by Davies, Neil
She had never expected Tim to come back into her life. It had made her realise her one weakness, the one thing that could destroy all her ambitions.
She loved him.
It would mean her destruction, but she no longer cared. Aello had dominated her and would never let her loose again. She knew this. Her plans had already been destroyed, but she could have one last small victory over the harpy she had worshipped and killed for. Tim would not die.
6
The creature on the stairs, he could no longer think of it as Katrina, shuddered, almost seemed to lose focus for a moment as soon as she had given the order to cut his throat. But then his attention was drawn by movement on his left, the man there pulling a knife from under his robe.
He tried to think quickly, to find a way to avoid the blade, but there was nothing. He had always known he could accept death when it finally came. He guessed its time was now.
As the blade, surprisingly cold despite the heat in the hallway, was held against his throat, the air around them popped as though it had been quickly drawn in and let out again by some giant lung. Everything shuddered, skipped a moment, like a kink in an old videotape or a really bad edit in a movie. The man holding the blade to his throat had jumped some three feet away from him. The knife sliced through nothing but air. Mark Bullough stood before him, cutting at his ropes. It was the work of a moment to force them that last bit and shrug them off.
“It’s what Katrina wanted,” said Mark, before backing away.
Tim had no time to wonder at the events. Instead, he disarmed the man on his left easily, returning the intended favour and slitting the man’s throat as he turned ready to face the others, once they recovered from the sudden change.
A scream from the creature on the stairway made everyone, including Tim, turn that way.
The flesh, split and stretched for so long, finally gave way in an explosion of skin, muscle and offal, splattering the whole gathered congregation in the hallway, slapping wetly against the walls and sliding down, leaving a streak of gore.
Tim had managed to protect his eyes with his arm, but he was nevertheless covered with blood and bits of bodily tissue.
As he lowered his arm he saw, through a mist of blood that hung like fog, movement on the stairs. Katrina, or the abomination she had become, was no longer there. A hideous, dark figure stood in her place. Her naked body was obviously female but twisted and deformed, black feathers sprouting from patches of flesh like some half-plucked bird, her face scarred, the mouth wide and open, teeth sharp and long. Above a nose that was more of a sharp, savagely curved beak, the eyes burned, a crimson fire behind them, highlighting the sparse strands of hair that hung from a large, domed skull.
Aello unfurled her wings, great leathery bat wings of bone and muscle, the stretched skin translucent in the faint light.
Tim thought he saw the faintest image, a ghost-like flicker of Katrina as she was at her most human, her most beautiful, just behind the monstrous harpy. But then the image was gone and Tim was certain, without quite knowing how, that Katrina, or whatever had been left of her inside that creature, was dead.
Despite the evil things she had done, he was grief stricken. He had loved her once and perhaps still did. If only things had been different. If only she had been different.
His grief was quickly pushed aside as Aello flapped her wings and took to the air, just as the front door burst open and mayhem arrived.
AELLO
She was free. Finally free of the human flesh that had been her way out of the cemetery. Free to fly once more, confident in her own form. Free to kill.
The intrusion by local villagers, breaking down the front door, did not overly concern her. The robed followers would face them and live or die. It did not matter to her. Even though many were possessed by those she had called forward, she had no need of followers. She wished that her sisters, Ocypete, Celaeno and Podarge , could be here to share in the slaughter, but it was not something that would in any way lessen the pleasure.
She hovered near the high ceiling and peered down at the frenzied battle below, searching for the one she hated above all others. The man, Galton. She could not see him in the melee and, impatient and frustrated, chose at random and swooped down.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
1
Tim, ducking under a wildly swung fist and countering with a crippling kidney punch, heard the harpy scream and saw her drop suddenly from the ceiling. The sound was something between a human cry and the screech of a bird of prey.
In a moment she was airborne again, something clutched in her taloned feet, something that trailed thin streamers and dripped thick fluid.
It took him a second to recognise it as a human head.
Distracted, he was late leaning away from the slash of a blade. The gash in his forearm filled quickly with blood as he severed the carotid artery of Mrs. Hobsen, the lady who had cleaned the chapel for him and who now attacked him. He left her to fall and bleed out on the floor, stepped on by the scrambling feet of those still fighting.
Ignoring the blood that ran down to his hand and dripped from his fingers, he pushed forward. He had glimpsed the Professor at the head of the unexpected but welcome rescue party. He was the one man whose knowledge might help them against the creature that circled above.
2
Mark Bullough struggled to stop his mind from spiralling out of control.
He had watched Katrina, his Katrina, split apart by the creature they had worked so hard to free. Through the years, he watched her grow in confidence as she took on the mantle of Village Witch. He stuck by her as she picked up and discarded lovers, both men and women. He had been a constant in her life. Always there for her. Never wavering in his devotion or his love for her. Now she was destroyed by the very thing she had strived for.
And her last conscious act had been to save the one man she truly loved, to implore him to help save that man.
For so long, he had suppressed his jealousy as she cast him aside for another. She crushed his pride, his self-worth, as he crawled back to her once she tired of her new plaything. And then Galton had returned to the village.
How he hated Tim Galton.
He had helped save Galton’s life. Now he would end it.
3
Any sense of discipline or order among the enraged villagers was lost the moment the Professor thrust open the door of the house. They had pushed past him, lunging at the robed figures within, and the carnage had begun.
The Professor hung back, not through fear but from a need to understand what was happening.
“I can’t see that bitch anywhere,” shouted Susan above the noise of fighting, screaming, dying.
The Professor did not have to ask who she was referring to.
“Neither can I,” he shouted back. “But I’m not even sure she exists anymore.”
He pointed towards the ceiling and, for the first time, Susan saw the hideous creature hovering there.
“Is that a harpy?”
“Aello made flesh,” said the Professor.
He was knocked backwards as a robed man stumbled into him, recoiling from a hammer attack.
The man turned. The spirit that had possessed him was leaking out of his eyes, greasy ectoplasm dripping down his face, hanging from his nose and chin in pendulous globules.
The fury of the battle was loosening the hold of the possessors on the possessed.
The control was still firm enough, however, for the spirit to compel the man to lift a knife and prepare to plunge it into the Professor’s body.
A veined hand clutched at the face from behind, bursting pockets of ectoplasm. Arthritic fingers searched with practiced accuracy for the eyes and clawed their way deep into the sockets.
The man screamed, dropping the knife, as Ethel dragged him down to the ground and crushed his windpipe with the heel of her foot.
“You need to be more careful Professor,” she said sternly. “I can’t be watching you all of the
time.”
The Professor nodded, stunned, as the old woman turned and pushed her way into the milling crowd.
“Amazing woman,” he muttered as his daughter, recovering from the shock of the attack on her father, pulled him further back, away from the fighting.
“What can we do?” she said, staring at the creature above. “These people are going to kill each other but that creature will live. How do we kill it?”
“I need to think,” said the Professor. “I need to remember the Greek mythology, but it’s so long since it was part of the curriculum.”
Susan glanced around wildly, searching for somewhere relatively safe where her father could work this out.
The fighting cleared from one wall exposing a doorway.
Quickly she hustled him along, expecting a knife to fall at any moment, or an axe. But no one saw them. They reached the doorway and ducked inside.
The smell assailed them both as they entered. A putrid, rotting stench rising from somewhere below.
Steps led down into darkness. A cellar.
She led her father down several steps, away from the door.
“Now think Dad,” she whispered. “And do it quickly, because sooner or later someone is going to find us here.”
4
Aello dropped the head she carried and swooped down once more. Another scream, another head ripped from a villager’s body.
She dived again and again, each time taking a head, each time leaving a bloody, twitching body on the floor. Between attacks Tim could see her searching the crowd. Looking for her next random victim? Perhaps, although he could not shake the conviction that she was looking for him.
He was right.
For a moment their eyes locked and they stared at each other. Then Aello swooped low, hard and fast, straight at Tim.
Only his trained reactions saved him as he ducked out of the way.
Her talons raked across the top of his head, digging bloody furrows through his hair, but she could not grab hold. With a cry of frustration she wheeled away, turning for another attack.
Tim, wincing at the pain that seared through his head, kept low and in among the fighting crowd. The position was difficult to defend, and he took several hard blows and three, fortunately shallow, cuts to add to the still bleeding one on his forearm, but it kept him safe from Aello’s searching claws.
She swooped, unable to reach him and tore off another’s head in her fury. It no longer mattered to her which side her victims were on. They were all prey.
Tim shoved the headless robed body away from him, gasping as blood sprayed into his face, his eyes. He tried to blink the gore away, wiped at it with his hand. Barely able to see, he instinctively made towards the cellar. If he could get through the doorway, perhaps he would be safe for a while.
5
Mark saw Aello swooping down, always above the same area of the fighting. She would be looking for Galton.
So was he.
He pushed his way towards Aello’s target, ruthlessly stabbing at anyone who staggered into his path. He had only one thought. Find Galton and kill him.
He was not far from where Aello had ripped the head from one of her own followers when he saw Galton, crouching low and moving at speed towards the cellar doorway.
He followed, grinning insanely.
6
Tim made it through the doorway just as Aello swooped again.
She hit the outer doorframe hard, her claws scrabbling at the wood, into the gap, almost reaching Tim’s back as he stumbled down a couple of steps.
Frustrated, she flew away again, and Tim heard a scream from nearby.
She had taken another head, but he knew she would be back for his.
“Tim!”
He was surprised by the voice from the darkness below and had raised his knife before he saw, in the gloom, the Professor and Susan crouching on a lower step.
“Good to see you’re both still alive,” he said. “Where’s Ethel and Mr. Crosby?”
“Ethel’s out there fighting,” said Susan. “But Mr. Crosby...”
She did not have to finish the sentence. Tim understood and felt a momentary pang of grief at the old man’s death. But the reality and danger of their current situation would not allow for grieving and he pushed the thought aside, something he could return to when it was all over. If he was still alive.
“Any ideas Professor?”
“I’m thinking.”
Tim glanced over his shoulder at the doorway. It was still clear.
“I know I don’t have your knowledge,” he said. “But right now we could do with Jason and his Argonauts, like in the movie.”
“That’s it,” said the Professor, a smile cracking the grime on his face.
“It is?” said Susan, surprised.
“Yes,” said the Professor. “Stories vary of course, but in at least one Jason defeated the harpies by throwing two spears, cutting off their wings. They fell to the ground and were killed by the Argonauts repeatedly stabbing them. They’re tough, but they’re not invincible, especially when they can’t fly away.”
Tim turned to Susan as her brow furrowed and her eyes lost focus. He had the uncomfortable feeling that she looked through rather than at him, and was about to ask if she was okay, when she lunged upwards, pulling him to one side.
He saw a blade flash and heard the thud as it punched into her chest.
Recovering quickly, he kicked out as Mark Bullough raised the knife to strike again. His foot hit Mark in the stomach, winding him, pushing him back towards the open doorway. Tim should have followed up and finished the man, but he could not take his eyes from Susan, still standing, blood blossoming through her shirt. She had saved his life. Somehow she had seen the attack coming and saved him
7
Mark stumbled backwards, his stomach aching from the kick. He staggered out of the door, back into the hallway, unsure just exactly what had happened.
He had been about to strike, certain that his blade would find Galton’s back, when suddenly Galton wasn’t there. He was pulled aside and a girl was there instead. It had been too late to stop the blade, even if he had wanted to. He had stabbed the girl. Her fault for getting in the way. Then he had gone to stab Galton again but the bastard kicked him.
No matter. He could handle the pain.
He could see Galton in the darkness of the cellar, standing over the girl, not looking towards the doorway. A chance to go back and finish the job properly.
Kill Galton.
He felt a sudden push of air above him, a wash of decay smothering him. He turned and looked up, seeing the onrushing, hideous form of Aello and those cruel, outstretched claws.
8
Tim’s attention was drawn to the doorway by the sudden scream from directly outside. Mark Bullough’s body jerked and then fell, blood spurting from the ragged flesh of his neck, his head gone, no doubt gripped in Aello’s talons.
He could not feel any sorrow at the man’s death, only a certain satisfaction.
The Professor reached his daughter’s side and cradled her in his arms.
She was pale, the blood spreading across her chest, down to her belly, soaking her shirt. It seeped through onto the Professor but he did not care. With tears in his eyes he watched as Tim quickly examined the wound.
“She’s lucky,” said Tim with a sigh of relief. “The blade missed the heart and doesn’t seem to have punctured a lung. It’s still bad though.” He glanced around the cellar steps, searched the floor. “I need something to put over the wound.”
The Professor reached into his pocket and pulled out a white handkerchief. Tim took it without a word and pressed it over Susan’s chest wound.
“Put your hand there,” he told the Professor and, as the older man pressed the handkerchief to his daughter’s chest, Tim stood and quickly unfastened his trouser belt, pulling it loose.
“This should hold it in place,” he said, crouching down again and fastening the belt around Susan’s uppe
r body, over the handkerchief, pulling it tight and fastening the buckle.
“We still need to get her to a hospital,” he said, turning to the Professor. “But we can’t go anywhere while that creature is out there.”
The Professor allowed the tears to run, the sobs to shake his shoulders. Tim, too, wiped tears from his eyes. But he would not allow the sadness to take control. There was still too much left to do.
As if reading his mind, the Professor looked up, his mouth tight and thin, his eyes tearful but full of anger.
“Then it’s time we killed that abomination.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
1
Ethel met Tim and the professor as they exited the cellar door. The old lady staggered slightly, bleeding from wounds in her arms, her stomach, her legs. She held a bloodied knife in one hand and an equally bloodied machete in the other.
“Spoils of war,” she said, lifting them both, a tight, pained smile on her face.
Behind her, sporadic fighting continued, but most of the robed figures had fallen and the villagers still standing were more concerned with trying to dodge the swooping Aello than they were with the few that remained.
“Where’s...” Ethel fell silent as she saw the sprawled body of Susan in the shadows of the cellar. “Oh, Professor,” she mumbled. “Is she…?”
“She’s alive,” mumbled the Professor. “But she needs a hospital and quickly.”
He stared up at the flying, diving, darting form of Aello above.
“We’ll never kill her while she’s airborne,” said Tim, following the Professor’s gaze.
“I told you,” said the Professor, his voice low, devoid of the emotion that raged barely checked inside him. “Jason had the right idea. Cut off its wings, then kill it.”
“Yes, well,” said Tim. “We don’t have any spears, and even if we did, I doubt any of us could cut its wings off while it’s flying. I’m pretty good with throwing a knife and I could hit the body, but it wouldn’t cut off the wings.”
“This would,” said Ethel, lifting the machete once more.