The bells were laughter, his own laughter, a carillon ringing in his ears.
The library was shrinking as Mauntgraul grew, the stacks of books and shrouded furniture beginning to look as though they might fit into a doll’s house. Warbling, Quentin Bardolfe slipped down the wall, shaking his head in futile appeal. A claw closed around him, white as death, muffling the music of the harp. Rafters cracked and shifted under Mauntgraul’s shoulders, unable to withstand his expanding bulk, the encroachment of his scaled thews. Paintings fell, plaster rained down and light fixtures sizzled as his horns speared the upper floor, impaling a four-poster bed and an escritoire, goose feathers and paper wafting through the haze.
Mauntgraul laughed. He laughed at the fate that had snatched vengeance from his fangs. And he laughed at the man in his grip, the knight’s gasping, crumpling form. Mauntgraul squeezed. He squeezed until his claws dug into his palms, the pain making him drunk with excitement. A thick red drizzle trickled from his fist, shards of bone and intestines slopping on the shattered ground. Finally, only the scrap of silver, the lunewrought fragment, burned against his flesh. The magic, though silenced, echoed in his mind, merging with the bells. The White Dog threw back his head, smashing centuries of architecture into powder and grit. His tail lashed out, the fireplace, the furniture and walls vanishing in a sweep of rubble, the windows exploding, the night rushing in.
In a whirl of emerald flame, Mauntgraul spiralled upwards through the mansion, the staircase sucked into the maelstrom, and burst from the roof in a shower of stone and tiles. Smoke and wreckage trailing from his wings, he soared up into the darkness, the sleepless blaze of London shining on all horizons. The city clanged in his head along with the bells, a blaring, incessant fanfare, and he threw a claw over his snout, trying to shut out the light. The overwhelming stench of industry and change.
Of human triumph.
Laughing, shrieking, he spun towards the earth. He crashed headlong into Hampstead Heath, gouging a furrow across the hillside, benches, signposts and trees scattering all around him.
In the darkness, a naked man lay shivering in the mud, half in and half out of a broad chilly pond. The water bubbled and hissed with his heat, boiled frogs and fish bobbing to the surface. Clutching the fragment of the harp to his chest, he lay on the bank, nursing the relic as if it was a pet or a favourite toy.
When dawn broke, the man could at last hear himself again, laughing and sobbing. Laughing, sobbing.
The lullaby played on in his head.
ELEVEN
This is stupid. The Chapter could be anywhere.
The morning mist chilled Ben’s skin as he stared, disbelievingly, between the gateposts of Paladin’s Court. The gates loomed, monolithic and grey, the stone stags leaping on either side of the entrance, their antlers bent to lock over the driveway. Up there, between the trees, a mansion should have waited.
It had taken a lot for him to come here, but Jia’s tale of the Ghost Emperor had spurred him to investigate. Thanks for the tip-off. Like it or not, she was right. He had sworn an oath, and with no other leads, all he could do was walk back into the heart of the fire. Alone. The last thing he’d wanted was company; he was called the Sola Ignis for a reason.
After alighting on the outskirts of Beijing and making another brief phone call to the Blain Trust, he’d managed to secure a flight back to London. And some everyday clothes, jacket, jeans, T-shirt and trainers to cover his conspicuous suit. Fourteen hours later and here he was, weary, uneasy and taking in the ruin of the Court.
According to the Chapter, the Guild was in disarray, the administration of the Lore fallen into the Cardinal’s hands. He hadn’t expected to find anyone here anyway, only a start. Perhaps a couple of clues. Von Hart would have to wait. If Ben could find the whereabouts of one of the knights, he could warn them about the imminent peril, the Chapter’s un-Loreful use of the harp and the gathering of the Lurkers. He certainly hadn’t expected to find the mansion reduced to rubble, a heap of fire-blackened brick.
Was he looking at Mauntgraul’s work? He thought so. The White Dog was hungry for revenge and the Guild of the Broken Lance would surely serve as the special on his menu. When Ben breathed in, he caught more than the scent of burnt timber, confirming his suspicions.
Dragon fire. He must have loved ripping this place apart, abandoned or no.
He’d taken a step through the gates when a rumbling behind him distracted him, dragging his eyes over his shoulder. At first, he didn’t realise what he was looking at—a trail of dust in the distance, a thrashing of trees down the road from the Heath, dustbins falling over and car horns blaring in the wake of some impossibly speeding object. As the disturbance drew closer, approaching fast, he made out a familiar green-gold blur and his heart sank. Instinctively he shielded his head and dropped into a crouch as a great plume of dust billowed around him, grit peppering his shoulders and chest.
When the dust settled, he stood, coughing, and glared at his unwelcome visitor.
“You,” he said. “You know, you should learn how to take no for an answer.”
“I’m not following you,” Jia said, her sin-you form melting into womanly shape, dust showering from her suit. She regarded him with her cool jade eyes. “And you’re not the only person who can buy a plane ticket.”
“Right. And stalking is just a romantic walk, but only one of you knows it. Next you’ll tell me I’m out of milk.”
“I told you. I’m on a mission to—”
He cut her off. “What’s with the suit anyway? Another one of Von Hart’s gifts?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The suit,” he said. “When you shrug off your unicorn form, you’re not exactly running around in the nuddy. A guy tends to notice.”
“I’m not a—” Jia gave up, exasperated. Petals bloomed in her cheeks. “Some of us learnt how to control ourselves,” she said. “A meditation. A focus. I shape my clothing out of my hide, using the power of my mind.”
“Seriously?”
“I am sin-you,” she said, as if that was answer enough.
“Like I could forget. But this suit trick … Miss Jing, you are full of surprises.”
“And you are full of shit. We don’t all need …” Jia frowned, searching for the word, “a nursemaid.”
That stung. Sure, he’d been reluctant to accept his suit last year—Fay gifts tended to come with hidden price tags—but Von Hart had synthesised it from his scales, shrunken and charred, granted, but retaining his transformative ability. Like it or not, the suit was a part of him. Why not wear it?
His wounded look meant nothing to Jia. She resembled a porcelain statue; her spine so straight, her braid coiled over her shoulder. Attractive, in an athletic way. Her expression was aloof. All business.
“We’re wasting time,” she told him. “Time we don’t have.”
“I was on the case. And as I said, I don’t do team-ups.”
“Unfortunate,” she said. She didn’t look like she thought it was unfortunate. “I think the end of the world is slightly more important. Don’t you?”
“Now I feel bad.” He changed his face to convey the impression that he didn’t feel too bad.
“Calm yourself. We are going to report to the Guild, as we agreed.”
“We did?” He looked over his shoulder up the driveway, at the ruin waiting there. “Besides, I don’t think knocking will do us any good, because—”
“Because you won’t risk your head. I heard you.”
He looked back at her and crossed his arms, a sneer sliding onto his face.
“You don’t like me very much, do you?”
“I am youxia,” she said. “Sworn to uphold the Lore. My feelings don’t come into it.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
But he was too tired to argue. Despite himself, the sight of the Court had taken its toll. If the ruined building represented anything, it was his own failure. Your happy ending. The thought made him choke, a thickness grip
ping his throat. As Jia’s eyes bored into him, he found himself fighting to stay on his feet, stop himself from sinking to his knees.
Instead, he turned his back on her.
“I don’t know why I’m doing this any more.” He aimed his words up the driveway, a murmured statement of fact. There was no point lying to her, after all.
“You are the Sola Ignis. Sworn to—”
“Uphold a Lore that wants me dead? Is that what you were gonna say?”
Jia said nothing. He continued in a growl.
“The Pact is no truce at all, merely a cell where you wait for extinction. Someone said that to me last year. She said I suffered the compromise because of hope, Remnants living in peace with humans. I didn’t want to believe her at the time. Now I can no longer kid myself.” He drew in a breath, exhaled steam. “The Remnants are dropping like flies. All of this—the mansion, the Guild, the Lore—all of this is changing. And not for the better. The Whispering Chapter wants to stamp us out. The Fay will never return. Don’t you see? Everything I’ve done was for nothing.”
He was shouting now, but he didn’t care. Shouting held back the tears. His blood surged with frustration, quick and hot. He couldn’t tell Jia the real reason for his pain, the knife sticking out of the wound. Perhaps he would have felt this way sooner if he hadn’t met Rose. Was it his fault that he had seen his one-time lover as his reward? (Rose would’ve said trinket.) When all was said and done, weren’t they all slaves to their nature? Her smile had embodied his love for humans, a reason to go on. In the end, her humanity had come between them (she would’ve said lies), forcing their worlds apart. Rose had left him. Turned her back on him. On the mask he wore.
No, he couldn’t tell Jia that. He could only speak of his duty, the millstone around his neck. Dry, joyless duty, imposed by a dead king’s council eight hundred years ago, demanding his loyalty up to and including curbing the crimes of other Remnants, venomous dragons, flesh-eating trolls … Curbing. Killing. His duty. Taking in the rubble where Paladin’s Court had once stood, that duty no longer felt like enough.
His anger bounced between the trees, fading into silence. A bird trilled a weak remonstration.
“Change is the only constant,” Jia said. From the softness of her voice, Ben could tell that she was picking her words carefully, reluctant to anger him further. “Do not presume to know destiny. No future is certain.”
“Enough with the aphorisms!” He wheeled on her, an arm sweeping out. “You think I should just accept this? Accept death?”
She met his rage with the usual calm. “We have all made sacrifices,” she said.
But her calm was also a mask, he saw. Even in the mist, he couldn’t fail to notice the tear that streaked down her cheek, pricked by the blade of his words.
“You’re not the only one who lost something,” she said. “You are not the only one who has no choice.”
“What—” he began, but a sharp pop, the sound of a log breaking in the thicket, arrested him.
He spun back to the gates to see shapes emerging from the trees on the edge of the driveway. A sharp intake of breath informed him that Jia had seen them too, seven or eight people rising out of the fog and walking down the track towards them. None of the newcomers hurried, he noticed, their approach cautious enough to tell him that they knew who he was, the danger he presented. That made these people agents and he was trying to decide which branch they served, Guild or Chapter, when frayed jumpers and threadbare jeans seeped through the mist, along with woolly hats and scarves. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have taken them for the North Hampstead Rambling Club out for a morning stroll. As it was, the guns pointing in his direction, the muzzles raised to take a bead on his head, gave the game away.
Tranquilliser guns. It’s the Chapter all right. Stepping up its game.
His jacket seams were popping, draconic brawn bursting from his jeans as the agents drew nearer. His trainers exploded in shreds, newly sprouted talons raking the muck. A carapace flowed over his skin, sleek and red in the murk, the nubs of wings bubbling at his shoulders. A ball of heat gathered in his chest, his swelling jaw, a lizardine snout, parting to reveal fangs. Smoke whispered from his nostrils, the intimation of fire.
Jia placed a hand on his arm. Snorting a patch of flame, he looked down at her, saw her quickly retract her fingers, stung by the heat of him. Nevertheless, she held her ground, spelling out her appeal with a shake of her head.
Don’t.
Damn her. He mentally cursed her, because she was right. Much as he’d like to turn these dour God-botherers into human kebabs, he knew that the agents were only following orders, dispatched by the Cardinal to bring him down, drag him in chains to the Invisible Church. And twist the old thumbscrews until they realise that I can’t give them Von Hart … That wasn’t going to happen on his watch, but turning the driveway into the Massacre of the Latins wouldn’t exactly help his case. Reluctantly he dwindled back into human form, rags of clothing clinging to his dark-scaled suit. Jia gave a nod of approval, then turned her attention to the agents, measuring up the oncoming threat.
In a low voice, she reminded him that she had other concerns.
“We didn’t come here to fight, Ben. Remember, we came to warn them.”
“Those aren’t agents of the Guild,” he said. “They’re True Names. Agents of the Chapter.” A persistent thumping troubled the air, its source lost beyond the shuddering trees. Leaves and twigs swirled around his feet, tossed by the rising wind. He had to shout to make himself heard. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
“Those agents serve the Curia Occultus.” Jia pointed at the approaching men and women, who were stooping now, holding their hats, the gale tugging at their raincoats and flowery skirts, both fashionable sometime around the mid-seventies. “The Chapter serves the Lore, as do we. I must warn them of the Ghost Emperor. My mission—”
A feathered dart pinged off the gatepost by Jia’s head, brick dust showering down and forcing her towards Ben. He grabbed her arms, keeping her upright.
“Be my guest,” he said, and then released her, shoving her in the direction of the drive. “I’m sure they’ll stop shooting long enough to listen.”
Jia looked at the agents. Then she glared at Ben. Again she surveyed the swaying trees leading up to the ruined mansion. She took a step, then spun and ducked as the earth at her feet exploded, bullets chasing her into the shelter of the gatepost. Real bullets, Ben noted. Not darts. The Chapter clearly had no qualms about wounding them, as long as the agents got what they wanted. Desperate times had just become frantic. A bullet shattered an antler of a leaping stag, chunks of stone thumping to the ground.
Pale-faced, Jia stared at Ben as he squatted beside her, his cynical growl greeting her alarm.
“Any more bright ideas?” he asked. “No? Good. Then run.”
In a volley of gunfire and twirling leaves, Ben led the way back to the road, sprinting with his head down into the connecting street. He left it up to Jia to follow, but she joined him on the other side of Hampstead Lane, navigating the traffic red-faced and cursing, her butterfly sword in hand. It was only a matter of time before a passing driver called the police, but he couldn’t worry about that right now.
With a twitch of his head, he directed Jia onto the Heath, the two of them racing down a beaten track, past an empty frost-jewelled playground, startled dog walkers lurching from their path.
Ben headed vaguely south, keeping to the cover of the trees. He judged his destination a twenty-minute sprint away, a quarter of that time if he changed into true form. In the meantime, staying small gave him the advantage and Jia obviously agreed, darting along beside him. The boughs rattled and thrashed overhead, leaves swirling around them in a yellow-brown funnel. Chancing a glance up through the canopy, he spied the unmistakable glint of metal, and the next moment the first of the helicopters whoomph-whoomphed over the treetops, its rotors making cotton candy of the mist.
Jia shouted something, but
he couldn’t hear her over the noise. The sight was warning enough. A second and then a third helicopter appeared above the Heath, their gun barrels tipping in his direction. Apaches, he noted, twin-turbo attack helicopters, designed and primed for heavy-duty combat. Ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere kept an informative array of military hardware on the TV and in the papers, a running advertisement for human inventiveness, the old religion of Might Makes Right. It didn’t surprise him that the Chapter should have access to such machines. If he took the Guild of the Broken Lance as an example, with MPs, judges and colonels on its books, then it was clear that the Curia Occultus had very long fingers, reaching into government war chests as well as the odd confession box. An organisation with roots that wound back to the Crusades wouldn’t have survived as long otherwise.
Ben shouted at Jia, pointing at a path branching ahead of them, leading over a rise. Open ground, but if they could just make it to the next stretch of woodland … On his right, Kenwood House loomed out of the mist, the old stately home a compass point that told him he was heading in the right direction. The two of them emerged from the trees, the canopy whipped back like a tablecloth trick, prompting the vanguard Apache to discharge a missile. The rise ahead, a gentle knoll riddled with paths, broke apart like an upended jigsaw puzzle as the rocket thudded into its flank, showering Ben and Jia with clods of earth. There was no explosion. No fire. No heat. With a hiss, a yellowy fog billowed from the crater, wafting in their direction, a rolling, stinking cloud of chemicals.
The Chapter wants me alive, that much is clear. Over my dead body.
Enough halothane filled the air to take down a T. rex, let alone a humanoid. Ben had no choice but to change, his wings blasting the gas away. The sin-you followed suit, her bare feet bulging into hooves, her single horn sprouting from her forehead, a tapering golden antler. All the same, there was only one way to go, and that was up. For all her speed, she would never get clear of the gas in time. What could he do? Leave her to the cruelties of the Chapter? She claimed to have been one of Von Hart’s students, and besides, she had saved his life, drawn out the White Dog’s venom …
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