Jan Siegel - The Poisoned Crown - The Sangreal Trilogy Three

It wasn’t even the best route for him to take, on foot or by car, but he often drove that way, though this was the first time in over a year he had found a reason to stop. There was no light on the road and from time to time he stepped in a puddle, cursing under his breath as the water leaked into his shoes. The only sounds were the squelches of his own footfalls, the hiss of the occasional oath and the murmur of the rain. He didn’t know what made him turn round – instinct perhaps, a sixth sense developed over years of seeing life from the dark side. He could make out little in the murk but he had an impression of movement along the verge, a rustle beyond the rain – the susurration of bending grasses, the shifting of a leaf. And then, light but unmistakable, the scurrying of many feet – small feet or paws, running over the wet tarmac. An animal, or more than one: nothing human. Nothing dangerous. In an English wood at night, the only danger would be human. There were no panthers escaped from zoos, no wolves left over from ancient times – he didn’t believe in such stories. No animal could threaten him …

He was not a nervous type but all his nerves tensed: Fear came out of the dark towards him. Fear without a name, without a shape, beyond reason or thought.

Fear with a hundred pattering feet, just out of rhythm with the rain …

He knew it was illogical, but instinct took over. He turned and ran. Ahead, he saw the path through the trees, the gleam of a lighted window. He slipped in the wet and almost fell, lurching forward. Inside the house a dog barked once, sharp and imperative. The front door opened.

The man stumbled through the gap into Bartlemy’s entrance hall.

‘Chief Inspector Pobjoy,’ Bartlemy said. ‘What a pleasant surprise.’

In the living room he found himself seated by the fire, sipping some dark potent drink that was both sweet and spicy. Hazel surveyed him rather sullenly; after all, he had once treated her as a suspect in a crime. He said: ‘Hello,’ and, on a note of faint surprise, ‘you’ve grown up.’ He wondered if he should congratulate her on becoming a young lady, but decided she didn’t look like an eager aspirant to young-ladyhood, and he would do better to keep quiet. In any case, the Fear had shaken him – the violent, inexplicable Fear reaching out of the night to seize him. It wasn’t even as if it was very late.

Bartlemy said: ‘There’s some apple tart left,’ and threw Hazel an admonitory look when she muttered something about waste.

The apple tart was hot, blobbed with clotted cream. If Eve had prepared such a tart, the gods would have forgiven her the theft of the fruit.

Between mouthfuls, Pobjoy said: ‘I had a puncture.’

‘I’m surprised you didn’t phone for help,’ Bartlemy remarked. ‘On a night like this.’

‘Battery needs re-charging,’ Pobjoy explained.

Hazel thought with a flash of insight: He’s lying. Why? Has he come here to spy on us?

She said: ‘Let’s see.’

Pobjoy stared at her but didn’t answer.

‘Hazel, don’t be rude,’ Bartlemy said mildly. ‘I’m always happy to see the inspector. He helped save Annie from a psychopathic killer – or have you forgotten?’

‘She saved herself,’ Hazel argued. ‘She’s much tougher than she looks.’

‘I know,’ Pobjoy said. ‘She’s a very brave woman.’ He was disconcerted by his own recent cowardice, by the strange panic that had held him in its grip. He hid uncertainty behind the leftovers of his former grimness.

Bartlemy looked faintly amused, as if he knew. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘you’d better tell us what happened out there, before you fell through my door. You were running away from something, weren’t you?’

‘It was nothing,’ Pobjoy said. ‘Nothing I could see. The dark – some animal – I don’t know what came over me. I’m not one to jump at spooks, just because I’m on a lonely road.’

It was Hazel’s reaction which surprised him. ‘Them,’ she said, and her voice was gruff. And to Bartlemy: ‘It is, isn’t it?’

‘I fear so.’

‘But why were they after him? ’

‘The rules have changed,’ Bartlemy reiterated. ‘They’re out of control. You did well to run, my friend. Had they caught you, they would have entered your mind and driven you mad. Remember Michael Addison.’

‘This is nonsense,’ Pobjoy said, setting down his plate, fortified by the apple tart on its way to his stomach and the afterglow of the unknown drink. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I don’t believe it. All that supernatural crap. I was just – spooked. That’s all.’

‘Then go outside,’ Bartlemy said. ‘See for yourself.’

Pobjoy got up, walked through the hall, opened the door.

They were there, he knew it immediately. Watching for him. Waiting. Just beyond the reach of the light. He saw shadows shifting in the darkness – heard the whisper of the rain on the leafmould, and behind it another whispering, as of voices without lips, wordless and soulless. Suddenly, he found himself picturing Michael Addison’s drooling mouth and empty eyes. Fear reached out in many whispers. The hairs crawled on his skin.

He drew back, closing the door. Against the night, against Them.

Back in the living room he said, trying to keep his voice even: ‘What are they?’ And: ‘What do I do?’

‘For the moment,’ said Bartlemy, ‘you stay. I think you need another drink.’

Bartlemy sent Hazel home in a taxi which he paid for, even though she insisted she could perfectly well walk. ‘I have iron,’ she pointed out. ‘I’m not afraid.’ She was determined to put Pobjoy in his place, to show him that in a world of dark magic – a world where being a policeman counted for nothing – she was the one who could handle herself. But Bartlemy overruled her and Pobjoy barely noticed. He had more than enough to think about.

‘What are those creatures?’ he repeated, when the two men were alone.

And, in the subsequent silence: ‘I don’t believe in ghosts.’

‘They are not ghosts,’ Bartlemy said. ‘Here, they might be called magical, but you must realise magic is merely a name for a force we don’t understand. Once we can analyse it and see how it works it becomes science.’

‘That’s an old argument,’ Pobjoy said. ‘Television is magical unless you’re a TV engineer. The things out there – how do they work?’

‘They come from another universe,’ Bartlemy explained matter-of-factly. ‘They are made of fluid energy, with little or no solid form; partly because of this, some can migrate between worlds. The species has the generic name of gnomons, but those which are able to cross the barrier are called Ozmosees. I heard about them – read about them – once, but these are the first I have ever seen, since although they did exist in this universe, they died out here long ago. They are hypersensitive to sound, smell, light, but they have no intelligence and must be controlled. I am not sure how that is done; possibly by the dominion of a very powerful mind.’

‘What are you saying?’ Pobjoy demanded, resolutely sceptical. ‘They got here through the back of a wardrobe?’ He had read few of the right books but had once inadvertently watched a documentary on the making of Narnia.

‘I doubt it.’ Bartlemy smiled. ‘Unfortunately, I know very little about them, and their behaviour – as you must realise – is hard to study, though I have tried. The process may be assisted by attaching them to a person or object in this world, thus drawing them out of their place of origin. We cannot know for certain. However …’