Edwin Manifold plunged them into his attacker’s heart, but they did little besides knocking him off balance. Klaus Gravenstein was wearing a suit of armour.
“Pretty impressive move, for a bureaucrat,” Klaus growled as he stumbled backwards, his one good hand feeling for the light trail of blood where the blades had ripped links from his polished chain mail. “Maybe I ought to keep things a little simpler, yes?” he unsheathed his sword. “Stop with the questions, and just slay you where you stand?”
“I told you, I don’t know anything!” Edwin Manifold choked.
The clerk ran, gripping his bruised Adam’s apple and toppling an armchair to the floor. Klaus brushed past it and followed him as he staggered through the tree house, reaching the large dining table built around the sprawling trunk whose branches extended through the apartment’s roof. There was no escape but Manifold was keen to keep as much distance, and furniture, between himself and his assailant as possible.
Klaus just watched him, the massive broadsword swinging in his hand.
“Honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” the clerk rasped.
“Sure, sure,” Klaus scoffed, wiping the sweat from his beard with his right stump, his brown eyes never leaving his prey. “You just organised a conspiracy to kill Lord Truth using that typewriter you just smashed, yes? Posting secret messages dressed in that cape I can see hanging by your bed.” Klaus shifted his sword higher as they circled the table, different segments of the open-planned house - the kitchen, the bedroom, the bathroom - passing behind them. “But other than that, you’re innocent.”
“What the...” Manifold shook his head, his oval glasses misting up in panic as he began grasping for plates and cups, hurling them at the German. “Who are you?” he demanded.
Klaus ducked or smashed the objects with his blade, grinning, his eyes still locked on his quarry.
“I don’t understand,” the clerk cried plaintively. “How do you know all this stuff?”
“I’d say the more pressing question...” and with a grunt Klaus Gravenstein threw the sword. It cart wheeled across the table before tearing through Manifold’s left shoulder, lifting him through the air, forcing him backwards. “Is who else knows, yes?”
The clerk landed at the foot of the bed, his head hanging down, his left leg trembling. Blood began pumping between the grooves of his floorboards as the sun sank lower through the window behind him, filling the little house with long, twisted shadows.
Klaus turned to the kitchen sink and watched the trees outside, their branches scratching against the cabin in the waning light, just as they had that night in Bavaria. That night when his soul was taken. The night his world came to an end.
The wolves used to infest such forests as these, he thought.
He breathed slowly, quietly washing his hand and stump before drawing a pail of water from the sink. Concentrate, he told himself, I must not lose control.
But soon the moon would rise. Soon the beast would rise within him.
Klaus screwed his eyes shut and saw the memories he feared tearing at his thoughts: a whole family of werewolves, once banished to the old convent on the Island of Fraueninsel, drifting across Germany in a boat on Lake Chiemsee.
They make land at the town of Harras where they slaughter its inhabitants. Then they turn to a small cabin in the nearby forest, where they find 12-year-old Klaus, his little sister Sabine, and their mother, long dead from the blood plague.
Klaus could still hear his sister’s screams as the beasts ripped through their front door. Their faces leering, their eyes burning red, drool spilling onto the carpet as they towered above him.
The boy had gathered Sabine into his arms and crouched in their shadows, begging for mercy.
The beasts drew back their claws and their gums receded, their teeth naked and snarling, and were about to strike when their leader stopped.
And offered Klaus his horrific bargain.
The next day the boy woke far from the cabin he had called home, far from his sister and his dead mother. And that night he became a beast himself - freshly bitten - a new cub among a family of wolves.
In their human form, they were a mother, father and daughter. They spent endless days roaming the woods, the nights sleeping in hovels, till they’d rise stinking and fetid at the next full moon, hoping to feed on a new town, hoping there would be enough survivors to satiate their appetites.
The werewolf parents saw Klaus as a mate for their daughter. But they didn’t trust him. He was forced to bide his time, constantly watched as he attempted to woo her.
Yet the girl was eager for his affections and, within months, he had won her over. The four became a pack and together they stalked the forest, foraging, dancing, playing games. Sometimes they’d even pretend to be a normal family.
For Klaus, these times were the worst, so close to his ends he could vomit.
And then the pack would hunt, gorging themselves on the dwindling populace. Klaus among them, feeding, first on adults, finally on children like himself. His heart slowly consumed by the monster within.
It wasn’t for many years that his opportunity for revenge arose. Klaus woke one autumn morning with his mate in his arms, the family quietly dozing around him. They had collapsed in a thicket, the full moon days away, their bodies week and starved.
And he killed them all, stabbing each through the heart, their blood spattered across the red leaves of the Bavarian forest.
That was the last time Klaus had murdered in his human form.
But he did not return home to his cabin in the woods by Lake Chiemsee. How could he? He had abandoned his sister to scavenge among the trees, if the blood plague hadn’t killed her first.
He had given his life so that she could be spared the tortures he would now endure. If he found her alive he knew he would only kill her too. And so he wandered, lost and aimless, through the wreckage of Europe.
It wasn’t until many years later that he discovered the Voice in the Channel Tunnel. Another monster, alone in the dark, discarded.
And together they had found Him, their new master, a shadow far stronger than the Voice but trapped in London, caged in rubble. Only the knowledge and blood of his betrayers would begin to set him free.
And so Klaus had witnessed another horrific pact. The one that had brought them here.
Klaus Gravenstein picked up the pail of water and threw it over the clerk, whose body lay twitching, pinned to the wooden frame of his bed.
“Why did you kill Lord Truth?” he screamed. “Who were the others? Who is their leader?”
.............
Edwin Manifold was already dead by the time Tucker found him, the clerk’s blood seeping through the floor of the tree house and dripping onto the grey snow below. Tucker bound up the ladder and rushed into the room, a crystal lantern swinging in his hand. It was dusk and the stars were fast appearing.
The knight’s apprentice was just about to check the clerk’s pulse when Sir Wilfred
Justice hopped through the wooden hatch behind him.
“Bollockin’ bastard bollocks! We’re too late?” the sheriff huffed as he began squeezing through the trapdoor.
“The body’s still warm,” Tucker nodded, regarding the pale face of the city clerk, thick blood now congealing around his feet. “But he ain’t coming back from this meeting in a hurry. How did you...”
“Giles,” Sir Justice winced, heaving his plaster cast leg towards the boy. “He told me everything. And we were right,” the sheriff’s eyes flared. “There was a conspiracy, and this man was at the centre of it.”
Tucker turned from the body, wiping the blood from his hands onto the clerk’s silk bedspread. “And Giles was involved?”
“Only loosely,” Sir Justice shook his head. “More through accident than desire.”
“That’s good,” Tucker nodded. “So what about the bomb?”
“Aye, that bit’s true,” the sheriff hobbled over to the bed, grabbing a t
orch from his pocket to get a better view of the victim. “But apparently it needed some kind of trigger, another monkey or something, to set it off.”
“The watchmaker,” Tucker started. “I found some weird equipment like the parts for a robot in his workshop, and there’s explosives in his safe. I didn’t get the chance to check them but...”
Sir Justice smiled. “Well done, deputy. And the clue that brought you here?”
“Missus Wiggins,” Tucker answered, handing the sheriff the note. “Manifold’s cat. She showed up at the shop with this.”
“Clever,” Sir Justice read it before bending down to study the clerk more closely. “So what do have we here, eh? Looks like a stab wound. Any sign of a weapon?”
Tucker shook his head. “No, but it’s clean. Doesn’t look like the wolf’s handiwork.”
“Maybe not, maybe not,” the sheriff sighed. “Unless it was the man behind the mask, eh? The moon’s not yet up, Mister Tucker. Looks like our killer’s in a hurry.”
Tucker sat back on the bed, scratching his forehead. “What do you mean?”
“He’s killing them all. All the conspirators,” Sir Justice said swiftly, grabbing his flask of whisky from his pocket and taking a long swig. “Manifold, Pa Coven the farmer, Callier the watchmaker - they were all linked, part of a secret society with one aim,” the sheriff looked over to the knight’s apprentice, “to kill Lord Truth.”
“But why?” Tucker spluttered. “Why would they do it?”
“Money, I expect, or power,” the sheriff shrugged. “Neither the farmer nor the watchmaker were exactly benefiting from Lord Truth’s replicating skills, and I doubt many on the council approved of how much influence he had - him being the Saviour and all.” Sir Justice took another gulp of the golden liquid, his face and nose seemingly more blotched than ever. “No, there was a conspiracy all right, and our Mister Manifold here, he was knee deep in it.”
The sheriff shuffled over to the desk and picked up a pencil, bending over the smashed typewriter and poking at its keys. “C’mon boy,” he beckoned. “We need to find more clues if we’re going to find your young girl tonight.”
The thought of Six stung Tucker back into action. He jumped off the bed and began scrabbling on the floor around the dining table, examining the smashed plates and glasses. “But what am I looking for? I mean, cheese on a stick, I still don’t understand what the crap’s going on. If there’s a conspiracy, how does this werewolf figure into it?”
“Well, I donnae know everything, Mister Tucker,” Sir Justice spat back as he ran his fingers through a set of folders in the clerk’s filing cabinets. “But we know that these attacks are nae random. Besides, the wolf man knows all about our security systems, the tunnels, he’s obviously getting help from somewhere.”
Tucker too made his way over to the desk, picking up the pair of gold scissors from the floor. “What about the telepaths, could they be helping him?”
“Maybe,” Sir Justice pointed to the black cape, hanging from a stand near the bed. “But according to Giles, Manifold was acting as a secretary, a postman if you like, receiving messages and sharing them around the group. A telepath wouldnae need someone like that when he could just do it all with his mind now, would he?” the sheriff coughed.
Tucker checked over the desk for a second time, the wax seal, the broken typewriter. “But the telepaths have to be involved! Jon Way or the children? If not, why didn’t they pick up on it?”
“Are you trying to confuse me, Mister Tucker? Put me off the scent yourself perhaps?” The sheriff grabbed his crystal from his pocket, throwing it across the room. “The telepaths are red herrings I tell you, it’s nae them!”
“Well this is ridiculous!” Tucker yelled back as he looked out the window. It was thick black outside, the moon beginning to rise. “We don’t know anything! We’re running out of time, we should be helping the guards!”
Sir Justice shook his head, sweating now as he peered at something on the floor. Having picked it up he rubbed his eyes before hobbling back to the body. “They’re dead already! I passed Carol and Eleanor on my way here loading up on their silver bullets. They’ll be lambs to the slaughter down there. We need to know exactly where he’s hiding.”
“But what about Six?” Tucker fumed. His head was beginning to throb with anxiety. Just as all the pieces of the puzzle seemed to be falling into place they were slipping through his hands. “I have to do something!” he panicked.
“Where you find the wolf, you find the girl,” the sheriff coughed. “Dead or alive, with all her secrets,” he pulled the city clerk’s body aside, checking the frame behind it.
“Parliament, Mister Tucker,” the sheriff fixed the boy with a hard stare, his breath coming thick and slow. “You see, Parliament, that’s the key. Because whether it was you or Six or no’, it was one of your knights that killed him.”
“What...” Tucker began, but the sight of Sir Justice under the light of his lantern cut him off mid-flow. The sheriff looked emaciated, even his nose a deathly pale. He wagged his finger, a small trace of metal hanging from his gloved hand.
“Oh, Mister Manifold here, he and his friends, I guess you could say they loaded the gun.” The sheriff peered up at Tucker again, his hazel eyes gleaming an un-nerving shade of orange. “But it was your brothers and sisters of the order, the order of the Knights of Truth, that pulled the trigger.”
“You’re crazy,” was all Tucker could mutter, shaking his head.
Sir Justice slumped to the floor, his legs splayed out in the pool of Manifold’s blood. “No,” he coughed again. “No, whatever else happened, boy, those bombs had to get to Parliament somehow, and I’m afraid you two are still our only suspects.”
Tucker backed away, startled. “But why?”
“Because you survived!” Sir Justice spoke between clenched teeth. “Was it you, Mister Tucker, did you kill him?”
“No! No, I did not!” Tucker yelled. He didn’t know what else to say. “I don’t know what the freaky crap’s going on here but...” The sheriff was gasping now. “What’s wrong with you?”
But the sheriff waved him away. “Then who was it?” he was struggling to pull the flask from his pocket again. “If it wasnae you or Giles or your girlfriend who stole that bomb, then who, eh? Who else could break into that safe?”
“Al?” Tucker shrugged hopelessly.
“Al would never be so daft as to get involved in this,” Sir Justice’s hands shook as he poured the last of the whisky into his mouth. “Lord Truth made his life easy. Who else do you think was replicating his liquor?”
“So there’s no one!”
“There must be!” the sheriff persisted.
“Honestly, no one knew about the code but me and Six, Giles, Al and, and,” Tucker stopped. “Eddie.”
“Knight Three?”
Tucker nodded. “He helped us crack the safe,” he said quickly. “He built the device we used to do it.”
“And helped plan your trip to Parliament.” Sir Justice nodded, his words hushed. “Aye, he’d be one of them.”
The sheriff opened his hand to reveal the three links of chain mail he’d found nestled on the floor. “And now it seems our wolf man’s gone back to the scene of the crime,” he growled, pointing to the notch the sword made where it had pinned the clerk to the bed.
Tucker checked the blade mark before plucking the links from Sir Justice’s trembling fingers. They come from chain mail just like mine, he thought, polished steel, only good enough for...
He looked anxiously at the sheriff, now bent over, his face hidden, panting.
“They’re at the barracks!”
“Aye,” gripping his sides, Sir Justice gave out a scream as if his body was fighting a war against him, collapsing on the verge of a cardiac arrest. “So, go!” he yelled. “Save your girl!”
Tucker was halfway down the hatch when he stopped. “I can’t. You’re sick,” he said. “I shouldn’t leave you.”
Sir J
ustice’s face was as white as the snow outside, the veins in his neck and forehead bulging. “In times of great struggle, my wee deputy, we place our faith in the Lord,” he sat up, pointing at the cross that had slipped from Tucker’s neck. “And more whisky,” he added, shaking his empty flask.
“Now GO!”
Chapter Thirty-One
NEON sat watching a giant sea turtle laying her eggs on the beach, burying a nest deep into the sand - a hole into which her babies would hatch. The creature looked exhausted, her long neck straining with each movement, but when she saw the princess she smiled.
“Hello my child,” she croaked. “Do excuse me, as you can see I’m very busy.”
“Of course!” Neon nodded, cradling her own egg in her hands.
She had walked almost the entire island, talking constantly, communing with the birds, the fish, the insects, even the trees and the sea; until finally she had come to a stop beside an enormous waterfall spilling out into a lagoon, its white mist twinkling against the black rapids.
As the turtle worked, Neon held the cuckoo’s egg she had stolen from the farm close to her chest. She was beginning to feel guilty that she’d ever taken it and wished she had a crystal to keep it warm. She had considered sitting on it, like a real mother would, but she was worried she would be too heavy and it would crack.
In fact, Neon thought, it’s a miracle that it’s not broken already. Surely it wouldn’t have survived what happened on the boating lake in Albion so long ago?
Yet somehow the egg remained intact and with her here in the Other Worlds. Neon thought she could even feel the chick moving inside of it: the soul of a bird waiting to fly, like the spirit of Buckley, her mother’s peregrine falcon, which now circled impatiently, its white wings beating against the black sky above her.
Maybe, Neon thought, maybe the Other Worlds is where the egg belongs? A lost soul like the animals here? She bit her lip. But not like Buckley, and not like me.
The Last Days Page 25