Marc Chadbourn - The Queen of sinister

Buckland returned with his whisky. 'You know I'm going to have to make an example of you?'

'You could let me go. I wouldn't say anything.' 'You see, it doesn't work like that. People always say they won't say anything. Then they go out and have a drink, or start trying to impress someone… some woman… and suddenly it's, "Mr Buckland couldn't touch me. I'm better than him. I'm smarter. I'm harder." And some people are stupid — they think that kind of stuff might be true. And then we have problems. You see, problems breed problems. So I always try to sort things out early. It's simpler that way.' He sipped his whisky while staring deep into Thackeray's eyes. A faint smile came to his lips. 'You're scared.'

'Who wouldn't be?'

'That's true.' Buckland took a long swig and flashed a glance at the plague warden, who moved towards a door at the back. 'You're a smart bloke,' Buckland continued. 'I can see that. I'm a good judge of character. You know things are different now.' He sucked on his lip while he searched for words to rephrase. 'You know there's things out there you wouldn't even have dreamed of a couple of years ago.'

'I've heard stories.'

'Not stories, friend. The truth. They're… supernatural.' He nodded with pride at his choice of word. 'And you know how hard I am? I'm so hard I caught one of them. I'm so hard that now it does everything I say, like a Staffordshire bull terrier, because it's scared of me. Can you believe that?'

Thackeray grew even more nauseous. Harvey had been right. He'd expected to be taken out and shot, maybe even beaten to death. But now his imagination was racing at what his fate would be. If Buckland had preserved this particular horror for teaching lessons, there was no doubt it would be even worse than anything he could imagine.

'I think you're going to have to meet him.' Buckland motioned to the door at the back where the plague warden waited.

Thackeray thought of Caitlin. All the guttersnipes and lowlifes were out on the street at night, slipping through the gloom, avoiding the areas where the occasional torch burned. Everywhere smelled of shit and urine and rot. In one area, women turned tricks for food, thinking there was safety in numbers. Children threw rocks at the rats, whose undulating movements created an eerie optical illusion in some streets where it looked as if the dark was rippling with water.

And the plague wardens came and went, scores of them on circuit after circuit, seeking out the latest poor afflicted, shooting some, herding others ahead of their bikes to the houses of the dead.

Caitlin passed through it all like a ghost. Blood thundered in her head, her heart, colouring her vision. Blood everywhere; inside, from the last surge of her period. Harvey kept a few paces ahead as he led the way, occasionally glancing back, unsure and a little scared of the woman who only hours earlier had appeared so weak and unthreatening.

Caitlin's skull echoed with the constant hard-edged whispers of the Morrigan, telling her terrible secrets, relating horrific stories of battlefields and slaughter, hinting at things to come. Caitlin's own inner voice felt insignificant next to it, but they were both there, side by side, sisters-in-blood.

'New Street Station's just up there,' Harvey hissed, then jumped when he saw that Caitlin already had an arrow notched. 'But I tell you, it's pointless. You'll never get past his guards. There's millions of them! Besides…' His voice grew sad. '… Thackeray'll be long gone by now.'

'You like him.' Caitlin scanned the approach to the station. Nothing moved.

'He's a good mate, the best. There aren't many that would have stuck with me.' He turned away from her. 'I'm not much good, really. Bit of a liability. Thackeray would have been better off on his own. He's got what it takes to survive. But he stuck by me. I'll never forget that.'

'When I go in, you stay far enough behind so you won't get hurt in any crossfire.'

'Don't worry about that — I'll be a speck on the horizon. You're mad, you know.' He took a step away in case she lashed out.

'That's what they say.' One hand went to her quiver to check her supply. 'I'm going to have to reclaim arrows as I go… don't have many left.'

'Right, right. You're sure you don't want to try to get a gun first? It would be-'

'Let's go.' She pushed past him towards the entrance. A firm hand between the shoulder blades propelled Thackeray into the room and the door closed behind him. At first, all he was aware of was the thunder of his heart in his head and the shortness of his breath. Then he became aware of the most foul stink, like rotting meat.

The room appeared pitch black until his eyes grew used to a thin light coming through small holes punched in the walls. It was just enough for him to see where the occupant of the room lay. Initially it looked like a shadow denser than any of the surrounding gloom, as though it were sucking the light into it like a mini-black hole. But then it began to move, rising up in the corner where it had been gnawing on something, and its skin glinted like oil. There were eyes, bestial and lethal, and a mouth, and mandibles, and a carapace of interlocking plates, and bony ridges, but every time he focused on a detail it changed before his eyes, so that all he had was a perception of something monstrous and deadly.

'They called themselves Fomorii,' Buckland had told him before he entered the room. 'The Fall came after a war between them and some others… some kind of gods. The Fomorii lost, and then they were gone, just like that. Except this one. This one couldn't get away because I had him.'

Thackeray had no idea how Buckland knew all this, or if he was just making it all up. He couldn't understand how Buckland could keep something like that constrained, working to his will. It didn't matter. The Fomor rose up nine feet or more, its shape flowing, becoming more terrifying with each incarnation until Thackeray thought he might go mad simply from looking at it.

He backed slowly into a corner. Caitlin came down the escalator so stealthily her feet never made a sound. The contrast between the blazing torches and the heavy darkness all around would have been distracting for some people, but Caitlin's vision now operated on a different level. It was as if she was staring through a scarlet filter. Every thing hidden in the shadows was available to her, and distance fell away so that she could pick out the finest detail across the length of the concourse.

She saw the razor-wire wall across the ticket barrier and the door in the centre of it. There was a slot halfway up the door.

Caitlin coughed loudly. The slot slid back and she saw a pair of piggy eyes glinting inside it. Raising the bow and loosing the arrow was a fluid blur. It sped across the concourse, slipped perfectly through the slot and rammed dead centre between the eyes with a sticky thud. A cry of shock rose up from her victim's colleague.

She only expected stupidity and she was easily rewarded. Another pair of eyes appeared at the slot, only this time she didn't loose an arrow. She was already standing a foot away from it, smiling innocently, her bow out of sight. She could almost hear the slow turning of the guard's mind.

'Quick,' she said breathlessly, 'let me in… before he gets me.' The guard acted on instinct; the door eased open a little. Caitlin was through it in an instant. The guard was stunned by her speed, but only had a second to register surprise before her stiffened hand rammed into his throat, bursting through his windpipe. She curled her fingers and ripped, tearing across until she ruptured his carotid artery. Blood sprayed all over, gouting up the door, across the floor. The guard fell down, clutching at his throat, still not quite believing what had happened. It was a woman; only a woman.