Rollerskater: Checkmate
I | II | III | SSI | IV | V | SSII | SSIII | VI | VII | SSIV
VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | SSV | XIII | SSVI | XIV | SSVII | XV | SSVIII | XVI | XVII
This instalment contains scenes of strong violence.
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Harri-Bec waits. She’s very good at waiting.
A few minutes ago, she was standing in a room in Camberwell. She heard the distant echo of a cry through the buzz of voices she always hears.
Help help Miss Harri, Pretty Mistress in trouble!
Now she’s standing by an electrical substation on the M1, located right beneath the M25, demarcating the boundary of her ontological remit.
The sun is just beginning to rise in the east. She kneels, placing her hand on the tarmac. She’s on the wrong side of the road, the side designated for traffic leaving London. But the call came on the inbound road, and—yes, now she sees them. She becomes the road, the guardrails, the roadsigns, the little mycelia that, while not London themselves, contain a bit of London in them.
There’s a bike hurtling down the road, one of its tyres is burst. Its rider is trying to keep balance. Hanging from the back of it is an exhausted-looking younger woman in a white dress. The young woman yelps as something impacts the road surface ahead of them. Harri-Bec feels it pierce the tarmac, bursting it apart as if it were her own breast. She cries out.
There, in close pursuit behind the bike, is a car. A 1959 Ford Thunderbird convertible. Sitting on top of the backrest, steering the car with her foot, is a tattooed woman. She clutches an anti-materiel rifle, attached to which is a scope, which she peers through. She is trying to kill the rider ahead of her, but the rider’s weaving movements are proving difficult to manage.
They’re a few hundred yards from Harri-Bec’s protection, safe within the bounds of London. That’s a few hundred yards in which they could be thrown from the bike.
Harri-Bec stands, returning to herself. She needs to concentrate, now.
She closes her eyes, and she calls out to London, to the thundering arteries of human life, to the communication centres and electrical circuits, the engines and airways and rails.
Please, she says, I need you to slow down, just for a minute. Just so I have enough to do this. I have done so much for you. I am your protector, your guardian. I embody you. I would not ask you this favour if it was not important. Come to my aid, now, or let me abandon you. I am Harri-Bec, you are Londinium. Soul and body, each lost without the other. Come now. Be there for me as I have been for you…
And she can feel things shift, like an ontological earthquake.
A bus slows down to a crawl in an empty street. Every train arriving at a platform finds itself held at a red signal, with no explanation given. Planes circle in the sky above the airports, finding the runways closed. Telephone calls drop out. Internet access disappears. Lights flicker. Music players skip and crackle. For a few moments, just a few moments, London grinds to a halt.
The energy diverts itself to one artery of the great city, the M1, and it is hers to command.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
She watches ahead, as the first few rays of sunshine begin to lick their way across this landscape, the pinkish-orange of late-spring sun now rising high into the rapidly-warming air. She can see them now, on the other side of the carriageway. A black motorbike, and behind it, a large American car.
She hears a voice, as though carried on the wind: Help, Miss Harri! Help! Big trouble!
She raises her hand into the air as if a conductor of a great orchestra, motioning for silence.
Click.
Before rider and passenger even know what is happening, the bike is careening across the carriageway. It weaves out of the way of cars, thudding across grass that its tyres were never meant to tread. And suddenly, they are on the outbound carriageway, right into her loving embrace.
She hurries towards the substation and opens the door, disappearing into the darkness within. The bike follows behind her.
Outside, the Ford Thunderbird is trying to pursue, but she refuses. She seals the door behind them, stranding the car on the wrong side of the motorway.
And they are falling, the lot of them, falling through space.
Falling, but safe.
*
Liberty Parish opened her eyes and blinked twice.
She was standing on a road in a city, next to a bus stop. It was as if she had always been here.
She didn’t like it. The sound of traffic, the smell of burning rubber, the sky so full of artificial light that no stars could be seen in the inky blackness.
Everywhere she looked, there was concrete and steel, and hardly any green to speak of.
She had been just about able to tolerate the place where Socks lived, where there was still countryside, grassland and waterways. This place was diseased.
She felt sick.
“I suppose I owe you thanks,” Chelsea Rose said, switching off the bike’s engine.
“People do generally say ‘thank you’ when you save their lives,” came the reply.
Liberty regarded the speaker for a few seconds. The hateful vibration of the city seemed to thrum into melody through this woman’s heart.
She turned to Liberty and smiled, holding out a hand.
“Harriet-Rebecca West,” she said. “Or Harri-Bec for short. And you must be…?”
“Liberty Parish,” Liberty replied, taking the hand. “You live here?”
“Yes,” Harri-Bec said. “I’m the Spirit of London Transport.”
Liberty looked around them. Cars and buses surged by in the dark street.
“How can you stand all this? The noise, the pollution? It’s horrible.”
Harri-Bec smiled graciously.
“I was born here,” she said, succinctly.
“And in fairness, you did save our arse,” Chelsea interjected. “Cheers, by the way.”
“‘Cheers?’” Harri-Bec said. “I save you from being shot in the back, and the best you can say is ‘Cheers, Harri, you’ve done me a solid?’”
“Yep,” Chelsea said. “Your first mistake was expecting any more from me.”
Harri-Bec huffed.
“You’re impossible,” she said. “But I have missed you.”
“Right back at you, nerd.”
Harri-Bec smiled.
“Right, we’d best be going. K-Os is expecting us all at the Lucky Devil.”
“Where are we, anyway?” Chelsea asked.
“Peckham,” Harri-Bec said. “The pub’s over in Camberwell.”
“If I’d known we were going south of the river, I’d have brought my passport,” Chelsea said, ironically.
Harri-Bec rolled her eyes. She turned to the bus stop and walked towards an advertisement for chewing gum.
“The bike already knows where it’s going,” she said. “Last one there’s a rotten egg.”
She vanished through the frame of the advertisement, leaving Chelsea and Liberty standing in Peckham.
“Easy to say when you can take a shortcut like that,” Chelsea said. “Come on then, Hippie Girl. We’ve got places to be.”
“Are you sure we’re going to be safe?” Liberty said, sceptically.
“I just spent the last four hours trying to avoid a bullet to the back on one of the nation’s longest motorways,” Chelsea said. “I think we can handle Peckham.”
*
The Lucky Devil was located between a doctor’s surgery and a bureau de change on Camberwell Road. It looked the same as always, dark weathered wood, unevenly structured, almost dilapidated.
It caused Socks a frisson to look at.
“Reminds me of the first day we met,” Dolly said, smiling.
“Don’t remind me,” Socks replied.
Monica stood and gazed up at the vaguely gothic building, fingers running across her mouth anxiously.
“Are we going in there?” Monica asked. “It looks scary.”
“In a minute,” Socks said. “We’re just waiting for Chelsea and Liberty.”
He had trimmed his beard into something far more handsome, and he was wearing a nice change of clothes Harri-Bec had provided for him. His hair remained long, though he had washed it and put oil through it. Harri-Bec had helped him style it.
A minute later, there came the low grumbling of a motorbike’s engine, and the bike swerved into the pub’s front yard, where they were seated.
Liberty was the first to disembark.
“Socks,” she said, shortly. “How was your journey?”
“It was alright,” Socks said. “And you?”
“Let’s not talk about it,” Chelsea said.
Dolly hurried to Chelsea’s side and wrapped her arms around her.
“Missed you,” she said.
“Missed you too, love,” Chelsea said.
“H-hello, Miss Rose,” Monica stammered.
Chelsea turned quizzically in the direction of her voice.
“It’s me, Miss Rose, Monica Eno? I damaged your kitchen.”
Chelsea raised an eyebrow.
“You sound different,” she said.
“Long story,” Socks said. “She’s. Er. Well. My daughter. Sort of.”
Liberty scoffed in disgust.
Chelsea stood for a moment, her eyebrows raised, her lips drawn down with a salacious expression.
“Don’t even think about it,” Liberty said, before Chelsea could speak another word.
“Like I said,” Socks replied. “It’s a long story.”
“You’re unbelievable,” Liberty said, barely masking her fury.
Monica stood, uncomfortably observing the scene.
“I’m sorry for making you feel bad, Liberty,” she said, quietly.
Liberty’s eyes flashed over to Monica, then away.
“Not your fault,” she said. “It’s him. He just doesn’t know when to stop.”
The front door of the pub opened, and all five of them turned.
There stood Harri-Bec, dressed in red dungarees with a striped T-shirt, a hand on her hip.
“She’s waiting,” she said, turning and walking into the darkness of the pub’s interior.
Socks was the first to walk in, trying to avoid Liberty’s judgement. What did she expect him to do, exactly? Never mind. They’d talk later. Right now, his concern was with meeting the one who started this mess, on a cold December evening a year and change past.
The main sitting area of the pub was spare, and there was a fire flickering in a fireplace on the immediate left. A portly gentleman stood behind the bar, cleaning it with a rag. He was wearing a Megadeth T-shirt, and shot Socks a yellowed smile.
“Yous here for K-Os?” he asked.
“Yes,” Socks said. “Where is she?”
“Upstairs,” the Irishman said. “Nice to see ye again, by the by.”
“And the same to you, Paddy,” Socks said, before heading for the wooden stairs. The others followed behind him.
The room above was all wooden benches and flooring, lit from the ceiling by gothic metal chandeliers. Socks’s eyes scanned the room, before meeting with two piercing blue eyes that peered at him from the corner.
“Hello, Socks,” said a familiar voice.
“Hi, K-Os,” he replied.
“Sit down,” K-Os said.
Socks did as he was told with surprising speed and efficiency. No messing about. The time for happy reunion would come later. They were deep in the shit, deep in a warzone, and K-Os would not be happy to see him until she could be sure that nobody was in immediate danger.
The others followed him up the stairs, first Liberty, then Dolly, then Chelsea holding her hand, then Monica. The only one not present was Harri-Bec.
Dolly immediately folded her arms, and Chelsea put an arm around her.
“Good evening, K-Os,” Liberty said. She looked down at her feet, shyly. “Good to see you again.”
“You too, Liberty,” K-Os said. “Sit down.”
Liberty did so, deliberately taking a seat that was one seat away from Socks.
“Well, well,” Dolly said, disdainfully. “Get bored of the hotel, did you?”
K-Os glared at her.
“I’m not here to joke, Dolly. You went over my head in December, and look how that turned out. Four people on the run, an attempted nuclear attack, and martial law declared. All because you felt that I wasn’t moving quickly enough.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Chelsea said, angrily. “You wanted us to leave Daisy to rot.”
“No,” K-Os retorted. “I wanted us to wait for an opportunity to present itself. You rushed things. Now we’re in this mess. Sit down.”
Dolly scowled. She was shaking with barely-suppressed rage.
Slowly, she walked to the table and took a seat at the table’s edge. Chelsea seated herself next to K-Os.
“Where is Harri-Bec?” K-Os asked.
“Downstairs, talking to Paddy,” Dolly said. “Don’t change the subject.”
“Come and sit down, Monica,” Socks said.
Monica stepped uneasily over to the table. The wooden floorboards creaked under the weight of her lumbering footfalls. Brrrrt-clunk-a-CHING.
She seated herself uneasily between Socks and Liberty, and looked shyly at K-Os.
“Hello, Miss K-Os,” she said. “Do you remember me?”
K-Os raised an eyebrow.
“Yes,” she said, uneasily. “You seem…different.”
“Long story,” Socks said.
“I’m very sorry that I threw you through a kitchen wall,” Monica said.
K-Os almost smiled. Almost.
“That’s quite alright,” she said. “I suppose I should have been more careful.”
Monica seemed to relax.
“You’re not cross with me?”
“I have been alive for more than sixty million years,” K-Os said. “I know which grudges to hold, and which to let go.”
“That’s rich,” Dolly said. “Next you’re going to be telling us you think we should sit down with the Prime Minister, have a cuppa, and sort it out over cake.”
“I never said that,” K-Os said.
Harri-Bec came up the stairs.
“So good of you to join us,” K-Os said.
“Sorry, K-Os,” Harri-Bec said. “I was talking to Paddy. He had to go and change the barrel. Everyone alright?”
The silence was deafening.
“We’re all here,” K-Os said. “Good. Now we can get on with discussing how we move forward.”
“Let’s talk elephant in the room,” Dolly said. “Naomi Carter warned me of Armageddon.”
“Yes,” K-Os said. “There are things afoot that go well beyond the British government.”
“The vampires,” Harri-Bec said. “You’re talking about the vampires, right?”
“I am,” K-Os said. “The Cult of the Blood Moon.”
“Who are they, when they’re at home?” Chelsea said.
Monica shook her head in fear.
“We don’t speak of them,” she said. “They are…they are the enemy.”
“An ancient enemy,” K-Os said. “Anti-life. Their creator feared death, to the point that he destroyed his own flesh. He became a being of pure chaos, the undying death. The Blood Moon.”
Something clicked into place. Socks felt slightly unwell.
“If the Blood Moon is a being of pure chaos,” Dolly said, “Then what does that make you?”
“That is the problem,” K-Os responded. “The Blood Moon is the death that does not die. I am the life that does not live. We are, ontologically, two sides of the same coin.”
Liberty shook her head.
“But that would mean that you depend on each other to exist,” she said. “The vampires must exist so long as you exist.”
K-Os was silent for a few moments.
“Yes,” she said, with a trace of sadness. “I am the life that brings death. The Blood Moon is the death that brings life. I am the Living. The Blood Moon is the Dead. We are each other’s annihilation.”
Liberty nodded in recognition.
Socks could recall the visions he had seen – of something looking at him, looking through him. The thing that had wormed its way into his mind, threatening him from within, threatening Liberty. The Blood Moon, an ancient intelligence, outside time and space. Was it listening to this conversation right now?
“So, to save the world, you must die,” Dolly said.
“No,” Socks said, suddenly. He surprised even himself. “She can’t die. Not again.”
“Socks…” K-Os said.
“I watched you die,” Socks said. “There’s got to be another way, K-Os.”
“There isn’t,” Liberty said. “She said it herself. The Blood Moon is her antithesis. If the world is to be saved, she must sacrifice herself.”
“Stop it,” Socks said, gritting his teeth. “That’s our friend, for God’s sake.”
“Come off it, Tilburys,” Chelsea said. “You think she wouldn’t expect you to die for her in a heartbeat?”
“Many people already have,” Dolly said, angrily. “Or have we already forgotten about Fliss?”
“Stop this, all of you,” Harri-Bec said. “We didn’t come here to argue. We’re looking at cold facts here. The world will end if nothing is done.”
“The world isn’t worth losing K-Os,” Socks said, quietly. His gaze met that of K-Os, who quickly looked away.
“But it was worth losing Fliss?” Dolly said, pointedly. “Losing Naomi? Losing Jules?”
Socks looked at her in indignation and turned away.
“Face it, Socks,” Dolly said. “You’re here because others have made sacrifices in your place. You wouldn’t even be here if not for a stupid accident.”
“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Socks asked. “Sorry, I invited someone to a Christmas party and suddenly I’m the bad guy?”
“I didn’t say that,” Dolly said. “What I’m saying is that you’re hopelessly naïve. Your dream scenario is one in which nobody has to die to save the world. I’m telling you that’s unrealistic.”
“Then we’re fighting for a graveyard,” Socks retorted.
“Would you both shut up?” K-Os snapped.
The two of them turned and looked at her, embarrassed as though scolded by a schoolteacher.
“Things are still not set in stone,” she continued. “The worst might still be averted. There are many factors at play here, and if they fall in the right sequence, we might emerge alright.”
Socks breathed out, relenting.
“I just can’t watch that happen again,” he said. “Losing you hurt way more than losing my arm. Way more.”
K-Os looked at him discerningly.
“Everything dies, Socks. All things have their time. You still haven’t learned that lesson, after so long? Sooner or later, you’ll have to learn.”
“But until then, I won’t allow it,” Socks said. “Not as long as I draw breath.”
K-Os shook her head.
“Idiot,” she said, with a sharp intake of breath.
“What’s the plan, then?” Harri-Bec asked. “Where do we go from here?”
“The ruptures are already happening,” K-Os replied. “The vampires have control of the British government. SAID-MI5 are being played for chumps. But to what end? My annihilation, I presume.”
“But if you’re annihilated, that will spell doom for the Blood Moon,” Liberty interjected.
“Not necessarily,” K-Os said. “It is only by opposition we will annihilate each other. But if I am absorbed, subsumed—”
“We’re all fucked,” Chelsea said. “The bloodsuckers make you theirs. Yeah?”
“Yes,” K-Os replied. “The Blood Moon is sealed away, for now. If they can unleash it on the world, it will spell doom for the entire human race. A new vampire imperium will come seething out of the fissures, and ontology as we know it will collapse.”
“Shit,” Chelsea said. “When you put it that way…”
“Then what do we do?” Dolly asked.
“We prevent these events from coming to pass,” K-Os said. “We launch a decisive assault on the powers that be, and destroy the vampires once and for all.”
“But how?” Dolly asked.
“Simple,” K-Os said. “We wait for the right moment. Armageddon is coming. We cannot stop it now, it is racing towards us with all the force of an avalanche. So we must use it to our advantage. Ride the wave. With luck, we will emerge into a new paradigm.”
“And without luck?” Liberty said.
K-Os said nothing.
There came a quiet creaking in the walls. Socks looked up for a moment.
“I could use a drink,” Chelsea said. “This place do Glenfarclas?”
“I could ask,” Harri-Bec said. “I’ll go down in a minute.”
The creaking sound came again, slightly louder. The sound seemed to pierce through Socks’s skull. He had a strange feeling in his stomach; something like the feeling of horror between nausea and feeling warm vomit surging up the throat.
“Dad…” Monica said, quietly. “What’s wrong?”
Socks turned his gaze to her, and the creaking continued. K-Os noticed it, too.
“Socks…?” she said.
Creaking, squealing, like polystyrene being dragged across concrete.
“Harri-Bec,” he said, suddenly. “Where was it you said Paddy went?”
Harri-Bec blinked once. “He went to change the—”
The walls had begun to move.
“Oh.”
Realisation dawned on Harri-Bec’s face.
“Oh shit—!”
The walls had begun warping, contorting in a way that wood panelling decidedly shouldn’t. K-Os, observing the scene before her, leapt from her seat and bellowed:
“EVERYBODY OUT, NOW!”
But it was too late.
The panels shifted, bending, and through them came a figure, all dressed in black.
The first among them was a tall man, thin, with long blond hair and pale blue eyes. The inside of his coat was lined with a deep crimson silk.
“Humans,” he hissed. “So very predictable.” He had an aristocratic Scottish accent.
He turned to the staircase.
“You can come out now,” he said.
Up the stairs came Paddy, landlord of The Lucky Devil, his face betraying his shame at his treachery.
Harri-Bec covered her mouth in horror.
“Paddy, no…”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “They made me do it.”
“Quiet,” the tall man said, surveying his captives. “I’m sure you’re aware of why we’re here, Lady Chaos.”
“You dare to come against me?” K-Os said. She transformed into a puddle of pink liquid and slithered under the table, reconstituting herself before him. “I’ll wipe you out of existence before you’ve had a chance to know it.”
“I know,” the tall man said. “That’s why I didn’t come alone.”
Not a moment later, more figures appeared through the walls. Dolly cried out in fear.
“Kill me if you must, Lady Chaos. But I’ll see to it that you watch your friends torn limb from limb. You see, we’re very, very thirsty.”
His teeth transformed momentarily into jagged needles of red crystal, then back again.
K-Os backed away from him.
“We are here for two of your number,” the vampire said. He locked eyes with Harri-Bec, who stared back at him defiantly. “One Harriet-Rebecca West, for crimes perpetrated against the Cult of the Blood Moon, including the murders of one Amber Stork and one Edvard Thirlwell, and association with our hated Enemy.”
His eyes passed to Liberty, who was trying her best to hide the fact that she was shaking in terror.
“And one Liberty Parish, one half of the divided Ur. Should you allow us to take them now, we will leave you in peace. If not…”
He laughed horribly.
“Then we will paint the room red.”
“Nobody move,” K-Os said.
“Admit it,” the vampire said. “You can’t win.”
The room fell silent.
Then a sound in the corner, so quiet as to be imperceptible.
And suddenly, screaming.
“Oh my God!” Harri-Bec shouted.
Socks turned his head.
Where there had been standing a black-haired vampire, there now stood a pair of disembodied legs, and behind them, a man dressed in red, clutching a massive two-handed sword of red crystal. The legs thudded to the ground.
“Actually,” the man in red said, “Appearances can be deceivin’.”
“Crucefix,” the lead vampire hissed.
He took a moment to regain his composure, then chuckled darkly. “So you are here, old man. What help can you possibly provide? We outnumber you.”
“Aye,” the old man replied. “Except for one thing.”
Something inhuman passed across his face.
“See, you’re the parasite that killed ma brother, back in ‘64. An’ nothin’ is gonnae stop me from tearing you limb from fucken limb.”
The lead vampire stood for a moment, as if trying to recall something.
“My word,” he said. “Was it so long ago? You were but an infant then…”
“An’ noo am an auld man,” came the riposte. “An’ a didnae get tae this age withoot cause. You unnerstaun me? Yer no’ lookin’ at a human. Am the devil, sir. An’ ave come tae collect.”
The lead vampire seemed perturbed for a few moments, only to burst into uproarious laughter.
“You auld fool. I was turned in the last years of the eighteenth century,” he said. “I have walked fields filled with the corpses of innocents. I have seen more death than you could possibly imagine. Witnessed the callous way that man inflicts suffering upon man. Atrocity and suffering beyond understanding. And to think that such a trifling meal would result in such an enmity.”
The old man laughed.
“Are ye finished wae yer big speech?” he asked. “Vampires. So predictable. Do it, Paddy!”
Paddy suddenly withdrew something from his pocket, pointing it at the lead vampire, who looked him up and down, his face twisting in rage.
“We had a deal, Padraig.”
The barman simply scowled at him and took aim.
“I’ve told ye once. I’ve told ye a t’ousand times. Me name’s Paddy.”
Bang.
A chunk of the vampire’s shoulder blew away, and he screamed.
“Kill them! KILL THEM ALL!”
Paddy fired again, but missed.
“TRAITOR!” the vampire screamed.
The vampire leapt, and in seconds, he was on Paddy, who went down without much resistance.
“Run!” K-Os shouted.
And suddenly the room was erupting into tumult. Tables were overturned, somewhere there was the sound of shattering glass. Socks was diving under someone.
“Monica,” he shouted. “Monica!”
There was a flash of blinding white light.
“Socks, move!” K-Os shouted.
Screams, clattering, and then—
It was as if time had slowed to a crawl. And in a hail of bodies, there was Liberty, standing in the middle of it, bewildered and terrified, almost shell-shocked, blinking as though she were standing in the eye of some terrible hurricane.
“Liberty!” he was shouting, and it seemed to go on forever.
The tall vampire in black swooped in like some horrible bat, and despite her strength, he knocked the wind out of her. She howled in terror, her golden hair waving like rays of sunshine eroded by stormclouds, and before he could understand what was happening, she had vanished into the walls with her captor.
“NO!” Socks screamed.
“SOCKS, GET UP!”
Socks had never seen K-Os so bedraggled. Before he even knew what was happening she was dragging him to his feet, and somehow he was outside the pub, her arms around him. He was lunging against her.
“Get off me,” he was saying. “Get off me! For God’s sake, K-Os, they’ve taken Liberty—”
“I know!” K-Os roared. “I know they’ve taken her. It was a trap, Socks. What good are you to her if they kill you?”
“What good indeed?” said a voice from behind.
K-Os turned.
There, standing in the street, was a man wearing an eyepatch, leaning against a crutch.
“I trust you do remember me?” The Captain said.
K-Os charged at the Captain, taken suddenly by blind rage.
The Captain did not flinch as he tossed a small white cylinder at K-Os’s face.
Before she had time to react, there was a sound like a miniature sonic boom.
K-Os kept moving, but Socks could only watch in confusion and horror as her structure collapsed, and she melted into a puddle with the consistency of custard.
The Captain turned to Socks, who didn’t dare move.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” he said.
Socks saw a flash of red light.
Then everything went black.
*
Nina was such a good operative, the Captain thought, that it was a shame they were going to have to terminate her. Still, she’d led them to their biggest catch so far, so it wasn’t so bad. He watched as the soldiers vacuumed up the puddle that was the Rollerskater.
The sonic bomb – really a very small thermobaric weapon – was designed specifically to destabilise the Rollerskater’s structural matrix. He knew it wouldn’t last, but it would last long enough to get her into more secure containment. He took a puff on his inhaler.
A soldier ran up to him.
“Sitrep,” the Captain said.
“Location of Liberty Parish unconfirmed, sir. Harriet-Rebecca West also unconfirmed, sir.”
Bad news. The Captain frowned, tapping the top of his cane.
“Dolores Mykhailiuk?” the Captain said.
The soldier cleared his throat.
“The men witnessed her being bundled into the back of a van, sir. We’ve got her and her partner under arrest. We’re just waiting for confirmation from MI5.”
The Captain raised an eyebrow.
“Really? I was not informed of this.”
“Er, yes, sir. We saw two soldiers jump out of a van and drag them inside.”
The Captain raised his eyebrows.
“Are you sure they were with us?”
“Well, yes, sir. Why wouldn’t they be?”
The Captain patted his pocket for his inhaler.
“Let me put this another way,” he growled. “Did any of the men confirm the identity of the vehicle, or the people driving it?”
The soldier’s eyes widened. He seemed to have realised something.
“No, sir…I hadn’t thought of that, sir…”
The Captain was silent for several seconds, then pointed his Desert Eagle directly at the soldier’s forehead.
“Wait, wait!” the soldier said.
“I will see to it that your widow is compensated,” the Captain said, gently.
“Don’t—”
The Captain pulled the trigger.
*
In a block of flats in Southwark, a woman was getting ready for bed when she heard banging on her door. A jolt of fear went through her. Police after her for disobeying curfew? For God’s sake, she was only out ten minutes later than she should have been.
Cautiously, she went to the door and looked through the peep-hole. She gasped, unlocking the door.
There before her stood a tall woman wearing leather, her white hair hanging loose about her shoulders. She hadn’t seen her in a long time. It was strange to see her all grown up.
Beside her were several others: a shorter, red-haired woman who looked dazed and upset, and two other women, one with curled blonde hair cut into a short bob, the other a short woman wearing a hijab.
“Hello, Auntie Trish,” Chelsea Rose said. “I’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”
*
As the red mist lifted, Callan Crucefix realised that his prey had eluded him once again. He was surrounded by smashed red crystal, but none of it belonging to the bastard that had killed his brother. He stood, gasping for a few moments.
He was so old, now. There was a slight pain in his chest.
Harri-Bec suddenly appeared, and by her side was a young girl, or what looked like a young girl, the word “ONE” etched into her forehead above two eyes like black pearls.
“You awright, hen?” he asked.
“Yes,” Harri-Bec said. “Where are the others?”
“Gone,” Callan said, wiping his brow.
“Did you know that was going to happen?” Harri-Bec asked.
“Aye,” Callan said. “Paddy warned me—Paddy!”
He bolted across the room.
Harri-Bec followed with him. She covered her mouth.
There, laying in a pool of blood, was the proprietor of The Lucky Devil. His arms were drawn up to his chest in an almost foetal fashion, clutching a blood-stained flintlock pistol.
He was still breathing. Just.
“Jesus, Paddy,” Callan said. “What’ve they done tae ye? C’mere, big man. We’re gonnae get ye some help.”
Paddy gurgled and coughed. A clot of blood welled up from his throat, and he spat it on to his ragged shirt. It was then that Callan saw where the vampires had gouged Paddy’s flesh. His belly had been slit open.
He was mortally wounded.
“It’s bad, ennit?” he said.
“Aye,” Callan said.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Harri-Bec asked.
“Nah,” Paddy said. “I’m done for. Shite. Never thought I’d cop it like this…”
Callan bowed his head.
“Listen…” Paddy said.
“Save yer strength,” Callan said.
“No…” Paddy replied. “Listen…Callan…under the bar…there’s a…” He gurgled and coughed. “There’s a box…I know what this means to you…”
“Paddy…”
“No use, I’m off now,” Paddy said. “Ah, Jaysus. Ah, Christ.”
He tried to laugh, but it came out as a sort of cough. “What I wouldn’t give for a pint of Guinness…not long left now…take too long to pour…don’t want me last drink t’be a shite pour, do I…?”
Harri-Bec was crying.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Paddy smiled, weakly.
“Aye,” he said. “‘Twas a good life.”
His head fell back, and his eyes closed. They would never open again.
Callan reached into Paddy’s pocket, then stood, turning to Harri-Bec, who had begun wailing in anguish.
“Listen,” he said. “You an’ the lassie in white need to go. Get oot o’ here. Unnerstaun?”
“Right,” Harri-Bec said, wiping her eyes. “God, right.”
The timbers began to creak and moan. Harri-Bec ran to the girl with black eyes, taking her by the hand. Callan trusted her to find her own way out. He took the pistol from Paddy’s hand, which was stained with his blood.
He ran down the stairs and darted behind the bar. Above him, something was buckling.
He grabbed the lockbox, opened it, and looked inside. Nodding, he took it with him and ran out.
There was a horrible creaking sound, wood smashing, glass shattering, stone breaking. The building imploded in a matter of seconds, but it felt like minutes. All that remained when it was done was pile of rubble.
The question had always been whether Paddy had been a man who had a pub, or The Lucky Devil had been a pub who had a man.
Callan realised now that it was both.
With Paddy’s death, so too went The Lucky Devil.
The pub had been murdered.
Callan opened the box and placed the blood-stained pistol inside it, beside its brother, and wept for his fallen friend.
He watched as the spatial anomaly closed up, entombing Paddy somewhere that his body would never be found. The masonry and broken glass seemed to disappear into an abyss, and the street rearranged itself, such that it seemed there had never been a Lucky Devil at all.
Callan looked down at the box in his hand, then up at the dark sky.
Grey clouds loomed above.
Filled with a new resolve, he vanished into the morning light.
Another time, another place…
This work is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Illustration created using elements of an image by GR Stocks on Unsplash
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ARC FOUR: BLOOD MOON
I | II | III | SSI | IV | V | SSII | SSIII | VI | VII | SSIV
VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | SSV | XIII | SSVI | XIV | SSVII | XV | SSVIII | XVI | XVII