The Fomorians
Page 11
Almost at once, we heard some voices coming from the rear courtyard. Several of the Barneys were shouting about, saying they heard something. Bloody hell, now our surprise was gone. I had a feeling that Gareth would not be too pleased by this latest incident. In less than a minute, two men came into view as they started walking around the perimeter of the manicured grounds, their rifles at the ready.
Myrddin started to giggle. “Oh I know a lovely game called hide and seek! They must search round and round in order to take a peek!”
One of the Barneys immediately pointed in our direction. “Oy, somebody’s over there!”
Myrddin immediately started running deeper into the woods, his crazed laughter echoing into the night. I got on my knees and tried to hide myself behind one of the shrubs. I hoped that they wouldn’t notice me as I trembled with fear and anticipated the worst. In just a few seconds, both men were standing right beside me as they looked around. I held my breath as I dared not utter the slightest noise. If either of them had decided to step a few inches to their left or to their right, then I would have been found right at that instant. They were so close I could smell their alcohol-laced breaths and the cigarette smoke that was embedded in their tracksuits.
A distant noise suddenly sounded. At first I thought it was the chirping of birds, but as it gained in intensity, I soon concluded that it was in fact the squealing of bats. The two men beside me started glancing around nervously as they uttered one curse after another. The sound soon became so intense that their cussing could no longer be heard. Since they were both looking the other way, I took my cue and crawled in the opposite direction until I was on the soft grass near the mansion. As I got up and ran, the bats overwhelmed us.
I never really liked bats and when I finally saw one at a display when we visited the London Zoo a few years back, it gave me the shivers. But as the dark cloud of squealing bats descended on us, a strange feeling came over me. The two men beside me started screaming and threw themselves on the ground, but I stood firm. Even though there were so many of the creatures that they practically blotted out the evening sky, for some strange reason the bats just flew around me in a tight orbit, never getting closer than two feet from my body. I began to wonder just how Myrddin was able to do this as I calmly walked towards the front door of the mansion, still surrounded by an endless colony of bats.
As I got to the front of Belasco Hall, I noticed that the main door was caved in. I heard some shouting and the firing of guns which made loud popping noises, but I sensed that Erin had already been through here so it must have been cleared. As I walked in through the entryway, I could see that the furniture inside of the place was of the more modern type. Bright marble flooring, glass handrails on the staircase, Italian leather furniture and abstract, free-standing sculptures were all over the place. It would make for a nice place to visit, but it was all a bit too posh for my tastes.
Once I was inside, a strange feeling came over me. It felt like the black mirror was somehow alive and calling out; it apparently wanted to be found. I tried blocking the feelings away in order to be on my guard, just in case any of the gangsters were still around, but the compulsion to go up the flight of stairs was overwhelming me. It was like a voice that kept telling me where to go and I just couldn’t get it out of my mind. I shook my head rapidly a few times as I stumbled into an unlit living room, but the inner voice originating in my head was starting to hurt. The headache kept pounding at my vision and I finally fell on my knees, the pain so intense that I just couldn’t take it anymore.
I felt someone’s arm wrapping around my neck as I was pulled upright. I tried to twist away but the grip was vise-like and it started to hurt more than my headache. I stole a sideways glance and quickly realized that it was Twaine Osei who had grabbed hold of me. He had a pistol and stuck it to the side of my forehead.
Twaine was right behind me and used his body to push me forward towards a pair of adjoining doors. “Quit trying to get away, boy, or I’ll spill your brains all over the posh carpet,” he hissed.
As we got to the edge of the doors, Twaine’s foot lashed out and kicked them open. The room beyond was some sort of lounge, filled with white leather couches, glass tables and a flat-screen TV monitor embedded in the side wall. Erin was there and she was standing over another man while her hands rested on his throat. The other man was bald, heavyset and he wore plenty of gold jewelry like necklaces, rings and bracelets. Currently he was trying to prevent Erin from choking him. The moment she heard the doors open, Erin grabbed the other man by his throat, stood him up and twisted him around as she got behind him for cover.
Twaine adjusted his stance as he made sure I was his human shield, even though Erin looked to be unarmed. “Let Owen go, and your boy here gets to live,” he said quietly.
Erin didn’t move a muscle as she remained behind Owen. “You let him go first.”
Twaine’s reply was terse and I felt the gun barrel right on my cheek. “Not a chance.”
Owen Greene gasped as he vainly struggled to get free, but Erin’s hold on his neck was like a steel clamp. “Bloody hell…why didn’t you just shoot her, Twaine? Argh. Can’t…breathe!”
Suddenly, something came out of the shadows behind Twaine and I was pushed down into the carpeted floor. As I rolled away and got up, I realized that Mark Loman had tackled the Barney Boy from behind. They twisted and fought on the floor, both of them struggling for the gun that was in Twaine’s hand. Erin reacted by throwing Owen through the window, his dumpy body smashing through the glass before landing with a loud thud on the outside grounds.
Two shots rang out in quick succession. My ears were deafened momentarily and all I heard was a ringing noise after that, but at least my headache was gone. The two men on the floor abruptly stopped struggling and lay still. Twaine had been on top, but Erin lifted him up with one hand; his body was limp as she set him aside. Mark groaned as he got up and took the gun from Twaine’s dead fingers.
I ran up to him. “Mark, oh god, are you okay?”
He gave me a painful grimace as he placed a hand on my shoulder. “You saved me and Amy back in that old wizard’s place. It’s time I started paying you back, Steve.”
I grinned as I placed my hand over his. “Amy’s just outside. Go ahead and meet her. I still need to find my mirror.”
“If it’s okay with you, Steve,” Mark said softly as he glanced over at Erin. “I’ll cover you until you get that bloody mirror back.”
“Okay,” I said as I turned and started moving towards the corridor beyond. “I can sense it. It’s up the stairs,” I said as the two of them followed. “Have you met Erin by the way?”
“Yeah, I did, thanks,” Mark replied. “She was the one who freed me from the room in the basement.”
I sprinted up the stairs, followed closely by Erin and a limping Mark. There was a long corridor on the second floor, but I already knew which way to go as I came upon a large white door. I twisted the knob and pushed it in. The inside looked like an upstairs living room. There were bookshelves on one side of the wall while the opposite end had shelves of assorted antiques. A mini bar stood by the tall windows that led out onto the balcony. Archie Greene was standing in the middle of the room as the three of us entered. He held a pistol in one hand and the black mirror in the other. The squealing noises of the bats had subsided and it looked like the whole colony had flown away back into the night.
“None of you come any closer, please,” Archie said calmly as he aimed the pistol in our general direction.
I could have easily dived for cover behind a chair, but the mirror was all I could think about. Perhaps there was a way to reason with him. “Please, sir. You need to hand me back the mirror. It’s a very powerful item and one needs to be attuned to it, or else it will take over your mind.”
Archie smiled as he brought the mirror up close to his face. “Rubbish. I have been meditating with this item for days and I think I may have just figured out how it works.”
r /> I suddenly had a feeling where the headache had come from. Archie had apparently been using it as a sort of weapon against us, but his efforts were unfocused because he wasn’t attuned to it. “Sir, you may think you can control that mirror,” I said. “But all you’re doing is building up some sort of resonance and the energies stored within it will create some sort of backlash. I can feel it pulsating even from where I’m standing.”
Archie aimed the pistol at me. “It led you to me, didn’t it? I can sense you as well, I can feel this thing calling out to you. So now all I have to do is kill you and it’ll be mine!”
“Move, Steve!” Mark shouted as he pushed me aside while he brought up his own pistol.
Both men fired at the same time as I fell to the floor. Erin moved sideways along the room as she ran up to Archie, who had fallen down as well. Mark helped me up and I ran over to where the leader of the gangsters was. Archie’s eyes were closed and there was a wound on his shoulder. As I took the mirror from his hand, Erin took his gun away and threw it out over the balcony.
A few minutes later, Gareth and Amy walked into the room. The moment their eyes met, my sister ran up to Mark and gave him a hug. Erin and I moved over to them as I rubbed the face of the mirror with my free hand.
Gareth had the machine pistol slung over his shoulder as he stared at the obsidian face of the looking glass. “So that’s the thing that gave me a bloody headache! We could have gotten here to support you sooner if it wasn’t for that, laddie. A few of the gangsters ran off into the night, but I doubt they’re much of a threat to us now.”
Without warning, Mark suddenly fell backwards onto the floor as his legs gave out. Amy screamed as she knelt down beside him. Gareth and I quickly ran over to them.
Mark’s breathing came in shallow gasps. “At least…I know we’ve won.”
Amy started crying. “Mark! No!”
Gareth unzipped Mark’s tracksuit to examine him. My sister’s boyfriend had a wound on his side and on his chest. He must have taken a shot from Twaine when they had struggled on the floor, but he never complained about it. The white shirt he wore underneath was stained crimson. “He’s lost too much blood,” Gareth said softly before he looked at Mark. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Mark smiled through the apparent pain as he locked eyes with my sister. “I didn’t want you to worry. I love you, Amy. Go…find your parents.”
“No!” Amy screamed. “Mark!”
Mark closed his eyes as Amy wailed and began to weep hysterically. I had tears in my own eyes as well. I never really got the chance to know much about him, but the fact that Amy loved him was good enough for me. There wasn’t much I could do except wrap my arms around my sister as we both cried that night.
Chapter 9
We all stood over Mark’s grave as dawn finally broke. Erin had been able to get a shovel and she had dug out a deep hole in just a matter of minutes. Amy had a blanket wrapped around her body, and she and I stood by silently while Gareth made a short speech about sacrifice and remembrance. I don’t remember much of the words he said but it seemed fitting to honor Mark’s memory this way. We didn’t bother to bury the gangsters who were killed, but Gareth did wrap them up in blankets and left them where they lay. We could hear the chirping of birds out in the distance when the overcast sun finally gave off its illumination.
After an impromptu breakfast, the four of us gathered in the room with the indoor swimming pool beside the basement. I had been staring intently at the black mirror in my hand for several hours now as I tried to fully attune myself to it once more. I have to admit that even though I had been using it, I still wasn’t quite sure what its full capabilities were. One of the few things that I knew about it was that the mirror could send people to the otherworld and possibly vice versa. Whether it could send the one holding the mirror into another dimension along with it still remained to be seen. I remembered that Amicus Tarr was able to use it as a weapon when he made duplicates of himself, but I wasn’t sure if that was part of the mirror’s power, or whether it had something to do with the room of mirrors in his house instead.
I stole a glance at Amy as she paced back and forth beside the swimming pool. Her tears had dried and now there was a bit of resentment on her face. I believed that a part of her probably blamed me for not using the mirror to save Mark, but I wasn’t sure if it could do that. Erin had also been restless, but she continued to look out through the glass walls for a sign of any returning gangsters. Gareth lay stretched out in between three chairs near the stairwell, having a little nap.
That was when the memories of Mum and Dad began flooding my mind. I remembered the time that we took the train for a holiday in France across the Channel Tunnel only two years ago. It had been a happy time for all of us and it was probably the best two weeks of my life. Now it was all gone. If we were to survive in this new world we would have to think and act differently. I shuddered at all the hard choices I would have to make. It seemed that the consequences of life and death were now unavoidable and a lot of people were depending on me. I soon remembered Ray’s final words before he left, and they were about finding my parents. If I could just be reunited with them, then it would make this job of saving the rest of the world more manageable.
Then a light bulb turned on in my head. I recalled what Ray had told me after Amicus had exiled me into the dead lands. He had said something about traveling from one world to another was just a matter of will. If you concentrated hard enough then you could get to places limited only by your determination.
“That was it then!” I said aloud as I grinned and began to concentrate on the mirror. “Thank you, Ray!”
Gareth woke up with a start. “What? What is it?”
Erin made her way towards me, gesturing at Amy to come over. “Did you find something?”
I grinned and nodded. “Yes, I think I’ve got it figured out.”
Erin rolled her eyes as Gareth stretched his back and walked over to us. “This better not be a dud like the last time,” she said.
Amy had an irritated look as she stood beside me and glanced disdainfully at Erin. “Can you ever say anything nice for once?”
“Calm down, ladies,” Gareth said softly. “Let’s see what Steve has come up with.”
I stared into the dark surface of the mirror as I recalled what my mum looked like. I remembered her thick brown hair and reassuring smile. The way she would gently tilt the pan when pouring some gravy on my dinner plate. Her soft hands when she patted me on the back. I knew that it was the little things that mattered since the best way to remember anyone was by using a combination of senses, not just one. So I remembered the smell of her cooking in addition to what she looked like. Within seconds, my mirror’s reflection began to show a different scene than what was behind me. A picture began to form on the obsidian face of the looking glass like some sort of video. I could see a gray, overcast sky overhead and the land around me alternated between unkempt grassland and churned brown earth. I was nearly there.
A black mist began to emanate from the mirror and surrounded us. “Everyone, stay close,” I said.
Amy stood right next to me. “Oh my god, what’s happening?”
Within seconds, we were completely enveloped by the black fog. My vision soon gave out and I could see nothing but an inky blackness in front of me. Amy screamed; I could feel her hands clutching at my elbow. Then the black mist began to dissipate. I could see light once more, only this time we were standing in a completely different place.
We all looked around. The sky seemed to be the same overcast gray that we experienced back in Surrey. The land was somewhat flat and we could see roads a few hundred yards away, but the horizon was blocked by copses of monstrous trees. A gigantic, vertical shaft of bright energy that stretched up into the clouds was just a few miles away, behind a small forest. While there were many patches of grasslands bordered by shrubbery, we could also see huge mounds of soil and mile-long circular earthworks nearby. Stran
ge orange mushrooms had sprouted out of the ground. There were a few people moving about less than fifty yards away, carrying what looked to be sacks.
Erin shifted her head from side to side. “Where are we?”
Gareth walked over to a small mound of dirt as he noticed something flat and metallic sticking out of it. He brushed off some of the mud with his hands. The three of us walked over to join him. It was a road sign and it said Larkhill.
Amy placed her hands on her hips. “Larkhill? That’s awfully familiar. I think we’re still in England.”
“You’re right, lass,” Gareth said as he pointed to his left. “We’re now in Wiltshire. That means Surrey is about sixty miles east of us. We didn’t travel too far at all.”
As I looked around I instantly recognized one of the women wandering about—she was one of our neighbors. I had last seen her during the evacuation, sitting in the back of the military transport with my parents. I ran over to her. “Mrs. Patel? Hi, it’s me, Steve, do you remember me?”
Mrs. Patel was squatting along a muddy track; she looked up at me. She was carrying a crude cloth sack. Her clothes were caked with dirt and she had a very unkempt appearance, her hair wildly out of place. As our eyes met, I could see that her pupils were cloudy, as if she had cataracts or something like it. “Hello, little one,” she said in a very calm and halting voice. “Have you finished with your digging now?”
I took a few steps backwards. It was Mrs. Patel alright, but it seemed like she was in some sort of trance. She didn’t betray a single scrap of emotion, it was like she was on drugs or something. “Mrs. Patel, it’s me—Steve Symonds! Do you know where my mother is?”
Amy ran over to where I was but she gasped and moved back the moment she saw our neighbor. She looked at me with worried eyes. “Steve, what’s wrong with her?”