Graham Masterton - The Doorkeepers

“Calm down, Abraxas,” she soothed him, even though her voice was shaking. “Come on, boy, calm down!” But Abraxas struggled even more wildly, and barked, and bit her hand, so that she almost let go of the rope. She looked down and the whole world seemed to tilt.

“Drop the dog!” John Farbelow shouted at her. “You don’t have any choice, Ella! Drop the damn dog!”

“I can’t!” she screamed. But at that instant, Abraxas struggled out of her grasp and jumped toward the ground. Ella twisted around to see what had happened to him, and it was then that the rope broke.

She snatched at the wall, trying to find a handhold. Her fingertips momentarily caught the top of the sash window, but then they slipped. The next thing she knew she was plunging to the ground, her arms and legs frantically waving, as if she were drowning, rather than falling. She went on swimming until she hit the railings.

There was a dull ringing sound, like a leaden bell chiming. John Farbelow looked down and saw her lying crucified, her arms lolling on either side, both shins penetrated by the same cast-iron spike. She was staring up at the sky with her eyes wide open, as if she were surprised that this had happened.

Abraxas had hit the sidewalk on all fours. It looked to John Farbelow as if he had broken one of his legs, but he managed to limp back to the railings, and stand looking up at Ella’s body, whining in pain and perplexity.

The door opened with a crash. John Farbelow turned around as three men entered the room, all of them dressed in burnouses, like Arabs. Their faces, however, were completely masked with hessian hoods, with ragged holes torn open for their eyes.

He raised his hand and said, “I don’t know who you are, or who you’re looking for, but you’re making a mistake!”

One of the Hooded Men drew a long saber out of his robes, and approached John Farbelow with the confident crouch of a trained swordsman. John Farbelow could hear him hissing to himself, hissing in triumph.

“This is all a mistake. None of us had anything to do with Edridge.”

“Perhaps you did, perhaps you didn’t,” said one of the Hooded Men. “But, in history, even the innocent must pay for the sins of the guilty. It’s the law.”

John Farbelow looked away from him; and took in the positions of the other two Hooded Men. One of them was opening every one of Ella’s herbs and spices and tipping them on to the floor. The other was pulling all of her gewgaws off the wall, all her crucifixes and mirrors and necklaces and voodoo dolls, all of the pictures of her family and friends, and all of those people who had helped her to believe that she didn’t have to be enslaved.

“What are you going to do with me?” asked John Farbelow.

“We’re going to give you justice,” said the Hooded Man. “Isn’t that what you were always fighting for?”

“Without freedom, my friend, justice doesn’t mean anything.”

“So that’s what gives you your excuse to murder anybody you like?”

John Farbelow moved slowly sideways. If he was quick enough, he could dodge between the two Hoodies who were ransacking Ella’s apartment and make it to the broken-down door. The third Hooded Man half-turned away from him for a second. “Look at this heathen trash. And to think this woman thought that she had some divine right to subvert our society.”

“Well …” said John Farbelow, as if he were going to say something in reply. But then he ran for the door, jinking from one side to the other like a football player.

Before any of the three Hoodies could turn around, he had made it to the door, and on to the landing. He seized the banisters and swung himself down the first flight of stairs. He heard the Hoodies shouting and running after him, their boots drumming on the cheap-carpeted treads. He threw himself down the next flight, and the next, and he was galloping down the last flight at full tilt when another Hoodie appeared in front of him, as black as the shadow of death, and he ran straight into his upraised sword.

He reached out with both hands, trying to grasp the Hoodie’s shoulders to support himself. He knew what had happened to him. He could feel that the steel had penetrated his lung and come right out of his back.

“Winnie,” he whispered; and he made a conscious effort to picture her, the way he had first met her, on the number fifteen bus. Because all of his subversion, after all, had been nothing more than his rage and his grief at losing Winnie.

The Hoodie, in turn, grasped his shoulder, and slowly tugged the sword out, and it was a hundred times more painful than it had been, going in – especially the way it slid against his ribs. John Farbelow collapsed on to his knees and tumbled down the last six or seven stairs into the hallway, next to the bicycle.

He lay with his cheek against the grimy green vinyl, watching his blood creep away from him. He saw the Hoodies’ boots stepping over him, as they left the apartment block and made their escape. By this time tomorrow, they would be back in the other London, and nobody would ever know who had murdered him. Worse still, nobody would ever know who he – or Ella – was.

Outside, in the street, Abraxas sat patiently on the sidewalk, while Ella lay spreadeagled on the railings, and the hazy afternoon air was filled with the whooping of ambulances and police cars.

Twenty-Four

Josh and Petty ran down Kingsway, their footsteps echoing against the derelict buildings. Fires were still burning in the offices all around Aldwych, and they could hear the ringing of fire-engine bells and the crackling of broken glass. All the same, they could still hear the penetrating tattoo of the drums that were following them; and the yapping of the dogs.

“Down here,” said Petty, and they turned left into Sardinia Street. In the open gardens of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, six or seven air-raid wardens were battling with a punctured barrage balloon, which filled up almost the whole square like a maddened but half-deflated elephant. They were tugging at ropes and trying to tie it down. “Your end, Reg! What the ‘ell are you up to? Pull your end!”

They reached Carey Street and turned into Star Yard. “Listen,” said Josh. “If we go through the door now, we’re going back to the world of the Hooded Men. Another London, nothing like this.”

More anti-aircraft guns coughed in the distance, over by the Surrey Docks. “There can’t be anywhere as bad as this,” said Petty. “And if we don’t go, they’ll catch us, won’t they, and kill us?”

“All right,” Josh agreed. He put his arms around her and gave her a hug.

They walked up Star Yard to the niche in the wall. Josh took three candles out of his pocket and set them on the ground.

“Is this all you have to do?” asked Petty.

“You have to recite a Mother Goose rhyme, too,” said Josh, touching each candle with his butane lighter, his hand shielding the wicks until they were all well alight.

“A Mother Goose rhyme? What’s that?”

Josh stood up. “You Brits call them nursery rhymes. Like Humpty Dumpty. This is a real old one, one of the oldest. ‘Six doors they stand in London Town …’” And then he said, “Jack be nimble, Jack be quick …”

Petty stared at him in growing disbelief. “That’s if! And that gets you through to this other London?”

“Try it,” said Josh.

Petty held back. Exhausted and grimy and shocked as she was, this was enough. She couldn’t cope with madness as well.

“I don’t believe you,” she said.

“You saw the Hooded Man. You saw his face.”

Petty covered her eyes with both hands. “I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to have nothing to do with it. I don’t want to stay. I don’t want to go. I don’t know what I want to do.”