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Neutronium Alchemist: Consolidation
Chapter 01
It seemed to Louise Kavanagh as though the fearsome midsummer heat had persisted for endless, dreary weeks rather than just the four Duke-days since the last meagre shower of rain. “Air from the devil’s cookhouse,” the old women of the county called this awful unbreathable stillness which blanketed the wolds. It complemented Louise’s mood perfectly. She didn’t feel much of anything these days. Destiny had apparently chosen her to spend her waking hours doing nothing but wait.
Officially, she was waiting for her father, who was away leading the Stoke County militia to help quell the insurrection which the Democratic Land Union had mounted in Boston. The last time he’d phoned was three days ago, a quick, grim call saying the situation was worse than the Lord Lieutenant had led them to believe. That had made Louise’s mother worry frantically. Which meant Louise and Genevieve had to creep around Cricklade manor like mice so as not to worsen her temper.
And there had been no word since, not of Father or any of the militia troops. The whole county was crackling with rumours, of course. Of terrible battles and beastly acts of savagery by the Union irregulars. Louise tried hard to close her ears to them, convinced it was just wicked propaganda put about by Union sympathisers. Nobody really knew anything. Boston could have been on another planet as far as Stoke County was concerned. Even bland accounts of “disturbances,” reported on the nightly news programs, had ceased after the county militias encircled the city—censored by the government.
All they could do was wait helplessly for the militias to triumph as they surely would.
Louise and Genevieve had spent yet another morning milling aimlessly around the manor. It was a tricky task; sitting about doing nothing was so incredibly boring, yet if they drew attention to themselves they would be given some menial domestic job to do. With the young men away, the maids and older menservants were struggling with the normal day-to-day running of the rambling building. And the estate farms outside, with their skeleton workforce, were falling dismayingly far behind in their preparations for the summer’s second cereal crop.
By lunchtime, the ennui had started to get to Louise, so she had suggested that she and her sister go riding. They had to saddle the horses themselves, but it was worth it just to be away from the manor for a few hours.
Louise’s horse picked its way gingerly over the ground. Duke’s hot rays had flayed open the soil, producing a wrinkled network of cracks. The aboriginal plants which had all flowered in unison at midsummer were long dead now. Where ten days ago the grassland had been dusted with graceful white and pink stars, small shrivelled petals now skipped about like minute autumn leaves. In some hollows they had drifted in loose dunes up to a foot deep.
“Why do you suppose the Union hates us so?” Genevieve asked querulously. “Just because Daddy’s got a temper doesn’t mean he’s a bad man.”
Louise produced a sympathetic smile for her younger sister. Everyone said how alike they were, twins born four years apart. And indeed it was a bit like looking into a mirror at times; the same features, rich dark hair, delicate nose, and almost Oriental eyes. But Genevieve was smaller, and slightly chubbier. And right now, brokenly glum.
Genevieve had been sensitive to her moodiness for the last week, not wanting to say anything significant in case it made big sister even more unaccountably irritable.
She does idolize me so, Louise thought. Pity she couldn’t have chosen a better role model.
“It’s not just Daddy, nor even the Kavanaghs,” Louise said. “They simply don’t like the way Norfolk works.”
“But why? Everybody in Stoke County is happy.”
“Everybody in the county is provided for. There’s a difference. How would you feel if you had to work in the fields all day long for every day of your life, and saw the two of us riding by without a care in the world?”
Genevieve looked puzzled. “Not sure.”
“You’d resent it, and you’d want to change places.”
“I suppose so.” She gave a sly grin. “Then I’d be the one who resented them.”
“Exactly. That’s the problem.”
“But the things people are saying the Union is doing . . .” Genevieve said uncertainly. “I heard two of the maids talking about it this morning. They were saying horrible things. I ran away after a minute.”
“They’re lying. If anybody in Stoke County knew what was going on in Boston, it would be us, the Kavanaghs. The maids are going to be the last to find out.”
Genevieve shone a reverent smile at her sister. “You’re so clever, Louise.”
“You’re clever too, Gen. Same genes, remember.”
Genevieve smiled again, then spurred her horse on ahead, laughing gladly. Merlin, their sheepdog, chased off after her, kicking up whirling flurries of brown petals.
Louise instinctively urged her own horse into a canter, heading towards Wardley Wood, a mile ahead. In summers past the sisters had claimed it as their own adventure playground. This summer, though, it held an added poignancy. This summer it contained the memory of Joshua Calvert. Joshua and the things they’d done as they lazed by the side of the rock pools. Every outrageous sexual act, acts which no true well-born Norfolk lady would ever commit. Acts which she couldn’t wait for them to do again.
Also the acts which had made her throw up for the last three mornings in a row. Nanny had been her usual fuss the first two times. Thankfully, Louise had managed to conceal this morning’s bout of nausea, otherwise her mother would have been told. And Mother was pretty shrewd.
Louise grimaced forlornly. Everything will be fine once Joshua comes back. It had become almost a mantra recently.
Dear Jesus, but I hate this waiting.
Genevieve was a quarter of a mile from the woods, with Louise a hundred yards behind her, when they heard the train. The insistent tooting sound carried a long way in the calm air. Three short blasts, followed by a long one. The warning signal that it was approaching the open road crossing at Collyweston.
Genevieve reined her horse in, waiting for Louise to catch up with her. “It’s coming into town!” the younger girl exclaimed.
Both of them knew the local train times by heart. Colsterworth had twelve passenger services a day. This one wasn’t one of them.
“They’re coming back!” Genevieve squealed. “Daddy’s back!”
Merlin picked up on her excitement, running around the horse, barking enthusiastically.
Louise bit her lip. She couldn’t think what else it could be. “I suppose so.”
“It is. It is!”
“All right, come on then.”
Cricklade manor lurked inside its picket of huge geneered cedars, an imposing stone mansion built in homage to the stately homes of an England as distant in time as in space. The glass walls of the ornate orangery abutting the east wing reflected Duke’s brilliant yellow sunlight in geometric ripples as the sisters rode along the greensward below the building.
When she was inside the ring of cedars, Louise noticed the chunky blue-green farm ranger racing up the long gravel drive. She whooped loudly, goading her horse to an even faster gallop. Few people were allowed to drive the estate’s powered vehicles. And nobody else drove them as fast as Daddy.
Louise soon left Genevieve well behind, with an exhausted Merlin trailing by almost a quarter of a mile. She could see six figures crammed into the vehicle’s seats. And that was definitely Daddy driving. She didn’t recognise any of the others.
Another two farm rangers turned into the drive just as the first pulled up in front of the manor. Various household staff and Marjorie Kavanagh hurried down the broad steps to greet it.
Louise tumbled down off her horse, and rushed up to her father. She flung her arms around him before he knew what was happening. He was dressed in the same military uniform as the day he left.
“Daddy! You’re all right.” She rubbed her cheek against the coarse khaki-green fabric of his jacket, feeling five years old again. Tears were threatening to brim up.
He stiffened inside her manic embrace, head slowly tipping down to look at her. When she glanced up adoringly she saw a look of mild incomprehension on his strong ruddy face.
For a horrible moment she thought he must have found out about the baby. Then a vile mockery of a smile came to his lips.
“Hello, Louise. Nice to see you again.”
“Daddy?” She took a step backwards. What was wrong with him? She glanced uncertainly at her mother who had just reached them.
Marjorie Kavanagh took in the scene with a fast glance. Grant looked just awful; tired, pale, and strangely nervous. Gods, what had happened in Boston?
She ignored Louise’s obvious hurt and stepped up to him. “Welcome home,” she murmured demurely. Her lips brushed his cheek.
“Hello dear,” Grant Kavanagh said. She could have been a complete stranger for all the emotion in his voice.
He turned, almost in deference, Marjorie thought with growing bewilderment, and half bowed to one of the men accompanying him. They were all strangers, none of them even wore Stoke County militia uniforms. The other two farm rangers were braking behind the first, also full of strangers.
“Marjorie, I’d like you to meet Quinn Dexter. Quinn is a . . . priest. He’s going to be staying here with some of his followers.”
The young man who walked forwards had the kind of gait Marjorie associated with the teenage louts she glimpsed occasionally in Colsterworth. Priest, my arse, she thought.
Quinn was dressed in a flowing robe of some incredibly black material; it looked like the kind of habit a millionaire monk would wear. There was no crucifix in sight. The face which smiled out at her from the voluminous hood was coldly vulpine. She noticed how everyone in his entourage was very careful not to get too close to him.
“Intrigued, Father Dexter,” she said, letting her irony show.
He blinked, and nodded thoughtfully, as if in recognition that they weren’t fooling each other.
“Why are you here?” Louise asked breathlessly.
“Cricklade is going to be a refuge for Quinn’s sect,” Grant Kavanagh said. “There was a lot of damage in Boston. So I offered him full use of the estate.”
“What happened?” Marjorie asked. Years of discipline necessary to enforce her position allowed her to keep her voice level, but what she really wanted to do was grab hold of Grant’s jacket collar and scream in his face. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Genevieve scramble down off her horse and run over to greet her father, her delicate face suffused with simple happiness. Before Marjorie could say anything, Louise thrust out an arm and stopped her dead in her tracks. Thank God for that, Marjorie thought; there was no telling how these aloof strangers would react to excitable little girls.
Genevieve’s face instantly turned woeful, staring up at her untouchable father with widened, mutinous eyes. But Louise kept a firmly protective arm around her shoulder.
“The rebellion is over,” Grant said. He hadn’t even noticed Genevieve’s approach.
“You mean you rounded up the Union people?”
“The rebellion is over,” Grant repeated flatly.
Marjorie was at a loss what to do next. Away in the distance she could hear Merlin barking with unusual aggression. The fat old sheepdog was lumbering along the greensward towards the group outside the manor.
“We shall begin straightaway,” Quinn announced abruptly. He started up the steps towards the wide double doors, long pleats of his robe swaying leadenly around his ankles.
The manor staff clustering with considerable curiosity on top of the steps parted nervously. Quinn’s companions surged after him.
Grant’s face twitched in what was nearly an apology to Marjorie as the new arrivals clambered out of the farm rangers to hurry up the steps after their singular priest. Most of them were men, all with exactly the same kind of agitated expression.
They look as if they’re going to their own execution, Marjorie thought. And the clothes a couple of them wore were bizarre. Like historical military costumes: grey greatcoats with broad scarlet lapels and yards of looping gold braid. She strove to remember history lessons from too many years ago, images of Teutonic officers hazy in her mind.
“We’d better go in,” Grant said encouragingly. Which was absurd. Grant Kavanagh neither asked nor suggested anything on his own doorstep, he gave orders.
Marjorie gave a reluctant nod and joined him. “You two stay out here,” she told her daughters. “I want you to see to Merlin, then stable your horses.” While I find out just what the hell is going on around here, she completed silently.
The two sisters were virtually clinging together at the bottom of the steps, faces heavy with doubt and dismay. “Yes, Mother,” Louise said meekly. She started to tug on Genevieve’s black riding jacket.
Quinn paused on the threshold of the manor, giving the grounds a final survey. Misgivings were beginning to stir his mind. When he was back in Boston it seemed only right that he should be part of the vanguard bringing the gospel of God’s Brother to the whole island of Kesteven. None could stand before him when his serpent beast was unleashed. But there were so many lost souls returning from the beyond; inevitably some dared to disobey, while others wavered after he had passed among them to issue the word. In truth he could only depend upon the closest disciples he had gathered.
The sect acolytes he had left in Boston to tame the returned souls, to teach them the real reason why they had been brought back, agreed to do his bidding simply from fear. That was why he had come to the countryside, to levy the creed upon all the souls, both the living and the dead, of this wretched planet. With a bigger number of followers inducted, genuinely believing the task God’s Brother had given them, then ultimately their doctrine would triumph.
But this land which Luca Comar had described in glowing terms was so empty, kilometre after kilometre of grassland and fields, populated by dozing hamlets of cowed peasants; a temperate-climate version of Lalonde.
There had to be more to his purpose than this. God’s Brother would never have chosen him for such a simple labour. There were hundreds of planets in the Confederation crying out to hear His word, to follow Him into the final battle against the false gods of Earth’s religions, where Night would dawn forevermore.
After this evening I shall have to search myself to see where He guides me; I must find my proper role in His plan.
His gaze finished up on the Kavanagh sisters who were staring up at him, both trying to be courageous in the face of the strangeness falling on their home as softly and inexorably as midwinter snow. The elder one would make a good reward for disciples who demonstrated loyalty, and the child might be of some use to a returned soul. God’s Brother found a use for everything.
Content, for the moment, Quinn swept into the hall, relishing the opulence which greeted him. Tonight at least he could indulge himself in decadent splendour, quickening his serpent beast. For who did not appreciate absolute luxury?
The disciples knew their duties well enough, needing no supervision. They would flush out the manor’s staff and open their bodies for possession: a chore repeated endlessly over the last week. His work would come later, selecting those who were worthy of a second chance at life, who would embrace the Night.
“What—!” Genevieve began hotly as the last of the odd adults disappeared inside the manor’s entrance.
Louise’s hand clamped over her mouth. “Come on!” She pulled hard on Genevieve’s arm, nearly unbalancing the younger girl. Genevieve reluctantly allowed herself to be steered away.
“You heard Mother,” Louise said. “We’re to look after the horses.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“I don’t know! All right? Mother will sort everything out.” The words brought scant reassurance. What had happened to Daddy?
Boston must have been truly terrible to have affected him so.
Louise undid the strap on her riding hat, and tucked it under an arm. The manor and its grounds had become very quiet all of a sudden. The big entrance-hall doors swinging shut had acted like a signal for the birds to fall still. Even the horses were docile.
The funereal sensation was broken by Merlin who had finally reached the gravel driveway. He barked quite piteously as he nosed around Louise’s feet, his tongue lolling out as he wheezed heavily.
Louise gathered up the reins of both horses and started to lead them towards the stables. Genevieve grabbed Merlin’s collar and hauled him along.
When they reached the stable block at the rear of the manor’s west wing there was nobody there, not even the two young stable lads Mr Butterworth had left in charge. The horses’ hooves made an almighty clattering on the cobbles of the yard outside, the noise reverberating off the walls.
“Louise,” Genevieve said forlornly, “I don’t like this. Those people with Daddy were really peculiar.”
“I know. But Mother will tell us what to do.”
“She went inside with them.”
“Yes.” Louise realized just how anxious Mother had been for her and Genevieve to get away from Daddy’s friends. She looked around the yard, uncertain what to do next. Would Mother send for them, or should they go in? Daddy would expect to talk with them. The old daddy, she reminded herself sadly.
Louise settled for stalling. There was plenty to do in the stables; take the saddles off, brush the horses down, water them. She and Genevieve both took off their riding jackets and set to.
It was twenty minutes later, while they were putting the saddles back in the tack room, when they heard the first scream. The shock was all the more intense because it was male: a raw-throated yell of pain which dwindled away into a sobbing whimper.
Genevieve quietly put her arm around Louise’s waist. Louise could feel her trembling and patted her softly. “It’s all right,” she whispered.
The two of them edged over to the window and peered out. There was nothing to see in the courtyard. The manor’s windows were black and blank, sucking in Duke’s light.
“I’ll go and find out what’s happening,” Louise said.
“No!” Genevieve pulled at her urgently. “Don’t leave me alone. Please , Louise.” She was on the verge of tears.
Louise’s hold tightened in reflex. “Okay, Gen, I won’t leave you.”
“Promise? Really truly promise?”
“Promise!” She realized she was just as frightened as Genevieve. “But we must find out what Mother wants us to do.”
Genevieve nodded brokenly. “If you say so.”
Louise looked at the high stone wall of the west wing, sizing it up. What would Joshua do in a situation like this? She thought about the layout of the wing, the family apartments, the servants’ utility passages. Rooms and corridors she knew better than anyone except for the chief housekeeper, and possibly Daddy.
She took Genevieve by the hand. “Come on. We’ll try and get up to Mother’s boudoir without anyone seeing us. She’s bound to go there eventually.”
They crept out into the courtyard and scuttled quickly along the foot of the manor’s wall to a small green door which led into a storeroom at the back of the kitchens. Louise expected a shouted challenge at any moment. She was panting by the time she heaved on the big iron handle and nipped inside.
The storeroom was filled with sacks of flour and vegetables piled high in various wooden bays. Two narrow window slits, set high in the wall, cast a paltry grey light through their cobweb-caked panes.
Louise flicked the switch as Genevieve closed the door. A couple of naked light spheres on the roof sputtered weakly, then went out.
“Damnation!” Louise took Genevieve’s hand and threaded her way carefully around the boxes and sacks.
The utility corridor beyond had plain white plaster walls and pale yellow flagstones. Light spheres every twenty feet along its ceiling were flickering on and off completely at random. The effect made Louise feel mildly giddy, as if the corridor were swaying about.
“What’s doing that?” Genevieve whispered fiercely.
“I’ve no idea,” she replied carefully. A dreadful ache of loneliness had stolen up on her without any warning. Cricklade didn’t belong to them anymore, she knew that now.
They made their way along the disconcerting corridor to the antechamber at the end. A cast-iron spiral staircase wound up through the ceiling.
Louise paused to hear if anyone was coming down. Then, satisfied they were still alone, she started up.
The manor’s main corridors were a vast contrast to the plain servant utilities. Wide strips of thick green and gold carpet ran along polished golden wood planks, the walls were hung with huge traditional oil paintings in ostentatious gilt frames. Small antique chests stood at regular intervals, holding either delicate objets d’art or cut crystal vases with fragrant blooms of terrestrial and xenoc flowers grown in the manor’s own conservatory.
The outside of the door at the top of the spiral stairs was disguised as a wall panel. Louise teased it open and peeped out. A grand stained-glass window at the far end of the corridor was sending out broad fans of coloured light to dye the walls and ceiling with tartan splashes. Engraved light spheres on the ceiling were glowing a lame amber. All of them emitted an unhealthy buzzing sound.
“Nobody about,” Louise said.
The two of them darted out and shut the panel behind them. They started edging towards their mother’s boudoir.
A distant cry sounded. Louise couldn’t work out where it came from. It wasn’t close, though; thank sweet Jesus.
“Let’s go back,” Genevieve said. “Please, Louise. Mummy knows we went to the stables. She’ll find us there.”
“We’ll just see if she’s here, first. If she’s not, then we’ll go straight back.”
They heard the anguished cry again, even softer this time.
The boudoir door was twenty feet away. Louise steeled herself and took a step towards it.
“Oh, God, no ! No, no, no. Stop it. Grant! Dear God, help me!”
Louise’s muscles locked in terror. It was her mother’s voice—Mother’s scream—coming from behind the boudoir door.
“Grant, no! Oh, please. Please , no more.” A long, shrill howl of pain followed.
Genevieve was clutching at her in horror, soft whimpers bubbling from her open mouth. The light spheres right outside the boudoir door grew brighter. Within seconds they glared hotter than Duke at noon. Both of them burst apart with a thin pop , sending slivers of milky glass tinkling down on the carpet and floorboards.
Marjorie Kavanagh screeched again.
“Mummy!” Genevieve wailed.
Marjorie Kavanagh’s scream broke off. There was a muffled, inexplicable thud from behind the door. Then: “RUN! RUN, DARLING. JUST RUN, NOW!”
Louise was already stumbling back towards the concealed stairway door, holding on to a distraught, sobbing Genevieve. The boudoir door flew open, wood splintering from the force of the blow which struck it. A solid shaft of sickly emerald light punched out into the corridor. Spidery shadows moved within it, growing denser.
Two figures emerged.
Louise gagged. It was Rachel Handley, one of the manor’s maids. She looked the same as normal. Except her hair. It had turned brick-red, the strands curling and coiling around each other in slow, oily movements.
Then Daddy was standing beside the chunky girl, still in his militia uniform. His face wore a foreign, sneering smile.
“Come to Papa, baby,” he growled happily, and took a step towards Louise.
All Louise could do was shake her head hopelessly. Genevieve had slumped to her knees, bawling and shaking violently.
“Come on, baby.” His voice had fallen to a silky coo.
Louise couldn’t stop the sob that burped from her lips. Soon it would become a mad scream which would never end.
Her father laughed delightedly. A shape moved through the liquid green light behind him and Rachel.
Louise was so numbed she could no longer even manage a solitary gasp of surprise. It was Mrs Charlsworth, their nanny. Variously: tyrant and surrogate mother, confidante and traitor. A rotund, middle-aged woman, with prematurely greying hair and an otherwise sour face softened by hundreds of granny wrinkles.
She stabbed a knitting needle straight at Grant Kavanagh’s face, aiming for his left eye. “Leave my girls alone, you bloody fiend,” she yelled defiantly.
Louise could never quite remember exactly what happened next. There was blood, and miniature lightning forks. Rachel Handley let out a clarion shriek. Shattered glass erupted from the frames of the oil paintings down half the length of the corridor as the blazing white lightning strobed violently.
Louise crammed her hands over her ears as the shriek threatened to crack open her skull. The lightning died away. When she looked up, instead of her father there was a hulking humanoid shape standing beside Rachel. It wore strange armour, made entirely of little squares of dark metal, embossed with scarlet runes, and tied together with brass wire. “Bitch!” it stormed at a quailing Mrs Charlsworth. Thick streamers of bright orange smoke were belching out of its eye slits.
Rachel Handley’s arms turned incandescent. She clamped her splayed fingers over Mrs Charlsworth’s cheeks, teeth bared in exertion as she pushed in. Skin sizzled and charred below her fingertips. Mrs Charlsworth mewed in agony. The maid released her. She slumped backwards, her head lolling to one side; and she looked at Louise, smiling as tears seeped down her ruined cheeks. “Go,” she mouthed.
The grievous plea seemed to kick directly into Louise’s nervous system. She pushed her shoulders into the wall, levering herself upright.
Mrs Charlsworth grinned mirthlessly as the maid and the burly warrior closed on her to consummate their vengeance. She raised the pathetic knitting needle again.
Ribbons of white fire snaked around Rachel’s arms as she grinned at her prey. Small balls of it dripped off her fingertips, flying horizontally towards the stricken woman, eating eagerly through the starched grey uniform. A booming laugh emerged from the clinking armour, mingling with Mrs Charlsworth’s gurgles of pain.
Louise put her arm under Genevieve’s shoulder and lifted her bodily. Flashes of light and the sounds of Mrs Charlsworth’s torture flooded the corridor behind her.
I mustn’t turn back. I mustn’t.
Her fingers found the catch for the concealed door, and it swung open silently. She almost hurled Genevieve through the gap into the gloom beyond, heedless of whether anyone else was on the stairs.
The door slid shut.
“Gen? Gen!” Louise shook the petrified girl. “Gen, we have to get out of here.” There was no response. “Oh, dear Jesus.” The urge to curl into a ball and weep her troubles away was strengthening.
If I do that, I’ll die. And the baby with me.
She tightened her grip on Genevieve’s hand and hurried down the spiral stairs. At least Genevieve’s limbs were working. Though what would happen if they met another of those . . . people-creatures was another question altogether.
They’d just reached the small anteroom at the bottom of the spiral when a loud hammering began above. Louise started to run down the corridor to the storeroom. Genevieve stumbled along beside her, a low determined humming coming from her lips.
The hammering stopped, and there was the brassy thump of an explosion. Tendrils of bluish static shivered down the spiral stairs, grounding out through the floor. Red stone tiles quaked and cracked. The dimming light spheres along the ceiling sprang back to full intensity again.
“Faster, Gen,” she shouted.
They charged into the storeroom and through the green door leading to the courtyard. Merlin was standing in the wide-open gateway of the stable block, barking incessantly. Louise headed straight for him. If they could take a horse they’d be free. She could ride better than anyone else at the manor.
They were still five yards short of the stables when two people ran out of the storeroom. It was Rachel and her father (except it’s not really him, she thought desperately).
“Come back, Louise,” the dark knight called. “Come along, sweetie. Daddy wants a cuddle.”
Louise and Genevieve dashed around the gates. Merlin stared out at the yard for a second, then turned quickly and followed them inside.
Globules of white fire smashed into the stable doors, breaking apart into complex webs which probed the woodwork with the tenacity of a ghoul’s fingers. Glossy black paint blistered and vaporised, the planks began to blaze furiously.
“Undo the stall doors,” Louise called above the incendiary roar of the fire and the braying, agitated horses. She had to say it again before Genevieve fumbled with the first bolt. The horse inside the stall shot out into the aisle which ran the length of the stable.
Louise rushed for the far end of the stables. Merlin was yapping hysterically behind her. Fire had spread from the doors to straw bundled loosely in the manger. Orange sparks were flying like rain in a hurricane. Thick arms of black smoke coiled insidiously along the ceiling.
The voices from outside called again, issuing orders and promises in equal amounts. None of them were real.
Screams were adding to the clamour in the courtyard now. Quinn’s disciples had inevitably gained the upper hand; Cricklade’s few remaining free servants were being hunted and possessed without any attempt at stealth.
Louise reached the stall at the end of the stables, the one with Daddy’s magnificent black stallion, a bloodline geneered to a perfection which nineteenth-century sporting kings could only dream of. The bolt slid back easily, and she grabbed the bridle before he had a chance to arrow into the aisle. He snorted furiously at her, but allowed her to steady him. She had to stand on a bale of hay in order to mount him. There was no time for a saddle.
The fire had spread with horrendous speed. Several of the stalls were burning now, their stout old timber walls shooting out wild sulphurous flames. Merlin was backing away from them, his barking fearful. Over half a dozen horses were milling in the aisle, whinnying direly. Flames had cut them off from the stable doors, the noisy inferno pressing them back from their one exit. She couldn’t see Gen.
“Where are you?” she shouted. “Gen!”
“Here. I’m here.” The voice was coming from an empty stall.
Louise urged the stallion forwards down the aisle, yelling wildly at the panicking horses in front of her. Two of them reared up, alarmed by this new, unexpected threat. They began to move en masse towards the flames.
“Quick!” Louise yelled.
Genevieve saw her chance and sprinted out into the aisle. Louise leaned over and grabbed her. At first she thought she’d miscalculated the girl’s weight, feeling herself starting to slide downwards. But then Genevieve snatched at the stallion’s mane, causing it to neigh sharply. Just as Louise was sure her spine would snap, or she’d crash headfirst onto the aisle’s stone flagging, Genevieve levered herself up to straddle the base of the stallion’s neck.
The stable doors had been all but consumed by the eerily hot fire. Their remaining planks sagged and twisted on the glowing hinges, then lurched onto the cobbles with a loud bang.
With the intensity of the flames temporarily reduced, the horses raced for the door and their chance of freedom. Louise dug her heels into the stallion’s flanks, spurring it on. There was an exhilarating burst of speed. Yellow spires of flame splashed across her left arm and leg, making her cry out. Genevieve squealed in front of her, batting frantically at her blouse. The stench of singed hair solidified in her nostrils. Thin layers of smoke stretching across the aisle whipped across her face, stinging her eyes.
Then they were through, out of the gaping door with its wreath of tiny flames scrabbling at the ruined frame, chasing after the other horses. Fresh air and low sunlight washed over them. The hefty knight in the dark mosaic armour was standing ahead of them. Streamers of bright orange smoke were still pouring from his helmet’s eye slits. Sparks of white fire danced across his raised gauntlets. He started to point a rigid forefinger at them, the white fire building.
But the posse of crazed horses couldn’t be deflected. The first one flashed past stark inches from him. Alert to the danger they presented, even to someone with energistic power, he began to jump aside. That was his mistake. The second horse might have missed him if he’d stayed still. Instead, it struck him almost head on. The screaming horse buckled on top of him, forelegs snapping with an atrocious crack as inertia sent it hurtling forwards regardless. The knight was flung out sideways, spinning in the air. He landed bonelessly, bouncing a full foot above the cobbles before coming to a final rest. His armour vanished immediately, revealing Grant Kavanagh’s body, still clad in his militia uniform. The fabric was torn in a dozen places, stained scarlet by the blood pumping from open wounds.
Louise gasped, instinctively pulling the reins to halt the stallion. Daddy was hurt!
But the flowing blood swiftly stanched itself. Ragged tears of flesh started to close up. The uniform was stitching itself together. Dusty, grazed leather shoes became metallic boots. He shook his head, grunting in what was little more than dazed annoyance.
Louise stared for a second as he started to raise himself onto his elbows, then spurred the horse away.
“Daddy!” Genevieve shouted in anguish.
“It’s not him,” Louise told her through clenched teeth. “Not now. That’s something else. The devil’s own monster.”
Rachel Handley stood in front of the arched entrance to the courtyard. Hands on hips, aroused wormlet hair threshing eagerly. “Nice try.” She laughed derisively. A hand was raised, palm towards the sisters. The awful white fire ignited around her wrist, wispy talons flaring from her fingers. Her laugh deepened at the sight of Louise’s anguish, cutting across Merlin’s miserable barking.
The bullet-bolt of white fire which caught Rachel Handley an inch above her left eye came from somewhere behind Louise. It bored straight through the maid’s skull, detonating in the centre of the brain. The back of her head blew off in a gout of charred gore and rapidly dissipating violet flame. Her body remained upright for a second, then the muscles spasmed once before losing all tension. She pitched forwards. Bright arterial blood spilled out of her ruined, smoking brainpan.
Louise twisted around. The courtyard was empty apart from the woozy figure of her father still clambering to his feet. A hundred empty windows stared down at her. Faint screams echoed over the rooftops. Long swirls of flame churned noisily out of the stable block’s wide doors.
Genevieve was shaking violently again, crying in convulsive gulps. Concern for the little girl overcame Louise’s utter confusion, and she spurred the stallion once more, guiding it around the vile corpse and out through the courtyard’s entrance.
From where he was standing beside the window of the third-floor guest suite, Quinn Dexter watched the girl riding the superb black horse hell-for-leather over the manor’s greensward and towards the wolds. Not even his awesome energistic strength could reach the fleeing sisters from this distance.
He pursed his lips in distaste. Someone had aided them. Why, he couldn’t think. The traitor must surely know they would never go unpunished. God’s Brother saw all. Every soul was accountable in the end.
“They’ll head for Colsterworth, of course,” he said. “All they’re doing is postponing the inevitable for a couple of hours. Most of that poxy little town already belongs to us.”
“Yes, Quinn,” said the boy standing behind him.
“And soon the whole world,” Quinn muttered. And then what?
He turned and smiled proudly. “It is so nice to see you again. I never thought I would. But He must have decided to reward me.”
“I love you, Quinn,” Lawrence Dillon said simply. The body of the stable lad he had possessed was completely naked, the scars from the act of possession already nothing more than faint, fading pink lines on the tanned skin.
“I had to do what I did on Lalonde. You know that. We couldn’t take you with us.”
“I know, Quinn,” Lawrence said devoutly. “I was a liability. I was weak back then.” He knelt at Quinn’s feet, and beamed up at the stern features of the black-robed figure. “But I’m not anymore. Now I can help you again. It will be like before, only better. The whole universe will bow before you, Quinn.”
“Yeah,” Quinn Dexter said slowly, savouring the thought. “The fuckers just might.”
The datavised alert woke Ralph Hiltch from a desultory sleep. As an ESA head of station, he’d been assigned some temporary quarters in the Royal Navy officers’ mess. Strange impersonal surroundings, and the emotional cold turkey from bringing Gerald Skibbow to Guyana, had left his thoughts racing as he lay on the bunk after a three-hour debrief session last night. In the end he’d wound up accessing a mild trank program to relax his body.
At least he hadn’t suffered any nightmares; though Jenny was never very far from the surface of his mind. A final frozen image of the mission: Jenny lying under a scrum of man-apes, datavising a kamikaze code into the power cell at her side. The image didn’t need storing in a neural nanonics memory cell in order to retain its clarity. She’d thought it was preferable to the alternative. But was she right? It was a question he’d asked himself a lot during the voyage to Ombey.
He swung his legs over the side of his bunk and ran fingers through hair that badly needed a wash. The room’s net processor informed him that Guyana asteroid had just gone to a code three alert status.
“Shit, now what?” As if he couldn’t guess.
His neural nanonics reported an incoming call from Ombey’s ESA office, tagged as the director, Roche Skark, himself. Ralph opened a secure channel to the net processor with a sense of grim inevitability. You didn’t have to be psychic to know it wasn’t going to be good.
“Sorry to haul you back to active status so soon after you arrived,” Roche Skark datavised. “But the shit’s just hit the fan. We need your expertise.”
“Sir?”
“It looks like three of the embassy personnel who came here on the Ekwan were sequestrated by the virus. They’ve gone down to the surface.”
“What?” Panic surged into Ralph’s mind. Not that abomination, not loose here in the Kingdom. Please God. “Are you certain?”
“Yes. I’ve just come out of a Privy Council security conference with the Princess. She authorized the code three alert because of it.”
Ralph’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, God, and I brought them here.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“It’s my job to know. Goddamn, I grew slack on Lalonde.”
“I doubt any of us would have done anything different.”
“Yes, sir.” Pity you couldn’t sneer with a datavise.
“In any case, we’re right behind them. Admiral Farquar and my good colleague Jannike Dermot over at the ISA have been commendably swift in implementing damage limitation procedures. We estimate the embassy trio are barely seven hours ahead of you.”
Ralph thought about the damage one of those things could inflict in seven hours and put his head in his hands. “That still gives them a lot of time to infect other people.” Implications began to sink through his crust of dismay. “It’ll be an exponential effect.”
“Possibly,” Roche Skark admitted. “If it isn’t contained very quickly we may have to abandon the entire Xingu continent. Quarantine procedures are already in place, and the police are being told how to handle the situation. But I want you there to instill a bit of urgency, kick a bit of arse.”
“Yes, sir. This active status call, does that mean I get to go after them in person?”
“It does. Technically, you’re going down to advise the Xingu continent’s civil authorities. As far as I’m concerned you can engage in as much fieldwork as you want, with the proviso that you don’t expose yourself to the possibility of infection.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Ralph, I don’t mind telling you, what this energy virus can do scares the crap out of me. It has to be a precursor to something, some form of invasion. And safeguarding the Kingdom from such threats is my job. Yours too, come to that. So stop them, Ralph. Shoot first, and I’ll whitewash later if need be.”
“You’ve got it, sir.”
“Good man. The admiral has assigned a flyer to take you down to Pasto city spaceport, it’s leaving in twelve minutes. I’ll have a full situation briefing datapackage assembled ready for you to access on the way down. Anything you want, let me know.”
“I’d like to take Will Danza and Dean Folan with me, and have them authorized to fire weapons on the surface. They know how to deal with people who have been sequestrated. Cathal Fitzgerald too; he’s seen the virus at work.”
“They’ll have the authorization before you land.”
Duchess had risen above the horizon by the time Colsterworth came into view. The red dwarf sun occupied a portion of the horizon diametrically opposite Duke, the two of them struggling to contaminate the landscape below with their own unique spectrum.
Duchess was winning the battle, rising in time to Duke’s fall from the sky. The eastward slopes of the wolds were slowly slipping from verdant green to subdued burgundy. Aboriginal pine-analogue trees planted among the hedgerows of geneered hawthorn became grizzled pewter pillars. Even the stallion’s ebony hide was darkening.
Duke’s golden glow withdrew before the strengthening red tide.
For the first time in her life, Louise resented the primary’s retreat. Duchess-night was usually a magical time, twisting the familiar world into a land of mysterious shadows and balmy air. This time the red stain had a distinctly ominous quality.
“Do you suppose Aunty Daphnie will be home?” Genevieve asked for what must have been the fifth time.
“I’m sure she will,” Louise replied. It had taken Genevieve a good half hour to stop crying after they’d escaped from Cricklade. Louise had concentrated so hard on comforting her sister, she’d almost stopped being afraid herself. Certainly it was easy to blank what had happened from her mind. And she wasn’t quite sure exactly what she was going to say to Aunt Daphnie. The actual truth would make her sound utterly mad. Yet anything less than the truth might not suffice. Whatever forces of justice and law were dispatched up to Cricklade would have to be well armed and alert. The chief constable and the mayor had to believe what they faced was deadly real, not the imaginings of a half-hysterical teenage girl.
Fortunately she was a Kavanagh. People would have to listen. And please, dear Jesus, make them believe.
“Is that a fire?” Genevieve asked.
Louise jerked her head up. Colsterworth was spread out along a couple of miles of a shallow valley, growing up from the intersection of a river and the railway line. A somnolent little market town with ranks of neat terrace houses set amid small, pretty gardens. The larger homes of the important families occupied the gentle eastern slope, capturing the best view over the countryside. An industrial district of warehouses and small factories cluttered the ground around the wharf.
Officially, she was waiting for her father, who was away leading the Stoke County militia to help quell the insurrection which the Democratic Land Union had mounted in Boston. The last time he’d phoned was three days ago, a quick, grim call saying the situation was worse than the Lord Lieutenant had led them to believe. That had made Louise’s mother worry frantically. Which meant Louise and Genevieve had to creep around Cricklade manor like mice so as not to worsen her temper.
And there had been no word since, not of Father or any of the militia troops. The whole county was crackling with rumours, of course. Of terrible battles and beastly acts of savagery by the Union irregulars. Louise tried hard to close her ears to them, convinced it was just wicked propaganda put about by Union sympathisers. Nobody really knew anything. Boston could have been on another planet as far as Stoke County was concerned. Even bland accounts of “disturbances,” reported on the nightly news programs, had ceased after the county militias encircled the city—censored by the government.
All they could do was wait helplessly for the militias to triumph as they surely would.
Louise and Genevieve had spent yet another morning milling aimlessly around the manor. It was a tricky task; sitting about doing nothing was so incredibly boring, yet if they drew attention to themselves they would be given some menial domestic job to do. With the young men away, the maids and older menservants were struggling with the normal day-to-day running of the rambling building. And the estate farms outside, with their skeleton workforce, were falling dismayingly far behind in their preparations for the summer’s second cereal crop.
By lunchtime, the ennui had started to get to Louise, so she had suggested that she and her sister go riding. They had to saddle the horses themselves, but it was worth it just to be away from the manor for a few hours.
Louise’s horse picked its way gingerly over the ground. Duke’s hot rays had flayed open the soil, producing a wrinkled network of cracks. The aboriginal plants which had all flowered in unison at midsummer were long dead now. Where ten days ago the grassland had been dusted with graceful white and pink stars, small shrivelled petals now skipped about like minute autumn leaves. In some hollows they had drifted in loose dunes up to a foot deep.
“Why do you suppose the Union hates us so?” Genevieve asked querulously. “Just because Daddy’s got a temper doesn’t mean he’s a bad man.”
Louise produced a sympathetic smile for her younger sister. Everyone said how alike they were, twins born four years apart. And indeed it was a bit like looking into a mirror at times; the same features, rich dark hair, delicate nose, and almost Oriental eyes. But Genevieve was smaller, and slightly chubbier. And right now, brokenly glum.
Genevieve had been sensitive to her moodiness for the last week, not wanting to say anything significant in case it made big sister even more unaccountably irritable.
She does idolize me so, Louise thought. Pity she couldn’t have chosen a better role model.
“It’s not just Daddy, nor even the Kavanaghs,” Louise said. “They simply don’t like the way Norfolk works.”
“But why? Everybody in Stoke County is happy.”
“Everybody in the county is provided for. There’s a difference. How would you feel if you had to work in the fields all day long for every day of your life, and saw the two of us riding by without a care in the world?”
Genevieve looked puzzled. “Not sure.”
“You’d resent it, and you’d want to change places.”
“I suppose so.” She gave a sly grin. “Then I’d be the one who resented them.”
“Exactly. That’s the problem.”
“But the things people are saying the Union is doing . . .” Genevieve said uncertainly. “I heard two of the maids talking about it this morning. They were saying horrible things. I ran away after a minute.”
“They’re lying. If anybody in Stoke County knew what was going on in Boston, it would be us, the Kavanaghs. The maids are going to be the last to find out.”
Genevieve shone a reverent smile at her sister. “You’re so clever, Louise.”
“You’re clever too, Gen. Same genes, remember.”
Genevieve smiled again, then spurred her horse on ahead, laughing gladly. Merlin, their sheepdog, chased off after her, kicking up whirling flurries of brown petals.
Louise instinctively urged her own horse into a canter, heading towards Wardley Wood, a mile ahead. In summers past the sisters had claimed it as their own adventure playground. This summer, though, it held an added poignancy. This summer it contained the memory of Joshua Calvert. Joshua and the things they’d done as they lazed by the side of the rock pools. Every outrageous sexual act, acts which no true well-born Norfolk lady would ever commit. Acts which she couldn’t wait for them to do again.
Also the acts which had made her throw up for the last three mornings in a row. Nanny had been her usual fuss the first two times. Thankfully, Louise had managed to conceal this morning’s bout of nausea, otherwise her mother would have been told. And Mother was pretty shrewd.
Louise grimaced forlornly. Everything will be fine once Joshua comes back. It had become almost a mantra recently.
Dear Jesus, but I hate this waiting.
Genevieve was a quarter of a mile from the woods, with Louise a hundred yards behind her, when they heard the train. The insistent tooting sound carried a long way in the calm air. Three short blasts, followed by a long one. The warning signal that it was approaching the open road crossing at Collyweston.
Genevieve reined her horse in, waiting for Louise to catch up with her. “It’s coming into town!” the younger girl exclaimed.
Both of them knew the local train times by heart. Colsterworth had twelve passenger services a day. This one wasn’t one of them.
“They’re coming back!” Genevieve squealed. “Daddy’s back!”
Merlin picked up on her excitement, running around the horse, barking enthusiastically.
Louise bit her lip. She couldn’t think what else it could be. “I suppose so.”
“It is. It is!”
“All right, come on then.”
Cricklade manor lurked inside its picket of huge geneered cedars, an imposing stone mansion built in homage to the stately homes of an England as distant in time as in space. The glass walls of the ornate orangery abutting the east wing reflected Duke’s brilliant yellow sunlight in geometric ripples as the sisters rode along the greensward below the building.
When she was inside the ring of cedars, Louise noticed the chunky blue-green farm ranger racing up the long gravel drive. She whooped loudly, goading her horse to an even faster gallop. Few people were allowed to drive the estate’s powered vehicles. And nobody else drove them as fast as Daddy.
Louise soon left Genevieve well behind, with an exhausted Merlin trailing by almost a quarter of a mile. She could see six figures crammed into the vehicle’s seats. And that was definitely Daddy driving. She didn’t recognise any of the others.
Another two farm rangers turned into the drive just as the first pulled up in front of the manor. Various household staff and Marjorie Kavanagh hurried down the broad steps to greet it.
Louise tumbled down off her horse, and rushed up to her father. She flung her arms around him before he knew what was happening. He was dressed in the same military uniform as the day he left.
“Daddy! You’re all right.” She rubbed her cheek against the coarse khaki-green fabric of his jacket, feeling five years old again. Tears were threatening to brim up.
He stiffened inside her manic embrace, head slowly tipping down to look at her. When she glanced up adoringly she saw a look of mild incomprehension on his strong ruddy face.
For a horrible moment she thought he must have found out about the baby. Then a vile mockery of a smile came to his lips.
“Hello, Louise. Nice to see you again.”
“Daddy?” She took a step backwards. What was wrong with him? She glanced uncertainly at her mother who had just reached them.
Marjorie Kavanagh took in the scene with a fast glance. Grant looked just awful; tired, pale, and strangely nervous. Gods, what had happened in Boston?
She ignored Louise’s obvious hurt and stepped up to him. “Welcome home,” she murmured demurely. Her lips brushed his cheek.
“Hello dear,” Grant Kavanagh said. She could have been a complete stranger for all the emotion in his voice.
He turned, almost in deference, Marjorie thought with growing bewilderment, and half bowed to one of the men accompanying him. They were all strangers, none of them even wore Stoke County militia uniforms. The other two farm rangers were braking behind the first, also full of strangers.
“Marjorie, I’d like you to meet Quinn Dexter. Quinn is a . . . priest. He’s going to be staying here with some of his followers.”
The young man who walked forwards had the kind of gait Marjorie associated with the teenage louts she glimpsed occasionally in Colsterworth. Priest, my arse, she thought.
Quinn was dressed in a flowing robe of some incredibly black material; it looked like the kind of habit a millionaire monk would wear. There was no crucifix in sight. The face which smiled out at her from the voluminous hood was coldly vulpine. She noticed how everyone in his entourage was very careful not to get too close to him.
“Intrigued, Father Dexter,” she said, letting her irony show.
He blinked, and nodded thoughtfully, as if in recognition that they weren’t fooling each other.
“Why are you here?” Louise asked breathlessly.
“Cricklade is going to be a refuge for Quinn’s sect,” Grant Kavanagh said. “There was a lot of damage in Boston. So I offered him full use of the estate.”
“What happened?” Marjorie asked. Years of discipline necessary to enforce her position allowed her to keep her voice level, but what she really wanted to do was grab hold of Grant’s jacket collar and scream in his face. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Genevieve scramble down off her horse and run over to greet her father, her delicate face suffused with simple happiness. Before Marjorie could say anything, Louise thrust out an arm and stopped her dead in her tracks. Thank God for that, Marjorie thought; there was no telling how these aloof strangers would react to excitable little girls.
Genevieve’s face instantly turned woeful, staring up at her untouchable father with widened, mutinous eyes. But Louise kept a firmly protective arm around her shoulder.
“The rebellion is over,” Grant said. He hadn’t even noticed Genevieve’s approach.
“You mean you rounded up the Union people?”
“The rebellion is over,” Grant repeated flatly.
Marjorie was at a loss what to do next. Away in the distance she could hear Merlin barking with unusual aggression. The fat old sheepdog was lumbering along the greensward towards the group outside the manor.
“We shall begin straightaway,” Quinn announced abruptly. He started up the steps towards the wide double doors, long pleats of his robe swaying leadenly around his ankles.
The manor staff clustering with considerable curiosity on top of the steps parted nervously. Quinn’s companions surged after him.
Grant’s face twitched in what was nearly an apology to Marjorie as the new arrivals clambered out of the farm rangers to hurry up the steps after their singular priest. Most of them were men, all with exactly the same kind of agitated expression.
They look as if they’re going to their own execution, Marjorie thought. And the clothes a couple of them wore were bizarre. Like historical military costumes: grey greatcoats with broad scarlet lapels and yards of looping gold braid. She strove to remember history lessons from too many years ago, images of Teutonic officers hazy in her mind.
“We’d better go in,” Grant said encouragingly. Which was absurd. Grant Kavanagh neither asked nor suggested anything on his own doorstep, he gave orders.
Marjorie gave a reluctant nod and joined him. “You two stay out here,” she told her daughters. “I want you to see to Merlin, then stable your horses.” While I find out just what the hell is going on around here, she completed silently.
The two sisters were virtually clinging together at the bottom of the steps, faces heavy with doubt and dismay. “Yes, Mother,” Louise said meekly. She started to tug on Genevieve’s black riding jacket.
Quinn paused on the threshold of the manor, giving the grounds a final survey. Misgivings were beginning to stir his mind. When he was back in Boston it seemed only right that he should be part of the vanguard bringing the gospel of God’s Brother to the whole island of Kesteven. None could stand before him when his serpent beast was unleashed. But there were so many lost souls returning from the beyond; inevitably some dared to disobey, while others wavered after he had passed among them to issue the word. In truth he could only depend upon the closest disciples he had gathered.
The sect acolytes he had left in Boston to tame the returned souls, to teach them the real reason why they had been brought back, agreed to do his bidding simply from fear. That was why he had come to the countryside, to levy the creed upon all the souls, both the living and the dead, of this wretched planet. With a bigger number of followers inducted, genuinely believing the task God’s Brother had given them, then ultimately their doctrine would triumph.
But this land which Luca Comar had described in glowing terms was so empty, kilometre after kilometre of grassland and fields, populated by dozing hamlets of cowed peasants; a temperate-climate version of Lalonde.
There had to be more to his purpose than this. God’s Brother would never have chosen him for such a simple labour. There were hundreds of planets in the Confederation crying out to hear His word, to follow Him into the final battle against the false gods of Earth’s religions, where Night would dawn forevermore.
After this evening I shall have to search myself to see where He guides me; I must find my proper role in His plan.
His gaze finished up on the Kavanagh sisters who were staring up at him, both trying to be courageous in the face of the strangeness falling on their home as softly and inexorably as midwinter snow. The elder one would make a good reward for disciples who demonstrated loyalty, and the child might be of some use to a returned soul. God’s Brother found a use for everything.
Content, for the moment, Quinn swept into the hall, relishing the opulence which greeted him. Tonight at least he could indulge himself in decadent splendour, quickening his serpent beast. For who did not appreciate absolute luxury?
The disciples knew their duties well enough, needing no supervision. They would flush out the manor’s staff and open their bodies for possession: a chore repeated endlessly over the last week. His work would come later, selecting those who were worthy of a second chance at life, who would embrace the Night.
“What—!” Genevieve began hotly as the last of the odd adults disappeared inside the manor’s entrance.
Louise’s hand clamped over her mouth. “Come on!” She pulled hard on Genevieve’s arm, nearly unbalancing the younger girl. Genevieve reluctantly allowed herself to be steered away.
“You heard Mother,” Louise said. “We’re to look after the horses.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“I don’t know! All right? Mother will sort everything out.” The words brought scant reassurance. What had happened to Daddy?
Boston must have been truly terrible to have affected him so.
Louise undid the strap on her riding hat, and tucked it under an arm. The manor and its grounds had become very quiet all of a sudden. The big entrance-hall doors swinging shut had acted like a signal for the birds to fall still. Even the horses were docile.
The funereal sensation was broken by Merlin who had finally reached the gravel driveway. He barked quite piteously as he nosed around Louise’s feet, his tongue lolling out as he wheezed heavily.
Louise gathered up the reins of both horses and started to lead them towards the stables. Genevieve grabbed Merlin’s collar and hauled him along.
When they reached the stable block at the rear of the manor’s west wing there was nobody there, not even the two young stable lads Mr Butterworth had left in charge. The horses’ hooves made an almighty clattering on the cobbles of the yard outside, the noise reverberating off the walls.
“Louise,” Genevieve said forlornly, “I don’t like this. Those people with Daddy were really peculiar.”
“I know. But Mother will tell us what to do.”
“She went inside with them.”
“Yes.” Louise realized just how anxious Mother had been for her and Genevieve to get away from Daddy’s friends. She looked around the yard, uncertain what to do next. Would Mother send for them, or should they go in? Daddy would expect to talk with them. The old daddy, she reminded herself sadly.
Louise settled for stalling. There was plenty to do in the stables; take the saddles off, brush the horses down, water them. She and Genevieve both took off their riding jackets and set to.
It was twenty minutes later, while they were putting the saddles back in the tack room, when they heard the first scream. The shock was all the more intense because it was male: a raw-throated yell of pain which dwindled away into a sobbing whimper.
Genevieve quietly put her arm around Louise’s waist. Louise could feel her trembling and patted her softly. “It’s all right,” she whispered.
The two of them edged over to the window and peered out. There was nothing to see in the courtyard. The manor’s windows were black and blank, sucking in Duke’s light.
“I’ll go and find out what’s happening,” Louise said.
“No!” Genevieve pulled at her urgently. “Don’t leave me alone. Please , Louise.” She was on the verge of tears.
Louise’s hold tightened in reflex. “Okay, Gen, I won’t leave you.”
“Promise? Really truly promise?”
“Promise!” She realized she was just as frightened as Genevieve. “But we must find out what Mother wants us to do.”
Genevieve nodded brokenly. “If you say so.”
Louise looked at the high stone wall of the west wing, sizing it up. What would Joshua do in a situation like this? She thought about the layout of the wing, the family apartments, the servants’ utility passages. Rooms and corridors she knew better than anyone except for the chief housekeeper, and possibly Daddy.
She took Genevieve by the hand. “Come on. We’ll try and get up to Mother’s boudoir without anyone seeing us. She’s bound to go there eventually.”
They crept out into the courtyard and scuttled quickly along the foot of the manor’s wall to a small green door which led into a storeroom at the back of the kitchens. Louise expected a shouted challenge at any moment. She was panting by the time she heaved on the big iron handle and nipped inside.
The storeroom was filled with sacks of flour and vegetables piled high in various wooden bays. Two narrow window slits, set high in the wall, cast a paltry grey light through their cobweb-caked panes.
Louise flicked the switch as Genevieve closed the door. A couple of naked light spheres on the roof sputtered weakly, then went out.
“Damnation!” Louise took Genevieve’s hand and threaded her way carefully around the boxes and sacks.
The utility corridor beyond had plain white plaster walls and pale yellow flagstones. Light spheres every twenty feet along its ceiling were flickering on and off completely at random. The effect made Louise feel mildly giddy, as if the corridor were swaying about.
“What’s doing that?” Genevieve whispered fiercely.
“I’ve no idea,” she replied carefully. A dreadful ache of loneliness had stolen up on her without any warning. Cricklade didn’t belong to them anymore, she knew that now.
They made their way along the disconcerting corridor to the antechamber at the end. A cast-iron spiral staircase wound up through the ceiling.
Louise paused to hear if anyone was coming down. Then, satisfied they were still alone, she started up.
The manor’s main corridors were a vast contrast to the plain servant utilities. Wide strips of thick green and gold carpet ran along polished golden wood planks, the walls were hung with huge traditional oil paintings in ostentatious gilt frames. Small antique chests stood at regular intervals, holding either delicate objets d’art or cut crystal vases with fragrant blooms of terrestrial and xenoc flowers grown in the manor’s own conservatory.
The outside of the door at the top of the spiral stairs was disguised as a wall panel. Louise teased it open and peeped out. A grand stained-glass window at the far end of the corridor was sending out broad fans of coloured light to dye the walls and ceiling with tartan splashes. Engraved light spheres on the ceiling were glowing a lame amber. All of them emitted an unhealthy buzzing sound.
“Nobody about,” Louise said.
The two of them darted out and shut the panel behind them. They started edging towards their mother’s boudoir.
A distant cry sounded. Louise couldn’t work out where it came from. It wasn’t close, though; thank sweet Jesus.
“Let’s go back,” Genevieve said. “Please, Louise. Mummy knows we went to the stables. She’ll find us there.”
“We’ll just see if she’s here, first. If she’s not, then we’ll go straight back.”
They heard the anguished cry again, even softer this time.
The boudoir door was twenty feet away. Louise steeled herself and took a step towards it.
“Oh, God, no ! No, no, no. Stop it. Grant! Dear God, help me!”
Louise’s muscles locked in terror. It was her mother’s voice—Mother’s scream—coming from behind the boudoir door.
“Grant, no! Oh, please. Please , no more.” A long, shrill howl of pain followed.
Genevieve was clutching at her in horror, soft whimpers bubbling from her open mouth. The light spheres right outside the boudoir door grew brighter. Within seconds they glared hotter than Duke at noon. Both of them burst apart with a thin pop , sending slivers of milky glass tinkling down on the carpet and floorboards.
Marjorie Kavanagh screeched again.
“Mummy!” Genevieve wailed.
Marjorie Kavanagh’s scream broke off. There was a muffled, inexplicable thud from behind the door. Then: “RUN! RUN, DARLING. JUST RUN, NOW!”
Louise was already stumbling back towards the concealed stairway door, holding on to a distraught, sobbing Genevieve. The boudoir door flew open, wood splintering from the force of the blow which struck it. A solid shaft of sickly emerald light punched out into the corridor. Spidery shadows moved within it, growing denser.
Two figures emerged.
Louise gagged. It was Rachel Handley, one of the manor’s maids. She looked the same as normal. Except her hair. It had turned brick-red, the strands curling and coiling around each other in slow, oily movements.
Then Daddy was standing beside the chunky girl, still in his militia uniform. His face wore a foreign, sneering smile.
“Come to Papa, baby,” he growled happily, and took a step towards Louise.
All Louise could do was shake her head hopelessly. Genevieve had slumped to her knees, bawling and shaking violently.
“Come on, baby.” His voice had fallen to a silky coo.
Louise couldn’t stop the sob that burped from her lips. Soon it would become a mad scream which would never end.
Her father laughed delightedly. A shape moved through the liquid green light behind him and Rachel.
Louise was so numbed she could no longer even manage a solitary gasp of surprise. It was Mrs Charlsworth, their nanny. Variously: tyrant and surrogate mother, confidante and traitor. A rotund, middle-aged woman, with prematurely greying hair and an otherwise sour face softened by hundreds of granny wrinkles.
She stabbed a knitting needle straight at Grant Kavanagh’s face, aiming for his left eye. “Leave my girls alone, you bloody fiend,” she yelled defiantly.
Louise could never quite remember exactly what happened next. There was blood, and miniature lightning forks. Rachel Handley let out a clarion shriek. Shattered glass erupted from the frames of the oil paintings down half the length of the corridor as the blazing white lightning strobed violently.
Louise crammed her hands over her ears as the shriek threatened to crack open her skull. The lightning died away. When she looked up, instead of her father there was a hulking humanoid shape standing beside Rachel. It wore strange armour, made entirely of little squares of dark metal, embossed with scarlet runes, and tied together with brass wire. “Bitch!” it stormed at a quailing Mrs Charlsworth. Thick streamers of bright orange smoke were belching out of its eye slits.
Rachel Handley’s arms turned incandescent. She clamped her splayed fingers over Mrs Charlsworth’s cheeks, teeth bared in exertion as she pushed in. Skin sizzled and charred below her fingertips. Mrs Charlsworth mewed in agony. The maid released her. She slumped backwards, her head lolling to one side; and she looked at Louise, smiling as tears seeped down her ruined cheeks. “Go,” she mouthed.
The grievous plea seemed to kick directly into Louise’s nervous system. She pushed her shoulders into the wall, levering herself upright.
Mrs Charlsworth grinned mirthlessly as the maid and the burly warrior closed on her to consummate their vengeance. She raised the pathetic knitting needle again.
Ribbons of white fire snaked around Rachel’s arms as she grinned at her prey. Small balls of it dripped off her fingertips, flying horizontally towards the stricken woman, eating eagerly through the starched grey uniform. A booming laugh emerged from the clinking armour, mingling with Mrs Charlsworth’s gurgles of pain.
Louise put her arm under Genevieve’s shoulder and lifted her bodily. Flashes of light and the sounds of Mrs Charlsworth’s torture flooded the corridor behind her.
I mustn’t turn back. I mustn’t.
Her fingers found the catch for the concealed door, and it swung open silently. She almost hurled Genevieve through the gap into the gloom beyond, heedless of whether anyone else was on the stairs.
The door slid shut.
“Gen? Gen!” Louise shook the petrified girl. “Gen, we have to get out of here.” There was no response. “Oh, dear Jesus.” The urge to curl into a ball and weep her troubles away was strengthening.
If I do that, I’ll die. And the baby with me.
She tightened her grip on Genevieve’s hand and hurried down the spiral stairs. At least Genevieve’s limbs were working. Though what would happen if they met another of those . . . people-creatures was another question altogether.
They’d just reached the small anteroom at the bottom of the spiral when a loud hammering began above. Louise started to run down the corridor to the storeroom. Genevieve stumbled along beside her, a low determined humming coming from her lips.
The hammering stopped, and there was the brassy thump of an explosion. Tendrils of bluish static shivered down the spiral stairs, grounding out through the floor. Red stone tiles quaked and cracked. The dimming light spheres along the ceiling sprang back to full intensity again.
“Faster, Gen,” she shouted.
They charged into the storeroom and through the green door leading to the courtyard. Merlin was standing in the wide-open gateway of the stable block, barking incessantly. Louise headed straight for him. If they could take a horse they’d be free. She could ride better than anyone else at the manor.
They were still five yards short of the stables when two people ran out of the storeroom. It was Rachel and her father (except it’s not really him, she thought desperately).
“Come back, Louise,” the dark knight called. “Come along, sweetie. Daddy wants a cuddle.”
Louise and Genevieve dashed around the gates. Merlin stared out at the yard for a second, then turned quickly and followed them inside.
Globules of white fire smashed into the stable doors, breaking apart into complex webs which probed the woodwork with the tenacity of a ghoul’s fingers. Glossy black paint blistered and vaporised, the planks began to blaze furiously.
“Undo the stall doors,” Louise called above the incendiary roar of the fire and the braying, agitated horses. She had to say it again before Genevieve fumbled with the first bolt. The horse inside the stall shot out into the aisle which ran the length of the stable.
Louise rushed for the far end of the stables. Merlin was yapping hysterically behind her. Fire had spread from the doors to straw bundled loosely in the manger. Orange sparks were flying like rain in a hurricane. Thick arms of black smoke coiled insidiously along the ceiling.
The voices from outside called again, issuing orders and promises in equal amounts. None of them were real.
Screams were adding to the clamour in the courtyard now. Quinn’s disciples had inevitably gained the upper hand; Cricklade’s few remaining free servants were being hunted and possessed without any attempt at stealth.
Louise reached the stall at the end of the stables, the one with Daddy’s magnificent black stallion, a bloodline geneered to a perfection which nineteenth-century sporting kings could only dream of. The bolt slid back easily, and she grabbed the bridle before he had a chance to arrow into the aisle. He snorted furiously at her, but allowed her to steady him. She had to stand on a bale of hay in order to mount him. There was no time for a saddle.
The fire had spread with horrendous speed. Several of the stalls were burning now, their stout old timber walls shooting out wild sulphurous flames. Merlin was backing away from them, his barking fearful. Over half a dozen horses were milling in the aisle, whinnying direly. Flames had cut them off from the stable doors, the noisy inferno pressing them back from their one exit. She couldn’t see Gen.
“Where are you?” she shouted. “Gen!”
“Here. I’m here.” The voice was coming from an empty stall.
Louise urged the stallion forwards down the aisle, yelling wildly at the panicking horses in front of her. Two of them reared up, alarmed by this new, unexpected threat. They began to move en masse towards the flames.
“Quick!” Louise yelled.
Genevieve saw her chance and sprinted out into the aisle. Louise leaned over and grabbed her. At first she thought she’d miscalculated the girl’s weight, feeling herself starting to slide downwards. But then Genevieve snatched at the stallion’s mane, causing it to neigh sharply. Just as Louise was sure her spine would snap, or she’d crash headfirst onto the aisle’s stone flagging, Genevieve levered herself up to straddle the base of the stallion’s neck.
The stable doors had been all but consumed by the eerily hot fire. Their remaining planks sagged and twisted on the glowing hinges, then lurched onto the cobbles with a loud bang.
With the intensity of the flames temporarily reduced, the horses raced for the door and their chance of freedom. Louise dug her heels into the stallion’s flanks, spurring it on. There was an exhilarating burst of speed. Yellow spires of flame splashed across her left arm and leg, making her cry out. Genevieve squealed in front of her, batting frantically at her blouse. The stench of singed hair solidified in her nostrils. Thin layers of smoke stretching across the aisle whipped across her face, stinging her eyes.
Then they were through, out of the gaping door with its wreath of tiny flames scrabbling at the ruined frame, chasing after the other horses. Fresh air and low sunlight washed over them. The hefty knight in the dark mosaic armour was standing ahead of them. Streamers of bright orange smoke were still pouring from his helmet’s eye slits. Sparks of white fire danced across his raised gauntlets. He started to point a rigid forefinger at them, the white fire building.
But the posse of crazed horses couldn’t be deflected. The first one flashed past stark inches from him. Alert to the danger they presented, even to someone with energistic power, he began to jump aside. That was his mistake. The second horse might have missed him if he’d stayed still. Instead, it struck him almost head on. The screaming horse buckled on top of him, forelegs snapping with an atrocious crack as inertia sent it hurtling forwards regardless. The knight was flung out sideways, spinning in the air. He landed bonelessly, bouncing a full foot above the cobbles before coming to a final rest. His armour vanished immediately, revealing Grant Kavanagh’s body, still clad in his militia uniform. The fabric was torn in a dozen places, stained scarlet by the blood pumping from open wounds.
Louise gasped, instinctively pulling the reins to halt the stallion. Daddy was hurt!
But the flowing blood swiftly stanched itself. Ragged tears of flesh started to close up. The uniform was stitching itself together. Dusty, grazed leather shoes became metallic boots. He shook his head, grunting in what was little more than dazed annoyance.
Louise stared for a second as he started to raise himself onto his elbows, then spurred the horse away.
“Daddy!” Genevieve shouted in anguish.
“It’s not him,” Louise told her through clenched teeth. “Not now. That’s something else. The devil’s own monster.”
Rachel Handley stood in front of the arched entrance to the courtyard. Hands on hips, aroused wormlet hair threshing eagerly. “Nice try.” She laughed derisively. A hand was raised, palm towards the sisters. The awful white fire ignited around her wrist, wispy talons flaring from her fingers. Her laugh deepened at the sight of Louise’s anguish, cutting across Merlin’s miserable barking.
The bullet-bolt of white fire which caught Rachel Handley an inch above her left eye came from somewhere behind Louise. It bored straight through the maid’s skull, detonating in the centre of the brain. The back of her head blew off in a gout of charred gore and rapidly dissipating violet flame. Her body remained upright for a second, then the muscles spasmed once before losing all tension. She pitched forwards. Bright arterial blood spilled out of her ruined, smoking brainpan.
Louise twisted around. The courtyard was empty apart from the woozy figure of her father still clambering to his feet. A hundred empty windows stared down at her. Faint screams echoed over the rooftops. Long swirls of flame churned noisily out of the stable block’s wide doors.
Genevieve was shaking violently again, crying in convulsive gulps. Concern for the little girl overcame Louise’s utter confusion, and she spurred the stallion once more, guiding it around the vile corpse and out through the courtyard’s entrance.
From where he was standing beside the window of the third-floor guest suite, Quinn Dexter watched the girl riding the superb black horse hell-for-leather over the manor’s greensward and towards the wolds. Not even his awesome energistic strength could reach the fleeing sisters from this distance.
He pursed his lips in distaste. Someone had aided them. Why, he couldn’t think. The traitor must surely know they would never go unpunished. God’s Brother saw all. Every soul was accountable in the end.
“They’ll head for Colsterworth, of course,” he said. “All they’re doing is postponing the inevitable for a couple of hours. Most of that poxy little town already belongs to us.”
“Yes, Quinn,” said the boy standing behind him.
“And soon the whole world,” Quinn muttered. And then what?
He turned and smiled proudly. “It is so nice to see you again. I never thought I would. But He must have decided to reward me.”
“I love you, Quinn,” Lawrence Dillon said simply. The body of the stable lad he had possessed was completely naked, the scars from the act of possession already nothing more than faint, fading pink lines on the tanned skin.
“I had to do what I did on Lalonde. You know that. We couldn’t take you with us.”
“I know, Quinn,” Lawrence said devoutly. “I was a liability. I was weak back then.” He knelt at Quinn’s feet, and beamed up at the stern features of the black-robed figure. “But I’m not anymore. Now I can help you again. It will be like before, only better. The whole universe will bow before you, Quinn.”
“Yeah,” Quinn Dexter said slowly, savouring the thought. “The fuckers just might.”
The datavised alert woke Ralph Hiltch from a desultory sleep. As an ESA head of station, he’d been assigned some temporary quarters in the Royal Navy officers’ mess. Strange impersonal surroundings, and the emotional cold turkey from bringing Gerald Skibbow to Guyana, had left his thoughts racing as he lay on the bunk after a three-hour debrief session last night. In the end he’d wound up accessing a mild trank program to relax his body.
At least he hadn’t suffered any nightmares; though Jenny was never very far from the surface of his mind. A final frozen image of the mission: Jenny lying under a scrum of man-apes, datavising a kamikaze code into the power cell at her side. The image didn’t need storing in a neural nanonics memory cell in order to retain its clarity. She’d thought it was preferable to the alternative. But was she right? It was a question he’d asked himself a lot during the voyage to Ombey.
He swung his legs over the side of his bunk and ran fingers through hair that badly needed a wash. The room’s net processor informed him that Guyana asteroid had just gone to a code three alert status.
“Shit, now what?” As if he couldn’t guess.
His neural nanonics reported an incoming call from Ombey’s ESA office, tagged as the director, Roche Skark, himself. Ralph opened a secure channel to the net processor with a sense of grim inevitability. You didn’t have to be psychic to know it wasn’t going to be good.
“Sorry to haul you back to active status so soon after you arrived,” Roche Skark datavised. “But the shit’s just hit the fan. We need your expertise.”
“Sir?”
“It looks like three of the embassy personnel who came here on the Ekwan were sequestrated by the virus. They’ve gone down to the surface.”
“What?” Panic surged into Ralph’s mind. Not that abomination, not loose here in the Kingdom. Please God. “Are you certain?”
“Yes. I’ve just come out of a Privy Council security conference with the Princess. She authorized the code three alert because of it.”
Ralph’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, God, and I brought them here.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“It’s my job to know. Goddamn, I grew slack on Lalonde.”
“I doubt any of us would have done anything different.”
“Yes, sir.” Pity you couldn’t sneer with a datavise.
“In any case, we’re right behind them. Admiral Farquar and my good colleague Jannike Dermot over at the ISA have been commendably swift in implementing damage limitation procedures. We estimate the embassy trio are barely seven hours ahead of you.”
Ralph thought about the damage one of those things could inflict in seven hours and put his head in his hands. “That still gives them a lot of time to infect other people.” Implications began to sink through his crust of dismay. “It’ll be an exponential effect.”
“Possibly,” Roche Skark admitted. “If it isn’t contained very quickly we may have to abandon the entire Xingu continent. Quarantine procedures are already in place, and the police are being told how to handle the situation. But I want you there to instill a bit of urgency, kick a bit of arse.”
“Yes, sir. This active status call, does that mean I get to go after them in person?”
“It does. Technically, you’re going down to advise the Xingu continent’s civil authorities. As far as I’m concerned you can engage in as much fieldwork as you want, with the proviso that you don’t expose yourself to the possibility of infection.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Ralph, I don’t mind telling you, what this energy virus can do scares the crap out of me. It has to be a precursor to something, some form of invasion. And safeguarding the Kingdom from such threats is my job. Yours too, come to that. So stop them, Ralph. Shoot first, and I’ll whitewash later if need be.”
“You’ve got it, sir.”
“Good man. The admiral has assigned a flyer to take you down to Pasto city spaceport, it’s leaving in twelve minutes. I’ll have a full situation briefing datapackage assembled ready for you to access on the way down. Anything you want, let me know.”
“I’d like to take Will Danza and Dean Folan with me, and have them authorized to fire weapons on the surface. They know how to deal with people who have been sequestrated. Cathal Fitzgerald too; he’s seen the virus at work.”
“They’ll have the authorization before you land.”
Duchess had risen above the horizon by the time Colsterworth came into view. The red dwarf sun occupied a portion of the horizon diametrically opposite Duke, the two of them struggling to contaminate the landscape below with their own unique spectrum.
Duchess was winning the battle, rising in time to Duke’s fall from the sky. The eastward slopes of the wolds were slowly slipping from verdant green to subdued burgundy. Aboriginal pine-analogue trees planted among the hedgerows of geneered hawthorn became grizzled pewter pillars. Even the stallion’s ebony hide was darkening.
Duke’s golden glow withdrew before the strengthening red tide.
For the first time in her life, Louise resented the primary’s retreat. Duchess-night was usually a magical time, twisting the familiar world into a land of mysterious shadows and balmy air. This time the red stain had a distinctly ominous quality.
“Do you suppose Aunty Daphnie will be home?” Genevieve asked for what must have been the fifth time.
“I’m sure she will,” Louise replied. It had taken Genevieve a good half hour to stop crying after they’d escaped from Cricklade. Louise had concentrated so hard on comforting her sister, she’d almost stopped being afraid herself. Certainly it was easy to blank what had happened from her mind. And she wasn’t quite sure exactly what she was going to say to Aunt Daphnie. The actual truth would make her sound utterly mad. Yet anything less than the truth might not suffice. Whatever forces of justice and law were dispatched up to Cricklade would have to be well armed and alert. The chief constable and the mayor had to believe what they faced was deadly real, not the imaginings of a half-hysterical teenage girl.
Fortunately she was a Kavanagh. People would have to listen. And please, dear Jesus, make them believe.
“Is that a fire?” Genevieve asked.
Louise jerked her head up. Colsterworth was spread out along a couple of miles of a shallow valley, growing up from the intersection of a river and the railway line. A somnolent little market town with ranks of neat terrace houses set amid small, pretty gardens. The larger homes of the important families occupied the gentle eastern slope, capturing the best view over the countryside. An industrial district of warehouses and small factories cluttered the ground around the wharf.