The Hounds of Avalon tda-3

by Mark Chadbourn

  ‘You’re jumpy,’ she said, laughing.

  ‘Had a bit of a shock earlier.’ Hal took another deep breath to calm his thumping heart.

  ‘And I don’t suppose you can tell me about it. Ultra top secret, as usual.’

  ‘You know how it is.’ Hal shifted uncomfortably; he wished he could tell her. Glenning’s death was one thing he desperately needed to get off his chest.

  ‘It is amazing, though, isn’t it?’ Samantha moved closer to Hal, and he was suddenly aware of the not-unpleasant aroma of her sweat mixed with the fragrance of whatever perfume, shampoo or other aromatic she used. ‘Electric lights. A few years back, you’d never have thought what a wonder they would be.’

  ‘They still are for most of the country. Mustn’t forget we’re only blessed with them here because it’s the new seat of Government-’

  Samantha laughed again.

  ‘What?’ Hal’s cheeks coloured.

  ‘ Blessed with them, indeed. You talk so strangely sometimes.’ She was still smiling when she slipped an arm around his waist and gave him a gentle squeeze. A different kind of heat ran into Hal’s face. ‘Don’t get me wrong — I love it. You’re a breath of fresh air around here, Hal.’

  Hal would have liked to respond — with an arm around her waist, perhaps a kiss — but it wasn’t the time. It never was, and a part of him wondered if it ever would be.

  ‘Any idea where Hunter is holed up?’ he asked, changing the subject.

  Samantha rolled her eyes. ‘Let’s draw up a list of the worst dives in Oxford and I’ll guarantee he’s in one of them. He’s banned from all the good places. I heard he was thrown out of Stanyard’s last week.’

  Hal nodded. ‘Caught in one of the toilet cubicles with a girl… by her boyfriend. Between them they wrecked the place before the landlord managed to toss them out.’

  ‘And the Government wouldn’t be here if not for his strong right arm,’ Samantha said sarcastically. ‘That’s what he tells all those floozies. And they all fall for it.’

  ‘You don’t like him very much, do you?’

  ‘I loathe him. And I can’t understand why you’re his friend. Not in a million years. What have you ever got in common?’

  ‘I ask myself that some days.’ Hal glanced up just as a shooting star burned its path across the arc of sky visible above the city lights. ‘See that?’ he said. ‘It’s an omen.’

  Samantha grew serious. ‘The fight-back starts soon?’

  ‘You know I can’t answer that.’ Hal looked towards the dark, unruly city beyond the grand, historic colleges. ‘I’d better find Hunter, drag him out of whatever mess he’s got himself into this time.’

  ‘OK, Hal. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Samantha gave him another warm smile before jogging off. Hal watched her until she disappeared into the shadows. A braver man would already have made his move, but Hal couldn’t until he was sure one hundred per cent that she wouldn’t say no. Deep in his head, he’d always considered himself a romantic, a counterbalance to a life lived in the dusty here-and-now to which he had been consigned; or rather, to which he had consigned himself. And he’d known pretty early on in their friendship that Samantha was the only one who could truly make him happy; not love at first sight, exactly, but near as dammit.

  The first time Hal had seen her, she had been giving her lunchtime sandwich to a young girl begging on the side of the street. When Hal mentioned it to her later, Samantha had denied her act of charity, which had only intrigued him more. But the one moment — the one shining moment that had changed everything for him — had been in some dingy bar after work when, drunk and argumentative, she’d clubbed Hunter around the head and then, minutes later, given an a cappella version of ‘California Dreamin’’ that had sent shivers down his spine. There was no reason why it should have affected him so deeply; but it had been an alchemical experience, fuelled by magic and mystery in the banal crucible of everyday existence.

  He would never forget how she’d made that gold from the base lead of his life; it was too valuable ever to risk losing.

  The brothel on St Michael’s Street had become a thriving if frowned-upon establishment ever since the new Government had moved to Oxford and saved the city from ruin. From the outside, the building looked abandoned, but the majority of Government employees knew its location, and for many of the men in the lower ranks it provided a welcome release from the numerous pressures of trying to lead a country thrown back to the Dark Ages.

  Hal knocked discreetly on the unmarked door, which was opened by an elderly lady with an ice-cream-cone mound of white hair piled on her head and a little too much make-up on her face. ‘Is Hunter here, Mrs Damask?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Jeffrey’s inside,’ Mrs Damask replied in her lyrical Scottish brogue. ‘Would you like to wait for him?’

  ‘You know he doesn’t like to be called Jeffrey,’ Hal said as he entered the baroque entrance hall with its atmosphere of incense and classical music playing quietly in the background.

  ‘And that’s why we call him it,’ Mrs Damask whispered with a conspiratorial wink.

  She led Hal up three flights of stairs to a long corridor with doors on either side; various human noises of pleasure and pain emerged from behind several of them. Mrs Damask motioned to a row of chairs where Hal could wait. Once she had gone, Hal listened self-consciously at Hunter’s door and when he was sure there was no activity within, he knocked quietly. There was a grunt that Hal knew to be a signal of admission.

  Hunter was lounging in the middle of a king-size bed beneath black silk sheets, smoking from a large hookah that bubbled on the bedside table. There were two blondes with him, twins from the look of it, probably in their late teens. Both were sleepy and clearly worn out.

  ‘Want a go at my sloppy seconds?’ Hunter asked lazily. Hal always thought he looked like Errol Flynn in Captain Blood: the heavy gold earring, the long black hair tied back with a black ribbon, the devilish goatee. No Government operative would have been allowed such self-expression in any other time, and few even in these dark days. But Hunter had special dispensation. You can get away with murder when you’re good at what you do, Hal thought.

  ‘You really are disgusting,’ he said.

  Hunter saw the serious intent in Hal’s face and tapped the girls on the shoulder, waving them out of the door. Not bothering to hide their nakedness, they skipped out with a giggle and a backward glance at Hunter.

  Hunter noted Hal’s disapproval with weary disdain. ‘In times like this, you’ve got to celebrate life, have some fun. But you wouldn’t understand that — you like wallowing in your misery.’ He swung his legs out of bed and started to pull on his clothes before pausing with a wrinkled nose. ‘I need a shower.’

  ‘The General wants you to put a team together for a retrieval-’

  ‘That swaggering git always wants something when it’s my night off.’

  ‘They’re going after a couple of those Brothers and Sisters of Dragons.’

  Hunter raised an eyebrow. ‘Finally. I was starting to think they were scared of them or something.’

  ‘They’re beginning to feel backed into a corner. Glenning didn’t make it.’

  ‘He was a stupid bastard for volunteering.’ Hunter paced across the sumptuous rugs, stretching his lithe body. A large black tattoo of a snake rose up his spine from somewhere below the waistband of his trousers to the nape of his neck, slithering as the muscles beneath it rippled.

  ‘How can you be so hard-hearted?’ Hal protested. ‘Glenning sacrificed himself for the sake of the country.’

  Hunter stared at Hal in disbelief. ‘Don’t start falling for the propaganda. It’s not good for your health.’ He pulled on a loose-fitting red silk shirt that masked his hardness with a dandyish air. ‘Glenning was a drone who jumped through hoops whenever anyone higher up the pecking order shouted at him. That mission was always going to fail. You know that.’

  ‘Someone has to try-’

  ‘Yeah?’ Hunt
er shrugged. ‘Why?’

  ‘We’re at war, fighting for the existence of civilisation… everything we’ve achieved-’

  ‘And what have we achieved, exactly?’

  ‘There’s no talking to you when you’re in this mood.’ Hal marched to the antique sideboard and poured himself a glass of vintage wine from a crystal decanter. ‘It shows our resilience as a race that we’re still clinging on after all we’ve endured in recent times. The basic rules of science shown up for what they are — just one way of looking at the world, and not the most important by a long way. Society turned on its head-’

  ‘You say all that as if it’s a bad thing.’ Hunter flopped on to the edge of the bed and pulled on his boots.

  ‘It’s amazing that we’ve managed to establish a new Government here in Oxford after what happened in London. We’ve even got the power back on, instituted some semblance of normality. A year ago, no one would ever have thought that would have been possible.’

  ‘You said it yourself — we’re clinging on. What’s the point in trying to hang on to the old days? They’re gone. The way we lived, the things we believed in… they’re all part of the past. We’ve been presented with a whole new set of possibilities. We should be reinventing ourselves to live now… to create a better world, not just repeat all the old mistakes simply because it makes us feel comfortable.’

  ‘It’s not that-’

  ‘Yes, it is. We’re all terrified of change — especially the big change, death — so we try to pretend that there’s some permanence in this world that change can’t influence. It’s all metaphors and symbols. I thought you were the smart one in this friendship. You know that nothing has meaning on the surface. The surface is just a clue to what’s locked underneath-’

  ‘I didn’t come here for a philosophical discussion.’ Hal drained the wine in one go.

  ‘There’s no talking to you when you’re in this mood,’ Hunter mocked, but gently. ‘We’ve got the chance for a good thing here, but we’ll never see the benefits. Do you know why? Human nature. Forget the gods and the monsters — we’re our own worst enemies. It’s hard-wired into us. Someone will come along to fuck things up for the majority, just to get a shot at making more money or gaining more power for themselves. Wait and see.’

  ‘Why do you do this, Hunter?’ Hal said, hitting back in the only way he knew how.

  ‘What?’

  ‘All the women, the drink, the drugs… You’re just trying to run away from who you are. Can’t face life as the big, scary Hunter. It’s childish, you know.’

  ‘Yep.’

  Hal sighed. ‘Don’t you have any self-awareness?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘That’s it, isn’t it,’ Hal said morosely. ‘I do all the thinking and you do all the doing.’ He sagged on to the edge of the bed.

  Hunter laughed and clapped him heartily across the shoulders. ‘Come on, let’s get tooled up.’

  While Hunter went to his flat to get a shower, Hal wandered the maze of quiet streets in the ancient quarter between Cornmarket and Longwall Streets. In the long shadows cast by the Divinity School and the Bodleian Library, it was possible to imagine he was back before the Fall and that sooner or later he would bump into some students making their way home after a late-night party.

  As he rounded on to Catte Street and approached the Radcliffe Camera, he was met by a strange sight. Although it was night, four thrushes sat side by side on a wrought-iron fence, silent and immobile, while a fifth hopped around in a circle on the pavement. Hal came to a halt, curious at the bird’s antics, but he was even more surprised when the bird on the pavement appeared to notice him. It hopped up to his foot and stopped before raising its head to stare at him. Hal looked from the strange visitor to the four birds on the fence and back; all of them were staring at him, or so it seemed. He waited for the bird at his feet to fly off, even shook his leg slightly to encourage it, but the longer it remained, the more his curiosity gave way to an unsettled feeling. In the end, he walked off himself. Ten yards away he glanced back. The birds were still where he’d left them, but they had turned to watch his departure.

  Hal laughed it off, but the unnerving sensation clung to him like autumn fog. Soon after, it was compounded. On the first storey of a building on the High Street, five windows in a row were lit, but one had a blind half-pulled down. Further on, four bicycles leaned against a wall, while a fifth lay on its side in the gutter.

  Coincidence, his rational mind insisted, yet an age-old instinctive part of him couldn’t help feeling slightly uneasy at this pattern manifesting itself in the most mundane things. His mind conjured an image of the universe as one living creature, breathing slowly like a man at rest, an entity that had, at that moment, chosen to notice him in particular, and to communicate some incomprehensible but vital message to him alone. Shaking his head at the odd turn his thoughts had taken, he continued along the main thoroughfare.

  Suddenly, a man lurched out of a darkened alley. His tattered clothes were filthy from a life lived on the streets, his skin so black with ingrained dirt that his eyes stared out wide and white, his hair and beard a matted mane of mud-stained grey and black. He reeked of engine oil and urine.

  Hal stepped back, instantly on his guard. The man held out one filthy hand, fingers splayed. Four stood erect; the thumb was missing, a ragged sore seeping at the joint.

  Involuntarily, Hal ran, not stopping until the comforting lights of Magdalen burned off his fear. He told himself how stupid he’d been, but nothing would have convinced him to return to the dark maze of ageless streets that night.

  Hunter sat at the back of the auditorium, alert and serious. Hal knew it was only a front for his superiors. Six other men were scattered around the rows, waiting silently, all of them former SAS or SBS. Their cold inhumanity scared Hal; they were prepared to do things no normal member of society would consider. Hunter always insisted Hal go easy on them: he was allowed to sleep peacefully because men like them existed. Hal could see the logic of that argument, but in truth he didn’t think Hunter really liked any of them either.

  The General stood at the front, relaxed and confident. Hal knew that the military had been pushing for more direct involvement in day-to-day events for a while, but they had always been restrained by the intelligence corps and the politicians who feared showing the Government’s hand too soon. But the power base appeared to be shifting in the eternally baffling, subtle machinations that thrived in the shadowy corridors of the Government headquarters.

  ‘Some background,’ the General began. ‘The mission on which you are about to embark is to seek out and capture one of the group known as the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. You will recall the first stories of their appearance at the time of the Fall. We discounted them as rumours and concentrated on a traditional response to the threat facing us.’ His face grew grim. ‘A mistake. The Brothers and Sisters of Dragons were instrumental in preventing a catastrophic defeat. The powers arrayed against us were held back. Some — the worst — fled after the Battle of London. Others adopted a watching brief, but are still a threat.’

  ‘They did us a favour,’ said a man at the front, his face marred by severe acne scars.

  ‘Our advisors tell us that they are some kind of champions chosen by the… forces that are active in the world at present.’ Hal could see that the General was uncomfortable dealing with concepts that were alien to him. Forces. Gods. Magic. ‘They are empowered by some kind of subtle energy that runs through the planet. It gives them certain abilities…’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘Maybe it doesn’t.’ Hunter smiled a wry smile. ‘Maybe they’re just better than everyone else. You don’t have to be Special Forces to be a champion.’

  The General stifled a hint of irritation and continued, ‘One of the abilities they do have is to cross the barrier that separates us from our enemy’s homeland. If we want to strike at them where it hurts, we need that ability. Our advisors suggest this energy may be intelligent i
n some way, that these champions appear where or when they’re most needed. Take that as you will. Sounds like a load of bunkum to me, but it doesn’t have any impact on the mission at hand. All you need to know is that a new group of Five is being formed. Two have so far been identified.’

  ‘How dangerous are they?’ the acne man asked. ‘The Five who fought at the Battle of London sound like nutters.’

  ‘Dangerous is a good word for them, Grieg. Particularly so in the case of these two,’ the General replied. ‘The first one goes by the name of Mallory, Christian name unknown. He’s a mercenary. Most recently, he sold himself to the Church.’

  A sneering murmur ran through the assembled men except Hunter and Hal, who listened intently.

  ‘Don’t make assumptions or you’ll pay the price,’ the General warned. The Church — what remains of it — is based in Salisbury Cathedral, where they’re training up a new bunch of Knights Templar. Forget your history. These are fighting men. Hard. Well suited to the times we live in. Well trained in swordplay, archery, survival techniques. And they had a good teacher: Blaine.’

  ‘ The Blaine?’ Grieg asked.

  The General nodded. ‘Indeed. Bloody Blaine of Belfast. So don’t underestimate Mallory. If you don’t have your wits about you, you’ll be dead before you’re within three feet of him.’

  ‘Is he travelling with the other one?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘Yes. A woman.’ The General checked his notes. ‘Sophie Tallent. Special abilities: she can manipulate that subtle energy in some way, has certain supernatural powers…’

  Hal found himself wondering what chance they had if the military couldn’t accept the profound changes that had taken place across the world. The supernatural was a fact of life: strange creatures, bizarre powers, hidden rules. Everyone knew it; they’d all seen the signs — much of the evidence lay in the cells of the high-security wing below Brasenose College, not far from the lab where Glenning had died.