of village bobbies up in the Lake District,” Noble explained. “Arrested her at a kerfuffle in a pub.”
“Village bobbies?” Wynne echoed, incredulous. “And what about the others?”
“Snell appeared to be alone, sir, and she isn’t saying a dicky-bird about where the bastards might be. She’s in a holding cell in Cumbria. I’m heading there as I speak. I’ll soften her up for you, sir.”
“Very good, Lieutenant. Do that. I’m on my way. And let’s see how long she can keep schtum about the whereabouts of her friends, once I get to work on her.”
The second phone call, a minute later while Wynne was arranging for a chopper to take him north, was from the commanding officer of Stronghold Two, the Paladins’ secondary base situated on the outskirts of Manchester.
“Major Wynne? We have a creature in custody which claims he––it––might be able to assist you.”
Wynne blinked. “A creature?”
“A phouka, sir. My men captured the critter in Northern Island a couple of days ago. And a nasty little phouka it is, too.”
“And it claims…?”
“That it can help you, Major. It would like an audience.”
“An audience?” Wynne hesitated. “And it’s safe to approach this… phouka?”
“Oh, we have it well shackled, sir.”
“But it doesn’t say how exactly it can assist me?”
“It refuses to say anything other than it wants to see you, face to face.”
Wynne thought about it. “Very well, Captain. I’m on my way.”
WYNNE WAS MET at the gates of Stronghold Two by Captain Whiteley and escorted along the innumerable corridors of the concrete blockhouse.
They came to a cell with a door like that of a bank vault. Whiteley tapped the code into the lock and the door sighed open.
The cell was divided into two equal halves, separated by an inch-thick wall of bulletproof glass.
“Christ,” Wynne said as he stared at the creature crouching behind the glass.
“Told you it was a nasty little phouka,” Whiteley said. “Just knock when you’ve finished, sir.” He stepped from the cell and the door sighed shut behind him.
Wynne approached the glass and stared at the monstrosity within.
It climbed to its feet and approached the glass, returning his gaze.
The manikin was vaguely familiar––and then he recalled where he’d seen its likeness before. Gollum in the film of The Lord of the Rings: the same thin limbs and swollen head, the same crouching, servile manner. It was dressed in rags and looked pathetic and ineffectual, and Wynne wondered how this creature had the gall to think it could help him.
“You wanted to see me,” Wynne said.
The monstrosity blinked its huge milky eyes. “I can help you,” it said in a broken croak.
Wynne smiled. “I very much doubt that,” he sneered.
“You want Bron LeRoy, Reed Fletcher, Wayland Smith and the others.”
Wynne tried not to look surprised. “How do you know?”
The phouka gave a sickly grin. “Oh, I know so much, Major Wynne. So much. When your men snared me, their minds were open, their every thought available to me. As are yours.”
“Rubbish!” Wynne snapped, uneasy.
The phouka sniggered. A sly looked passed over its hideous features. “You miss the woman,” it said, stunning Wynne. “Oh, how you miss her. You miss mastering her, making her submit to your desires.”
Wynne felt himself colouring. “How the hell…?”
“And also you very much want to see the renegades dead for their crimes against your men, Major Wynne. And I can help you.”
“How?”
“Watch,” said the phouka.
Before his eyes the creature seemed to grow, expand. And as it did so, its appearance underwent a definite and substantial transformation. Its flesh flowed, filled out; no longer was it ugly. In fact, Wynne thought, little by little, it was becoming quite handsome.
A minute later he was staring at a very presentable simulacrum of himself.
The little phouka was a shapeshifter.
“As I said,” the phouka repeated, “I can help you.”
DRAKE LED HARRIET from their bedroom to his study.
He settled her on the leather sofa and booted up his laptop.
“This is exciting,” Harriet cooed. “A film show?”
“You could say that,” Drake said. “The Russians have been up to their old tricks again.”
“Old tricks?”
He joined her on the sofa. “Watch,” he said. “These went viral a little earlier today.”
The first clip showed Edward Winterton rogering the rent boy. Harriet watched, goggle-eyed. “But I didn’t think Winterton was into…”
“He wasn’t,” Drake said. “This is Premier Vasilyev’s little joke. All part of bringing disrepute to my government, and to the country at large. It’s a measure of the man that he’d try to defame someone who disappeared months ago.” He waved at the screen. “This is a mock-up, needless to say. As are all the others.”
Next he played a sequence showing the writer Victor Shepperton vigorously tonguing the dilated anus of a prepubescent schoolgirl. Drake had to hand it to Dudley. The youngster was a genius. The images were incredibly realistic.
“Ugh!” Harriet objected. “I really don’t want to see any more.”
“Just one more, my dear,” Drake said. “I’d like you see it now, with me, rather than have some ‘well-wisher’ email it to you.”
“Whatever do you mean by that?”
“Watch.”
He played the clip of him and the Russian journalist bonking in an upstairs room at Number 10.
Harriet watched, her mouth hanging open. She leaned forward, peering intently. Still watching, her hand found his and squeezed.
At last, surprising him, she
laughed.
“Harriet?”
She turned to him and stroked his cheek. “It’s so obvious a fake, my darling, that you didn’t have to worry about me seeing it alone. But I appreciate you showing it to me. That can’t have been easy.”
Drake smiled, relieved. He thought he might have had his work cut out convincing Harriet of his innocence.
She gestured at the screen. “Vasilyev might have captured your likeness, Derek, but he failed you in one very vital department. You’re far, far more athletic than the wimpy stand-in they used as your double.”
“Why, thank you, Harriet.”
Her hand traced a line down his chest to his crotch. She was flushed and breathing hard. The little porn show had ignited the fires he thought he had quenched earlier that morning.
He should have known.
“Here?” he asked.
“Here,” she panted.
Later, lying naked with limbs entwined, Harriet said, “I’ve been thinking.”
“Mmm?” Drake was drifting into a delicious post-coital slumber.
“What you told me the other day, about those eidolons, and what happened after the helicopter crash.”
He opened one eye. “What about it?”
“So, various souls around the land were brought back to life as these eidolons, Robin Hood, Puck, Oberon and others. All with special powers, abilities, strengths.”
“Go on.”
“I’ve been thinking about you, Derek, and how you were changed after the accident.”
“Me?”
“It hasn’t occurred to you?”
“Well, I was blessed with the Holy Grail, with Emrys Sage’s transformation, his advice, counsel and leadership.”
“No,” she said. “More than that.”
He propped himself up on one elbow and looked at her. “More? What do you mean?”
“Didn’t it ever occur to you after the accident and your rise, the way you transformed the country, the way you restored national pride… Didn’t it occur to you that you, too, were an eidolon?”
The idea rocked him. It was so vast a concept that he didn’t, at first, know what to make of it––whether to be elated at the prospect, or dismayed that whatever greatness was in him was not innate but the result of some kind of supernatural takeover.
He shook his head, slowly. “No,” he said. “No, Harriet, I must admit that it didn’t. But…”
“Yes?”
“I think… Yes, I think I quite like the idea.”
She stroked his cheek. “And the next, obvious question is…?”
He stared at her, then murmured, “Is ‘Who?’.”
“Exactly,” she smiled. “Perhaps, Derek, you’d better ask Emrys for the answer.”
Drake dressed and hurried to the stable block.
HIS HANDS TREMBLING, he entered the code to the chamber wherein sat the Holy Grail, then stepped inside.
He approached the relic and knelt.
“I bend the knee in supplication,” he said.
“You are a good and faithful servant,” said Emrys.
“And you, the bringer of hope and realiser of dreams.”
“With you, I am shared among the people.”
“And without you, I am nothing.”
Drake stood and licked his lips.
“You seem… flushed,” Emrys said.
“Vasilyev’s been up to his old tricks, but I think I’ve spiked his guns.”
“Ah, the compromising footage.”
“You know about that?”
“I know everything, Derek.”
“I got Dudley to beat Vasilyev with his own stick,” Drake said. “Manufacture a few faked clips and pass them off as coming from Russia.”
“And it has worked.”
“Well, Harriet is convinced.” He rubbed his chin. “I’m not so sure about the electorate, or some of my colleagues. Questions have been asked in parliament. Apparently there’s an opposition journalist trying to dig the dirt.”
Emrys spoke, and Drake was reassured as much by the warmth in his friend’s voice as by the content of what he said. “Do not worry yourself on that score,” Emrys said. “The end is approaching. The endgame, you might say. We must leave for Somerset in the morning.”
“Leave?” Drake was nonplussed. “Why?”
“Because it is there that you will make your last stand, my friend.”
Drake said. “Last stand?”
“Somerset,” Emrys said. “Avalon.”
Drake repeated the word, shaking his head. “Avalon…”
“You must surely see the connection. Especially,” Emrys went on, “after Harriet’s earlier… revelation. Avalon––Fairleigh Castle. Why do you think I suggested you buy the pile?” He hesitated. “Who do you think you are, Derek?”
A sudden heat passed through Drake’s head. He felt dizzy. “I… I am…?”
“Who else?” Emrys said. “The leader that history claims will rise when our great nation is under threat; the warrior monarch destined to lead the people of Albion to safety, the man who will vanquish all enemies, no matter how powerful, and emerge triumphant. Our saviour.”
Drake felt himself expand. “You mean…?”
“I mean,” said Emrys, “that you are none other than King Arthur.”
Chapter 31
AJIA WAS TRANSFERRED from the armoured vehicle, marched down another long corridor, and locked into a cell. This one was modern, with vault-like doors. When it closed on her, with a muffled whumph of air, she felt suddenly, horribly, claustrophobic.
She sat on a narrow bunk and considered the events of the past few days. If it were to end here, then at least she had contributed something to the cause. She had saved the lives of good people, and assisted Mr LeRoy towards achieving his desired aim. She had succeeded, triumphed, even.
She was being selfish if she allowed herself to wish that she could be free, free to be with the others for the final fight, free to kill more Paladins and see Derek Drake defeated.
She was being selfish but, more than anything else, freedom was what she wanted.
And the desire was all the more painful, and poignant, for her knowing that it was impossible.
They would kill her. The authorities had killed her once, without any provocation at all, and she had no doubt that they would do so again––whether in the process of torturing information from her, or in the due process of enacting the law of the land and executing her as a criminal killer.
She was as good as dead, but she had one more duty to perform.
She must not betray her friends, no matter how much they tortured her.
She had to be strong.
The cell door opened, startling her.
Two armed Paladins rushed in as if storming a building and levelled their rifles at her. They were followed by a cruel-faced, dark-haired lieutenant clutching a nightstick.
He stood over her, repeatedly thwacking the nightstick into his palm.
“Ajia Snell,” he said, smiling down at her without the slightest trace of humour in his expression, “you murdered a considerable number of my colleagues. And you didn’t act alone.”
She remained silent and switched her gaze to the floor.
The lieutenant went on. “You murdered Paladins near Dawley, Derbyshire, and then on the outskirts of Bradford you murdered a further eleven before fleeing with Bron LeRoy and the others.”
She stared at her trainers, anticipating the first blow.
“We have a witness to the Derbyshire killings,” he said, “and the method of murder in Bradford suggest the same perpetrator.”
A witness? So had one of the Paladins survived? Was that how they had managed to trace the minibus from Derbyshire to Bradford?
“Where are the others? Bron LeRoy. Wayland Smith. Reed Fletcher. Daisy Hawthorn. Paul Klein”––he pronounced each name with evident distaste––“as well as other assorted… undesirables.”
She looked up at him. “You bastards killed m
e once,” she said. “Two coppers arrested me for mocking our Great Leader, tortured me so I’d confess. But they got a bit carried away, didn’t they? And I died. So if you think you bastards can make me talk, you’re wrong.” She smiled up at him. “So why don’t you just kill me now and have done?”
He stared at her, his face expressionless.
“Where is Bron LeRoy?”
“Fuck off––”
The blow was all the more painful for being unexpected. The nightstick smacked against her right knee, and despite herself she cried out in pain and squirmed against the wall.
“I suggest you make this easy for yourself,” he said. “Simply tell me where your friends are, or by God will you suffer.”
“Fuck yourself!”
Lightning fast, he lashed her across the head. Her skull rang with the blow.
He smiled down at her. “You murdered more than thirty good men, Snell. Men doing their duty.”
She tried to match the sneer in his voice. “You mean cowards crawling to the commands of your fascist leader.”
He hit her across the temple again, stunning her.
“As I said, good men doing their duty…”
“Good men? Not good enough! You ought to train them better, you know? They were a bit on the slow side.”
“So you admit you murdered them?”
“No, I executed the bastards before they could kill my friends. And you know what, I enjoyed executing every last one of the scum!”
She winced in anticipation of another blow.
It never came.
When she looked up, the lieutenant was smiling.
“Oh, I pity you, Ajia Snell,” he said.
He marched from the cell, followed by the armed guards.
The door whumphed shut behind them.
SHE MUST HAVE fallen asleep.
She came awake suddenly at the sound of the cell door opening.
Four armed Paladins hauled her to her feet while one of their number shackled her ankles and wrists. She marched her from the cell at an awkward shuffle, escorted by the sadistic lieutenant. They loaded her into the back of a waiting armoured car identical to the one that had brought her here. She was locked into a cage guarded by two armed Paladins. The vehicle started up and drove off.
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