Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2)

by Mark Chadbourn

  Tom nodded. “Under the direction of Sir William St. Clair, a prince of Orkney. In the increasingly Godless twentieth century most of the groups have withered. I have no idea if one still exists at Rosslyn-“

  The faint knock at the door made him tense, as if he had heard a gun being cocked. Before anyone could speak, Veitch was already moving on perfectly balanced limbs until he was poised at the door jamb, ready to act. He looked to Church for guidance.

  Church waited a moment then called out, “Who’s there?”

  “Laura.” Her voice sounded like paper in the wind.

  Veitch wrenched open the door and she almost collapsed in. Church moved forward quickly to catch her.

  She looked into his face before her eyelids flickered and a faint smile spread across her lips. “You know, I always saw it like this.”

  It was midmorning before she had recovered. Faintly contrite but determined not to show it, Laura sat in a sunbeam on the bed, wrapped in a blanket, her skin like snow, her pupils still dilated so much her eyes seemed black. She had attempted to tell them the full horror of what had happened at the club, but so much had been tied into her trip she couldn’t separate reality from hallucination herself. “Maybe that spy was right,” she said. “Maybe it is all how we see it in our heads. Who knows what’s really happening?”

  “Exactly!” Shavi began excitedly. “Liquid nitrogen would cause-“

  Veitch pushed forward, barely able to contain his irritation. “What’s wrong with you? Look at the state of you-off your face, talking bollocks. This isn’t a holiday. You can’t just carry on having a good time-“

  Church clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Not now, Ryan.”

  Veitch glared. “Jumping to her protection just because you’re shagging her, even though you know I’m right?”

  “It’s not like that. We all know she could have made some better choices, but this isn’t the time.”

  Veitch shook his head angrily. “This is war. We’ve got to have some strict rules. Because if one person fucks up, it could drag the rest of us down.”

  “He’s right,” Tom said. “We have to have discipline-“

  “And that’s one thing I haven’t got, right?” Laura said sharply. “You lot are such blokes.”

  She desperately wanted to talk about her fears, about what was happening to her body, but everyone seemed more ready to criticise than to listen. She didn’t feel any different, but the shock of seeing what happened to her blood lay heavy on her. Part of her wondered if she had contracted some hideous new virus which had crossed over from Otherworld; there were so many new rules, so many things still hidden, it was impossible to put any event into any kind of context. Perhaps it had lain in her, dormant, but was now beginning to ravage her body. But with all their talk of discipline and missions and responsibility to the cause, how could she even bring it up? It was something she had to deal with herself.

  Veitch leaned against one of the lobby’s marble columns, adopting a look of cool detachment while secretly believing the attendants were all sneering at him, whispering behind their hands that he shouldn’t be there, that someone ought to throw him out. It made him feel angry and hunted and at any other time he wouldn’t have subjected himself to it, but those feelings paled in comparison to the betrayal he felt at Church’s dismissal of Ruth’s plight. He understood in an oblique way what Church said about obligation and responsibility, but loyalty to friends overrode it all; and love was even more important than that.

  He was suddenly aware of an old man moving across the lobby towards him. His gait was lazily elegant, although he looked in his seventies. The sharp cut of his expensive suit, the delicate way he held his silver-topped cane, the perfect grooming of his swept-back white hair and old-style handlebar moustache, all suggested a man of breeding.

  Here we go, Veitch thought. Somebody who wants the riff-raff thrown out.

  But as the elderly gentleman neared, Veitch saw he was smiling warmly. “I am an excellent judge of a man’s face,” he said in the well-formed vowels of a privileged Edinburgh brogue, “and I can see we’ve both been touched by magic.” His eyes twinkled as he took Witch’s left hand in both of his; Veitch was so shocked he didn’t snatch it back as he normally would have. “I can see troubles too,” the gentleman continued. “And if it is any comfort, hear the words of someone who has grown wise in his long life: never give up believing.” He tapped Veitch once on his forearm and then, with a polite nod, turned and moved gracefully back across the lobby.

  “What was that all about?” Church had come up on Veitch while he curiously surveyed the gentleman’s retreat.

  “Dunno. Some old duffer who’s had too much sun.”

  As they wandered in the morning sunlight towards the sandwich shop to pick up lunch, Veitch put on the cheap sunglasses he had picked up at one of the department stores on Princes Street. He couldn’t contain himself any longer. “I don’t know how you can dump her, mate.”

  Church nodded, relieved it was finally out. “I know how you feel, Ryan. More than you might think. But after how I almost screwed things up before Beltane because I was so wrapped up in my own problems, I’ve got to keep my eye on the big picture. I learned the hard way that we all come second.”

  Veitch shook his head; the sunglasses masked his emotions from Church. “I hear what you’re saying, but it’s not right.” His feelings were heavy in his voice, but he was managing to control himself. “She’s one of us. We should look after our own.”

  “And maybe we can. There might be a way we can do what we have to do and save Ruth at the same time. I just haven’t thought of it.”

  “Well, you better get thinking. It’s your job.”

  “Why is it my job?” Church bristled. “Did I miss the election? How come I ended up leading this pathetic bunch?”

  Veitch looked surprised, as if Church had asked the most stupid question in the world. “Course it had to be you. Who else could do it?”

  “Shavi.”

  “He’s got his own responsibilites. Listen, you know your strengths. Thinking, planning. Seeing the big picture.”

  Church grunted, looked away. “Well, I don’t like it.”

  “You’re good at it. Accept it.”

  “Okay,” Church said. “Well, you accept this. The Pendragon Spirit, or whatever it is, is pushing all our strengths out into the open and yours are obvious too. You’re not just the fighter, the warrior, you’re the strategist. I’ve seen it in you-you’re a natural at choosing the right path whenever we’re in a tight spot. So here’s your job: sort out how we can save Ruth and do everything else we need to do.”

  Veitch looked even more surprised at this, but after a moment’s thought he said seriously, “All right, I’ll take you up on that. But if I do it, you’ve got to give me a good hearing.”

  “Deal.”

  The relief on Veitch’s face was palpable. As they crossed Princes Street, he said, out of the blue, “So what’s happening with you and the big-mouthed blonde?”

  Church shrugged. “We get on well. We’ve got a lot in common.”

  “I don’t trust her.”

  “I know you don’t. But I do. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “Yes.” He paused outside the sandwich shop and turned to Church. “She’s got it bad for you, you know.”

  “So you’re an expert on affairs of the heart now, are you?”

  “I know what I see. Do you feel the same about her?”

  Church shifted uncomfortably, then made to go into the shop, but Veitch stood his ground. “Everything is a mess these days,” Church said irritably. “All I can do is get through each day acting and reacting, not thinking at all.” He missed Ruth much more than he might have shown, but he kept quiet because he didn’t want to give Witch any more fuel for his argument; but Ruth was the only one to whom he could truly talk. Her listening and gentle guidance had helped him unburden numerous problems. “Is that the end of the inquisition?” he asked sharply.


  “One more thing. Something that’s been on my mind. That dead girlfriend of yours. How you coping with that?”

  Church winced at Veitch’s bluntness. “You have got this strategy thing, haven’t you? Checking up I’m not a liability?”

  “No-“

  “Yes, you are. You just don’t realise it. Marianne’s death doesn’t haunt me any more. Neither does she, if that’s what you mean. Since the Fomorii stopped bothering with us they’ve not sent her spirit out to make me suffer. But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten they’ve still got her.” He tapped his chest and then his head. “It’s in here and it’s in here. And one day soon I’m going to set her free and get my own back.”

  This seemed to satisfy him. “I just wanted to be sure.”

  Church watched him disappear into the shop with an increasing sense of regard. His skills as a warrior were growing stronger with each passing day, as if ancient history were shouting through his genes. The Pendragon Spirit had chosen well, each of them maturing into a different role, the resources most needed for the task at hand. Perhaps there was a chance after all.

  As they made their way back to the hotel they noticed signs of activity on The Mound just beyond the National Gallery. Two police cars were parked across the road, lights flashing, and armed soldiers had been discreetly positioned near walls and in shadows in the vicinity. A crowd had gathered near the cars with a mood that seemed at once irritated and dumbfounded.

  “Looks like trouble,” Veitch said. “We should stay away.”

  “I want to find out what’s happening.”

  He grabbed the arm of a man at the back of the crowd to ask for informa tion. “They’re closing off the Old Town,” he replied, obviously troubled by an event which seemed to shake the natural order. “Public safety, they say. If the Old Town isn’t safe, what about the rest of us?”

  “I hear there was some kind of Government laboratory up there doing top secret experiments and they had an accident,” a middle-aged woman whispered conspiratorially.

  “Now why would they do experiments where people live and all the tourists go?” another woman said with a dismissive snort.

  A young man with a shaved head and a pierced nose butted in. “No, it’s a serial killer. A pal o’ mine went to a club up there last night and he dinnae return home. The word is a whole load of people were murdered.”

  Church listened to the theories bouncing back and forth until he was dragged away by Veitch tugging insistently on his arm. “One of the cops spotted us and went for his radio,” he said. “Looks like we’re still on the Most Wanted list.”

  Church was back soon after, this time with Laura. After discussion, they had decided that, despite the risks, they had to get to the Central Library in the heart of the Old Town to search for the information they needed. At least in the daylight the supernatural threat was minimised, but it increased the danger of them getting picked up by the police.

  “Why couldn’t they have closed the place off tomorrow?” Church grumbled as they surveyed one of the road blocks.

  Laura fixed a relentless, icy glare on a woman who had been staring at her scars; the woman withered and hurried away.

  “Don’t pick on the locals. They don’t have your power,” Church said drily.

  “I always use my powers wisely.” Laura looked around surreptitiously, then fixed her sunglasses. The blockade at the foot of Cockburn Street was manned by one young policeman who kept glancing uneasily up the steeply inclining road behind him.

  “God knows why I chose you. That blonde hair stands out like a beacon. It’s not the best thing for subterfuge.”

  “Actually, I chose you, dickhead. And it’s my beauty that attracts all the looks, not my hair.” She scanned the street briefly before picking up an abandoned beer bottle at the foot of a wall. “What we need is a diversion.”

  Before Church had time to protest she hurled the bottle in an arc high over the policeman’s head while he was glancing round. It exploded against the plate-glass window of a record shop, which shattered in turn. The policeman started as if he had been shot. Once the shock had eased, a couple of seconds later, he ran to investigate the shop, still obviously disorientated.

  “There we go.” Laura ran for the shadows of Advocate’s Close, which disappeared up among the buildings.

  “You like taking risks, don’t you?” Church said breathlessly when he finally caught up with her at the top of the steep flight of stairs.

  “Life would be boring without them.” They both came up short against the eerie stillness which hung over the normally tourist thronged Royal Mile. “Spooky,” she added.

  “The Fomorii are getting stronger. They’re slowly spreading their influence out from the castle to secure their boundaries. That’s what you saw last night at the club.” Church suddenly glanced back into the shadows clustered at the foot of the steps.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know … thought I saw something. I’m just jumpy.”

  “If the copper was after us we’d know by now.” She strode out across the street. “So you’ve forgiven me, then?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive.”

  “What, apart from my stupidity?” She didn’t meet his eye.

  “Come on, anybody could have done what you did. It’s hard to adjust to all the new dangers that are out there.”

  “Veitch doesn’t think so. The Cockney bastard wants me dead.”

  “You’re overreacting. He’s our tactician and warrior. It’s his job to be cautious.”

  “Tactician and warrior?” she sneered. “That’s a strange euphemism for wanker.”

  As they made their way up to George IV Bridge Church couldn’t help looking behind him again. The apprehension he felt from the moment they entered the Old Town was increasing rapidly.

  “Stop being so jumpy,” Laura cautioned sharply. “No one’s behind us.”

  Church found himself involuntarily grasping for the locket the young Marianne had given him before she died; it felt uncommonly hot in his hand, as if it, too, was responding to something that couldn’t be defined by the five senses. Despite its cheapness, with its crudely snipped photo of Princess Diana, it gave him some comfort. Infused with the power of faith, it represented to him the tremendous power of good that had come from the terrible changes in the world, a counterbalance to everything else they experienced. Instinctively he felt it had even stronger powers than the inspirational ones he attributed to it.

  They walked quickly to the Central Library. The evacuation had obviously taken place hurriedly that morning after the discovery of the carnage at the club, for the swing doors at the front were unlocked. They slipped in and ducked beneath the electronic barriers to reach the stacks in the sunlit room at the back. It didn’t take them long to find the section dedicated to Edinburgh history.

  “It’s like technology never happened,” Laura said with distaste as she glanced at the rows of books.

  Church ignored her; she was only trying to get a reaction, as usual. He pulled out a pile of general history books and heaved them over to one of the reading tables. They spent the next hour wading through the tales of murder, intrigue and suffering which seemed to characterise Edinburgh, reading beyond just the plague years in case the spirits had been less than direct in their guidance.

  While Church quietly immersed himself, Laura attempted new levels of irritation by announcing every time she came across something of interest. “Listen to this,” she said, ignoring his muttered curse. “This used to be the most crowded city in Europe. There’re six thousand living in the Old Town now. Back then there were nearly sixty thousand. That’s like Bombay or something. No wonder the plague went through here like wildfire. They were all crammed inside the city walls so instead of spreading out, they just built the houses up and up. Eight, nine, ten storeys. Sometimes just shacks of wood on top. They were collapsing all the time or catching fire, killing-“

  “Fascinating.”


  “Hey, there’s another great fact here.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes. It says all people with the surname Churchill are pompous windbags.”

  It took a second or two to register and before he could say anything she’d grabbed him and pulled him halfway across the table to plant a kiss on his lips. “Get the poker out of your arse, dull-boy. Just because it’s the end of the world doesn’t mean we can’t have fun.” There was almost a desperation in her comment. She glanced around, then leered at him. “A good place for sex. How many people can say they’ve done it on a reading table at the public library?”

  “You’re only saying that to get out of doing boring work.”

  “You reckon.”

  He gave her a long kiss, but as he pulled away his gaze fell on a passage in an open book next to them. “There it is!”

  “That’s it. Change the subject-“

  “No, listen.” He levered her to one side so he could read: “Down where Princes Street Gardens are now there used to be a lake, the Nor’ Loch, which was the main source of drinking water for the city. It was also where all Edinburgh’s sewage used to flow-“

  “Very tasty.”

  -so everyone’s immune system was low, particularly those who were close to the Nor’ Loch, like the residents of Mary King’s Close-which is why they suffered particularly badly when the plague came.” Church traced his finger along the tiny print of the book. “There was a nearby village called Restalrig, which has been swallowed up by the city now. Next to Restalrig’s church was a natural spring which was a major source of clean water during the plague years.”

  “So that’s the place that gave succour to the plague victims.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  “Now there was a stone surround to the spring and when they decided to build a railway depot on the site in 1860 they moved it to another natural spring. At the foot of Arthur’s Seat.”

  “We saw it!” Laura exclaimed. “When we drove past on our way to the top. There was a grille and a big pile of stone shit set in the hillside-“