Elliott snatched it from him, then whipped her mitten off. She held the knife over her palm, then pushed it down hard, cutting her hand open.
‘What – why?’ Will gasped, seeing how deep the incision was. She reached for his face, wiping her blood over him, smearing it down his cheeks.
‘What the hell …?’ he shouted.
‘Keep quiet,’ she whispered urgently. ‘I can hear them.’
And he could too. Unless it was the wind, he was sure that there was a humming sound. Something was coming.
She continued to pump her hand to produce more blood, spreading it all over him, over his arms and down his thighs.
‘If I can just fool them into thinking …’ she was saying as they heard a loud thump from above. Something had landed on the roof.
‘Is that one?’ he asked. Without knowing what he was doing, he began to pull away from Elliott, trying to extricate himself from between her and the wall.
‘No, for God’s sake, just keep still,’ she said, gritting her teeth as she raked the tip of the knife across her palm again. Even more blood was flowing from it as she ran her hand all round his head, streaking his white hair with it.
‘Keep absolutely still,’ she hissed at him again.
There were two crashes, the floor under their feet vibrating with each impact.
A pair of Armagi had flown in through the windows at either end of the corridor.
Will and Elliott hardly dared draw breath, let alone move.
They could hear and feel each impact of the Armagi’s clawed, griffin-like feet as the fearsome creatures advanced down the corridor from both directions. And through his lens Will was able to make out more of their appearances as they came closer, their transparent feathers gleaming in the moonlight, the muscles in their limbs slipping over each other like slabs of polished ice.
One headed straight for the wooden staircase, the other closing in on Will and Elliott. She had her back to what was going on in the corridor and couldn’t see.
But Will could.
The floorboards creaked under the Armagi’s weight as it came towards them, and stopped right behind Elliott. The height of a tall man, it had compound eyes like an insect, and they now rested on Will and Elliott.
Its head was translucent, the wall of the corridor visible through it, but fluids pumped around inside its cranium, and something pulsed like a tiny black heart at the very top of its exoskeleton.
Will could see the Armagi so clearly through his lens. It had a beak like a bird’s. But as it took another step closer to Elliott, Will could see that it wasn’t a solid beak because it had opened up into four insect-like mandibles.
Elliott’s body stiffened against Will’s as the Armagi inclined its head and scraped the upper pair of mandibles along the top of her shoulder. All the time, it was drawing in air, sniffing.
Then it was still for a moment, as if it had picked up a scent.
Will couldn’t breathe – he didn’t dare.
The Armagi swivelled away from him and Elliott, making a quarter turn. It had a small pair of transparent sticks at the nape of its neck – they were the diameter of knitting needles. Will watched as they began to beat together, faster and faster until they were moving so quickly they became a blur. They were vibrating together, but he couldn’t hear anything. He wondered if Elliott could. Then he realised that they weren’t that dissimilar from the insect legs that sprouted from the same spot on the Styx women’s spines.
But Will couldn’t think about that now. For a moment he dared to let himself believe that he and Elliott were going to escape with their lives. Or, if Elliott thought that there was no danger to her, then he might be about to escape.
But then the Armagi swivelled back round towards them, its head jerking in the twitchy movement reminiscent of reptiles.
It sniffed at Elliott again. Then, for the longest time, it seemed to be just poised there, observing her and Will.
Will couldn’t tell if Elliott’s plan was working and the creature was confused, or if it was about to lurch at them and claw them both apart. It was rather like trying to divine the emotions of a heavy statue that was about to tip over and crush you.
Will could feel Elliott’s heart pounding against his, and her blood dripping down his face. His eye with the lens was protected, but the other one wasn’t, and some of her blood had run straight into it. It made him desperate to blink, but he couldn’t.
Then, with another loud creak, the Armagi shot over to the wooden stairs, and disappeared up them.
Only now did Will dare to release his breath. ‘They’ve gone,’ he whispered barely audibly, blinking his eye a few times.
Elliott didn’t respond for a moment, then she replied equally as quietly, ‘We have to get out. Now.’
She moved back from him, and together they tiptoed along the corridor, then down the stairs and out through the front door. Once in the open, they clambered over the low wall at the front of the house, and kept going through several more drives until they’d reached one with thick undergrowth, where they could hide and catch their breath.
Will saw Elliott trying to move her hand and wincing at the pain. From a pocket of his coat he took out one of David’s handkerchiefs that he’d helped himself to, and gently bound her palm. Then he just held her in his arms.
Eventually, as he began to relax, Will said, ‘Well, that was quite something.’ He blew out through his lips at the sheer understatement, his relief so great that he wanted to laugh. But he didn’t. ‘At least we know what an Armagi looks like now.’
Elliott mumbled something, but Will didn’t catch it. ‘And I don’t know quite how you knew to do that back there – that trick with your blood,’ he added.
She remained silent.
‘But thank you,’ he said.
As Drake lay on the ground, with his eyes closed, Jiggs was scanning the distant motorway through his binoculars. ‘There are a couple of lorries on the hard shoulder … then we’ve got an army transporter, and some cars in a small pile-up … but sod all is moving.’
As the horses grazed, one of them snorted loudly. Drake copied it, then said, ‘So if we swapped the horses for a car, we could be there in under an hour. If only those pesky Armagi didn’t have a thing for engines.’
The horse snorted again.
‘That’s about it,’ Jiggs agreed. ‘If you’re finding this too much, we can drop the idea of going to London. What the hell we’re going to run into when we reach the outskirts is anyone’s guess. Wall-to-wall Armagi? Are we really going to fight our way into the centre? And for what?’
‘To find someone with a satphone, or where some military is holed up?’
‘If anyone’s actually left,’ Jiggs countered.
‘Someone has to be …’ Drake groaned as he sat up. One of the dressings on his head had come loose and was flapping in the breeze. He tugged it off, examining the stains on it with distaste. ‘This isn’t getting any better.’
‘It’s a radiation burn. It takes time to heal,’ Jiggs said.
‘Tell it that if it doesn’t get a move on, there won’t be any point,’ Drake said, then turned to Jiggs as something occurred to him. ‘We’ve just left Cambridgeshire and we’re in Essex now – is that right?’
Jiggs nodded.
‘I’ve got a suggestion. Remember that hush-hush underground train my father took us on, that got us all the way into London? The one that the government built during the Cold War, so they could save their hides if Russia attacked?’
‘Yes, of course I do. It went as far as the BT Tower. I was on that train with you,’ Jiggs said with a wry smile.
‘Oh, yes, I forgot. The invisible man,’ Drake replied. ‘So, tell me, approximately how far is the station from here?’
‘Fifteen miles,’ Jiggs said. ‘But there’s no electricity so the train won’t be able to run.’
‘Of course not, but how about if we ride the gee-gees like the clappers over there, then use the tunnel? We can take it all th
e way in, on foot,’ Drake proposed. ‘Sure beats being strafed by Armagi when we hit the ’burbs.’
Without a further word, they got back on their horses and began to ride toward the secret station under the reservoir.
‘It’s so quiet,’ Will said, as they remained hidden in the overgrown border at the front of the house. ‘This is London. Normally there’d be cars, voices …’
More from shock than anything else, he’d been talking in an attempt to fill the silence, but trailed off as he realised he didn’t have anything to add. He began to rub Elliott’s blood from his face with his sleeve.
It had been a while since she’d spoken, but now Elliott cleared her throat. ‘Don’t do that,’ she said.
He looked at her through his lens, but didn’t ask her why.
‘You wouldn’t have believed what was in that room,’ she said tonelessly. ‘Styx lizards like the one in the warehouse that bit Chester’s father. Grubs … in bodies, and the bodies were mostly the old people from down the road. That’s where they’d been taken. And these large pod things. There were Armagi in them, waiting to hatch.’ She shuddered. ‘But the bodies were just terrible – so many and half-eaten … just terrible.’
Will nodded.
She adjusted the handkerchief dressing he’d put on her injured palm. ‘And the weird thing is that I sort of knew what I was walking into. I had a feeling what I’d find in that house … up in that room …’
‘You did? Will said. ‘But I don’t understand. Why did we go anywhere near it, then?’
‘I had to. It was as if they were calling out to me,’ she tried to explain, barely finishing the sentence before she gushed, ‘Oh, Will, you should be with Stephanie, not me. I’m not like you. I’m something else. I’m this monster, and it’s not good that you’re with me … I’m dangerous.’
Will swallowed uncomfortably. ‘Stephanie … what?’ he managed to get out.
Elliott was shaking her head slowly. ‘I could tell you liked her,’ she said, then lowered her voice. ‘And I know that you two spent time together when we were trapped in the Complex.’
Hit by this bombshell, Will was speechless for a moment, then gabbled, ‘No, I didn’t … I think she wanted … but nothing …’
Elliott leant against him, her shoulder touching his arm. ‘It’s okay.’
‘No, it’s not okay,’ Will said.
‘It is. Really it’s okay. Because I can’t tell you how long we’ve got together. And you shouldn’t be alone,’ Elliott said, her voice barely audible.
‘I don’t believe this!’ Will objected, becoming very upset.
‘Not so loud,’ she warned him. She looked up at the rooftop of the Gothic house, which was just visible down the road. ‘The Armagi are still there, and we don’t want them to come looking.’ She rose to her feet. ‘I should never have brought you with me,’ she declared. ‘If I could take you back, I would.’
Will spluttered with indignation. ‘Wh … what do you mean – you’re talking like you’re in charge of me or something!’
Putting her head back, Elliott looked at the night sky. ‘I am,’ she said simply. ‘All of you. Because I can put an end to all this.’ She lowered her gaze to Will. ‘And I know now that I can protect you from the Armagi. I can do that.’ She held out her injured hand as if considering it. ‘But I can’t do anything about Limiters, not for either of us. So we have to take it slowly and be very bloody careful as we go, and only move at night. And we need somewhere safe before dawn’s here.’
There was a muffled phut sound as the lock blew on the iron door. In fact, the sound of the door swinging open on its hinges and hitting the wall beside it was louder and more noticeable.
‘Nicely done,’ Jiggs said, then he and Drake quickly made their way back to where the small plastic explosive charge had gone off. They both stopped to peer down the crumbling concrete steps in the gap in the embankment around the reservoir, where the now open door was waiting for them.
‘We’re in,’ Drake said, and they descended the damp steps. After several flights they walked out into the train station. As they shone their lights along the platform, on which large drums of cable, rotting sandbags and rusted metal parts had been left, there was the train they’d ridden for their previous journey to BT Tower.
‘Feels odd being here again without Elliott and Will and the rest of the team,’ Drake said. ‘And no sign of that guy from the Old Guard who looks after the place. Parry said he effectively lives down here.’
‘Maybe we caught him on his tea break,’ Jiggs joked. ‘We go that way,’ he added, and they moved to the far end of the platform.
‘Into the guts of hell,’ Drake whispered and, for a moment, they both held still, staring into the dismal darkness in front of the locomotive. The brickwork around the tunnel opening was stained with lime and efflorescence, and the air reeked of stagnant water.
‘I seem to have spent my whole life going into dark places I didn’t want to,’ Drake said wearily. ‘I suppose there’s no reason why that should change now.’
Jiggs stamped his feet as if he had enough energy for the two of them. ‘Come on, Drake, chin up, old man. What do they say about there being light at the end of the tunnel?’
‘Don’t believe them,’ Drake said. ‘They have no idea what they’re talking about.’
Chapter Fifteen
Martha was bursting with excitement when she returned to the farmhouse.
‘Come to me, my dearest boy, come to me,’ she bellowed, beckoning Chester over. Stephanie noticed her hands were spotted with blood and grime; no doubt that meant another sheep had met its end and was heading for her cooking pot. ‘Have I got some news for you!’
She threw her arms around Chester and squeezed him while he just regarded her impassively.
‘Well, have you?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I have!’ she cried. ‘One of my fairies seems to have picked up the scent trail of your nasty man.’
‘Danforth? You’re sure?’ Chester said, his whole manner transforming. ‘You’ve really got him for me?’
‘Yes, my fairy can take us to him,’ she replied.
‘Oh, you wonderful woman,’ Chester shouted, only now responding to Martha’s embrace. He pressed his cheek against hers. ‘I could eat you!’ he said.
Be careful what you’re saying, Stephanie thought wryly to herself. She could eat you too! Stephanie had been told about Martha’s penchant for human flesh, but hadn’t thought too much about it until she’d actually met the woman. She could quite see Martha was capable of it.
‘Where is he then? Where’s Danforth?’ Chester asked.
‘I can’t tell how far away he is, but my fairy can show us,’ Martha replied.
‘How does that actually work?’ Chester said rather sharply, as if he had suddenly begun to doubt what she was telling him. ‘Do your fairies speak to you or something?’
Martha nodded. ‘In a way, yes, they do. You see I’ve learnt to understand the signs they give each other – they give them to me too. And one fairy has just flown back to me, while the other is keeping a watch on nasty man for us.’
Chester seemed satisfied with this answer, and Stephanie shook her head as the two of them continued to hug each other tight, making Mmmming noises. Both of them were unhinged in their own ways: Martha because she’d lost her son and then been subjected to years of isolation, and Chester because of what he’d been through at the hands of the Styx, culminating in his parents’ untimely death. Two people, both deeply injured, and united by their losses. But Stephanie didn’t kid herself that their relationship was anything other than delicate, like two plates spinning on poles beside each other. At any moment, either one – or even both – of those plates could come crashing down.
Finally relaxing his grip on the rotund woman, Chester held her at arm’s length. ‘We should get going then.’
Martha hesitated. ‘Why don’t I ask my fairies to do the job for us, and kill nasty man? Then we don’t need
to go anywhere.’
No, no. no. Stephanie was willing Chester not to agree. She had seriously considered running away to extricate herself from this incredibly bizarre situation, but Chester had told her to forget that as an option. Not just because of the risk from the Armagi – he’d said that he wouldn’t be able to stop Martha setting the Brights on Stephanie the moment she walked out.
Chester hadn’t replied to Martha’s suggestion. In fact, he looked thunderous.
‘Why don’t I just tell them to finish him off, my dearie?’ Martha asked him again. ‘Then there’d be no need to move from here, where we’re happy and safe.’
‘No way! That creep is mine. And you bloody tell your Brights not to touch a bloody hair on his foul head. In fact, I want them to protect him … and keep him safe for me,’ Chester growled, his eyes flashing. ‘He’s mine!’
‘Of course, dearie, it’s all right, it’s all right,’ Martha cooed, stroking his hair at the temple. ‘Of course, I’ll do that for you. Anything.’
Chester suddenly let go of Martha, and pulled away from her. He stood still for a moment, pressing his lips together as in deep thought. ‘If we don’t know how far away Danforth is, then we need transport … something with some oomph. Wait here,’ he said, going into the hallway and grabbing his jacket from the hook. Then he threw the front door open and stormed out from the house.
There was no way that Stephanie could follow him, so she settled back in her usual armchair, clutching the old goose-down counterpane around her that she’d taken from a bedroom, and simply stared out of the window. It wasn’t as if there was anything else for her to do in the place – no new magazines, and on most days not even a radio station to listen to. Several hours passed, and she had slipped into her usual stupor – the only way she could get through the day – when an engine roared outside.
Stephanie and Martha, armed with her crossbow, were immediately at the window, peering out to see who it was. Chester stepped from the vehicle, a four-wheel drive that was caked in mud. He gestured for them to come outside.