Jack of Ravens

by Mark Chadbourn

  When he was halfway up it, a chilling growl echoed from the darkness and the stairs vibrated from heavy footsteps in pursuit.

  6

  Church emerged from a manhole cover onto a hellish street. All around buildings blazed out of control. The heat seared his lungs and smoke choked his throat. Burned bodies, their identities, even their sex, unrecognisable, lay amidst piles of rubble. Searchlights washed back and forth across the night sky against the backdrop of the interminable drone of bomber engines.

  Church futilely tried to get his bearings. A fire engine sped into the street, bell ringing. The fire team leaped out to perform their individual responsibilities with well-oiled efficiency.

  One of the firefighters ran up to Church. ‘Oi, mate – you all right? You get caught in the blast?’ Before Church could answer, the fireman’s gaze fell on Llyrwyn. ‘Bloody hell. What you doing with that?’

  Another bomb fell a couple of streets away, and they both ducked to avoid flying debris. When they rose, the fireman was looking past Church with mounting terror.

  Loki was rising from the manhole further down the street. At first it was difficult to tell whether the god was closer to man or beast, for it moved slowly and menacingly on all fours, its grey hair streaming behind it. Its pupils were golden and filled with a wild frenzy, and its lips were pulled back in a snarl from pointed teeth.

  ‘What the bleedin’ hell is that?’ the fireman said.

  ‘Get out of here.’ Church thrust him away.

  Loki broke into a lupine lope, accelerating with each step. When it leaped with a ferocious roar, Church threw himself to one side. The god continued to the fire engine and with one swipe of its talons tore the side of the vehicle wide open. The firemen who had been directing a gushing hose towards one of the burning buildings dropped it and dashed away. The hose snaked around and the full force of the water hit Loki in the chest. The god flipped over backwards and was driven against the burning house. The wall rocked and then came crashing on top of him.

  Church had his chance to flee, but he was distracted by cries from one of the houses just being licked by the conflagration that was rapidly leaping from building to building. The firefighters were distracted trying to wrestle the thrashing hose under control.

  Church dashed to the house and kicked open the front door. The interior was already thick with smoke and the heat was intense.

  ‘Anyone there?’ Church called. A weak, coughing voice answered from the kitchen. An elderly woman was sprawled on the floor next to the open trap door leading to the cellar that she had been using as an air-raid shelter. Church scooped her up in his arms and carried her out into the night. Two firemen took her from him and carried her away.

  Church had lost his advantage. Loki rose up from the burning pile of rubble, showering bricks and mortar across the street. Flames licked all around the god, so that it resembled the Devil in some medieval painting.

  Powerful muscles bunched in its legs as the creature propelled itself across the street towards Church. A chilling howl escaped its mouth as Loki transformed fully into an enormous grey wolf. The beast’s slavering jaws just missed Church’s neck. Church managed to swing his sword enough to clip the wolf’s haunches. As it went down, he threw himself upon it.

  But instead of grasping wolf fur, he found himself sprawling on a nest of writhing snakes. Their heads rose as one, snapping for his face. Church threw himself off them, venom sizzling on the back of his hand.

  As he scrambled to his feet, he heard a voice calling, ‘Church! Over here! I can help!’ Jerzy stood further down the street.

  Church ran towards him as Loki began to reconfigure into another shape. ‘How?’ Church gasped.

  Jerzy smiled. ‘This is the punch line.’

  From high overhead came the whistling of a falling bomb. The firemen were already taking cover, but there was nowhere for Church to run. Behind him, Loki was loping in his direction.

  Suddenly, the ground beneath his feet gave way and Church plummeted into the dark. The fall was only around ten feet and he landed hard with a splash. The stink told him he was in the effluent of one of the Victorian sewers, its integrity already damaged by the blasts.

  The bomb hit a split second later. The explosion stunned him even in the depths of the sewer, but the fall had saved his life. Choking and spluttering, it took him a few moments to scramble out over the debris thrown into the hole.

  A crater lay where Loki had been. Further along the street some unrecognisable shape was lowering itself into the manhole from which Church had exited the underground system; disappearing into the dark to lick its wounds, ready to return another day.

  Jerzy was nowhere to be seen, but Church didn’t think for a minute that he had died in the blast. Some other power was at play here. In his jacket pocket, Church felt the cold, malign presence of the Anubis Box. With the skull destroyed, it had been a victory. A great one.

  One of the firemen rushed up, bleeding from a shrapnel cut on his forehead. The others were unharmed. If Loki hadn’t driven them back, they would have died in the bomb-blast. A confluence of coincidences that were not coincidences.

  ‘Blimey, mate, are you all right? Talk about luck!’ the fireman said. He turned up his nose. ‘You really smell like shit, though.’

  7

  Back at the Holborn Empire the atmosphere was as exuberant as ever. ‘The Windmill never closes, and neither shall we,’ the dinner-jacketed manager said with gusto, Blitz or no ‘Blitz. Alongside the rest of the British people, I offer a firm two fingers to Mr Hitler.’

  Backstage was chaotic, with garishly dressed comics mingling with tuxedoed song-and-dance men, jugglers, mimes, fire-eaters and a member of the orchestra taking a cigarette break. Church moved through the colour and activity with a calm and watchful eye, knowing that sooner or later an opportunity would be presented to him.

  It came in one of the maze of corridors leading to the scenery store, where the smell of paint and turps was strong. Jerzy was leaning against a wall in his mask, humming thoughtfully to himself. This time Church took the opportunity to observe Jerzy’s eyes, for that was the only way to divine the subtleties of emotion in a person whose face was frozen in an expression of horrific humour. They were not Jerzy’s eyes. Through the slits, Church saw them dart with dark mischief.

  Church sauntered up, then grabbed the impostor and thrust Llyrwyn to his throat. ‘Who are you?’

  In the gleam of those eyes, Church saw the mysteries of the past unfold. They had watched him in Carn Euny and Eboracum. They had seen Lucia’s body and watched over her transformation in Myddlewood. They had looked out of the face of Jerzy just before he had disappeared from Stonehenge, and from the frightening visage of Spring-heeled Jack; and there was the ARP Warden, and the music-hall lover who had pointed out the Seelie Court, and all the others who had pulled the strings that had danced Church around like a marionette. ‘Who are you?’ Church asked again with menace.

  The eyes never lost their mischievous sparkle. ‘I am trouble,’ he said in a voice that sounded like the wind across the wild countryside. Slowly, he moved his hand up to the mask. Church allowed him the unveiling.

  As he whisked away the face trapped between tragedy and comedy, Church glimpsed many unnerving things, but what remained was a face as brown as oak-bark but with the soft texture of seal skin. He appeared at once human, animal and flora, yet none of them, and there was certainly something of the impish about him in the blaze of his eyes and the point of his ears, and the grinning row of needle-sharp teeth. Here was mischief, certainly, but also an uneasy darkness that could turn like a summer storm.

  ‘Who are you?’ Church asked a third time.

  ‘I am that merry wanderer of the night.’ His smile brought a chill to Church’s spine. ‘The one that frights the maidens of the village … and bootless makes the breathless housewife churn. I mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm.’

  The stranger chuckled and Church realised he was
holding on to nothing but air. Several feet away, the stranger now crouched like a monkey ready to leap.

  ‘I am that shrewd and knavish sprite called Robin Goodfellow,’ he continued, ‘called by some Hobgoblin, and Sweet Puck. Be kind to me and you shall have good luck.’

  Church watched the strange figure uneasily. The shape-shifting trickster lived on in the old stories. Kipling had called him ‘the oldest Old Thing in England’, a figure more powerful than the gods and faeries of myth.

  He smiled as if reading Church’s thoughts. ‘In all cultures do I live. Call me Pwca amongst the Welsh, and Puki in Old Norse, Pukis in Lithuania.’

  And all agreed he could be as dangerous and malign a force as he was mischievous.

  In the blink of an eye he was gone again. Church whirled to find the Puck a few feet behind his shoulder. ‘Call me faerie, goblin, devil or imp, but to lovers and fools I can be friend, for they are often one and the same.’

  ‘You led me to the skull and the box,’ Church said. ‘You’re on our side.’

  ‘Robin has no side ’cept Robin’s own. Sometimes our views collide, sometimes they stand poles apart. I seek out mischief and humour in the gloomiest vale, but in a world of darkness and despair, there are no laughs … no heart … no hale.’

  ‘I thank you for your help, whatever your reasons.’

  ‘Not all Robin’s help has yet been reveal’d. There is yet more to see. A bond has been made with the Seelie Court. To the garden they will lead ye.’

  Church didn’t understand what the imp was saying, nor did he know how much he could trust this Robin Goodfellow. There was an old Midlands term – ‘pouk-ledden’ – used to describe how people were spun around, manipulated and misled by the sprite for mischief or spite.

  ‘A merrier hour was never wasted here, but now the time has come to part our ways. Yet when you least expect it, there I’ll be, more mischief done in future days. Anon. Robin is gone.’

  There was no flash or puff of smoke. The Puck was simply there one second, gone the next, and Church was left blinking at the space where he’d been.

  Church was still contemplating the tricky creature’s words and the victory that had been achieved that day when Jerzy walked up.

  ‘Why do you look at me in such a strange manner?’ he asked.

  ‘I just wanted to check it was really you.’

  ‘You like your jokes, good friend. As if there could be two such as me!’ Jerzy’s eyes gleamed through the mask.

  Church was warmed to see his friend so happily at peace, but he would miss him. ‘You’re definitely staying?’

  ‘This is my place now, bringing joy and laughter to people who really need me. This is home. But you know the words of the song on everyone’s lips: “We’ll meet again. Don’t know where, don’t know when.” ’ He held out his arms and they hugged before Jerzy pulled back sharply. ‘Church—?’

  ‘I know, I know!’ Church snapped. ‘I’m going to get a bath!’

  8

  It was only when he was leaving the Holborn Empire into a night that smelled of smoke and dust that Church realised Robin Goodfellow had played one last trick. The pocket inside his jacket where he had stored his prize was empty. The Anubis Box was gone.

  Chapter Ten

  THE FINAL WORD

  1

  Niamh laid out the Tarot cards on the small table next to the roaring fire. Tom watched her intently. From the shadow that crossed her face, he knew the answer before he asked the question. ‘Still nothing?’

  ‘There is a wall across what lies ahead. Beyond it exists only darkness.’ She turned over another card: the Nine of Ravens. ‘I try to summon the Messengers of Existence, but there are shadow-ripples flowing back from that wall, disrupting my pleas, perverting their answers. Changing everything.’

  ‘So the powers won’t respond?’

  ‘They do what they can, but even they are insignificant compared to what lies ahead.’

  Tom took out a brown leather pouch and began to roll himself a smoke. ‘And there’s still no little ray of sunshine ahead for you and me?’

  Niamh shook her head gravely. ‘Our time is nearly done. Soon we will make our choices to shuffle off the board.’

  Tom nodded as he crimped the paper and took out his flint. ‘That’s what I see. That’s what I’ve always seen. An ending, like a black cloud on the horizon. We go, but the world keeps turning.’

  Niamh turned another card: the Lovers. ‘It seems so futile, for even with our sacrifice the wall still stands,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘No one knows how it all fits together,’ Tom said. ‘Existence is complex and we see only one dog-eared corner of the vast pattern. Through cause and effect, one simple action can change the world.’ He lit his roll-up and inhaled the blue smoke deeply.

  ‘But it can change,’ she said hopefully. ‘Things can change. Nothing is fixed, anywhere. You know that. Existence is mutable. The structure can be altered by events … or will.’

  ‘And our friend lies at the heart of that.’

  Niamh moved her fingers over the cards. ‘It says here that if he chose me over the Sister of Dragons I would survive—’

  ‘You are a god and he is a mortal.’ Tom fixed a searching eye on Niamh as she mulled over the cards. ‘One would think it would not be difficult to bring about that end.’

  She shook her head sadly. ‘His love would be meaningless if it were forced. I stand or fall by what lies in his heart.’

  ‘You love him very deeply.’

  ‘More than I can bring myself to believe. By doing nothing apart from being himself, he has altered my world completely. When I peer into my deepest thoughts I am not the same person I was before I met him. Far from it. He has awakened many great things in my heart, and though I have experienced wish-pain for the first time, I would not have it any other way.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I exist in hope that he will return my love.’

  Tom nodded, but could give her no reassurance. ‘And do you see his future in the cards? I fear greatly for what lies ahead for him. I see—’

  He was interrupted by a knock at the door, and then Church entered. He was in unusually high spirits.

  ‘Well, you have the smile of a winner,’ Tom noted.

  ‘And with good reason. The crystal skull is destroyed. The Anubis Box has been taken. The Army of the Ten Billion Spiders can’t entrap any more gods. I’d call that a result.’

  ‘Unless they have already trapped everyone they need,’ Tom pointed out.

  Church plucked an apple from a fruit display and pulled up a chair. You’re a real glass-half-empty kind of person, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’d call it pragmatic.’

  ‘Okay, we don’t know how many gods they’ve got on their side: Janus, Apollo and Loki for definite …’He shifted uneasily when he thought of Loki’s ferocity. ‘All right, they’re pretty terrifying and I wouldn’t want to face one of them on my own again. But we’ve got twenty courts here to oppose them. That weights things in our favour, I think.’ He crunched on the apple. Have you heard of Robin Goodfellow?’

  ‘Stay away from the Puck,’ Niamh interjected. ‘He is dangerous.’

  ‘I don’t know why he decided to focus on me, but he really messed things around. Changing his appearance, shepherding me this way and that—’

  ‘The Puck has his own agenda,’ she warned.

  ‘This time it coincided with ours. I would never have destroyed the crystal skull without his help. Okay, he absconded with the Anubis Box, but—’

  ‘And you call that a success?’ Tom said. ‘An artefact of such power in the hands of something so unpredictable?’

  Church shrugged. ‘Whatever you say, I think things are turning in our favour.’

  Tom hesitated before saying, ‘I believe I have found a way into the Court of the Final Word.’

  ‘See? That’s great,’ Church said. ‘So the next thing is to get the lamp and my Pendragon Spirit back.’ He didn’t see Tom share a dark glan
ce with Niamh. ‘I’ve put things in place to get Shavi, Laura and Ruth together in the future. Trust me. Everything is going to be fine.’

  2

  ‘So, have we got to spend the rest of our days hanging out in churches? ’Cause, you know, it’s not really me.’ Laura leaned against the wall of Waltham Abbey Church and watched the rising sun cast pointing shadows from the gravestones.

  Shavi sat cross-legged on the grass. The atmosphere was still, perfect for meditation. ‘The power in the land was strong at all sites people considered sacred – not just churches, but stone circles, cairns, springs, hilltops, lakes. Perhaps people instinctively sensed its strength and worshipped there. Or perhaps the act of worshipping made the power stronger in some way. Who knows?’

  ‘Sounds like a load of hippie crap to me.’ Laura sniffed. ‘So where’s it gone now?’

  ‘I do not know. But I believe locating the Blue Fire is important in freeing the world from the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders.’

  ‘You really believe all that bollocks the old git keeps spouting?’

  ‘Behind his demeanour, the Bone Inspector is a wise man with a vast amount of knowledge that has been passed down to him across the generations—’

  ‘So he says.’

  ‘I am inclined to believe him. Everything I have witnessed gels with his perception of the situation.’

  ‘So … dragons?’ She rested her head on the stone wall, enjoying the sun warming her face.

  ‘He says if we can find the Fabulous Beasts we can find the Blue Fire, for the two are inextricably linked. The latent Blue Fire in these places not only masks our presence from the Army, it appears to be anathema to them. You saw how Rourke was thrown when the spark flashed between us. It appears it can be used both to heal and to hurt.’

  ‘This Pendragon Spirit is the thing I don’t get. The old git says we’re supposed to have it because we’re some kind of heroes. But, you know – and don’t take this the wrong way – are we the best they can get? I wouldn’t want to be protected by any army that has me in the front line. I’m a selfish, lying, cheating, promiscuous coward who will fuck anybody over if it will save her neck.’