Another War

Chapter Eleven

He felt time expand. Thacker wasn’t given to moments of pure, unadulterated terror, but he knew that this was what it was like. The only other time had been the two seconds he’d had to stop a balaclavered man from dropping a flask full of plague down a ventilation shaft and into the London Underground.

Two seconds, and he’d unholstered his Browning, emptied the full clip into the man’s chest, and still managed to catch the stoppered bottle before it had fallen a foot.

Everyone except himself moved like they were imbedded in glass. Robert Henbury was still open-mouthed at the death of his immediate captor. Jack Henbury was projecting waves of hate at him, even as he struggled to bring his body around.

Thacker watched Jack’s left foot rise uncertainly, and dived for his right. Mid-flight, he discarded his shield and stretched out both hands for the thin leg.

He connected. How could he fail to? The god span and fell, like a sawn-through tree.

Then time restarted. All the noise and confusion and enormity of what he had done rushed in on him. Unlike the moment in the dark tunnel under the capital, Jack was more than capable of striking back.

Strike he did. The road heaved up in a fountain of stone, blasting Thacker free of his grip. Landing on his back, Thacker kept rolling until he was upright. The houses either side of the street fell in on themselves and roared towards him in a tidal wave of debris.

He jumped back, onto the roof of a car caught up in the flood. It swung and bucked unpredictably, crushed below and sinking. The sea of rubble stopped heaving, and a street light launched into the air like a rocket and arced towards him.

He dodged the great length of steel as it whistled through the car roof and deep into the rock below. Jack got to his feet, slowly, ungainly.

A rumbling beneath him warned him a fraction of a second before another stone fountain ripped the road surface in two. He was showered with earth and cobbles, and was forced back. Jack advanced a step, and the tactic was repeated. No sooner had the last eruption ceased than a new one began, and Thacker was always on the back foot, holding his arms above him to protect himself from the hard rain.

Jack collapsed the last houses in the row, using the rubble to form a bank, then added to it until it became an unstable rampart. He set fires in the other houses, and they quickly began to burn with acrid, black smoke.

He’d trapped Thacker, who’d retreated just about as far as he could. He gathered his powers, and the road surface began to steam.

Thacker looked for a way out. He’d cause an avalanche if he tried to scale the wall of loose stone behind him. It would bury him, and by the time he could free himself, Jack would be able to do anything to him. He could run through the burning buildings to either side. And Jack would drop the first storey on him, and the result would be the same.

He’d made a mistake right back at the very start. He should have thrown his spear at Jack, not Dickson. He’d not get a second chance.

Robert Henbury would, though. He’d cut through his bonds with the bloodied blade of the spear. No-one had the wit to stop him, they were so in awe of their god’s manifestations.

As the tar melted, and Thacker felt his feet begin to burn, Robert Henbury used what little strength he had left to lift the spear up, and to drive it into the back of his cousin’s knee.

Whether it was pain or the sheer surprise of being assaulted by the last person he considered to be a threat, Jack’s concentration broke. He’d never controlled Robert. He wanted him to see everything, to suffer the unique fate of being a conscious witness to the world’s end. Now, Robert twisted the spear haft and drove the point deeper.

Thacker, his boots sinking in molten tarmac, tore himself free and flung himself forward. The air shimmered, blinding him, moving Jack away.

Not trusting his false vision, Thacker went by faith alone. He grabbed something that gave, and twisted with all his might.

The god toppled again.

Thacker pulled the spear free and swarmed up Jack’s body like a brass beetle. He stabbed at his shin, his injured knee, his thigh: quick blows meant to disorientate, not disable.

Jack was looking at him over his prostrate body. As Thacker raised the spear again to bring it down in the thin grey skin over the stomach, an incredible force deflected it aside.

He wrestled with the shaft, trying to bring it back into line. Every muscle was knotted like a cord, and the joints of the suit groaned. They were locked together. Jack even brought up his misshapen arms and started batting Thacker’s back. Physical strength was not his forte, and Thacker hardly noticed.

The point of the spear bore down, slowly but inexorably. It punctured the altered flesh, and Jack writhed and howled in a distant, high whine.

Thacker was suddenly struck blind. The shock of it, the almost audible pop inside his skull, made his whole body spasm. The spear bit deep, then his hands flew to his eyes. He was thrown clear, landed hard on his back, and everything was still dark. He tried to listen above the hoarseness of his breath, the thundering of his pulse in his ears: Jack’s wail kept on and on, slowly fading away. The sound of burning◦– bursting glass, cracking timbers, collapsing floors and ceilings◦– took over.

Someone was picking at his visor, probing for unseen catches.

‘Who’s that? Who’s there?’ He ought to get up, because the mob was still there, and still baying for his blood. But where would he go, and how would he get there? He couldn’t see.

‘Lie still, man,’ said a familiar voice.

‘Henbury? Robert Henbury?’

‘There. That’s done it. Yes, it’s… Good God. Major Thacker.’

‘Why can’t I see?’

‘You’ve blood everywhere. Don’t tell me that you didn’t get that head wound seen to.’

‘There wasn’t time. There was never time.’

‘You ought to have made time. You almost had him.’

‘Jack? Where is he?’

‘Staggered off, holding his guts in. A moment.’ Henbury’s voice lessened, then came back. Something soft, but faintly gritty, was used to wipe the blood away.

Thacker’s vision cleared to the point where he could blink and see a shape leaning over him.

‘What are the others doing?’

‘Currently, standing there watching us. Thacker, the things I’ve seen. I thought the trenches were bad, but if I wasn’t mad before, I certainly am now. I never imagined such depravity.’

‘Will they attack us?’

‘I don’t know. I could ask.’

‘No, don’t. Don’t provoke them. If they’re still under Jack’s influence, they’ll just be waiting for the order.’

Henbury continued wiping. ‘I wish I had some water. Is this some sort of British secret weapon you’re wearing?’

‘I think it’s Babylonian. I found it in the Ankhani’s cathedral. I destroyed the machine, by the way.’

‘I’m grateful.’

‘I can almost see.’ He could even make out the pattern on the blood-spattered curtain. ‘Help me up.’

‘I can’t lift you.’

‘Of course you can’t.’ Thacker sat up, and squinted into the blur that was all that was left of his eyesight. ‘The spear. Where’s the spear?’

It clanked along the ground, and was put into his hands. He climbed to his feet, and it seemed further than he remembered it. He was unsteady, wavering.

‘Steady, Major.’

‘What’s happened to me? Why can’t I see properly?’

‘I think you’ve damaged your brain, broken the skull at the front. Pressure inside is pushing against your optic nerve. There were men like you in the field hospital, back in Belgium.’

‘What happened to them?’

‘Died of fever. We almost all did. Has eighty years brought anything to help?’

‘If I got to a hospital, the doctors could certainly save me, and probably my sight.’ Thacker blinked hard. ‘We have Jack to deal with. If he can heal himself, all this was useless.’

Henbury used Thacker to climb up and lean against. ‘My foot’s cut to ribbons. I can’t go any further.’

‘You have to.’

‘None of this was my fault.’

‘I know. We’re just the ones who have to clear it up.’

‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’ Henbury sat down again. ‘Straight on. Down the road. Jack’s in the scrub at the far end. I’m sorry, Major, I’m sorry.’

Thacker found himself walking. Shadowy figures moved aside for him as he approached, and one man called out to him.

‘What are we supposed to do now?’

‘Do? I think you’ve probably done enough for one day. Go home.’

‘We haven’t got homes any more.’

‘That’s a shame.’

‘But what are we going to do? When will we get help?’

‘I saw what you did. Never would be too soon.’

‘I didn’t have a choice.’

‘You did it because deep down in your foetid little soul, that’s how you always wanted to behave. Jack just let you be your true self. I don’t care what happens to you. Not now.’ He walked on, the crowd thinned, and was eventually behind him.

Before, he could sense where Jack was. Perhaps he could do it again. He closed his eyes, concentrated, and found him, weakly, an incoherent mass of pain and rage. With his sight failing him, he instead followed his preternatural instinct.

The track that led into the scrub was strewn with rubbish. It tripped and snagged at Thacker’s feet. There were old plastic sacks, broken windows still in their frames, pallets and piles of building rubble. Cars, without seats, wheels, paint, hunkered down amongst the riotous weeds. Newspapers, discarded articles of clothing, polystyrene fast-food containers and used condoms littered the brambles and nettles. Trees had seeded freely for fifty years.

Somewhere in that dense, overgrown thicket was Jack Henbury, licking his wounds.

Thacker couldn’t see. He saw only a mess of shifting green and brown and black, shadows and light, playing indistinctly in his mind. But when he ignored what he saw and believed what he felt, it was like an arrow, pointing him to his target. He pulled down his visor, and was swallowed up in a heady mix of certainty and confusion. He advanced through the tree line, and started to hunt.

There was no sure footing, no silent approach, but he knew each step he took brought him closer to Jack. In a clearing, in the very centre of the tangled wood, he found him.

He had surrounded himself with a vortex of hissing leaves and soil. It obscured his outline, and made it impossible for Thacker to see him at all. He edged through, feeling the clatter of stones and twigs against his armour, then quiet again.

Jack twisted and contorted at the focus of the tornado. He held his stomach with one hand, and his forehead with the other. He groaned and trembled, sighed and gasped.

‘Time to finish this, Jack,’ said Thacker, ‘Time to put you out of your misery.’ He raised his spear and jabbed at empty air.

‘No,’ hissed Jack. ‘I am your god. It will never be over.’

The roar of spinning air deepened in tone, and trees started to creak. Whole branches were torn off, white wood flashing inside the dark bark.

Thacker changed tactics. He swung the spear blade from side to side, shuffling forward, until he hit soft skin and hard bone.

The tornado exploded outwards, lacerating the scrubland with sharp missiles. None of them were directed at Thacker. He swung again, and Jack, who had been standing over him, crashed backwards through the canopy of leaves.

‘Do not strike Me. I am immortal.’

‘We’ll see about that.’ He blundered on, kicking out with his metal-shod feet, waiting for a cry of indignation, then stabbing down with his spear. He found Jack’s body, and brought the point down. There was no titanic struggle. The edges of the blade cut through divine tissue and holy viscera, and into the neglected earth of England below.

‘No. I cannot die. I can not die. They promised Me.’

‘They lied,’ said a different voice. ‘They always did.’

‘Who’s there?’

‘Adams. I’ll finish this, Major.’

Thacker could dimly perceive someone standing by Jack’s head, his arm outstretched and pointing down. There had to be a gun in his hand.

‘He’s still dangerous, Adams. Watch out.’

‘Not anymore. Are you, Jack? I can feel you worming around in my head, trying to control me, but you haven’t got the strength. Have you, Jack? Where’s your power? Where are your followers? I’m not one, and certainly not the Major. All alone again, aren’t you? When you came to Henbury Hall, you brought nothing but misery with you. You betrayed Master Robert. You seduced Miss Emily. You lied to all of us, but you never supposed for one moment that what you were doing was wrong.’

He cocked his weapon. ‘This is where the reckoning is, Jack. The Ankhani used you. You could no more control them than a dog can its owners. Poor, weak, stupid Jack Henbury dies alone and hated, his head full of dreams of empires and riches.’

Thacker screamed out, ‘For God’s sake, finish him off!’

Adams pushed the barrel of the gun between Jack’s terrified eyes and pulled the trigger. And again. And again.

Each time, the body jerked.

The sense of Jack’s presence that Thacker held in his head dissipated like a summer cloud. There was nothing in its place.

‘Is he dead?’ he called.

‘There’s nothing left of the top of his skull, if that’s what you’re asking. If he comes back from that, then yes, I’ll bow to him.’

‘Don’t joke, Adams.’

‘Poor taste, I know. Are you all right, Major?’

Thacker had sunk to his knees, only keeping himself upright with the impaling spear.

‘Major?’

There was a crashing in the undergrowth around him, and he found himself surrounded by short, sallow figures. Voices foreign to him chattered excitedly, and an English tongue cut through them all.

‘Careful with him, boys, careful. He’s a hero.’

He was lifted up and turned. Strong shoulders supported him, and carried him away. Thacker’s head rolled side to side with the motion of his bearers. He watched the smudges of light and dark dancing above him blend together, into one final shade of grey.

Thacker hadn’t realised he had armed guards stationed outside his hospital door until Robert Henbury mentioned it.

‘Big buggers they are, too. Black balaclavas over their heads, that black armour your police chappies wear.’

‘They’re your police too,’ mumured Thacker. He looked at all the little lights and lines that told him that he was still alive. He put his hands down by his side to adjust his position◦– bloody pressure sores◦– and felt the tug of the drip tubes in his arms. ‘It’s good to see you.’

‘I’m rather surprised they let me in.’

‘You’re one of the few people I can talk to about any of this. Even my family are off-limits until I get debriefed.’

‘That’s a shame.’ Henbury took off his new lightweight glasses and swung them between thumb and forefinger. ‘Adams sends his regards.’

‘I’m surprised he’s still talking to me. I didn’t give him a particularly easy time.’

‘I think he’s forgiven you. More than the government has.’

‘Well, yes.’ Thacker had talked to an army lawyer that morning. Despite her breezy assurances that everything was going to work out for the best, he wasn’t so sure. He’d killed Dickson and destroyed the machine: some people in MI5 weren’t taking that lying down. ‘Look, do you mind if we don’t talk about that? It’s all sub judice now, and I expect you’ll be a witness at the Court Martial.’

‘My dear chap, I don’t think they’ll let me get within ten miles of it. Nor Adams.’ Henbury lapsed into silence, uncomfortable around all the paraphenalia of intensive care. ‘I’m going to see Emily.’

Thacker made the effort to sit up.

‘Are you sure?’

Henbury put his glasses back on. Thacker thought he looked years younger: surprising what some food, rest, and not having the threat of Ankhani hanging over his head had done.

‘No. No I’m not. But I look at it this way. If I don’t go, and the old girl dies, then I’ve missed my chance. We lost eighty years, thanks to my cousin. I don’t see why we shouldn’t have the last laugh. I’m going down tomorrow. Adams is coming too. He said he fancied a day at the seaside.’

‘So they’re treating you right? Not blaming you for what I did?’

‘Actually, I think they’re a bit scared of me. I’m not ashamed to use it to my advantage.’ Henbury looked with concern at the pallid, drawn figure in amongst all the tubes and wires. ‘You’d better get your rest, old chap.’

‘Better so they can hang me sooner.’ Thacker eased himself down with a groan. He felt trampled. The neurosurgeon had shown him the drill he’d used on Thacker’s skull, and it wasn’t even his head that hurt.

Henbury picked up his crutches and levered himself upright. ‘A strange do, what?’ he said with bemusement, and headed for the door.

‘Do you ever think about what happened in Banbury?’ asked Thacker suddenly. ‘Those people… the things they did.’

Henbury stopped. Without turning, he said: ‘I was in the trenches. I’d already had a thorough education in what men can do to each other, thank you very much.’

‘Dear God, I’m sorry.’ Thacker burned with embarrassment. ‘Robert? Get your revenge. Live long.’

Henbury twisted round on his one leg and smiled. ‘I have every intention of doing so, Major.’