The Doorkeepers (42 page)

He lifted his eyes to the very top tier, which was empty. He tried to remember a prayer that his mother had taught him and Julia when they were children – a prayer that we would all find Jesus one day, and that when we did, He would pick us up in His arms and comfort us for ever.

And then he saw Abraxas.

The dog was standing in the middle of the tier, alone, staring at him through the railings. Josh couldn't believe his eyes. He must have gotten bored and restless in Josh's room, and decided to find out where he was.

The theater was gloomy, and Josh couldn't even be sure that Abraxas had seen him. But he stared up at him hard; and he tried to convey with every ounce of his will that he wanted Abraxas to jump down into the center of the theater.
Jump, Abraxas! Jump, you stupid bastard! Jump!

Abraxas' ears pricked up, but he stayed where he was. Josh heard Nancy cry out, but he didn't take his eyes away from the topmost tier.
Jump, Abraxas! For God's sake, jump!

Abraxas turned and started to trot away. In desperation, Josh twisted his neck violently to the right, and then to the left, and cleared the Hooded Man's glove away from his mouth.

“Abraxas!”
he yelled, and gave a high-pitched, curling whistle. “Here, boy! Here, boy! Jump!”

The Hooded Man fumbled his glove over Josh's mouth, but Josh managed to twist his head sideways again and shout,
“Kill!”

Abraxas came leaping down from tier to tier, until he landed with a scrabble of claws in the middle of the operating theater. There were cries of surprise from all around. Some of the Masters started to laugh. Mr Crane shouted, “Get that dog, somebody!” and Mr Leggett looked up from the operating trolley in alarm.

Without any hesitation, Abraxas launched himself at the Hooded Man holding Josh's right arm. He sank his teeth into his leg and furiously tussled his head from side to side. The Hooded Man fell backward, knocking over another Master. He grabbed Abraxas' front legs and tried to pull him off, but Abraxas was part bull terrier, and once his jaws were locked, they stayed locked.

“Get it off me!”
roared the Hooded Man, smacking and punching at Abraxas' head.
“Get this infernal mutt off me!”

The other Hooded Man released his grip on Josh's left arm and drew his sword. But Josh – his adrenalin fired up – was even quicker. He grasped the Hooded Man's wrist and forced it violently backward, snapping all his tendons. The Hooded Man dropped his sword and Josh picked it up.

Now he went mad with rage. He grasped the sword in both hands and swung it around, hitting the Hooded Man across the chest. It cut through cloth and leather and bone, and the Hooded Man collapsed on to his knees. Next he thrust the point of the sword straight into the hessian face of the second Hooded Man. It went right into his head and stuck in the back of his skull. Abraxas looked up from the man's leg.

“Come on, boy, kill!” Josh urged him.

“Seize that man!”
shouted Master Spire.
“Seize him at once
!”

But Josh yelled out,
“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
and advanced into the center of the operating theater with his sword whirling over his head and nobody was ready to take him on – not even the Hooded Men. Mr Leggett dropped his scalpel and pushed his way toward the rear doors. Mr Crane came hurrying after him, knocking over the trays of surgical instruments.

One-handed, Josh unbuckled the straps that held Nancy's wrists and ankles. Her thigh was bleeding but it was a clean, sharp wound and Mr Leggett had only just started to cut.

“Come on,” Josh told her, and helped her off the operating trolley. He reached down and grabbed the sheet which had covered her and said, “Here – wrap yourself in this.”

Two more Hooded Men had drawn their swords and were climbing down from the tiers, but Abraxas rushed at them, barking wildly, and all they could do was circle around, cautiously prodding at him.

Josh crossed over to the wheeled carriage where Boudicca lay. She watched him from the middle of her dried layers of human flesh as he lifted his sword and pointed it toward her neck.

“What are you doing?”
screamed Master Spire.
“If you kill Boudicca, the six doors will close for ever!”

“I'll tell you what I'm doing,” said Josh. “I'm making sure that Miss Andersen goes free, and that you give her safe passage through the nearest door. If you don't, I'll cut your precious Boudicca's head off. And don't think I'm joking.”

Frank Mordant stepped forward. “You're an idiot, Mr Win ward. I always said that Yanks were idiots. If you kill Boudicca, then you'll be trapped in this world for the rest of your life – which probably wouldn't be very long, if the Doorkeepers have their way.”

“That's a risk I'm prepared to take.”

“My, my! You
are
selfless! But, you see, I'm not going to let you hurt one wrinkle of our lovely Boudicca's skin, because you won't be the only one who's trapped here.
I
will be, too. And without the doors, I won't be anything more important than the sales director of an electrical company out on the
Great West Road. So you see – I can't possibly have that, now can I?”

Nancy said, “Josh, I'm not going without you. There's absolutely no way.” There was a wide bloodstain on the sheet that she had wound around herself.

“Honey, it's the only way. I want one of these people to take you to Star Yard. When you're there, and when the candles are lit, I want you to call me from the phone booth down on the corner of the street. Tell me that the Hoodies are staying at least a hundred feet away from you, and that you're ready to go. Then run, and jump, and get yourself back to the real world.”

“I can't live without you, Josh.”

“You'll have to. We don't have any choice. Now, go.”

Nancy still hesitated. Josh said, “Please, Nancy. Don't make it any harder than it is already.”

He held out his left hand for her. At that instant, however, Frank Mordant ducked and feinted like a boxer, and snatched Josh's sword. With a grunt of exertion, he lifted it like a giant dagger and aimed it directly at Josh's heart.

But Abraxas was even faster. He bounded from the floor, landing right on Frank Mordant's shoulders. Frank Mordant shouted out,
“Shit!”
and stumbled forward, catching his foot on the frame of Boudicca's carriage.

Josh saw it happen almost as if it were in slow motion. Frank Mordant's expression, wide-eyed, horrified. Boudicca's ghostly face, staring at him in an extraordinary mixture of fear and relief. And the sword breaking through the layers of dried skin, crumbling and cracking, deep into her many-layered abdomen.

The silence in the theater was overwhelming. Boudicca's eyes looked down at the sword that was piercing her many bodies, almost up to the hilt. She let out a thin, reedy whine, and a trickle of watery blood ran down the side of her chin.

“You've killed her,” said Master Spire, rigid with shock. “You've killed Boudicca.”

Frank Mordant stepped back, licking his lips. Boudicca's chest rose and fell, rose and fell. One of her desiccated
hands twitched up, its fingers curled like an autumn leaf. Nobody moved. Nobody seemed to know what to do. Boudicca coughed, and it sounded as if she were trying to say something.

“She's not dead yet,” said Frank Mordant. He turned and stared at Josh.
“She's not dead yet
!
”

Josh suddenly understood what he meant. As long as Boudicca was still alive, the doors would still be open. He seized Frank Mordant's sleeve and said, “Get us all out of here! Now! The nearest door you know!”

“What? So that you can have me arrested?”

“If you get us back through that door I'll forget I ever heard of you.”

Two of the Hooded Men approached them, their swords held high. Without hesitation, Josh bent down and swept up the sword of the first Hooded Man who had fallen, and stalked toward them, swinging it wildly around his head. Abraxas jumped at the Hooded Men, too, snarling and barking. They backed away, confused, and as Nancy and Frank Mordant and Josh retreated out of the operating theater, they made no attempt to come after them.

Josh said, “They're not even following us.”

“They don't think they have to. The second Boudicca dies, that's it – we're going to be trapped here, and they can hunt us down at their leisure. And you can imagine what they'll do to us then.”

They reached Frank Mordant's car in the hospital parking lot. He fumbled with the keys, but he managed to open the doors and start up the engine. Josh sat in the front. Nancy sat in the back with Abraxas. The dog was quivering with excitement and Nancy had to stroke him to calm him down. He obviously couldn't understand why he wasn't allowed to continue biting Frank Mordant's head off.

Frank Mordant was sweating now, and he backed out of the hospital gates with a jarring clash of gears.

“Candles?” asked Josh. “Do you have any candles?”

“Glove box,” said Frank Mordant. Josh opened it and took out a carton of six.

They sped through the City, weaving in and out of traffic, running red lights. They drove across Ludgate Circus at nearly fifty miles an hour without stopping. A double-decker bus had to swerve to avoid them, and two other cars slewed around and careered up on to the pavement. “We may be too late already,” said Frank Mordant, as the Armstrong-Siddeley squealed around the corner of Carey Street. He hit the curb, switched off the engine, and yanked on the handbrake. They scrambled out and ran up Star Yard as fast as they could, dodging in between passing pedestrians.

Frank Mordant knelt down and lit the three candles with trembling hands. “Oh God, don't let her be dead yet. Please God don't let her be dead.”

He and Josh recited the rhyme between them. “Now,
go!”
Josh urged Nancy.

Nancy jumped awkwardly over the candles and started to walk into the niche. Abraxas jumped after her.

“Please God, let it still be there,” prayed Frank Mordant.

Nancy limped to the end of the niche. She stopped. Then she turned around and said, “It's OK! It's still here! I'm going through!”

She disappeared from sight. Frank Mordant stepped back in preparation for following her. As he did so, Josh punched him hard in the face, and then in the stomach. Frank Mordant gasped and dropped on to his knees.

“I'm going to keep my promise,” Josh told him. “I'm not going to hand you in to the cops. But you deserve to be punished, you bastard. You murdered my sister and God knows how many other girls. You would have stood there today and watched us die, and enjoyed it. Well, this is your punishment. Staying here with the Hoodies. I hope you live a long and miserable life.”

With that, he punched Frank Mordant again, so that he fell backward on to the pavement, and lay there, stunned.

Then, with a last quick look at the world of the Doorkeepers, Josh jumped over the candles and started to make his way through the dark brick passage between the buildings.

He was only on his second turn, however, when he realized
that the passage seemed much narrower than it had before. His shoulders were actually scraping against the walls. By the time he reached the next turn, he had to turn sideways, and even then it was difficult to force his way through. With a rising feeling of panic and claustrophobia, he realized what was happening – Boudicca was dying, and as she died her consciousness was fading, and the door was closing up. With him still inside it.

He dragged himself through the passage faster and faster, his knuckles scraping against the brick. He managed to maneuver himself around the last corner, and ahead of him he could see daylight, and Star Yard, and Nancy waiting for him, still wrapped in her sheet.

He stopped, and tried to calm himself down, and exhaled.
Don't panic, whatever you do. Take it steady, take it easy, and you'll get out safely.

Inch by inch, he edged himself nearer the opening. Now he could hear traffic, and Nancy shouting out, “Josh! Hurry! It's getting smaller and smaller!”

He was nearly at the opening when his left shoe caught, wedged in between the walls. No matter how he twisted it, he couldn't dislodge it. The walls were so close together now that he could hardly breathe, and he felt his ribs cracking.

“Josh!”
screamed Nancy, and seized hold of his arm. She pulled him as hard as she could, and gradually she managed to inch him out. His foot came out of his shoe, and he fell sideways on to the pavement, gasping for breath. Nancy lay beside him, oblivious to the stares from passers-by, sobbing and laughing at the same time.

“We made it. We made it. I can't believe we made it. What happened to Frank Mordant?”

Josh lifted his bruised knuckles. “I kind of discouraged him from coming with us. I think he'll get quite enough punishment for killing Boudicca.”

They slowly stood up. As they did so, however, Abraxas started to bark at the last narrow crack in the wall.

“What's the matter, Abraxas? What's wrong, boy?” Josh tried to pull him away, but he stayed where he was, still
barking. “Come on, Abraxas. I want to get the hell out of here. Nancy needs to see a doctor.”

It was then that he heard a gasping sound, and then another. He shaded his eyes and peered into the niche.

“Don't let it close!” choked a voice from inside. “For Christ's sake, whatever you do, don't let it close!”

“My God,” said Josh. “Frank Mordant's in there.”

They could just see him, trying to make his way around the last corner in the passageway. He was thinner and much less muscular than Josh, but it seemed almost impossible for any man to be able to squeeze himself through such a tight crevice.

“Let your breath out!” called Josh. “Try and wriggle like a snake; that'll help you get through!”