Mark Chadbourn - The Hounds of Avalon

Dull panic battled with guilt. Everyone was relying on him and he’d allowed himself to be taken; he should have guessed that Reid and the others would know where he’d be hiding out. Hunter wouldn’t have made that mistake, nor would any of the others. Why was he so useless? He fought down his contempt for his own abilities and forced his mind to focus on a way of getting out. The alternative was unthinkable.

As Hal racked his brains for some kind of strategy, the door swung open and Reid slipped in.

‘Mister Reid, I didn’t do anything-’ Hal’s protestations died on his lips when he saw Reid’s slight smile.

‘Of course you didn’t.’ Reid leaned against the door and folded his arms. He was completely assured, displaying just a hint of the arrogance that he had kept in check in recent weeks. Hal could see Reid’s complicity writ large in his features.

‘You set me up. You’re responsible for this whole plot.’

‘Yes and no. I’m just a loyal servant, doing what I’m told, going where I’m ordered.’

‘Then who do you report to? The General?’

Reid laughed. ‘The General is a simple man. Soldiers do not normally make good politicians. He’s even more of a lick-spittle than me, though I’m sure he would never characterise himself in that way. Just following orders, that’s the General. The dignity and honour of being a public servant.’

Reid watched the thought processes rush across Hal’s face and shook his head, laughing. ‘You’re too simple a person, Mister Campbell. Uncomplicated, I think is the polite phrase. Not cynical. Very, very innocent.’ Reid made it sound like an insult. ‘The conspiracy extends much more widely than you could possibly guess. Everyone in the Government is involved. Certainly everyone in the upper echelons.’

‘The Cabinet-’

‘The Cabinet, the senior advisors, spies, policemen, business leaders, aristocrats — all the people who made up the great and the good before the Fall and who now keep the country running.’

Hal was dumbfounded. ‘All of them? Why? What could you possibly gain by killing the PM now, when everything is falling apart and we need a strong leader?’

‘Exactly. The PM was being particularly obstructive to the route that everyone else felt was best to preserve traditional values and our way of life. And time was running out.’

‘So you killed him.’

‘No, you killed him.’

‘There’s no evidence of that,’ Hal protested.

‘Ah, but there is. A great deal of evidence, in fact.’ Reid pulled out a digital photo of a strange star-shaped object. Hal recognised it instantly: Reid had handed it to him when he had taken Hal into the secure storeroom to give him the Wish Stone mystery to investigate. ‘Odd thing, this,’ Reid continued. ‘We still haven’t discerned if there’s a biological element to it. But one of our scientists discovered early on, to his great misfortune, that when activated it pumps ever-expanding tendrils into the body and tears it apart from within. And this innocuous-looking object was by the side of the PM’s body when it was found, with your fingerprints all over it.’

‘So you didn’t want the Stone investigated at all. It was just a ploy to fit me up.’ Hal put his head in his hands, sickened by the machinations. ‘What was the point in framing me? If there were so many people involved in the conspiracy, why didn’t you just bump the PM off and have done with it?’

Reid grew uncomfortable; he was still hiding something. ‘The majority of our soldiers and employees… the people generally… needed a culprit to focus their minds and keep them fully behind the project.’

‘But why me? Was I simply in the wrong place at the wrong time?’

Reid didn’t answer.

‘And what was happening with Manning? All the weird things I saw-’

‘Ah, Ms Manning. A very puzzling woman. She appeared to be on board at first, but recently…’ He shrugged, shook his head. ‘There’s an order out for her arrest.’

‘You think you’ve got everything covered, but it’s all a waste of time. The Void is still going to wipe everything out.’

Reid nodded. ‘Indeed.’

‘You want that?’ Hal jumped to his feet in disbelief.

Reid raised one warning finger; he remained calm, but there was a deep threat implicit in that simple motion. ‘You can’t escape, Hal. You can’t run. Every single person in authority out in the city has your description. Orders have now gone out for you to be shot on sight. You’re safer here.’

‘Why don’t you just kill me now?’ Hal flopped on to the bed and covered his face again; nothing made any sense.

‘Oh, I will. Your execution is imminent. We can’t have you blurting all this out and ruining things. But first you have one more little part to play.’

It took a second for Reid’s words to register, and by then the spy was slipping out of the door with a cruelly triumphant smile directed at Hal. The door closed with a click; the locks slipped back into place.

‘You can set me free. I’m not going to hurt anyone.’

Caitlin’s pleading voice cut to Thackeray’s heart. He could barely look at her, tied to an old wooden chair, her wrists bound behind her back and roped to her ankles, the knots pulled so tightly that they had brought droplets of blood to the surface of her pale, chafed skin. Her face looked so innocent, the Caitlin he had met all those weeks ago in the devastation of Birmingham, when he’d cared for her and first realised he had fallen in love. But with the Morrigan still inside her, they couldn’t take any chances. He’d seen what the goddess could do: one flick of a wrist could snap his neck and she’d move on without giving it a second thought.

‘You know I can’t do that,’ he said.

‘But there’s been some kind of change. I can feel it! The Morrigan isn’t controlling me any more.’

Her eyes were wide and hopeful; a faint smile played on her lips. Thackeray looked away, hating himself that he couldn’t trust her any more. Part of him wished he hadn’t been dragged into this senseless world of gods and magic, but then he would never have met Caitlin and his life would have been immeasurably diminished.

Yet when he glanced back at her, he felt that there was something subtly different about her, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

Caitlin put her head back, her eyes flickering. ‘It feels as if she’s… waiting,’ she muttered to herself.

The door was thrown open abruptly and Harvey launched himself into the room. He’d been keeping watch from the first floor for any developments. ‘We’ve got to get out of here. They’re evacuating the street.’ He rubbed a hand over a thin wrist for warmth. ‘Moving everybody to some buildings down in the centre. Like that’s going to do any bloody good,’ he added dismally.

Thackeray glanced at Caitlin, her head framed against the window where the snow fell heavily. Harvey was one step ahead. ‘What are we going to do with her?’

‘We can’t leave her here.’

‘It’s too dangerous to take her with us.’ Harvey’s Birmingham accent grew thicker in times of stress. ‘Bloody hell, Thackeray. You’ve got us into a right old mess. Why couldn’t you have fallen for a normal girl?’

Torn, Thackeray wandered past Caitlin to look out of the window. There was frantic activity in the street, people running, others tumbling out of doorways, laden with possessions. Unconsciously, he reached out a hand to touch Caitlin’s hair.

The snapping of ropes caught him by surprise. His wrist was snatched, gently, as Caitlin rose up and turned towards him. Across the room, Harvey flung himself back against the wall, whimpering. ‘Don’t hurt him,’ he pleaded.