The Queen of Sinister (9 page)

'Brigid says you're hiding something in your coat.'

He flinched. 'Brigid should mind her own business.'

'There's a village up ahead.' Caitlin switched the topic of conversation with ease.

'How do you know?'

'I can smell it.'

He sniffed the air but couldn't pick up anything beyond the forest scents, although he knew some people with mental disorders had heightened senses.

Several yards further on, the sickeningly fruity smell of decomposition was unmistakable. Bodies left in the open to rot was a clear warning sign and Crowther was already preparing to skirt the area when Caitlin caught his arm. She had seen something beyond his range.

Fighting his natural instinct, Crowther allowed her to guide him. She ducked low, crawling through the vegetation until they had a view of a sixties-style bungalow. The ruddy glare of fire rose up behind one window, followed by thick black smoke pouring out of every opening. The front door burst open and out came two men clutching a box of food, a shotgun and a few other objects Crowther couldn't make out. They were both wearing some kind of strange uniform, black T-shirts bearing a scarlet V from shoulder to navel.

As the looters hurried away, Crowther edged ahead to get a better view. Further down the street he could see more of the oddly dressed men - some kind of gang, he guessed - coming out of other houses with their swag. They moved quickly and efficiently, taking only what they needed, and left the village in wagons parked at the far end of the main street.

'Well, we certainly don't want to be tangled up with those,' Crowther mused. There was a rustling beside him and before he could react, Caitlin had emerged from hiding and was sliding down a grassy bank into an overgrown field that bordered the main street. 'Wait,' he hissed, but she paid him no attention.

She skipped through the thistle and grass and clambered over a five-bar gate before checking up and down the road. Crowther waited for a long moment to see if she would be attacked, then reluctantly followed. He was weighing the advantages of tying her up for the remainder of the journey when she hailed him from a large detached house that must once have been considered desirable. The front garden was now heavily obscured by a tangle of undergrowth and it didn't look as if any repairs had been made to it since the Fall.

'You don't want to go in there,' he said, pointing to the red X painted roughly on the front door.

'I heard something inside.'

'It's a plague house.'

'This isn't the Dark Ages, Professor,' she said.

'You'd think, wouldn't you?' He turned back down the weed-clogged drive, then sighed as he heard the front door open. This time he wasn't going to follow her. There were limits.

The stench inside the house was overwhelming. Caitlin covered her mouth, fighting the urge to retch, not sure why she was in there, though she guessed it had something to do with the strange voices that occasionally surfaced at the back of her head.

She moved through the hall, with its damp, peeling wallpaper, and pushed open the door into the room where she thought she'd heard a noise. The sight that greeted her was horrific, but she felt only overwhelming pity.

Bodies marked with the unmistakable scars of the plague lay all around. At first some attempt had been made to stack them, but the last few had been thrown on the pile haphazardly.

That thought brought a succession of jarring images: the first case brought into her surgery, the sudden realisation, the mounting horror as the bodies piled up in the village hall. The faces ... her friends... acquaintances ... good people, undeserving people ... and then Grant ... and Liam ... She rammed her fists into her eye sockets to drive out the terrible pictures, the sickening smell of clay and the clammy feel of wet clothes.

The sound was barely audible, but it jolted her out of her emotional state. Something was in the room, alive. Rats? The arm of one of the corpses dropped suddenly and made her jump. Behind it she saw movement - too big for a rodent.

'Come out.' She could barely believe someone was hiding underneath those suppurating bodies.

Vibrations amongst the cadavers suggested a brief struggle was taking place, and then the corpses fell away as a boy of around nine or ten pushed his way out. He was black, his hair shorn to a bristle, and a little overweight, but he had big, expressive eyes that made him seem much younger. He blinked once, twice, his gaze filled with hope.

'Don't worry,' Caitlin said, shocked. 'I won't hurt you.'

There was a sudden rush of falling bodies and another figure emerged: a girl of about sixteen, also black, her features street-smart and hard. 'Don't come any closer,' she said menacingly. She was brandishing a switchblade.

Caitlin held up her hands. 'It's OK.'

The girl's cold eyes searched the room and the hall beyond. 'You're not with them?' she said, without lowering the knife.

'The gang with the V-shirts? No. I just got here as they left.'

The girl scanned Caitlin's clothes and came to her own conclusion. 'You'd better not try anything,' she said. Despite appearances, her voice had an educated inflection, but her attitude was unmistakably dangerous. Yet behind it Caitlin could see a hint of fear in the mirror of her eyes.

'My name's Caitlin. I'm a doctor.'

This piece of information reassured the girl enough for her to lower the knife, but it didn't remove the iciness from her face. 'Got here a bit late, didn't you?'

'Come on, let's get out of here,' Caitlin said gently. 'It's dangerous.'

'Everywhere's dangerous.' Hardness came to the girl's voice easily, but she still indicated for the boy to follow Caitlin out.

Crowther waited in the shade of a tall ash, watching the empty street cautiously. As Caitlin led the new arrivals up

to him, his face showed weary annoyance at another complication.

'I'm Caitlin and this is Professor Crowther.'

The girl made no attempt to venture her name in reply until the boy gave her a little shove. 'Mahalia,' she said. 'Jackson.'

Crowther raised an eyebrow. 'Like the singer.'

'Like me,' Mahalia replied.

Caitlin knelt before the boy, warmed by his open, honest features. 'And what's your name?' she said.

'He can't speak.' Mahalia's body language was defensive of her charge. 'Actually, I think he can speak - he just doesn't choose to. Don't ask me why.'

Caitlin looked into his face for confirmation, but all he gave was a broad, warm smile. His eyes, though, showed such depths they made Caitlin shiver.

'His name's Carlton Breen. He wrote it down for me.'

'Where are your parents?' Caitlin felt a jab of anxiety. Mahalia snorted and looked away. 'Is this your home?' Caitlin pressed.

'We're from Winchester. At least I am. I don't know where Carlton's from. Have you got any food?'

'No, but we can probably find something—'

'Why don't we go shopping for clothes while we're at it,' Crowther snapped.

'We can't leave them here alone,' Caitlin replied.

'We can't take them with us. Do you have any concept of what we're going into? Believe me, they'll be far safer here.'

A sharp pain stung Caitlin deep in her head; she felt as if she was falling back into a dark tunnel.

'If you don't take them with us, I'm not going!' Mahalia and Carlton's eyes widened at the petulant child's voice coming from Caitlin's mouth.

Crowther swore under his breath. 'All right. For a little while.' He marched down the drive. 'Though you do realise having a nursery tagging along is going to be the death of us.'

They found some vegetables the looters had missed and cooked a brief, bland stew before setting off again. Striding ahead, Crowther made no attempt to hide his aversion to spending any time with the others; he was already plotting ways to jettison Mahalia and Carlton when an opportunity arose.

Once it had been confirmed that the two children were coming with them, Amy allowed Caitlin to resurface. 'What happened to you back there?' Mahalia asked suspiciously as they trudged amongst the trees. 'With that creepy little-girl voice?'

Anxiety coiled inside Caitlin. 'I don't want to talk about

it.'

'Fine,' Mahalia said with a dismissive shrug. 'This should be an interesting journey. On the road with a grumpy old man and a crazy old woman.'

'Have you been on your own for long?' Caitlin asked.

Mahalia clearly wasn't used to small talk. Her suspicious eye suggested she was waiting for Caitlin to ask something of her. 'Since the Fall. Wandered across the south coast after skipping my school ... just trying to stay alive like everybody else.'

Caitlin could hear the intelligence in the girl's well- spoken voice. 'And there's nobody else to look after you? No family?'

'I can look after myself well enough.'

'You shouldn't have to try to survive on your own. Everyone needs somebody.'

For some reason this comment annoyed the girl. 'I've got Carlton and he's got me, and we've done all right so far. We don't need you. We're going along for the ride, for something to do. But we can walk away at any minute. Don't forget that.'

She marched ahead so she wouldn't have to talk to Caitlin any more.

They picked their way across patches of heath and through dense woodland for five miles, attempting to stay out of view as much as possible. The countryside had grown wild more quickly than they could have believed possible and at times the going was hard, but by early afternoon the last remaining clouds were finally blown away and the brilliant spring sunshine took some of the edge off their journey.

'But you've got to have some idea where you're going!' Mahalia said in disbelief after quizzing Caitlin about their destination.

The question troubled Caitlin. There was an existentialist peace in simply walking; to consider any more meant facing up to what lay behind her. 'I'm just following the professor.' She winced at how pathetic that sounded.

Mahalia turned her attention to the professor, who was attempting to keep several yards between himself and the others. 'You know where you're going. I've seen you looking at the sun to keep a check on your direction.'

'Aren't you a clever girl.'

'If you don't tell me, I'm just going to keep asking until you're sick of me.'

'I'm sick of you already.'

'Where are we going?'

Crowther made an angry sound in the depths of his throat. After a few seconds of reflection, he said, 'We're going to find a cure for the plague.'

Caitlin looked down at her feet, her face strained. Mahalia considered Crowther's response thoughtfully. 'So you know somewhere that's got a vaccine?'

'Not quite.'

'Then where are you going?'

'There's no point explaining it to you, you wouldn't

understand,' Crowther said as patronisingly as he could manage.

Mahalia grew flinty. 'Try me.'

Crowther rounded on her as his irritation peaked. 'All right, little girl. There's no cure for the plague in this world - no hope at all. So we're going to cross the dimensional barriers to another world, and hopefully we'll find the answers we seek there.'

Mahalia's thoughts played out clearly on her face: at first she was sure he was mocking her, secondly that he was as insane as the girl clearly thought Caitlin was. But then a strange thing happened that gave Crowther pause: Carlton tugged on Mahalia's arm to get her attention and nodded assent. The girl instantly acquiesced.

'OK,' she said. 'Tell me about this other world and how we get there.'

Now it was Caitlin's turn to exclaim in disbelief. 'Another world?'

'Not some other world. The Otherworld,' Crowther said as he clambered on to an overgrown stile. 'It's been a part of legend here for millennia ... the land where the ancient Celts believed their gods lived. And it actually exists, not in myth but in reality, and those self-same legends were our ancestors' way of preserving that knowledge for posterity - part information, part warning. There are people who have been there, and I have spoken to one of them.'

'Whatever.' Mahalia winked at Carlton in a manner that annoyed Crowther intensely.

'I'm actually warming to the prospect of taking you across to that place,' Crowther said. 'It's the source of every nightmarish thing that has found its way here since the Fall, and believe me, there's a lot worse waiting over there. I think you'll have a wonderful time meeting them all'

'Well, we're going to come whether you like it or not,' Mahalia said blithely. 'What do you think, matey?'

Carlton nodded his head eagerly.

'I thought I understood the depths of the stupidity of youth until I met you,' Crowther said. 'Really ... thank you for the enlightening experience.'