Mark Chadbourn - The Burning Man

‘So it’s a first. Make a name for yourself.’

‘Don’t listen to him,’ Church said. ‘He isn’t who you think he is.’

‘Shut up,’ Oakes snarled, sweat beading on his forehead. He noticed that Nelson and Tombstone were no longer trying to hide their suspicions. ‘I’m taking him back,’ he said. ‘You two can keep pretending you’re in Fairyland for as long as you like.’ Oakes tried to drag Church towards the car.

‘Now hang on …’ Tombstone began.

Oakes shrieked. A raven bigger than any Church had ever seen was clinging onto Oakes’s head as it pecked furiously at his eyes.

Church saw his moment. With Nelson and Tombstone gripped by the bizarre sight, he raced through the slow-moving traffic into a side street. He heard Tombstone yell, the threat that he would be shot, but as he anticipated, there was no gunfire. When Nelson and Tombstone dropped out of direct sight, he ducked into a convenience store. The Korean owner watched him suspiciously as he made his way to the back amongst the frozen goods and the day’s special offer.

He wasn’t alone. A tall, big-boned man with long, wiry hair and beard, once black, now turning grey and white, loaded staple goods into his basket: a two-gallon carton of milk, two loaves of bread, several cans of beans. He had the florid face and burst capillaries of a heavy drinker, but it was the wide-brimmed hat that struck Church. There could have been thousands like it in the city, but he was acutely aware of the pile-up of coincidences; he was sure it was the same hat he had seen on the man driving the car in the CCTV footage.

Church pretended to inspect a box of Froot Loops. From outside, he heard loud voices and running feet as Tombstone, Nelson and a lumbering Oakes passed by.

Anxiously, he watched as the man in the hat paid for his goods and left. Church followed him across the road and down another street until he entered a door next to a club where punks and goths congregated on the sidewalk, smelling of patchouli, hair-dye and make-up. After a moment, Church followed him inside.

The building was a former commercial premises and appeared close to being condemned: broken floorboards, graffiti, the stink of damp and mould. Yet it was clearly occupied: Church could smell fried food and dope smoke. His quarry’s footsteps echoed on the stairs.

Church passed several rooms all missing doors, obviously squats with bedrolls laid out on the bare floors. He came to the floor where he estimated the man in the hat had ended his journey. There were three closed doors.

As he approached the first door, he heard movement in the shadows behind him just before a knife was pressed beneath his right eye.

‘One move and I take it out.’ It was a girl’s voice, with the perfect, clipped vowels of an expensive English private education.

‘I’m not moving.’

‘Why are you following Crowther?’

‘I’m looking for someone. A teenage boy, blond hair-’

‘What are you? Immigration? Social Services? Police?’

‘Nothing like that. I’m trying to help you. There are people looking for you who might want to hurt you-’

The knife dug deeper. Blood dripped down Church’s face.

‘Is it Creed? Is it?’ she shouted.

‘No!’

‘I’m not joining his little gang!’ She put her hand around the base of Church’s head and smashed his forehead against the wall.

‘Jack! Prof!’

Church rolled onto his back, purple flashes darting across his vision. The girl was no older than sixteen, black, her features hard.

From a door further along the corridor emerged the man in the wide-brimmed hat and the boy, maybe a year older than the girl. He had the most piercing eyes Church had ever seen.

‘Good Lord!’ Crowther exclaimed. ‘Can’t I leave you alone for one minute? Who have you attacked this time?’

‘He was following you.’ She gave Crowther a surly stare for emphasis.

‘I’m trying to help,’ Church protested. ‘There are people after Jack.’

The boy came over to study Church. He had a strong, honest face with a touch of innocence. Church wondered how he would be able to tell the boy that he carried a force for destruction inside him. ‘My name’s Jack, too.’

‘Is that supposed to create a bond or something?’ the girl sneered.

‘Mahalia,’ the boy cautioned. ‘Why would anyone want to come after me?’ he asked Church. ‘I just want a quiet life. I’m no trouble to anyone.’

‘Frankly,’ Crowther said, ‘we’ve found that the best way to survive is not to trust anyone.’

A deep, low moan rose up somewhere nearby, slowly becoming a chilling howl. It sounded like a word, but all Church heard was the ‘oooo’ that ended it. They all fell silent, unnerved.

‘Was that an animal?’ Mahalia said, spooked.

From the bottom of the stairs came the sound of the front door being thrown open. Tombstone’s voice drifted up: ‘That kid definitely said he came in here.’

‘Okay, Jude Law!’ Nelson called. ‘This is Detective Nelson! Get your ass out where I can see you!’

‘Cops!’ Mahalia said. ‘He led them here!’

‘They’re after me, not you!’ Church said.

‘It looks like we need to find a new home,’ Crowther said. ‘Let’s try to get out of here with a little more alacrity, shall we?’

Crowther disappeared back into the room, but Jack waited for Mahalia to catch up with him; Church noted the tenderness of the boy’s expression when he looked at her.

As Church made to get up to follow, Mahalia planted her boot forcefully in his gut, then ran with Jack after Crowther. Gasping, Church managed to scramble into the room as the detectives thundered up the stairs.

The apartment was clean and orderly, but empty. In the final room, a ragged hole in the wall gave way to a crawl space and a ladder to the floor below. Church followed the sound of disappearing footsteps down and through two other apartments to a makeshift hatch that gave access to a large, dark industrial space, which appeared to be an old warehouse. It was a maze of vast, echoing rooms and low-ceilinged corridors with peeling, lime-washed walls.

Distorted echoes made it almost impossible to tell who was pursuer and who pursued. As someone approached, Church slipped into a space behind a heavy door that had been jammed open. It was Oakes, talking quietly on his mobile phone.

‘I’ve lost him for now,’ he said. ‘It’s only a matter of time. Kill the other two — we can’t risk any contact with the Key. And get someone to dump that sword in the river.’

He pocketed the phone and moved cautiously down the corridor, gun drawn. Church’s heart pounded. He had to get back to help Shavi and Tom, but that would mean losing whatever tenuous lead he had on Jack. In a city of nearly twenty-two million people, what chance would he have of finding the boy again? There was no choice. He had to trust Shavi and Tom to look after themselves.

For the next ten minutes he roamed the labyrinthine area, hiding whenever the echoes of voices or footsteps drew closer, but the exit proved elusive. Either the building was bigger than he thought, or whatever force was at play in the city was attempting to keep him trapped.

The animalistic howling rose up again, unmistakable but so low it could have been the wind blowing through an empty room. It was in the building with him.

As he rounded a corner into another long corridor, he was stunned to see Ruth at the far end, her head bowed as she worked the lock of a door. She got it open and peeked inside the room, excited by what she saw there. Was it Jack? he wondered.

Church couldn’t risk calling out to her, but as she prepared to enter the room, she glanced round and saw him. Her smile lit up her face. She beckoned to him eagerly and then went through the door.