Mark Chadbourn - The Hounds of Avalon

‘Come on,’ Reid said impatiently. ‘No one knows what we’re really dealing with here. Suddenly there are all these new rules.’

‘We need to get hold of those two you were observing in Salisbury immediately,’ the General said.

‘Yes, sir.’ Reid shifted uncomfortably in his chair; clearly he didn’t think it was going to be as easy as the General was implying.

‘Finally,’ Manning said. ‘If these Brothers and Sisters of Dragons do know how to cross over, perhaps we can actually show the Tuatha De Danann that we’ve got some teeth.’

‘That is my intention, Ms Manning,’ the General said. ‘I’m going to the PM with a new proposal. We’ve had our heads down for far too long. This is the time for action.’ He turned to Hal. ‘Mister Campbell? Find Hunter. He should put a team together immediately.’

‘I’ll tell him at once, sir.’ Hal slipped out quietly, anticipation mingling with queasy apprehension. This was it, then: the war was finally about to be launched.

The Oxford night was balmy as the heat of the June day gradually leaked away. Hal made his way from the Ministry of Defence offices and staff apartments at Magdalen College into the cool dark of the ancient Deer Park. It was a walk he took every night to clear his head. He loved Magdalen — its near-six-hundred-year history, the Great Tower, the chapel, the cloisters, so beautiful in the snow — but sometimes the tiny rooms and ancient corridors grew claustrophobic: too much gossip, too much back-stabbing, too many rumours.

Whichever way he looked at it, though, Oxford was still better than London. All the old colleges now housed the Government departments that had fled the capital during the Fall. They still inhabited the same grandeur they had all enjoyed in Whitehall and the Palace of Westminster, but it felt like a fresh start; and that was a good thing.

As he slipped off his shoes to feel the deer-cropped grass, the shock of Glenning’s death finally hit him hard and he took a deep, juddering breath, throwing his head back to stare at the sky. The stars were comforting, but after all they had been through so were the city’s streetlights and the golden electric lamps that still blazed in many of the windows around the college.

‘Amazing, isn’t it?’

Startled, Hal spun around to find Samantha standing behind him, hands on hips, smiling in the way that always made his spine tingle. Her ash-blonde hair was tied back with an elastic band and she was dressed in a well-worn T-shirt and a pair of tracksuit trousers. The sweat of her run still gleamed on her forehead.

‘You’re jumpy,’ she said, laughing.

‘Had a bit of a shock earlier.’ Hal took another deep breath to calm his thumping heart.

‘And I don’t suppose you can tell me about it. Ultra top secret, as usual.’

‘You know how it is.’ Hal shifted uncomfortably; he wished he could tell her. Glenning’s death was one thing he desperately needed to get off his chest.

‘It is amazing, though, isn’t it?’ Samantha moved closer to Hal, and he was suddenly aware of the not-unpleasant aroma of her sweat mixed with the fragrance of whatever perfume, shampoo or other aromatic she used. ‘Electric lights. A few years back, you’d never have thought what a wonder they would be.’

‘They still are for most of the country. Mustn’t forget we’re only blessed with them here because it’s the new seat of Government-’

Samantha laughed again.

‘What?’ Hal’s cheeks coloured.

‘ Blessed with them, indeed. You talk so strangely sometimes.’ She was still smiling when she slipped an arm around his waist and gave him a gentle squeeze. A different kind of heat ran into Hal’s face. ‘Don’t get me wrong — I love it. You’re a breath of fresh air around here, Hal.’

Hal would have liked to respond — with an arm around her waist, perhaps a kiss — but it wasn’t the time. It never was, and a part of him wondered if it ever would be.

‘Any idea where Hunter is holed up?’ he asked, changing the subject.

Samantha rolled her eyes. ‘Let’s draw up a list of the worst dives in Oxford and I’ll guarantee he’s in one of them. He’s banned from all the good places. I heard he was thrown out of Stanyard’s last week.’

Hal nodded. ‘Caught in one of the toilet cubicles with a girl… by her boyfriend. Between them they wrecked the place before the landlord managed to toss them out.’

‘And the Government wouldn’t be here if not for his strong right arm,’ Samantha said sarcastically. ‘That’s what he tells all those floozies. And they all fall for it.’

‘You don’t like him very much, do you?’

‘I loathe him. And I can’t understand why you’re his friend. Not in a million years. What have you ever got in common?’

‘I ask myself that some days.’ Hal glanced up just as a shooting star burned its path across the arc of sky visible above the city lights. ‘See that?’ he said. ‘It’s an omen.’

Samantha grew serious. ‘The fight-back starts soon?’

‘You know I can’t answer that.’ Hal looked towards the dark, unruly city beyond the grand, historic colleges. ‘I’d better find Hunter, drag him out of whatever mess he’s got himself into this time.’

‘OK, Hal. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Samantha gave him another warm smile before jogging off. Hal watched her until she disappeared into the shadows. A braver man would already have made his move, but Hal couldn’t until he was sure one hundred per cent that she wouldn’t say no. Deep in his head, he’d always considered himself a romantic, a counterbalance to a life lived in the dusty here-and-now to which he had been consigned; or rather, to which he had consigned himself. And he’d known pretty early on in their friendship that Samantha was the only one who could truly make him happy; not love at first sight, exactly, but near as dammit.

The first time Hal had seen her, she had been giving her lunchtime sandwich to a young girl begging on the side of the street. When Hal mentioned it to her later, Samantha had denied her act of charity, which had only intrigued him more. But the one moment — the one shining moment that had changed everything for him — had been in some dingy bar after work when, drunk and argumentative, she’d clubbed Hunter around the head and then, minutes later, given an a cappella version of ‘California Dreamin’’ that had sent shivers down his spine. There was no reason why it should have affected him so deeply; but it had been an alchemical experience, fuelled by magic and mystery in the banal crucible of everyday existence.

He would never forget how she’d made that gold from the base lead of his life; it was too valuable ever to risk losing.

The brothel on St Michael’s Street had become a thriving if frowned-upon establishment ever since the new Government had moved to Oxford and saved the city from ruin. From the outside, the building looked abandoned, but the majority of Government employees knew its location, and for many of the men in the lower ranks it provided a welcome release from the numerous pressures of trying to lead a country thrown back to the Dark Ages.

Hal knocked discreetly on the unmarked door, which was opened by an elderly lady with an ice-cream-cone mound of white hair piled on her head and a little too much make-up on her face. ‘Is Hunter here, Mrs Damask?’ he asked.

‘Yes, Jeffrey’s inside,’ Mrs Damask replied in her lyrical Scottish brogue. ‘Would you like to wait for him?’

‘You know he doesn’t like to be called Jeffrey,’ Hal said as he entered the baroque entrance hall with its atmosphere of incense and classical music playing quietly in the background.

‘And that’s why we call him it,’ Mrs Damask whispered with a conspiratorial wink.