Tucker grinned as he watched Tom stifle another cough, clearly embarrassed as he kicked Sid, hard, in the thigh. “Bloody idiot!” he repeated.
“Jewellery? Silk? What about cosmetics, food? Chocolates would be nice,” Six continued.
“Erm, think we’ve got a communicator problem here, Knight Six,” Tom stuttered before reaching for the switch on his belt and motioning for Sid to do the same. “You’re cracking up. Going to have to sign off.”
Tucker laughed. Just like Six, he knew the two wardens would be back to rob the grave later, not that he was bothered.
“Come on, apprentice,” Tom started grumpily. “We’re all done here, time to go.”
“For now, you mean?” Tucker smiled. He straightened a length of copper wire from the coil wrapped around the green gem the warden had given him.
“I don’t understand, Tom,” Sid said, still rubbing his sore thigh. “I thought he’d just put a crystal in there?”
“Oh, how many times, Sid?” Tom whined. “That was a blue one. The blue ones power the machine, the green one receives the signal.”
Tucker threaded the wire into the old aerial socket at the back of the television and watched the screen pop into life. “We’re live, Six,” he said.
“The yellow ones keep you warm,” Tom continued, lengthening his vowels as if he were talking to a four-year-old.
“And the red ones protect things! That’s right, Tom, isn’t it?” Sid chimed in happily, as the rather jolly face of a Rabbi filled the screen.
“Among other things,” the warden winked.
“Oh yeah,” Sid returned with a conspiratorial tone as the two wardens began trudging back down the hill with the rusty barrow.
Alone, Tucker was admiring his work as another shiver gripped him. He looked up to see a weird, dislocated shadow drift over the graves as the wind blew past.
Must be a bird or something, he shrugged and placed a red crystal on top of the machine. It cast a faint glow around the set, catching the eyes of the cadaver, which sparkled in response. Cheesy crap!
Tucker then began hurrying back to the city himself as the green gems in the tip of the broadcast tower throbbed to the same rhythm as the one he’d left tied to the back of the set; similarly the red, yellow and orange lights of the enormous biodomes.
The kids are certainly doing their job today, he thought as he ran.
But Jon Way sensed trouble.
He had remained in the watchtower from where he too viewed the city, and everywhere the crystals blazed - from the hotel to the mill on the waterfront, along the winding lanes of Market Place and into the shanty towns. Even in the forest and the fun park, and within it the helter-skelter the children used for their clubhouse.
Behind the wooden slats of the fairground ride electricity fused and crackled, chasing along wires before branching out on its own. The helter-skelter’s mast pulsated furiously, sending waves of energy across Albion through its improvised network of cables. One of the children feverishly pushed freshly charged crystals down its spiral slide, to be used like batteries, collected in the chute below.
The people would be happy, Jon thought. Between them the children, or Seekers as he liked to call them, were creating enough energy to keep homes powered for a week. But he was nervous. His system depended on them remaining calm. Happy but placid. And in the clubhouse tempers raged.
Neon almost ripped Brian’s arm from his body as she pulled him from the grasp of her opponents. They continued to mock her and a courageous few even began making faces. But she rounded on them, her sudden fury beating them back, the static in the air causing her pigtails to bend outwards from beneath her helmet.
“I do not mean to cause us pain, I’m sorry, but please do not presume my feelings to be a weakness!”
Hastily, the other Seekers retreated, many weeping again, as if alive to their sudden danger. Neon was, indeed, a princess. Arguably, she was also the most powerful of them all. And above her a storm of electricity swirled along wires fit to break.
Losing control, she finally screamed, “And don’t you DARE hurt my teddy!”
The children looked on anxiously at one another, afraid of the monster they had created. The crystals tied to their heads no longer pulsed but burned, even their helmets sparking ferociously, scalding to the touch.
But as quickly as her anger appeared Neon’s mood subsided. She felt her father’s presence leak into their minds and the room lighten around her. The crystals stalled and the current dampened. She was surprised. Jon Way did not often take part in these silly games.
“What is it, Neon?” his words danced like sunshine amid pink, fluffy clouds and the other children giggled nervously. “I admire your empathy for that man outside but what would you have us do, raise the dead? He was sick, Neon. We couldn’t save him.”
Her lips trembling, Neon stared down at her hands, at the stuffing leaking from Brian’s armpit. “I know, Daddy, I know that, I do, but,” she paused, not quite sure of what to say or how. “But now we’ve lost Lord Truth…”
Neon choked on another wave of tears and looked up to see the shocked faces of the other children around her, none of them more than 12 years old. “… Well maybe that man could have helped us? But instead we just killed him, like some animal.”
Oric crawled towards her and held her hand. “I mean,” Neon pleaded. “Do we see no shame in that?”
“Oh yes.” And again Jon Way’s thoughts filtered through her mind, this time drifting like a shower of cherry blossoms through one ear, and out the other. “We feel shame, Neon. Just look at the burial mounds.”
One by one, the children turned to the bank of monitors and an image of Klaus’s half- buried body. Pictures of a swinging incense burner played on the TV beside his empty fingers and his eyes stared vacantly at the sky, blood seeping through the ice.
The televised voice of a priest spoke softly as a familiar shadow fell over the grave. “And just as it is destined that each person dies only once...”
Sir Wilfred Justice paused a moment and felt the muscles stretch within his arms as he drew a spiked metal ball over his back.
“And after that comes judgement...”
The chain flexed in the breeze as his grip tightened around the wooden handle. His breath collected in the flying goggles around his neck and a growl of rage ran across his lips, the weapon unfurling above his head.
“So Christ was sacrificed to take away the sins of many people, and he will appear a second time...”
CRASH!
Sir Justice’s weight drew the mace down in a perfect arc, orange plastic and glass exploding as the iron flail smashed through the set like a wrecking ball through an abandoned house. It shattered the red crystal’s shield instantly and the green gem landed beside the corpse in the snow, the rest of the television’s components splintering as the set buckled beneath the swinging hammer.
Sir Wilfred Justice fell to his knees. He puffed out his cheeks as the blood rose within them, coursing through his mottled veins like so much guilt. Sweat glistened within his bristled chin and his belly wobbled over his lap.
I need a drink, he thought, how about you Klaus Gravenstein?
The corpse remained silent and the sheriff’s hazel eyes misted over as he stared at the man he’d killed. “I’m sorry,” he muttered into the wind.
Then he slowly drew a cross over his chest.
“Ashes to ashes,” he began. “Dust to dust.”
Chapter Five
TUCKER returned to the empty control room and began picking up crisps from the floor. He paused to check no one was watching, and then started eating them. Without Lord Truth’s replication skills salt supplies in the city, like everything else, were becoming scarce. So, despite the bits of fluff stuck to the chips, Tucker wasn’t about to waste them. Besides, scavenging came naturally to him. As an orphan he had grown up in the back streets of Market Place and the shanty towns of Albion. Sometimes, after the plague had hit, the only way to fi
nd food had either been to raid bins or steal it. Two things he’d become quite good at.
Two qualities Lord Truth had obviously recognised when he took him in.
The colour rose in his brown cheeks as he crawled on the polyester carpet, but it wasn’t the yellow and amber crystals glowing in the grate beside him that warmed them. Tucker blushed as he realised Six was watching him.
“So, where’d you get the crisps, Tucks?” she said, poking her head out from the bathroom door. She was still dressed in her makeshift nightclothes of a long-sleeved t- shirt and knickers, with damp hair and a towel now draped around her neck.
“Fresh from the farm, Six,” Tucker munched, his embarrassment lifting as he detected the craving in the girl’s voice. She was obviously hungry too but not quite so desperate.
“Fresh from the farm,” he repeated, goading her.
Gallantly, he offered her the last remaining handful but she shook her head. Tucker frowned. “They’re kinda stale anyways,” he said, deciding to toss them into a waste bin as a show of force.
Still feeling the chill from outside, he began kicking at a pile of clothes in the middle of the room. Tucker didn’t really understand girls. He thought he understood Six at times but these moments were becoming increasingly rare. Finally, he found had a grey v-neck jumper and swapped it for his cardigan.
The girl watched him, absent-mindedly scratching her bottom during the lull in their conversation. This was the kind of building silence Tucker found most confusing of all.
“We got ‘em last night,” he said finally.
“Sorry?”
“The chips. We got ‘em last night on the way back from the bar. Don’t you remember?”
“Oh, no, not really,” Six replied as she felt her wet hair and throbbing head, still covered with a greasy film of sweat and old make-up.
Tucker followed her back into the bathroom. “Seems like you’re forgetting a lot of things nowadays, Six.”
Six ran the faucet over her fingers and dashed a liberal handful of water over her face. She then picked up a bar of oily soap and started to scrub. “You think so?”
Tucker stood in the doorway, trying not to stare as he knew Six could see him in the mirror.
“Yep, either that or there’s stuff you don’t want to talk about,” he gambled.
Six stopped scrubbing, her head covered in bubbles, and turned towards him. “Well, Tucker, if I was awarding marks for getting anywhere near the mark this morning, you’d be getting half marks.”
The 16 year old cringed visibly almost as soon as the words had tumbled from her lips. Blindly, she dived into her handbag for a toothbrush and plunged it into her mouth before she could do any more damage.
Tucker shook his head. Sometimes it felt like his friend was trying to be too clever for her own good. His frustration rising, he decided to push her further. “That toothpaste you’re using comes from Lord Truth’s private stash,” he said simply.
Six brushed furiously, glaring at the boy in the mirror as he continued.
“That make-up you’re wearing was liberated from a department store during one of our last missions to Edinburgh. The clothes you’re wearing too.”
Six spat into the sink as though she were drawing venom from a wound.
“The shoes I’m wearing came from a dead man in...”
“That’s enough, Tucker.” For a moment it didn’t feel like her talking. The voice sounded so calm, so at odds with the anxiety coursing through her body. Rational and determined, the voice, Six concluded, sounded much more like Lord Truth himself.
Tucker recognised that he’d hit a nerve and immediately felt the guilt that comes with timing a well-aimed punch to the nose.
He sighed defeatedly and, Six thought, rather over-dramatically.
“So a new day dawns and we’re not going to talk about it?” he said.
Six answered from underneath the towel as she rubbed the last of the mascara from her eyes and dried her damp hair. Pimples prickled on her skin. “Talk about what, Tucker?”
“What happened to Lord Truth.” Tucker’s voice was now quiet and childlike. “He was killed, Six. Killed on our watch. Don’t you remember?”
Six swung the towel over her shoulder and walked past him, ignoring his gaze. She sniffed enigmatically. “A new dawn has broken, Tucker. Isn’t that enough?”
Tucker turned to watch as she picked up her clothes from his bedroom floor and began climbing into her jeans. “But we’re knights, Six, shouldn’t we be doing something?”
“You can do all you want, apprentice,” Six groaned. “I’m going to the bar.”
“But you just came back from the bar?”
Six exploded, “Superseriously Tucker, maybe I should never have left!”
And she closed her eyes.
In her mind, she was back at the ball held in their honour at the castle the night before their quest. It was all she could remember of the mission. Or, at least, that’s what she was telling everybody.
“May I have this dance, Knight Six?” Lord Truth had asked, tapping her on the shoulder as she was talking to Carol Lee.
Six remembered the thrill of the question. Dancing with Lord Truth! But there was an uneasiness there too - Carol was Lord Truth’s ex-girlfriend, the knights’ sergeant before the two of them had broken up. However, the new Captain of the King’s Guards didn’t seem to mind.
“Go on,” she had winked, her eyes fluttering towards Jason King as he sat on his throne. “Enjoy yourself. I’ve got a few errands to run anyway.”
Lord Truth bowed politely as she left and Six turned to see his smiling face, the grin as permanent as ever beneath his dark glasses.
“Shall we?” he had said, before taking her hand and leading her out onto the crowded dance floor. A DJ stood in his booth, the music building, candlelight bouncing off a spinning glitter ball.
“You’re sure you can fit me in?” Six had giggled, pointing to the line of glamorous, and no doubt envious women, queuing up for a waltz with their Saviour. “I think it’s been a while since they’ve seen you outside the barracks. You’ve spent so much time in your study lately.”
“They can wait,” he had shrugged before bending down to take her in his arms, practically lifting her off the polished floor.
And they had danced, all eyes upon them, his grey skin shimmering silver, the evening seemingly bathed in gold.
“They think we killed him, Six.” Tucker was saying. He could barely look up from his shoes as he spoke. “They think we killed Lord Truth.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why?” Tucker pleaded. “You know the council doesn’t trust me. Why don’t you just talk to them Six, tell them what happened? They need to know. I need to know!”
“I can’t. I told you I can’t remember, I…” Six stuttered and pulled a woollen hoodie over her head, her socked feet touching her sword, sheathed under her sheepskin coat.
“…I just need to go talk to my grandpa, okay.”
“Giles? Giles the cook! Six, no offence but what the cream cheesy puffs does he have to do with anything?” Tucker could no longer contain his frustration. “You were the last person to see Lord Truth alive, Six. You need to tell me what happened! We need to talk about it! It’s been three weeks!”
Three weeks? Has it really been that long? Six felt her eyes fill with pity for her friend. She could almost have blurted out her story there and then, she thought, if it was safe enough. But how could she tell him? How could she put him in that kind of danger? Stop it! Don’t think of it, I can’t think of it!
“Talking’s for… schmalkers,” Six said finally before throwing her towel over Tucker’s head.
“Come on Jim Kelly,” she smiled weakly before hopping up and down on the balls of her feet. “Let’s dance.”
Tucker pulled the towel away in time to see a reverse punch heading towards his midriff. He leapt away from it, curling his legs higher into the air, falling onto his palms and springing back
wards in an elegant back flip.
He reached his sword just as Six kicked hers up from the floor and pulled away its cover.
“Nice move, appren...” she stuttered, just as three white arrows floated beneath her nose.
Together the sprites span about the room like toy jets in formation, each performing a loop-the-loop then diving towards the carpet. Having pulled up at the last possible second they spiralled like paper planes caught on an impossible current, circling Tucker twice before rising up into the high ceiling. The two teenagers watched, mesmerised until...
Clap!
Each arrow exploded into a shower of delicate white petals that dissolved one by one before hitting the floor.
“Please, forgive the interruption,” Tucker and Six turned to see Jon Way, his denim jacket slung casually over his shoulder as he stood at the top of the stairs.
“I was just wondering if you’d allow me to read your minds?”
Chapter Six
THE MAGICIAN was warming his hands by the crystal grate, its light throwing patterned colours around the room. “I’m afraid my powers are limited, you see, and I never like to enter the thoughts of the people of Albion uninvited,” he smiled.
Tucker and Six lowered their swords as Jon Way turned to peer at them from behind his mirrored shades. “But I need you to go back. I need to see what happened to Lord Truth.”
Six shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t remember. I...”
The magician raised a finger. “I know you’re worried, Knight Six. You’re traumatised, no doubt, by what you’ve seen, but surely you can understand the importance of these events?”
His back to the crystal’s warmth, he tilted his head a little to one side. “You two were the last people on earth to see the most powerful man alive. Perhaps that’s why you’ve had some trouble recalling your mission to London thus far,” he smiled again. “Maybe I can help?”
Tucker noted the pink shadows in Six’s cheeks. He stepped forwards, placing his blade on the swivel seat. “I don’t mind,” he shrugged. “I mean, you’ve read my mind already at the council but...”
The Last Days Page 4