Before boarding the train, she looked back along the length of the platform. No one appeared to be watching her. She slipped on to the last carriage and found an empty seat. She took the tracker from her pocket and stared at it, gave it a quick kiss and inserted it down the side of the cushion, then checked her handiwork. The slim silver cylinder was hidden from sight.
Two minutes before the train was due to depart, she alighted and made her way to the main concourse where she found an information display. A train for Bristol was due to leave from platform five in twenty minutes.
Ajia hurried to the ticket office, bought a single to Bristol Temple Meads, and boarded the train when it pulled into the station.
Only when she settled into a window seat and the train pulled away from the platform did she allow herself to believe that she had done it. She was free.
AT BRISTOL, AJIA found a newsagents and bought a map of the area, then picked up a train and bus timetable. At a café she bought a cup of tea, a sandwich and jam doughnut. She devoured the meal while poring over the spread map and timetables. She need to get her strength up. She had a lot of running to do in the next few hours.
She found the village of Hewden on the map, twenty miles south east of Bristol, but decided that it would be a waste of energy to run all the way. A local bus ran to Hewden, leaving Bristol in forty-five minutes.
She studied the map. There were two patches of woodland marked near the village, either of which might be where Mr LeRoy and his entourage were planning to camp for the night.
It was now just after six o’clock. She finished her coffee and made her way to the bus station.
Thirty minutes later she was riding in the almost empty single-decker, trundling slowly between the rural towns and villages in this idyllic part of the west country. It was the end of a bright summer’s day, with sunlight turning the green land hazy. She watched the rolling farmland and occasional village pass slowly by, anticipating her reunion with Mr LeRoy and the others.
When the bus stopped at Hewden, she climbed down, consulted her map, then left the station. She walked from the village in the direction of the first patch of woodland. When she was sure that she was unobserved, she slipped into Puck mode and sprinted southeast.
She laughed into the headwind. The world slowed around her as she tore along the winding country lane. Only now, sprinting freely for the first time in what felt like days, did she feel truly liberated. She wondered about the phouka, and whether the Paladins had realised their mistake yet. She recalled the lieutenant, striking her with his nightstick, and relished the thought of the shit he would find himself in for allowing her escape on his watch.
She came to the woodland on the side of a hill overlooking a collection of honey-coloured cottages. It was small, scarcely more than a spinney, and it was obvious within a minute of searching that Mr LeRoy’s convoy was not here.
She consulted her map again, found the second, larger woodland to the north of the village, then located it in reality––a haze of green occupying a hillside perhaps a mile away.
Ajia sprinted, almost bursting at the thought of meeting her friends… her family.
She slowed, pushed through a hawthorn hedge, then climbed the hill towards the woods. She found a lane winding into its interior. Her heart surged when she saw, in the ruts on either side of the tussocky central strip, the impression of fresh tyre tracks.
She sprinted up the hillside and stopped dead when she came to the clearing.
She fought back tears as she gazed at the idyllic woodland scene.
Two big removal trucks and three small vans were drawn up in the clearing, and perhaps a hundred people––humans, boggarts, goblins, elves and brownies, were gathered around a central fire.
She saw Mr LeRoy, seated like the king he was on a fallen tree trunk. He was deep in conversation with tall, rangy Smith and the smaller, lithe figure of Reed Fletcher. To one side Daisy Hawthorn was laughing at something a brownie was telling her.
As Ajia stared at the gathering, she realised she didn’t recognise most of the faces: these were the people Mr LeRoy had dragooned since leaving Cumbria––fellow travellers in the fight against Drake and the Paladins.
Someone saw her as she stood very still on the margin of the clearing, and a silence swept over the gathering. Faces turned her way, the curious eyes of strangers wondering who she might be, and the incredulous gazes of those individuals who knew very well who she was.
Mr LeRoy exclaimed, and Fletcher hauled him to his feet accompanied him as he made his way, at first slowly but with increasing haste, to where she stood.
He stopped a couple of yards from her, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Ajia? Puck? Is it…? Can it be…? Is it really you?”
Daisy Hawthorn joined him, smiling as she looked at Ajia. She held out her arms.
Ajia hugged her, then Mr LeRoy, then Reed Fletcher, and Smith, and all the others, the brownies and elves and boggarts with whom she had shared the fight in Derbyshire.
“But we left you for dead!” Mr LeRoy cried. “We assumed the worst. And here you are! But how?”
He led her across the clearing, a buzz of conversation filling the air as those who didn’t know Ajia were apprised of the miracle of her return. She sat on a log before the fire, and Fletcher thrust a bottle of beer into her hand. She raised it in a silent toast, and little by little––with much questioning and amazed interjections from the listeners––told the tale of her arrest by the Paladins and her eventual escape.
“And the phouka had an important message,” she told Mr LeRoy at last. “We must rendezvous with someone called Dr Neve Winterton, at the Cry-Org Institute in Glastonbury.”
Mr LeRoy nodded to himself at this. “That makes sense. Glastonbury… Avalon. And Neve Winterton, who is surely going to be the last eidolon recruit on this long and arduous journey. And then, my friends,” he finished, staring round at the gathered faces, “and then let the last battle commence!”
Chapter 32
HARDLY ABLE TO contain his euphoria, Major Wynne watched as the phouka, transformed into an incredible likeness of Ajia Snell, was escorted from the warehouse.
The tide was turning. His run of bad luck and ill-fortune, which had started with the defeat of his forces in Derbyshire and continued with Harriet’s inexplicable snubbing of him, was coming to an end. Soon the phouka would lead him to LeRoy and his murderous renegades, and this time there would be no pussyfooting around. He would be merciless. He would isolate LeRoy’s forces and bomb the holy fuck out of the bastards.
The notion brought a smile to his face.
But before that, there was the little matter of Ajia Snell to deal with.
He would be merciless with her, too.
She was responsible for the deaths of over thirty of his men, horribly murdered in the line of duty. Their deaths had proved two things: that she was both dangerous and desperate, which was always a lethal combination.
Fortunately, now, she was in no position to be dangerous, although she might be desperate. And despairing.
Wynne paused outside the container, anticipating the imminent encounter.
Manacled as she was, hand and foot, she would provide little opposition. Robbed of her only attribute, speed, she would be at his mercy.
Oh, how the little bitch would suffer.
A little softening up, to begin with. Verbal, at first. He would taunt her. Let he know who was in command. Remind her why she was here. Let her know that she would pay dearly for her crimes.
And after the words, which would put the fear of God into her, a little physical work-over.
He had a nightstick to hand, and he might employ that at first. But what he was really looking forward to was hitting her with his fists, beating her into puling, wailing submission.
And then…
And then the real fun would begin.
He was feeling more than a little deprived in that department of late, since Harriet’s withdrawal of her favours
.
But his lust would soon be assuaged.
“Lieutenant Noble.”
His second-in-command crossed to him. “Sir?”
Wynne indicated the container. “I’m going in there to question the prisoner. I might be some time, and I do not want to be disturbed. Understood?”
Noble grinned. “Perfectly, sir.”
“You might want to have a go yourself, when I’ve finished.”
The lieutenant’s grin intensified. “Sloppy seconds, sir?”
Wynne grimaced. “If you must put it like that, Lieutenant. Unlock the door.”
Noble did so, and Wynne stepped into the container. When the outer door slammed shut behind him, he moved down the corridor and unlocked the cell door.
What a pathetic sight the girl presented.
Curled in a corner, shackled hand and foot, head in her hands, snivelling.
In his mind’s eye he recalled her as gamine, lithe and pert-breasted.
But, over the course of her detention, she had lost any attractiveness she might have had.
When she looked up and stared defiantly at him, she seemed puffy-faced and almost… ugly. And her trim teenage body appeared to have lost some of its shape.
Wynne leaned against the wall across from her and let the silence stretch.
At last she looked away, submissive.
He smiled.
“I’ll give you this, you’re a fighter.”
She flicked him a contemptuous glance but said nothing.
“And I like to see that in a woman. Or even a girl. A little spunk. But I think you’ve chosen the wrong enemy this time. Oh, you might have dealt my forces a minor blow here and there, but then it’s led to this, hasn’t it? Your arrest, and the imminent annihilation of Bron LeRoy and his terrorists.” He paused, then went on, “I’d very much like to hear you say you regret your actions.”
Her eyes stared at him blankly. “Go to hell,” she croaked, sounding far from her old self.
He laughed and pushed himself from the wall.
“First, I would like an apology, for the deaths you’ve caused, for all the trouble you’ve put me and my men to.”
She looked away, muttering something to herself.
“What was that? Did I hear a ‘sorry’?”
She remained staring at the door.
Enraged, he stepped forward and swung his nightstick.
He caught her a hefty blow across the cheek, and was surprised by the effect it had, or rather the lack of effect. It was as if her face had absorbed the impact. She hardly flinched, and Wynne had the odd impression of the weapon actually sinking into the girl’s flesh.
He hit her again over the head. He would knock her unconscious, he decided, and then take his pleasure.
He rained blows over her skull. She rode them with fortitude, her head moving minimally this way and that, taking the punishment and coming back for more, lifting her head between blows and staring at him mutely.
Panting with exertion, he ceased his attack. “Stand up.”
She remained cowering on the floor.
“I said stand up!”
Reluctantly she dragged herself to her feet.
She faced him, staring straight ahead at a point over this right shoulder.
She appeared dazed. The nightstick had had its effect. Now for a little fisticuffs. He transferred his weapon to his left hand and, lightning fast with his right fist, he struck her in the midriff.
It was as if he’d hit a ball of dough. His hand seemed to sink into her belly.
He pulled it out with an effort.
What the hell?
She was smiling.
The smile infuriated him.
Snarling, he backhanded her across her smirking face.
Oh, sweet Jesus Christ…
He stared in horror at what he had done.
Where his backhander had impacted, her right cheek was sunken, indented with the impression of his knuckles. Her entire face appeared knocked out of true, warped and lop-sided. And she was still smiling.
“Why, you little cunt!”
He hit her again, first in the belly, and then in the face. His hand sank up to its wrist in her stomach, and he retrieved it with effort. The second blow…
He stood back, staring in horror at the result.
His fist had created a great crater in the middle of her face, a hollow where her nose should have been, but without the slightest sign of blood.
He reeled away, gagging as, before his very eyes, the girl began to change shape.
She shrank, lost her definition. She seemed to blur, become something indeterminate. No longer a girl, but neither anything else he recognised.
And then he realised, and groaned.
Before him, the thing that had been Ajia Snell––or a presentable likeness of her, anyway––was revealed in its true nature: the phouka.
How in hell’s name…?
He stared in horror at the shrivelled homunculus before him, its stick-limbs, concave torso and swollen, domed head sickening him.
And its claws.
He felt a second of panic.
In its transformation, it had slipped its shackles.
And now it dived at him.
Only Wynne’s superior physical strength and training in unarmed combat saved his life.
He fought savagely, fuelled with fear and rage. He expended on the phouka the anger he had saved for the girl. Somehow she had evaded him, turned the creature before him and fled. He laid into the phouka, smashing its frail frame with his nightstick and kicking it when it fell and attempted to climb to its feet.
It fought back, even when one of his kicks scythed through its midriff and sickeningly split it into two almost equal halves. A clawed hand reached out and raked his left leg, drawing blood, while the torso re-joined itself to its legs and it drew itself to its feet and dived at him, bearing a set of hideous fangs. Wynne smashed a fist into its mouth, shattering teeth and lacerating his own flesh.
The phouka reeled back against the wall, screaming in rage.
Wynne ran for the door. He hauled it open, dived through, and slammed it shut behind him. He collapsed against the wall, drawing deep breaths as the creature shrieked and rage and pounded ineffectual fists on the padded door.
He looked down at himself. He uniform was shredded, his knuckles dripping blood. Relieved that he had escaped with his life, he felt rage at what this meant.
Ajia Snell had escaped.
And, sooner or later, Drake would have to be informed.
He opened the outer door and staggered into the warehouse.
Lieutenant Noble looked aghast. “Sir?”
Wynne leaned against the container, breathing hard.
“Sir?” Noble repeated, approaching him. Something in the lieutenant’s incredulity at seeing his senior officer like this enraged Wynne.
“You!” he screamed. “YOU! LET! HER! ESCAPE!”
“Me, sir?”
“You, Noble! You went in there, didn’t you? You let her out?”
Noble looked suddenly pale. “I… I let the… let the phouka out, sir. I mean, it looked like the girl. It wasn’t shackled.”
“You let the girl out. Ajia Snell!” He thumbed over his shoulder. “The fucking phouka is still in there, you cretin!”
Noble swore under his breath.
“Which means, Lieutenant, that Snell is still out there, somewhere.”
“I’ll alert––” Noble began.
“Stop!” Wynne said. “Drake needs telling, and you can be fucking assured that it’s not me who’s going to tell the bastard. Get through to him and…” He paused. “On second thoughts, contact the Minister of Defence and explain the situation to him.”
That, at least, might buy Wynne a little thinking time.
As Lieutenant Noble crossed the warehouse and spoke falteringly into his mobile phone, Wynne slid down the corrugated wall of the container and closed his eyes.
ONE HOUR LATER Major
Wynne, sticking plasters criss-crossing his injured hand, was roused from fantasies of what he would do with Ajia Snell when he caught her.
His mobile was ringing.
His stomach turned as he stared at the screen. “Drake here,” the Prime Minister drawled.
“Sir,” Wynne said.
Drake spoke slowly, calmly, and it put the willies up Major Wynne.
“Major Wynne,” said Drake, “you have excelled yourself.”
“Sir?”
“Let me get this straight, Major. Tell me if I go wrong. Now, I’m right in understanding that you had Ajia Snell in your custody?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“And am I also correct in understanding that––how to phrase this?––you allowed her to escape?”
Wynne closed his eyes. “That’s right, sir. I’m sorry. You see––”
Drake cut him off. “No excuses. You’re relieved of duties, Wynne, with immediate effect. Report to Swindon, where there’s a desk job awaiting you. Noble will be joining you. Oh, and there’s one other thing.”
“Sir?”
“When all this is over, Wynne, when the dust has settled and Snell and the others are dead and forgotten, I will personally supervise your court-martial.”
Wynne’s blood ran cold. “Court-martial, sir?”
“Not only for your incompetence in the line of duty, Wynne, but for the flagrant sexual harassment of my wife. I’ve seen the little attachment you sent her yesterday.” He paused. “You sicken me, Wynne.”
And before the major could reply, Drake cut the connection.
Wynne looked up, across the chamber, to where Lieutenant Noble stood, stunned, staring down at the screen of his mobile.
“That was the Defence Minister,” Noble said in barely a whisper. “I… I’ve been demoted. And have you seen the latest?”
Wynne sighed. “The latest?”
Noble indicated his mobile. “Escalation of hostilities between Britain and Russia, sir. We’re on nuclear alert.”
Age of Legends Page 37