The bushman tried to lift himself up, but Jürgen spoke soothingly to him, urging him to stay where he was. Although he probably didn’t understand what he was being told, the bushman relaxed and laid his head back on the pillow. His eyes were flickering open and then closing as if it was a struggle for him to remain conscious.
Jürgen held a glass to his lips, helping him to drink some water. ‘He’s very hot,’ he said.
‘Maybe he’s contracted a mild fever, or he’s just become dehydrated,’ Werner suggested, as the bushman had some more to drink.
Jürgen nodded. ‘That would explain why he fainted. And why he seems to be improving now.’
The bushman was indeed showing signs that he was recovering rapidly; he refused any more water and pushed the glass away as he attempted to speak.
There were words in the guttural language that Will had heard before, but in between these the buzzing sound was now far more audible. And this was becoming even more audible with every second. It was as if his voice box was also going through a transformation. Quite suddenly, the pitch of the buzzing sound dropped, and well-defined and ugly sounds came from his throat.
‘Jesus!’ Will exclaimed, taking such a sudden step back that he collided with the wall.
Elliott was similarly shocked, too stunned to speak for the moment.
Jürgen and Werner turned towards them, giving them questioning looks.
‘What is it?’ Jürgen demanded.
From the words she’d been able to recognise, the bushman had been asking what was wrong with him.
In the Styx tongue.
And as Elliott, because of her father, was fluent in the Styx language, she was able to answer the bushman in it. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll find out what’s wrong,’ she said to him, the eerie sound of her words filling the room as if someone was tearing old parchment.
‘Mein Gott,’ Werner said.
‘Mein Gott, indeed,’ Will said under his breath.
Elliott switched back to English for Will and the two astounded New Germanians. ‘I can understand some of what he’s saying. He wants to know what’s wrong with him.’
Despite the fact he was so weak, on hearing Elliott speak in the Styx tongue the bushman’s eyes had flicked wide open. He heaved himself up from his cot and, before anyone could stop him, had thrown himself at her feet. With his face pressed to the floor, he continued to repeat the same words.
‘They have returned,’ he was saying over and over again.
Will was dumbfounded. ‘All the time, the bushmen were talking in Styx. But at such a high pitch, no one knew it.’
He looked from the grovelling man on the floor to Elliott, and back to the man again. ‘If he can speak Styx, then maybe he’s part Styx like you? And maybe your blood … your Styx blood in the vaccine caused this … changed him. But how? And why?’
Chapter Three
As the sun began its final descent, long shadows were beginning to crawl over London, where street after street was yet again without power. People were barricading themselves in their houses and preparing themselves for another night of fear, hunger and cold. But they didn’t know whether they were defending themselves against the lawless gangs who were running amok without the police or army to stop them, or something far more sinister, if the rumours doing the rounds were to be believed.
In some neighbourhoods the residents had organised themselves into local militia, using vehicles to close off roads, and wielding brooms, garden implements and even saucepans to see off anyone who tried to enter their areas without good reason.
But in west London there was one bastion of apparent normality. The Westfield shopping centre, Britain’s largest mall, was somehow still connected to an active grid, and the light flooding through its windows proved to be irresistible to those too terrified to remain at home.
No one had thought to turn the sound system off and piped music was playing in the background as, at regular intervals, a forced, DJ-smooth voice gave a pre-recorded message about forthcoming but long-out-of-date promotions. The shops themselves were definitely off limits with their security grilles firmly across them. Some still had goods in the window, but others had been vacated and the stock removed until, it was hoped, conditions returned to normal.
All along the walkways in the shopping centre, people in sleeping bags or swaddled in blankets were settling down for the night. It was reminiscent of scenes from the Second World War when the underground platforms had been used as air-raid shelters. There may have been electricity to keep the lights burning, but the heating was another matter, and it was bitterly cold inside the building. A succession of small fires had been lit and were being stoked with empty packaging or whatever else could be found to keep them going, as empty-eyed faces stared into their meagre flames.
Bound up in their own misery, none of them took much notice as a woman passed by. Tall and elegant, she threaded her way between the untidy clumps of people, her high heels clicking on the polished floor. If they had paid her any attention, they would have observed that she wore an expensive fur coat with the collar turned up, and that two men with hoods obscuring their faces were like twin shadows as they followed silently behind.
A child, no more than six years old, made straight towards her and planted himself insolently in her path.
‘Oi, rich lady, got anything to eat?’ the boy demanded.
The woman, Hermione, stared down at him with undisguised disgust. ‘What?’ she said.
‘I said, got anything to eat?’ the boy repeated, this time jabbing a dirty finger impatiently at his mouth as if he was talking to someone too stupid to understand him.
Her dark-rimmed eyes blazed with anger, the muscles in her razor-lean face tightening so that she looked more like a sculpture than a human being. ‘Yes …’ she growled, ‘… you!’
But as she finished speaking, a flood of lacteous saliva slopped over her black lip.
Not taking his eyes from her, the boy inclined his head and made a coarse noise as if he was vomiting, then swaggered away. He knew he was still in earshot as he added, ‘Gross old minger.’
Hermione quickly put her hand to her mouth, not to wipe it, but to make sure the fleshy tube twitching like a snake inside her cheeks wasn’t about to show itself. She turned to one of the Limiters behind her. ‘I don’t know what it is with children these days – they show no respect,’ she said. ‘Make a note that I want to teach that little brat a lesson myself, will you? I’ve got a grub with his name on it.’
The Styx soldier gave a small nod to show that he understood.
As she caught the jaunty tune coming from the mall’s speakers, she cocked her head to one side. ‘Is that that The Girl From Ipanema?’ she asked. It was so upbeat and at odds with the fluorescent-lit scene of despair around her that she was unable to stifle a laugh as she began to head towards a retail unit at the far end of the shopping centre, outside which another pair of Limiters were waiting. As soon as they saw her, they pulled up the shutter so that she could enter. She strode through the front of the empty shop and straight into the storeroom at the rear.
On some packing crates, Rebecca Two was sitting very close to Captain Franz. The instant that the girl realised someone had come into the room, she quickly pulled away from him.
Hermione stood inside the doorway, shaking her head disapprovingly.
As Captain Franz got to his feet, there was a distant look in his eyes that spoke of many sessions with the Dark Light. He’d been provided with a Styx Limiter’s long black leather coat and, with his strikingly blond hair, Hermione would have been the first to admit that he was extremely handsome. But the problem was that he happened to be human.
‘We’re moving out. Come along,’ Hermione said. She marched through to a door at the back of the storage room and hammered on it. It opened immediately and, with Rebecca Two, her captain and the two Limiters following behind, she stormed outside into the darkness.
The only sound was the tapping of Hermione’s heels on t
he pavement as she led them at some speed through a succession of streets. They hadn’t yet reached their destination when she beckoned Rebecca Two to come alongside her.
‘Did I just catch you canoodling with that New Germanian? You weren’t holding his hand, were you?’ she demanded.
‘Er … yes, I was,’ Rebecca Two admitted sheepishly.
Hermione was shaking her head again as she walked briskly down the darkened road. ‘You’re not even fourteen yet. Do you think th—’
Rebecca Two tried to interrupt, but Hermione wasn’t having it. ‘No, you listen to me,’ she said. ‘I know you’re going to tell me you’re a Styx so your age in human years is irrelevant. And looking at you now,’ she cast her eyes over Rebecca Two beside her, ‘you’re very much a young woman. But at the end of the day, he’s not one of us – he’s a human. And to cap it all, his poor little human brain has been conditioned so many times that he’s been zombified.’
‘I know all that,’ Rebecca Two said.
Hermione waited for the girl to continue, and when she didn’t she went on, ‘I’m only watching out for you. We’re in the same boat, you know. Even if it hasn’t been confirmed yet, we both know that we’ve lost our sisters, our twins. We both know it in our bones. We can feel that emptiness inside us as if something’s missing, that pain of separation.’
They came to the Victorian church, and a Limiter rushed ahead to push open the large oak door for them. Inside, luminescent orbs had been set up around the walls, and there were many more Limiters. One of them had a man lying curled up on the ground by his feet.
‘Who’s that?’ Hermione asked.
‘The vicar. He was hiding in the vestry when we arrived,’ the Limiter replied. ‘He’s been trying to keep people out of his church.’
‘How very Christian of him,’ Hermione said, peering quizzically at the man. ‘So he’s unconscious?’
‘No, he’s not.’ The Limiter kicked the man. He gave a small cry and curled up even tighter, then broke into a torrent of mumbled prayers.
‘Ah, excellent. I feel the urge.’ Hermione shucked off her fur coat. She tugged at the neck of her crimson camisole to free her insect legs where they sprouted from the top of her spine. She continued to give Rebecca Two advice as she raised a foot and pushed the terrified man over with a thrust of her long heel. ‘I’m only telling you that whatever you think you feel for him …’ she threw a look at Captain Franz standing quite still behind Rebecca, ‘… it’s just not normal. Excuse me for a moment.’
The vicar was still babbling his prayers, and too petrified to resist Hermione as she fell on him. Grabbing hold of his hair, she pulled his head round. ‘He’s young,’ she said. ‘And how nice to have a conscious but submissive one for a change.’
Hermione glanced up at Rebecca Two, giving her a pointed stare. ‘This is all these human flesh bags are fit for.’ She turned her attention back to the vicar, the ovipositor swinging from her mouth as it sought out his. It was then that he began to resist weakly, but it was short-lived as her insect legs gripped his head hard at the temples.
The last thing he said was ‘God save me,’ as the tube penetrated his mouth, the egg sac squeezing down it and deep inside him. When it had been done, he simply rolled over onto his side and curled up again. A reflex action to the obstruction in his oesophagus was making him retch and cough as Hermione got to her feet.
‘Ah, that’s a weight off,’ she said, slotting her egg tube back into her mouth. She sighed as she turned to Rebecca, juices flowing down her chin. ‘It’s just that your behaviour is frowned upon. Some would consider it to be unwholesome, sick even. And I’m telling you now that one day very soon you’re going to have to put this childish crush of yours behind you.’
There was sadness in Rebecca Two’s eyes as she nodded.
‘It’s not a difficult choice. We have great times ahead of us,’ Hermione said. She leant closer to Rebecca Two and lowered her voice conspiratorially. ‘I know how it is. I did my stint Topsoil with the Heathen too, and one’s thoughts can become muddled, confused. There’s a temptation to go native – I experienced it too. But you’re a Styx, and that’s where your loyalties lie. Not with some pretty boy wimp that you’re going to outgrow very quickly. No, you’ll soon get over him.’
‘Now,’ Hermione announced, as she strode down the aisle. She mounted the steps up to the altar, where she swung around as if to address a non-existent congregation. ‘Where are my children, because I want them to sweep through that shopping centre like a plague of locusts. We’ll show these flesh bags that nowhere is safe for them.’
There, at the altar, her insect legs extended to their full length and came together, rattling, and then vibrating faster and faster, until the sound was a continuous hum. At the same time, Hermione put her head back and opened her mouth, issuing a call that no human could hear.
On all sides of the church, the windows suddenly burst inwards, fragments of stained glass showering down around the Limiters.
Armagi streamed in from all sides, alighting on the backs of the pews and gathering together in the aisle. Semi-transparent beasts, as if made of liquid ice, the spiked feathers of their wings glittered under the light from the orbs.
Hermione ended her call, lowering her head. ‘Ah, my children,’ she said. ‘My children have come to me.’
With his ever-present escort of a pair of Styx Limiters, Danforth was doing his rounds of the floor, peering over the shoulders of the operators seated in front of their screens.
A red indicator began to flash above one of the desks and the operator held her hand mechanically in the air. Danforth immediately went over to her. She had spotted something in a radio frequency sweep and flagged it for his attention. As he watched her screen, he repeated, ‘Interesting,’ several times, but became distracted as he heard a sound from several desks away. He turned just in time to see the operator, a man in his forties, tug his headphones off and then begin to get to his feet.
‘Who said you could leave your post?’ Danforth snapped, but the man didn’t answer. For a moment he swayed on his feet, a remote look appearing in his eyes before he keeled over backwards, taking his chair with him.
Tutting furiously, Danforth went to check on the man. Not noticing any signs that he was breathing, he felt his neck for a pulse. ‘He’s dead,’ Danforth pronounced without emotion, gripping the man’s chin to turn his head. ‘Don’t suppose either of you feel like administering CPR to bring him back?’ he asked, half glancing at his Limiter guards, who were hovering behind him.
‘No, thought not,’ he answered himself, as they didn’t respond. Danforth scrutinised the expired man’s face, which had dark bruises under the eyes and was coated in a sheen of sweat. ‘Cardiac arrest due to extreme exhaustion and dehydration, I would hazard,’ he said, as he indicated the man’s blue lips to his Limiters. ‘Get him out of here, will you?’
Straightening up, Danforth rubbed his hands distastefully together as if removing the man’s sweat from them.
‘What is it?’ the Old Styx asked, as he appeared beside the two Limiters.
Danforth glanced at the dead man’s desk, at a picture of two young children playing in the cerulean waters of some tropical sea. They were obviously his children. ‘These people are only human,’ Danforth said dispassionately. ‘We’ve hotwired their simple little brains with the Dark Lights and they’re performing their tasks adequately, but we’re pushing them beyond their physical limits.’
‘Out of necessity. We need results,’ the Old Styx said, but without antagonism. He had a grudging respect for Danforth, who was assisting them in realms of technology that would have been out of reach without his expertise.
And where they were now, just south of London in a government communications substation where electronic traffic could be monitored, it was proving to be a real boon to the Styx as they continued to strike at key targets. Of course, most forms of communication such as landlines, mobile phones, any radio or television b
roadcasts and the internet, had long since been shut down. But more specialist communications used by the military or via satellite link couldn’t be stopped or jammed, and that’s where Danforth came in.
He wasn’t just another of the Darklit automatons who did only as they were instructed – his expertise meant that the Styx could keep one step ahead of the limited military resistance that they were encountering from time to time.
Danforth was proving to be valuable, which was fortunate for him or otherwise they would have dispensed with him many weeks ago.
And he’d also directed the Styx in which radar surveillance installations should be destroyed or kept in operation so that any interference from the international community could be detected early on and headed off. The Styx certainly didn’t want a multinational task force throwing a spanner in the works as they systematically dismantled the country.
‘Well, we’ve got a limited asset here, then,’ Danforth said, glancing around at the silent, drawn faces lit by their screens. ‘Many of these operators won’t last much longer than a day or two without rest and some proper food.’
The Old Styx nodded. ‘Then let the important ones have a break. The rest, doing less skilled tasks, can work until they drop.’
‘Very good,’ Danforth said, although the Old Styx had just passed the death sentence on the majority of the humans present in the room. ‘And I want to show you something.’ He led the Old Styx back to the screen where a signal had been detected. Pushing aside the woman who’d been at the monitor, he leant over the keyboard and typed rapidly on it. A list of numbers scrolled up over the screen. ‘It may be nothing, but someone’s intermittently using analogue equipment at this location.’ As he hit a key, a map came up with a pulsing circle. ‘The signal is originating from here.’ Danforth sent the coordinates to print, snatching the page as it came out and handing it to the Old Styx. ‘Worth sending a patrol to investigate, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, we’ll despatch one immediately,’ the Old Styx confirmed.