The Night's Dawn Trilogy (163 page)

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.