Graham Masterton - The Doorkeepers

The Hoodies’ dogs jumped against their chains and barked at Abraxas in hysterical fury. Abraxas barked angrily back, tugging Josh forward. But Josh managed to heave him back, and grab hold of his collar, and pull his head back.

“I’m going to let you off the leash,” he said. “You’re going to run, and you’re going to save yourself. Now, go!”

Just then, he heard the steel-sliding sound of a sword being drawn, right behind him. A sharp point jabbed into the back of his neck.

“You are under arrest,” said one of the Hooded Men. “You are charged with heresy, treason, murder, conspiracy to murder, subversion and insurrection.”

Josh didn’t move, but he unbuckled Abraxas’ collar, and before the Hooded Man could stop him, Abraxas went tearing off along the corridor with his claws scrabbling on the floor.

“Send a dog after it?” asked one of the dog-handlers, his own dog straining at the chain so hard that it was standing up on two legs, and whining like an acute asthmatic.

“Forget it,” said the Hooded Man. “We have what we wanted – don’t we, Mr Winward?”

“Screw you,” Josh retorted. “You don’t have any jurisdiction over me or anybody else who doesn’t live in this screwed-up London of yours. I want to see Nancy. I want to see her now. If you’ve hurt her – by God, even if you’ve even touched her. I don’t care what you do to me, I’m going to murder all of you, one by one.”

“I think you’re being a little optimistic, don’t you?” asked the Hooded Man. “There are many of us, and there is only one of you. And besides, this is our world, not yours. You have nowhere to run to. No friends, no hiding places. Ella Tibibnia is dead – we killed her. John Farbelow is dead – we killed him. Fifteen more subversives were eliminated on the very same day. Mrs Marmion’s mother, Ranjit Singh – many, many more. We rule all of these different existences, Mr Winward, and we keep very good order.”

“I want to see Nancy,” Josh insisted. He felt hopeless and exhausted and his teeth ached furiously, but his sole purpose was to find Nancy. Even if she were dead already.

The man in the blue blazer came up to him and offered his hand. “Allow me to introduce myself. Frank Mordant. You and I could do business together.”

“What?” Josh retorted. “You’ve got your fucking nerve. You murdered my sister. You personally murdered my sister!”

“Oh, come on, Mr Winward, it wasn’t like that at all. We were fooling around a little. You know what it’s like, the boss-secretary relationship? She said she wanted to try this restricted breathing thing.”

“I don’t believe a goddamned word of it. You murdered her.”

“I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to believe it, but it’s true. One minute we were going at it hammer and tongs. The next minute, she went all blue and I had to call the ambulance. Dead on arrival, I’m afraid.”

“You’re out of your mind. Julia would never try anything like that.”

“I know she was your sister, and you knew her very much better than I did. But our brothers and sisters don’t always tell us everything about their private inclinations, do they?”

“So who mutilated her? Who emptied her out?”

“It was all in a very good cause,” said Frank Mordant, taking his arm. Josh immediately twisted himself free. “When your sister Julia died, another was able to carry on living.”

“You took all of her organs without any kind of permission, and then you just dumped her body in the river.”

“Actually, no permission was required. Living here, in this London, she was subject to all of our laws. Vital organs can be taken from the dead at the discretion of the surgeon in charge. It’s quite humane, when you think about it. And don’t tell me it doesn’t happen in your world, too.”

“You think it was humane to throw her in the Thames?”

“That was undignified, I’ll admit. But we wanted you to have her body back. There can’t be anything worse than losing somebody and never discovering what happened to them.”

They walked together along the stuffy corridor with the Hooded Men and the dog-handlers following close behind them. One of the Hooded Men caught up with Josh and said, “I want you to call that mongrel of yours.”

“I can’t. He’s not even mine.”

“If you don’t call it, I’m going to send our own dogs after it, and have them rip it apart right in front of you, and eat it.”

“I can’t call him. He just won’t answer. And he could be anyplace by now.”

The Hooded Man turned to the dog-handlers and said, “Let them off the leash. I want that animal found and destroyed.”

“Yes, sir,” they said, and unclipped their animals’ leads so that they could follow Abraxas’ scent.

The dogs immediately ran off, but they were only thirty feet down the corridor when Josh called out, “Hey!” and gave them a piercing birdlike whistle. Both dogs skidded to a stop and turned around and stared back at him in expectation.

“What are you waiting for?” one of the dog-handlers screamed at them. “Go and track down that other damned dog! Kill!”

Josh said, “There’s no point in yelling at them. You should appeal to their better nature.”

The dog-handler had a blue-shaved head and his face was scarred like a patchwork quilt. “None of my dogs has a better nature.”

“Yes, they do,” said Josh. He put out his hands and the dogs came trotting up to him. He rubbed their heads and tugged at their ears. The dog-handler was furious and astounded at the same time.

“Did you ever hear of the Montenotte Method?” Josh asked.

“No, I didn’t.”

“The Montenotte Method says that you can teach a dog to be aggressive by appealing to its sense of loyalty.”

“This dog is aggressive because I’ll strangle him if he isn’t.”

Josh rubbed the dogs’ muzzles and let them go. They walked uncertainly toward the staircase, paused, and looked back at their handlers, bewildered.

“ GO !” screamed the bald handler. “Kill, or I’ll feed your bollocks to the cats!”

The dogs scampered off down the stairs and out of sight.

“I see you have a very special talent, Mr Winward,” said Frank Mordant.

“Anybody who cares about animals can do it,” Josh told him. “And I care enough about Abraxas to buy him a little more time to get away.”

Frank Mordant smiled. Then he said, “You wanted to see Miss Andersen? Come along, and I’ll show you.”

He stood beside Nancy’s bed and he hardly knew what to say. She was pale and drugged, and her eyes were puffy, but he could see that they hadn’t hurt her.

“Josh,” she whispered, reaching out her hand for him. “I’m so sorry. I thought I could find Frank Mordant for you … I really thought I could do it.”

He took a step closer to the bed, but the Hooded Man said, “That’s near enough.”

Frank Mordant said, “As you can see, she’s a little sleepy, but we’ve kept her in the best of health.”

“What are you going to do with us?” asked Josh.

“Me, personally, nothing. I’m only a minion, I’m afraid. I brought Nancy here because the Doorkeepers had a warrant out for her arrest, and yours, and I really didn’t have a choice. If it had been up to me, I would have let her go. My conscience is clear about Julia, I promise you. She died by accident. But Miss Andersen came after me, and you came after her, so what was I to do?”

The Hooded Man said, “Tomorrow at noon you will hear the judgement of the Masters of Religious Observance; and then you will know what punishment you will suffer.”

“You can’t do this. You don’t have any right.”