The Hounds of Avalon (Gollancz S.F.) (54 page)

‘Oh, I will. Your execution is imminent. We can’t have you blurting all this out and ruining things. But first you have one more little part to play.’

It took a second for Reid’s words to register, and by then the spy
was slipping out of the door with a cruelly triumphant smile directed at Hal. The door closed with a click; the locks slipped back into place.

‘You can set me free. I’m not going to hurt anyone.’

Caitlin’s pleading voice cut to Thackeray’s heart. He could barely look at her, tied to an old wooden chair, her wrists bound behind her back and roped to her ankles, the knots pulled so tightly that they had brought droplets of blood to the surface of her pale, chafed skin. Her face looked so innocent, the Caitlin he had met all those weeks ago in the devastation of Birmingham, when he’d cared for her and first realised he had fallen in love. But with the Morrigan still inside her, they couldn’t take any chances. He’d seen what the goddess could do: one flick of a wrist could snap his neck and she’d move on without giving it a second thought.

‘You know I can’t do that,’ he said.

‘But there’s been some kind of change. I can feel it! The Morrigan isn’t controlling me any more.’

Her eyes were wide and hopeful; a faint smile played on her lips. Thackeray looked away, hating himself that he couldn’t trust her any more. Part of him wished he hadn’t been dragged into this senseless world of gods and magic, but then he would never have met Caitlin and his life would have been immeasurably diminished.

Yet when he glanced back at her, he felt that there
was
something subtly different about her, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

Caitlin put her head back, her eyes flickering. ‘It feels as if she’s … waiting,’ she muttered to herself.

The door was thrown open abruptly and Harvey launched himself into the room. He’d been keeping watch from the first floor for any developments. ‘We’ve got to get out of here. They’re evacuating the street.’ He rubbed a hand over a thin wrist for warmth. ‘Moving everybody to some buildings down in the centre. Like that’s going to do any bloody good,’ he added dismally.

Thackeray glanced at Caitlin, her head framed against the window where the snow fell heavily. Harvey was one step ahead. ‘What are we going to do with her?’

‘We can’t leave her here.’

‘It’s too dangerous to take her with us.’ Harvey’s Birmingham
accent grew thicker in times of stress. ‘Bloody hell, Thackeray. You’ve got us into a right old mess. Why couldn’t you have fallen for a normal girl?’

Torn, Thackeray wandered past Caitlin to look out of the window. There was frantic activity in the street, people running, others tumbling out of doorways, laden with possessions. Unconsciously, he reached out a hand to touch Caitlin’s hair.

The snapping of ropes caught him by surprise. His wrist was snatched, gently, as Caitlin rose up and turned towards him. Across the room, Harvey flung himself back against the wall, whimpering. ‘Don’t hurt him,’ he pleaded.

But after the initial shock, Thackeray wasn’t scared. The cold, terrifying fury of the Morrigan was no longer visible in Caitlin’s face. Thackeray pulled her to him and held her tightly, her heart thundering against his chest.

When she pulled back, tears gleamed in her eyes. ‘It’s come back.’ A transcendental smile leaped to her lips. ‘I felt it enter me … blue … so very blue. It’s back, Thackeray. I’m one of them again.’

Corpus Christi was filled with long shadows as Shavi and Sophie made their way along empty corridors where the only sound was their footsteps. Finally, they found an unlocked office and slipped inside.

Sophie battened down her anxiety and said, ‘Do you think you can make contact here?’

‘I will try.’ Shavi cleared a desk to one side to make a space on the floor for him to sit. ‘Something is amiss. There is what I could only characterise as background interference, which is impeding my attempts to reach the spirits on the other side.’

‘Interference? Is it being caused by the Void?’

‘Perhaps.’

Sophie stood quietly in one corner while Shavi sat cross-legged in the centre of the room. Slowly, he lowered his chin on to his chest, his long hair falling across his face. His breathing grew slower, more measured, until he began to make a faint
soooo
sound on each exhalation. It was a ritual chant of some kind, Sophie knew, designed to attract the attention of the spirits with which Shavi communed.

After five long, tense minutes, Sophie began to believe that it wasn’t going to work. But then Shavi’s head snapped back as if he had been punched on the chin. His eyes were open, but all that was visible were the whites. His breathing had become laboured, and from the twitching of his facial muscles it was clear that he was in some distress. Sophie wasn’t sure if it was part of the ritual, but was afraid that if she disturbed him, Shavi might come to harm.

Her paralysis was broken when blood gouted from Shavi’s nose, mouth and ears, and in scarlet teardrops from the corners of his eyes. She ran to his side and put her arms around him, gently urging him to break the trance.

He came round with a convulsion that threw him halfway across the room, as if he had been hit.

When his eyes finally flickered back to normal, she began to ask what had happened. His response was so violent, it shocked her. ‘It is here!’ he yelled, still in the final grip of the trance. ‘It has been here for a long time!’

Sophie gradually managed to calm him. Sitting up, with his head in his hands, he said with a shudder, ‘My consciousness touched it. I felt …’ He swallowed. ‘Nothing. A bleak emptiness of the soul. It was horrible.’

‘Are you OK?’

‘I will recover.’ Another shudder. ‘It is as I feared: it is protecting itself, hiding its location.’

‘That’s interesting,’ Sophie mused. ‘Why would something so powerful feel the need to hide?’

Shavi forced a weak smile. ‘Because the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons can stop it. It is remaining hidden until it is too late for us to do anything.’

‘We have to tell the others.’ Sophie helped Shavi to his feet. ‘But if you can’t find it, how are we going to pin it down?’

The door swung open before Shavi could respond. The silhouette framed in the doorway at first gave the impression of two people standing one just behind the other. But as the figure moved into the room, Sophie and Shavi saw that it was just one woman, her hard, pale face framed by black hair, her body swathed in expensive furs.

‘My name is Catherine Manning. I know who you are, I know
what you’re doing and I’m on your side,’ she said in sharp, clipped tones. ‘You need to come with me.’

Anticipating a weapon, Sophie pulled Shavi back towards the far wall. Even when she saw that Manning didn’t appear to be armed, she still maintained her guard. ‘What do you want?’

‘We’re in the last hour of the human race.’ Manning’s eyes shone glassily. ‘Everything’s coming to an end. The enemy have broken through our defences, and you’re sitting here getting nowhere.’

‘Leave us alone,’ Sophie said. ‘We know what we’re doing.’

‘Really?’ Manning couldn’t restrain the snide tone that came too easily to her voice. ‘Do you realise what little time you have? You know nothing, do you?’

Sophie made to respond angrily, but Shavi held her back with an arm across her chest. ‘And you know something?’

She nodded. ‘I know the only information you need. I know where the Void is.’

Sophie turned to Shavi. ‘We can’t trust her. We ought to find the others.’

‘We have no choice,’ Shavi said. ‘I have failed.’ He turned to Manning. ‘Where is the Void?’

‘I have to take you there.’

‘Shavi …’ Sophie cautioned, but she knew he was right: if there was even the slightest chance that Manning knew the location of the Void, they had to seize it. ‘All right. Take us there quickly,’ Sophie said. ‘But I’ll be watching you.’

‘Stop whining and get a move on. We may already be too late.’ Manning stood back to let Shavi and Sophie pass through the door. Neither of them saw the faint outline of another figure behind her, shimmering as if fighting to gain weight and form.

The drone reverberated off buildings, setting Mallory and Hunter’s teeth on edge; it sounded as if a wasp’s nest as a big as a house had been disturbed. The whole of the High Street was filled from wall to wall with Lament-Brood. They lapped around on either side, their measured, relentless pace driving them on, eyes dead, weapons scraping against brickwork. An echo of the buzzing hummed in Mallory and Hunter’s heads, but that was the collective voice of the Lament-Brood, whispering, cajoling, spreading its message of despair. Mallory and Hunter fought back, but it felt as
though a tidal wave of depression was about to break over their spirits and consume them.

Mallory clutched his sword tightly as he urged his horse back a few paces; even the blue flames that danced along the blade were dampened. He glanced at Hunter, who looked back at him before they both fixed their eyes on the darkness looming over the heads of the marching monstrous army.

They moved their horses a few more yards away from the enemy, and when they turned back, it was there. Towering a good ten feet off the ground was the King of Insects, its body a swarming mass of wasps, bees, flies, dragonflies, every tiny scurrying creature that had been sucked into its orbit. The gravity of the being far exceeded its physical dimensions. Hunter remembered when his mind had briefly touched it on the killing fields of Scotland, but now it was more powerful, stronger, more intelligent and more savage than any of the Lords, the force of its monstrous will radiating off it like the heat from a furnace. The Lament-Brood parted in small eddies as it moved amongst them, but when its ranging eyes fell on Mallory and Hunter, both of them were stunned by the voracious glee they sensed. It wanted them; it desired to rip them apart and crush both their bodies and their souls, and they knew this as completely as if it had spoken to them.

‘I’m going to need a bigger sword,’ Mallory said with flat humour.

‘We’re going to need something,’ Hunter replied. ‘Let’s find the others.’

They turned their horses and sped away, the weight of the King of Insects’ stare hard on their backs. It was speaking to them:
I can bide my time. You cannot run. You cannot hide. Your end is near
.

They found Laura where the High Street met Cornmarket Street. She was recovering from her exertions. ‘I killed the Lord of Lizards,’ she said with untoward glee, ‘but the Lament-Brood broke through. They’re on their way here.’

‘They’re coming from three directions.’ Hunter glanced around quickly; Laura and Mallory both knew that he was looking for a place to make a final stand. ‘Have you seen Sophie and Shavi? If we can find the Void before the rest of the Lament-Brood get here, we might actually be able to achieve something.’

‘Sophie helped me out earlier,’ Mallory said. ‘Then she drove off in the jeep with Shavi.’

‘Not seen either of them since they dropped me off,’ Laura said.

‘Where the hell are they?’ Hunter cracked his knuckles irritably, before adding to himself, ‘And where’s Hal?’

Rapid gunfire interrupted them as a small group of soldiers hurried past from the south. The leader saw Hunter and yelled, ‘Fall back! They’re coming!’ The men disappeared along Cornmarket Street. The steady tramp of thousands of feet could be heard approaching up St Aldate’s.

‘We’re going to get boxed in if we follow them,’ Mallory said.

‘I don’t think we have a choice,’ Hunter replied.

‘Shame. And it’s such a beautiful night,’ Laura said. She raised her face so that the big white flakes could settle gently on it.

Laura climbed on to Hunter’s horse and they caught up with the soldiers as they veered right into Market Street. Further along Cornmarket Street, a wall of Lament-Brood moved towards them. Mallory, Hunter and Laura galloped into Market Street, where Government workers were congregating in Jesus College and the other buildings surrounding it in a futile bid for safety.

Ahead, Hunter caught a glimpse of gold amongst the falling snow. As he neared, he saw that it was the Tuatha Dé Danann, their battle armour gleaming as they waited, bristling with arms. Lugh hailed them.

‘This is where we make our stand,’ Lugh said as Hunter jumped down to greet him. ‘The street is narrow enough for us to hold back the main flow of the enemy.’ He motioned behind him to the Divinity School. ‘And if we fall, you Brothers and Sisters of Dragons may retreat in there. It is defensible. You may be able to hold it for a while.’ There was little hope in Lugh’s voice, but oddly little despair, either; he acted as if impending doom was just another twist in life’s plan.

Hunter surveyed the Divinity School. It was easily the most beautiful medieval building in Oxford; he couldn’t have imagined anywhere better for a last stand. For hundreds of years, the walls had rung with the lectures and disputations of the Theology Faculty, with talk of higher purpose, of meaning. It would be a fitting context for their defeat.

Mallory gripped Llyrwyn when he saw Caitlin marching towards
them from the shadows of the ancient building. Lugh held up his hand. ‘Hold your sword, Brother of Dragons. She is one of you once more. A Sister of Dragons.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Caitlin said when she stood before them. ‘I made a mess of things. But I’m all right now. I can help.’