‘Found this four-by-four in a nearby farm the other day when I was having a look round, and thought it might come in useful. There were some spare cans of diesel around the farm too, so I’ve put them in the back, and some tinned food so we don’t have to eat sheep glop any longer,’ he said, glancing into the rear of the vehicle. Then, as he walked around the front, he slapped the bonnet decisively. ‘Come along, you two! Get your acts together. We’re hitting the road!’
‘I don’t fancy it. I’m not riding in one of them contraptions,’ Martha said. She had a deep-seated mistrust of anything more complicated than her crossbow. ‘Anyway, who’s going to steer?’
‘Steer? You mean drive? I’m going to, because that douchebag Parry taught me.’ Chester went right up to Martha. ‘Come along – you said you’d do anything for me. Well, I’m asking now.’ She looked undecided, but Chester was determined to have his way. ‘You know you want to help me – you know you do, Mum.’ He planted a big, noisy kiss on her peeling lips.
‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’ Martha fluttered breathlessly. She immediately coloured up, swinging her shoulders like a little girl. ‘Oh, all right, my darling boy,’ she said.
‘Unless it’s stray animals giving us false positives, looks like the party’s hotting up,’ Parry announced.
Two of his men had simultaneously raised their hands as the thermal sensors they’d been monitoring on their laptops registered signals. On the top floor of the block of flats there were a dozen such men in total, some drawn from the SAS and others from Parry’s Old Guard, all staring at their computers on various pieces of furniture they’d scavenged from the deserted floors below. Surrounding the men were the building’s air conditioning plant and the motors for the lifts, which of course hadn’t been in operation for several months because of the lack of power.
Another of the men at the laptops stuck up his hand at that moment. ‘Over to the northwest too, boss. Strong signal,’ he reported.
‘Yes, it would appear that we’re in play,’ Eddie agreed, meeting Parry’s eyes. ‘And it’s what we expected: the sensors are picking up Limiters as they move into position around the installation to catch anyone who tries to make a run for it.’ He switched his attention to a nearby screen, which showed a live view of GCHQ, the government’s communications and signals agency. It was some five hundred yards away from where they were now, the image being piped in from one of the cameras positioned on top of the apartment building. ‘So the frontline troops, the Armagi, will lead the attack, with my former comrades, the Limiters, acting as the mop-up squad,’ he added.
‘Mop-up squad? I never thought I’d ever hear the Styx elite being described quite like that.’ Parry smiled, but his eyes told a different story. Stepping closer to Eddie, he lowered his voice. ‘We’ve both sacrificed far too many men in recent weeks so Danforth’s cover with the Styx could be preserved. I want you to know that the selfless behaviour of your former Limiters will not be overlooked.’
True to form, Eddie’s response was devoid of any emotion. ‘Thank you, but they knew what the stakes were when they joined me,’ he said. ‘As for what’s about to happen, more Limiters may die, and even though they are still blindly obeying the Styx hierarchy, I’d like to think that we can save as many lives as we can. They’re only following the diktat laid down by the ruling class.’
‘And the Armagi?’ Parry asked.
‘They’re a different matter entirely,’ Eddie replied. ‘I have no qualms about their destruction because I don’t regard them as people. They’re purely biological hardware, machines for killing, produced as a result of the Phase, and they have no useful place on this Earth.’
Parry nodded, turning to the men in the room to address them. ‘Listen up. All of you switch over to the cameras now. I want you to watch the approaches. Danforth is likely to be showing up with some high-value Styx targets. Keep your eyes peeled for him, because the Old Styx, and even Hermione and the Rebecca twin, might not be far away. And it’s also a priority for Danforth to be extracted alive. He’s already taken enough risks to get us this far, and I want him out of there in one piece.’
The Limiter drove into the underground car park and began to slow. The vehicle had barely stopped when the Old Styx leapt from it, followed by Danforth.
‘What kept you?’ Hermione snapped at them, as she slid from the back seat of the jet-black Bentley already waiting there. Striding across to a doorway, she shouted, ‘Come along, Rebecca, get a move on! And for God’s sake, just you come with us. Don’t bring your performing monkey with you.’
As Rebecca Two emerged from the front seat, Danforth noticed that the Old Styx gave her a sharp look. Or, to be more precise, he gave the young blond New Germanian officer behind the steering wheel of the Bentley a sharp look.
‘Still it persists, that unholy coupling?’ the Old Styx said to Hermione, as he caught up with her.
‘Time for us to bring it to a close,’ Hermione replied, her voice low and cold. She strode through the doorway of the car park and into a dark corridor with a concrete floor littered with puddles of water. ‘It doesn’t do to have passengers,’ she added, shaking her head, her insect legs clicking together where they poked from behind the collar of her thick fur coat.
Danforth couldn’t be sure because, in deference to their authority, he walked several paces behind Hermione and the Old Styx, but he was pretty certain that the Styx woman’s head had turned ever so slightly in his direction as she’d uttered these words. He knew from the Old Styx that the Rebecca twin’s human companion was frowned upon, but he had the strongest feeling that Hermione had also been talking about him. It didn’t bode well. The Styx woman was unpredictable, and he felt incredibly insecure. He instinctively ran his tongue over the false tooth containing the miniaturised radio, wishing he had an opportunity to send a transmission.
They went through several more of the unlit corridors before climbing a short flight of steps to a door. As they emerged into the daylight, stepping out onto the pavement, Danforth saw precisely where they were.
‘There it is,’ Hermione whispered. ‘One of the last bastions of this country’s pathetic defence system, about to drop into our laps like a ripe plum.’
‘GCHQ,’ Danforth said through his gritted teeth. They all kept well in to the side of the street, which passed through several junctions as it ran all the way down to the doughnut-shaped building that he had been so instrumental in helping establish and equip.
He pointed at the high fence just visible in the distance. ‘You are aware that the outer boundary will be heavily monitored?’ He cast his eyes around the street. ‘Although there’s unlikely to be electricity in the rest of the town, GCHQ has its own geothermal supply, so its systems will all still be up and running.’
Danforth quickly took in how many Limiters he could see along the street – three or four at the most, all tucked into doorways. ‘And you didn’t consult me about any planned assault, so how much do you know about GCHQ’s defence capability? There will be numerous – and I mean numerous – highly trained armed response units ready to counter any breaches. That capability will have been bolstered due to th—’
Hermione put her head back and laughed harshly. ‘You funny little human!’ she sneered. ‘Do you think that we care one iota about any of that?’ She turned her attention to the installation up ahead. ‘And who said we’d go in through the perimeter? Watch this.’
The Old Styx and Rebecca Two stepped away from her as she lowered her coat from her shoulders. Her insect limbs extended to their full length and came together, beginning to vibrate.
When Danforth caught his first glimpse, he assumed that the wind had whipped up the passage of the clouds in the sky. It quickly became evident that what he was seeing was nothing to do with the weather conditions, and something very sinister.
In a vortex Armagi were swarming up high, their forms refracting the grey-blue of the sky. They began to converge together and then to descend, a solid gyre of them, li
ke an upside-down water spout, straight into the opening in the middle of GCHQ.
‘I wonder what your fellow flesh bags will make of that,’ Hermione smirked, ‘for the remaining minutes they have left to live?’ She suddenly swung to the Old Styx. ‘We can jettison this fool now. We have no need for him, and I find his presence tedious.’
The Old Styx raised his hand and a pair of Limiters appeared from nowhere, one on either side of Danforth. Then the Old Styx turned his dead eyes on Danforth. ‘It’s true. We never needed you, and we can’t allow you to stay with us. There isn’t any room for humans.’
‘We had a deal,’ Danforth replied, keeping his voice even. ‘You’re going to renege on it?’
‘If you’d handed us Drake’s, Elliott’s, and the Burrows child’s heads on a platter, we’d have been more convinced of your commitment. But you didn’t.’
‘Nevertheless, they’re all dead,’ Danforth insisted.
The Old Styx gave him a sceptical look.
‘You haven’t seen hide nor hair of them since I came over to you, though, have you?’ Danforth pointed out.
‘That may be correct, although we still have had no word from our party sent into the inner world, which is surprising. And our subsequent teams despatched to find them have not reported back either,’ the Old Styx said. ‘That makes us suspicious that all is not as it seems.’
‘If something’s happened to them, it’s nothing to do with me,’ Danforth argued. ‘You’re making a big mistake.’ Although he remained outwardly calm, his mind was racing. Top of his list was how he could remove his tooth and make an SOS transmission with the Limiters watching his every move.
‘Take him away and finish him,’ the Old Styx ordered, then lowered his voice. ‘And while you’re about it, get rid of that New Germanian at the same time. Make sure the bodies are hidden out of sight.’ He’d lowered his voice to ensure that Rebecca Two hadn’t overheard his order, but in any case she was too intent on the deluge of Armagi.
As one of the Limiters began to push Danforth down the street, in the opposite direction to GCHQ, he managed to grab another glimpse of the continued cascade of Armagi from the sky.
‘Move it,’ the Limiter growled, striking him in the kidneys with the stock of his rifle.
Despite the pain, Danforth allowed himself a small smile. At that very moment, the Styx woman was under the impression that she was going to achieve a significant victory. But she was about to get a rude awakening. If everything went according to plan, at least he’d have helped to deal a major blow against the Styx before he lost his life. And he still hadn’t given up all hope; if the timing fell to his advantage and the strike took place before he’d been killed, it might create enough of a diversion for him to escape.
No. He sighed. That was hoping for too much, with this pair of deadly soldiers on the case. They were too well trained for that. Nothing, short of an armed intervention, would put them off their mission. He was dead. He accepted that.
He pretended to stumble.
‘Faster,’ one of the Limiters scowled. ‘Stop sandbagging.’
The soldier was right. Danforth was trying to buy time. He peered up at the rooftops of the buildings around him, wondering if Parry had a camera on him. He though it unlikely – he was too far from the Doughnut.
As they went past the entrance to the underground car park, one of the Limiters peeled off. The other soldier continued to shove Danforth along the main street, then took him around a corner and into a side road.
There the Limiter slammed him against the wall of the building, with such force that he fell to the pavement.
‘Stay down,’ the Limiter growled, slipping a scythe from the scabbard on his belt.
Danforth looked from the dull steel of the blade to the leafless branches of the trees dotted along the road, then to the sky.
So was this where it would end for him? In a rather ordinary road, in an ordinary town in England. It was ironic considering the places he’d been in his life.
Both Danforth and the Limiter turned to the end of the road as the other Limiter finally appeared, pushing Captain Franz before him.
‘On your feet,’ the Limiter with the scythe growled at Danforth.
Danforth knew that when the young New Germanian arrived, they’d both be executed just as the Old Styx had instructed.
‘What is going on?’ Captain Franz demanded, trying to straighten his chauffeur’s hat as the Limiter prodded him in the back again. ‘Where is my Rebecca?’
Captain Franz stopped in front of Danforth.
‘She’s not going to be able to help you now,’ Danforth told him.
The New Germanian had that slightly befuddled expression that came of too many Darklighting sessions.
‘Fetch Rebecca! Right now!’ Captain Franz ordered the Limiters. ‘This is all a mistake.’
Danforth took a deep breath before he spoke. ‘Save it. You won’t get anywhere,’ he said to the New Germanian. ‘These two pathetic excuses for troops can’t think for themselves.’ He smiled sourly at the Limiter nearest him, who had the scythe ready at his side. ‘You’re nothing more than robots. I’ve known many professional soldiers in my time, and you don’t come close.’
Danforth was silent for a beat, trying to gauge what effect his jibes were having, but the Limiter was impossible to read. The sunken eyes in the scarred face were simply watching him. ‘What’s the matter? Need your bug lady to tell you what to do next?’
The Limiter with the scythe struck him across the face. Danforth dropped to the pavement, and although his glasses had been broken and there were flashes of light in his eyes, he couldn’t believe his luck. The Limiter hadn’t used his scythe.
Not yet, anyway.
‘You broke my tooth,’ Danforth said, adopting a whining voice but cheering inside. He reached into his mouth and detached the false molar, palming it.
‘On your feet,’ the Limiter with the scythe rumbled.
Although it was slippery with his blood and saliva, Danforth had just managed to press his thumbnail into the radio to activate it when the Limiter lashed out at him again.
The radio went flying.
Blast it! Danforth thought.
The Limiter pointed at him with the blade. ‘Little man, you’ve earned the right to die first.’
The Styx soldier took hold of Danforth’s lapels and hoisted him to his feet with the one hand, the scythe poised in the other.
Captain Franz was mumbling something incomprehensible in German. It may have been a prayer.
The Limiter plunged his knife hand towards Danforth.
It happened so fast it was as though the Limiter had simply disappeared.
Danforth tottered on his feet and, squinting through his bloodied eyes, met Captain Franz’s even more befuddled gaze. ‘Where’d he go?’ he mumbled.
Then they both saw the Limiter.
He was stretched out on the far side of the road, without his head, his body mangled.
Despite Danforth’s taunts to the contrary, Limiters were consummate professionals, and the other soldier wasn’t fazed by the death of his comrade. He wasn’t going to wait around for any explanations before he reacted. Moving on pure instinct, he swooped at Danforth and seized hold of him.
He may have been of thinking of using Danforth as a shield instead of killing him right away, but the Bright still struck, biting off a good part of the Limiter’s face and neck. His head lolled to one side, a fountain of red spurting from his severed jugular. Then he simply folded to the ground at Danforth’s feet.
‘Was war das?’ Captain Franz cried, gaping up at the sky, although the Bright was now nowhere to be seen.
‘I have absolutely no idea,’ Danforth said, retrieving his glasses. One lens was missing, but the other was still held in the frame, despite it being cracked. ‘And I’m not about to stick around to find out.’
There was a yelp from the corner. ‘Johan! What are you doing here?’ Rebecca Two had come sprinting d
own the main road, but now slid to a halt as she spotted her beloved New Germanian.
‘Oh, Rebecca,’ the New Germanian replied, looking shell-shocked as he held a limp hand out to her.
‘I thought something was wrong … I sensed it,’ she said.
Danforth wasn’t in the mood for any sentimentality.
For a small man, he still knew how to handle himself. Throwing his arm around Captain Franz’s neck so he had him in a lock, Danforth pressed the Limiter scythe to the man’s throat. Thinking it might come in useful, he’d retrieved the weapon at the same time as his spectacles. ‘Hold it!’ he ordered Rebecca Two.
‘Okay – just please don’t hurt him,’ she implored Danforth, then spotted the Limiter’s blood on Captain Franz’s face. She went to take a step. ‘But what happened to you, Johan? You’re bleeding.’
‘I’m warning you! Stay put!’ Danforth said.
‘What did this man do to you?’ she asked, throwing a furious glance at Danforth.
‘It’s not my blood,’ Captain Franz replied, before Danforth increased the stranglehold to stop the New Germanian from saying more.
‘You killed these Limiters,’ Rebecca Two accused Danforth, but she didn’t sound very sure of herself as she made out the headless body of the soldier across the road, and the other’s lethal wounds.
‘Your men had orders to execute both of us,’ Danforth told her.
‘Why?’ she cried.
‘Isn’t that a bit obvious? We’re both superfluous humans,’ Danforth replied. ‘Now I want you to keep your voice down, because you’re coming with me.’
‘I am not,’ Rebecca Two retorted.
‘You are if you want your boyfriend to live,’ Danforth threatened. He dug the tip of the scythe into Captain Franz’s throat.
‘No, don’t! Please don’t hurt him,’ Rebecca Two implored Danforth. ‘I’ll do what you say.’
‘And before we go, I need you to find something for me,’ Danforth said. He peered at the middle of the road. ‘It looks like a tooth.’
‘A tooth?’ Rebecca Two had just asked, when the ground under their feet shook and there was a cranium-rattling bang. The Rebecca twin was knocked from her feet by the blast, a huge cloud of dust billowing down the street towards her.