Spectre's Rest

by Nick Moseley

  He walked towards the cell block’s main door, checking that it was still secure. It was, though he wasn’t expecting the shadows to try and get in that way. Keeping an eye on Voight’s cell, he went back to the foot of the stairs. He could hear the murmur of voices and the tinny chatter of Suzanne’s radio.

  ‘Anything happening up there?’ he called out.

  ‘Nothing so far,’ he heard Desai reply. ‘The guards in Block B are saying they’re quiet too.’

  ‘It won’t last,’ said Oscar.

  ‘It never does,’ said Trev with a sigh.

  The tight feeling in his chest remained. Not even the vapour weapon’s influence was able to affect it. Hints of fear and unease tickled around the edges of his bubble of calm, and the darkness beyond the reach of Caladbolg’s light seemed to press towards him. Oscar’s right, he thought. This quiet isn’t going to last.

  He walked away from the stairs and made his way along the row of cells. The darkness in front of him was driven away, but he knew it was closing in behind him as he went. Oscar stuck close to him. The cat’s whiskers were twitching violently, which Trev knew to be a bad sign. They were about halfway along the row when they heard a shocked gasp from Melissa Voight’s cell.

  Trev ran back the way he’d come. Voight had her back to the bars and was staring at the back wall of her cell. A strip of pure blackness had formed in the back right-hand corner.

  ‘Bollocks, it’s already in the cell,’ Trev whispered.

  ‘Let me out,’ said Voight. Her voice was soft but urgent. Indecision clawed at Trev’s brain. While he vacillated, a dark arm slid free of the wall. ‘Let me out,’ Voight repeated. She edged to the left along the bars, putting the largest gap she could between herself and the emerging shadow.

  There was a sudden flash of green light above them, up on the walkway. Feet rattled on the metal. Briefly Trev thought that Desai and Suzanne were coming down to help out, but then he heard the fizz and crackle of vapour weapons and realised that they were fighting something.

  ‘There’s one up here!’ Desai shouted.

  ‘There’s one down here as well!’ Trev shouted back. The shadow was now almost free of the wall. ‘It’s inside the cell!’

  Desai didn’t reply. The sounds of battle intensified. The rusty walkway squeaked and groaned, showering Trev with dust and flakes of old paint.

  ‘For God’s sake, let me out!’ Voight yelled at him, reaching a hand through the bars. ‘Please!’

  ‘Better do something,’ said Oscar. ‘Quick!’

  The shadow stepped away from the wall. Its glowing eyes were fixed on Voight’s back as she groped at Trev.

  ‘Crap,’ Trev said.

  Make a decision, lad! Caladbolg implored him. There’ll be time later to worry about right or wrong!

  ‘All right, get back!’ Trev activated Tyrfing as well and swung both swords at the cell door’s lock. They hammered into it in a burst of sparks and sheared through the bolt holding the door closed. Voight hauled on the bars and slid the door open enough to get out before dragging it closed again.

  Trev gestured to his left with Caladbolg. ‘Over there!’ he shouted at Voight, shooing her clear of the cell. She nodded and stepped away.

  The shadow approached the bars and stopped. It stared at Trev with its glowing eyes but made no attempt to leave the cell and attack him.

  What is this creature? Tyrfing wondered. I have never seen its like before.

  Nor me, lass, said Caladbolg. It looks a meagre challenge at best.

  Indeed, Tyrfing agreed. The vampire looked more of a danger.

  Aye, true. There was a pause. Where did she go?

  ‘Look ou–’ Oscar started to shout. There was a thump and he was cut off.

  Oh bollocks. Trev turned and a charging Voight hit him in the chest, bowling him over and sending his weapons skittering away across the concrete. He landed on his back with the vampire on top. One of her hands clamped around his neck, choking him. He pulled at her fingers, trying to break her grip, but her strength was frightening.

  ‘I hate Custodians,’ she hissed into his face. She punctuated the words by tugging on his neck, bumping his head against the floor. With The Twins extinguished, the only illumination was the light from Desai and Suzanne’s vapour weapons, filtering down through the walkway above. It flickered across Voight’s features.

  ‘I’m not… a… Custodian,’ Trev gasped, still scrabbling feebly at her hand.

  ‘You look like one, and sound like one,’ Voight said. She leaned forwards. ‘Let’s see if you taste like one.’

  Her fingernails dug into his neck, breaking the skin. Blood ran from the wounds and dripped onto the floor. Voight inhaled deeply, savouring the smell. Her mouth widened into the most maniacal grin Trev had ever seen. She was strong, hungry, and, judging from her expression, irredeemably bonkers.

  Trev was forced to reflect that perhaps letting her out hadn’t been his cleverest idea.

  ‘They’ve kept us half-starved during this lockdown,’ she whispered. She bent until her face was an inch from Trev’s. ‘Good of you to make up for it.’

  Trev could only wheeze in response. He gave up on freeing his throat and attempted to punch her, but he couldn’t get any leverage and she knocked his arm aside with her free hand. He wriggled his hips and shoulders to no good effect. He was pinned.

  Voight’s grip on his throat relaxed a fraction, her fingers drawing back in preparation to bury themselves deep into his flesh. There wasn’t anything Trev could do about it except try his best to pass out before it happened. Voight winked at him, pursed her lips, and blew him a kiss.

  And two dark hands appeared from behind her and settled on the sides of her face.

  She had enough time to register a look of surprise before the life disappeared from her eyes. Immediately her skin started to wither and tighten on her face, dragging the horrible grin wider and wider. With the strength gone from her grip, Trev slapped her hand away from his neck and scrambled out from underneath her, gasping and coughing.

  The shadow released its hold on her head and let her drop onto the concrete. The creature was little more than a vague shape in the near-darkness. Only the glowing eyes allowed Trev to track its position. Tyrfing lay a few feet away and he slipped, scrambled and scratched towards the weapon. The wounds on his neck burned and it felt like he was breathing through a throatful of razor-blades and broken glass. Blood ran down inside his shirt, sticking the material to his skin.

  He groped for the sword-hilt. The light from above kept moving as the combatants fought. Tyrfing appeared and disappeared in the darkness, sometimes appearing close, sometimes impossibly distant. Trev stretched out a hand and touched nothing but dusty concrete. He swept the hand from side to side, still coughing. His little finger brushed against metal and he lunged at it, scraping his knuckles in his haste to get hold of the sword.

  Black and red flames whooshed out from Tyrfing’s hilt and Trev threw himself into a desperate roll as the sword screamed a wordless warning at him. Shadowy hands snatched out of the dark. Trev fended them away with a couple of wild swipes of the vapour weapon. He struggled to his feet, using the handrail of the staircase for support.

  We need Caladbolg, Tyrfing said.

  Trev coughed his agreement. He circled away from the stairs, his eyes flicking between the approaching shadow and the floor. The creature’s own eyes trailed him across the cell block, its body fading in and out of view. It didn’t attack, instead maintaining a consistent distance from him. Probably a clever tactic, Trev thought. Sooner or later I’m just going to collapse anyway, why expend any effort fighting me?

  He spotted Caladbolg. The sword-hilt had fallen near the door of Voight’s cell, which was still closed. Either the shadow had been polite enough to slide it shut after it passed through, or it had simply squeezed between the bars. Trev looked back at the dark figure. It returned his stare. Trev took a slow step in Caladbolg’s direction and the thing mirrored him.
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  ‘Right,’ Trev wheezed. He steeled himself to make a break for it, and the shadow attacked.

  The glowing eyes surged towards him. The shadow seemed intent on getting between Trev and the vapour weapon, which he knew he couldn’t allow. He feinted left before spinning back the other way, Tyrfing snapping out to block the creature’s attempt to grab him. It changed direction with an oily speed and came after him again. Trev fell back, happy to give ground as each step brought him nearer to where Caladbolg lay.

  His breath rattled in his bruised throat. Without the vapour weapon’s stimulating influence he’d have been dead already. As it was he knew he couldn’t keep going much longer. The human body wasn’t built to run solely on adrenaline. It needed other fuels, such as beer and pizza.

  He ducked away from another attack and his foot clinked against Caladbolg’s pommel. It would’ve been suicide to bend down and pick it up, so he shoved it away with his foot and went after it, dropping into a shoulder roll. He grabbed the weapon as he went past and came up onto his feet with both swords activated and a blood-stained grin on his face.

  The shadow paused in its attack, suddenly wary. Trev rolled his wrists and The Twins inscribed two loops of light into the air.

  ‘Well?’ he said. The shadow said nothing. Maybe it was different from the Corbyn-shadow and incapable of speech; maybe it was struck dumb by the awesome sight he presented. Either way, Trev decided his throat hurt too much for conversation in any case, and just charged the thing.

  With both vapour weapons in action the fight turned quickly in Trev’s favour. He didn’t throw one big burst of energy against the shadow – he was aware of his dwindling reserves of power – but instead gave it a little jolt with each strike. The strategy had the desired effect. Soon the shadow was falling back towards Voight’s cell, no longer attacking, only defending itself from Trev’s flurry of blows.

  Trev pressed his advantage. Blood and spittle puffed from his mouth with each rasping breath. His weapons slashed at the shadow, their blades moving with precise speed. The creature took one final swipe at him and then it was gone, blurring between the cell bars and vanishing back into the wall out of which it had come.

  For a long moment Trev stood and stared into the cell, watching in case the shadow came back. It didn’t.

  Ye gods, lad, what was that fell thing? Caladbolg asked.

  We landed countless blows without wounding it, Tyrfing said. And it was able to escape, also.

  ‘Win some, lose some,’ Trev croaked. He shuffled to the foot of the stairs and looked up. The fight up there had apparently ended as well. ‘Mishti,’ he called, his voice more of a cough than a shout.

  Desai’s head appeared over the handrail. She shone her torch down and Trev heard her gasp as she saw his injuries. ‘Are you all right?’ she said.

  ‘Just a few scratches,’ Trev said. ‘You?’

  ‘We’re both fine,’ Desai replied, ‘but while we were fighting one shadow, another one killed both the prisoners.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Trev. ‘Voight’s dead too.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Desai. ‘Grace isn’t going to be happy.’

  Trev stifled a cough and shrugged. ‘She wasn’t happy anyway.’

  ‘Where’s Oscar?’ Desai asked.

  ‘I’m here,’ came the cat’s voice from behind Trev. He limped into the circle of light from Desai’s torch. ‘And I’m fine, thanks for asking. Bloody vampire gave me a hell of a kick though.’

  ‘I knew you’d be OK,’ Trev said. ‘You’d never give me the satisfaction of seeing you die, would you?’

  ‘Not likely,’ said Oscar.

  ‘We’d better check in with Grace and tell her the bad news,’ said Desai.

  ‘I suppose,’ Oscar agreed, ‘though we’ve got some good news to give her as well.’

  Trev frowned. ‘Such as?’

  ‘I think I’ve worked out what these shadow-creatures are,’ the cat said.

  Thirty

  Trev thought he’d seen Grace Montano angry before. He was now being forced to reconsider that view.

  They were back in the library. Trev was sitting at the big table, the prison plans still scattered across it. His neck throbbed. Dr. Bookbinder had remembered his duty as a doctor and had cleaned and dressed the wounds, albeit reluctantly. I’ve made another friend for life there, Trev thought.

  The power had only been back on for a few minutes. Montano had sent a team to deal with the three bodies in Block C. Melissa Voight’s corpse had disintegrated into a pool of sludge with the remains of a yellow jumpsuit floating in it, so Oscar had recommended that the guards take two body-bags and a bucket. Montano’s anger had already been smouldering, and that comment had caused her to erupt.

  ‘You let one of our most dangerous inmates out of her cell!’ she was shouting. ‘I can’t believe it! What on earth were you thinking?’

  Trev had sat through many bollockings in his life, and his usual plan was to stay quiet and let them wash over him; in his experience there was only so long a person could rant and rave before they ran out of steam. Montano just kept going, however. She also had the annoying habit of asking questions and actually expecting an answer.

  ‘Well?’ she snapped.

  ‘The shadow was going to kill her,’ Trev said. ‘What was I supposed to do? Stand and watch?’

  ‘You had two vapour weapons. Couldn’t you have fended it off through the bars?’

  ‘Er,’ said Trev. ‘Probably not?’

  Montano threw her hands up. ‘I doubt you even tried, did you?’ Trev didn’t reply. ‘I thought not. What do you think would have happened if she’d escaped from the cell block?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Trev through gritted teeth, his own temper rising.

  ‘She’d have killed anyone she got her hands on,’ Bookbinder said. He still sounded drunk, and he was evidently enjoying Trev’s comeuppance. As was Richie, Montano’s portly shadow, who was lurking in the corner by the window wearing a big grin.

  ‘Just as well she didn’t get out then, isn’t it?’ Trev shot back. ‘For God’s sake, we’ve still got these shadow-things running about the place. Why are we wasting time throwing “what-ifs” at each other?’

  ‘Because it was a pretty huge “what-if”, that’s why,’ Montano said. ‘The idea of Melissa Voight loose in this prison…’ she shook her head.

  ‘But she is loose,’ said Oscar, piping up from his usual spot on the radiator. ‘She’ll be one of the shadows, won’t she? So not only is she just as psychotic as ever, she can now pass through walls and kill you with a touch. I think the living version would’ve been less trouble, don’t you?’

  The silence that followed was long and tense. Nobody argued with Oscar’s assessment. The thought that the shadows’ numbers increased with every death they caused was hardly a comforting one. The prison’s defenders had been unable to deal with three of the creatures, let alone six.

  ‘We’ve got to ask for help,’ Desai said. She’d sat silent through Montano and Trev’s argument, her eyes roving across the prison plans on the table in front of her. ‘This situation is beyond our ability to deal with now. Way beyond. If we delay any longer then none of us’ll get out of here alive.’

  ‘After that stirring speech I’m promoting you to the post of Morale Coordinator,’ Oscar said. ‘I agree with you, though.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Trev.

  ‘Good for you,’ Montano said. ‘Gang up however you like. But this is a prison, not a democracy, and I’m in charge.’

  ‘Grace,’ said Desai quietly. ‘Please. There are people’s lives at risk here.’

  Montano sighed. ‘As it happens I’ve already sent out a request for assistance. I’ve called in a Code Black with the Custodians.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Oscar said. ‘Saves us the hassle of a mutiny, anyway.’

  Trev and Desai exchanged a glance, having already discussed rebellion against Montano’s instructions earlier that evening.

&n
bsp; ‘What’s a Code Black?’ Trev asked.

  ‘Basically it means “drop everything and get here as fast as you can, we’re all about to die”,’ Oscar replied. ‘You just call in, give your location and say “Code Black”. Saves a lot of explanation if you’re in the shit and you don’t have time for a long chat.’

  ‘I’ll have to remember that,’ Trev said. ‘What sort of response time can we expect?’

  ‘They’re guaranteed to arrive two minutes after we’re all dead,’ said Oscar.

  ‘A couple of hours, maybe,’ said Montano, ignoring him. She slumped into a chair, her anger spent at last, and seemed to deflate. Trev looked at her, a mixture of feelings jostling within him. There was relief that the Custodians were finally on the way to bail them out; anger at Montano for waiting so long before calling them; and, he was surprised to note, a little sympathy for the defeated warden. She’d been stuck in a situation with no easy way out, and in the end had been forced to sacrifice her career. Considering how hard she’d worked to redeem herself after the “East End incident” Desai had described, he could understand her despondency. She’d been very close to seeing out her stint at Spectre’s Rest.

  People nodded and checked their watches, working out when the Custodians might arrive. Nobody spoke for a while. Trev shuffled through the prison plans on the table, searching for the one that showed Block C. He identified Melissa Voight’s cell and peered at the yellowed paper.

  ‘Found something?’ said Desai.

  ‘Just trying to work out how that shadow appeared inside Voight’s cell,’ Trev said. ‘None of the walls have got that cross-hatching on them.’

  Desai leaned across and studied the plan herself. ‘What’s that?’ she asked, pointing out a small black circle in the corner of the cell.

  ‘Well, that’s the corner where it appeared,’ Trev said, ‘but look, there’s one of those circles in every cell. I just assumed they showed where the original toilets were.’

  Bookbinder snorted. ‘You think the Victorians built prisons with toilets in the cells? Haven’t you ever heard of that fine old prison tradition, “slopping out”?’