The Day Before Tomorrow (6 page)

‘Oh, yes, you would not have summoned me if I could not help you at all.’ 

‘Okay, what
can
you tell me?’

‘That you are not who you think you are, but you know that, do you not?  The world has been changed.  Once you find the truth within yourself, you will know how to put the world back as it was.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘I am not mortal. I have been unaffected by the change in the world. I still have my memories of the world as it was.  I can see both the new world, in my memory, and the old.’

Hecaté sighed and looked wistfully at Tamar.  ‘And I know it is within you also.’ she said.  You are a far more powerful being than I.’ 

Then her manner changed suddenly. She looked at Tamar with pity and love as she said:  ‘He is not dead.  There was a mistake.  He knows of it, and he is on his way back to you.’

Tamar’s head spun.  But it never occurred to her to doubt that it was the truth.  As soon as the words were spoken, she knew, realised that in some deep part of her soul she had always known.  If he had really died, would she not also be dead by now?

Then another thought struck her.  ‘What do you mean, I’m far more powerful than you?’

She glared into the mirror.  At her own reflection.  Hecaté had gone 

‘Who was she talking about?’ asked Cindy.

* * *

News from home was so hard to get now that the Americans were in occupation, but Denny had ascertained that many of the country’s large estates had been taken over.  So there was at least a chance that the Buffington-Smythe home was now in the hands of the enemy.  This was worrying.  In any case, that was where he intended to head for, but, under these circumstances, it might be prudent to change his identity again.  His American accent needed very little improvement, the American culture being such a large part of the British one these days.  Denny had seen every single episode of “Friends”.  And, after all that he had already been through to get this far, stealing an American uniform should not be too difficult.

He was currently in France, having blagged a ride on a troop transport from Italy.  He had reached Italy in much the same way, only by plane.  Troops were being moved about all over the place at the moment.  It made Denny very aware of the scale of this war. 

But getting to England from here would not be easy.  There were no troops headed for England except American ones.  Well, he intended to become an American sooner or later anyway – why not make it sooner?

~Chapter Eleven ~

S
econd Lieutenant Jamie Adams was not a happy man.  This was not the army he had joined.  He had been shocked at the callous way his commanding officer had shot those three English guys.  And, like most of the participants, he did not understand this war.  What had the English ever done to America?  He liked the English; he had nothing against them.  But he hated the English weather being a Californian by birth, with the typical Californian looks, tanned and fair-haired, with blue eyes.  Although his tan was fading, in the endless rain of European weather, and he was beginning to look washed out 

And he wandered through the house (and it was
the
house) feeling like a trespasser.  So, he had many reasons for wishing in his secret heart that he was not here.

He was also concerned about the women in the cellar. Some of these guys had had enough booze as was good for them; most of them were good lads, but you always got a few bad apples, and the women’s good looks had not escaped attention.  He went down to the cellar and made sure that it was locked. It was, so he never thought to check that the women were still there.  Then he pocketed the key. They would be safe for the night now, he thought.  Tomorrow they would be moved to a prisoner camp, and their fate would no longer be his concern.  But as long as it was, he intended to see that nothing happened to them.  Not on his watch.

  As he made his way back up the stone steps, a silvery gleam just above his head caught his eye.  He stepped back to get a better look.  There was a small alcove set into the stone wall at an inconvenient level.  Had it not contained something shiny, no one would ever have noticed it.  That, he thought, was probably the idea.  A hiding place.  Intrigued, he reached up, although he was a tall man, his hand only just brushed the lip of the alcove. 

‘A dammed
good
hiding place,’ he thought. 

He thought for a moment and reached for the rifle slung on his back. Raising it above his head, he poked about with it in the alcove until he managed to dislodge the shiny thing.  It fell with a clatter on the step.  He picked it up curiously.  It was some type of large dagger in an intricately patterned sheath.  The sheath was dull as if it had developed a patina over silver.  It was the handle that was shiny.  He drew it out and looked at it.  The blade was also a dull silver grey colour.  In the dim light, it did not look particularly interesting.  Jamie shrugged and sheathed it again then slung it in his pack.  He would take another look at it later maybe, in a better light. 

By the time he had ascended the stairs, he had forgotten about it.

* * *

‘Where are we going?’ It was pouring with rain and freezing cold. Cindy’s hair was plastered to her head, her jeans were stuck to her legs, and she was frozen to the marrow and utterly miserable.  The last thing she wanted was to be helping Tamar lever off a manhole cover in the middle of the night.  She had a feeling that this was likely to lead to being cold, wet, miserable
and
smelly. 

‘Down there,’ said Tamar, confirming Cindy’s worst fears. 

‘I knew it,’ she said.  ‘Why?’

‘I want to see something.’

‘In the sewer?’

The manhole cover came off with a clang.  ‘Come on, at least we’ll be out of the rain.’  Tamar started to climb down the rusty iron ladder.

Cindy gave a sigh and a shrug and followed her down.  She had long ago given up any pretence at being in control of this situation in the face of Tamar’s overwhelming personality. 

She made heavy weather of the descent and arrived at the bottom panting, which is difficult to do when you are trying to hold your breath.  Tamar sniffed the air.  Unbelievable, thought Cindy, trying
not
to smell the air, that was the trick here, surely?

‘This way,’ Tamar decided and set off, with Cindy stumbling beside her. 

After they had walked about 20 yards, Tamar stopped and shone her torch at her feet.  Cindy looked.  To her surprise, there seemed to be another type of cover here, made of wooden slats, which led further down.  Tamar levered it up and peered down.  ‘I think this is it,’ she said. 

Down this hole there was no proper ladder, just a series of footholds driven randomly into the sides of the hole.  Bits of rock and wood distributed unevenly and not always very securely.  Tamar shinned down easily, and waited patiently for Cindy to slip, stumble and slide down after her.

The stench hit them as they reached the bottom; it was a foul rank smell, a revolting miasma that rose up, as if from the depths of charnel house.  It bypassed the nostrils and immediately started to melt the brain.  It was the smell of rotting flesh and old blood.

The smell in the upper level now seemed almost refreshing by comparison.  One missed the beguiling nosegay of human refuse.   

On the higher level, Cindy had wrinkled her nose and tried not to breathe too deeply.  Down here, she gasped and retched.  She wondered what the hell she was doing here. 

Tamar was down here because of a particularly strong memory that kept coming back to her.  ‘I have to see if it’s real,’ she said.  ‘Hecaté told me that the answer lies within myself.  I want to see if she was right.’

Up ahead there were faint lights moving about.  These turned out to be people.  Tamar sighed; she had been hoping that she had been wrong. 

These people looked curiously at her and Cindy as they approached.  Apart from the fact that they were living under the sewers, most of them seemed like ordinary people.  There were even a few children running about.  Cindy was shocked beyond the capacity for rational thought. These families had built themselves little homes, well rude shelters, divisions between each dwelling, shored up with bits of planking and the odd sheet of corrugated roofing.  Across the row of residences, which really did rather crudely resemble a street, were retractable metal gates, which the people now pulled across their homes closing themselves in.  It looked to Cindy rather like a row of prison cells. 

‘What are they
doing
down here?’ she hissed to Tamar. 

Tamar shrugged. ‘They live here.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they don’t have anywhere else to live.’

‘How can they stand it?’

‘They’re used to it I suppose.  Lots of people live worse lives.  They say a body can get used to anything, even being hanged.’

‘Why have they locked themselves in like that?  Are they afraid of us?’

Tamar hesitated before answering. ‘No. Not us, I don’t think.’

‘What is that terrible smell?’

‘Sssh.’

They rounded a corner into complete darkness; even Tamar was moving cautiously now.  Then something loomed up before them, something truly horrible.  It had a leprous look about it.  Vaguely human shaped, but of such exceeding thinness that it seemed to have been grown in a lighter atmosphere.  The face was white and the eyes were red.  Its hair and clothes were matted with the filth of innumerable years.  It had not seen them. 

Tamar never hesitated for a second, without missing a beat she grabbed Cindy, dragged her into a recess, and put her hand over her mouth. 

The creature seemed to be able to smell them; at least it stopped and sniffed the air waving its head about, like the light from a searchlight, as it did so. 

‘What the hell is that?’  Cindy wondered. 

But Tamar knew.  ‘Vampire,’ she hissed.  ‘Feral, not like ordinary ones, they’re more like animals.  They live down here, and they are extremely vicious, although not too bright.  Don’t move.’ 

‘
Ordinary
ones?’ Cindy thought incredulously. ‘
Ordinary
vampires? Oh my God, I’m going insane, that actually sounded like it made sense.’ She shook her head in disbelief.

The feral vampire moved off, and Tamar and Cindy breathed again.  Only not too deeply.

‘How do you know all this?’ asked Cindy.

‘Good question,’ thought Tamar.  ‘How the hell
do
I know all this?’  She decided that it would be better if she stopped asking herself that question. 

‘There are demons down here too,’ she said instead of answering.  ‘It didn’t use to be too bad, but now they’re overrunning the place.  God only knows where they’re all coming from.  Those people we saw, it’s not safe for them down here anymore, but where else are they going to go?’ 

‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this before we came down here?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ snapped Tamar.  ‘I didn’t
know
it until I came down here.’

She remembered now, though.  She and Denny had come down here a few times. She could not quite remember why.  And there was something else too; now that she was down here, she was certain they had discovered something else down here, something of vast importance, but what it was she simply couldn’t remember.  But it might have something to do with why the world had changed.  She had followed her errant memories in obedience to Hecaté’s instruction, in the hope that she would begin to find out the truth about herself, and it had led her here.  But what the hell did it all mean? 

She was pondering these matters when the vampires attacked. A pack of six.  Tamar immediately understood.  The vampire that they had seen had been a scout, she remembered now. She also remembered how to fight. 

Just as she had back at the house against the burglars, she acted on instinct, if she let herself think about what she was doing, it would all fall apart. 

If she closed down the rational, thinking part of her brain and just let her subconscious take over, it would be okay. That part of her knew how to fight vampires, but the rational part of her brain would try to tell her that she could not do it.  She allowed her subconscious instincts to take over, and they thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  And the more she fought, the more she remembered.  This was why they had been here, to fight.  Denny too; to help the people who lived down here.  But she still, even when the last vampire fell, could not remember what it was that they had discovered down here that was so damned important. 

* * *

Captain Stiles was having the most amazing dream that he had ever had.  It featured the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and yet she was haranguing him like a fishwife.  ‘Jack,’ she said, ‘you are not listening to me. You never do listen to me.’  Jack inclined his head to indicate that he was listening.  She made a face at him.  ‘Do not give me that look Jack Stiles,’ she said, ‘I know that look. You seek to humour me, well!  I have had enough of this.’  She paused, as if to let this sink in. 

Stiles manufactured a look of alert interest and put it on his face.

‘Yes dear,’ he said automatically.  It was a prescribed response, but in this case, he did not know where it had come from.  He pulled himself together.  ‘That was totally inappropriate,’ he thought.  Yet it had come out quite naturally.  

 ‘Denny Sanger has not gone AWOL,’ she told him.  ‘Ah, I thought that might get your attention.’  Stiles stared at her in bewilderment.  ‘Wha …?

‘Look Jack, will you get it through your thick head once and for all.  I am
not
a dream.  I am trying to help you – I want you back,’ she added quietly and to Stiles complete mystification.  ‘You said that Sanger …?’  he prompted. 

‘He has been taken prisoner by enemy forces. You must go after him. You should go alone,’

‘Go AWOL, you mean?’  Stiles sounded unsure.

‘Yes, by the time you can get anyone to believe you, it will be too late.’ 

‘That should get him moving,’ she thought.