Mark Chadbourn - The Hounds of Avalon

‘Why?’

‘Because here is where everything’s going to end. And if you’re not here it would ruin my plans.’

‘A trap, then.’ Sophie’s eyes narrowed. She steeled herself, ready to attack.

‘Really, there’s no hope of winning this battle,’ Manning said. ‘But just to show you what a good sport I am, let me tell you how it all is going to end. I’ll tell you the truth. About everything. I’m sorry to say you’re not going to like it. Even worse, you’re not going to be able to tell a soul.’

The guards led Hal through the maze of corridors, then up a flight of stairs and out into a small courtyard that smelled of rotting refuse. Walls rose up on either side, making it oppressively dark.

‘Kneel,’ one guard barked. He motioned with a handgun to the centre of the courtyard.

The realisation that this was the place where he was going to die hit Hal hard. A shudder ran through him, closely followed by the absurd acknowledgement that the location was so mundane. He’d end his life, unmourned and forgotten, in a place where rubbish was disposed of.

As he knelt in the thick snow, the blood thundering in his head, every sensation was heightened: the stink of old cabbages; the bitter cold making his skin ache; the distant, undefined noises of the city; snow crystals glimmering like jewels in the thin light that filtered into the courtyard; the bitter taste of bile in his mouth.

The hard muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of his head. For a second, Hal thought he was going to be sick.

And in that instant, remembrance surged through him like a shock of electricity. His hand shot into his pocket and his fingers closed around the Bloodeye for the final time. Words sprang to his lips unbidden: ‘Far and away and here.’ Just a rustle in the stillness of the courtyard, but they were heard a universe away.

A shadow like a giant spider fell across the snow. One of the guards choked on an exclamation of horror in his throat.

The gun fell into the snow and hot, sticky liquid splattered over the back of Hal’s head. The other guard was shouting into his radio: ‘The prisoner is escaping. Repeat, the prisoner is-’

There was a tearing sound, a gurgling and then silence. Still shaking, Hal raised his head to see the bodies of the guards lying nearby, broken and bloody.

‘Come, Brother of Dragons.’ The voice sounded like fingernails on glass. Hal looked around to see Shadow John from The Hunter’s Moon lurking in the twilight area between the shadows and the snow, his seven-foot-tall, painfully thin figure given extra height by his stovepipe hat. Yet there was something different about him. In the pub, he had appeared jovial and elegant, but in the cold, hard night of the real world there was a menacing air about him. He was hunched slightly, one gimlet eye darting hungrily back and forth, those stretched-toffee fingers now sharp as razors and stained with blood.

Hal stood up, fighting to steady himself. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he ventured.

‘Do? You must run, Brother of Dragons. Run!’ Shadow John waved a skeletal arm wildly. ‘And hide! Your enemies here will kill you if they find you! Run! And we shall protect you!’

There was a frightening insistence in Shadow John’s voice, verging on madness. Hal didn’t wait a second longer. He turned and bolted back the way he had been brought.

In the first corridor, he came across Mother Mary, the cackling old crone, who had seemed almost senile the last time he’d seen her. She sat cross-legged in a pool of gore, white cap stained scarlet, while her black cat played with the remains of a guard. As Hal ran past her, she eyed him coldly, like a lion ready to pounce. Hal didn’t look back.

Two minutes later, he came across another familiar figure. The attractive but unbalanced woman with the long blonde hair that moved like snakes had another guard pinned against a wall; it was impossible to tell if she was attacking him or seducing him. His trousers were open, his erect penis gripped tightly in her hand, but his eyes had rolled upwards to show the whites and a string of drool was falling from one corner of his mouth.

She looked at Hal seductively. ‘Run, Brother of Dragons,’ she whispered sibilantly.

Hal ran, scared now that what he had unleashed might prove worse than the threat he had sought to eliminate. The man who resembled a devil, with horns and cloven hooves, stalked past, completely oblivious to Hal; there was murder in his eyes and a smell of brimstone about him. Further on, Bearskin hunched over a bundle of bloody rags, feeding.

Finally, Hal came to a dark, deserted room and flung himself inside. He slammed the door shut and slipped down to the floor, listening to the constant padding of feet without, and the sounds of rending, and the running, and the screams, until he covered his ears and bowed his head and wished he was a boy again.

Oxford felt like Christmas Eve as Hunter, Mallory and Caitlin ran through the deserted streets. Preternaturally quiet, with the snow lying heavy on the rooftops and roads, there was something uncannily magical about the city. Occasionally, they glimpsed shimmering buildings, ghostly in blue, hovering just behind the familiar ancient landmarks. Just a trick of the light, they told themselves.

Somewhere, Ruth Gallagher was harrying the remnants of the Lament-Brood to destruction. It was in all their minds: once she had been like them, someone struggling to do the right thing against impossible odds, and now she had risen to the status of legend. A human become god. And so it was for all the Five who had fought at the Fall: gods and demi-gods, angels — and even, in Veitch, a devil to haunt the nightmares of the people. Great, greater, greatest.

Yet this time it was down to the three of them, and Sophie wherever she was, and the mysterious fifth, to defeat something of such magnitude that it was defined as the opposite of life. It didn’t seem right; it certainly wasn’t fair.

Only Hunter had reached any kind of accommodation with the dilemma. For him, it was simply a matter of acceptance. Samantha’s death had removed any link he had with the rest of the world. He had no need of softness or any care for his own survival. Now it was simply death or glory.

And so they arrived at Brasenose. At first glance it appeared deserted, though lights glared from the windows. No sounds of life greeted them as they ventured into the echoing corridors.

‘Maybe they all evacuated when the Lament-Brood came,’ Mallory hissed.

Hunter shook his head. ‘When the Government first moved here, they restructured this place for high security. It wouldn’t make sense for them to leave — they’d be safer here than anywhere else.’

Caitlin stopped moving and sniffed the air. ‘There are people here. Down below.’

‘You can smell them?’ Mallory said incredulously. ‘You know what, sometimes you are an extremely creepy woman.’

Her smile was a challenge. ‘You don’t know the half of it.’

‘Then we should proceed with extreme caution,’ Hunter said. ‘Either they’re gathered for the execution, or they’re barricaded in waiting to blow the heads off anyone who turns up.’ He crept stealthily to the end of the corridor and sneaked a glimpse around the corner.

‘You’ve done this kind of thing before, haven’t you?’ Mallory said wearily.

‘Once or twice. Luckily for you.’

‘Me, I’d just charge in with sword swinging.’

‘Like I said, luckily for you one of us knows what they’re doing.’