He turned the corner into Evangelist Road, saw the black Freelanders parked outside the safehouse. His heart nearly stopped.
The Russians. No wait a minute. That’s our guys, that’s Special Branch.
With a last desperate effort he propelled himself along the quiet sloping road, past elegant terraced houses and terrified dog walkers. He ran through the night of North London like a man possessed. His lungs were burning, his throat rasping from taking in huge gulps of cold air and pollution, his face was a shining film of greasy sweat.
As he saw the blue flashing lights, everything began to slow down. His thoughts, his pace, his sense of hope.
He wanted to throw a spanner in the works of time, run through air as viscous as water, never turn that corner, never see what he knew was awaiting him.
No matter how much Usher slammed on the brakes of reason, that corner turned, the vanishing point expanding and straightening until he was there, standing in front of the safehouse.
He stood there beneath the yellow glow of a lamppost, breathing hard, shaking his head. The front door had been knocked in, hung on its hinges. Outside the house were several police cars, two armed response vehicles, an unmarked Shogun and a marked up Ford Focus. The scene was being cordoned off by the first officers on scene, marking clear routes of entrance and egress to the crime scene, those officers liaising with CID, who stood hands in pockets of their overcoats looking blasé and arrogant. Another three men casually dressed and screaming Special Branch, stood at the entrance of the house. Just outside the cordon, a group of paramedics stood impatiently by their ambulance, arguing with one of the uniformed officers. The officer had his hands raised and was trying to placate them.
“Look lads, I know it’s taking a while to clear the house, but no one goes in until the firearms boys have made sure it’s safe. We don’t want to end up with more bodies in there do we?”
More bodies.
Usher locked eyes with one of the denim jacketed Special Branch detectives, one he recognized as his SB liaison officer in the Met. What was the name again? Crabtree. Jim Crabtree.
The officer stared at Usher for a few moments, and Usher almost forgot what he must have looked like. Torn shirt, caked in blood and grime, bruised and broken, lashing with sweat. Then Usher saw recognition in Crabtree’s eyes and the officer grabbed the attention of a paramedic and ran over.
“Usher? Major Usher? We missed your check in, knew something was wrong. One of your boys gave us the call. Only got here five minutes ago. I need to you to move back to the police safe area. Come on, let’s get you some medical attention, you look like you need it.”
Usher accepted the blanket the paramedic put around his shoulder but brushed his hand away. “I’m all right. I mean, I will be. I need to get in there. Have they found Christi?”
Crabtree moved his head somewhere between a nod and a shake. “Firearms team called out three bodies down, one a woman. They’re bringing her out now.”
Usher heard shouts from the firearms officers in the house. “Casualty moving! Clear. Hold. Ready to move? Moving!”
The team conducted an emergency entry tactic, dragging a casualty out before the building was fully cleared, covering as many danger areas as they could, and backing up in snake formation. Suddenly they emerged from the house, two officers hooking their arms beneath the arms of a limp deadweight figure, dragging it out. As soon as they were behind the relatively hard cover of the Mitsubishi Shogun, Usher ran over with Crabtree.
Usher sank to his knees. Christi’s dead eyes stared up past him. She had multiple defensive wounds to her hands and legs, knife wounds. In her chest was a single puncture wound that had caused a fatal blood loss.
Her face had the strange waxen slack quality of the dead, an abandoned mask. Usher touched her face, knew he shouldn’t due to forensics, but couldn’t help himself.
I am so sorry, pal.
One of the firearms officers removed his ballistic helmet and goggles. His face was flushed from effort and he was catching his breath. He looked up at Usher.
“Two more bodies in there, both big and serious looking. Russian enforcers judging by their tattoos. She put up a good fight. Turned the tables on the two of them in a way they can’t have expected. I’m sorry sir. She certainly didn’t give up. ”
Usher nodded, tears welling in his eyes.
“Of course she didn’t.”
Crabtree looked down and studied the body. “She couldn’t have fought after that chest wound. That tells me there were more than two attackers. Only two bodies in there?”
The firearms officer nodded.
Crabtree looked up at Usher.
“You know her? Major isn’t that the colleague you arrived to the crime scene with the other week??”
Usher nodded.
“Yes. She’s my oppo and my responsibility. And she’s my friend.”
“I’m sorry. We’ll do everything we can.”
Crabtree reached down to her hand.
“Major Usher, I’m not going to remove it until scenes of crime officers get here, but that looks like a cigarette stub in her hand. Never seen anyone smoke during a fight, which hints to me that she knew her killer. I know you can’t tell me everything, but maybe you can tell me one thing.”
“If I can I will.”
Crabtree leaned in a little and frowned as he studied the stub.
“Know anyone that smokes Stuyvesant?”
Usher felt his blood turn to ice.
Kruger, I am going to switch you off.
29
Ariel ushered the assembled crew down the corridor towards the boiler room, in the depths of the ship. He frequently stole a nervous glance back down in the direction they had come, fully expecting to see the beast leering down at them with hungry eyes.
The ship was lurching slightly, disorientating them in the tight corridors. Ariel could smell the sweat and fear off the group as they stumbled along ahead of him, the group that he was now somehow the leader of, and responsible for.
Usher hoped that none of them could see how terrified he was, how much the sheen of nervous sweat on his face was not just caused by the building heat down here near the engine rooms.
The truth was he didn’t even know if the iron shelled engine rooms would keep these people safe. He had never seen anything quite like this creature before.
Unseelie magic was easily recognizable, it had a flavour and an odour the way different nationalities’ cuisine does. The Unseelie Realm was torture and sadism, intrigue and betrayal. It was a psychopath’s fairy-tale. Every denizen of the other side had the disturbing wrong-ness of a fever dream.
This thing had a different flavour entirely.
It was like the embodiment of the heartless side of nature, thorns and hurricanes, whereas Unseelie stank of the rot of death, this thing was bursting with ferocious hungry life.
If the Unseelie realm was like watching an autopsy, this was like watching a birth.
“Ok, keep moving, we can expect the tactical teams to arrive and reclaim the ship in a few hours. In the meantime we just need to hole up and stay safe.”
Harry, the mouthy engineer who had squared up to Carver stopped and spat on the floor. He was breathing hard.
“All I see you’re doing is trapping us further down in the dungeons of this ship. The tear in the hull is down this way, we can be out of this tin tomb in fifteen minutes. But you wanna lock us in the fucking engine room cos this thing has an allergy?”
Ariel glanced behind them, checking for the sound of claws on metal.
“Look, I know it’s hard to take in, but the engine room is the safest place. Christ knows how far below freezing it is out there, with no shelter, no means of transportation and a lot of ground to cover. The distress beacon has been sent out and they are coming.”
He looked at the frightened faces gathered in front of him. Some of them may be good people, some misguided, some callous, perhaps some downright evil. Ariel had no way of p
anning for gold here, sifting out who most deserved protection.
Life had suddenly become very simplified. A huge beast with a taste for human flesh was pursuing them and each other was all they had.
Ariel wondered, could he really blame this thing for its rage? Carver and the Chromium Project had dug it from its long hibernation in the ice, cut it and stuck it with needles, siphoned the very magic from its veins and stolen its essence.
Like any bear after a long winter sleep, it had woken up in a very, very bad mood. Now it was breaking out, and regarded any of the terrified pink things running from it as the cause of its pain and humiliation.
Sometimes life was too complicated, thought Ariel, the blur between the good guys and the bad guys blurred as grey as morning mist.
Sometimes you just have to do the best you can with what you’ve got in front of you.
“Look, we’re nearly there, let’s just keep moving.”
They stood at a junction in the Proteus’s maze of corridors. To their right, a cold arctic wind was blowing, small flecks of snow gathering on the cold steel at their feet. They could hear the hiss of oxyacetylene torches where workmen and engineers were desperately attempting to seal up the bleeding wound in the hull of the Proteus.
Ariel fought against his own survival instincts. The smell of free air, however cold and deadly, was inviting. The thought of being outside this gargantuan man-made death factory filled him with hope. His intellect told him they couldn’t even hope to outrun this thing, and if the cold didn’t get them the polar bears would.
He took a deep breath and ushered them on.
Finally they came to the sealed door of the engine room. It took four of them to turn the frosted up wheel and grind open the round door. The worried faces of the crew members looked to Ariel to assuage their fear. Ariel looked back at them and shrugged.
He had nothing to offer them but this steaming iron cavern and a desperate hope in superstition.
“You need to get inside. It’s not great but it’s the best hope we’ve got.”
To his amazement, the crew followed his orders and began to move in single file into the iron hold.
Then they heard the roar.
It reverberated along the metal walls and shook the floor panels they stood on. Ariel heard screams of panic behind him and his own blood ran like ice water. He heard the footfalls of something huge and heavy moving down the corridor towards them, sniffing the air.
Ariel turned to the crew, realized they would not all get inside and seal the door quickly enough before the beast reached them.
He took a deep breath and grabbed the shotgun from the floor.
He turned and squeezed the engineer Harry by the shoulder.
“Get everyone inside quick. Seal the door behind you. Stay away from the window.”
The engineer looked puzzled. “What are you gonna do?”
Ariel felt his knees buckle a little beneath him.
“I..I’m not sure..I…I’ll know when I get there I guess.”
Ariel looked down the long flickering metal passageway ahead.
Then he screamed as terrifying a war cry as his freezing battered lungs could muster, and ran off down the corridor towards the sound of the monster.
He saw it as he came to the crossroads, nearly filling up the corridor from floor to ceiling, its translucent fur caked in dried blood and gore. It had eaten its way to them through whomever it came across.
Ariel’s courage nearly left him then, his strength sapping out through his soaking icy clothes. Then he felt the cold air hit him and saw the snow drifting at his feet.
“Come on you big bastard, come at me. Come on, follow me!”
Ariel pulled the trigger and gave the beast a volley, then ran off towards the fissure in the skin of the ship. As he sprinted he swore he could feel the breath of the creature hot on the back of his neck.
Faster Ariel, run run run.
He saw the tear in the hull ahead, ran towards it like it was the gates of heaven, took a deep breath of freezing air and snow, and then leapt out into the whiteout.
For a moment he felt like he was floating, suspended in a cool white liquid, then he fell screaming and landed hard in a mound of snow that took the breath right from him.
As he struggled to intake some air, he felt the sudden shock of just how cold it was outside the ship. The very air burned his throat and lungs. He sat up and felt for the shotgun. He couldn’t find it anywhere. In a panic he started to kick and shove the snow all around him, but it was nowhere.
Suddenly he was aware of men approaching him, men in cold weather gear and goggles. They were climbing down from temporary scaffolding, turning off cutting and welding tools, rushing to his aid. At the base of the fissure in the ship several high tech snowmobiles were parked and a tent assembled. One of the men grabbed his arm, tried to help him up. Engineers trying to fix the ship.
“Hey fella you ok? Are you hurt? You can’t be out here in that kit you’re gonna freeze.”
Ariel tried to speak, tried to scream at them with everything he had, but his voice came out as little more than a frozen croak.
“Run.”
The man pulled his mask down a little, gave Ariel a reassuring smile.
“Don’t worry, I know all hell is breaking loose in there but this girl isn’t sinking anytime soon.”
Ariel saw the shadow looming above them, and then the man’s head was gone, ripped off with a disgusting ripping noise in the jaws of the beast.
Ariel stumbled back, fell into the snow, crawled desperately to his feet, fell again, crying and shouting to himself. He twisted around and saw the monster thrust its black claws into the stomach of one of the other men, pull out his scarlet innards and scatter them steaming onto the white snow.
Ariel suddenly had the horrible feeling that this thing was after him specifically, that it remembered him from all his visits to the laboratory, that it held some special grudge against him and him alone.
He looked out ahead of him at the vast expanse of arctic white, gale force winds cutting across the glacier, whisking snow and ice like fibreglass across his face.
His choices were no choices at all, but when facing primal fear, something that sees you as nothing but food, any chance no matter how small is worth taking.
Then Ariel saw the snowmobile out of the corner of his eye. Strapped to the back of it was a hunting rifle and arctic Gore-Tex coveralls with hood. He stumbled through the snow, furiously pulled the winter clothing over his shivering limbs, and climbed onto the bike. The first time he turned the key it wouldn’t start.
At the spluttering of the engine he turned to see the monster’s head perk up from the innards of the last engineer and regard him with black eyes.
Ariel couldn’t face the end head on.
He turned from the creature and tried the key one last time.
30
HEREFORD
ENGLAND
The dark clouds hovered above Bromley Parish Church, swollen with rain and threatening to burst any moment. Some of the service personnel were the same as the weather, faces stony, dark emotions buttoned up tight in their starchily pressed grey regimental number one uniforms.
As the first drops fell, black umbrellas bloomed like an offering of funereal roses.
No full service funeral for Corporal Christi Polson, officially of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment. No coffin draped with Union Jack, town procession, regimental bugler or six gun salutes. No media attention or glorified tales of her military exploits from the pulpit. No regimental guard of honour to line the path outside the church, swords drawn and forming an arch for the final journey of the deceased. No pomp and circumstance to send her off, a ritual to give meaning to a life of violence taken by violence, a life spent doing the dirty work no one else wanted to do. A life way too short keeping a beady eye on fanatics and monsters, so that the public can tell themselves everything is all right and the world is not so bad and dark a place.
/> But it is, thought Usher as he acted as lead pallbearer of his best friend’s coffin.
The remaining members of Empire One had dressed in their military attire as a mark of respect and shared pride in their fallen colleague (no caps or badges displaying their regiment however, the MoD barely even acknowledged the STG’s existence let alone its activities) but in the main people wore sombre suits and overcoats.
This was no grand service affair in the cathedral, not just because of secrecy and national security, but because to the people gathered to say goodbye to her, Christi’s funeral was about something else. That was why they had chosen the chapel.
Her family were here to say goodbye to a daughter, a sister, a cousin. They wanted to say their last whispers to their little girl, not to a soldier. The girl who at school stuck up for her little brother when he was being bullied, kicked the older boy’s square in the balls, gave them the ultimate humiliation of being beaten by a girl. The daughter who had terrified her parents when despite getting a place to study in three different University courses she came home with army recruiting papers. Then the tears of pride in their eyes when they saw her march at her pass out parade, white gloved and lean. Several of her uniformed colleagues remembering with sad smile how they secretly held a candle for her, but knew she would have punched them in the mouth for even mentioning it. How much she held her own, was one of the lads, beat them at cards, drunk them under the table, made filthier jokes than they did, yet would have stuck up for any one of them if anyone even looked at them the wrong way. She was a hater of bullies, a staunch friend, a good soldier, and brave in the face of nightmares. That was Christi to her colleagues in the regiment. This was the formal part. Tonight in the pub they would say goodbye to her the army way. By drinking themselves daft and swapping stories about how much they all wanted to fuck her but knew that she would have probably killed them in the process. Their eyes would be poker eyes, conveying laughter and black humour, about what a complete dick the cowed Man with the Scythe was and how none of them feared him. They would do anything but break down and say how much they missed her. None of them would find it strange that they could say one thing but mean the opposite, because they all knew the emotion behind the shared lie.
The Last Line Series One Page 23