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  And then I spotted something down there that made me think again, a splash of red amongst the green and brown vegetation. Another, and still more. Different colours now, some of them easily camouflaged by the shrubbery around them. Most of those tones were faded, but the red was easily recognizable: they were the uniforms worn by the castle’s keepers, the warders, the scarlet tunics of the Beefeaters. I understood instantly what had taken place here.

  The inner wards of the Tower had been cleared of corpses by the new squatters, the Blackshirts themselves, those bodies dumped out of sight into the surrounding moat and left there to rot. The less visible carcasses were in khaki, the uniforms of regular soldiers, and the rest, I figured, were the forms of wives, kids and visitors on that fateful day, all dressed in wartime drab. The Blackshirts didn’t give a cuss about the allotments and fresh vegetables, not when other food was so readily and easily available, so the vegetation was left to cover the mass grave.

  So okay, the game was still on.

  I stole from the cover of the archway and dashed across the causeway. Now I was inside the fortress itself.

  Once through the next dim passageway, I grew even more cautious, sure I was drawing closer to the hub of things. To my left was a little road called Mint Street, where in the olden days the Tower had its own money-making operation going; there were quaint, tiny dwellings where the Yeoman Warders and their families lived, as I recalled. Part of the street was in ruins, another lucky bomb-hit. In front of me was Water Lane, its uneven, cobblestone roadway dangerous if you were in a hurry; I made a mental note to watch my step when things heated up later on. At the corner where these streets met was another tower, this one with a bell house jutting from its top, and the windows in its thick walls set me feeling exposed again – it was too easy to imagine marksmen watching me from inside, waiting for the right moment to shoot I moved across the intersection in a crouching run, coming to a halt only when I was around the tower and flat against the wall on the other side. From there I made my way along Water Lane, keeping close to the wall, alert for any sound, any movement, not stopping again ‘til I’d reached another archway opposite a set of steps leading down to the water-filled entrance known as Traitors’ Gate, where criminals, political outcasts and dignitaries alike had been brought to the Tower by boat. Sunlight shone through the bars of the massive gate and the grille-work above it to pattern the still waters below, this grim pit partially roofed by a wide sweeping archway carrying a timbered building, whose windows overlooked my position. Yet again, I felt too vulnerable, so I didn’t linger.

  I scurried into the shadows of the passage beneath the Bloody Tower (yeah, that name seemed about right), going down on one knee at the end of it to survey the wide, open area laid out before me, re-familiarizing myself with the lie of the land before advancing any further.

  A broad walkway with a couple of sets of rising steps stretched out ahead of me, the long overhanging branches of untrimmed trees from untidy greens on either side creating welcome shadows, the great square edifice of the White Tower, the tower of legend, looming at least ninety feet on the right of the final set of steps, the ragged flag I’d spotted from outside suspended limply from its roof. To my left was a high grey wall, broken by a narrow opening where steps led up to the next level. I knew that up there, beyond the wall, were two adjoining rows of Tudor houses and cottages, all whité plaster and wooden beams, among them the Queen’s House, the official residence of the Tower’s Governor, and there, I guessed, was where I’d find Hubble.

  I was about to make my way towards it when movement caught my eye. Keeping perfectly still, I let my eyes search out the disturbance (you never try and duck out of sight if any motion on your part might give away your own position), and then I saw them, sinister black shapes moving about the tall grass in front of the White Tower, creeping, it seemed to me right then, like dark assassins closing in for the kill. I released my breath when one of the creatures fluttered its wings – the same one who’d caught my attention a couple of seconds before – and flew to a post at the top of the timber stairway to the tower’s entrance. The big bird sat there on its perch, its long beak stabbing the air. Another appeared on the side wall to the steps ahead of me, then another hopped across open ground in the distance, and it was only then that I realized that these were the Tower of London’s legendary ravens. At least six of them had been kept here through the centuries by clipping their wings so they couldn’t fly, the superstition being that any fewer meant the monarchy would fall. Obviously these birds had bred unsupervised after the Blood Death and, although it was common for other ravens to devour new eggs and some males might even kill off their own young out of jealousy, quite a few here had managed to survive. I guessed that this new breed, with no one around to clip their wings, stayed in, or always returned to, the castle grounds out of habit, or because of some kind of natural instinct passed from generation to generation.

  Now I understood what had happened to the carthorse on Tower Hill, and was glad I hadn’t examined any of the human corpses lying thereabouts. But with that thought, there came another, one that hit me so hard that my body sagged and my head lowered so that my chin was almost touching my chest. This thought was like a nightmare, one that was constant and came in waking hours as well as in dreams, an image I’d tried so hard to suppress, but one I could never forget It visited me as fresh and horrific as its moment of reality, a harsh vision of Sally, my wife, outside the cheap basement flat we’d rented, lying in the stairwell, so still, so dead, her eyes gone, her…

  The bitterness erupted and suddenly I could no longer see clearly, everything before me had become blurred, watery…My shoulders hunched over as I leaned forward on my knees, forehead inches away from the ground. But I fought it, I fought hard, forcing myself up again, shaking my head as if to loosen the sight trapped inside. The fingers of my free hand cleared my eyes and slowly, deliberately, I made myself think of what lay ahead of me that morning – after all, it was for Sally as much as Stern and Cagney and all those other victims, and it was for myself, it was especially for myself…And oddly, it was the thought of Cagney among all those others that brought me back to the present. Not because of what the Blackshirts had done to him, but because of those sinister black birds maundering around the castle grounds. What they had tried to do to him.

  It hadn’t been a couple of miles from this very location that the dog and I had first set eyes on each other, the time I’d been digging in the allotment to look up and discover Cagney watching and sniffing my lunch from a safe distance. The day Cagney had been attacked by ravens and together we’d fought them off. Those ravens had come from this place, I knew it as sure as I knew Hubble and his maniacs had set up camp here. My hands tightened around the Sten gun. I wanted to blast those evil, stinking predators into oblivion, blow every one of ‘em into a puff of black feathers and shredded flesh, because I associated them with all the vermin that still roamed this world, human and animal alike. I thought of Cagney on the doorstep, his hind legs bloodied and crippled, and I thought of every victim of the Blood Death, not destroyed by some manufactured disease, but by the wicked intent of the corrupt few we’d once shared this planet with. And I thought of those malign bastards still left running loose to kill and maim, to take what didn’t belong to them…Oh yeah, I wanted to kill those ravens and what they represented, and I even took aim at the one on the post; but the cold calmness came back to me before I could squeeze the trigger. Those creatures were not the real badness; they just looked like it to me at that moment I lowered the weapon.

  I got to my feet and, swiftly and quietly, I entered the narrow opening in the wall on my left and climbed the mossy steps. Before reaching the top, I knelt down and peeked round the low wall that overlooked another neglected lawn and the two terraced rows of Tudor houses and cottages. There didn’t appear to be any life inside those dwellings, but I noticed two rusted water trucks parked untidily in front of them, and they told me all I needed to kno
w. The antiquated waterpipe system of the old castle and its quarters hadn’t been able to cope with the severity of the previous two winters, the pipes probably cracking, the system flooding, everything breaking down, so the residents here had had to bring in their own supply. I waited a few minutes before making my next move, and when I did it was almost a mistake.

  The dark-garbed figure emerged from a concealed set of steps at the far end of the smaller houses opposite just as I came out from the cover of the wall. Whoever it was over there had obviously come from a rampart tower, whose entrance was on a lower level to the cottages and green, so that first the head appeared followed by the shoulders. I’d already dodged back behind the wall, disobeying my own rule of remaining still because I’d have been noticed anyway. It was a chance I’d had to take, and it seemed I was in luck – there were no shouts of alarm, only the distant scuffing of boots on concrete. The figure was marching – and I mean marching – across the courtyard, past the site of the Tower’s notorious chopping block towards the castle keep, the White Tower itself. I stayed out of sight, peering over the wall only when I thought it was safe. But the marching figure was gone from view and I had to stand erect to catch a glimpse of it again. The dark-uniformed man was just disappearing behind the far corner of the White Tower.

  Keeping low, I ran forward on the balls of my feet, making hardly any noise at all. In a clear area of the great yard I noticed a solitary machine gun on a tripod; it looked like a Vickers Mk 1 and I was relieved to see its fabric ammunition belt was empty. The gun had probably been left there by garrison soldiers and the Blackshirts had enjoyed themselves taking potshots at easy targets: a black sentry box near one of the cottages was a mess of bullet holes and splinters. Maybe Hubble took his military pretensions so seriously he insisted his followers keep up target practice. I wondered if he had them parade marching as well.

  Leaving my cover, I crossed open ground to the corner of the White Tower, pausing there to scan the area. Across the yard to my left was a small chapel and directly opposite was a huge multi-windowed blockhouse, complete with elaborate battlements and gargoyles, an octagonal tower on either side of its entrance. I thought I heard noise coming from somewhere in that direction, but although I listened hard nothing else came. Sneaking a hasty look around the turret I was leaning against, I caught a flash of black uniform entering a second raised doorway to the White Tower.

  So, was this it? Was this where the Blackshirts and their hostages were gathered? The rest of the grounds seemed deserted and it made sense for Hubble to keep his captives in one location. So what better place than the White Tower itself? There were large display rooms inside, the exhibits anything from cannon to armour, with plenty of space to hold prisoners. And plenty of room to…I prayed to God they hadn’t already begun the transfusions.

  I knew I couldn’t waste any more time. I slipped round the corner and raced towards the stone staircase leading up to the keep’s doorway, at any moment expecting the Blackshirt to reappear; but it didn’t happen, I had a clear run. Without breaking stride, I grabbed the iron stair rail and climbed, taking the steps two at a time, holding the Sten gun in one hand by its pistol grip, muzzle aimed at the doorway above, my hand sliding along the top of the rail to steady myself. I reached the small landing without incident.

  The double doors to the keep were wide open, but there were no sounds from inside. I snuck a quick look, then pulled back again, allowing the impression of what lay beyond the opening to sink in.

  The room was below door level, a vast basement chamber with archways and flagstone floor, helmets and breastplates mounted around its dingy walls and cannon of various sizes arranged in neat rows inside alcoves along its length on either side of the central area Iron chandeliers hung from the high, dusty ceiling, but much of the light came from lanterns placed around the room, the rest from the big doorway itself, revealing a scene so horrific I really didn’t want to take a second look.

  Leaning back against the outside wall, my eyes shut tight, I fought the nausea that threatened to debilitate me. But it wasn’t only the sight of those half-naked bodies down there, corpses of men and women sprawled in their own gore, rubber tubes still attached to some of their arms, the smell of excrement thick with the stench of blood, that caused the sickness in me; no, it was my own dread sense of failure as well. I’d let them down, left it too late. The Blackshirts had already carried out their stupid, desperate plan to purge their veins and replenish them with new blood, and those first volunteers had paid the price along with their victims, because they lay dead too in that terrible crimson flood. I prayed to God Hubble was down there among them.

  I forced myself to take another look, hoping there might be some that were still alive, a few I could help before they bled to death. And I was curious to discover if Hubble really had been destroyed by his own lunacy. I guess I was curious to know about Muriel too.

  Some of the Blackshirts were still slumped in wooden chairs, their ‘donors’ lying beside them; others lay curled up on the soaking floor, their hands curled into claws, mouths open as if in silent screams, as if the infusion of alien blood had sent their bodies into paroxysms of agony. I wanted to scream at them for their reckless stupidity, for the useless barbarity of it all. Why hadn’t they at least waited, tried the transfusions one at a time so that when the first or second failed, they’d give it up? I guess I was underestimating their desperation – what the hell did they have to lose anyway? – as well as the damage already done to their brains and their unfailing belief in their leader. But the only pity I felt was for the victims; I felt nothing at all for the parasites.

  I stepped inside and stood on the small platform overlooking the charnel house, ignoring its stink as I searched among the contorted shapes; unfortunately, several were face down, or on their sides with their backs to me, and others were half-hidden in the alcoves. To be sure that Hubble and Muriel were with them I had to go down there for a closer inspection.

  As I went into that nasty hell-hole I began to realize there were not enough corpses here to account for all the Blackshirts and the people outside the Savoy, and that puzzled me. And the women and children – where were they? S’far as I could tell, there were no women here, and definitely no kids, yet two nights ago there’d been a whole bunch of them. I figured there were about twenty bodies that I could see, and Hubble’s army alone must’ve amounted to triple that number, despite their losses in the air raid on the hotel and those I’d killed personally. I reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped over outstretched limbs, avoiding the worst of the blood lake, working my way along the alcoves, peering past the battered cannons into the dark corners, looking for more bodies, hoping to find some live ones.

  I must’ve been concentrating too damned hard, because he was almost on me before I heard the first sound.

  I hadn’t forgotten about the man I’d followed into this place, my mind had just been distracted, is all. It was the splashing of his boots through the blood that caused me to wheel around in his direction. He must’ve been waiting inside an opening at the far end of the chamber, watching me all the time, and now he was coming at me in a rush, a mediaeval pike held out before him, its nasty-looking metal point aimed at my gut. In that instant I realized it wasn’t a Blackshirt uniform he was wearing, but the navy blue day-duty tunic of a Yeoman Warder. His long coat was dusty, torn in places, the red braiding frayed, missing in places, and his unkempt hair hung in loose tangles over his crazyman eyes, spittle glistening in his long, matted beard. Close as this, I could see two things about those wild eyes: they were leaking blood, and they were filled with a malevolent hatred that was just for me. Jesus, they almost rooted me to the spot, but my reflexes kicked in.

  I stepped towards him instead of backing away, turning my body to lessen the target area. There was no time to shoot him (besides, I didn’t want to alert any others who might be lurking in this place) so I looped the Sten gun’s sling over the pike’s metal tip as it skimmed pa
st me, just inches from my stomach. The sling caught on the red and gold silk tassel between the point and wooden staff and I yanked the weapon towards me, twisting away from the demented warden, using the pole as a lever to knock him off balance. He fell to his knees as I completed the turn and he yelped like the crazy he was as I drove my left fist into the back of his neck. He went down hard, his face smacking against the wet floor. It’d been a smart manoeuvre on my part, but it worked chiefly because of the man’s own sluggishness; he had the sickness in him, same as the Blackshirts.

  I pounced on him, my knee against his spine, the pikestaff still caught up in the gun’s sling. I dug the fingers of my free hand into his matted hair and jerked his head up, then smashed it back down against the flagstone. He gave a small gurgling kind of scream, then lay motionless. He wasn’t out though; a low moaning came from him. I was about to repeat the process, send him on his way for good – sure, I knew it wasn’t his fault, his brain was as diseased as his blood, but I’d spent too long at war with his kind and there was no sympathy left – but I thought of the victims around us, innocents who’d been murdered because they were different, had something the bad guys wanted for themselves. And I remembered there might be others still alive, but waiting to die. I lifted his head again.

  ‘Where are they?’ I hissed close to his ear.

  He wasn’t so mad that he didn’t know I’d crack his blood-drenched face against the floor again if I didn’t get an answer. Through bruised lips and cracked teeth he managed to say: ‘They…they took them.’