Age of Heroes (50 page)

In that tiny lull, that brief instant of indecision, Stannard leapt.

He threw himself at Badenhorst with such force that both of them flew across the room, straight into the still blaring television. The screen shattered, silencing the football at long last. Both men tumbled to the floor. Josie was left standing where she was, astonished at how fast Stannard had moved.

Stannard began beleaguering Badenhorst with punches. His arms were a blur, like the blades of an electric fan. They did no damage to the Afrikaner, but the sheer repetitive impacts pinned him in place, helpless.

The woman known as Sasha darted over to join him, holding Badenhorst down with her good arm while Stannard kept up the onslaught.

It seemed as though the beating might go on forever, with the man on the receiving end unharmed but unable to retaliate.

Then something changed hands between Sasha and Stannard. It was a short pole, perhaps half a metre long. One end seemed to have been sheared off, while at the other there were a pair of slender blades, like two knives in parallel.

“The aegis can’t be unfastened,” Sasha said to Badenhorst, “but it can be removed, if you have the right equipment.”

Badenhorst’s eyes widened, becoming panicky.

Stannard sliced through the Aegis, cutting it free from Badenhorst’s body. He threw the fragments of furry material aside.

Badenhorst tried raising his gun, but Sasha disarmed him with a simple twist of the wrist.

Now the Afrikaner was very frightened. Stannard and Sasha hauled him to his feet. He no longer had the aegis to protect him. He was as vulnerable as any person.

“Roy?” said Stannard. “He’s all yours. You have the right. You have the responsibility.”

“Jeanne,” Josie’s father said, “would you take Josie outside?”

Jeanne grasped Josie gently by the shoulders and steered her towards the exit. As they passed Josie’s father, he reached out and brushed a hand across her cheek.

“I don’t want you to see this, honey.”

“I know. I kind of don’t want to see it either – although I also do.”

“You were bluffing, weren’t you? With the gun. I could tell. You – you’re different. You look different. You look...” He searched for the right words. For an articulate man, he often had trouble saying what he really meant. “Healthy. Better than in a long time. You look like my Josie again.”

“And you look like my dad. Same as always. Apart from the bruises.”

“I’ll see you in a little while. We’ll catch up.”

“It’s okay, Dad.” Josie threw a glance at Badenhorst, who was whimpering now, pleading with Stannard and Sasha to let him go. “I can wait. Take as long as you need.”

Her father gave her a smile, wan but paternal. Loving.

Jeanne escorted Josie into the corridor outside, down in the elevator, out onto the street. Vienna simmered in summer heat. Josie breathed in city smells: traffic fumes, stonework, garbage rotting in a bin, a passer-by’s cigarette smoke, the aroma of cooking from a nearby bakery.

Freedom.

The world was good.

Life was good.

THREE MONTHS LATER

EPILOGUE

Paris, France

F
ORGET SPRING, AUTUMN
was the best time of year in Paris. The oppressive heat of summer, gone. The city filling up again after the annual August exodus, Parisians returning from their country homes and seaside resorts to reclaim the boulevards from the tourists. Slow, radiantly golden sunsets over the Seine.

Thomas Sinclair locked the door of his walk-up apartment in Montmartre and headed downstairs. He picked up a coffee and croissant to go at a café, then took the Métro Line 12 from Abbesses station to Saint-Lazare.

Today was a big day. A fresh start. The beginning of something. A new venture.

Thomas’s office was in the 8th Arrondissement, just off the rue La Fayette. It sat on the third floor of a large, venerable Haussmann-era building with a central courtyard where, once upon a time, horses would have been stabled. An archway gave access from the street, large enough for coaches to have passed through.

He arrived there just past nine. Already his co-director was at his desk.

“First day of business and you’re at work before I am,” Thomas said. “Hope you’re not trying to make me look bad.”

“I’m not trying to,” said the other. “I’m succeeding.”

Thomas took his seat at a desk on the opposite side of the spacious, airy room. The two men faced each other.

“Do you think we’re going to get any clients, Theo?”

“Thomas. Remember? It’s Thomas now.”

“Sorry. I’ll get the hang of it, I swear.”

“At least you’re still Roy. Makes my life easier.”

“Mine too,” said Roy Young.

“And as for clients... Have faith. Wait and see. It’ll be one or two at first, dribs and drabs, but once words get around, the floodgates will open.”

With that, Thomas sat back, thinking.

It had taken far less time than he’d predicted, relocating to France, setting up the business. There was plenty of red tape to cut through, but he had access to a fairly hefty pair of scissors in the shape of his company’s financial backer, Evander Arlington. French bureaucracy worked with remarkable efficiency if the right people were paid off in the right way. Arlington’s bountiful wallet was more than up to the task.

The hardest part of the whole process had been turning down the Simon & Schuster two-book deal and walking away from the life and career of Theo Stannard. Thomas had quite enjoyed that incarnation, and he had disliked upsetting Cynthia, whose main source of income his novels were. She had alternately pleaded with and cajoled him to write the next Jake Killian, plus
The Golden Thread
, and
then
call it a day, but he had stood firm. He’d told her, regretfully, that publishing was no longer for him; he felt the need to retire from the industry and pursue other interests. He’d bought her a five-star Caribbean cruise as a parting gift, a thank-you-and-farewell, which she accepted with graceful reluctance.

Now, in Paris, Theo Stannard was Thomas Sinclair, and he and Roy had a company to run and a remit to fulfil.

All morning, the telephone did not ring and no emails arrived in their inboxes except for spam. The post brought nothing but a couple of circulars, some fast-food menus and a Good Luck card from Harry Gottlieb:
Thinking of you as you embark on this brand new ODYSSEY
.

“Early days,” was all Thomas said.

They chatted about this and that to while away the time. Thomas enquired about Josie. She was doing well, Roy said. He might almost describe it as “thriving”. She had just started her first term at a boarding school in Kent and said she was enjoying it. He had worried that she would find the adjustment hard, but it seemed that there was nothing she couldn’t take in her stride these days. He visited her most weekends. The journey was only a couple of hours on the Eurostar. Every time, he saw a changed girl. Josie’s future seemed bright.

“Shame it took getting kidnapped and almost shot to do for her what the most expensive mental health clinic in Switzerland couldn’t,” Roy said with an ironic shrug. “But there you go. She stays in touch with that orderly, Benedikt Frankel. He was the one who really made a difference to her. I owe him more than I do Dr Aeschbacher or any of those fucking overpriced shrinks, that’s for sure.”

“Badenhorst broke his nose, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, badly, and it’s set wonky, so Benedikt isn’t as pretty-boy handsome as he used to be, but he says it adds character.”

“All scars add character.”

“And you don’t have any.”

“My scars are inner and they are many. I have huge amounts of character.”

They chuckled, and Thomas marvelled at the thought that, not so long ago, one of them had been paid good money to kill the other. But then, it had never been personal for Roy, so how, really, could Thomas hold a grudge?

The phone rang. Each man had an extension on his desk. They grabbed for the handsets simultaneously.

Thomas’s faster reflexes meant he got there first.

“Hello. Herculean Feats International. How may I be of assistance?”

The caller was a woman. She said she was in deep trouble and had been given this number by Sasha Grace. She was being threatened by a man – a wealthy man, a dangerous man. Her husband. He had contacts, connections to some shady and unscrupulous individuals. He was also an abuser, free with his fists, and she had finally had enough of being knocked about by him, so she had left and taken their kids with her and gone into hiding. She knew he would be looking for her, and with the people he was in league with aiding him, the resources they had, it was only a matter of time before he found her.

She was scared and she needed help, and Sasha Grace, from whom she had hired Wonder Women a few times, had told her Herculean Feats International was the place to go. She just wanted herself and her children to be safe, she said. She didn’t want to spent the rest of her life on the run, constantly looking over her shoulder.

Thomas jotted down all the relevant details: names, addresses, locations. Roy was listening in on the other line. When the woman asked about their fee, Thomas said there was none. The company was privately funded, a kind of charity.

Evander Arlington, setting up a vast trust in their name.

“We can sort this all out for you,” he told the woman. “I promise you, within a week you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

He put down the phone.

“Ready, Roy?”

“Sounds like someone has to be killed who deserves to be killed. I’m ready.”

Thomas stood up.

The Age of Heroes was far in the past. The world had moved on.

But that didn’t mean the world didn’t still need heroes.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I
OWE A
huge debt of thanks to Jonathan Oliver and David Moore for doing yet another bang-up editorial job. Unless you’re a writer you may not realise what a difference good editing makes. Even seasoned old scribblers like me need a firm guiding hand to shape and hone our prose, and I’m lucky to have it.

I’m grateful, too, to Martin Wagner for a bit of help with my German, and to Patrick Mahon who’s been a staunch supporter and pal for a while now.

Above all else, I’m grateful to my readers, not least the ones who’ve taken my Pantheon series to their hearts and made it such a success. These books are a hell of a lot of fun to write, and part of that fun is knowing they’re going to be read and appreciated by such a wide range of people. To everyone who’s sent me positive feedback over the years, suggested ideas for new Pantheon novels, chipped in with helpful comments, played the game of “casting the movie” with me, or just simply bought and enjoyed the books – a massive, heartfelt, semi-divine THANK YOU.

THE AGE OF WAR!

Zachary Bramwell, better known as the comics artist Zak Zap, is pushing forty and wondering why his life isn’t as exciting as the lives of the superheroes he draws. Then he’s shanghaied by black-suited goons and flown to Mount Meru, a vast complex built atop an island in the Maldives. There, Zak meets a trio of billionaire businessmen who put him to work designing costumes for a team of godlike super-powered beings based on the ten avatars of Vishnu from Hindu mythology.

The Ten Avatars battle demons and aliens and seem to be the saviours of a world teetering on collapse. But their presence is itself a harbinger of apocalypse. The Vedic “fourth age” of civilisation, Kali Yuga, is coming to an end, and Zak has a ringside seat for the final, all-out war that threatens the destruction of Earth.

‘One of the SF scene’s most interesting, challenging and adventurous authors.’

Saxon Bullock,
SFX Magazine
on
The Age of Ra

‘Lovegrove is vigorously carving out a godpunk subgenre – rebellious underdog humans battling an outmoded belief system. Guns help a bit, but the real weapon is free will.’