P.N.E. (The Wolfblood Prophecies Book 4) (11 page)

And Quinn.

Quinn, well Quinn, he just stared at his fallen friend until, once everybody had finally left and all but the tiniest of sounds had settled down, he moved from the doorway and into the room where they had carried Reg away from him. And after all of that time and all of that watching and all of that being utterly unable to do one single thing to help he fell to his knees beside his best friend’s bed and he wept and he cried and he howled. He stared at his friend and his friend, he did not stare back. He did not move. He was cold. And when Quinn had run out of tears and wrung out his hands well, then, only then, did Quinn look up. He looked up through the gloomy ceiling, and he looked on up through the dank, dark ground above him and he kept on looking up and he looked through the ravaged earth above and he looked up. He looked past the burning wasteland and he saw through the poison rainclouds and he looked up through the pain and the shit and the lies and he looked up to the sky above and in his mind he saw the night time stars he'd seen so many long hard years ago and he looked up and he looked up and he looked up and he looked up and then Quinn, well then, Quinn, he said;

‘No more.’

‘No more for the Rainmaker.’

He rose to his feet and gathered his strength and said, 'This is War,’ to the empty room.

Jo was summoned to Quinn the next day.

‘I’ve underestimated you. I’m hoping we can start over.’

‘I’d like that,’ said Jo. ‘We got off on the wrong foot.’

‘Quite so. Listen, I heard you sing last night and man, I got to tell you, you were great. All of you. It was the sound of your voices raised that kept us all going. Smokey, Reg and me were dancing together, singing along.’

Jo said nothing. It was clear that Reg had died long before Quinn had dragged him home and that Smokey would certainly never sing and probably never dance again. But she said nothing anyway.

‘I heard you sing of Ali, too. You know her, I felt it.’

‘You did?’

‘I sure did. So listen, I heard you healed a whole regiment. Is that true?’

‘It is.’

‘You can do it again?’ The eager question was more like a statement.

‘I don’t know. I’ve only ever fully summoned the lotus once before and I’ve tried so hard since then until now trying to make it happen again. I just can’t control it.’

‘That’s what I was afraid of. Pity.’

‘I’m sorry, Sir,’ said Jo.

Quinn looked at her but said nothing. It was clear that he was brimming with rage. When he eventually spoke his voice was cold and bitter. ‘Dismissed, Nurse.’

‘You asked to see me, Sir?’

‘Come in, Nurse.’ Five days had passed. They’d taken Reg to the tunnel used as a graveyard and they buried him deep in the dark. The strong soldiers carried him with reverence the whole way.

Jo had relatively little to do in the ward now that the injured soldiers were all healed. Nearly every bed was empty, but none felt so empty as the bed they’d lain Reg upon. You could hear a pin drop. Despite their last encounter, Jo was relieved to be active again.

‘Can I trust you, Jo?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘But you know that you’re crazy, right?’

‘I don’t know how I got here, Sir. But here I am.’

‘Yeah, that’s not an answer. Cool.’

And with that Quinn started walking and he trailed Jo beside him. They walked out of his office and past the Infirmary and down to Munitions and alongside the Barracks and they came up to the Motor Pool and they walked straight up to the door.

‘We’re lost without Ali. Our intel is gone. Reg knew there was a spy among us but we could never figure out who. Still can’t. So many times we planned the perfect attack and at the last moment we’d hear word from Ali that they’re already waiting for us. Well, without her to warn us we’re going in blind and more often than not, we are losing. Now I only met Princess Jocasta for a few minutes when she was a small child but I’ve seen her on the news feed and she looks just like you. How is that?’

‘I can’t tell you. You’ll either laugh or get angry.’

Quinn looked at her and said, ‘Kid, I could do with either right now.’ And despite all his weariness he gave her a wink.

Jo took a deep breath. ‘OK then. In the place where I grew up King Paul was my father. Queen Lethe was my aunt and Ali my mother. You weren’t there.’

‘So Jocasta and you are half-sisters as well as cousins.’ Jo shuddered. ‘Sorry. I creeped myself out too.’

‘Sir, I can see where this is going. You need someone inside the Royal Court. You need someone who can act as if the King himself is her own father. You have a doppelganger at your disposal – me - and most of all you need to know if Ali is OK. And so do I.’

‘I can see you’ve been thinking about this too.’

‘It’s the obvious play, Sir,’ said Jo, smiling.

‘So you’ll do it? Do you think you can do it?’

‘Yes Sir. I can and I will. Just get me in the door and I’ll bring her home.’

‘Outstanding. Now, how the hell are we going to do it?’

Jo thought hard, then took another deep breath. ‘Sir, you’ve trusted me this far and I’ve trusted you. Don’t tell Brenda anything. In my time she seems every bit as loyal as your Brenda is, but there, she’s a traitor. What’s worse is she doesn’t even know it. Titus twists all her loyalty and uses her as a sleeper spy.’

Quinn froze. His face tightened. ‘What?’

‘I’m not saying
your
Brenda is a spy, Sir. In my world Brenda’s a very different person, just not quite who she appears to be. Because of Titus. I don’t get that impression here. But I can’t help wondering. As far as I know your Brenda has never even met Titus.’

‘Have
you
?’ snapped Quinn, suddenly. ‘Have you met Titus Stigmurus?’

Jo chose her words carefully. ‘I’ve met another Titus and he’s been several different versions of himself. He was a mix of an evil villain and a crazy scientist until he got locked in a cell strapped to a bomb for forty days and nights. That was down to Smokey. After he was released he set about making amends for his hideous crimes. But he still runs the Vermin; they just changed their name. It’s sad in a way, as they manage to somehow pervert and twist all of his shiny new, good intentions. He tries to help people but he ends up using them all instead. He doesn’t really have any power now.’

‘Well think back to that crazy evil scientist and then give him the whole world. In this time, he has all the power.’

‘You speak as if you believe me!’ gasped Jo.

‘I believe what I see, Jo. You and Ali resonate the same way; you’re her family through and through. But you’re not from around here, and that kinda makes sense too, in the way that it doesn’t so it also fits. I can’t explain how you got here, but I know that you believe it and I asked you to trust me so I am doing the same.’

Jo didn’t know what to say. So Quinn said, ‘I don’t know how to get you back there either.’ He set off walking again, pacing up and down, thinking hard. ‘With any luck you won’t see him that often.  It’s good that you know a side of him that we all don’t; it’ll help with your cover story.’

‘When I first got here everybody thought I’d hit my head. Maybe we could try the same thing twice?’

‘Not bad at all; even more cover. You’ll have to familiarise yourself with her toot sweet. For now, let’s keep this strictly on a need-to-know operation.’

After all the pacing they had arrived back at the motor pool door.

‘I asked if I could trust you, Jo, and I think that I can. You are to tell nobody what lies beyond this door. Is that clear?’

‘Yes Sir, you have my word.’

And with that Quinn heaved the huge sliding door aside and there before them was an enormous tunnel. It was made out of concrete and was fifty feet wide. The walls were reinforced and it looked brand new. Apart from the pillbox it was the only strong, reliable looking building Jo had seen in this place. It made her smile and raised her hopes.

‘Genius, this was. Took a lot of manpower and a lot of secrecy and I’ll tell you right now that Brenda was a huge part of that. Up there is a warehouse. We convinced the Vermin their whole facility was toxic and then placed our boys as the clean-up crew. They evacuated the soldiers and workers alike and then cordoned it all off and sealed it up. Of course, we sealed it up from the inside and then we dug our way down until we hit this place. Hundreds of men working in silence in unison in the dark. It’s remarkable when you look at it. It was Reg who had the idea.’

And again, a moment of silence for the fallen.

‘So how shall we get me in?’ asked Jo. ‘And I’m glad I was wrong about Brenda.’

By now they had reached the top of the service ramp. Quinn smiled at her again. ‘We’ll have to pull a switch.’ And with that he yanked on a pulley and above them an enormous hatch drew back. He handed her a gas mask and they stepped out into the hollow shell of a giant warehouse.

‘Sometimes I just need room to breathe,’ said Quinn, his voice made thin and reedy by the respirator. Despite the irony, Jo knew exactly what he meant.

Jo was in position. She was wearing the hideous grey coverall that she had found when she first awoke in this nightmare. Beside her stood Corporal Watkins; one of Quinn’s best men. He was dressed as every inch a Vermin trooper. They had slipped out of the pillbox at the end of Dayshift and Watkins had marched past the crowds, dragging Jo along behind him. Nobody said a word, and the ones who saw, looked away.

Never had Jo witnessed such helplessness. Beneath a tortured blackened sky choked with dark red rainclouds, there was a shanty town, a shell formed from the rubble and ruins of the former civilization. Hollow-eyed workers trudged through the filth and the biting cold and the stinging rain. Another day of ceaseless productivity under armed guard before being spat out back into the cold as the night shift was churned in to replace them. More troops marched them to the makeshift hovels where, among the broken glass, the best thing in life awaited them; sleep. They were told when to sleep, when to wake, when to work, when to eat and when to die, and thanks to the tranquilisers that the VMN pumped into the workhouses, they did it like frightened cattle.

The Heart of London, however, was a fortress.

Once through the checkpoint with an ‘Open the gate, this one’s for the nobs,’ and a swipe of forged ID, the disguised Watkins and Jo set foot in the grounds beyond.