Better the Devil

by Mike Wild

  The explosion that had taken out the bell tower and half the roof of the priory couldn't have been timed worse for them, the flash of the detonation picking out herself, Brand and Verse against the perimeter hedge like targets in some carnival shooting gallery. The rippers hadn't been slow to react to their newly revealed quarry, blocking them in by whirling into a semi-circle that would have been impossible to break through - like playing playground games through a razor wire fence. Why the things didn't attack immediately was anybody's guess, though Hannah supposed it was possible that the twisted and tortured souls that made up their core beings had actually learned to relish the thrill of the hunt, maybe even glean some small satisfaction from its conclusion. Whatever the reason for their behaviour, the nightmares bided their time, and while all three of the cornered dripped with cold sweat, their breath becoming increasingly laboured as every single nerve tensed to breaking point, for Brand in particular the apparently endless suspense became unbearable.

  "For mercy's sake, you bloody bastards, get it over with!"

  "Easy, doc," Verse rumbled reassuringly. And even though he knew it would be next to useless, he slowly, very slowly, withdrew his crucifix blade from a pocket - one last act of defiance - before turning from Brand and looking her in the eyes. "If I've learned anything in this business over the years," he said with a small, sad smile, "it's what won't be, won't b-"

  The rippers moved then, and Verse with them, the big man throwing himself with crucifix flailing into their path in an attempt to protect herself and Brand, to buy them perhaps one more second in the hope some miracle would occur. It was a futile gesture and he knew it, but the thing was, had he survived, he would have done it again and again.

  But Verse didn't survive, gone in a tenth of the time he had hoped to claw back for them. The infernal blades flashed and actually spun him around, mouth agape, and as Hannah and Brand found their faces spattered with blood, his torso seemed to part into slices in the dark. Verse held her eyes for the briefest of moments and then sat down with an oof of stunned surprise.

  Oddly, she'd heard the words he'd spoken when Kostabi's man had first contacted them down those ghoul-infested sewers in Croatia, echoing now as they had back when. New gig. London. Two-year contract. Citizen Strange. Highly agreeable financial recompense.

  And as her partner's eyes closed and he lay back on the grass she thought, you were worth ten times that, Lawrence Verse.

  The rippers threw themselves at her and Brand, then, and instinctively they cowered and flung up their arms for protection. Death seemed to take an eternity, and then didn't come at all.

  She had lowered her arms and opened her eyes. The slamming of a vehicle's doors drew her gaze to the gate for which they had been making. Beyond it, on the rough track, a white van had appeared, and from it two large figures made their way across the grounds towards them.

  More importantly, the rippers had frozen where they stood, somehow reduced to sidelined participants as this new development played out.

  What the hell was going-?

  "Dr. Jonathan Brand? Miss Hannah Chapter?" a bass voice enquired.

  "Ms," she said, automatically, stunned by the sudden turn of events. She stared at the speaker. He wasn't just large, but huge, stone-faced, dressed in a neat black suit and adorned with a pair of designer shades and a close-crop, military style haircut. He could have been a refugee from any one of a dozen UFO conspiracy movies - the kind that gave her ex-employers a bad name - apart from the fact that as far as she knew there were Stranger still was the fact that his silent partner was identical to him. Maybe just a little less weatherworn, but otherwise absolutely identical. She turned back to the speaker. "And you are-?"

  "My name is Trevor."

  "Yeah? And I suppose this is Simon?" she asked. The feeble joke fell as flat as it deserved to, but then she hardly supposed that the two were fans of old Saturday morning TV shows, anyway.

  "Simon... yes," Trevor said slowly, as if the fact he possessed a name had just occurred to him. "His name is Simon."

  "Their names don't matter," Brand had chipped in from below her, "because they're not really individuals." The academic was shakily picking himself up from the grass in as much a state of relieved disbelief as she had, boosted in his case by a slug from a hastily extracted hip flask. He cast a sour glance down at Verse's prone body, and swallowed hard. "These boys are bio-engineered constructs, halfway between uber-clone and cyborg. Think of them as bouncers for the Accord."

  "They work for that Absolam guy?"

  Brand nodded. "He calls them 'his lads'."

  "They dangerous?"

  "Oh, yes."

  "But they called off the rippers, right?"

  "I imagine they're in possession of some kennelling invocation. But why they've used it I don't-"

  "If they've called them off, that's all that matters for now," she had interrupted, dropping to her knees beside Verse's body. It had been her intention to tend to her fallen partner as best she could - make him, oh, she didn't know, dignified - but she never got the chance. Even before her hand could touch him she found herself bodily lifted by the scruff of her neck and flung staggering towards the white van. A protesting Brand found himself in much the same position a couple of metres away.

  "Inspector Absolam wishes you to assist him with his inquiries," Trevor said. "Please allow us to facilitate that."

  Please allow, she had thought? Such a polite phrase, it was... it almost made her want to comply. But Verse was dead and they had just manhandled her away from possibly her only chance to say goodbye to a loyal friend, and nobody, but nobody was going to get away with doing that.

  She spun to face Trevor and Simon.

  "Hannah, don't," Brand said in warning.

  "Why, Brand?" she had replied coldly. "Because these things are dangerous?" She had stormed towards them, her eyes darkening, beyond reason. "Because they're somewhere between uberclone and cyborg?" She raised the arm. "Well, I got a question for 'em, doc..." She swung. "They ever heard of Helen Eart-?"

  Her hand had been stopped dead in mid-air, in a grip like a vice, and that was when she had come to her senses and recognised the reality of the situation, starting her descent into the pit in which she found herself now. Because as she heard Brand faintly saying "They are more powerful than she ever was." The vice-like grip snapped to her neck, forcing her down, contorting her limbs under her as she went, and squeezing harder all the time. As consciousness was pressured from her, tears of pain turned to tears of loss as Lawrence Verse began to fade from her view, and finally to tears of rage as her dimming vision blurrily made out Ness making for the woods in the distance.

  Warren, she thought. All over again.

  Then everything turned black.

  Hannah snapped her eyes open, returned to the here and now. To the van. She looked at Brand, but he seemed lost in his own thoughts. Instead she spoke to Trevor and Simon.

  "The Tower of London?" she asked with a small laugh. "That's where we're going? You've got to be taking the piss, right?" She stared through the tiny gap afforded by the hulking shoulders of the pair, towards the ancient fortress that, give or take the odd corner manoeuvre, had remained resolutely in the centre of their windscreen ever since they had entered the city.

  Trevor and Simon declined to say whether or not they were taking the piss.

  "Infringement of the Accord carries punishments other than rippers," Brand sighed in his restraints opposite her. "If for some reason Absolam has decided to take our fates out of their hands, it's no reason to be hopeful. Our crime is considered tantamount to regicide or high treason, and each of those is subject to a range of unrepealed and anachronistic punishments. In other words, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they hang, draw and quarter us, then stick our heads on sticks near Traitor's Gate."

  The fate of the Great British Bad Guy, Hannah thought. Her threatened appendage spoke. "After burning us to a crisp at the stake, too, I suppose. You Brits have always b
een a barbaric, baying bunch of bloodthirsty bastards, do you know th..." She trailed off, squinting through her glasses at Brand. "But now you're taking the piss, right? Right?"

  Brand would have held his hands up had they not been tightly bound within his black straitjacket. Like Hannah's, this, in turn, was chained to the side of the van, and the jacket itself was inscribed with restricting runes designed to sap the strength and will of its wearer. Even if they could escape one, their liberty would probably not last long, not if the multi-coloured puddles of blood congealed on the floors and sides of the van were anything to go by. "I wish I were," Brand said, "but it's not too far from the truth, unfortunately. Inspector Absolam and his people are not bound by the terms of the Geneva Convention. They do not recognise the Xavier Pact. And they have no time at all for human rights, mainly because most of those with whom they deal are not human at all."

  "In other words they can do what the hell they want with us and no one will ever know."

  "That's the long and the short of it, yes, with emphasis on the hell," Brand said. The academic paused. "I'm sorry I got you into this. If it hadn't been for..."

  "Your mysterious friend? Hey, whether Popeye was there or not, forget it, Brainiac, this ain't your fault. Besides, even if Absolam wants my head on a pole, I've been in deeper shit. Double besides, there's only one man I've ever let stick something pointy inside me, and though it was fun for the brief and sweaty time it lasted, I don't intend to let it happen again." Hannah sounded confident, but even so, as the Tower of London came closer, a nerve at her jawline twitched.

  As it turned out it was not the tower they were heading for, after all. Near enough, but not quite. The white van negotiated a series of ever tightening one way streets and access ways before coming to a stop somewhere behind the tower and in front of a locked metal gate emblazoned with a strange, griffin-like design. It looked to be halfway between a standard By Royal Appointment crest and the emblem of some fascist state. Although ahead and above her Hannah could see the looming castellated walls of the tower complete with a fluttering Union Flag, national symbol or no, she had a feeling that once through the gate she and Brand would be in a country that bore little resemblance to the one it flew proudly for.

  Scrying cameras locked onto the van. Lasers scanned the retinas of Trevor and Simon, tracing out the ID codes inscribed there. Then a ward on the gate glowed brightly, and it opened. The van moved through and dipped down a ramp into an underground car park, where it stopped. Without speaking, the uberclones released Hannah and Brand from their securing chains - but not their straitjackets - and marched them towards a door.

  Ever one with an eye for detail, Hannah noticed that they left the keys in the ignition.

  Useful to know, she thought, because I don't think I'll want to stay here long.

  The car park itself, to be honest, had struck her as a little incongruous - too prosaic for a body such as The Accord - but she guessed they couldn't haul demons out of the backs of vans out there on the street. Anyway, once through the door its lack of atmosphere was more than made up for. Footsteps echoing on the floor, she and Brand were led down a steeply descending stone passage that smelled faintly of morphine, and into a room hewn from rock that was, by her estimate, actually under the Tower of London - which, of course, meant they were deeper than the actual dungeons themselves. It was a strange feeling, somehow, knowing that, and it made her realise that as far as their royal remit went, the Accord was not only very old but indeed did work on an entirely different level.

  That wasn't the only thing. The room - some kind of processing area that looked as if it had been outfitted in the Fifties and reminded her oddly of that nightmare police station in Invaders From Mars - was busy with activity. Among other goings on, a desk sergeant was taking down the details of a previous arrival, a fang, who, by the look of him, had fallen down some stairs on his way here; an entirely different Trevor and Simon were stone-facedly dealing with the remonstrations of a nude prostitute with a razor-lined tool-of-her-trade; and over in a corner an inferaphim was throwing itself repeatedly against the electrified bars of a containment cage. A cattle prod was thrust in to further deter it.

  All of this was nothing that she - or Brand - hadn't seen before, but Hannah remained cautious. It was easy to think they were dealing with the Monster Club here, but she sensed an underlying air of brutality that was suddenly reinforced when the prostitute tried to do a runner and one of the uberclones, without a second thought, simply snapped her back in two.

  The message was clear. Stay out of our city or die.

  It was their turn at the desk. Their details were taken and personal effects removed.

  "Be careful with that," Hannah advised as the sergeant boxed her belt. He looked puzzled, and she added, "I keep an ounce of dilithium crystal in the buckle."

  "Drugs?" he rumbled suspiciously.

  Hannah narrowed her eyes. "You don't get out much, do you?"

  "Class A cases," the desk sergeant declared. "Scheduled for engrammatic wipe and transfer to Wenley Moor."

  "Jesus, Brand, that's Abraxas," Hannah said. She imagined herself demon-bound and lashed to the ceiling, forever screaming behind a mouthless rubber mask.

  "Wait a minute," Brand protested. "I thought we were here to be questioned by Absolam."

  "Inspector Absolam is busy. Take 'em back."

  "No, wait a-" Brand tried to say again, then stopped as Trevor's hand closed on his shoulder like a clamp. Hannah tried to struggle, but was equally restrained by Simon.

  The uberclones led them out of the processing area and into a maze of stone corridors beyond. They passed rooms filled with leather-strapped chairs, gurneys, and trays of instruments whose purpose was pain. From behind one closed door an agonised screaming could be heard, and it hadn't stopped even when they turned a corner ahead.

  "Should you attempt to utilise any sorcerous, dark or other preternatural abilities, please be aware that this entire holding facility is warded against magics," Trevor said. He pointed to a number of symbols etched into the metal at various points along the corridor. Brand imagined there were similar such designs in each of the interrogation rooms as well as each of the cells they were doubtless heading for.

  "Very impressive," he said, nodding. "Though unfortunately you have the wrong members of the team entirely." He looked at Hannah. "Miss Chapter and I come from entirely mundane stock, with nary a demonic talent between us. We rely solely on our wits to combat the invidious incursions of the infernal."

  Trevor stared at him blankly, and Hannah coughed. "Invidious incursions of the infernal?" she repeated. "Did you actually just say that?"

  "I think I did," Brand replied.

  "Nervous?"

  "Yes."

  Hannah nodded. "Me, too, Brainiac. So that's all right, then."

  Trevor was cocking his head as they spoke, almost as if he were being downloaded his response. Then again, he could just have been demonstrating that he was a little slow. "Our information suggests that-"

  "Look, bozo," Hannah interrupted forcefully, "what Brainiac here is trying to say is that in him you're looking at the southern counties' finest exponent of making copious amounts of strong alcohol disappear, while I can kick men's balls up into their throats faster than the eye can see. But that's it. You want magic, go grab one of the others."

  Without saying a word, Trevor turned and moved on. But after a few metres he stopped dead again. To his right were two open metal doors leading to tiny, damp-stoned cells.

  "Please step inside," he instructed. "Someone will be with you shortly."

  There it was again, Hannah thought, as her cell door slammed behind her. Someone will be with you shortly. So very polite, almost as if Brand and herself were waiting for a discreet check-up in some STD clinic rather than about to get their respective pasts scraped away with a spoon. What was with this engrammatic wipe shit anyway? If they were being vanished to Abraxas, why the hell did they need to take their memori
es, too?

  "Because they need them for your homunculi," a voice said. "So that the homunculi can, in turn, track down your friends who eluded the rippers."

  Hannah turned. A man whose face she had not seen before was staring in at her through the grille in the cell door. "Somebody very badly wants you all out of the way," he said.

  "Yeah, we'd kinda worked that out," Hannah said slowly. "Who the hell are you?"

  "My name is Norrell. I am here to help."

  "Yeah? And just how are you gonna do - oh."

  Hannah stood on tiptoe and spoke through a tiny air vent that connected to the next cell. "Hey, Brand, you know how this place makes you nervous? Well, you wanna hear something really scary?"

  "What?" Brand asked hesitantly.

  "The door to my cell just disappeared."

  "Don't be ridiculous. What are you...? Oh."

  "Yours, too?"

  "Mm."

  The two of them slipped out of their cells and joined Norrell in the corridor. Brand found himself staring at his missing door, then at the mysterious stranger, then at the missing door again.

  "When Absolam hears about this," Hannah said, "he is going to be really pissed."

  "Inspector Absolam does not even know the two of you are here," Norrell said.

  "What?"

  "Absolam's people - the Accord itself - are being used without his knowledge. That is why I have been permitted to come."

  "Why you've been permitted...?" Brand repeated. He concentrated his attention on Norrell, noticing for the first time that he wore strangely old-fashioned clothes. There was something else about the man, too, a kind of otherworldliness.

  "Look... whoever the hell you are... I think you'd better tell us just what's going on."

  "Now is not the time for that, Dr. Brand," Norrell said. He nodded, then, and Brand and Hannah's straitjackets, like the cell doors, were also simply gone. "For the time being all I can do is restore the balance and remove you and Miss Chapter from this place."