Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Vol 15

And then the pilot moved that ballooning, shapeshifting head closer to Smith’s. The dark lips parted and a voice hissed: “Alea jacta est.”

For a second the man reverted to statue-like stillness. Then the pressure vanished from Smith’s throat, and the pilot crumpled to the floor with the limpness of an empty sack. Smith gasped a few frantic breaths. Air had never tasted so sweet or cool. He tried to cock the revolver in case the man renewed his attack, but his hands were still weak. Instead, he steadied himself against the pillar with his free hand while breathing deeply. The pilot lay flat on his back without moving. Maybe those pistol shots had hit their mark after all.

“It’s all right, Arthur,” he said at length. “He’s out for the count.” Smith walked unsteadily to the old man and helped him stand. “How do you feel?”

“I might be old, lieutenant, but I’m tougher than I look.” In the deep twilight Machen glanced down at the fallen pilot, then back at Smith. “Moreover, I don’t believe the man poses much of a threat now, considering the holes you’ve stitched in his chest.”

Smith nodded. “He must have bailed out from one of the bombers last night and has been hiding in the church. What he hoped to achieve with his bare hands, heaven alone knows; the fool should have given himself up.”

Machen regarded the pilot. “Just before he collapsed, lieutenant, he spoke to you?”

“That he did, but apart from a few words I don’t speak German.”

“Our friend didn’t use any German words. It was Latin.”

“Latin?”

“He spoke the phrase: Alea jacta est.”

Smith gave a grim smile. “My Latin is as good as my German, I’m afraid.”

“Alea jacta est, Lieutenant. It means ‘the dice are cast.’”

“The man must have lost his mind.”

“Or he was delivering a message to you.” Machen rubbed his jaw. “ ‘The dice are cast’. Meaning, I venture, a sequence of events has been triggered which will have a decisive result. Though one which no one can predict.”

“But who sent him? How did he know we’d be here in this church tonight? His commanding officer couldn’t have ordered him here when even we didn’t know we’d be in the place until a few hours ago.”

“Lieutenant Smith, you’ve missed the point.”

“What point?”

“The man’s commanding officer ordered him to bomb London, not deliver a warning in Latin to you.”

“Then who did?”

“I don’t know. But I dare say there was no mortal hand in this.”

“I disagree. There was.”

Machen looked at him levelly. “Whose mortal hand?”

“His. The pilot’s.”

Smith watched Machen kneel down with some difficulty beside the man.

“Don’t get too close, Arthur.”

“He won’t move again. Not of his own volition, anyway.”

“Then I’m a better shot than I thought.”

The writer pulled back the tunic collar and touched the pilot’s bare neck. “He is dead. And he’s been dead for hours.”

“Impossible.”

Machen tugged up the flying goggles to reveal two raw sockets devoid of eyes. The writer drew a breath of distaste. “This man died in his aircraft. The shock wave from an anti-aircraft shell destroyed his eyes, no doubt at the same moment that it disintegrated his plane. See how the arms and legs bend? Every bone in his body was shattered when he struck the ground. The neck is dislocated, allowing extreme-”

“Stop it… please don’t tell me any more.”

“So, you’ll realize why two bullets in the man’s chest didn’t stop him. You can’t kill a dead man.”

Smith shook his head, feeling reality flee with the daylight. “Tell me, Arthur. What forces are at work here?”

“I don’t know. But I believe some course of action is expected of you.” He looked up at Smith. “I’m beginning to wonder if you were the individual responsible in the Great War for summoning divine intervention on the battlefield.”

“No. I merely witnessed it. I wasn’t the instigator.”

“No?”

“No. How can I have been? I did nothing.”

“Maybe you didn’t have to perform a conscious act or ritual. Or even utter an incantation. Perhaps you acted as a passive catalyst-”

“No.”

“Or a conduit for a greater power.”

This was not what Smith had anticipated. He’d come seeking this man — looking for answers, not more complex questions. “Please, Arthur. I’d rather leave here now.” He could not look away from the face that had no eyes.

“Very well. It’s probably for the best.”

“We should inform the police about-”

“Don’t worry, he’ll be found soon enough. Come.”

Smith followed the writer as he hurried along the aisle. When they reached the door Smith glanced back.

The dead man sat bolt upright. The empty eye sockets fixed on him as if the corpse looked deep into his soul. “Alea jacta est,” the voice cracked the silence. “Alea jacta est.”

The dice are cast.

Saying nothing, believing nothing, Smith followed Machen out into the night.

For the first mile of their walk through the night-time streets Smith repeatedly glanced back, expecting to see the dead pilot loping after them. What he could do then to protect Machen and himself, he had no idea. The corpse had been immune to bullets, it was no respecter of sacred ground, and Smith was no match for its phenomenal strength.

However, by the second mile he was confident that the corpse was not following. For the time being, they were safe.

Smith glanced at Machen as they walked side by side. “You believe that somehow I invoked the miracle that I witnessed — the same one you wrote about in ‘The Bowmen’?”

“I’m reaching that conclusion. As I’m reaching the conclusion that we find ourselves on this quest to learn more about the matter, because somehow it will become relevant shortly. The dice are cast. I feel that we are somehow suspended between disaster and salvation.”

“And am I the key to this?”

“Yes, lieutenant, I believe you are. Your time is come again. You must act to save your nation.”

Smith scoffed, shook his head, desperate to deny this madness. “How? And save the country against what?”

“We are at war.”

“That I do know. But I can’t win a war single-handed. Am I to arrive in Berlin with a pistol in my hand and assassinate Hitler?”

“If only you could…” Machen tilted his head, his hair glinting silver in the near-dark. “All I do know is that you will be required to act… and act soon.”

“But I don’t know…”

“I don’t think I should be with you right now,” Machen said.

“What? What do you mean?”

“I’m an old man, and I’ve had more than my share of frights these past days. Much as I’ve sought wonders all my life, I simply feel right now that I should go home to my wife. She’ll be waiting for me. I’m very old, lieutenant. Very old. Soon the time will come when I know the truth of things for sure, but right now… right now, I believe it’s time for you to be alone. It’s time for me to leave things to happen.” He turned to walk away, and then glanced back at Smith, a smile askew on his face. “Who knows… maybe one day I’ll write a story about this.”

Machen left Smith on the darkened street. Within seconds the old man had disappeared into the shadows, lost to the night. Smith stared after him open-mouthed, feeling lost and loss.

A siren sang out in the distance, warning of yet another night of bombing and destruction, chaos and death. Smith’s confusion was supplanted by an increasing desperation, the idea that he had failed totally to carry out the task he had set himself. Though he had learned much since meeting Machen and escaping the bombed house, he had not discovered enough, nowhere near enough to effect any change. The bombers were still drifting in from the east, the slaughter would continue, and all the mysteries piled up behind him — the window, the living-dead German airman, his knowledge of what only Machen should truly know — they were nothing compared to the horror about to come once again to London.