Graham Masterton - The Doorkeepers

Abraxas came over to John Farbelow’s couch and started to lick at his hand, his tail slapping against Ella’s legs. “Shit. Just what I need. Dog spit.”

“Abraxas is very hygienic, aren’t you, Abraxas? I give him licorice root to chew. It’s good for his breath and it’s a wonderful laxative.”

“They killed my children, Ella.”

Ella handed him a steaming blue-decorated mug. “Here, drink this. It’ll make you feel better.”

“It’s not more of your stinking ragwort tea, is it?”

“No. Black coffee with a double vodka in it.”

John Farbelow eventually pulled the durry away from his face and managed to sit up. There was a diagonal sword-cut across his left cheek, and his right eye was swollen up like a plum.

“They killed my children, Ella. How can I live with myself?”

“You have to. We all have to. It’s the price we pay for fighting against the Lord Protector and the Doorkeepers. You seem to think that it’s wonderful, living here. But this isn’t home, is it? This is exile. Who cares if they know how to cure TB and they can fly to the moon? Home is where your heart is, John, and nobody can ever take that away from you.”

Abraxas gave a sharp bark of agreement. John Farbelow tugged at his ears and rubbed him under his chin. “What a price, though, Ella. What a price to pay. We rescued one man and where is he now?”

“I don’t know. But I suspect he’s gone back, looking for his girlfriend.”

John Farbelow reached into the pocket of his shirt that was hanging on the chair beside the couch and took out a pack of cigarettes. He lit one, and coughed like a dredger.

“They’ll kill you, those things.”

“Not where you and I come from, Ella. They haven’t discovered the connection yet, between smoking and lung cancer. And even if they have, they’re keeping really, really quiet about it.”

Ella said, “I had a very strong feeling that we ought to rescue Josh Winward. I saw it in my tealeaves and I saw it in the Sybil. I also saw it in the ordinary deck. Every time I asked if we should take the risk of rescuing Josh, it came up with an ace. You know what that means, don’t you?”

“Of course. You haven’t shuffled the deck properly.”

“It means that Josh is the chosen one. I’ve seen this before. It means that no matter what you think of him, or how much you question his importance, or his good sense, or his courage, he is the chosen one. Some people are just like that. They’re chosen by fate, no matter what their aptitudes are. Joan of Arc. Toussaint I’Ouverture. Lawrence of Arabia.”

John Farbelow swallowed coffee and sucked at his cigarette and blew smoke out of his nose. “I don’t know, Ella. All this occult shit.”

“Julia Winward’s lung came out of her brother’s mouth during my séance and that was psychic evidence that somebody had stopped her from living and breathing, and a guide to how to find them. If I did the same to you, who knows, you might even find yourself holding Winnie’s hand.”

“Just her hand?”

“Of course. Spirits only materialize in little pieces. To bring a whole person back … that would probably kill the medium, and everybody else in the room. How do you think the Hoodies found you, underneath the British Museum?”

“Somebody grassed us up, that’s all. It doesn’t take much, does it? A few packets of fags and a bottle of this world’s whiskey.”

“They found you because you were all excited, after you rescued Josh Winward. The Hoodies could feel your excitement, and their dogs could, too. Especially since you killed that Thomas Edridge. I know Thomas Edridge, and I’m glad he died. For your own safety, though, you should have let him go.”

“Yes,” said John Farbelow, wearily.

Ella held his hand. “I feel guilty, that so many of your young people were killed.”

“Well, I feel guilty, too; and sometimes I wish that the Hoodies had killed me, instead of any one of those young people. But that’s not the way life works, is it? Life is unfair. Life is full of surprises. All of those clichés.”

At that moment, there was a pummeling knock on the apartment door. Abraxas barked wildly and ran over to it. John Farbelow swung his legs off the couch and said, “Ella? Are you expecting anybody?”

“No, I’m not. And even if I was, they’d always press the downstairs bell first.”

John Farbelow went over to the kitchen area, tugged open the cutlery drawer and took out a chopping knife.

“It could be Nancy or Josh,” said Ella.

John Farbelow shook his head. “It could be. But I’m not taking any chances, that’s all.” He went over to the door and listened. There was silence for a long, long while – so long that Ella thought that whoever it was had given up and left. But then there was another thunderous knocking, and something that sounded like a kick.

“For Christ’s sake, that’s my door!” shouted Ella.

“Open up!” a voice demanded, in a muffled roar.

“Oh, Jesus,” said John Farbelow. “It’s the Hoodies. They’re here.”

“Oh, shit. How good are you at abseiling?”

“Abseiling – what are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about climbing out of the kitchen window and sliding on a rope down to the sidewalk.”

“Without anybody seeing us, or shooting us, or bursting into this room and cutting the rope when we’re halfway down?”

“We don’t have any alternative, do we?”

John Farbelow looked at her, and for the first time Ella saw beneath the ravages of age and pain and grief, saw the kind of hopeful young man he must have been once. Never striving to be anything important, but chosen all the same.

She climbed on to the kitchen sink and opened up the window. “The rope’s here. I think it’s safe. The fire brigade insisted that the landlord put it in.”

There was another kick at the door. The architrave splintered, and lumps of plaster fell down from the sides. Ella wriggled herself backward out of the window, gripping the rope with her left hand. “Abraxas!” she called. “Come on, boy! Come on, Abraxas!”

Abraxas hesitated but then he jumped up on to the draining board. John Farbelow shouted, “What the hell are you doing? You can’t take the dog down with you!”

“He’s my dog,” Ella insisted, just as the door was kicked again, and the two lower panels splintered.

“You can’t! You’ll kill yourself!”

Ella pulled Abraxas by his collar and dragged him out on to the windowsill. Abraxas whined and his claws scrabbled reluctantly against the stone, but Ella snapped, “Come on, stupid! You have to! You want to be sancoche?”

She managed to wrap her right arm around Abraxas’ chest. Then she edged her way backward, over the sill, and began to inch down the wall, gasping with the effort. John leaned out of the window and watched her in desperation. It was nearly seventy feet down to the sidewalk, and in front of the block of flats stood a row of spiked cast-iron railings. Behind the railings there was a deep area crowded with metal trash cans and pieces of rusty corrugated iron and pieces of timber.

“Take it slowly, Ella,” John Farbelow cautioned her. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

Behind him, the lower door panels were kicked out, and the central bar splintered. John Farbelow looked around, anxiously. Two or three more kicks and the lock would give way.

Ella managed to reach the windowsill of the flat below. She was still clinging on tight, but when she stepped off, she began to spin around, so she had to pedal desperately to get her feet back on the sill again. Abraxas began to panic, and thrashed his legs, and so Ella had to wedge herself tight against the window frame to stop herself from losing her balance.