World's End (Age of Misrule, Book 1) (53 page)

"What if they're pissed and lying in a gutter?" Laura asked. "You know how boys like to play once they get together."

"You'd think they'd have thought to get back here by nightfall," Ruth moaned.

"They never call." Laura's singsong voice dripped with mockery. "Listen to you. You sound like their mother."

"Why don't you-"

"Listen." Concern crossed Shavi's face. From the street without came the gentle clip-clop of horses' hooves, an everyday sound, but it made their blood run cold.

"Can you see?" Ruth knew she was whispering unnecessarily, but she couldn't bring herself to raise her voice.

Shavi pressed his face up close to the glass and attempted to look down. He shook his head. "Only if I open the window."

"Don't do that!" Laura snapped.

"I was not about to."

They listened as the sound of the hooves slowly moved away and only when the sound had finally disappeared did they speak again.

"Maybe it wasn't them," Ruth said hopefully. "Earlier I saw a guy who takes tourists on tours of the front in a horse-drawn carriage."

"It was the Hunt." Tom's voice had an edge of fatalism.

"How fast does it move?" Veitch panted. They slipped and slid down the grassy bank on the other side of the hill until they reached the museum.

"Faster than you could ever run, even on a good day." Church dropped on to a path and peered over the old castle walls. If the tide had been out, they could have taken a short cut across the beach and up the vertiginous seafront steps to the street where the B&B lay, but the waters crashed against the cliffs on which the town perched.

"Hey, I'm fit. You're the one who spends his time sitting on his arse writing about old bones."

They hurried under the crumbling stone arches of the castle's defences and quickly arrived back at the quay. Disturbingly, the dog's growls didn't diminish. Church glanced back and thought he could see the eyes burning in the distance.

"It's got our scent," he said. "Or whatever. We might lose it up in the town where there are too many other distractions."

But as they turned to run back up St. Julian Street, the threatening blast of a horn echoed out across the quiet town.

Church's heart skipped a beat. "The Hunt. They're in the old town."

As they waited uncertainly, with the dog's growls growing louder behind them, they heard a horse approaching slowly down St. Julian Street. A street light threw an enormous angular shadow across the front of the pastel houses in which Church could make out the cruel pike-weapon he had seen used so effectively on Dartmoor.

"Just one?" Veitch said.

"They're trying to flush us out."

They turned and ran instead around the harbour, diving into an alley that led up to the Tudor Merchant's House tourist attraction. Church could feel the thundering of his blood in his ears. For a long time there was just the lapping of the waves. They both held their breath, listening. Church glanced at Witch, both ready to make their move; he held up his hand for one more listen. The faint clip-clop of hooves echoed somewhere nearby.

Church cursed under his breath. "Good job there're lots of tiny streets and back alleys to hide in."

"And to get cornered in. Bleedin' hell. How did I get caught up in all this?"

Keeping to the shadows, they crept quietly up some old, weathered steps and headed along another alley. At the end of it Tudor Square lay deserted and brightly lit. They listened again; silence.

"We could make a run for it," Veitch suggested.

"If they catch you out in the open, you won't stand a chance." Church edged forward to get a better look, but just as he closed on the light, a horse and rider loomed up in the entryway. He could smell the unearthly, musky stink of the beast's sweat, see the light glint on the rider's metal buckles and arm rings, and the odd, lambent shimmer of his greenish skin.

Just as the rider started to look down the alleyway, Veitch grabbed Church's jacket and dragged him back into the shadows of a doorway. The rider stared for a moment, as if he had seen something, and then, just as Church thought he was going to investigate, he spurred the horse and it trotted away down towards St. Julian Street.

"I thought he'd marked us then," Veitch whispered.

"There's an alley on the other side of the road next to the bookshop I saw earlier. If we can reach that, we might be able to wend our through the backstreets to base."

Cautiously, they crept back to the end of the alley to survey the scene. The square was empty once more.

"He's probably waiting just around that corner," Church noted.

"What we need is a diversion." Veitch pulled out the gun and held it at his side; he seemed to carry it easily.

"What are you going to do with that?" Church asked uneasily.

Veitch moved in front of Church, raised the gun, pointed it at a shop at the top end of the square and fired, all in one fluid motion. The thunder of the retort merged with the high-pitched shatter as the window caved in and the burglar alarm started to scream. In an instant the clatter of hooves erupted as the Huntsman burst from St. Julian Street and spurred his horse towards the shop, his sickle-pike glinting in the street light.

Once he'd passed by, they ran. Veitch had been cunning; the noise of the burglar alarm masked the sound of their running feet.

But just as they'd stepped into the road, a car sped up in the trail of the rider, so fast it almost ploughed into them. There were four youths inside, faces flushed from too much beer. The driver swerved at the last moment, screaming his rage through the open window, then hammered the horn. Church knew instantly that stroke of bad luck had ruined them. From the corner of his eye, he saw the Huntsman rein up his horse and turn it on the spot. Veitch must have seen it too, for he didn't slow for a moment; instead he powered up on to the car's bonnet and launched himself off to the other side.

Church was too near to the rear of the car to follow suit, but Veitch's actions were too much for the beer boys inside. They burst from the doors, their faces contorted with anger, fists bulging, mouthing post-pub threats in broad Welsh accents. One of them took a swing at Church and he had to throw himself back to avoid the blow.

"Come on!" Veitch yelled, as if it were in Church's power to respond.

The rider was almost upon him. Acting purely on instinct, Church propelled himself forward, past his assailant and behind one of the doors, surprising the beer boys with his tactics. The Huntsman's pike raised a shower of fizzing sparks as it ripped along the car's wing.

That resulted in another predictable outburst from the four youths. The driver stepped forward and hurled a near-full beer can. It bounced off the rider's shoulder, spraying cheap lager across the road.

He was already advancing, fists raised, when Church yelled, "No! He'll kill you!" Another of the youths stepped in and kicked Church violently on the leg. More from shock than the agony that lanced up to his waist, Church pitched backwards, half-in and half-out of the car.

He tried to call out again, but it was too late. The driver rode forward, stabbing his pike and ripping suddenly upwards as he passed. A fountain of blood spurted, then showered down to mingle with the lager in the gutter.

The shouts were stifled in the other three youths' throats. But a second later, to Church's disbelief, they resumed their assault on the rider with force, hurling anything at him that came to hand, trying to kick out at the ghostly horse as it passed. Church didn't wait to see any more. He scrambled right through the car, rolled out on to the tarmac and was then up and running to join Veitch at the alleyway.

Overcome by despair and guilt, he glanced back and immediately wished he hadn't. The rider tore through the youths like a storm of knives, shredding and dismembering in a manner that suggested he had only contempt for humanity. The horse that was more than a horse jumped on to the car's roof, crumpling it, and then Veitch and Church were running as fast as they could along the alley.

They rounded into Cresswell Street, hoping to make their way along the front where they could lose themselves amongst the mediaeval streets before reaching the B&B, but the futility of their plan became immediately apparent. One rider cantered from the seafront, blocking the bottom end of the street, while another appeared at the top, their pikes raised, ready to harry them like foxes.

"Up," Veitch croaked.

It took Church a split-second to comprehend what he was saying, and then he was running behind him and getting a leg-up on to a garage roof. He leaned over and hauled Veitch up behind him just as one of the pikes smashed into the brick with a force that belied even the formidable strength of both rider and weapon. The old buildings made it easy for them to find footholds until they could reach the bottom rungs of a fire escape, where they could scramble up to the roof. Crawling over the lip of the gutter was a terrifying experience, and once Church thought the whole frame was about to give way and plunge him to the hard pavement far below.

But eventually they were lying back on the dark slate tiles, staring at the sky as they desperately tried to catch their breath; beneath them the horses' hooves clattered insistently.

"They're not going to go away," Veitch said redundantly.

"We could stay up here till dawn. They'll leave with the daylight."

"You think they're just going to let us sit here? Anyway, didn't you say you'd seen them up in the sky?"

Church remembered viewing the eerie shapes among the clouds after Black Shuck's attack at the service station, but it was almost as if they had been in some transitional phase brought on by the sun's first rays. He shook his head. "If they could, they'd have done it by now."

He peeked over the edge. The rest of the Hunt had gathered there now, the imposing figure of the Erl-King at the heart of them. The horses snorted like traction engines as they jostled for space. A few curtains flickered in the apartments overlooking the street, but wisely, no one pursued their investigations.

"If they could rise up here in some way, I think they would have done it by now," he said, but that didn't give him much comfort.

He had good reason to feel that way. The Erl-King raised his horn to his misshapen mouth and blew a long, aching blast. A second later it was answered by the mournful howl of a dog; not Black Shuck, Church noted-it was too thin and reedy-and then more joined in, yelping ferociously. The sound was so eerie; it almost sounded like human voices.

Within a minute, the pack arrived, surging through the alleyway that led to Tudor Square from wherever they had been sequestered, ready for the final stage of the Hunt. Church's heart froze at the sight of the demonic, red and white hounds; they were almost insect-like in the way they swarmed amongst the horses at the foot of the building.

The Erl-King gave them some silent order, and the sight that followed made Church's breath catch in his throat. The dogs were mounting the building; making inhuman leaps on to the garage roof, on to the window ledges; some even appeared to be climbing sheer faces.

"Jesus Christ!" Veitch's face was as milky-white as the dogs' hindquarters. As they advanced, their snapping needle teeth glinted menacingly.

Church and Veitch pushed their way back from the edge in shock and then stood up, frantically looking around for an escape route. The jumbled slate roofs stretched out all around them in a mix of angles and pitches that befitted the buildings' age, but there seemed only one way: further into the mediaeval quarter where the streets were narrow enough to leap across.

Veitch led the way, slipping and sliding on the tiles. Church was relieved the day had been dry, otherwise they would easily have skidded over the edge. Even so, the gutters remained unnervingly close. Church had never had a problem with heights, but he felt a tight band form across his chest as he glimpsed the street far below during their progress from house to house; and his head was spinning so much he was afraid he might black out or make a mis-step.

At ground level the Hunt was following their progress, ready to catch their prey if either of them plummeted. And behind, Church could hear the clicking of the dogs' nails as they clambered over the guttering on to the slates. He told himself not to look back, but he couldn't resist. The dogs were mounting the roofs in force, their white patches glowing in the moonlight like small spectres. They snapped and snarled venomously.

Church was amazed at how Veitch kept his attention singlemindedly on their escape. When a street opened up ahead of them, he paused, took a few steps back, then launched himself across the gulf, clattering on the tiles ahead and somehow clinging on.

He turned and beckoned to Church. "Come on! They're almost on you!"

Church looked down at the dizzying drop and knew at once that was a mis take. The only way he could control himself was to close his eyes and jump blind. Suddenly there was a wild snapping at his heels and he threw himself across the gap. The wind whistled past his ears and his heart rammed up into his throat until he felt his feet touch down on the opposite roof. But his relief vanished when he realised he had mistimed his leap; he was toppling backwards, his arms cartwheeling.

Veitch reached out to grab his jacket and pull him forwards at the last moment and they tumbled together on to the slates.

"Try keeping your eyes open next time," he snapped.

Out of the corner of his eye, Church saw the dogs leap the gap. He scrambled up the pitch after Veitch. The first few missed and fell howling to the street below, but others caught on to the guttering and somehow managed to pull their way up.

Church was breathless from exertion and anxiety. The dogs were relentless. He could hear the gnashing of their teeth so close behind that if he paused for a second they'd have him. At the next street, Veitch cleared the gap easily, but he still had trouble clinging on to the opposite roof's steep pitch. Church felt a brief flurry of relief when he recognised the block where their B&B was situated.

He couldn't stop to time his jump. A dog had almost sunk its teeth into his trousers, the teeth clacking so close he felt the vibration. But at the moment he launched himself, his foot skidded on the slate and he lost his momentum. He clamped his eyes shut again, and somehow his fingers clasped on to the guttering, which creaked ominously.