Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2)

by Mark Chadbourn

  “I’m dying. You’re supposed to be nice to me.”

  Laura watched her impassively.

  “That was the point where you were supposed to say, `Course you’re not dying. Everything will work out in the end.”’ Ruth threw an arm across her eyes. Laura couldn’t tell if she was trying to hide her emotions, but she felt bad anyway.

  But not bad enough she could bring herself to be nice. Nice was for losers. “What do you expect me to say?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing to say, is there? I’m dying. I know I’m dying. And any chance I have is the longest of long shots.” She removed her arm and Laura was surprised to see a remarkable peace in her face.

  That twisted the knife in her gut even more and suddenly she felt like crying; the words just bubbled out. “What is it? Church, you can see he’s a hero. It’s stitched right into the heart of him, always beating himself up about responsibilities and obligations and doing the right thing. Shavi’s just Mister Decency. You know he’d give up his life if the cause was right. Even Veitch, the Testosterone Kid, a fucking murderer by his own admission! Even he’s fighting against type to be good, to be a hero. And despite all his very obvious limitations, you know he’s going to come through, when the chips are down and all those other cliches. And then there’s you, kicked around and tortured from pillar to post, taking all this shit that nobody should have to take. And dying with dignity. I don’t fit in here. You give me a choice between saving my own skin and doing the right thing and you watch my dust!” The self-pity was sickening, but she seemed unable to control herself.

  “You’re not being fair on yourself-“

  “Don’t start analysing me. I don’t need it. And for God’s sake, don’t start being nice to me.”

  “I won’t-“

  “Just don’t.”

  “Look, can’t we just be friends? Even now?” Ruth’s eyes filled with tears; despite her calm, her emotions were on a knife edge.

  Laura remained silent, staring at the wall. The mass of scrawled writing disturbed her immensely and in all their time there none of them had felt up to making any effort to decipher it. It was just part of the oppressive mood that lurked in the comers of the house. She was sure Ruth sensed things there that she wasn’t talking about, and there were times when she felt it acutely herself, and she was less sensitive than anyone she knew. Something bad had happened, Ruth had said, and something bad was going to happen. Perhaps that was it: not an echo of the past, but a premonition. She felt it so strongly she could almost touch it.

  “You’ve always hidden yourself away from all of us.” Ruth’s voice was hazy and Laura could tell she was on the verge of drifting into one of her intermittent periods of delirium. “Hiding behind your sunglasses, trying to be smart and glib all the time so no one knew what you were really thinking. Even that name-Laura DuSantiago. That’s got to be an alias, a new persona to hide in.” She swallowed; her mouth sounded sticky with mucus. “Tell you what,” she continued weakly. “You tell me your real name now. I won’t tell a soul. A dying woman’s last wish.” She laughed hollowly.

  Laura sat quietly for a moment, then moved to the bedside and knelt so her mouth was close to Ruth’s ear. Ruth strained to hear.

  “Go fuck yourself,” Laura said softly.

  Then she rose and calmly walked out of the room in search of Church.

  Breaker cursed under his breath as the lead bus began another difficult threepoint turn in the middle of the road. About half a mile ahead they could see the tailback leading up to the police checkpoint. It looked like the police were barring every road they tried; Shavi had lost count of the times they had turned around and sought an alternative route. But that wasn’t what was troubling him. It was the things he increasingly caught glimpses of from the corner of his eye, moving as fast as foxes, or slipping back into shadows when he half-turned his head. He hadn’t mentioned them to Breaker or the others, but he knew what they were: the Fomorii were abroad.

  He took some relief from the fact that they were still wary enough to stay out of plain sight; just. They must be terrified about having let the essence of their god slip through their fingers, if it were possible for such creatures to feel fear. But he was concerned about how widespread they were and how their number appeared to be increasing. If they were this close to the surface now, what would happen when desperation set in as Lughnasadh neared?

  He knew they were searching for any sign of Balor, but was it possible they could sniff out the Pendragon Spirit too?

  “You look worried.” Breaker cast a sideways glance as he pulled up behind the bumper of the bus in front.

  “I was merely trying to second-guess the obstacles which might lie between us and my destination.”

  “You reckon the Finger Hunter is somewhere nearby? I don’t see how he could be keeping up with us unless he’s smelling us on the wind.”

  Shavi thought that was a distinct possibility, but said nothing.

  “The biggest problem is the cops. We need to stay out of their way. I don’t know what’s happened to them. They were always bugging us, but now they seem to be hassling everyone. All these checkpoints. What the hell do they think they’re trying to do?”

  Some of the police at every checkpoint had waxy faces, Shavi had noticed; it was obvious to him what they were trying to do. And it appeared that there was some link between what Breaker called the Finger Hunter and the Fomorii too. Shavi had an overpowering image of a net closing around him. Perhaps he would never reach Windsor at all.

  After leaving the camp where Penny had been buried, they had taken a couple of days to pick a relatively short route past Banbury before cutting through the lanes between Oxford and Bicester to reach their current position just north of the M40. On the map Windsor looked to be only forty minutes’ drive away. Two rapidly successive technology failures slowed them down even more, but every attempt to cross the motorway failed and they were continually pushed east towards London. With only a week remaining before Lughnasadh Shavi could ill afford any more delays.

  “We can’t get too close to the Smoke,” Breaker said, concerned. “A convoy this size’ll draw too much attention. We’ll get snarled up and they’ll have us off the road in a minute. Plus, some of our valued members get very uneasy whenever they’re near any built-up area. All that pollution.”

  Shavi barely spoke any more; his attention was directed at the apparently empty countryside. Thoughts were piling up inside his head, forcing him down a very worrying path. The one who killed Penny was obviously not Fomorii, but possibly had some kind of link with the Night Walkers. The killer knew who Shavi was travelling with, probably knew exactly where he was. What if the killer decided to point the Fomorii in his direction? Shavi scanned the fields cautiously. He had not seen any sign of the Fomorii for some time. Perhaps they too were wary of getting too close to the Capital. Still, he would be on his guard.

  They paused in a lay-by on the A40 east of Postcombe to weigh up their options. Most people stayed in their vehicles, taking the opportunity to have a quick snack or a drink, but the ones who had naturally gravitated towards the leading group gathered on the roadside for a conference. There were Breaker, Meg, Carolina, and four others whom Shavi didn’t know by name. While they spoke hear- edly, Shavi circled the group, focusing his attention on the fields that swept out to the north and east.

  It was late afternoon and the sweltering temperature of the day had been made worse by thick cloud cover rolling in to trap the heat. They would have to consider making camp soon, and that was a prospect Shavi did not relish.

  Exhausted by the day’s driving, still shattered by what had happened to Penny, the travellers’ nerves were fraying, their voices growing harsh. Shavi tried to ignore them to concentrate on the darkening landscape, but their debate grew louder and more hectoring until he turned and snapped, “Quiet!”

  They all looked at him. A car roared by and then the road grew still. “What is it?” Carolina said. “There’s not
hing-“

  He waved her quiet with a chopping motion of his hand. Something was jarring on his nerves, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. There was the wind in the trees. Distant traffic noise from the motorway. Nothing, nothing … And then he had it. The field birds were cawing harshly; on the surface it was not unusual, but instinctively he seemed to know what they were saying. He could hear the tonal differences, the faint nuances, almost as if it was speech. They were frightened.

  He spun round to the others. “Back to the vehicles. Quickly. It is not safe here.”

  The words had barely left his mouth when there was movement along all the hedgerows of the fields: darkness separating from the shadows near the hedge bottoms, rising out of ditches; the Fomorii were moving.

  Most of the travellers obeyed him instantly and ran towards their vehicles. One of the men whom Shavi didn’t know turned to look at the fields curiously; his eyes started to roll and nausea passed across his face. Shavi gave him a violent shove in the direction of his camper van before he could see any more.

  “Do not look at the fields!” Shavi yelled. “Get on the road and keep driving! Follow Breaker’s lead!”

  He threw himself in beside Breaker and the bus lurched out on to the road. A horn blared furiously as a Porsche overtook at high speed. “What’s going on?” Breaker asked.

  “The Fomorii are attacking,” Shavi said darkly, one eye fixed on the wing mirror. “They want me. And they will destroy you all to get at me.”

  The vehicles surged on to the road in a wave of creaking, protesting metal. But age lay heavy on some of them and their response was poor. Shavi held himself tense as he watched the trail pull out of the lay-by as the fields turned black with movement; it was as if a termites’ nest had suddenly been vacated.

  “Are they all with us?” Breaker asked anxiously.

  Shavi counted the vehicles out. “Nearly there.” A bus. Another. A mini-van. “One more.” The straggler was the camper van belonging to the traveller Shavi had forced into action. It was slow, weaving unnecessarily, and Shavi knew the driver was trying to see what was in the fields through his mirror. “Do not look,” he prayed under his breath.

  The camper van slewed suddenly to one side and came to a halt. Shavi pictured the driver vomiting, then passing out. He slammed a hand against the side window as if it would jolt the driver awake.

  In the mirror Shavi watched the darkness sweep over the hedgerow into the lay-by. He had an impression of teeth and body armour, wings and too many legs, all shimmering sable, and although he had grown almost immune to the appearance of the Night Walkers, he still felt his stomach churn.

  The Fomorii hit the camper van like a tidal wave. It crumpled as if it were made of paper, then shredded into a million pieces. Shavi looked away quickly.

  Breaker glanced at him, but didn’t have to ask. After a long silence, the traveller said, “Do you think they’ll follow us into London?”

  “They will not be able to keep up with the vehicles if you travel at speed. But now they know I am with you they will continue to hunt you down. If we go into London there is a danger we will be obstructed, slowed down.”

  “Then what?” Breaker’s thumb was banging on the wheel in an anxious rhythm.

  Shavi thought for a moment. “We must speed up, but not go completely out of sight. They must see you drop me off-“

  “We can’t abandon you to them!” Breaker flashed him a dismayed glance.

  “I will have a better chance of hiding from them alone. There must be somewhere near here where I can attempt to lose them.” He snatched up Breaker’s dog-eared book of maps and hastily riffled through the pages. When he found the page they were on, he pored over it for a minute, then stabbed his finger down. “Here.”

  When Breaker was convinced the convoy was going to go straight into the centre of High Wycombe, Shavi indicated a turning. They came to a stop at West Wycombe and waited anxiously, with constant reference to the mirror. Meg and Carolina could contain themselves no longer, and ran from their respective vehicles to see what was planned. They pleaded with him not to go, but he would not be deterred; his leaving was the only chance they had.

  When he spied movement in the countryside on either side, he kissed them both, shook Breaker’s hand forcefully, then sent them on their way. His last view of the travellers was a series of pale, frightened faces trying to comprehend what was happening in their lives.

  He waited alone in the road for as long as he could. It quickly became obvious the dark stream of Fomorii had realised he had left the convoy, for they hurtled towards him relentlessly, without heeding the disappearing vehicles.

  Once he was sure of that, he dashed through a gate and ran as fast as his legs would carry him.

  The lowering clouds made the late afternoon into twilight. The very air around him seemed to have a gun-metal sheen and he could taste iron on the back of his tongue; a storm was brewing, which he hoped would be to his advantage, although he had the unnerving feeling the Fomorii could see in the gloomiest weather conditions.

  But at least he was sure he could make the location work for him. Once he saw the name on the map, the information about myths, legends and history that he had amassed over a lifetime instantly came into play.

  He was sprinting through the classically designed grounds of West Wycombe Park in full view of the gleaming Palladian mansion where the Dashwood family had made their home for hundreds of years. It was one of their ancestors who had earned the place such notoriety. In the mid-eighteenth century Sir Francis Dashwood founded a private brotherhood of the upper crust, which he ironically named the Knights of St. Francis. There was little of the chivalrous about a secret society dedicated to orgies and blasphemous religious ceremonies, acts which earned it the nickname the Hellfire Club and a motto Do what thou wilt. The truth had turned into legend, which had haunted the family and the area ever since, but somewhere in the grounds was another part of Sir Francis’ grim legacy which Shavi thought might save his life; if only he could find it.

  He headed for the unmistakable landmark of St. Lawrence’s Church, built by Dashwood, with a meeting place for ten of his Hellfire Knights in a gleaming, golden ball on the top of the tower. Shavi had half expected to be met by security guards or someone trying to make him buy a ticket, but things were falling apart quickly all over; what was the point of maintaining tourist locations when everyone was trying to live on a day-to-day basis in a climate of increasing fear?

  At the church he stopped and glanced back. The shadowy shapes were closer now, massing as they flowed down the sweeping green slopes of the garden. Quickly he scanned the area.

  Eventually he found what he was looking for: an entrance cut into the hillside overlooking the park. Within lay a network of artificial caves going deep underground where the Hellfire Club had held its magic rituals and orgies. It was tucked away at just such an angle that the approaching Fomorii would not see him take the detour and would presume he had continued on through the grounds; and it was discreet enough that unless they knew it was there, they would not see it. He hoped.

  He skidded inside, his chest aching from his ragged breathing; even fit as he now was, he hadn’t moved at such a clip for a long time. The catacombs were filled with an inky darkness. Lights had been installed for the tourists, but he didn’t dare attempt to put them on, even if he could have located the light switch. He moved as swiftly as he could while feeling his way along the chill, dank walls. When he rounded a corner and the ambient light was extinguished, the gloom was complete. He had a sudden flashback to the grim ruins of Mary King’s Close and felt his heart begin to pound. He had attempted to bend the supernatural to his will, but the more he had learned about the Invisible World, the more he realised how much there was that terrified him. He wondered if any remnant of the monstrous rituals carried out by the Hellfire Club had been imprinted in the rock walls; if Sir Francis Dashwood’s spirit still walked the place, trying to expunge his lif
etime’s sins; if there were other, worse, things there that had been called up by the Club’s desire to be an affront to natural law.

  But more than the otherworldly threat was the certain knowledge that if the Fomorii did enter the catacombs he would not be aware of them until they were upon him.

  When he felt he had progressed deep enough into the heart of the tunnels, he slumped down against the foot of the wall and took a deep breath. His whole body was shaking from the strain and the fear, his blood pumping so loudly he didn’t think he would hear if a column of hobnailed soldiers were marching towards him; he forced himself to do a series of breathing exercises to calm himself. Once he had relaxed as much as he could he tried to concentrate all his energies on his hearing. In his mind’s eye he pictured the scene above ground: the oppressive force of Fomorii smashing down small trees, tearing through shrubs and flowers, sweeping up and around the church. By now they should have reached the entrance to the catacombs.

  He listened intently. Nothing.

  Perhaps they had already passed, thundering through the rest of the grounds, not stopping for miles, like robot drones pointed in one direction and turned on. Of the Fomorii he had encountered, there appeared little of independent thought and cunning; that rested in large quantities with their leader Calatin, and Mollecht, the Fomor who appeared as a swirling mass of crows, whom Shavi had not seen since that night in the Lake District when they thought they had snatched victory.

  Time passed in deep silence. How long should he wait there, he wondered? In the dark he found he was losing track of the hours. If the Fomorii had not already found him, it would be logical, he supposed, to wait until morning before attempting to leave. They would be scouring the countryside for him and the night was not the best time to be trying to evade them. But even if he did make it through the night undiscovered, what chance would he have of reaching Windsor Park? It was not far on the map, but if there were an army of Fomorii between him and his destination, it might as well have been a million miles away.