Sarah sat in the pit and cried again. She was not dead yet, she told herself, trying desperately to find courage in the words. It would not be long though, a sad part of her whispered. There was a sound. Sobbing. Sarah sat upright. It got louder and louder, and she could tell that it was a female voice.
There was no light, but Sarah didn’t need it to picture the scene above. Another poor girl was being dragged down here. Sarah heard an awful wail as the girl was pushed into a nearby pit. She thought about shouting out, to let the girl know that she was not alone and that it would be all right. She didn’t. In her personal agony, Sarah couldn’t find it within her to give the poor unfortunate girl hope – she was too close to the end now, with too many sins to her name, without adding further lies to the list.
The discordant whine of the gate buzzer shattered the quiet of the office. Mark looked up from his computer and glanced at a bank of monitors that covered one wall of his study. The room was a combination of Victorian aesthetic and harsh modern practicality. The walls were dark lustrous oak, the floor was covered in a thick burgundy shag, and one wall was dominated by a huge window, which overlooked the grounds at the rear of the house.
The room was sparsely furnished. Facing the door from behind a large wooden desk, was a deep leather chair, which Mark sat in. The window was behind him. On the desk were three massive flat screen monitors and a wireless keyboard and mouse. A neat pile of files lay in a tray to Mark’s left. To his right, another tray held a sheaf of papers, each with Mark’s signature scrawled at the bottom. Beyond that, there were another two trays, both containing more files.
The wall to Mark’s right supported another big flat screen television, currently showing BBC News 24 with the sound off. To his left, the entire wall was dominated by the bank of monitors he had glanced up at. There were twelve of them, four across and three deep. Their thirty-two-inch screens could display everything from stock markets and important documents, to memos and security cameras. Mark was interested in one of the security cameras.
Grabbing the wand – a motion-sensitive remote control – he pointed it at the screen currently showing the front gate of his mansion, and dragged the image on to the middle monitor in front of him. Immediately the images swapped. He dragged another image to the right-hand monitor and the view from the intercom camera of a car at the gate sprang to life. A virtual button sat unobtrusively in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.
Jason’s round face stared back absently. Mark sighed. ‘Intercom,’ he said. There was a crackle, and then the speakers growled to life. The noise of the car’s idling engine filled the room. ‘Jason, you’re ten minutes early.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr. Jones; the traffic was lighter than I expected.’
Mark tapped the virtual button. The touchscreen monitor issued an artificial click. He heard the gate grinding open through the intercom speaker. ‘Come up to the house,’ Mark said. ‘I’ll meet you in the Solar. Intercom; off.’
Mark made his way through the labyrinthine corridors of his home, walking up two flights of stairs and heading to a room towards the centre of the building. Jason knew his own way there, having been the senior security consultant on the electronic features that had turned the massive structure into an automated fortress.
Reaching a door, which was no different from the three other doors on the third-floor corridor, Mark pressed the wall to its right. A hidden panel swung back, revealing a fingerprint scanner. Mark placed his right index finger on it and waited while the scanner read the whorls and ridges. A red light flickered to green and the door clicked. Mark pushed it open and made his way into the room beyond.
The room was a twenty-by-twenty-foot steel box. An oval table was placed in the middle, with eight leather chairs arranged around it. Set into the table, before the chair facing the door, was a small panel with three switches. Mark went to that chair and sat down. A couple of minutes later, the door clicked open again and Jason walked in.
He was a big man. Easily six feet tall and carrying the ungainly bulk of someone who ate too well and too often, his round face was red and flustered. A film of sweat covered his brow, and his usually neat brown hair was lank and damp. Jason wore an expensive suit and carried a black suitcase, which he put on the table as the door closed behind him. He pulled a handkerchief from an inside pocket and wiped his forehead.
‘I still think you should get a lift installed in this bloody place,’ Jason grumbled.
Mark ignored him. Wordlessly, he flicked the three switches in front of him and felt a dull hum as the anti-surveillance measures formed an electromagnetic shell around the room. ‘You have the transcripts?’ he asked when he was satisfied nobody could hear their conversation.
Jason opened the suitcase and passed him a bundle of neatly typed A4 paper. ‘This is what we’ve got, so far. It’s in the fairy tongue. It’s running through the translation programme at the moment, but it’s going to take about thirty-six hours.’ He shrugged.
Mark spent a few seconds futilely browsing through the alien language on the documents in front of him. It was a constant irritation to Mark that despite years of study, he still could not understand the enemy’s language; it was completely alien and took a military specification, code-cracking super-computer to decipher it. While Mark glared at the papers, Jason took the opportunity to collapse into one of the chairs. It groaned alarmingly under his weight.
‘You have the original tapes?’ Mark demanded.
‘Copies with me. The originals are at my office.’
‘Bring them here – I’ll put them into the vault.’
Jason shrugged. ‘No problem.’
‘I want the translation as soon as it’s done. All the copies.’
‘Yes Sir.’
‘Good. What have they been doing?’
‘Target One went out shoplifting for his buddy this morning. Clothes and meat. I don’t understand why he doesn’t just go and rob a bank or something.’
‘Too high-profile,’ Mark answered, still gazing at the puzzling phonetics in front of him. ‘Clothes and meat are constantly going missing. They’ll just put the missing stock down to any one of hundreds of thieves. If it stole jewellery or other high-value items, people would get curious. Target One is a wretch, but it is not stupid.’
‘Oh, right. Anyway, he stole a load of stuff and went home to pick up Target Two. Then they went to the pub. That’s where that conversation took place. They’re still there. My man’s sticking with them and streaming everything he records live to the server.’
‘Good. Keep following them. Keep recording, and run it all through the computer. Let me know when you’ve got something.’
Reading the dismissal in the words, Jason stood up. As he closed his briefcase, he looked around the windowless, stainless-steel room. ‘I wonder why it’s called a Solar,’ he pondered absently as the catches clipped shut. ‘I mean, there isn’t a lot of sunlight, is there?’
Mark looked up at him with a cold expression. ‘A Solar was a room used during the medieval period as a place for people to get a little solitude. It has nothing to do with the sun. I first came across the concept in France in the thirteenth century. I have always liked the idea of having somewhere to be alone,’ Mark added pointedly.
‘Oh. Well, I’ll, er … I’ll let you know as soon as anything changes.’ Jason turned and hurried from the room. After he had gone, Mark stood up and wandered back to his study with the documents in his hand.
Walking over to the desk, he picked up the wand and pressed a button on it. A panel under the flat screen television slid back, and three shelves rolled smoothly out. On them was a collection of electronic equipment. Mark painstakingly scanned the documents that Jason had given him and brought them up on the middle monitor. Then he sat down and stared at them, deep in thought.
‘So, what the hell is going on?’ Cam asked as he sat down with fresh drinks. They had finished eating, and their plates had been cleared away.
Grí
mnir reached out, picked up his glass, and settled it in front of him without drinking. He looked at Cam. ‘I do not know. I do not recognise this world. Outside of The Tower, I have never seen such great buildings as those around me, nor could I have ever imagined the magic box in your dwelling, or these strange moving huts that run along the ground like monstrous beetles. I have never seen so much stone, smothering the Mother Earth, nor smelled such foulness as the stench that clings to everything here. Where I come from, all the world is streams, and meadows, and forests. Humanity is there, of course, but they are few. They live in hovels and fight amongst themselves. They are an amusement for the Courts, nothing more.
‘Today, I have seen more humans than I ever saw in my life before I came here. It is as if the world has gone mad. What is worse, I cannot feel the magic. It has gone from the land. Where before it infused everything, now it has vanished. Yet it must still be here, for all I see around me are wonders that can only have been created by magic.
‘I have seen silver wyverns in the sky, and yet they do not fall to rend and tear at these great villages and their people. How do you tame a wyvern? These great edifices of stone are surely impossible, for who could build them without magic? What are these clothes that I wear, or this transparent flagon that holds my beer? Why can I see through that wall? Or is it solid air?’ Grímnir asked, pointing at the window. ‘If there is no magic, how can these wonders be possible? So, I wonder, has the magic abandoned me and if so, why? But you are the same. I can sense it.’
‘Yes, I am the same. The magic has not abandoned you, Grímnir; it has died.’ He paused. ‘The humans have spread like a plague and where they touch, the magic vanishes. It is their time now, not ours. I searched for the Brigantes on the internet. They were a tribe that lived around here thousands of years ago. I’ve a feeling that somehow you’ve come through time – there was a massive surge of magic just before you came charging into my life. Maybe that’s what brought you here. If I’m right, then things have changed.’
‘How could this have happened? What of the Courts?’
‘The Courts still exist, but they are not what they once were. The Seelie Court has withdrawn from this world almost completely … there was a tragedy … Anyway, they await the final death in obscurity and rarely come here. The Unseelie Court are at least trying to take something back from the humans. They send their lackeys out into the world to sow chaos and death. It never works though. There aren’t enough of them. The magic is slowly dying away, no matter what anybody does. We’ll all be dead in another fifty years or so.’
They sat in glum silence for a few minutes. Eventually, Cam roused himself to the business at hand. ‘The surge of magic I was telling you about; do you know what could have caused it?’
‘No. The last thing I remember, I was facing Cú Roí in the forests of the Brigantes …’
‘Whoa there,’ Cam interrupted. ‘Cú Roí? The bogeyman?’
‘What?’
‘Cú Roí is a myth. A monster used to frighten children. He doesn’t actually exist.’
‘He does exist. He is evil personified, cast out by the Unseelie Court, and hunted by both. He brought destruction to the world, sucking it dry of life, killing all in his way. My body was marked with these dragons to give me power over his evil, and great spells were cast into a sword. I was sent to track him and kill him. I cornered him in a clearing of fire … there was a portal, and there were Barghest … I lost the sword … the rest is a blur. I do not remember. Then I was here, and one of Cú Roí’s minions attacked me … I ran and felt your presence.’ Grímnir scrubbed a hand across his eyes. ‘I do not remember. I must find the Maiden of Earth and Water. She will know what to do.’
‘I don’t see the problem,’ Cam said. ‘We’re all here, so this Cú Roí can’t have been all that bad, can he? I mean, he didn’t manage to destroy the world. Why not just enjoy yourself?’
‘I cannot,’ Grímnir said.
‘Look, I’m trying to do you a favour – I don’t know what it was like back in your day, but the Courts aren’t what they once were. There was a disaster in the Dawn. A lot of people died, and there just aren’t that many of us left now. The Tower is crumbling as the magic fades, and those who survive just sit there doing nothing, waiting for us all to rot away. Don’t get involved with them, or you’ll end up listening to them argue endlessly about what the right course of action is, without actually doing anything. They’re a bunch of useless old women and they’ll kill us all. I left years ago, when I realised how pathetic they are.’
‘And now you live like this?’
‘It’s better than the alternative. At least out here I get to live for the few years left to me. In there I’d be in some hippy-dippy focus group, trying to work out how to tap into alternative, vegan energy sources or something. No, better to be out here. At least the humans know how to have a good time. That’s what you should do – seems to me that you had a lucky escape.’
‘Not really.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The dragons on my skin give me power over Cú Roí, but the price of that power was high.’
‘Go on,’ Cam said with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
‘My life force is tied to that of Cú Roí’s. While he lives, I live; when he dies, I die.’
‘I’m not sure I want to hear this.’
‘For me to be sitting here means that Cú Roí must be alive somewhere in this world.’
‘I knew I didn’t want to hear this. Still, there’s only one of him. How dangerous can he be?’
Grímnir laughed without humour. ‘He is the most dangerous of them all. He will destroy everything. Everything he touches, he corrupts. He will suck this world dry.’
‘Look, he’s in the same boat as the rest of us. There isn’t enough magic left for him to give somebody a nasty rash. What can he do?’
‘He will find a way. He is cunning and utterly merciless. He will kill everybody, unless I stop him.’
They looked at each other for several seconds, then Cam sighed and stood up. ‘I’ll try and organise something for tomorrow, but tonight we’re going to get drunk.’ Before Grímnir could answer, Cam made his way over to the pay phone and dialled a number.
It rang for a few seconds before a gruff voice answered. ‘What is it?’ asked the person at the other end of the line.
‘Hi, Dad, you’re never going to guess what happened to me last night …’ Cam began in an artificially cheerful tone.
Sam writhed on his sweat-drenched sheets. Beside him, Tabby shifted uncomfortably, and he felt her wake up.
‘Honey? Are you okay?’ she asked dozily.
Sam gritted his teeth. If he could have spoken, he would have told her that no, he wasn’t all right, his stomach hurt. Instead, he just held her hand to his stomach and rubbed it. She got the idea.
‘It’s the prophylaxis,’ Tabby said worriedly. ‘They said there might be some side effects …’
If he could have spoken, he would have told her that his bowels were churning, and his head was splitting, and the world felt as if it were made of wire wool. He would have told her that his guts felt like a blender, and that if somebody was to feed him fruit, no doubt he would shit a smoothie. Instead, he curled into a foetal ball and hugged her hand to his chest desperately.
‘It’ll get better once your system gets used to it.’
Sam nodded, but in all honesty, he didn’t believe her: this was the kind of feeling that went on for eternity. They drifted into silence and Sam stared around the room. The curtains were drawn, but a crack in the centre let in a small amount of pale light from the street outside. By it, he could see the vague bulk of the wardrobes opposite him and the glint of the television screen. Otherwise, the room was a liquid sea of blackness that played tricks on the eye.
Sam stared blankly into the shadows. His intestines gurgled and cramped. He let go of Tabby and clutched both his hands to his stomach. He felt like he was going to have to go
to the toilet soon, but the thought of standing up was too much for him. Instead, he just stared and waited for the night to pass. He thought about the two detectives that he had spoken to earlier in the evening … or at least who he had written his story down for. They hadn’t seemed overly optimistic of catching his attacker, and Sam didn’t blame them; he had told them he didn’t remember anything, still concerned that people would think him mad if he told them what he had seen. Slowly, his thoughts drifted.
The darkness became fuzzy. The air in front of him seemed to take on new substance, and Sam thought he could see scraps of matter floating around in front of his eyes. The particles were somehow darker than the rest of the room, and they spun around each other as if caught in soft air currents that Sam could neither hear nor feel.
Seconds passed while he watched them and their strange display. A light burst up in the middle. It was a tiny thing; a pinpoint star in a field of flecked nothingness. The dark matter seemed to be drawn to the light, coalescing around it, until it appeared that a solid mass hung just before his nose. Sam stared at the optical illusion with interest.
Sphere and darkness cascaded inwards, and something lunged towards him. A sleek canine head with flashing yellow eyes and too many teeth surged from out of the void. Sam got a quick impression of shaggy black fur and the smell of carrion, and then he jerked upright in bed.
A dream, he told himself as his heart rate slowed to normal. He wiped his sweating brow with an equally sweaty hand and relaxed a little. It had been a dream. The noise of raucous laughter drifted to him from outside. He glanced at the digital clock beside his bed. It was three in the morning. More laughter came from outside.
Sam struggled from his bed and moved cautiously to the window. He peered through the gap. Outside, he could see a group of youths standing around the hedge that separated Mrs. Nicholas’s property from the street. As he watched, a boy holding a can of lager ran up to the hedge and turning at the last minute, threw himself into the vegetation. Sam saw the plant bend backwards under the weight of the boy. Several branches snapped audibly. A bellow of laughter went up from the watching group.
Immortals' Requiem Page 9