Changeling: Zombie Dawn (17 page)

He turned again to see that one of the remaining figures on this side had got through the breach in the wall. Jake whimpered in his arms, and his father clutched him closer. Despite the need to get his son to safety, Robert was incapable of tearing his eyes away from the scene unravelling before him. The old woman screamed out again, and as she did so Robert watched as the next man, hunched forward and carefully eyeing the shifting opening, made an attempt to get through to the other side, throwing himself at the hole which was now no bigger than the size of a car door. He dived just as the aperture closed for the last time. The old woman let out an almighty shriek and collapsed to the ground in a heap.

One half of the nether-creature fell to the floor on the human side, the other fell at the feet of Lucien Charron. There was no blood; the ghastly wounds on the severed body had been instantly cauterized by the awesome energy of the Shield. The air stank with the foul smell of burned flesh.

Lucien looked down at the severed head and torso of the demon, knowing that he was responsible for the creature’s death. He lifted his eyes, meeting those of Tom, who gave a tiny shake of his head as if reading his thoughts.

‘We should go,’ the Irishman said, turning about and looking up the road.

They’d taken no more than a dozen steps when they heard a low groan from somewhere ahead of them. They stopped and watched as a woman – the same one that Robert had watched limping away from the zombie earlier – pulled herself from under the body of the man lying on top of her. That she was dead, or at least should have been, there was no doubt. Nothing could have survived the terrible wound on one side of her neck. Dull grey eyes, from which life no longer shone, stared out from a face devoid of any expression. She made a low, animalistic noise, something between a loud sigh and a groan, and slowly got to her feet.

‘Ah crap,’ Tom muttered.

The zombie’s head snapped towards the sound, and she let out a blood-curdling cry as she took off, running down the road in the Irishman’s direction.

‘D’ya ever get the feeling that it’s just going to be “one of those days”?’ Tom shouted across at Lucien.

The man who’d been lying on top of the woman also began to stir.

‘It looks like our fears have come true,’ Lucien said, stepping forward and hefting the machete in his hand. ‘They’re reanimating already’

Tom nodded, copying his boss’s stance.

‘Let’s go to work,’ he said.

Helde’s spirit resided in a place of pure sorcery now. Her physical body was still at Leroth, but she was only vaguely aware of it. She’d had to immerse herself deeply in the dark magic necessary to maintain the Shield, and to do so she’d been forced to leave the body that her mind resided in. The otherworldly plane she now occupied was difficult and dangerous to inhabit for long. It was made up of complex, dark, interacting energies that were impossible to comprehend in any conventional sense, and she was forced to reinterpret them into something her mind
was
able to manage and handle.

She was the giant spider at the epicentre of a vast web that stretched out beneath her in every direction before it disappeared into the darkness on all sides. Strange and sinister things lurked in the inky blackness: things that would happily devour her if she allowed her concentration to slip. She could hear their low, guttural voices whispering to each other as they eyed her greedily. She had no right to be here – not for any length of time, anyway. Those adept in dark magic came to this place every time they used their skills, but it was usually a brief visit – a fleeting glimpse as they hooked into the energies here, and used them to conjure their magic. Each time it was different: a black forest, a subterranean cave, an inky underwater world – a thousand different variations. But the
things
were always there, always waiting for a chance to feed.

She was in control at the moment, but it would not do to let her guard down, even for a second.

She glanced at one of the strands she was crouched among. Thick black cords, the width of a man’s arm, trembled and vibrated. They were fleshy and sticky to the touch, and beneath the pliant surface something squirmed and writhed as if the web were filled with living creatures, all of which were trying to find a way out through the labyrinth of threads. She stayed still, focusing her powers on maintaining the Shield and trying to ignore the malignant creatures pressing in on her from the void.

Helde sensed Hag before the old woman was anywhere near the protective dome that hung over Leroth. The sorceress was coming, and she was not alone. Helde knew that her adversary would try to breach the Shield, and that it would be up to her to stop that happening.

She felt the jangling pull at the edge of the web as Hag began to perform the magic she would use to try and create an opening. The vibrations along the threads of the web were transmitted to her body through long legs, covered in a vast array of hairs and sensors to pick up the tiniest of movements. It was in this way that she’d felt the ineffectual attempts of the trapped humans as they threw themselves at the Shield to try and escape. But this was quite different. They had never met, but the moment Hag opened up her mind to begin the magic, the two sorceresses’ energies became linked, and they knew and sensed things about each other, gaining an insight into one another’s skills. Hag was an accomplished sorceress, and Helde knew how difficult it would be to try and hold the Shield completely in place in the face of her adversary’s attempts to gain entry.

Helde’s focus on the other sorceress was nearly her undoing. One of the shadow creatures seized its chance and lunged forward, pulling out of the darkness and swooping towards her, its mouth wide and teeth bared. She reacted just in time, bringing her magical defences back up to thwart the attack. At that moment a human threw itself at the supernatural barrier, and Hag used this and Helde’s temporary distraction to redouble her efforts. Helde let out a shriek. She banished her dark attacker back to the shadows, but it was too late. Hag had found a way inside her defences and had created an opening in the Shield.

The great spider left its place at the centre of the web, scrabbling out in the direction of the wreckage that her adversary had caused. She quickly reached the site, taking in the ruined mess of the web, its perfect symmetry now in tatters. She began to spin new lengths of the black cord, pulling the stuff from the spinnerets at the back of her body and using all of her legs to weave it in and out, repairing the damage. It was hard work. Now that she ‘d breached the Shield, Hag fought to keep the hole open, and as fast as Helde wove her repairs, the old woman on the outside tore them apart again – a giant, invisible hand that smashed through time and time again.

Helde redoubled her efforts, spinning the black cords ever more quickly. She drew upon the dark energy that flowed from the source of the Shield deep in the bowels of the tower. It lent itself to her readily, bolstering her powers and making her stronger. At the same time she felt her adversary weaken a little. Spurred on by this, she repaired the wall again, and this time more of the patched areas held in place, the opening decreasing in size as the old woman tired. Helde allowed herself to reach out into Hag’s mind again, and she felt the weakening sorceress’s physical pain, her body ravaged by the counter-effects of the spell she performed. The old woman’s agony drove Helde on even more, and then, quite suddenly, Hag gave in, her energies disappearing as she broke free from the dark realm and allowed the breach in the Shield to collapse in on itself.

Helde let out a hiss of triumph. She repaired the web again, and this time her construction held firm. She sank back, exhaustion eating its way through her, and as the enormity of what she still had to do dawned on her, she almost surrendered herself. But she could not let her master down. Caliban had brought her back to life. The vampire had fed her demon blood, then his own, to reanimate her. And now he stood guard over her while she was at her most vulnerable. She would fulfil her promises to him. She somehow dragged her bulky arachnoid body back along the black strands to the centre of the web, where she sank down, utterly spent.

Trey and Alexa stood outside the building that had been his prison, waiting for the taxi. They hadn’t spoken since their last exchange, each lost in their own thoughts about what had happened and what was to come. They’d managed to clean Trey up a bit, using some old towels they’d found in the toilets at the back of the garage. He still looked pale and grubby, and the overalls he’d put on gave him the appearance of a prison inmate who’d escaped and was on the run. The cab driver must have had the same thought as he pulled up in front of them; staring out of the windscreen he gave Trey a less than friendly look.

They climbed into the back of the car.

‘Chelsea football ground, please,’ Alexa said.

The cabbie turned round in his seat and looked in disbelief at each of them in turn.

‘You’re joking, ain’t ya? Haven’t you heard? That part of the city is like a war zone now. Police, army, helicopters – I even heard on the radio that they’re bringing tanks in. Tanks! In Chelsea! ‘Ere, have a listen for yerself.’ He pressed a button on the radio to increase the volume. A female reporter was in the middle of an outside broadcast.

‘. . .
that the police have cordoned off the area surrounding the football ground, and are stopping anyone from returning to their houses and businesses for the foreseeable future. From my vantage point here on top of the shopping centre just off Fulham Broadway, I can see the vast dome-like structure that has got scientists and everyone else completely baffled. What is it, how did it get here, and what might its arrival mean to the people of London, the UK, and possibly the world? ‘

The broadcast switched back to the studio and a silky-voiced male presenter.

‘Thank you, Anita. That’s our reporter at the scene, Anita Harvey, and she’ll be keeping us abreast of any developments that occur with regard to what many people are describing as the Dome of Doom. Please keep your calls, texts and emails coming in with your ideas on what the giant hemispherical object is, and we’ll discuss them during the show.

‘There’s already been speculation that the thing is some sort of spaceship, and to discuss this possibility, and what it might mean to the human race if indeed it is an extra-terrestrial visitation, is Professor Daniel Linkwater of the University of St Andrews who is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics and of the SETI Permanent Study Group. Professor, what do you think the—’

‘How close could you get us?’ Alexa asked the driver.

‘Look, I don’t want to go anywhere near that thing, full stop.’

Alexa dug her purse out of her pocket and counted out the money she had in it. ‘I’ve got one hundred and fifty pounds here, and I can get another two hundred out of a cashpoint machine on the way.’

‘Why are you so keen to—’

‘My dad’s inside.’

There was a silence in the cab as the driver considered this.

‘How close can you get us?’ Alexa repeated.

The cabby looked back at her in the rear-view mirror. ‘Three hundred and fifty quid?’ he asked.

Alexa nodded.

‘Close enough,’ he said, already pulling away.

The cabbie had informed them that he was sticking to the south side of the river for as long as possible, moving his way west before trying to cross the Thames as close to Chelsea as he could. He kept the radio on, scoffing at the views of some of the various experts and panellists filling the airwaves. He told Trey and Alexa that he was firmly of the view that it was an alien invasion, and that the people inside were all abductees who were going to be experimented on in some way.

‘I saw this documentary about it,’ he explained.
‘They’ve
been watching us for years.’

Trey glanced across at Alexa, who was sitting completely motionless, head bowed slightly with her eyes fixed on the footwell in front of her. He caught snippets of the words she was whispering under her breath, words in a language that had no place in this world. He glanced up at the driver, who was looking back at him in the rearview mirror.

‘You two are potty going up there. I know her dad’s in that thing, but there’s nothing you can do for him now. They’ve probably got him in a room somewhere, probes in every orifice, turning him into gawd-knows-what. Alien genetic manipulation,’ he said in a low voice, then shouted at the driver of a car that pulled out in front of him without indicating. ‘This is the first stage of an invasion. As soon as I drop you off, I’m going straight home. I’m gonna stock up on supplies, lock myself in my flat and wait this thing out. There’s no way I’m going to be captured and experimented on by those bastards.’

He slowed to a stop at a red light.

As he pulled on the handbrake a low rattling sound started in the car. It got louder and more intense until Trey could feel the vibrations juddering through his body.

‘What’s that?’ the driver shouted.

The purse that Alexa had put beside her as she’d got back in the car when they’d stopped for the cashpoint lifted off the seat a little, and Trey slammed his hand down on top of it.

‘Maybe you’ve got a problem with your rear axle,’ Trey said, cringing as he uttered the words.
A rattling axle? They were stationary!

The small tree-shaped air freshener that hung from the rear-view mirror in the front of the car began to rotate back and forth, slowly at first, but picking up speed until it swivelled about the elastic cord it hung from at an incredible rate. The driver stared at it in horror for a moment, and whimpered. A staccato rat-a-tatting now filled the car. Every loose article, every gap and joint vibrated wildly. This, coupled with the hypnotic revolutions of the air freshener, was simply too much for the cabbie, who was already in a heightened state of fear and paranoia.

‘They’re coming!’ he shouted, opening the door and piling out on to the road, almost falling under the wheels of an oncoming car.