Border Princes

FOUR

The chain link bit into her fingers. Gwen wailed in pain and fear as the drape of fencing she was swinging from began to tear out from its moorings.

‘Got you,’ said Jack, and he had. He held her by the wrists. With a grunt of effort, he pulled her up onto the path.

‘Oh shit,’ she murmured. She had to lay where she was for a moment, her heart pounding. She rubbed at her throbbing fingers.

‘I thought I was gonna-’

‘But you didn’t,’ said Jack.

‘But I thought I was-’

‘But you didn’t,’ said Jack.

Gwen took a deep breath. ‘Thank you.’

Jack shrugged off her gratitude. He seemed scratchy and aggravated, and not quite himself.

The mob had disappeared up the bank. Jack was already heading for the embankment steps.

‘Coming?’ he asked.

She got to her feet and followed him.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘If this turns out not to be the End of the World, I’m going to be reading everyone the riot act when we’re done.’

‘And if it is the End of the World?’

Jack was taking the steps two at a time. ‘Then I’ll stick to the main points in the time available.’

‘Jack?’

‘Amateur hour,’ he said, more to himself than her. ‘This is a mess, even by our own high standards.’

‘Jack!’

He ignored her. He wasn’t stopping. They could hear voices up ahead, and see flashing blue lights strobing and bouncing off the shadowy buildings before them.

‘I’ll take that,’ Owen told the policeman.

To emphasise his instruction, he clouted the policeman around the back of the head with the grip of his side-arm. The policeman slumped forwards across the boot of his unit. Owen dug the object out of his clenched fist. The rest of the crowd closed in, clamouring for him, grabbing at his clothes and his hair.

Pain was helping him heaps. The pain of being smacked in the mouth had lent Owen a wonderful sense of clarity and prickly anger that buoyed him up. He kicked and punched back at the crowd, relishing each pay-back impact, and began fighting his way clear of the milling, uncoordinated pack.

Something began to cancel out the pain, something very welcome and also very inviting. It spread out from his hand, up his arm, into his head and into his loins. Such a rush. Such a big big rush.

‘Owen!’

‘What?’

‘Owen, let it go! Don’t hold on to it too long! You can’t hold on to it for too long!’

Owen blinked. The world was full of blue lights. The police car lights. Other lights.

‘Owen!’

Owen blinked again, refocused, and saw James. James was pushing people out of his way, reaching at Owen. ‘Give it to me! We have to get it into the SUV! Into the box, remember?’

‘Not really necessary,’ Owen replied.

‘Give it to me!’

Owen raised his side-arm and aimed it at James’s face. James stared back at the gun with wide, astonished eyes.

‘Owen? Mate?’

‘It’s my turn,’ Owen said.

Both Jack and Gwen felt it, like a sudden change in air pressure, or like chronic tinnitus when it suddenly stops. The rain suddenly felt colder.

They stepped out onto the street.

It was like the aftermath of a bomb blast. A few people were still standing, swaying aimlessly. Most of the others had fallen down in the rain. Some were sobbing or moaning, others limp and still, others looking around them in complete bewilderment.

The muttering had stopped.

Jack and Gwen stepped down past the stationary police car. Its cycling light bar reflected off the puddles like an Eighties disco.

‘What’s going on?’ a middle-aged man asked them, leaning against the police car’s right wing as if he was ill. His voice was tremulous, outraged. ‘What the bloody hell is going on?’

They heard someone calling out someone else’s name. A young girl splashed past, crying for her mum.

James was sitting on the road with his back against one of the rear wheels of the SUV. The SUV’s hatch was open. A brushed-steel casket stood on the ground between his legs. James’s face was in his hands.

Five yards away from him, Owen lay flat on his back on the tarmac, blinking up at the rain as he came round. He sat up sharply. ‘What,’ he began. ‘The hell?’ he added.

Gwen and Jack walked over to James. Toshiko appeared and, limping slightly, fell in step with them. James looked up at them as they drew close.

He smiled feebly and patted the locked lid of the containment box in front of him.

‘Got it,’ he said. ‘Chastity belt. One hundred per cent chastity belt.’