The Hounds of Avalon

Needles of ice blasted into the parts of Hunter’s face that he hadn’t been able to cover as he led his horse blindly into the blizzard. It had been blowing with fierce intensity for several hours and he desperately needed to find shelter, but it was night and no lights glimmered anywhere. He could no longer feel his feet or hands, despite the heavy boots and thick gloves. His mount’s large body mass coped with the cold better than he did, but there was a limit to how much it could endure. Hunter had only made it this far with the help of the horse’s strength; on foot he wouldn’t stand a chance. His lifeless, frozen body would be covered by snow within the hour, never to be found again.

In his left hand, he held the lantern up high, but the illumination barely spread more than three feet ahead. He was using it more in the hope that someone would see it and welcome him out of the storm than to light his way, but he knew that was a dim prospect.

He was regretting his decision to let events lead him to his destination. There, so close to death, it felt childish and nonsensical, not the positive affirmation he had entertained when he had first embarked on his path. His choice was going to end up killing him.

From North Hinksey he’d taken the A34 and then the A423, moving north before getting lost in the snow. He had been hoping to reach Banbury and some shelter where he could rest a while, but there was little chance of that now.

Just visible in the field next to the road was an old barn. Snow heaped against its walls and lay heavy on the roof, but the door was accessible. It looked poor shelter, but it was all he had, and after several minutes of clearing snow with frozen hands he could open the door wide enough to gain access for himself and his horse.

Inside, it was as barely adequate as he had imagined. Cold wind blew through broken planks around the door, but there were numerous bales of hay that he could position to create a smaller shelter within the larger structure. His horse perked up slightly at being out of the freezing night, so Hunter left it alone long enough to break up some old, discarded furniture for a fire. The barn was large and draughty enough for the smoke to escape and soon Hunter was sitting next to the blaze, pondering his bleak immediate future. It wasn’t long before the warmth and the weariness took their toll.

Not long after he had slipped into an exhausted sleep, he woke with a sudden start, calling out his father’s name. Instantly, he realised he wasn’t alone.

A hulking figure sat on the other side of the fire, its face obscured by the drifting smoke. Hunter’s hand quickly went to his gun, but the figure didn’t appear concerned. It was difficult to assess the man’s height in a sitting position, but Hunter guessed he must have been well over seven feet tall. The smoke cleared a little to reveal long black hair and a black beard and eyes just as dark, though burning intensely.

‘Stay your hand, Brother of Dragons,’ the giant said in a deep, resonant voice.

Hunter’s fingers hovered over the weapon for a moment longer, then retreated. ‘Who are you? The Tooth Fairy?’

‘I am called the Caretaker.’

Hunter recalled the encounter with this being that Hal had related to him just before his life had taken a turn into the twilight zone.

The Caretaker pointed ominously to the lantern; its flame flared as his finger came close. ‘I am the lamplighter. Even when darkness falls, I am there to ensure that a single flame still burns.’

Hunter lounged against a hay bale and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. ‘Mallory thought I was crazy just wandering around, waiting for something to happen. Well, I bet he’s the one frozen up to his neck in a ditch somewhere. So you’re one of the gods, right? One of the Tuatha De Danann?’

The Caretaker gave a faint, enigmatic smile. ‘There are Higher Powers. There is always something higher. The Goddess has returned, reunited with her male reflection.’ He watched Hunter’s face intently. ‘I am an intermediary. A guide-’

‘Yes, I get it. A Caretaker. You put the chairs away after the party.’

Hunter expected a negative response, but the Caretaker simply nodded. ‘I do. And I put them out before the party begins. It is my job to ensure that the master plan progresses smoothly. A higher plan so vast and timeless that it is beyond your comprehension. You can barely see even a part of it from your narrow perspective, Fragile Creature. Yet you, and your brothers and sisters, have a large part to play.’

‘You see, there’s one thing you’re not getting. I’m not a reliable person. I like to drink. I like to have sex, preferably with as many women as possible. I like to raise hell. Not so hot on doing the right thing. Moral compass — needle all over the place.’

Hunter shifted as the Caretaker stared right into him. For a second, he had the impression that he was a small boy again, standing before his father; the image was so potent that Hunter could almost smell the starch of his father’s dress uniform.

‘You in a position to tell me exactly what’s going on?’ Hunter asked.

The Caretaker explained carefully about the Void, its nature and what it was planning, making it plain to Hunter that only the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons could oppose it. ‘The lantern is called the Wayfinder,’ the Caretaker continued. Hunter glanced at the blue flame as events began to fall into place; he had been meant to find it, of course — it was important. ‘It is my lantern,’ the Caretaker continued, ‘and it is a part of Existence — not a lantern at all, but that is how you see it.’

‘That flame,’ Hunter began, ‘blue…’

The Caretaker nodded. ‘It is a link with the Pendragon Spirit. The power in the Wayfinder is a part of you, Brother of Dragons. The flame points the way. Follow it and it will lead you to the person you seek.’

‘That’s handy. It would have been nice to know that before I started going around in circles in a blizzard, freezing my arse off.’

‘Existence helps when you truly need it, Brother of Dragons. For the most part you must rely on your own strengths.’

‘I get it — free will.’ Hunter thought about this for a moment. ‘OK. I like that. So now I’ve got a direction. How am I going to get where I’m going through this snow with a nag that’s almost dead on its feet? You don’t have a magic snowplough tucked away somewhere, do you?’

‘The blizzard will break tomorrow. You will have a brief period for travel before the next storm sets in. There is food for you and your horse in a farm further along the road. The occupants died when their fuel ran out.’

Hunter felt strangely calmed by the giant’s presence. ‘All you need to tell me now is that everything is going to work out fine.’

The Caretaker shook his head slowly.

‘What’s the point in having a master plan if it doesn’t all pan out nicely?’

‘If everything occurred as it was meant to occur, there would be no need for you, would there, Brother of Dragons? There would be no need for Fragile Creatures, or gods, or… anything. This would just be a picture, never changing. There must be a chance for success or failure.’

‘Why?’

The Caretaker gave his enigmatic smile once again. ‘Existence has put its faith in you, Brother of Dragons.’ He stood up, drawing himself to his full height, and his shadow fell across Hunter. ‘Your light burns brightly in the dark. Existence has chosen well.’

He stepped away from the fire towards the door, but then a cloud of smoke obscured him, and when it cleared, he had gone. Hunter stared into the fire for a while, ruminating over what he had been told, and then he shrugged, lay down and went straight to sleep.

‘What do you think is happening back in our world?’ Thackeray sat in the vast blood-red hall of the Court of Soul’s Ease, listening to the sounds of conflict coming from the walls.

Sophie stood nearby. She was trying to prepare herself for what she was about to do, but it was difficult to concentrate with the bizarre acoustics of the hall, where even the quietest whisper reverberated loudly. ‘Time runs differently here. In our world, a second could have passed. Or years… maybe even decades.’

‘That’s why you’re so keen to get back?’

Sophie sighed. ‘It’s hard to tell whether all this is futile. Perhaps the worst has already happened back home. There might not even be a world to return to.’

They fell silent, allowing the clatter of swords and axes to take over. The battle sounds were punctuated by dull, vibrating eruptions as projectiles crashed against the walls, launched from one of the many mysterious siege machines the enemy had in their employ. It was only a matter of time before the court fell. The small, swarthy men scaled the walls like spiders in wave after wave. The Tuatha De Danann, led by Lugh but invigorated by Caitlin’s ferocity, drove them back time and again, but sheer force of numbers meant that the defenders would inevitably be overwhelmed sooner or later.

Sophie had to make her move before it was too late, but Caitlin was the dangerous x-factor. If she discovered what Sophie was planning, the outcome would likely be bloody.

‘How are you coping with Caitlin?’ Sophie asked hesitantly.

Thackeray rubbed at the tension in his neck; he was a man out of his depth. ‘I’m not coping. She looks like Caitlin, she talks like her, but when I stare into her eyes, I can’t tell whether she wants to have sex or slit my throat.’

‘I know it’s none of my business, but I can’t work out your relationship.’

‘It’s complicated.’ Thackeray was going to leave it there, but the emotional pressure was too much. ‘I met her just after her husband and son died. I fell in love with her straight away, the minute I saw her — I know it sounds pathetic, but it’s true. She’s got this amazing quality, something special buried really deep. It got me in an instant and I couldn’t let go if I tried. I think she loves me, too… or at least likes me a lot, and I know this is pathetic, too, but I’d even settle for that.’ He sighed. ‘But it’s still too soon after her tragedy. All the grief and guilt are still swirling around. I understand that. Maybe someday.’

‘That’s what I thought you’d say.’ Sophie had grown more and more impressed with Thackeray, not because he was romantic and sensitive, but because he had enough steel in him to admit it.

‘How about you?’ Thackeray said. ‘Boyfriend back home?’

‘Yes. He’s a Brother of Dragons, too.’

‘At least you’ve got some common ground, then,’ he said ruefully. ‘Sometimes you lot seem like you come from another planet. You’re missing him?’

‘More than you know. Nothing’s going to stop me from getting back to him.’ Sophie flinched as the missing portion of her emotional memory made all her recollections of Mallory dissipate like mist in the sun.

They were interrupted by the thunder of the enormous oaken doors being flung open. Caitlin marched in clutching two axes, with Harvey hurrying close behind, almost bent double under the weight of a variety of weapons.

‘We need axes. Lots of axes,’ Caitlin announced.

‘She’s going to be the death of me.’ Harvey dumped the weapons on the floor with a clatter. ‘Here — take your pick.’

‘Arrows aren’t effective when they’re coming up the walls,’ Caitlin said. ‘And we probably haven’t got enough anyway, even with the fletchers working overtime. But axes…’ She wielded an axe in each hand. ‘We can just decapitate them as they come over the top. The falling bodies will dislodge others. Two axes to each man doubles the kill.’

‘Tiring, though,’ Sophie observed.

‘We do what we have to,’ Caitlin said coldly. ‘I’m going back to the ramparts. Coming?’

‘We’ll follow on.’ Sophie subtly motioned to Thackeray to stay behind and hoped Caitlin hadn’t seen it.

Caitlin ordered Harvey to pick up a selection of the weapons and follow her. He meekly obliged.

Once they had departed, Thackeray said curiously, ‘What are you planning?’

‘There’s a way out of here. A way back home.’

Thackeray was stunned silent for a second, then said, nonplussed, ‘Why didn’t you tell the others?’

‘Because it’s not as simple as it sounds. I’ve been weighing it up ever since I found out about it. I still don’t think it’s necessarily the right way to go forward, but we don’t have a choice any more.’

‘It’s dangerous?’

‘Yes. Morally, emotionally, probably physically if Caitlin finds out.’ Sophie steeled herself; she couldn’t back out now. ‘There’s a place called the Watchtower, a physical building in some kind of space between the worlds. It’s possible to reach it from anywhere, and access anywhere from it, as long as you have the right key.’

‘And you have the right key?’

‘And the right keyhole,’ she said with dark humour. ‘I can use my Craft to open a way to the Watchtower. Everything I learned back home works so much more effectively in T’ir n’a n’Og. I can be powerful here, Thackeray, really powerful, given the right impetus.’

‘You’re scaring me now.’ Thackeray’s troubled, dark eyes searched her face.

‘Then I’d better get to the point. Imagine the Craft as a bullet. I’m the gun. But you need some kind of focused energy to send the bullet shooting out of the barrel. For small things, you can often do it with the mind — say, with words that set free subconscious energy. Ritual works better. But the best is sex. The energy freed during sex is like rocket fuel, to mix my metaphors.’

‘You need to have sex?’

‘With you.’

Thackeray’s expression was almost comical. ‘No, no,’ he protested, holding up his hands subconsciously as a barrier. ‘I mean, it’s not that you’re not an attractive woman. You are. Of course you are. But… it’s Caitlin…’

‘I know.’

‘I love her.’

‘I know.’

‘Harvey would do it in a flash.’

Sophie shook her head. ‘It’s not just about having sex, Thackeray. It has to be with the right person… the right battery. Bluntly, Harvey isn’t the one. You’ve got a lot of sexual energy ready to be released.’

‘I don’t know if I should be flattered or embarrassed.’ He jumped to his feet and ranged around the room anxiously. ‘There’s got to be another way.’

‘There isn’t. That’s what I’ve been considering long and hard. Don’t you think I would have done this the minute I found out about it if it was that easy? You’ve got to do this, Thackeray. Not just for us here, but for all the people back home.’

Thackeray ran his hands through his hair in impotent silence.

‘I’ll tell you something, Thackeray: I’ve never had to go to the lengths of invoking the survival of the human race to persuade a man to have sex with me before.’

‘I’m sorry.’ A flicker of fear crossed his face. ‘If Caitlin loves me, and if she finds out… if the Morrigan finds out-’

‘Then we have to make sure she doesn’t find out. Let’s get this done, the sooner the better, while she’s out on the ramparts slaughtering thousands.’

As if punctuating Sophie’s words, another projectile crashed against the walls, shaking the court to its very foundations.

‘Come closer.’ Sophie held out her arms; Thackeray twitched like a nervous schoolboy.

It had taken almost an hour to get the preparations just right. They had moved to the privacy of the bedroom chamber in the large suite that had been set aside for Sophie after her arrival in the Court of Soul’s Ease. The furniture had been moved to one side and a sacred space inscribed on the floor with red dye and candles. She’d had to guess at the cardinal points for her special sigils — compasses didn’t always make a great deal of sense in that place. Incense drifted teasingly through the air, and she’d forced Thackeray to have two stiff shots of the dark, potent spirit that many of the court’s residents consumed at the end of their meals. Despite being a little tipsy, he was still on edge, and that made Sophie even more anxious.

‘I don’t know if I can go through with this,’ he said.

‘This isn’t helping the mood, Thackeray.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Sophie turned and lit some dried herbs in a small brazier.

‘Double, double, toil and trouble?’

‘Just get your clothes off, Thackeray.’

She heard him mutter, ‘Something wicked this way comes,’ and then she turned and grabbed him and started to pull his clothes from him. She stripped off herself, quickly, and then used her hands and her mouth to get him erect.

‘I don’t know if I can keep it up,’ he muttered.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll help. Just close your eyes and think whatever you need to.’

She lay down in the circle and opened her legs, pulling him into her. As he began to move backwards and forwards, eyes clamped shut, a surge of emotion hit her and she had to blink away the tears. She had thought it would be easy, pure mechanics, but all she could think of was Mallory, and that she was betraying him, and that she missed him so much.

She must have grown tense, for he whispered, ‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine. Keep going.’ Her emotions were too raw and the only way she could continue was to focus in that gap where her meeting with Mallory had once been; she found it ironic how something so painful now had a use. Without that loss, she might have had to give up.

They continued until they grew hot and sweaty and arousal took over from the regular flow of thoughts. In her mind, Sophie shaped the energy and infused a word of power. She managed to hold on to her orgasm so that they climaxed at the same time, and then she said the word of power with force.

The flash she experienced may have been in the room or in her own head, but when she looked around there was a doorway shimmering in one wall, like oil on water, and on the other side she could see a long corridor lit by flickering torches.

‘Come on,’ she whispered. ‘Let’s get the others.’

Thackeray withdrew and they both dressed quickly. But then Sophie noticed something strange: the bedroom door was slightly ajar. And she was sure she had closed it tightly after they had first entered.

‘How long will the portal stay open?’ Lugh stood in the centre of the bed chamber, surveying the entry to the Watchtower. Ceridwen stood behind him. Thackeray and Harvey waited in one corner while Caitlin remained a dark, brooding presence nearby. There was no sign that she had any suspicions about what had happened.

‘It won’t stay open for ever,’ Sophie replied. ‘It should remain long enough for you to carry out some kind of evacuation.’

Lugh was troubled. ‘But will every member of this vast court be able to pass through before it closes? I fear for the safety of any left behind.’

‘There will be a slaughter,’ Ceridwen said bluntly.

‘We could do with your help back in the Fixed Lands,’ Sophie said. ‘But you have to do what you have to do. We need to go.’

Lugh nodded curtly and stepped back. Ceridwen gave Sophie a brief hug. ‘If we can, we shall join you shortly, Sister of Dragons.’

Sophie turned to Caitlin. ‘Ready?’

‘Let’s do it.’ Caitlin gripped one axe tightly and adjusted the other strapped to her back. Sophie nodded to Thackeray and Harvey to follow, and then led the way into the unknown.

The General steeled himself before he entered Kirkham’s private lab. He thought that over the years he had learned to be immune to bad news, but the latest report had shaken him to the core. The estimates of the size of the enemy army were such that he had berated the messenger for typing too many digits. But there had been no mistake. The enemy had moved slowly south and west, converting the population to their cause; and converting was the ultimate euphemism for what they actually did. Hundreds of thousands had been slaughtered and remade in the image of the Lament-Brood, all of them now marching to the beat of war. And Birmingham was next.

He barged into the lab without knocking. The model town lay gathering dust to one side while Kirkham examined a purple gem illuminated by a powerful spotlight.

‘What have you got for me?’ the General barked so sharply that Kirkham almost swept the jewel on to the floor.

‘I’m working on-’

‘Nothing. That’s the answer, isn’t it?’ The General had told himself he wouldn’t lose his temper, but the blood was thundering in his head. ‘Months spent tinkering away down here, the hope of the nation invested in you… and you’ve got nothing to show for it!’

The General turned to the model of the town and thrust it off the table. It shattered noisily in a heap on the floor.

‘I need results!’ the General raged. ‘I need you to get one of those… one of those… bloody magic wands working! Anything!’

Kirkham blinked at him from behind his glasses. ‘There’s nothing that’s reliable, General,’ he said calmly. ‘Certainly nothing that would deal with the magnitude of this problem. I thought the nuclear deterrent was-’

‘We’ve tried nukes, blast it!’ The General sucked in a deep breath, searching for his dignity. ‘We dropped one over Tamworth. Never exploded. The pilot said it looked as if it disappeared into some kind of black hole. We’ve sent in troops on skirmishes, quick in, quick out, aiming for minimal casualties. They couldn’t get out quickly enough. More fuel/air explosives. Anthrax from Porton Down. Nerve agents.’ As the rage rushed out of him, he sagged, looking ten years older in an instant. ‘We have to face the fact that conventional weapons are not going to work. From now on, we’re down to wishing.’

‘I’m sorry I don’t have more helpful news, General. The things I’m dealing with are beyond scientific understanding, certainly at current knowledge levels.’

‘We lost our only hope when Hunter went mad and smuggled that Brother of Dragons out,’ the General said. ‘If I find him, I’ll shoot him myself. I should have done it a long time ago.’

‘Even if we had access to the Brother of Dragons, I don’t think we would have had time to make any breakthrough in finding a way across the dimensional barriers.’ Kirkham began to pick up pieces of the broken model and replace them on the table. ‘But the enemy is not the Tuatha De Danann. This enemy may not even have come from the Otherworld.’

‘So, what? We’re now easy pickings for any Higher Power anywhere across the universe?’

‘Multiverse,’ Kirkham corrected, pedantically.

‘You really are our last hope, Kirkham.’ The General walked towards the door, not knowing where he was going next or what he was going to do. ‘Desperate times require desperate measures, and these are the most desperate of times. Do whatever you can. Don’t worry about protocol. Don’t worry about chain of command. Just pull something out of the bag.’

After the General had left, Kirkham waited until the sound of his footsteps had faded away and then picked up the phone. ‘It’s Dennis Kirkham,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m with you.’

True to the Caretaker’s word, the bad weather held off long enough for Hunter to make good progress. With his horse and himself fed at the next farm, he followed the Wayfinder’s blue flame north-east from Banbury, along the A361 to Daventry where he helped starving residents fight against a local landowner who had taken ninety per cent of the food that had been stored. Hunter killed four heavily armed thugs and then threw the greedy landowner to the mob, departing amidst cheers and the formation of a new legend; he wasn’t surprised to realise that he liked the adoration.

From Daventry, he cut cross-country to Market Harborough where he stocked up on supplies and then continued across the Leicestershire countryside. It was hard going in the frozen landscape; away from the shelter of trees, the hungry wind flayed his skin and cut through even the thickest clothes. It was even worse when he passed Stamford and moved into the Lincolnshire flatlands, where there was little cover and the land resembled the Antarctic wastes. He found the A15, an old Roman road, which was marginally easier to travel than the country lanes, and headed north.

Despite the hardship, he never entertained the slightest notion that he might fail; it was all down to will, the desire to win, the hunger for survival, and he had demonstrated throughout his life that he was more than blessed with those qualities.

Finally, on a blue-skied, sunny morning when the snow glared so brightly it hurt his eyes, he arrived in Lincoln.

The city was dwarfed by the imposing Cathedral Church of St Mary, perched atop a two-hundred-foot-high limestone plateau overlooking the River Witham, its Gothic architecture given a magical appearance by the snow.

Hunter ventured past the city limits with a degree of apprehension. Since the Fall, much of the country had been gripped by lawlessness; murder was commonplace in populated areas, and Hunter guessed things would be even worse in the grip of an ice age that threatened most of the population with starvation.

Yet he was surprised to find a well-fed, generally content population. Fruit trees sprouted from the pavements, heavy with apples despite the weather. The buildings in some areas had been demolished and given over to fields where potato plants, carrot tops and broccoli forced their way through the snow. Their survival made no sense.

As he neared the cathedral, he reined in his horse to talk to a trader manning a creaking stall laden with a variety of fruits and vegetables, some of it exotic and not seen in Britain since all contact with the outside world had ceased at the Fall.

When asked about the abundance of produce, the trader responded, ‘Every visitor to Lincoln has the same question. All I can say is that we’re especially blessed.’ He grinned. ‘We’ve got our very own Green Angel.’

Hunter couldn’t decide whether the trader had been unbalanced by too long on a diet of swedes or if he was honestly hinting at some kind of divine intervention. It was impossible to tell in a time when madness and miracles abounded in equal measure. He urged his horse forward, following the flame.

Not far on, Hunter encountered a large group of people gathered in a square, many of them wearing the black T-shirts with the red ‘V’ that signified followers of Ryan Veitch. Hunter had seen the mounting intelligence gathered on the group as their numbers increased, but he’d always dismissed it as just one of the many cults that had sprung up amongst people desperate for a god, any god, to drag them out of their suffering. Yet now that he had discovered his own link to the Pendragon Spirit, the matter took on a new resonance. What would it take to drive a Brother of Dragons to betray the very principle of life?

On a platform of pallets at the centre of the crowd, a speaker preached with fire and brimstone that kept the like-minds of the crowd rapt. He had a shaven head and the unflinching eyes of someone for whom brutality was a way of life. ‘The day is drawing closer when He shall be returned to us!’ he roared in a cod-religious tone. ‘We can all see the signs — the world is ending. Only He can save us! And only we can bring him back! The mass ritual will be held shortly when we’ll pray for Him to walk once more upon the Earth! In this day and age, prayer has power! The gods listen! If we concentrate… if we believe… we can change anything! The dead can live again!’

Hunter shrugged; maybe the preacher was right — it was difficult to be sure about anything any more.

The lantern led Hunter to the cobbled street rising steeply up to the cathedral. On either side was a profusion of medieval houses that had once been antique shops and had now returned to their original use. They were all ablaze with colour: red, pink and yellow roses swarmed around doors, clematis was still in flower, tulips and daffodils and pinks and geraniums sprouted from boxes on the pavement. Yet all around it was bitterly cold.

The steep cobbled street was treacherous with snow and ice, so Hunter dismounted and led his horse. By the time the street reached the shadow of the cathedral, dark, heavy clouds had swept across the blue sky and snow was starting to fall again.

The lantern pointed towards the main door of the cathedral, which was locked. Hunter tethered his mount and wandered the vast perimeter of the building searching for a way in, but all the entrances were barred. An unusual atmosphere emanated from the stone, not reverence or transcendence like he had felt at many other cathedrals, but a brooding sadness that began to affect him deeply. The building was strange in other ways, too: like the houses that lined the old pilgrims’ route to the door, the cathedral had more than its fair share of verdant growth — ivy crawling over the windows, Russian vine spreading over stonework, the leaves turning red as though it was autumn. In Lincoln, all seasons were unfolding simultaneously.

He returned to the main door and rapped loudly. As he listened to the echoes, a disturbing sensation tickled his lower leg. He was shocked to see ivy wrapped around his ankle and crawling slowly upwards before his eyes.

Jumping backwards, he wrenched the ivy out of the ground, but it still continued to grow up towards his thigh. He tore it away with frozen fingers and hurled the remnants against the wall.

Quiet, cynical laughter echoed around the cathedral precinct. Hunter looked around for the source, but there was only stillness over the snow.

‘She won’t let you inside.’

A woman in a green cloak emerged from the side of one of the buildings adjoining the cathedral, her hood pulled forward so that her face was hidden by shadows.

‘You want to be careful creeping up on me. I’ve killed people for less,’ Hunter said.

‘Oooh,’ she replied with childish sarcasm. ‘Big man, big threat.’ The woman threw back her hood to reveal messy white-blonde hair above a face that had a faint greenish tint to the skin, but which didn’t hamper her flinty beauty. The hardness made her appear aloof and a little arrogant, but she had a wry smile that suggested she was entertained by Hunter’s appearance.

‘The Green Angel,’ Hunter guessed.

‘Love you, too.’

‘You did that trick with the ivy?’

‘I can’t reveal my secrets.’ She teased him in a manner that some would find irritating. ‘You’re not a local. Come for some free fruit and veg? The store’s down in town.’

‘You did all that with the plants, too. I’m impressed. Green fingers.’

‘Green everything.’ She came over, now more intrigued than entertained. ‘You’re not here for food. Who are you?’

‘I can’t reveal my secrets.’

The woman circled him slowly, looking him up and down. ‘Lean. Mean. Packing some weapons, if I’m not mistaken by the bulges under your cloak. Or are you just pleased to see me?’

‘You’re very sparky. Give it a bit of time and you might be able to develop it into a personality.’

The woman suddenly noticed a flare of blue illumination inside Hunter’s cloak as it blew aside in the wind. She yanked at the hem to pull the cloak open, revealing the Wayfinder where it had been hanging out of sight in Hunter’s hand. Her demeanour changed instantly.

‘Where did you get that?’

‘A giant gave it to me,’ Hunter said wryly, but his mind was already turning at her recognition. ‘It’s called the Wayfinder.’

‘I know what it’s called,’ she snapped. In that moment, the defences of her face were stripped away to reveal a flow of honest emotion: memories of good times, memories of sadness, hardship and suffering. It ended with a faint, contented smile as though she had just recognised an old friend.

‘I think,’ Hunter said, ‘I’m looking for you.’

She blinked away a furtive tear. ‘Come far?’

‘From the ends of the Earth.’ That’s what it felt like to him. Now that his own defences had broken down he felt a deep affinity with the odd woman, and he could see in her eyes that she felt it, too.

She put her arms around him warmly and held him in silence for a moment. When she broke away, she said, ‘I’m not usually one for hugging. So don’t tell anyone about that, all right?’

‘Sister of Dragons.’ He nodded slowly; he could see it now.

‘And you’re one of the new ones. The pale copies.’

‘I like to think you were the prototypes and we’re the definitive article.’ He held out a hand. ‘Hunter.’

‘Is that a name or some sexual role-play thing?’ The woman held his hand for a long second.

‘Are you always like this?’

‘I wouldn’t be so lovable any other way. Laura DuSantiago.’

He looked up at the towering cathedral. ‘And this is where you hang out? Nice. Bet it’s a nightmare to clean.’

‘Now there’s a thing. Wait till you see the inside. If she ever lets us in,’ she added tartly.

‘“She” being…?’

‘Ruth Gallagher. Uber-Witch of the whole fucking multiverse. And doesn’t she just know it.’

She shook her head with irritation and motioned for Hunter to follow her. This time the main door swung open easily.

‘Looks like she’s out of her sulk,’ Laura said. ‘But you still won’t be able to see her yet — she’ll be off brooding somewhere. Better come in and take the weight off for a while.’

Hunter followed Laura into the cathedral and was even more surprised than she had indicated he would be. The interior was a bizarre mix of tropical greenhouse and ice cave. Strange gargantuan ice formations almost obscured the lofty roof and curved across the nave, which entered into a series of tunnels through the permafrost. Yet tropical trees thrust up from the frozen floor, breaking through the stone to press against the ice, and creepers and vines hung down from above. It made the inside of the cathedral claustrophobic and disturbingly otherworldly.

‘So you can control nature? Make things grow, even where they shouldn’t?’ Hunter asked.

‘One of the pluses of being a plant.’

‘What?’

‘Long story. Basically, I’m an avatar of the Green, gifted — or cursed — by Cernunnos. You heard of him? He’s one of the Tuatha De Danann, a nature god, basically, or the nature god. Anyway, I’m his chosen one, and he’s given me lots of cool powers to use as I see fit. Course, I get the chlorophyll skin, but these days there aren’t many beauty parades.’

Laura led Hunter through the maze of ice tunnels to a room where a brazier glowed with hot coals. He warmed his hands over it eagerly. ‘There’s bread and fruit over there.’ She motioned to a cupboard in one corner before lounging on a hard wooden bench. ‘Now you’d better tell me why you’re here.’

Hunter told her everything, from the impending end of the world at the hands of the Void, to the attack on his troops by the Lament-Brood and their lethal generals, and the fragmented state of the current quincunx of Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. Laura listened intently, chipping in with sarcastic comments or wry asides, but beneath the patina of levity, Hunter could tell that she understood what was at stake and recognised her responsibility.

‘We need your help,’ he said finally, ‘to make up the numbers, in the hope that it might make up for one of us being dead. But we need your experience, too. To be honest, none of us knows what the hell we’re doing with this Pendragon Spirit thing.’

Hunter was taken aback by Laura’s laughter. ‘This is the best! You’re coming to us for help and advice? Listen, we were the biggest collection of fuck-ups you could ever imagine. Church — Jack Churchill — he was up to his neck in grief over the death of his girlfriend. Unhealthy? You bet. Ryan Veitch was a crook who’d killed a man, who turned out to be a relative of the Uber-Witch, but Ruth had got her own problems, one of which was a poker up her arse. Shavi, our seer, now he was cool. Not what you’d call wholly present, if you get what I mean, but a nice guy. And me? I was perfect, but you’ve got to have one or the whole thing falls apart.’

Laura was a woman who liked to play games, to distort for effect and for her own aims, and Hunter knew he couldn’t trust everything she said. Their conversation was a dance, defining boundaries, deciding status; he was impressed.

‘Two questions. First: if you were all so useless, how, out of all the possible candidates in the human race, did you get selected for the Pendragon Spirit?’

‘Maybe you get selected at random.’

‘Secondly, the Fall. Overnight, the Otherworld pumped out gods, devils, monsters, every supernatural creature that ever existed in any fairy tale anywhere. All the conventional responses failed. But you five stopped us from being wiped out. If you were so useless, how did that happen?’

‘We were just lucky.’ She smiled tightly, giving nothing away.

‘Go on,’ he pressed.

She shrugged, pretending it was old news, but the memory was carved in the tense muscles of her face. Whatever had happened to her during the Fall had shaped her character, eradicating the woman she had been before, replacing her with someone forged in the cauldron of strife.

‘How long have you got?’ As a faraway look appeared in her eyes, some of the hardness dropped from her face. ‘We made lots of mistakes, but somehow… somehow everything turned out all right in the end.’ She caught herself. ‘All right for the human race, that is. Not so great for us.’

‘You’re talking about Jack Churchill and Ryan Veitch dying.’

‘It’s more complicated than that. Things never happen in isolation. You deal with the repercussions for ever. Anyway, you can talk to Ruth about that later. You want to hear tales of swashbuckling adventure, five people beating the odds to come up with the goods for humanity? Yeah, I can do that. It was all about the Pendragon Spirit, all those myths about King Arthur that Church was always banging on about. I don’t really care about how it’s all linked together. The bottom line is, despite all the failures and the mistakes, everything came together right when it needed to. Just like it was planned. And you’re right, it was a big win. At the Battle of London…’ She closed her eyes in recall. ‘The city, burning… things swarming all over it that would give anybody nightmares…’ She drifted for a moment.

‘How did Jack and Ryan die?’ he probed gently.

‘We were steered to a tower that had risen up on the banks of the Thames. There was something inside…’ An expression of distaste sprang to her face. ‘A power… evil, yeah, definitely evil. If we hadn’t stopped it, that would have been it, game over.’

‘Did it have anything to do with the Void?’

‘I don’t know. There’s nothing to say it did… but maybe all these things are linked together, you know? Everything that wants to stop us getting a foothold on the ladder. I used to think good and evil were ideas for kids. Too simple. Fairy-tale stuff. But now… on the big scale, the universal scale, I think good and evil are what it’s all about. A constant war from the beginning of time to the end. And we’re just little troops, cannon fodder, there to make sure things don’t go belly-up for our side.’

Hunter moved closer to the brazier. He felt as if he couldn’t get enough warmth.

‘We confronted this thing at the top of the tower,’ Laura said. ‘We’d got the right tools, magic shit, a sword, a spear… Church was about to deliver the killing blow. Then Ryan stepped in.’

‘Why did he do it?’

‘He didn’t mean to,’ Laura said wearily. She’d obviously spent long hours turning the tragedy over in her head. ‘Ryan was just that little bit weaker than the rest of us. He was manipulated, by the gods, the evil things. All those so-called Higher Powers just manipulate us all the time. And Ryan paid the price. There was a fight. He died. Church managed to kill the thing that had been waiting for us, but Ryan had thrown everything off-balance. Some kind of hole opened up in the air… like a hole into space. The thing went into it with its last dying gasp, and Church got sucked in after it. So we won and we lost. Story over.’

‘You’ve been through the mill-’

‘I don’t want your sympathy.’

‘And you’re not going to get it. You had a job to do and you did it. There’s always a price to pay in situations like that… like this. No point crying over it. So after that you came here?’

‘Not at first.’ Laura rubbed her fingers together and a rose grew magically out of the floor, its bud bursting, blossoming into black petals. She stared at it thoughtfully. ‘Ruth wanted to pass on all her witchy skills, so we travelled the country for a while with her doing her Hogwarts bit to a load of wannabes. But her heart wasn’t in it. When we reached this place she decided she wasn’t going any farther.’

‘And you stuck with her.’

‘Somebody had to. She didn’t have anybody else.’ She snapped her fingers and the black rose shrivelled and died.

Hunter cracked his knuckles, then put his feet up on a small table; he’d found out all he needed to know for now. ‘Must be boring here for you.’

‘I’m not getting any, if that’s what you mean.’ She gave him a challenging smile.

‘Fancy some?’

Laura thought for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Why not?’

The sex was the first physical contact either of them had enjoyed for a while, and was passionate and unguarded. Hunter discovered that Laura smelled of lime and roses, but afterwards she told him that she could manipulate her scent at will. ‘That’s probably my greatest power,’ she added, ‘now that we live in a world without deodorant.’

When they were both dressed again, Laura reluctantly agreed to take Hunter to see Ruth, who Laura said would be ‘brooding in her batcave’. They moved through the fantastic ice tunnels and chambers, a crystal world within the very heart of the cathedral, their breath trailing behind them in clouds.

Finally they came to a cavern so large that it dwarfed all the others. It was a work of art, with icicles hanging ten feet or more from the ceiling and reflecting surfaces designed to catch and distribute the light of many candles. At the far side was a throne made entirely from ice and sitting in it was the saddest woman Hunter had ever seen.

She was swathed in black fur, her fragile features as pale as hoarfrost. Her hair was long, dark brown and curly, and black rings beneath her eyes emphasised the painful grief in her face. Those eyes, too, were dark, filled with a surfeit of shattered emotion. A black and white woman in a frozen world.

‘There she is, the Witch-Queen of the world,’ Laura said quietly to Hunter. ‘We’ve got a guest,’ she added loudly. ‘Get out the best china.’

Ruth had been lost to her thoughts and unaware they had entered. Her eyes flickered to Hunter, then moved away.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Laura whispered in his ear before departing.

Hunter marched up to the throne. ‘Are you expecting me to kneel and kiss your ring?’

‘Who are you?’ Ruth said coldly.

‘My name’s Hunter. I’m a Brother of Dragons. And I still haven’t quite come to terms with that as an introduction.’

‘You never will. What do you want?’

Hunter was surprised by her brusque, uninterested nature after Laura’s curiosity. ‘I’ve come a long way to see you, and Laura. You’re needed, both of you.’

‘I’ve done my bit.’ Ruth’s gaze was as cold as her demeanour.

‘Actually, I don’t think you get to resign. The way I see it, it’s a job for life.’

‘The Pendragon Spirit isn’t as strong in me as it used to be.’

‘Still there, though. A little, right?’

‘I’ll ask again, what do you want?’

‘There’s a crisis… actually, that’s too mild a word for it.’ He held out his right hand. ‘You have God here, not representing any particular religion, but some higher force that stands for life-’

‘Existence.’

‘All right, if you want to call it that.’ He held out his left hand. ‘And here you have the opposite of Existence, and all that stands for. The opposite of life, an absence of being, negativity. Not death — worse… not existing…’ He floundered, not sure he was making sense even to himself. He extended his left hand. ‘That’s what’s here, now, and pretty soon none of us will be existing unless we do something. You might say, “We’re only human — what can we do against something like that?” and to be honest I don’t have an answer for you. But I do know that the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons were created to oppose this. We’re the champions of life… of Existence. Maybe there’s something we don’t know that we can do, all working together. Maybe we can’t do anything. But we have to try.’

‘The magic number is five,’ she said icily. ‘Don’t you know that? The old Five is broken. You need a new Five.’

Hunter could see that he wasn’t persuading her and renewed his argument. ‘I know that. One of the new Five is dead. Two haven’t been found yet. That makes three vacancies. The two of us left could either hold up our hands and say we’ve failed… and that word just doesn’t do it justice, since this failure means the end of all human existence. Who could cope with that? So we could say we’ve failed… or we could seek out substitutes, who might not be able to do anything. Or who might make all the difference in the world. My partner has gone to get Shavi. I’m here for you and Laura. So, will you come back? Not for me, but for everybody. For Existence.’

There was a long period of silence when the only sound was the howling wind beyond the cathedral walls. Then Ruth leaned forward and turned the full force of those dark, devastated eyes on Hunter. ‘Let me tell you something. I loved Jack Churchill. More than I love myself. He was everything to me, and when he died it felt as if everything inside me shattered into a million pieces. Nothing, trust me, nothing comes even close to the pain I feel inside, and I’ve been through a lot of suffering in my short, unhappy life. Church had everything going for him. He was filled with the Blue Fire. All the prophecies spoke about how important he was to the future. He was going to lead us into some golden age. And still he died. You want to know what it means to be a Brother of Dragons? That’s what it means: hope, strife, failure. Not even the best can win. You just hold the line.’

‘I can live with that-’

She silenced him with a raised hand. ‘They tell you grief fades with time. What I feel for Church won’t fade. It’s beyond grief. The price I personally paid for our success during the Fall was too high. Far too high. So don’t come asking me to do it all again. I don’t care any more… about anything. I’m just going to sit here, while the world freezes around me, and wait for it all to fade away to nothing.’

The desolation in her words was almost too painful to hear. Hunter could see that what she had been through had fractured her, but he couldn’t afford to back down. ‘Please… what’s at stake-’

‘I know what’s at stake,’ she said, ‘and I don’t care. You’re wasting your breath.’

‘If you don’t come, that’s it. Our last hope gone. You’re the one consigning us all to the end.’

She held up one hand, palm outwards, and a freezing wind hit Hunter; he could feel ice forming across his face and body. With an effort, he tried to resist it, but whatever she was doing, she simply turned it up a notch until he realised that she would quite happily see him freeze to death. In the end, there was nothing he could do but leave.

Outside the cavern, Laura was waiting. ‘Don’t think badly of her.’

‘How can I not?’ Hunter snapped. ‘She’s killed everyone.’

‘She might not be able to make a difference anyway.’ Laura touched his face, soothing the anger and disbelief out of him. ‘She loved Church, and she couldn’t cope with losing him. Emotions rule us, Hunter; there’s nothing we can do about it. That’s the way we were made, and we were made that way for a reason.’

‘Well, if that’s true, I can’t see it.’ He sucked in a deep breath, still coming to terms with the fact that he’d failed. ‘I’d better get back.’

‘I’m coming with you.’

That surprised him; what little he knew of her had suggested that she would be the selfish, indifferent one. ‘What’s the point? You’ll just be coming back to die.’

‘We’ve got to try, haven’t we?’ She grinned defiantly. ‘That’s the job. Come on, I need to find a horse.’ She turned and headed off back through the tunnels as if there was still hope.