Halberd paused as if expecting me to speak. I was still sort of stunned at his casual reaction to my appearance that I had nothing to say and just raised an eyebrow.
"They sent me to invite you to see part of my work as a liaison. There is the possibility that they will be offering you a similar position. You will get to visit the mortal realm and the advice you give will-"
"The advice I give will have been decided by the elders and it will only help if they think it is in the best interests of the majority. They only want to maintain the status quo."
"Come with me tonight and let me show you what it means to help maintain the status quo."
I couldn't really be bothered but they would only keep sending him to bother me. "Fine, I guess I had better change again."
Halberd had turned back around before I could start stripping.
I let myself be escorted up to the little room which my escort kept calling the observation room. As far as I was concerned it was just one abandoned flat out of a whole building of them. Like any such supposedly abandoned building in any similar city it wasn't truly empty. Apart from the vermin which infested the block of flats there was a small selection of otherwise homeless people seeking shelter from the coming cold of night. I wouldn't say that I'm overly knowledgeable about homelessness or anything like that but the few homeless people I saw were a tiny number in comparison to the amount of space available in the abandoned block. I had commented on this fact to my escort as we made our way up the graffiti covered stairway to whichever floor the observation room was on.
"When Halberd advised us of the situation we got as many of them away as we could.”
"Here we are," my escort said. He looked at his watch and then back over my shoulder at Halberd. The liaison seemed more than happy to take a back seat and let the mortal do the talking. Now he just nodded at my escort.
I turned my own head to look back. This block of flats, of which we were now only a couple of floors from being at the top of, was situated about three quarters of the way up a quite steep hill. Looking back we must have been looking generally towards the west because a very weakened sun was just touching the horizon. Hazy silhouettes of houses or other blocks of flats, or when I was looking back at a wealthier part of the city, apartment complexes, formed a jagged line along the horizon.
My escort turned back to the door of the flat. "We still have a few minutes to get in position."
Once upon a time the door had been boarded over matching the windows on this side of the flat. Now only a few holes and a couple of bent nails were all that remained of the barrier. My escort opened the door and waited, gesturing for me to pass inside.
My escort's name was William and holding doors open for women seemed like just the thing he would do. A small man and slender with round wire-frame glasses and floppy hair he seemed almost the embodiment of the stereotypical shy, intellectual, old-fashioned English gentleman as portrayed in any number of Hollywood films. After what they Halberd had said of this group I knew better than to underestimate him. I hadn't seen anything to indicate that he was more than he seemed but appearances could be deceptive.
There were a few things about William's appearance that set him quite apart from the typical Englishman you could find in most films. It wasn't the dull brown trousers or the tweed jacket he wore over a shirt and tie, they fit in very well with the stereotype. It wasn't even anything as subtle as the way he moved. As far as I could tell he moved just like anyone in his position would. He was trying to keep his movements as normal, as casual, as possible to keep his charge's faith in him but he wasn't being entirely successful. His nervousness showed through in the slightly clumsy nature of his actions. The way he fumbled with the key, for example, before finally getting it in the lock and opening the door for them. He certainly didn't move like a person with any special physical, or other, skills.
No, what set him apart were the parts of his outfit that didn't match with the rest. Underneath his tweed jacket he wore a modified sort of shoulder holster. Maybe that would have seemed less out of place if the weapon he carried in it was just a gun. But the weapon he carried wasn't anything as mundane as a pistol or revolver, the holster had been modified to fit a miniaturised sort of crossbow. On his belt he carried the ammunition in thin cigar-shaped leather pouches, they were small wooden bolts with barbed tips of silver fashioned to razor sharpness. Strapped around his right thigh was another type of holster, again the weapon it held was rather out of the ordinary and I had a matching one tucked away in my inside jacket pocket. A short wooden stake, about the length of her forearm from wrist to elbow, with a thin silver core and sharp silver point protruding from the tip. The weapons seemed pretty archaic, especially compared to what I was used to seeing Selene packing.
Far from making me feel any safer or more secure the fact that they had thought I might need the weapon for self defence actually worried me. Halberd had assured me that it was simply precautionary, that anyone and everyone they sent out at night carried a similar weapon as a matter of course. But then he would say that wouldn't he? I don't think Halberd was armed. William, despite being better armed and surely more accustomed to this sort of thing than I was, didn't look like he would be overly useful in a fight.
"I will remain out here so as not to crowd you," Halberd said. So that's why he wasn't armed. Halberd might see this as helping but keeping out of danger and leaving others to get on with the dirty work wasn't being as helpful as I prefered.
The inside of the flat was totally abandoned. The walls, floor and ceiling were bare. There was no furniture of any sort. The light fittings were now just exposed wires coming out of holes in the ceiling, likewise the power sockets that had been pulled out of the bottoms of the walls. There was no danger of electrocution from the exposed wiring because the power had been long since shut off for the entire building.
William guided me across what would have once been the living room to a set of glass patio doors that couldn't possibly lead out onto a patio. At first I couldn't tell where they did lead because they were covered in a thick layer of grime and bird mess. Despite their condition I was actually surprised that they were still intact. On our way through the room we passed the entrance to the kitchen. The door had been removed as had all of the utilities in the kitchen right down to cupboard doors and the work-top surfaces. All that remained were bare alcoves, a few bent nails in certain boards and capped accesses for pipes and tubes.
The patio doors were opened for me, they opened onto a small balcony that gave a view of the enclosed square courtyard, fenced in by the wings of the empty block of flats on each of it's four sides. The rail on the edge of the balcony appeared to be undisturbed but it was rusted and thin and I so wasn't prepared to trust it with my weight. I looked down over the rail without resting on it. None of the rapidly fading light from the more rapidly falling sun reached the courtyard. The closest it got was just clipping the short metal chimneys that sprouted out of the roof on the opposite wing of the block glinting back at me. As the sun continued to go down they too were put into shadow.
I looked across at William who had joined me out on the balcony. He saw the question in my eyes and took another look at his watch. He made fists with his empty hands as though to stop his nerves showing because he was twiddling his fingers. He said: "According to the intelligence Halberd brought we still have a few minutes until their arrival."
I nodded and looked back down into the courtyard. Figures had appeared when I wasn't watching and were getting into position down below. Some of them I had seen before. Three of them had travelled here in the same unmarked van as William, Halberd and myself. They were a taciturn bunch. Keeping themselves to themselves and giving only one word, albeit polite, responses when I had tried to engage them. They seemed to regard Halberd and myself with a certain reverence and my attempts at mundane conversation seemed to put them out. I should have known what to expect when I saw that their headquarters was a church. This bunch were a
s radical in their own way as the Temple. If Halberd and the elders thought this was a good way to convince me to come back and accept a position as a liaison they hadn't gotten off to the best possible start.
All of the people in the courtyard, there were men and women but they were all uniformly fit and unlike William looked as though they could be very useful in a fight, were well armed. But just as the weapons William and myself carried were quite extraordinary so too was the equipment with which the people down below had been armed. Some had crossbows similar to Williams but of a larger type. Others had modern fibreglass longbows with quivers of silver-tipped arrows on their backs. There was an assortment of silver-edged blades as well for close quarters combat, swords and axes for the most part. And of course there were the ubiquitous, at least in this company, wooden stakes shot through with a core and point of silver.
Other than the fact that they were all armed with an unusual selection of weaponry, and that they were all together down there in the courtyard taking up defensive positions and obviously preparing themselves for a battle, there was nothing to link them all together. There was no common uniform to proclaim that they were all allied together. They were clad in whatever they individually felt to be appropriate. For the most part that seemed to be a mixture of leather and denim but there was quite a range.
Surely it should be time by now? I realised that my right hand had come up and was fiddling with the silver ring of Selene's that I wore on a chain around my neck. I released the ring so that it hung at the end of its chain at the top of her sternum. What did I have to be nervous about?
I turned to tell William that I wasn't going to play these stupid games anymore. That he should go and fetch Halberd so I could explain that I wasn't interested in any of his or the elder's offers. William was fingering his mini-crossbow, in a similar nervous manner to the way I had been fiddling with Selene's ring, but his attention was focused on the watch on his other wrist.
"And they should be coming right about . . . now!" There was a quiver in his voice as he spoke.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
William looked down over the rail and I mimicked him. There was nothing to see. The square courtyard was darker now than it had been but that was the only difference. The shadows cast by the seating and untamed foliage were deeper but there were no additional shadows from any extra-dimensional visitors. It was gloomy because of the lack of light, but it wasn't properly dark yet so I could still see quite well. The fighters had settled into their final positions. Those with crossbows had bolts in place and the weapons up and ready to fire. Arrows were put to string in longbows ready to be pulled back and released. Swords, axes and other close quarters weapons had been removed from their sheathes and were held ready in eager fists.
Until the first of Them arrived, I still wasn't convinced that there was anything to be waiting or ready for.
But then They came.
Travelling between realms is different for all beings, some do use portals and flashy magic. For me and Halberd it involved lots of harsh white light. There was no outward sign to herald their arrival. There was no noise or flash of light or cloud of smoke. It was almost like they weren't there one moment and in the next they were, but it wasn't quite as abrupt as that. They didn't just appear in an instant. It was a gradual process where they seemed to somehow . . , what, melt into being. I thought that description could be somewhat misleading but it was the best word I could come up with to describe what I was seeing. The trouble with describing them as melting into being was that it conjured up images of a slow process. And while the process was gradual it wasn't slow by any means, taking only a second or so in some cases, so that they did basically appear in an instant.
Despite being able to see them arrive clearly enough, and despite the fact that I could see pretty much everything else down there clearly, I can not describe the newcomers in any true detail. I could see them well enough and I could have told them apart as I was watching, but as soon as my eyes left them, however momentarily, it was like I couldn't remember them anymore. I was left with vague impressions that faded even as I tried to call them back to mind. It was like I was trying to grab hold of a mist and all my efforts were just as futile.
As soon as the first of them was fully formed the arrows and bolts started to fly. I saw them as flashes of silver streaking from the people positioned around the outside of the courtyard in at the new arrivals still appearing in more central positions. The first of them were caught unawares. Streaks of silver and wood slammed into their chests and heads. Cracks appeared in their skin as it split and exposed a deep fire within. The cracks chased around their bodies, merging and widening. The remaining flesh curled away from these gaps and turned black. Suddenly fire was all there was and the remainder of the being was consumed before the blaze burned itself out.
The ones that came after were more prepared and there were too many of them to target first time as soon as they came through. Arrows and bolts were still flying and while one or two did still find their mark more were being dodged, and in one case I witnessed an arrow be snatched out of the air just before it hit one of the new arrivals in the chest. The bolt was crushed and splintered by the single hand that had caught it before being cast aside. The newcomers reflexes were unnaturally fast, and their bodies were impossibly able to react just as fast, to allow them to dodge arrows and grab them in mid-flight.
After a few moments there were more bursts of flame as arrows again started to hit their targets but I could tell that this was only because the courtyard was now so full of targets that it should have taken a concerted effort not to hit something. Still, some of the arrows and bolts did manage to sail through the mass catching nothing but air until they struck sparks from the walls or plunged into boarded up windows on the opposite side.
The hail of arrows slowed again before finally coming to a stop. The newcomers had pressed forwards and now they were taking the fight to those who would ambush them. None of the new arrivals was obviously armed but it didn't look like they needed to be. The foremost of them fell upon the front few archers. Even as the archers recognised their danger and dropped the bows, which were useless at such close range, to try and snatch up their stakes or blades, they were taken apart. Literally. Limbs were torn from sockets and cast carelessly away. Elongated fingers, transformed into stiff, sharp talons, were used to rend the flesh of throats or pushed into eye sockets to stab into the soft brain tissue. One of the archers was forced to watch as a hand was pushed with inhuman force through his ribcage and his still-beating heart removed. The still-beating organ was crushed to a pulp in front of vacant eyes.
I thought that the gratuitous bloodshed, carnage and death should repulse me. Make me turn away and vomit. But I continued to watch with a morbid fascination as the humans fought back with a renewed assault.
William wasn't able to keep watching. He turned aside and retched on the side of the balcony. Vomit splattered the already filthy patio windows. He wiped the outside sleeve of his tweed jacket across his mouth as he turned back to face me. His face was bloodless and he looked apologetic. He said: "Sorry, this is . . . um . . . this is my first time out in the field."
I didn't respond. I had only glanced over at him and I returned my focus almost immediately to the battle that was raging on below us. The mortals from the church were starting to regain the upper hand. Swords and stakes were forced into chests, heads and throats. Where they pierced the vital organs the victim came apart in a ball of fire. Others used their swords and axes to decapitate their enemies or to cleave them almost in half. When this was so the pieces that were left would similarly burn themselves up leaving no evidence that they had ever been here.
As though recognising that they were fighting a loosing battle the newcomers started to disengage and move in a retreat. At first I didn't understand where they could hope to retreat to other than wherever it was they had come from. The worst of it had to be over. Those creatures would shift back to wher
ever they had come from. Halberd and the church had been successful in keeping these demons out of the mortal realm.
What I didn't expect, although I perhaps should have, was for them to try and retreat by coming upwards towards where William and myself had been watching them.
I watched in mute horror as the shadowy evil shapes started coming at us. Some jumped up and clung to the walls scuttling up them like giant spiders. Others started levitating impossibly, floating themselves free of the ground. I was frozen in place as one of the shapes came up so that it was face to face with me but standing out in the middle of the air.
From this close I got my first proper look at a full-vampyre. I was transfixed. The creature hissed at me and came closer to the rail.
It took a matter of a split-second from the vampyre rising up to be on a level with us for it to move in on us in an attack. But that split-second was enough for it's image to be etched into my mind. I don't know if I could see it and remember it so well just because of it's proximity or whether the clouding that occurred with the others was a trick that the vampyres could turn on and off at will. At that moment I wasn't exactly thinking well enough to concern myself with such things. If I had been thinking clearly I would have yelled for Halberd to come and help.
Prior to this encounter the only previous experience Faith had had with vampires had been through a handful of meetings with half –vampires humans who had been turned, not pure-bred demons. Oh, and those depicted on films or T.V shows. The creature that floated towards me had never been done justice through either one. From the moment I got a view of it in all it's glory I had felt the pull, an almost irresistible attraction. It wasn't because he was especially handsome, but there was something else about him that the mere physical good looks of actors like Stuart Townsend and David Boreanaz, and whoever else had had a stab at it, simply couldn't compete with.
Heaven can Wait Page 21