Mark Chadbourn - The Burning Man

‘Where’s Shavi?’ Church called as he ran to the van where Hunter and Laura were watching the flock of ravens settling on all the vehicles. So many flew overhead that it looked as if night was falling early.

From the perimeter of the car park, Shavi walked confidently towards them. They all stopped to stare, recognising a transformation that went beyond his missing eye patch. In the gathering gloom, a faint golden glow emanated from his new eye.

‘What the fuck, Shavster?’ Laura peered into his face and was relieved to see it was still her old friend.

‘Oslo, Norway,’ he said. ‘That is our destination.’

‘Look.’ Ruth indicated steady movement in the fields that bounded the service station. Brutish figures moved close to the ground, approaching on all sides.

‘Redcaps,’ Tom said. ‘They are only the first of many.’

In less than a minute, Hunter had the van racing onto the motorway. The birds followed, turning the sky into a cauldron of seething darkness.

‘The whole bird thing — bit of a giveaway,’ Laura said.

‘The Morvren recognise the currents of reality,’ Tom said. ‘They see convergences that presage a maelstrom.’

Laura eyed him suspiciously. ‘I know you somehow. Old guy, talking bollocks. Or was it just a bad dream?’

‘This is all a bad dream.’ Tom’s glasses caught the light of approaching headlamps in the preternatural dark. ‘Drive faster, now.’ The calm in his voice was somehow more chilling.

‘All right,’ Hunter said as he searched the landscape for any sign of threat, ‘starting to think I made the wrong decision listening to you back in London.’

Shavi began to recount what had happened to him, until his head suddenly rocked forward to his chest, then snapped back. His new eye shimmered a sickly green as he stared at things no one else could see. ‘The air folds and spatters like liquid metal,’ he said in a flat monotone. ‘Shadows falling like rain …’

‘He’s having some kind of vision.’ Ruth grasped Shavi’s shoulders but he was rigid.

Hunter took the slip road for Swindon, then followed a circuitous route to avoid the most built-up areas. Eventually Shavi regained his composure.

‘What were you thinking?’ Laura said. ‘You steal an eye from some supernatural tosser, and then stick it in your own head? There’s a reason why the NHS doesn’t do transplants like that.’

‘I knew there would be a price to pay for the transaction,’ Shavi said with a strained smile, ‘but it is one I can bear.’

‘We thought you were going to have a seizure.’ Ruth brushed his sweat-matted hair away from his forehead.

‘When I focus through that eye, I can see things in the Otherworld. I know things I would never have known otherwise. Things that can help us.’

‘You can see two worlds at the same time?’ Ruth asked.

Shavi nodded.

‘No wonder you keep losing it.’ Laura snorted. ‘Shame. I was starting to like the eye-patch look. Still won’t trust you behind the wheel, though.’

Hunter brought the van to a halt on a country lane. Beyond the hedge there was a high-security fence punctuated with Ministry of Defence warning signs.

‘What are you planning?’ Church asked.

‘That’s RAF Wroughton.’ Hunter stretched, cracked his knuckles. ‘I’m going to commandeer a Hercules Transporter to take us to Norway. It’s a NATO ally. We can bypass all the civilian security clearances.’

‘You can do that?’

‘As long as they haven’t already revoked my security clearance. In which case, I’ll have to steal one.’

‘Remember: you are not simply entering a new country,’ Tom warned. ‘It is a new Great Dominion. New rules, new dangers. The gods are very protective of their territories.’

The world was white. Sky and landscape merged into one horizonless snowy backdrop so that all there was felt enclosed in a glass ball and beyond existed only mystery. They exited down the ramp at the back of the plane where soldiers in parkas struggled to unload crates and military equipment.

The squaddies averted their eyes when Hunter walked by. Laura thought how lonely he looked, though he hid it well behind the cocky, rakish facade that irritated as many people as it charmed. She didn’t like that; they were too much alike.

Stamping her boots in the snow, she half-considered folding a chunk of ice into snow to throw at Tom, but the cold was eating its way into her bones despite the Arctic gear Hunter had procured for them from the quartermaster.

‘You know my flawless complexion is going to look as if someone’s been at it with a wire brush in about five minutes,’ she said. ‘That’s not a good look.’

‘Better get used to it.’ Hunter scanned the desolate airfield; no other planes were visible. ‘With the wind-chill factor, temperatures drop to minus thirty. Touch any metal and you’ll leave flesh behind.’

‘I bet you like it. Prove what a big man you are by taking the pain.’

‘Nothing to prove there.’

‘Run along now. Catch us a caribou or whatever it is you do. I’m very hungry.’

‘Can we get a move on?’ Tom said irritably. ‘While you two carry out your little dance of sexual attraction, the rest of us are slowly going numb.’

‘We’d never be able to tell the difference with you, old man.’ Laura looked past the small, run-down terminal buildings to the wall of white. ‘You could have brought us somewhere where there was, you know, actual life.’

‘We’re in Oppland, north of Bergen and Oslo, south of Trondheim, about an hour outside Dombas.’ Hunter struck out for the terminal, head bowed against the howling wind. ‘Back during the Cold War, this was considered a major NATO line of defence against a possible Russian invasion. And, yeah, you’re right, Tom — let’s get somewhere warm to make plans.’

Night had fallen by the time they reached the hotel burning with light in the empty landscape. No other dwellings lay in sight, and even the road was lost beneath drifting snow. Stark black pines were the only contrast against the sweeping white plain.

The hotel was modern, glass and pine with roaring log fires for a traditional feel. It was clearly a venue for tourists exploring the high country, but it appeared to be almost deserted.

While Hunter ordered them food — reindeer steaks and rice and a vegetable stew for Laura — and bottles of beer, Shavi flirted briefly with the barman, a tall, muscular man in his early twenties with long brown hair and a shy demeanour. They made a connection that Shavi was determined to follow up later.

They consumed their meal at the comfy chairs in front of the fire, next to their unruly pile of parkas and boots.

‘Couldn’t we have stayed somewhere a bit more lively?’ Laura complained.

‘Depends if you want to still be alive in the morning,’ Tom snapped. ‘A ley line runs through here. It’ll buy you a little more time.’

Church turned to Shavi, who was eyeing the barman. ‘You got us here, but can you see the way forward?’

‘Flashes, here and there. I am attempting to make sense of what they mean, but so far it has been too confusing.’

‘What I don’t get,’ Ruth said to Church, ‘is why your friend the Puck doesn’t actually give you some help you can use. A hint here, half a clue there — it’s all game-playing. Are you sure he’s on our side?’

‘Robin Goodfellow is on no one’s side.’ Tom removed a tin from his haversack and began to construct a roll-up. ‘He moves things around to his own ends, whatever they may be. He cannot be trusted.’