A Love to Kill For

by Conor Corderoy

  They took the Gunnersbury roundabout with black smoke streaming from their rear tires. Then they screamed off at the Chiswick High Road exit. At Kew Bridge del Roble threw his bus right across the traffic and hit eighty onto the Kew Bridge Road. Catherine tapped a car keeping up with him, and as I took off after her, I heard a squeal of brakes and a crash behind me. Now del Roble was heading for Brentford. And suddenly I knew where he was going, and what he was going to do.

  But before I could think ahead, del Roble was burning rubber hanging a left into Goat Wharf. I smiled at the name and hit the corner almost parallel with Catherine. As del Roble screeched to a stop at the end of the ally, she spun her wheel so her convertible skidded to a halt, blocking his exit. But then he was out of the car, sprinting toward the canal. I slammed on the brakes and stopped inches from her Merc. She was already out and running, and I was vaulting the door and after her.

  Del Roble headed straight for the river. The tide was in and the water was high. At the end of the wharf he seemed to hesitate for just a second. Then he dodged left and vanished. Catherine followed and as I caught up, I saw that he had jumped down onto a kind of pontoon that ran along the river bank and served as a mooring for boats and barges. He was legging it along there now, with Catherine in hot pursuit. She had pulled her piece and stopped, took aim and I heard the crack as she pulled the trigger. But her shot went wide, and now she’d allowed him to pull ahead—and me to get closer.

  Del Roble was fast on his feet and he covered the sixty yards to the next road in a few seconds. But he had to pause to scramble up onto the wharf, and that gave me and Catherine time to close the gap. She tried another shot, but he was moving and it went wide like the first. Then he vanished.

  She was close after him. She was strong and agile and clambered up off the pontoon like a gazelle. I scrambled after her and we were in a long alley. It was empty and there was some kind of deserted building site fenced off on the right. Del Roble was sprinting fast toward a gap in the fencing and Catherine was closing on him. I went after them, feeling my lungs were going to explode.

  I dodged in through the gap in the fence and saw del Roble sprinting across an open area of wasteland. There was rubble scattered here and there, and some old oil drums, but he had a clear run. And Catherine had a clear shot. She stopped, cool and deliberate, her left leg slightly forward and her knees slightly bent. She took careful aim and fired just as I rugby tackled her. She went down and the shot went wide. I tried to scramble on top of her to immobilize her, but her strength was astonishing. She twisted and gave me two powerful kicks in the ribs. Then she was on her feet, screeching like a crazed eaglet. I clambered up, shouting at her to cool down, but before I knew it she’d swung her piece and caught me in the head. I staggered back, stunned. It was only a couple of seconds, but when I recovered my senses, I saw that Catherine, instead of taking off after del Roble, had sprinted right, among the rubble of the building site, toward the river.

  I swore profusely, wiping blood from my head, not sure whom to chase. I hesitated a second, then went after del Roble. He’d ducked right at the end of the building site, behind some skips and makeshift sheds. I tried to put some speed into my legs and came out from behind the shacks and rubble into a small alley that led to the banks of the river. At the end there was a small wooden jetty and I got there just in time to see del Roble leap off the end. I went after him. As I arrived I heard a powerboat roar into life, and del Roble pulled out from under the jetty in the Salvation. I looked out toward the middle of the river. There I saw, as I had expected, the Divine Mercy gently rocking at anchor.

  Suddenly I was overcome with a deep weariness. I stepped onto the jetty and sat myself on the edge to watch del Roble speed away. He was still quite close, and not going too fast. He must have sensed I was there, because he slowed right down and turned to smile and wave me goodbye. I didn’t wave back. I was too busy noticing something about his big loose linen jacket, and the way it was moving as he turned, and the way the breeze took it.

  He turned back and accelerated again, toward his yacht. There was a large tarpaulin in the back, probably used to cover the seats in wet weather. I smiled as I saw it move. Then I grinned as I saw Catherine’s head emerge, and I burst out laughing as I saw her get to her feet behind him and jam her revolver in his back. I watched them reach the Divine Mercy and slowly climb aboard.

  I stayed there watching for another fifteen minutes, until I saw Catherine step out onto the deck. She stood at the gunwale, looking at me across the water. Then they weighed anchor and the beautiful, white schooner began to creep down the Thames toward the sea. When it was lost to sight, I got up and walked back toward my car, real slow. I kept seeing del Roble’s jacket flapping in the breeze as he turned to wave at me. I could see him clear as daylight, slipping the stone in his left pocket as he ran from my apartment. But when he’d waved to me, there was nothing in either of his jacket pockets.

  It was a long shot, but I clambered my way back into the building site and started across the wide expanse of wasteland, following the route he had followed as he ran. This time I saw something I hadn’t seen before, when I was chasing him. Over amid the rubble, a couple of bums had set up house, using cardboard boxes, pallets and piles of rocks as a makeshift shelter. One of them was lying on his side, dozing. The other was sitting hunched up, examining something. I stopped and watched him. Whatever it was, it was very smooth and very black. I could just hear him talking to his pal. “Watchafink it is, Jimmy?”

  His friend muttered something but didn’t move. The bum held it up and I could see clearly that it was the Ael Rune. He turned it over a few times then, in that way that bums have sometimes, he said with an air of defiance, “Well, now it’s mine, and I’m goin’ to use it as me cup!”

  I had a strange feeling of curiosity as I watched him pour water from his plastic bottle into the shallow bowl. Then, he raised it to his lips, and just before he drank, his eyes went wide with wonder as he looked in the bowl and muttered, “Holy shit!”

  Then the sly glance at his friend and the beatific smile as he drank deep. No water ever made a guy smile like that.

  I turned and walked away. I had an appointment with Russell and Hook, and after that, I had a date with my own salvation, my own holy grail.

  Epilogue

  When Night Darkens the Streets

  “It’s sad about Rupert, but I honestly believe he was as good as dead from the moment he clapped eyes on her.” Russell said, this with the same compassionate detachment he brought to everything he did and said, including pouring the tea into Brigadier Reggie Hook’s cup, before adding a cloud of milk. He set the pot down with great care and added, “So I imagine you’ll be pulling out of Spain soon, Reggie.”

  The brigadier nodded. “Strictly between us, the Andalusian defense just crumbled overnight. Surprising, really. They’d driven the Spanish government forces back to Ciudad Real, over the mountains, and Spain’s assault from the sea on the beaches of Mojacar and Almeria was in total disarray, thanks to the Andalusian’s bombing raids. The Andalusian forces were really doing rather well, especially in the air. But then, quite suddenly, overnight…” He paused and looked at me. “The day after we picked you up, in fact. They just went to pieces.”

  I held his eye a moment and fished out a cigarette. When it was lit, I turned to Russell. A blackbird was saying something real elaborate into the early autumn evening. I tried not to listen. I said, “Russell, what was the Ael Rune?”

  He sighed deeply and glanced at the brigadier, who shrugged. I haven’t often seen Russell lost for words, but that was how he looked in that moment. Eventually he said, “There is so much, Liam, that you don’t know—”

  I cut him short. “I’ve had just about enough of people telling there is so much I don’t understand, Russell. Del Roble said it was a nano-particle programmer. What is that in English?”

  “We aren’t sure, actually. And it’s hard to reverse engineer a stone. It se
ems to be some kind of a tool. A technological tool that we haven’t developed—yet.”

  I looked at the tip of my cigarette to make sure it hadn’t changed into a grinning cat smoking a hookah. I said, “So if we haven’t developed it yet, where did del Roble get it from?”

  The brigadier said, “We aren’t sure.”

  I said, “Bullshit, with the greatest respect, Brigadier.”

  He smiled, “Liam, in your contact with del Roble and Catherine, did you ever notice anything…unusual about them?”

  I shrugged. “I think they slipped me some kind of hallucinogenic. I had a few weird hallucinations in Çalares, and a pretty weird flashback when Catherine killed Rupert, the day del Roble and Catherine got away. Why?”

  Russell spoke up. “What kind of hallucination?”

  “Crazy stuff. It was like they turned into…” I shook my head and hesitated.

  Russell cut me short. “Lizards? In fact, more than lizards, dinosaurs?”

  I stared at them both like they had gone crazy, while they stared back at me, waiting. But as I thought about it, I realized he was right. I said, “How the hell did you know that? Who are these people?”

  It was the brigadier who answered.

  “We don’t know the answer to that, Liam. We don’t even know how long it’s been going on. There are theories, but they are only theories. The prevalent one is that these—” He turned to Russell and spread his hands. “What shall I say, Russell? Creatures? People?”

  Russell sipped his tea and said, “People, Reggie. I think they are people.”

  “These people, then, share the planet with us. Perhaps they have been here far longer than us. There are chaps at NASA who theorize that they are evolved, intelligent dinosaurs who survived the extinction sixty-five million years ago, thanks to their intelligence.”

  Russell must have seen the look on my face, because he interrupted the brigadier and asked me, “Why not, Liam? They were here hundreds of millions of years, infinitely longer than us. There is nothing in nature that says intelligence is the preserve of mammals, you know. It might evolve in any species—even insects—given the right conditions. And heaven knows they were around long enough for it to develop.”

  “So if they are so smart and have this technology, why are we at the top of the food chain?”

  The brigadier nodded. “It’s a good question, and a rather worrying one. The simple answer is that we don’t know. To be honest, we don’t actually know that we are at the top of the food chain. There are cases we try to keep out of the press, which suggest there may in fact be someone or something preying on us—well-researched, well-documented, inexplicable abductions. Exsanguinated bodies with their organs surgically removed.” He paused. “You’ve heard of the cattle mutilation in the States? It happens to people too. More than you’d think.”

  He was thoughtful a moment, sipping his tea. As he set down the cup he started talking again.

  “We know they are among us, Liam. There is simply no question about that. We know they have chameleon qualities and can change their appearance to some degree, as many reptiles can. We also know that they seem to have some kind of hybridization program going, and there is some form of hierarchy among them and the hybrids—and among the hybrids themselves.” He added as an afterthought, “With the so-called ‘grays’ at the bottom of the scale, and the Seraphs near the top. At the very top are the Aels.”

  Russell cut in. “This may be the etymology of our terms ‘elf’ and ‘angel’, and the Hebrew ‘el’, power, God. It goes back a long way.” He studied my face a moment. He looked irritated at the skepticism he saw there. “We have scientists working on this, Liam. People who know their stuff.” He sighed. “But mostly what we have is theories, with few hypothesis and fewer answers. It may be that sixty-five million years ago, with the impact of the comet or asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, the changes to the climate of the Earth were so radical that this particular species went underground.”

  “That’s what del Roble said.”

  Russell nodded. Then shrugged. “It may be that they already lived underground. Many reptilian species do. The fact is that, for whatever reason, they do not dwell on the surface. Though many of their hybrids do.”

  The brigadier took over again. “Their interaction with us has been sporadic. It is possible to see periods in history where they have intervened more actively, but, on the whole, they have stayed out of human affairs. However, since the Second World War, they have been very actively infiltrating our society, intervening in politics and accelerating their hybridization program. Though they seem to have had that in place for a very long time.” He paused, thought carefully for a moment then added, “And they have intervened actively in the issue of climate change.”

  I said, “Del Roble said something strange. He said he didn’t want to take control of the fusion reactor program. He wanted to kill it.”

  Russell sighed. “Yes. And he did. He killed it stone dead.”

  I frowned. “But surely if they wanted to control European energy reserves—”

  Brigadier Reggie Hook laughed. “If! But did he? Don’t forget… He was also very keen to get Tejero drilling for oil in Almeria. It may be, Liam, that what they want is exactly the opposite! They may well have engineered the industrial revolution, and the frantic industrial competition between East and West during the Cold War. And they may well have done this in order to create climate change.” He paused, watching me. “To create an environment more like the Jurassic and Cretaceous.” He shook his head. “We just don’t know.”

  “The point is”—it was Russell again—“their technology is immensely advanced. The Ael Rune is like a CPU that controls the action of subatomic particles. It allows them to do things that to us seem to be magic.” He shrugged. “Much as our television or microwaves would seem like magic to someone from the eighteenth century. Only with the nano-particle programmer, they can apparently create matter out of potentials or change the physical nature of things.”

  I said, “Like turn water into wine?” He frowned at me. I smiled. “Del Roble called it the Holy Grail and the Philosopher’s Stone.” I was thinking of the tramp at the building site, and his expression when he looked into his new cup.

  The brigadier gave a small shrug and said, “I suppose it has parallels. It will certainly be a serious loss to them.”

  I glanced at him. “Yeah.” Then I thought of Sinead and wondered how much of a loss, and who exactly ‘them’ was. Maybe ‘they’ were as fractured and divided as we were. After a while I said, “Anyway, I’m glad we haven’t got it either.”

  He nodded. “Me too. We’re a savage bunch.” Then he looked me straight in the eye. “You are certain you saw it fall?”

  I took a long drag on my cigarette, holding his eye all the while. “As he was pulling away in his launch, he turned toward me. It was in the hip pocket of his jacket. It was too big and just slipped out and fell into the river.”

  He sighed. “Probably just as well. We aren’t ready for that kind of technology yet.”

  I nodded. “I guess you’re right.” I looked at Russell. “Explain something to me. What the hell has all this to do with Aleister Crowley?”

  He seemed not to hear. He looked at the teapot and said, “Reptiles, like birds, are frightfully ritualistic, you know.”

  I drained my tea and prepared to stand. My body still ached and I had a nasty burn on my face. But there was another deeper, duller ache. Before I got up, I couldn’t resist asking Russell one last question. “So, how human are they, Russell? Catherine sure seemed pretty human.”

  “Who knows? There seems to be a whole range of them, some more human than others. We’ve never been able to examine one, or determine how far-reaching their hybridization program is. The ones you Yanks have at Area 51 you guard very jealously indeed. I’d say del Roble and Catherine Howard were hybrids, but exactly what that means, I don’t know.”

  “That’s what Sinead said, and de
l Roble seemed to confirm it.”

  “Yes, and the changes you saw, that you thought were hallucinations, were probably triggered by hormone changes brought on by stress, such as rage or fear. A kind of defense mechanism rooted in their DNA.”

  I stood. “So what happens to Hugo’s fusion reactor now?”

  Russell spread his hands. “It’s been put into the hands of the DEA. The project seems to be to finish the research and development and build the reactor at Llyn Celyn in Wales. That, at least, should be a good thing. It should slow global warming, at any rate, if it isn’t too late.”

  I didn’t pay much attention to his words then. I had other things on my mind, though I would remember them later, in years to come.

  The autumn afternoon was turning to russet, and the blackbird on the chimney was telling me it was time to go. I bade my farewells and walked across his lawn to the gate and out onto Mill Pond Lane. One black cloud hung still and silent in the North, against a quiet sky. I climbed into my Daemon and headed out of Fishbourne, toward Chichester and London. I was dimly aware that the world was changing. History was coming to a climax and what we knew as ‘normal’ and ‘everyday’ was about to change beyond all recognition, but I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to think about what I had—what I thought I knew I had. I had fifteen million bucks in Belize and a woman you couldn’t buy with all the money in the world.

  * * * *

  I met her at Holland Park as evening was falling and the shadows were growing long. She was at the Japanese Garden. I couldn’t find her at first. My eye was drawn to the metallic green and blue peacock, with its tail fanned in full, strutting display. But then I saw her. She was standing at the bridge, looking down at the water spilling into the pool. I stood and watched her a while, enjoying the sight of her in her blue jeans and baseball boots, her white sweatshirt and her long black hair. After a while, I walked up and touched her arm. She turned and smiled at me, screwing up her freckled nose in the late sun.