Phil choked on the breath that tried to evacuate his winded abdomen, the gag too tight to allow it to exit from his mouth.
Heavy swishing, then darkness. Phil almost entertained the faint hope that it was an angel’s wings sweeping down to take them away from this terrible nightmare but he knew that Franklin had just drawn the curtains.
The head porter went to the dining table at the far end of the room and pulled forward two of the heavy pine chairs. He pushed Kelly onto one, secured her shoulders to the backrest and tied her ankles to the legs. Then he did the same to Nick.
He went back to the coffee table, looked briefly at the photos on top of the folders and raised his eyebrows in genuine surprise.
“My, my. Freeland really took a chance, didn’t he?. No David Bailey, but still…” he frowned. “The diary. Where is it?”
Phil stared at the red foil garlands on the ceiling, convulsed in pain. He heard the heavy footsteps of the head porter approach him.
The duct tape was savagely stripped away, taking strands of beard hair and pieces of skin with it. Phil’s gasping, hyperventilating noises sounded alien even to him. He’d never heard any creature, let alone a human being, make noises like this.
Franklin stooped over Phil, his steady, normal breathing a mocking insult to Phil’s own. When Phil’s breathing approached something like normality, Franklin spoke.
“Mr Lotson…Phil.” He smiled gently. “I must have that journal. Tell me where it is, please.”
Phil heard muffled squeaks from Kelly. He heard Nick struggling in his chair, but couldn’t bring himself to look at them.
“G-go f-fuck yourself,” he gasped.
Franklin waved a disapproving finger. “Now, Phil. That’s really not the attitude. You’re in no position to be abusive. Give me the journal, or your family dies while you watch.”
Phil’s voice rose to a scream. “You f-fucking maniac!”
Franklin clamped a palm over Phil’s mouth. Phil tried to bite down on it, but Franklin’s grip was too tight. He tasted the sweaty leather of Franklin’s black glove and wanted to retch.
“I told you to keep the noise down,” Franklin said in a reasonable tone. “If you insist on screaming like a baby I’ll cut out your tongue and you can write the location on the Christmas tablecloth with it.”
The threat silenced Phil far more than the hand over his mouth. He knew Franklin meant it. Franklin removed his hand.
“Once again, Phil. Where is the journal of Charles Harvey?”
Phil remained silent. Franklin sighed theatrically.
“Very well.” He placed a fresh strip of duct tape over Phil’s bleeding lips and went to the hallway. Phil turned his head fearfully. His eyes widened as the head porter lifted a small metal case and waved it at him…and then Andy Hughes was on him.
Andy’s silent momentum knocked Franklin off his feet and both went crashing into the front door with a heavy thud. Franklin cried out in surprise but not pain, even though the impact his head made on the door handle must have agonised and dazed him.
Must have, Phil thought.
Franklin whirled round, unfazed and in no visible pain. He dropped to his knees, a swift punch aimed at Andy’s groin. His left hand went to the welcome mat to pick up the Browning. Went down and came back empty.
Andy grunted and staggered, but kept his grip on the silenced Browning. He staggered backwards, the gun raised and pointed directly at Franklin. Franklin grinned.
“Hughes! Didn’t think we’d meet here…” he got to his feet slowly, his eyes shining in anticipation. “I see one of Andraste’s Children had a go at you. Well done, laddie. Few escape them. So I’ll finish what they started…”
Andy laughed mirthlessly. “Want the diary, Franklin? Did you think we’d be so stupid as to leave it here?”
Franklin’s eyes narrowed and his voice was a hiss. “Where is it?”
Andy didn’t move. “Not here.” A small bead of sweat trickled down his ear. He’d seen the state Phil was in.
Phil let out a moan as fresh pain rode him. Andy glanced at him, just a glance, no more than a second -
But that was long enough for Franklin. The briefcase flew up in front of him, smashing into Andy’s elbow. Andy grunted in pain, his finger clenched around the trigger as his arm shot up, but the gun didn’t fire.
Safety catch, Phil thought dreamily as Franklin followed up his counter attack. The head porter’s right fist powered into Andy’s abdomen. Phil saw fresh blood spurt under the light brown T-shirt from the wounds the boar had inflicted last night, wounds that Franklin’s devastating blow had opened up again. A dazed look passed Andy’s face, he swayed on his feet, and the Browning clattered against the wall.
Franklin’s left fist shot forward, as lightning fast and devastating as the right, into the centre of Andy’s jaw. Andy’s head snapped back and caught the corner of the wooden banister on the staircase. His eyes glazed and he sank to the floor, a thin trail of blood painting his descent on the wall.
Franklin stared impassively for a while before patting down Andy’s body, flipping him over and searching the back pockets. He grunted as he saw the bread knife on the floor that Andy had dropped when he had attacked Franklin.
The head porter smiled as he examined the serrated edge of the blade. Then he picked up the small metal tin from his briefcase. The cranberry coloured lights of the Christmas tree reflected bloodily on it and Phil shrank back in terror. He knew what was coming.
Franklin crouched down in front of him and placed the bread knife on the floor. Then he opened the case like a book, extended towards Phil. He picked out the instrument with care, showing it to Phil’s horrified gaze with the same pride as the cutlery salesman he had seen on one of the digital shopping channels recently. The salesman had been chopping up empty tomato cans to show the power of the blade, though - Franklin would not be.
“Say hello to Santa’s Little Helper, Mr Lotson.” Franklin said in a reverent tone. “Surgical scalpel. The tool of the professional - or the artist.”
He lowered the blade, side by side with the bread knife from the kitchen. The same bread knife from Phil’s dream.
Franklin looked at them both, chewing the nail of his thumb, brows creased, as though he was making a choice about which dessert to have after a fine meal.
“Tough choice, eh, Mr Lotson? Which do I use first on young Nicky’s throat? The scalpel will open the jugular cleanly and instantly, like an overcooked pasta tube. But where’s the fun in that? Perhaps the bread knife. Messy, but much more painful. Ah, decisions, decisions…” his eyes hardened. “Decisions, Mr Lotson. Your decision is the easiest one in the world. ‘Do I tell Mr Franklin where the diary is or do I let him kill my boy and my lassie?’ You needn’t agonise over this one.”
Phil couldn’t take his eyes off the bread knife. He shrank into the carpet, curling into a ball. He saw Andy’s unconscious body in the hallway, infrequent shallow breathing and blood trickling from the head wound. Tears stung his eyes.
Franklin glanced over his shoulder briefly and then back to Phil. He placed a hand under the man’s head and pulled it up slightly.
“Now, I’m going to allow you to speak. If you try to scream for help - or even in pain - your wife loses a breast. Understand? Nod once if you do.”
In the easy grip of the head porter, Phil quickly moved his head downwards, then up. It was all he could do. That and play for time…
The mental picture of Nicky’s open throat spraying blood into the uplighter and the ceiling decorations, the image of Franklin holding Kelly immobile while he sawed into her with the blade she normally used to slice his hot cross buns blanked out his own pain completely.
For the second time the tape was stripped from his mouth. It didn’t take as much beard or skin with it this time. Franklin stood over him, watching him sidle over to Kelly leaving a trail of black blood on the carpet. Then he moved.
Phil rolled over onto his back, staring at the uplighter to
blot out the tortured look in his wife’s widened eyes. He blinked away tears and heard the sound of a cotton blouse being torn open, then a muffled holler of terror from Kelly.
“In your own time, Mr Lotson,” he heard Franklin say. “I’ve got all the time in the world.”
Phil swallowed noisily and said to the uplighter: “It’s not here.”
He heard Franklin sigh. “Don’t insult my intelligence.”
“I promise you, I don’t have it. I had it this morning and I…” he forced himself not to gabble. He forced himself not to look at Andy.
Because Andy had read the diary, after this he would believe. Where did you put it, Andy? He knew Franklin was going to kill them all, regardless of whether he was given the book or not. He just had to play for time, hope Andy came to, hope Rob came back…
Hope. It was nothing, but it was all he had.
“And you what? Where did you put it, Phillip?”
“I posted it…Parkside Police Station…”
A pause. “You’re telling the truth? No lies?”
“Honest to God! It went last night, will be on their desks this morning - ‘
“This morning? Even though you only got back from Freeland’s last night and spent this morning going through the files. And you decided to send them the book.” He shook his head. His voice steadily rose in volume, in anger.
“Not the files with the more believable and verifiable truth - you gave them something that can be dismissed as the ramblings of an eighteenth century madman. Not photos and lists of those who could clear the Missing Persons files of several international police agencies. Look at me, Lotson. LOOK AT ME!”
Phil twisted his head around. He saw Franklin take the knife from Kelly’s left breast, and position it under her right ear.
“In precisely ten seconds time I will have your wife smiling again, through her neck. Now, for the last time. Where is the diary?”
The point of the bread knife pressed into Kelly’s neck. A small droplet of blood materialised and ran down her shoulder, identical to the plastic red berries from the table’s centrepiece. Phil closed his eyes and opened his mouth to scream.
Then the blade was withdrawn. Franklin put a finger to his lips, making a hushing motion to Phil.
“Hughes. He’s already read the diary, hasn’t he?”
Phil’s hunched shoulders slumped.
“I’ll take that as a yes, then.” Franklin sighed, and looked back to Kelly. “Well, I don’t think he’ll believe a word of it. But I’m not going to take any chances. Detective Inspector Boyd will find it when he gets here, I’m certain.”
He dropped the bread knife into Kelly’s lap. She recoiled as though a snake had landed there. It fell to the floor.
Franklin approached Phil slowly, smiling at his quizzical expression.
“Confused? Don’t worry. I’ll explain it all as I’m working.” He gently wiped the blood from Phil’s chin and shook the blood from his gloved fingers. Then he tore off a fresh piece of ducting tape and sealed Phil’s mouth again.
Phil groaned, realising that Franklin had only wiped the blood away to ensure the adhesive on the tape stuck.
Franklin glanced at his watch and frowned. He glanced at the unconscious body of Andy, eyes narrowed for any signs of recovery. When he was satisfied he turned back to Phil and picked up the scalpel.
* * * * *
Andy Hughes stood in the archway dividing Old Court from Cloister Court. He squinted against the fierce glare from the fire raging through the Great Hall. One of the mullioned windows exploded under pressure from the superheated air within. Fragments of stained glass and lead framework shot across the snow covered lawns of Old Court, clattering on the stone of the ornamental fountain.
Another explosion, another window blossomed. This time a fireball carried the fragments of lead and glass, but Andy ignored this. His attention was focussed on what was coming past the porter’s lodge, a sight which almost took his breath away.
White horses galloped through the narrow passageway into the Old Court, the same unearthly white horses that had haunted his dreams previously.
Only this time the location was different. Rather than pursuing him across country, over unfriendly moorland and foreboding valleys, they had now followed him to All Souls College.
Dozens of them, two abreast. Giant male beasts, the size of shire horses: their unmarked white coats glowing with some inner light. Eyes burned like the rubies in the boar’s head in the Hall, eyes of fire. Lips snarled and black spittle flew onto the lawns, staining the white snow like drops of diesel oil. Their steel-shod hooves threw sparks from the cobbled walkways, sizzled on the snow as they thundered towards the screaming figures pouring out of the Great Hall’s double doors.
Andy closed his eyes against the slaughter that followed, but the screams of those crushed underfoot, along with the wet crunching sounds of stampeded flesh and bone painted a stark visual image in his mind. He opened his eyes.
One of the horses halted and turned to him. Blood on its hooves glistened in the hellish light from the inferno raging through All Souls College. Its scarlet eyes rolled and it reared above him, front hooves clawing the air. Its blood-splattered mane bristled with a life of its own. The whinny that came from its lips was a cry of triumph, one that was immediately taken up by the other horses, over two hundred identical white stallions, a song of victory and death to compete with the Song to Andraste.
The flames licked and rolled over the stone of the college walls, and it was with streaming eyes, almost blinded by the heat and smoke, that Andy realised the fire was not affecting the horses. Their ethereal white coats remained unsullied by the billowing smoke, the flesh untouched by the high flames raging around them.
No, not around them, he realised. Raging from them. Andy let out a cry of fear and wonderment that was quickly swallowed by the raging thunder of the horses’ stampede through the archway dividing Old Court and Cloister Court. Past him and onwards to the rear of the grounds.
To the woods and the creatures that waited for them.
Each stallion rolled its red-ember eyeballs as it thundered past, and the rush of air that followed in their wake brought the flames closer to him. The heat from the fire rolled over his skin and burned the air from his lungs but there was no pain. Instead he felt cleansed. Tears of joy and relief rolled down his cheeks, evaporating to steam in the heat. The last of the white chargers exited the archway and in their wake Andy saw the human bodies. Blood oozed and bubbled away to nothing from the wounds inflicted by those unearthly hooves, hoof prints that still glowed. Heads were shattered, faces mashed to an unrecognisable pulp. But the ceremonial robes and gowns left him in no doubt as to their identity.
The chapel and Great Hall exploded, adding to the rolling sea of fire that swept through Old Court and roaring over the remains of the Fellowship of All Souls and consuming them utterly, before reaching for Andy.
Just before they reached him the flames parted momentarily and allowed him to see the face within.
A face that retained its greenish hue in spite of the fire. A face that kept its halo of winter greenery, the oak, holly and mistletoe twisting triumphantly in the flames. A face that fixed on Andy with human eyes and allowed a broad smile of approval to break its stone visage.
And behind, in the far distance, escaping through the cobbled archway past the porter’s lodge, out of the college and into Trinity Street - he saw Jennifer.
Alive. Free. And unharmed. She halted, turning to look over her shoulder. A look of sadness and gratitude in her blue eyes. She smiled and mouthed the words I love you.
That was when he woke, returned to consciousness with a cry of jubilation. For the first time since this whole affair began he felt hope.
A dream sent by the Green Man that offered hope: a resolution to the evil events. Victory and justice over the Fellowship, and the destruction of All Souls. The horses, terrifying and majestic at the same time, were a symbol. No horses like t
hat had ever existed on the planet, he knew that. They looked as though they’d come from Hell itself, but the destruction they had wrought was not for evil ends.
And I beheld a pale horse, and upon it a pale rider…and death was his name…
“And all Hell followed with him,” Andy whispered. Then his vision cleared, the headache descended, and he saw through the open doorway the blood on the carpet of the Lotsons’ living room.
The smell hit him like the wall of fire in his dream. A sweet coppery odour combined with the stench of loosened sphincter muscles. The living room was dark but there was just enough light for him to see Phil Lotson and the pool of blood expanding underneath him. The scattered photos and notebooks from Freeland had gone.
Phil lay on his side, knees drawn up to his chest. His face was pale, whiter than the snow on the lawns of All Souls. His eyes contained a very faint spark of life, but also a look of such utter despair and horror that Andy momentarily forgot about the pounding in the back of his head and the ravaging agony in his belly.
He pushed himself through the doorway. He saw Phil’s hands were taped behind his back, unable to reach the wooden handle of the thing that was buried in his stomach.
“Oh Jesus,” Andy crouched down and raised a hand to the bloodstained, tearful cheeks of Phil Lotson.
There was a lethargic shuffling of feet, with no energy. The final movements of a dying man. Andy now saw huge gouges in the carpet, some so deep that the wood and concrete underneath would have been visible were it not for the blood that had welled up in deep pools there. Behind him there were cracks in the plaster on the lower wall where Phil’s head had struck it repeatedly. Andy closed his eyes, felt the room spinning. He was amazed the Christmas tree was still standing.
Phil Lotson’s body must have jerked, thrashed and writhed as though lethal charges of electricity rode it, wracked with agony. The duct tape sealing his mouth would not even have allowed him to scream properly.
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