Jago (21 page)

‘’Lo, Teddy,’ said his brother, mouth close to Teddy’s ear. ‘You’m playin’ toy soldiers, then?’

* * *

Wendy had tried to help, but there wasn’t much left to do. Susan and James had looked after Paul, and Hazel was wrapped up with that. The fire was practically out before anyone had a chance to do anything. Irritated, she didn’t even have anyone to talk to.

Derek was lost somewhere, and she was in the middle of a hostile crowd. She half heard nasty comments and saw several malicious stares. She recognized Jenny Steyning’s father, exchanging mutters with some hard-faced men. It was as if they blamed her for the fire.

It wasn’t fair. In Alder, they always picked on the Agapemone. She wished Beloved were here, exerting His calming influence. That would shut up Steyning and his cronies.

She looked in the crowd for Derek. All she found was Marie-Laure, blankly ecstatic, praying in relief at the deliverance.

‘…just superficial cuts and bruises. I’ll clean and dress them back in the house…’

‘…any chance of a cup of tea?’

‘…it weren’t the kids’ camp fire. We found that a couple of hundred yards off. They done a proper job, banked it with stones an’ all. Must of been the fucking heat…’

‘…never seen no point in this pottery lark. Bloody waste of money, if you ask me. Three pound fifty for that little mug…’

‘…hey, she’s one of
they…’

‘…stripped to the waist and weedin’, he were. Shan’t be surprised if’n he’s in a bleddy coma…’

‘…anyone seen Danny Keough today?’

‘…it be these hippies, I’m tellin’ ye…’

It got darker as she went up the hill. People were just shapes. Where was Derek?

Just as she thought she had gone too far and there were no more people to be found, she almost tripped over a girl squatting in the grass, long hair dark over her face. She wiped her hair aside and Wendy thought she saw the flash of cat’s eyes. There was someone else, standing in a pool of black under an apple tree. Someone familiar. A waft of leftover smoke passed by, and Wendy caught the aftersmell of burning, and beneath that the stench of rotten meat. He came out of his shadow and smiled with what was left of his face.

‘Hello, Wendy,’ said Badmouth Ben, ‘long time…’

* * *

Allison’s heart expanded as Ben took the fat woman’s chin in his black claw. Ben wanted to teach Wendy a lesson, and Allison was excited, eager to know what the lesson would be. Ben kissed Wendy, leaving smears of himself on her face. He snickered, bright-pink tongue flicking out between black teeth. He spun the woman round and got her neck in an elbow lock. She tugged at his arm, pulling away ragged streaks of leather. He reached inside her shirt and started mauling her fat teats, saying things in her ear. She stopped struggling and shut her eyes fast. Ben started to drag the woman back into his shadow, then let go of her. Wendy fell down and Ben was gone. Allison crept over, feeling a tingle in her bloodless foot. Her cheesewire was wound too tight. She slapped the woman until her eyes were open, leaving angry red marks on her flabby cheeks. Wendy bleated like a sheep. ‘Catch you later,’ Allison said. ‘TTFN.’

* * *

In the van, Jessica was all over him, hugging him, wetly kissing him. He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to think. It had been big like a dinosaur, but also like a machine, it had pissed fire on the woods, it couldn’t be real because it was from a science-fiction nightmare, it couldn’t be walking, burning,
existing.
Finally, after the last stern warning about their fire from the firemen, they had all piled into the Dormobile, and Salim was driving them to the official camp site. Ferg held Jessica, his eyes shut until they hurt, trying to see only the darkness, trying to wipe ten minutes’ worth of memory out of his brain for ever.

* * *

Beloved let her watch everything on the camera obscura. It didn’t work as well at night, and large patches of the tiny tabletop projection were just blackness. But she saw where fires burned. Beloved was unaffected by the fuss. The small, silent people had clustered around the flames like insects. Now, they’d gone away, and the phantom village was still. He took Jenny’s hand and touched it to the healed wound above His heart. The darkness imploded, and there was only light. Hungrily, He kissed her.

L
ytton had to stay in the orchard once the fire was out. This was the sort of thing he was in Alder to look out for. Garnett would want a full report. Even if the incident turned out not to have any paranormal aspect, it’d be as well to get it discounted now as to rake literally through the ashes later. Between them, science and bureaucracy could spin this out into a three-month headache.

He took stock of the situation in the garden. Susan was with the doctor from Langport and the young couple from the Pottery. He hoped she could take care of things down here in civilization. He touched an invisible hat brim to her, and she nodded back. The girl was pretty cool for a spook.
Pretty
for a spook, too. Being around her wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was reassuring to think she was on his side.

The firemen were down from the orchard, stowing their gear. Two hoses slithered down the hill in competition as they were reeled in on giant spools, nozzles bouncing. The chief ticked off one of his team for being careless with the equipment, and the man went off to pick up the hoses by their heads and make sure they weren’t clogged with grass or earth. His job done, the chief lit up a cigarette and posed, hands on hips, looking up at the steaming patch where the fire had been, waiting to be admired and congratulated.

Most of the rubberneck squadron had melted away, interest evaporated now the fire was doused and they’d enjoyed the opportunity to poke about in other people’s business, but there were one or two people milling about in the still-lit-up showroom. He saw Sharon Coram, a lank-haired, dull-faced young girl the lads sometimes called ‘the village pump’, slip an ashtray off one of the display tables and into a parka pocket. He let it go. He couldn’t take care of everything. Still, he’d be careful not to use her in any position of trust on his festival crew.

‘Bleddy townies an’t got the sense they’s born with,’ said a harsh voice in the dark. ‘Startin’ fires an’ all.’

‘Arr,’ came the assenting reply.

Casually, Lytton walked past the two old-timers as they wondered at the foolhardiness of foreigners. They didn’t pay him any attention. He strolled up the hill, away from the lights of the house and showroom. After climbing steadily for a few hundred yards, he looked back and saw the Pottery as an oasis of illumination in a desert of dark. He waited fifteen minutes, watching activity die down, people drift away. Then, the showroom lights went off. Headlights shifted, and he heard the last of the vehicles leaving. He’d given Derek the keys to the Land-Rover and instructions to get the Agapemone crowd home. Two lights still burned in the house. It was cool now, almost cold. He turned up his jacket collar. A few months of drought had made him forget what cold was like. He started walking again, letting his eyes grow used to the dark.

He was trudging through mud. There weren’t even embers from the fire. He was careful, taking his steps slowly. It would not do to break an ankle or walk into a tree. The gun in his pocket bumped against his chest like a pacemaker. He reached into his jacket and transferred the pistol to his hip pocket. The grip felt comfortable in his hand. He continued to hold the Browning in his pocket. Childish, he knew, but reassuring. No birds sang, but insects sawed the night.

What had happened up here in the orchard? It hadn’t been an out-of-control camp fire, and he didn’t think Paul had been having an after-lights-out session with an incinerator to get rid of garden rubbish. It had to be Jago, of course. Somehow, it had to be Jago.

Pyrokinesis. He remembered the word from Dr Cross’s briefing at
IPSIT
. Pyrokinesis, psychokinesis, apports, effective hallucination, psychic fallout. Lytton wasn’t sure he understood half what Cross had told him about Anthony William Jago. In the last few years he’d learned to be wary of undue scepticism. Giving something a scientific name didn’t make it natural. What Jago had could not be calibrated, dissected or exorcized with a Graeco-Latin tag. The man was possessed of... powers.

Nearby, at ground level, something groaned.

Instantly: still, listening, gun in hand. Good. The instinct override kicked in when he needed it. It was a long time since his basic training, and he’d had little use for his night skills since.

More groaning. It was someone too hurt to be dangerous. He reluctantly let go of the Browning. He’d have to be careful, or else he’d shoot a hole through his jacket. Or, worse, his thigh. He made his way, half crouched, towards the noise. He could make out someone lying face up, limbs spread as if staked to the ground.

‘James,’ the body got out, ‘I’m done over.’

It was Teddy Gilpin, dark patches—not shadows—on his face. His breathing was noisy and uneven. Froth trickled from his mouth. Lytton knelt and frisked the boy. There were no extra groans.

‘No broken bones, I think. What-?’

‘Terry. It were bloody Terry.’

‘Of course, Terry. Stupid bastard. Can you stand?’

‘Reckon so.’

Lytton helped him. Teddy made it to his feet, but sagged immediately. He felt for his head.

‘Ohhh, my nut.’

Teddy dizzily tried to stand on his own. He managed it, although he had to paw at the air like a seal to keep steady. One of his eyes was almost closed by bruising, and his cheek was open and streaming. The boy had been knocked senseless.

Lytton gave him a handkerchief. Teddy dabbed his cheek, yelping at the touch, but persisting until the grit was out of the cut. He hawked a lump of bloody phlegm into the linen.

‘Did Terry start the fire?’

Teddy thought, then painfully shook his head. ‘Nahh, don’t reckon so. Wouldn’t put it lower ’n him, but he were here well after us. He’s in a bloody foul mood.’

‘Too right, by the looks of you. Where is he now?’

‘Still up here somewhere. With Allison and some crazy biker bloke. He an’t got much of a face. They were in it together. They gone off into the woods’

‘Did the three of them beat you up?’

‘Nahh’ Teddy’s grin shone in the dark. ‘That were Terry on his own.’

Lytton tried to make some connections.

‘Allison? Is she with Terry?’

Teddy shook his head, grinning again, crusts of blood between his teeth. ‘Not likely. Terry’s petrified of her. He’s bad enough, but Allison’s a ravin’ psycho loony. She’m the one who kills cats. Terry’ll have gone with her ’cause he’s too chicken not to do what she tells him.’

Teddy’s hands were fists against the cold.

‘Do you want me to get you home?’

He shook his head. ‘Nahh, we best find Terry ’fore he does somethin’ else stupid. I reckon Allison’s new bloke is ten times the weird he is.’

‘Did you get a good look at this lad?’

‘Just enough to make out a fuckin’ mess where he ought to have a face. Could’ve been a mask, I s’pose.’

Lytton wished Susan were here. She might have been able to make something of Teddy’s testimony. She was effortlessly intuitive.

‘Where’d they go?’

‘Where d’you think? Up the hill.’

Lytton looked up towards the wood. ‘Okay, let’s track them.’

‘Sure thing,
kimosabe’.

Teddy would be all right; he hadn’t had daft jokes beaten out of him.

‘I just hope you’re stocked up on silver bullets,
kimosabe,
cause I reckon bloody Terry is turnin’ into one o’ they werewolves.’

‘There are worse things,’ Lytton said. Jago’s face peered into his mind, and he shivered. ‘Come on, we’d better get going.’

There was only one path out of the orchard. It had been used recently. There were wet footprints, which meant someone had come this way since the fire. The woods were a mess up here. Dead trees had split and fallen. Low branches were half furred black with soot.

‘This was damn nearly a forest fire.’

Although overgrown enough to be, in some stretches, a tunnel rather than a path, the way was negotiable. Lytton supposed several bodies had been through in the last day or so, swiping too low branches and too thick shrubs out of the way.

He might not be the Lone Ranger, but he was getting well up on his woodcraft. These years in the country must have taught him something, even if only by osmosis. They proceeded with the minimum of noise and fuss, Lytton going ahead, Teddy following.

A scrap of tune went through his head, repeating a phrase from a song, ‘In the still of the night…’ It was late. Nearly four by his watch. The first fingers of dawn would soon be crawling over the horizon. It was also, after this summer of drought and heat, really cold. He was glad now of the sleep he’d caught earlier. The cold seeped through his clothes, reaching for his bones. ‘In the chill, still of the
niiiight…’
Their breath was frosting.

The path ended. Before them was the Bomb Site, a slight dip in the flat top of Alder Hill, half grassed, half bare shingle. During the Second World War, he understood, a Luftwaffe bomber returning from a raid on Bristol had dumped its payload in the woods, mistaking the hill for a target. Nearly fifty years later, the resultant depression was still called the Bomb Site. Away from the towns and cities, time creeps like a glacier.

‘They London kids were camped out here,’ Teddy said, ‘but they’m gone.’

Opposite the path, there was a house. A wooden structure, built on a platform supported by piles, set into the gentle slope of the hollow. It had a shaded porch, and many of its boards hung loose.

‘That weren’t here before,’ Teddy whispered.

He was right. Lytton had never seen the place, and he had been to the Bomb Site several times before. The house was
old,
something from a Wild West ghost town. It could not have grown overnight like a mushroom.

‘Careful. Let’s go quietly.’

Lytton stood at the edge of the hollow, in the shade cast by two trees. The quality of the air in the Bomb Site was different, charged with electricity or heavy with an odourless gas. Above, the sky sparkled, inset with diamond chips. The house was as unmoving as a photograph.