Into The Fire: Age Of Madness - A Kurtherian Gambit Series (The Caitlin Chronicles Book 2)

by Daniel Willcocks

  “Another move and she dies,” Yusuf said, glee bright on his face in the glow of the flames.

  “Patricia, no,” Felix cried.

  “Oh, come on. You wanted to kill her anyway,” Kain said. “How do we know you’ll keep her alive if we behave?”

  Yusuf looked up at the window. “Where’s Clob?”

  Caitlin looked back inside the house but could only see smoke. “I don’t know.”

  A flicker of panic crossed Yusuf’s face. “No matter,” he said without conviction. “Like we ever needed that brute in the first place. I don’t know what Pastor Andrews saw in him.”

  A mighty crash from behind was followed by a roar of pain. Caitlin imagined the stairs caving in on themselves, the wood splintering and falling down in a rain of wood and fire until a shape emerged from the smoke.

  Clob coughed into his fist, swaying drunkenly as he walked. He shoved Caitlin to the side and stuck his head out the window, taking in the crisp night-time air. “I heard you…shithead…” he managed to say, leering down at Yusuf. “You think if I’m out of the picture the pastor will make you his number two? Dream on, pal.”

  Yusuf tensed, and Patricia cried as the knife broke the skin. A small sprinkle of blood crawled lazily down her neck.

  “Dream on, you big lubbock,” Yusuf shouted. Across the way, Caitlin was sure she saw several curtains shift. By her reckoning, it wouldn’t be long now before the town began to pour out for congregation.

  “Why you shit-eating, pee-spraying, pussy piece of—argh!”

  Clob cut off as the creature wound its way around his neck. The black snake had appeared in the breath of a second. Caitlin moved back, afraid it might move to her, until she followed its length and saw Christy standing in the doorway, the whip taut in her hand. Her face was smeared with ash, her hair singed and scorched.

  “Enough of this shit,” she said, her voice steady behind the collar of her shirt as she tugged with all her strength.

  Clob choked and fell backward, reminding Caitlin of a felled tree. He crashed to the ground, clutching his throat and his face growing red. Christy immediately followed the fall by raising a chair over her head and smashing Clob in the face. His eyes closed as he was knocked out cold.

  “Smooth,” Caitlin said.

  Christy coughed. “Enough talk. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Just one problem. You might want to stay back for this,” Caitlin said.

  Christy ran to the window. “Dad? Mum?” she cried.

  “Christy? What are you doing—” Yusuf started.

  He cut off the minute the blade embedded into his throat. He looked up at the window in alarm, his eyes fixed on Caitlin where she stood frozen after tossing the knife.

  Yusuf gurgled on his own blood, his grip on Patricia loosening as he crumpled to the floor.

  “That was a risky move,” Christy said, slapping Caitlin on the back.

  “A thanks would do just fine.” She grinned.

  “Here!” Kain called from below, picking up the end of the cloth rope they had tied together. He bound the end around a rock to help the light cloth fly higher, and Caitlin caught it easily. She tied the end around the curtain pole, then eased herself down, Christy following shortly after.

  The family embraced with something close to desperation as she exploded into tears.

  “Gotta love a good family reunion,” Kain said. “Of course, most of my family have been dead for years.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Mary-Anne quipped.

  Caitlin turned and watched the fire. The entire bottom floor of the house was now ablaze. Smoke plumed thick into the night sky. She imagined Clob’s body on the landing, his skin melting like waxworks. His only blessing was that he would have been unconscious in his dying moments as the flames took him.

  “We need to burn the body,” Caitlin said, looking at Yusuf.

  “Agreed,” Mary-Anne said. “Destroy the evidence.”

  “What the fuck are we going to tell the pastor?” Kain asked. “You think he’s not going to be suspicious that the fire we were sent to start also destroyed two of his men?”

  “He may be powerful, but he’s not that bright,” Christy said, breaking away from her parents. “Tell him it was an accident. Tell him that you completed his task, but there were some complications. Mum and Dad got into a fight with them both, and they got caught in the flames. I’ll testify to that.”

  “You think he won’t know that we’re lying when Patricia and Felix arrive at congregation later tonight?” Kain asked.

  “They won’t be going to congregation,” Caitlin said. “As far as the pastor knows, they’re dead. Gone. Buried in the fire with the others. We need to get you two out of town and into safety.”

  “Where are we going to go? We’ve never left this town, not in all the years we’ve lived here,” Felix said.

  “I know a place,” Caitlin said as an idea sprang into her mind. A safe place, not too distant but far enough away that no one would ever think of looking. A place where two someones had lived a quiet life in solitude until fairly recently. “Though you’ll need a guide to get there.” She grinned at Kain.

  “Excuse me?”

  “What are you talking about?” Patricia asked. “Where are we going?”

  “Let’s just say that Joe will be getting a visit by more than just ’lunas before the night is through.”

  “Ah, man.” Kain sighed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ashdale Pond, Old Ontario

  If Pastor Andrews could pat himself on the back, he most certainly would.

  Tonight had been an exceptional performance. Who would have thought that years of studying old textbooks and exercising his imagination would have given him the fuel he needed to preach so damn well?

  He remembered the days when he had been nothing more than shit on the town’s shoe. The weeks and months he had spent as nothing more than a glorified cesspit-filler still rankled in his memory.

  And now they applauded. They sang. They hung on his every word.

  When the governor had first told him his new purpose, he knew he would take a risk. He hadn’t truly believed that he could preach and the flock would follow. But he had to hand it to the fat man. Trisk knew people. He knew how they ticked, and he knew the tricks to make them all fall at his feet.

  Well, the pastor’s feet.

  If merely a dose of fear was enough to keep people in line, what would a whole bucketload do?

  “And praise be unto our governor. Prophet and man of guidance. Deliverer and shepherd from the days of the Madness,” he spewed, the words rolling so easily off his tongue it was almost comical. All attention focused on him.

  The only real problem was, what did the governor plan next? The people had fallen in line, sure—well, most of them. But, then what? Pastor Andrews sensed a stage two up Trisk’s sleeves—he wasn’t stupid, after all—but the governor had been reluctant to share. He now refused, with increasing regularity, to meet. On the few occasions when Andrews did manage time with him, he looked increasingly strange, covering up more of his body and losing weight at a phenomenal pace.

  After that night’s congregation, the pastor waited until all had filed out before talking to Moxie, Detta and Christy—he had noticed Clob and Yusuf’s absence the minute they had all arrived partway through his performance. They told him that, while their task had been a success, they had lost Clob, Yusuf, and Arthur Cornswaggle along the way after the residents of the house had gotten into a scrap with the three of them. They had tried to save them, but there was nothing they could do.

  He grew white at the news of Clob and eyed Christy suspiciously. After a minute or two of silence, he muttered, “Sad tidings, indeed,” and swept from the church.

  Pastor Andrews ground his teeth the entire way to the Cloak & Dagger, milling over every word the newcomers had said. He knocked on the door, stormed over to Stump, and scribbled on a piece of parchment. Then, hating the necessity of trusting an int
ermediary, he handed it over and instructed the small man to pass it on to the governor.

  With a murmur of thanks to Stump, Andrews returned home to take his anger out on his wife. With every blow of his hand and pump of his hips, he contemplated Moxie’s words, wondering if she was telling the truth. It seemed a strange coincidence that the night he tried to burn Christy’s parents—a loyalty test he had been particularly proud of—two of his best men died in the fire, and the girl was spared.

  As he lay panting and sweating beside Lynn, he wondered what the likelihood would be that his message would make it to Governor Trisk’s hands in time. He needed to talk to him. He needed to discuss the governor’s plans.

  It had been several days since they last talked, now, and the pastor was already generating some plans of his own.

  Governor Halrod Trisk coughed heavily into the collar of his shirt. The greasy, sweat-stained thing that had become more of a part of his body than an item of clothing which could be removed.

  “That’s the ticket,” he said, catching something thick and green in his palm as it ejected from his mouth. He studied it momentarily, observing the luminescent green shimmer as it wobbled in his hand before wiping it on the hem of his top.

  Halrod laughed, fell into a fit of coughing again, then skirted around the room to where several wooden boxes were stacked precariously in the corner.

  “Good, good. Very good.” He tore the lid off one of the boxes and clapped excitedly. The sores on his palms popped and exploded with puss, but he hardly noticed the pain anymore. It had become a part of him now, the source merely another decoration on his body.

  “Oh, the fun I can have with you,” he said as he picked up a clay orb and studied it. A simple thing, brown with no decoration and small entry point at the top plugged by a lid.

  He placed it back in the box with the other orbs, moved the box to the floor—grunting with effort as he did so—and picked up the box beneath. Words had been carved into the side to read “Danger: Explosive.”

  Halrod laughed once more and moved the box to a small table in the center of the room. He struggled with its weight and had to place the box down twice along the way.

  Footsteps thumped on the boards above.

  Once, he had been a strong man and a virile—his words—bull, capable of many things. But over the past few weeks, he seemed to shrink. The weight which he had carried on his person through years of gluttony and indulgence had shed like skin from a snake, and anyone who once knew him could be forgiven for not recognizing the sad sap muttering to himself in the candlelit glow.

  He clawed at the top of the box, struggling to get purchase this time. The wood left splinters in his fingers and red and yellow stains where he gripped the wood.

  Halrod hobbled across the room and returned with a crowbar. He shoved it into the gap near the top and levered it off, nearly toppling to the floor as the lid sprang into the air, clattering somewhere across the room.

  “Shhh. Shhh!” he urged, a finger to his lip. Somewhere inside, a frantic need for caution shifted to something resembling paranoia. “They mustn’t hear. They can’t hear.” Not yet.

  The contents of the box were beautiful. Halrod leaned over his prize, a grin cracking his face. His pleasure overrode the reality that he’d lost a few more teeth and his tongue was now poxed with ulcers. Slowly, and with the tenderness of a lover, he scooped what looked like black sand into his hands. When he raised them into the air, the gunpowder filtering through his fingers, pouring back into the box. Some particles clung to the oozing sores in his palms as if reluctant to leave him.

  “Excellent,” he said, eyes turning back to the corner where the orbs and several more of the boxes of gunpowder lay. “Just excellent.”

  Stump had excelled himself, that was for sure. The tiny man had a hidden reach that stretched further than the town itself. Halrod hadn’t asked where Stump had acquired the boxes, nor did he really need to know. He had simply asked for what he needed, and Stump had delivered.

  On more than one occasion.

  Trisk turned his hands over, looked at his slick, blackened palms, and laughed. To his annoyance, it emerged as more of a wheeze. He shuffled to the grimy mirror leaned up in a corner and studied his shoulders, his stomach, and his legs. All were now marred with the dark yellow patches where the sores had taken hold. These oozing relentlessly, congealing into the material of his clothing and creating a makeshift bandage. A dressing he didn’t dare change for fear of what he might see.

  “Not to worry,” he said to himself, though he found no real comfort in the assurance. “Slow the poison. That’s all you’ve got to do, Halrod. Slow it down until it stops.”

  He shuffled to where a stack of blankets was bundled in the corner. A dip in the cloth left an impression of where he slept each night—and several times during the day, now. He looked for the flask but could find nothing.

  “What? Where is it?” He hissed his frustration like a cat stuck in a corner. “Where is it?”

  Blankets soared through the air. Wood clattered. In seconds, he forgot his own rule on quiet and secrecy as he hunted furiously for the thing he was sure had kept the Madness at bay since its first signs had appeared several weeks before. The elixir Stump had concocted which, he claimed, “slows the movement of the blood, calms the Madness.” The elixir of Halrod’s life itself.

  “Nooooo!” He moaned his despair, tears pricking his eyes. An ice-cold douse of fear shot down his back.

  He whirled, looking around the room in panic.

  Finally, he saw it over by the bucket he now used as a lavatory, its contents thick and stinking. He remembered now, he had been doing his business when he last had a sip, multi-tasking as he cleared his bowels.

  Some in, some out. He chuckled, taking a few deep gulps to finish the flask off.

  Once every last drop hit his tongue, he threw the flask across the room, moved to where a rope hung down through a hole in the ceiling, and tugged twice. The tinkling of a bell could be heard overhead and, a few minutes later, Stump emerged through a small doorway at the far end of the room. Though big enough for Stump to walk through, it was small enough that the governor remembered having trouble making his way inside upon his arrival at Ashdale.

  “You rang?” Stump croaked.

  “More,” Halrod said, pointing at the flask on the floor. “I need more.”

  Stump raised his eyebrows.

  “Please.”

  Stump trotted over to the flask and pocketed it. He approached the governor, a hand outstretched. Trisk recoiled.

  “Still,” Stump said.

  He watched as Stump took his wrist and turned his hand over. The tiny man circled him, inspecting him from all angles.

  Stump took a step back, his face shadowed. “You need to get clean.”

  “I can’t,” Halrod said.

  Stump grabbed his wrist and showed his palm again. “Dirt leads to further infection. Gunpowder leads to exploding hands when striking a light.” He nodded to the flickering candle.

  “I know, I know,” he responded, defeated.

  “I’ll bring you water. You sponge yourself down. Get rid of the pus from the sores and remove some of the stink.” He pulled a piece of parchment out of his pocket and placed it on the table. “For you. From the pastor.”

  Stump turned sharply and grabbed Halrod’s bucket of waste as he left.

  “Stump?” he called, and the stocky figure stopped in the doorway.

  “Yes?”

  “What is in that drink? What is it doing to the Madness? Will I be cured?”

  Stump shook his head slowly, a shadow passing over his face. “It will slow the spread, but it will not stop the disease. There is nothing that can.”

  “How long do I have?” Halrod asked, hating himself for the plea he knew was in his eyes.

  Stump shrugged, picked the bucket back up, and disappeared from the room.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ashdale Pond, Old Ontario
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  When Caitlin awoke, it was to the sound of several voices downstairs.

  She sat up sharply, disorientated from dreaming. Panic pushed through for a moment as she looked around for Kain, used to him now sleeping near her side.

  And then it all came back. The night before. The fire, the flames. The death. The lies. The hiding.

  She wouldn’t see Kain for a while.

  Then who was that voice downstairs? It was certainly too deep for Mary-Anne and Mabel and much too slow and measured to be Jamie.

  Caitlin dressed, eased Jaxon gently out of his slumber, and headed downstairs, meeting Mary-Anne along the hallway.

  “We wondered when you’d be joining us,” Pastor Andrews said. “We thought we were going to have to come up there and drag you down.”

  He sat in one of Jamie’s chairs, his back straight, and a huge smile on his face. Mabel and Jamie were squeezed onto a chair for one. Jamie looked around fearfully, as though waiting for something unpleasant to erupt. Mabel hummed to herself and busied her hands with a woolen jumper she was knitting. Her hands shook so much she missed every other loop.

  “How did you know we were—”

  “Here?” Pastor Andrews finished. “It’s easy, really. From the moment you made your entrance in Ashdale, I’ve had my men following you, keeping tabs on your every move.”

  “You…what?”

  The pastor exploded into a fit of laughter. “I’m only kidding.”

  A wave of relief washed over Caitlin. “Always thought you had the capacity to be a creepy stalker.” She smiled and winked.

  He smiled back, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “Of course I haven’t. What a waste of manpower that would have been on my part. No. Truth is, it doesn’t matter how I know. The fact is, I’m here.”

  Caitlin studied him. The smile never left his face. It was unsettling. She wondered what his game was, whether he had already worked out their feeble lie from the night before, or if he had become lonely in the absence of his bodyguard and gone slightly Mad himself.