Judgement (The Twelve) (50 page)

The London Eye was collapsed and partially submerged. A half dozen cruise boats
drifted past
with the tide, flames and black smoke billowing from each aband
oned vessel, one sank as it hit broadside on with a section of the half submerged Eye.

Fleet
S
treet was ablaze
from end to end,
burning so badly no one cou
ld get near to enough to fight the corridor of superheated gas
. Several dozen
stores also burned, including Harrods. Treasury House was only partially on fire but everything inside was smashed or shattered.

It
was a
terrible disaster but it could have been a whole lot worse.
Eighty two
percent of the city remained un-touched or only slightly damaged.
Buckingham Palace and St Paul’s both survived thanks to armed police and armed palace guardsmen.
The City of London has 32 boroughs, of which 13 are in the inner damaged area. Out of approximately eight million people who live in London, a head count would eventually reveal that only
eight
hundred
and ninety eight
had died.
Eleven
thousand
were badly injured
, with
some
sixteen
thousand; walking wounded.

The Prime Minster met with COBRA and declared martial law until the enemy could be identified and made to pay. A seven pm curfew was now in force and two regiments of the army now patrolled the streets of London together with
every available
police officer
and for the first time in history, every one of them was armed, even those without any training.
T
ourists
and locals, trapped in the war zone,
were rounded up and
moved into the grounds of Buckingham Palace and the adjourning army barracks.
Tanks stood at
the entrance gates to the Palace and at each
end of every bridge
that crossed
the Thames.

The Home secretary had been briefed on the
events
of the day
and it appeared they had Starlight security to thank, along with some ‘
very special task force operatives’
as the Cobra memo stated, for initial damage confinement
.
He placed several question marks against that bit of information
along with the name ‘
Smith’
.

The senior press officer was reading from his brief to the cabinet
,
“
Reports being gathered Prime Minister, suggest that these ‘
Operatives’
must have been some black ops unit.
”

He cleared his throat and shuffled his papers,
“A
t present no one is taking the credit for them.”

The Foreign Secretary didn’t wait for permission to respond, “Starlight played there part but so did the army and police. We implemented nuclear protocols as per standard activation orders. We have armed the police and imposed martial law and a curfew.”

The Prime Minster looked up from the pile of reports in front of him,
“
Even though this country owed them a huge debt of gratitude, h
ow did Starlight Security get wind of this? How did they manage to
humiliate Special Br
an
ch, MI5, MI6 and the Sec
r
et Service
who never saw this coming?”

A
multitude of questions
was
fired back and forth around th
e
table that
afternoon
, but there were no answers forthcoming
to m
ost
of them
. Had
the red sky anything to do with it? What were these grey slime covered creatures?

One man knew a little of what was happening. He knew about Mister Smith because he’d met him several times over his career, in fact Mister Smith had financed his party which helped win the general election. He’d also financed the Home Secretary
,
as he groomed him to take over leadership at the next election. He knew about the Shades and The Dark. He knew Smith was the richest man alive and he knew he was very, very old. The Home Secretary was a religious man and beli
eved Smith, because he believed in his religion.
He just happened to keep this information to himself whilst secretly letting the Commanders of MI5 and 6 in on it. They were his men bought and paid for. So he sat there
,
watched and listened and prayed that the world wasn’t about to end.

He listened as it was explained that t
hey’d captured three
Shades
alive and despite there best effects at examining the creatures. They still had no idea what they were. Some suggested Aliens, but tis
sue extraction showed human DNA but without any internal organs whatsoever!
The Prime Minister
decided that the story to go with was that this was
the worst
terrorist attack the country had ever faced but they had won through and the worst was in fact over.
The Commander of MI5 and 6 glanced at the Home Secretary
, they knew t
h
at
the man was about to be
proved
wrong, very, very wrong.

Jennings
and some of
people were recovering back at the safety of the warehouse. Eight of his
team
had died and nineteen were currently receiving medical treatment. Jennings
, with a bandage covering his forehead,
was at the moment up on the forth floor with Anvil and his people.

Jennings
thought
that
Anvil was going to hit him with that bloody big hammer of his.

“Look, all I said was
,
I grieve at your loss, but you’ve only lost one of your team
, I’ve lost eight, three of them female.
”

Anvil’s face was like th
u
nder. Jennings raised a hand, “
And we might loose another two within the hour, one
of
whom is
my
wife’s cousin.
So get things in perspective. You need to come down and address the troops, instead of hiding away up here.”

Anvil took a deep breath to calm down. “Hot Cross was very close to us.
Ordinary p
eople live and die. We’ve already lived and died and live
d
again. The loss of one of us is unbelievable; we’ve been a family for
thousands of years!”

Anvil forced himself to calm down, he realised how close he’d come to loosing it with Jennings. He desperately needed someone to take his rage out upon.

“Y
ou’re right. The loss of your people is no less important
than the loss of one of my people. Al
l life is important. I will be down shortly.”

Jennings
looked at
these strange leather clad
warriors
. T
hey sat or stood
in
the centre of the living area,
each one appeared totally devastated with the loss of the one called Hot Cross.
He knew that this Edge person had taken the head of there friend
, w
hich was one sick mother of a thing to do. He nodded and made his way to the lift gate.

Anvil waited until
Jennings and
the lift descended before walking over to Chris, who stood at the window looking up at the sky.

“What now?”

Chris continued to look up at the sky, “The day isn’t over yet and may never be until this has settled.
It’s winter and should now be dark but look at the sky it’s still bright r
ed and light. I suspect night will never fall until this is finished.”

“So
what now?” Anvil asked again.

Chris turned away from the window, “We take the fight to The Dark.”

“Embankment?”

Chris nodded, “They will be waiting for us
at the graveyard, so we try Embankment again
.”

Anvil struck the concrete window ledge with his hammer, shattering a section under the mild blow, “Then let’s not keep them waiting.”

He turned to the rest of the Twelve, “
Our problem is we’ve forgotten our true purpose. We’ve all lived and died. With our re-birth came immortality and over the years we’ve
come to love life again but i
t’s not our right to live forever, far from it. We must i
f
need be, lay down our lives in order to destroy The Dark. That is our purpose
in the here and now
and the reason for a second chance at living. It’s a gift given to us with the expectation that one day we shall return it. That day has come.”

The others
listened intently a
nd now slowly they gathered before him, resolved to face there destiny
.

Rage thumped his chest, “I for one am ready. I was born to fight and die again if need be.”

Heartless glanced first at the others then towards Chris, “If I’m to die today then so be it but
does that promise still stand?”

Chris smiled and nodded just the once.

“Then I’m taking with me as many of those evil shits as I can!”

Priest crossed himself, “Amen brother.”

Speed for once stood as still as a rock, “Hot Cross was a friend and they took his head for Christ’s sake!” He shot Priest a look, “Don’t you dare say it! Those bastards won’t see me coming.
I’ll fucking burn out like a moth in a flame if need be.
”

Slash pulled
free
his large
kni
f
e
that was strapped to his thigh
, “They like taking heads? Well
,
wait until I’ve finished with
old Bowie here!
”