Blood Red City

by Justin Richards

  ‘But if they did find out, Pierre.’ Despite his firm, calm voice, the Abbot’s hands were shaking. ‘What do you think they would do to us then?’

  ‘Do you really think,’ Pierre said quietly, ‘that the Christian martyrs weighed up the probability of their own death before proclaiming their faith? Or if they did, it certainly did not deter them from their path. The possible consequences should not determine our ability to do what is right.’

  The Abbot nodded, forcing a thin smile. ‘I can see they have a powerful ally in you, Pierre.’

  ‘Many – I would say most – of my brothers will think as I do.’

  ‘You may be right…’ The Abbot lapsed into silence, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling.

  ‘Will you help us, sir?’ Guy asked after a long pause.

  ‘I must do what I believe is best for the monastery, for the brethren in my care,’ the Abbot said. He sighed and looked at Pierre. ‘Give them robes, so that if anyone sees them they look like brother monks. Then take them to the library and show them what they want to see.’

  ‘I thought you needed to ask permission of the Gestapo?’ Davenport said.

  The Abbot shook his head. ‘Only if you were outsiders. We may consult our own books whenever we choose.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Guy said.

  The Abbot didn’t meet his gaze. ‘Do it quickly, and then leave us.’

  * * *

  The Abbot is a good man,’ Pierre said as he unlocked a heavy wooden door. ‘He only wishes to do what is best for those in his care.’

  ‘We understand,’ Guy told him. ‘It’s good of you to help us.’

  ‘It is good of you to risk your lives coming here,’ Pierre said. He pushed open the door, and led them down a narrow passageway. At the end was another, similar door, which he also unlocked.

  The passage evidently connected to the newer building, and led directly to the library. The room had been purpose-built, wooden bookshelves fitted into alcoves and a gallery giving an upper level, also lined with bookcases. The only access to the gallery was an ironwork spiral staircase. Pierre led the way, and obviously knew exactly where he was going.

  The oldest books were in a locked cabinet at the end of the gallery. Pierre produced another key and swung open the wooden door. Inside, Guy saw that the volumes were each attached by chains to the wall behind. He glanced at Leo – there was no way they would be able to remove the book and take it with them without considerable effort, causing substantial damage.

  Pierre pulled one of the large leather-bound books from the shelf, and placed it on the reading table in front, arranging the metal chain so it did not impede his turning the pages. He spent a few moments finding the section they wanted, then stood back and gestured for Guy and Leo to take a look.

  ‘I assume you can read medieval Latin.’

  ‘A little,’ Leo said.

  Guy didn’t comment. If they said they couldn’t, it would be obvious they’d intended to take the book away and pass it on to someone who could.

  Pierre smiled, and leaned across between them. ‘Mine is a little rusty too, so please indulge me if I translate out loud. I’m sure you will tell me if I go wrong.’

  ‘Of course,’ Guy said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Here are the three legends, you see.’ Pierre read them a few sections, but it added nothing to what they already knew.

  The next page had drawings of the axes themselves. They all looked very similar, but the drawings were heavily stylised, and Guy reckoned the sketch Jane Roylston had made was probably more accurate to the real artefacts.

  ‘Ah, now here we have the combined legend…’ Pierre murmured to himself as he read. ‘I must confess I was mistaken. He does not conflate the legends, not quite. But the author suggests that the three axe-heads were designed to be used together. Each is capable of awakening or opening a specific door, I suppose it means. It’s not very clear. But all three together…’ He paused to turn the page.

  ‘Yes?’ Guy prompted.

  ‘The gods scattered the three axe-heads across the world, because all three together could open the Gates of Hell.’

  ‘The Gates of Hell?’ Leo echoed.

  Pierre looked up. ‘Well, it’s obviously symbolic. And only a legend … But yes, and there the account stops. The next section is about the building of the Labyrinth and Theseus’s battle with the Minotaur.’

  Leo opened his mouth to reply. But before he could say a word, the main library doors crashed open. Grey-uniformed figures hurried into the room, hand guns drawn and aimed up at the gallery.

  The last man into the room wore an officer’s cap. He was lean and thin-faced, pulling on black gloves as he fixed cold grey eyes on the three robed figures in the gallery.

  ‘I see the Abbot was right,’ he said in German. ‘We do indeed have guests. And all the way from England.’

  CHAPTER 10

  Sarah shielded her eyes as they gradually adjusted to the brilliant glow from outside. The roar of noise had died away and she could make out the silhouette of the man reaching into the display cabinet, pulling out the stone axe-head.

  Sumner struggled to his feet. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he demanded. ‘Who are you?’

  The man didn’t answer. He turned from the cabinet, cradling the axe-head in his hands.

  The photographer skidded to a halt a few feet away. ‘Wiles – Davy!’

  The man didn’t answer. Just stared.

  ‘Put it back. Look,’ the photographer went on, turning to Sumner, ‘I’m sorry – this is my fault. I brought him here, but I didn’t know—’

  The photographer’s words were cut off abruptly as the waiter shoved him aside. Sarah stared in surprise as he pulled a revolver from inside his white jacket, levelling it at the man holding the stone axe-head. It was only when he spoke that she realised who it was.

  ‘Put that down, or I fire.’

  ‘Sergeant Green?’ Sarah gasped.

  For a moment it looked like the thief might obey. But then he stepped forward, swinging the axe-head in one hand like the weapon it had once been. Green leaped back, and the axe-head smashed through the air just in front of him. Sarah’s father pulled her away as Green fired.

  The shot slammed into the man’s chest, hurling him back into the shattered front of the display case. But no blood oozed from the hole ripped in his suit. Instead, tiny orange tendrils licked out, exploring the wound.

  ‘Ubermensch!’ Sarah realised.

  Green fired again. This time at the man’s head. But he pushed himself upright again, the tiniest trickle of blood running from the hole in his forehead down his face. The axe-head fell to the floor as his hands went instinctively to his face.

  ‘Get behind me,’ Green ordered. ‘Maybe we can hold it back. At least it’s wounded.’

  He was right, Sarah thought. Before, bullets had barely wounded an Ubermensch. Perhaps this one was newly infected – still largely human. How long did the conversion process take? Was it human enough to feel pain? Human enough to be stopped?

  Without thinking, she pulled away from her father and ran to where the Ubermensch was straightening up, hands lowering. Before it could recover fully, she grabbed the stone axe-head – amazed at how heavy it was for its size. She staggered back, regaining her balance in time to dodge a clumsy blow from the creature as it started after her.

  Green stepped in front of her, firing again. The Ubermensch lurched backwards. But it seemed to recover quicker this time.

  ‘Davy?’ the photographer was saying. ‘Davy? What the hell?’

  ‘What is that thing?’ Sumner gasped. ‘Cause it sure ain’t human.’

  ‘Explanations later,’ Green insisted.

  ‘And you’re not with the caterers,’ Sumner added.

  ‘You noticed,’ Green said, pushing Sarah behind him. Her father was close beside her again. He said nothing, but his expression was full of questions.

  They were all backing slowly along the gallery, to
wards the broken window and the lights outside. The Ubermensch stalked slowly towards them.

  ‘If that’s a UDT outside and there are Vril,’ Green said quietly, ‘then we’re caught between a rock and a hard place.’

  Holding the heavy, cold stone close to her, Sarah turned to see if there was movement outside.

  ‘Someone will have heard the shots,’ Sarah’s father said. ‘Help must be on its way.’

  ‘How do we stop that thing?’ the photographer asked, voice trembling.

  Sarah’s scream cut off any reply.

  Intent on the lights outside, she hadn’t seen the movement closer to them until it was too late. The cat launched itself at her, paws extended, claws out, A bundle of snarling, spitting, scratching fur hit Sarah full in the face. She dropped the axe-head and flailed at the animal, trying to get a grip on its fur and pull it away.

  More hands tore at the cat as Sumner and Diamond struggled to help. But the animal clung on – scratching and biting, raking its claws down Sarah’s face, hissing and spitting. Finally, they dragged it off her, and hurled it to the floor. Green fired – the shot tearing through animal’s fur. But with no effect.

  Orange fingers quivered in the wound, knitting together, binding it shut. The cat leaped again, but the photographer somehow managed to knock it away. As it fell, he kicked it hard – sending the cat flying into a display case against the wall.

  Anthony Diamond immediately grabbed the top of the case, dragging it away from the wall. The whole thing crashed down in an explosion of glass and splintering wood. The snarling screech of the cat was cut off as the heavy case slammed down on top of it.

  At the same moment, the Ubermensch attacked again. Green fired twice more, barely slowing it. Then the gun clicked on an empty chamber. The Ubermensch shouldered him aside, sending the bulky sergeant staggering away. With one hand, it scooped up the stone axe-head. The other grabbed the photographer by his jacket collar, pulling him along towards the windows at the end of the gallery.

  ‘Leave him,’ Sumner yelled. ‘It’s the axe you want – just take it. But leave that man alone!’

  The photographer stared back at them, his face pale as ice and his eyes wide with fear. ‘Davy,’ he stammered. ‘Davy – just let me go. Please let me go.’

  Sarah made to follow, but her father held her back. ‘You really think you can stop that thing?’

  ‘We’ve stopped them before,’ she said, shaking off his grip.

  But now Green was between her and the Ubermensch. ‘Not like this,’ he said. ‘We need fire or something. There’s nothing we can do. Just hope he lets that fellow go when he’s away and safe.’

  The Ubermensch had reached the window. He let go of the photographer, and the man’s relief was clear in his face. As clear as the renewed terror as the Ubermensch lifted him with his free hand, and hurled him through the remains of the broken glass into the grounds outside.

  * * *

  The force of the impact jolted all the air from Jed’s lungs. He landed on paving slabs – a path round the building – and rolled across the hard ground. He could taste blood. He could feel it on his face weeping out of tiny cuts where he’d hit the shattered remains of the glass hanging in the broken window frame.

  He struggled to his feet, rasping for breath. Trying to make sense of what the hell was going on. A robbery? Or something more than that?

  The light had dimmed from its initial brilliance to a pulsing luminance. A figure loomed out of the glow, reaching out to Jed. To help him? Thank God. But it was Davy Wiles, or whatever Davy Wiles had become. He grabbed Jed by the back of the neck, turning him away from the building and towards the glow.

  The shape was masked by the light coming from it. But Jed could see that whatever had come down on the lawn was huge. A great disc, surrounded by a halo of light. He could make out the gleaming metal between the lights, a dark opening. A hum of suppressed power and a metallic, bitter taste at the back of his throat.

  There were shapes in the light. Dark shadows emerging from the even darker opening. Angular, skeletal silhouettes coagulated out of the darkness and scuttled towards him.

  ‘What is it?’ Jed gasped. The pain in his neck was increasing as Wiles tightened his grip.

  ‘You wanted to see what was hidden on my land,’ Wiles said. His tone was exactly as it had always been – level, uninflected. Bored. ‘I said I’d show you. That was the deal. Well, here it is. Seen enough?’

  Jed tried to nod. Tried to twist away from the man’s superhuman grip. ‘Yes,’ he managed to splutter. ‘Yes, I’ve seen enough. Now – let me go!’

  ‘Of course.’

  The Ubermensch tightened its grip on the man’s neck, a sudden searingly painful clench of his hand. Then he let go, allowing the body to crumple to the ground. Jed’s eyes stared sightlessly at the craft he’d been so desperate to see.

  Dark shapes scuttled out to surround the man who had been Davy Wiles, escorting him and the precious stone axe-head into the craft. Then the dark opening in its hull sealed over. The engines roared back into life, the lights blazed out again, and it lifted majestically into the night sky.

  * * *

  Sarah shielded her eyes from the glare. For several moments the UDT hovered above the grounds, lights pulsing and engines throbbing. Then it was a smudge of light blurred across the heavens. The noise faded, and the sky was empty.

  Sarah’s father hurried over to the body lying on the grass. Sumner continued to stare in disbelief at the sky.

  ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘To be honest, sir,’ Green told him, ‘we don’t really know.’

  People were running from the front of the house to see what the noise and lights signified. Sarah had no idea what they could tell them. ‘Nothing happened here tonight’ would hardly cover it, especially as a man was dead. A robbery was a far more plausible explanation. Maybe it was best to let them all make up their own minds and hope the resulting rumours and stories would somehow counter each other out.

  * * *

  Another man who had a passing interest in how events might be interpreted watched from the shattered remains of the gallery window. Well, it was someone else’s problem now. He had more important things to do.

  He turned and walked slowly back down the gallery, his dark suit seeming to soak up the light as he passed. He paused in front of a fallen display cabinet, set down the large metal briefcase he was carrying, and straightened his light blue tie. Then he bent down and heaved the cabinet aside.

  Beneath it lay the body of a black cat. Incredibly, the cat moved, stretching, turning its head to look up at the man weakly.

  The man drew a gun from a holster inside his jacket. He stared back at the cat for a moment, through watery pale blue eyes.

  Then he gripped the gun by the barrel and hammered the heavy handle down on the cat’s head. There was no anger or emotion in the action, just a ruthless efficiency. Soon the head was nothing more than a bloodied pulp, orange tendrils sprouting from the mess like the first shoots of spring grass.

  He lay the metal briefcase on its side, sliding the catches and opening it to reveal an empty plain metal interior. The man carefully picked up the cat by its tail, dropping its twitching body into the briefcase. The orange filaments swayed and danced, as if trying to feel what was happening. But the man snapped shut the briefcase.

  He pulled a plain, spotlessly white handkerchief from his top pocket and wiped first his fingers, and then the bloodied handle of his gun. Then he replaced handkerchief and gun, picked up the briefcase, and walked away.

  * * *

  They had moved Number Seventeen to a desk in the cloister room down near the Vault. Her last picture was an image of a woman’s face – her mouth open as if screaming. In extreme close-up.

  The nurse supervising lifted the sheet of paper away, numbered it and placed it on the pile. Number Seventeen was already drawing again. Shading black across almost the whole sheet.

  She stopped abr
uptly. The pencil fell from her fingers and clattered down on the stone table before rolling off and falling to the floor. The girl’s eyes widened, as if she was seeing the nurse for the first time. Her hands bunched into claws. She gave a hiss of anger, saliva spattering across the paper. Then her eyes rolled upwards until only the whites showed, and she pitched backwards, falling after the pencil.

  CHAPTER 11

  The bed was drenched in sweat, the bottom sheet crumpled and torn. Jane Roylston was awake suddenly – no slow surfacing from the dream, but an abrupt plunge into the real world. Her hand clawed at the ripped sheet, nails shredding the cotton. Her whole body was slick with perspiration.

  At some point in the nightmare she had thrown off the covers – sheet, blankets, eiderdown lay in a heap on the floor. She tumbled out of the bed, scrabbling for something to put on. She needed to see Crowley. Had to tell him what she had seen played out in her dreams.

  Crowley heard her urgent footsteps as she clattered through the house. He emerged from his bedroom, tying the cord of a paisley-patterned silk dressing gown. Through the open door behind him, Jane could see Edith, one of the newer acolytes. She was sitting up in the bed watching, her mass of red hair tumbling untidily forwards and cascading over her breasts. Crowley pulled the door closed behind him.

  ‘What is it, Jane?’

  ‘The cat’s dead,’ she told him. ‘At least I think it is.’

  ‘My study,’ he ordered, leading the way briskly across the landing.

  As they entered the room, Ralph Rutherford appeared, bleary-eyed and hastily dressed. Jane hoped Crowley would send him away, but he followed them into the study and slumped down in one of the chairs.

  ‘More visions?’ he asked.

  Crowley ignored him. ‘Tell me what you saw. As much detail as you can recall.’

  She sat down, closed her eyes, and let the dream play out again in her memory. She described it as it happened, what she could remember of it. The long gallery. The display cases. The people. The fight. The light outside. Attacking the blonde woman – claws raking her face. Biting, scratching, spitting … And the sudden terrible darkness as the cabinet pitched forwards, falling towards her.