The Turnarounders and the Arbuckle Rescue (55 page)

‘Gloria!’ he bellowed, forgetting that he’d promised himself never to call his sister by anything other than her real name. ‘Get Below. Now! Run!’

But Gloria did not run and Valen had waited long enough. In a blur she grabbed Tank’s arm, locking her own around it and held on. Tank pulled against her but couldn’t shake her off. He turned to confront Valen, his breath hot and stinking in her face.

‘I’m going to kill you, you filthy little trollop!’

Valen sighed. ‘You’re a bully, Tatchell,’ she said quietly. ‘But what’s worse is you’re stupid. You’re as bad as the Nazis.’ She shook her head pityingly as she drew her arm back and then smashed the heel of her hand into his nose. Tank crumpled to his knees and Valen dismissed him. ‘Dummkopf!’ She turned to help Gloria.

But she had misjudged. This was no ordinary fight and Tank was impervious to pain. As blood poured from his lopsided nose, colour flooded up his thick neck and his face flushed crimson. He twisted upwards and swung the knife in a wide arc. Shocked, Valen Shifted out of his path at the last second.

‘Tank!’ King shouted, pulling himself over the rail and on to the boat. ‘Tank! STOP!’

Tank rounded on King. ‘I don’t take orders from you anymore!’ he screamed. He flung his arm in Keen’s direction. ‘He’s in command now, Juuuulian! It’s
me
he trusts! It was
me
who helped him cut the lines that night!
Me
who set off the fireworks while the Muntons moved Hart.
Me
who terrified the whole village with those dolls on Hallowe’en. HE warned you that The Door was open! He warned you in blood! But you didn’t listen.
I
know what’s coming!
I’ve
got the power now and I’ve been given HIS knife to prove it!’

He held up the blade for them all to see. Its edge winked red in the light of the burning Griffin.

‘Put that thing down!’ shrieked Gloria ‘It’s an evil weapon! Evil!’

‘You’re afraid!’ Tank cackled. ‘You’re so afraid I can smell it!’

‘Listen to Gloria, Tank.’ Valen flexed her knuckles impulsively.

Tank shook his head and slashed the knife through the air, inches from Valen’s face. ‘There’ll be so much blood the sea will turn red!’ he bellowed. ‘Yours will be the first to spill!’

Tank roared and charged, knocking King hard and head first into the wheelhouse. Valen Shifted a foot to the left and Tank whirled like a maddened bull, hacking at her with the knife.

As he did so, Gadd Munton froze. He’d reached the stern of the boat and was halfway over the side when his eyes glazed over. Slowly, he inched back the way he’d come. His hand slid into his pocket and came out again holding his switchblade. Gadd gazed at it for a second as if the knife, and the hand that held it, belonged to someone else.

Tank and Valen continued to circle each other, fighting hand to hand. Valen met each of Tank’s slashes and thrusts with blocks and jabs of her own. Gloria watched them wide-eyed. She held Alfie’s torch like a club, hoping for an opportunity to use it on Tank’s head, but the opportunity did not present itself.  Munton, silent as a cat, crept up behind her.

Ralf wanted to scream a warning but he was too close to Tank’s lumbering frame now. Instead he offered up a silent prayer, ‘
Somebody help Gloria, please!
’ and, clinging by his fingertips and toes, his arms screaming in pain he tried to pull himself faster around the outside of boat’s hull. Just ten more feet and he could hurl the net. Nine… Eight… Ralf’s right hand slipped but he caught himself. Blood seeped as his fingernails bent back but he held his scream behind clenched teeth.

Something flashed, impossibly fast, towards
The Sea-Hawke
. Seth. The slight figure Shifting with such speed that he had trouble stopping.

‘Gloria!’ Seth shouted, with as much authority as he could muster. ‘Get behind me!’ His knees were shaking but he made an effort to keep his voice steady.

Gloria swung around and brought Alfie’s torch high but weakened by cold, shock and loss of blood, she swayed dangerously and had to grab for the rail.

Munton lurched forward. Seth Shunned him. The wiry smuggler staggered backwards. Seth’s mouth set in a determined line and he Shunned again. This time, though, Gadd was ready for him. He ducked the Shun and threw the knife in a spinning arc. Seth Shifted and the blade twanged into the deck. Munton roared and threw himself forward. Man and boy crashed to the floor.

Gadd’s punches pummelled down. Seth, pinned under the larger man, was able only to rock from side to side and Munton’s weathered fists slammed into the deck. Gadd was tiring fast and his knuckles were torn and bloody but Seth was weakening too. There was a sheen of sweat on his brow, his glasses were askew but, Ralf knew, he must be able to see Gadd all too clearly; his toothless grin, lank unwashed hair, the streaked dirt in the creases of his forehead, that awful spark of gold in his stare. Suddenly, Munton’s hard fingers were at Seth’s throat. They latched on, gnarled nails biting into flesh. They squeezed. Underneath his wonky glasses, Seth’s eyes bulged.

A clear voice cut the night.

‘I’ll thank you to take your hands off him, Gadd!’ said King, swaying in the frame of the wheelhouse door. He held a boat hook in his hands and slammed the end of it on to the deck with a loud crack. ‘I’ll have you know, Munton, Goldberg is a Crispin’s boy.’ King raised the boat hook once more and brought it down in a chopping motion on the back of Gadd’s head. ‘And Crispin’s boys stick together!’

Munton collapsed, a dead weight on Seth’s chest. Ralf heard the air escape from Seth’s lungs with a sigh. King swayed forward and, using his right boot and the boathook as a makeshift lever, managed to roll the supine smuggler off Seth.

‘Val!’ King called. ‘Catch!’

Valen caught the boathook one handed, performed a series of whirling kendo style movements and laughed out loud. She didn’t bother to Shift this time, but rushed Tank head on. Jab. Swipe. Jab. Crack. The first blow bent Tank double. The second took his legs from under him. The third toppled him on one side.

But he crawled back to his feet. No normal being could have withstood such a beating and Ralf knew it was the knife that was giving him the strength to continue. Muscles burning, Ralf hauled himself on. Finally, he was directly behind Tank and in a single movement he pulled himself on to the deck and threw the net. Tank’s hand snared in the mesh and Ralf dragged the evil blade out of the boy’s grip with a sharp tug. It clattered to the deck. Ralf leapt forward and, ignoring the flash of cold pain that shivered up his leg as his foot made contact, kicked the knife overboard.

At once, Tank’s knees buckled and Val’s final blow, the coup de grace, knocked him out cold. Ralf half expected to see little blue birds circle round the large boy’s head.

‘Well that’s shown him!’ said Valen.

Gloria whooped. The men on
The Sara-Luz
cheered. But King looked ashen. He raised an arm and pointed.

The first of the swimming soldiers were pulling themselves from the water and on to the mole. They looked wrong, though. There were no coughs or splutters. Like sleepwalkers taking one mindless step after another they advanced on the grounded
Sea-Hawke
oblivious to the battle raging around them.

‘Look at their eyes!’ King breathed. The men plodded onwards, zombie like, their eyes a glassy gold, shining and empty of emotion.

Very soon the first of them were attempting to climb aboard. Their blue-white knuckles gripped the deck and they flopped over each other like landed fish in their efforts to reach those on board.

‘What’s wrong with them?’ Gloria cried. ‘Wake up! We’re on your side!’

In the distance, Keen cackled.

Seth threw his hands outwards. His Shun hit and the first wave of men fell. The soldiers behind kept walking, a flood of mindless flesh, which rushed over bodies as if they were nothing more than lumps in the sand. Valen leaped forward with the boat hook and jabbed at the first of the walkers. The man fell but the others kept coming, their faces expressionless masks.

Keen laughed again. Ralf tasted bile and cold sweat dripped down his spine. He wheeled round. The Captain was still on the pontoon but now his strange gold-shot stare was fixed on Charles Hart who was struggling violently in the water. The more he did so, the further from safety he got. Ron, valiantly ploughing through the waves, was still too far away to help him. Bullets and spray lashed around them. Ralf looked up. Leo and Archie in the coracle were close but not close enough. They seemed to be paddling through treacle, their expressions a mixture of determination and exasperation.

Ralf’s mind whirled. They were lost! Hart was going to die! Ron too probably… His eyes shot back to Keen, who stood, arms wide, like he was conducting some kind of weird, invisible orchestra. Shadows smoked around him, mingling with the fog. Seabirds perched unnaturally all over the surface of the pontoon. Mutant, deformed fish flopped out of the sea to flip-flap about at his feet.

The Griffin
sank with a loud hiss and the jetty fell in to shadow, lit only by the last pieces of burning debris on the water. Keen howled at the sky. Ralf watched in horror as the man’s face stretched taught and his eyes bulged with malice. More Shadows scurried along the pontoon and leapt from wave to wave to pool at Keen’s feet. They crawled up his legs, twining round him like some terrible black vine, holding him up, protecting him. And he grew. Keen actually grew. Ralf blinked at the sight of it and there were gasps of horror from the soldiers either side of him. Somehow the Shadows were merging into the Captain. They were becoming part of him. Or he was becoming one with them. The size of a building now, Keen’s eyes left the drowning Hart and fixed on a point above the harbour. Ralf followed his gaze and recoiled at what he saw.

There was a hole in the sky.

It was a wound – not the neat surgeon’s cut that Ambrose had made, but a gaping tear in nature like the shrapnel injuries Ralf had seen on some of the men. It was a jagged rent; viciously torn open to reveal what lay behind, like skin peeled back to expose blood and bone. Only here, behind the night sky was not flesh but a swirling mass of absolute wrongness.

A wave of nausea hit Ralf like he’d been punched. All around the harbour men gaped in mute horror. Behind the rift something was waiting… Something vast and powerful and malevolent lurked there impatiently – and it wanted to come out.

This was it. This was what Ambrose had described on that first day. His words echoed in Ralf’s head: ‘Fear and terror on a scale beyond imagining.’

It was eleven fifty-six and
the Turnarounders helplessly witnessed the beginning of the end of everything.

‘SCATHFEROX!’ Keen shrieked. ‘EF EOS WAECNAN!’

‘Scathferox is awake?’ Seth whispered, tremulously.

Ralf swallowed the bile in his throat and corrected him. ‘Scathferox ha
s risen,’ he gasped. ‘He’s here!’

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The Arbuckle Rescue

Ralf didn't need to look at his watch to know that it was four minutes past midnight. He knew that this was the deciding moment with every fibre of his being. ‘Keen!’ Ralf cried. ‘Stop! Please! If you let HIM through it will be the end of everything!’

‘It’s too late, Wolf.’ Keen’s body convulsed and the
Shadows writhed around him. ‘I did it. I opened the Door! …… So long alone. In the dark. The noises, the voices, the screams. But then he came to me. A few soft words and I opened The Door.
Nos Darras!
’ Keen sagged. He was crying now. ‘I touched the Black Door!’

He pulled his arm from its sling and unwound the protective bandages. The material fluttered to one side and was snatched away by the wind. The limb he held forward was rotten to the bone. Scraps of tattered flesh hung from it, oozing from slimed sinews and the hand at the end of it was a scabbed and weeping claw.

Keen’s voice wailed out again. ‘The Black Door! The–’ He seemed to be battling with the presence inside him but it was far too late now. It was a fight he was doomed to loose.

‘One touch!’ a terrible voice boomed from Keen. ‘One touch was all it took…’

And then that voice was gone and Keen’s own returned, a frustrated, mad shriek which somehow cut through the cacophony of battle and reverberated in Ralf’s ears ‘Hart’s useless to me now!’ Then Keen giggled, a sad and childlike sound. ‘So much for that bally plan! The proverbial cat is out of the bag. But…But…’ Like an angry toddler Keen clenched his fists and screamed: ‘I’m still winning!’

He stretched out a hand. Hart opened his mouth to scream but his body sank and he gurgled pitifully as he disappeared beneath the surface. Ron was only feet away now and he duck dived to reach him.

‘Yes. Without Hart and his friends Churchill is just one more snivelling European politician begging the Americans for help! Britain’s little deal with the Yanks will be as sunk as
The Griffin
! Think of it, Wolf! No convoys! No food! The country will be on its knees in a week!’ Keen turned from Ralf and his eyes found Hart in the water. ‘I’ll start with Hart and then take care of the rest of them. The Natus are all here, just as He said they would be! What a pathetic last line of defence they turned out to be!’

‘They’ll never give up!’ Ralf yelled, defiantly. He wasn’t sure he believed it but he had a vague thought that if he kept Keen talking he’d be unable to concentrate on drowning Hart. ‘We’ll stop you!’ he shouted madly.

‘You?’ Keen’s eyes left the patch of water where Hart struggled and the actor bobbed to the surface like a popping cork. He clung to Ron and drew in deep shuddering breaths as Keen focused his attention on Ralf. ‘YOU?’ he laughed. ‘
The Athraig
? The Turnarounders!’ He spat the words. ‘A pitiful rag-tag bunch of
children?
’

Ralf blanched. ‘You know who we are?’

‘Of course I know!
He
told me the moment you arrived! And since then what have you done but fall for every one of my ploys?’ Keen flashed a petulant grin.

‘Keen!’ Ralf pleaded. ‘This isn’t you talking! You’re a good man. I know you are! If you could just try to break free of him! Think – think of the future!’

For a second the Captain faltered and Ralf felt a surge of hope. But an angry clap of thunder cut the air. It resounded round the whole of Dunkirk town and rumbled on menacingly as Keen stared upwards. There was a great rush of wind from the void. Debris rolled and clattered across the harbour and the boat’s masts, knocked at angles, groaned against it. Clouds boiled in the sky around the hole that hung there and the wrongness, a soot-stained billowing smog rushed from it. In moments, Keen was enveloped in Shadows. They clung to him briefly, before pooling round his terror struck face. Keen’s mouth stretched in an awful silent ‘Oh’ then the blackness horribly, hideously, poured down his open throat. His eyes bulged. Tendons stood out on the Captain’s neck and his whole body shuddered. His mouth opened again as if to vomit up the darkness but instead, there burst forth a vile, rasping laugh.

‘I
AM the future!’ The voice that came out of Keen’s mouth belonged an entirely different entity. It was wrong on so many levels, Ralf thought; a malignant, cancerous voice that went against nature.

Scathferox.

Ralf’s knees gave and he slumped to the deck. In one long despairing look he took in Hart and Ron Arbuckle struggling in the water, Alfie and Leo in the tiny coracle battling towards them. Valen, Seth and King now fighting hand to hand with the approaching soldiers. Ralph wanted to weep but something told him to keep talking. On his knees, he threw his arms wide and faced the gargantuan figure on the pontoon. Golden eyes stared mockingly back at him but he met their gaze and held them.

‘You’d sacrifice all these innocent people?’ he cried. ‘For what? Revenge?’

The cackling laugh came again. ‘What do you know of sacrifice?’ the malevolent voice sneered. ‘After all your pathetic little lives you haven’t even begun to learn the meaning of the word! I sacrificed two thirds of my race to rid Albion of its invaders!’

His voice trailed off into a low rattle and then Scathferox spoke again.

‘Centuries in the void. But then he came to me. A few words, a promise of rescue, a promise of power and the fool was mine. A whisper in the dark and he opened The Door.
Nos Darras!
’ Scathferox spat. ‘Their mighty Black Door! Their spells could not hold me! Their power is nothing next to mine!

‘I won’t be so merciful this time, Wolf!’ the voice screamed in Ralf’s head. ‘Unless you stop now! Give up this doomed quest! Break your promise!’

‘And watch you kill and enslave the entire Nation?’ Ralf screamed. ‘Never!’

‘You could have a life in this time!’ the voice urged. It was softer now and the eyes in the vast body glowed a softer, smouldering gold. ‘All of you could…’

The giant on the pontoon held his arms open questioningly.

‘A life?’

‘A life with your sister, Wolf! And Niall? Your brother’s only a mile down the road! I could get him here with a click of my fingers!’

Ralf couldn’t stop his eyes from travelling inland. A mile away? Such a short distance but so impossibly far.

Scathferox’s piercing eyes seemed to see right into him and Ralf squirmed at the feel of them. The voice that answered was not his own, though.

‘Yeah, yeah!’ Alfie shouted. ‘Come to the dark side! You murdering tyrants are all the same!’

‘And what would these lives you offer be worth in a land ruled by you?’ Leo shouted. ‘We’d be slaves!’ Ralf retched at the thought of it.

‘So be it!’ Scathferox roared. ‘Now FEEL the FEAR!’ He was laughing joyously now, arms outstretched. And immediately he’d said it, Ralf
did
feel it. The Fear arrived in Dunkirk. It walked among them making some men stop swimming and simply sink, inert, to the bottom of the harbour. It made others, frantic with terror, fight amongst themselves to get aboard floundering vessels. Men on the mole dropped their guns and ran screaming for cover. Fizzing pops of electricity marked the births of dozens of new Falls. A column of medieval horsemen exploded into being on the jetty, their mounts bucking and shrieking in terror. A sabre-toothed tiger pounced through another Fall to spear a hapless infantryman in its jaws. A twenty-first century car, a polished silver Porsche, skidded out of another Fall and nose-dived into the water. Out at sea, a huge patch of haze shimmered outwards. Through it came a vast, four funnelled ocean liner dotted with lights and milling people. The name on the hull was clear:
RMS Titanic
.

An inky blotch bubbled out of the water to cling to the prow of the out-of-time ship, a dark blot that was quickly joined by others. Suddenly the sea was boiling. Black shapes swarmed from the water and up
The
Titanic’s
hull. More Shadows rose from the depths to crawl up the sides of
The Mona's Isle
.

‘NO!’ Ralph screamed against his own inertia.
Move Wolf, move!

He judged the distance between
The Sara Luz
and the pontoon. It was too far. He was about to Shift anyway when he became aware of a bloom of warmth on his right hip. Had he been shot? His hand reached down and closed around a lumpy package in his pocket. His marble bag! The bag was heavy now, heavier than it should have been and he felt a pulse of heat from within the soft leather. Beneath his fingers he felt the twigs and bunches of herbs, the rabbit’s foot and the galaxy. He pulled it from his pocket. Arrows of silver light shot out between fingers made translucent by the glow. A pungent scent filled the air around him – balsam, aniseed – a wholesome smell that encapsulated all that was clean, pure and natural.

Ambrose’s words came back to him in a rush. ‘Your weapon’s provided.’ The marble was the stone Urk had been so desperate for him to have, the herbs a charm, a talisman to ward off evil. ‘It’s as old as the hills!’ Hilda’s words echoed in his head. He had all he needed. This was his weapon!

Fumbling in his haste, Ralf searched his other pockets until he found what he was looking for – Charlie Duke’s slingshot. Saying another silent prayer and wishing he could cross his shaking fingers as well as aim, Ralf positioned the bag in the sling’s cup.

As Scathferox toyed with Hart and Ron in the water, Ralf Shifted. He soared into the air towards the giant on the pontoon, aimed and let fly. The bag shot forward like a miniature comet. Scathferox’s wrist flicked again as he registered Ralf’s presence but he had misjudged. His Shun hit the flying boy’s chest and Ralf felt his heart stutter as he somersaulted violently in the air and bombed back into the water, but Urk’s little bag of charms flew straight and true. It hit Scathferox squarely between the eyes.

Scathferox’s cry was a wordless shriek of rage. The giant of smoke and darkness, shrivelled and the marble bag seemed to be swallowed in the imploding knot of Shadows that made his face. The air was filled with the cawing of birds and rushing wind. On the harbour, abandoned vehicles spontaneously combusted. Explosions ripped across the town and white-hot shrapnel rained down on buildings, smashing roofs and slicing through whatever lay beneath. A mile away the church bell pealed violently in its steeple. Soldiers fired madly, their fingers frozen on triggers or curled into balls and cried. Waves emerged from nowhere slamming into the harbour. Whirlpools and geysers dotted the bay. Further away cows collapsed in barns and sheep dropped dead in fields were they stood. There was a second when Keen’s limp body could be seen spread-eagled on the pontoon and then he, the fog and the writhing Shadows were sucked, a screaming maelstrom of utter wrongness, into the rift.

After what felt like an eternity spinning in the black depths of the harbour Ralf surfaced, directly beneath a floating chunk of
The Griffin
. It crashed into his left temple and a rainbow of colours flashed before his eyes. Blinking, floundering about, gulping sea and choking, he kicked off his boots and surfaced to an eerily silent harbour.

On the mole, soldiers halted, blinked and looked around them as if waking from a deep slumber. Seth and Valen clung to each other in exhaustion and relief whilst King, one side of his face a mask of blood, stumbled to help Gloria.

Meanwhile, Ron searched for Hart in the numbing darkness of the harbour. At the closing of the rift, all fight seemed to have left the actor and he’d lost consciousness, sinking like a stone under the waves. Ron ducked under the water but found nothing. When he surfaced Walter Sedley was right next to him. Their eyes met. Then the Natus each took a deep breath and dived again.

‘Walter!’ Ralf tried to shout but his mouth filled with water and, reflexively, he spat and spluttered. It didn’t matter, though. Walter was alive!

There was a horrible minute that felt like an hour, when Ron and Walter swam around in what looked like ink and felt like porridge. Their hands numb with cold they almost missed what they were looking for. At length, something solid brushed Walter’s fingertips and he dived towards it. It was a boot. The boot was attached to a leg and, he was relieved to find, the leg was still attached to a body.

Walter pulled with all his strength. Ron, next to him, grabbed hold too and between them they hauled Hart to the surface. Gripping Hart’s body firmly he and Ron struck out towards the coracle and Ralf watched in relief as they hung to its side whilst Leo and Alfie hauled Hart aboard.

Suddenly exhausted, Ralf became aware of his own predicament. The coracle would not take the weight of another occupant and
The Sara Luz
had drifted almost as far as the mole. With as much energy as he could muster he kicked out and swam for his boat. Four strokes later he was a bit closer but didn’t think he had the strength to make it. It didn’t matter. He’d done what he’d been brought back to do. He’d do five more strokes and then he’d have to stop, Ralf told himself. Determination got him through the first three strokes.

‘Come on Wolf!’ Gloria called from the grounded
Sea-Hawke
. ‘Two more!’
Easy for her to say
, thought Ralf, his limbs leaden.