The Thirteen Hallows (15 page)

Reaction hit them only when they were well away from the flat, Skinner driving hard, clutching the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip. Suddenly the skinhead swerved to the side of the road, pushed open the door, leaned his head out, and vomited.

Elliot swallowed hard and turned away, wiping his sleeve across his watering eyes and nose.

Skinner slammed the door. His breath was coming in great heaving gasps, and he pounded the steering wheel. “I’ll kill her. I’ll fucking kill her.” They had evaded the cops, but the skinhead knew he was going to have to ditch his beloved van. He was sure the cops had made it. He turned to Elliot. “Just who the fuck is she? I thought she was a nobody, a nothing. You told me she was a nobody,” he said accusingly.

“She is a nobody,” Elliot said tiredly.

“This nobody’s killed two of my people. She killed Karl!”

“I know. I know. Find a phone box. I need to call someone.”

“You’ve got a cell, use it,” Skinner snapped. “This is all your fucking fault,” he added.

Elliot’s hand closed over Skinner’s throat, slender fingers squeezing, long manicured fingernails leaving half-moons in the pale flesh. Before Skinner could react, the small man produced the pliers and closed the ends—gently—around the skinhead’s protruding tongue. “Don’t you
ever
speak to me like that again!” He squeezed the pliers for emphasis. “Now be a good little boy and do as you’re told.”

VYVIENNE HAD
been in the Astral, the Otherworld, when the skinhead had been killed.

With an ease born of long practice, she interpreted the spots and lines of vibrating colors. She was able to visualize what was happening and pinpoint exactly where they were. The colors screamed out at her: The cobalt blue white of the boy’s terror contrasted sharply with the forest green and midnight blue of Elliot and his two henchmen. The woman noted that Elliot’s bloodlust was tempered with the yellow of sexual arousal. And then the girl appeared, flooding the other colors with her own: cold white, tinged with red and black. Terror. Anger. Then pain.

And then, suddenly, another color had flooded the Otherworld. Bright yellow light blazed, swallowing all the other colors in a flash of bright energy.

The sword had tasted blood.

Again.

Ancient and incredibly powerful pulsations of gold light trembled through the Astral, sending Vyvienne reeling back. For an instant, she had seen directly into the Incarnate World below. She had seen Sarah Miller lift the broken remnant of the sword and plunge it into the boy.

Vyvienne awoke screaming, hands flailing at the yellow fire that washed over her, the wordless howling as the sword sank into the boy’s flesh and devoured his blood and soul.

Ahriman held her protectively, soothing her, allowing her to draw upon a little of his strength. With her head pressed against his chest, he drew up the sheet to cover her naked body so that she would not be able to see the puckered water blisters that were beginning to swell on her flesh.

“What did you see?” he whispered, stroking her temples.

“The Broken Sword. It has killed again. Drunk blood. Energy. Life. Such power…,” she muttered sleepily. “Such power.”

“Where is it?” Ahriman demanded.

“Such power,” Vyvienne mumbled, and fell asleep.

In the bedroom, the phone started ringing.

“SO YOU
have failed me again, Mr. Elliot. And lost one of your men too.”

“But how…” There was no possible way that his employer could know. None. Unless, of course, he had someone watching the house.

“You forget, Mr. Elliot, I know everything there is to know about you. I know what you do, and with whom you do it. I know where you go, whom you see…I know everything. Now tell me you have the sword.”

Elliot frowned. If his employer knew everything, then how come he didn’t know whether or not he had the sword? Or was this a trap, to see how much he would reveal? “I don’t have the sword,” he admitted. “Miller ripped up one of my men and then attacked us. We barely got out with our lives.”

“Is she still in the flat with the American?”

“As far as I know.”

“Then go back and get them both. I want them alive. Not necessarily unharmed, but I want them alive. And get me that sword. Don’t fail me again, Mr. Elliot, or there will be severe consequences,” he added, and hung up.

“WE’VE GOT
to go back,” he said to Skinner, climbing back into the van.

“No fucking way am I going back!”

Elliot ignored him. From under the seat, he pulled out a length of heavy chain and dropped it in Skinner’s lap. Then he pulled out a lump hammer. In the reflected streetlights, his smile was ghastly. “All we have to do is deliver them alive. Condition doesn’t really matter.”

The skinhead smiled and nodded in understanding. Without a word, he turned the van around.

He was going to enjoy breaking Sarah Miller’s kneecaps.

Where will you go?”

Owen shook his head. “I don’t know.”

The couple stood in the shadows, watching for any movement on the quiet road. With the exception of a filthy white-haired tramp huddled in a doorway, the street seemed deserted.

Owen pulled out his car keys and crossed the street to the badly parked seven-year-old Honda Civic. Sarah hurried after him, clutching Judith Walker’s bag in one hand, the Broken Sword in the other. Owen had the car running by the time she reached it.

Inside, they breathed a collective sigh of relief.

“Drop me at the nearest police station,” Sarah said tiredly.

“Are you sure you won’t change your mind?”

“There’s no point in running. The longer I run, the more convinced they’ll be that I’m guilty.” She stopped suddenly. “And I am guilty.”

“Self-defense,” Owen snapped.

“I’m not sure the police will see it that way.”

Sarah looked out the window. So much had happened in the last two days, so many incomprehensible things. She wondered if she’d ever get rid of the stench of death. She felt it permanently affixed to her clothes and embedded in her skin, a noxious mixture of gas and excrement, the metallic odor of blood, and another indefinable smell: the stink of fear.

She had killed a man.

Her second today.

She lifted the rusted lump of metal and turned it over in her red-stained hands. She assumed the staining on her hands was rust; however, she suspected otherwise. There was a part of her, in the deep recesses of her mind, that believed the sword was oozing blood.

“Sarah?”

Dyrnwyn, the Sword That Is Broken.

“Sarah?”

She remembered its weight in her hands, the perfect balance as she thrust it, the sword a natural extension of her arm. In the moment when the sword had sunk into the body and fed on the boy, she had felt…
satiated
. She remembered the flush of heat and warmth that flowed through her body.

“Sarah?”

She realized that Owen was talking. “I still think I should come with you to the police. Once I explain the circumstances…”

Sarah turned and caught his face in both hands, her fingers leaving red streaks on his olive skin. “Listen to me. The police already suspect me of killing my own family. They know I was in the house with your aunt this afternoon. I’m sure they think I killed her too,” she added bitterly. “Now they’ve got a body on the train and another here. They’re going to lock me up forever, and I am not dragging you into this. You don’t even know me.” There were huge tears in her eyes, and she was finding it hard to breathe.

Owen carefully eased her hands away from his face. He squeezed her fingers until they hurt and the pain registered. “I am coming with you to the police,” he said firmly. “They’ll believe me.”

“How?” she demanded.

“I’ll make them. I’ll tell them the truth.”

“What truth?” She laughed shakily.

They drove in silence for a few minutes. At a light, Owen turned to her, asking in earnest, “Aren’t you interested in the men behind this? The men who attacked me tonight—” His voice broke suddenly. “The men who killed my aunt. Aren’t you interested in seeing them brought to justice?”

Sarah stared straight ahead, refusing to allow any more tears. “These men killed my entire family. I want to see them rot, I want justice…but I know there’s nothing I can do. These people have killed and will kill again, and I’m certain they’re hunting us now.”

“But why?”

Sarah Miller lifted the remains of the sword off her lap. “For this.”

“A broken antique?”

Sarah shook her head. “More than that. Much more.”

“But what is it?”

“I’m not sure yet,” she murmured. Then she shook her head. “It’s old…no, older than old, it’s ancient. And deadly.”

Skinner leaned across the steering wheel. “There they are. In the red Civic.”

“I see them,” Elliot muttered. The car was pulling out of Scarsdale Villas onto Earls Court Road. “Damn,” he swore softly. “I was hoping to catch them in the house or some quiet backstreet, where their screams wouldn’t attract too much attention.”

“What do I do?” Skinner asked.

“Fall in behind them. We’ll move in at the first opportunity.” He lifted the hammer and allowed the heavy head to slap into his cupped palm.
Alive,
his employer had said,
but not necessarily unharmed.

“I THINK
there’s a van following us.”

Sarah resisted the temptation to look. “How can you tell?”

“We’re doing just under thirty. Everyone else on the road is going at least fifty, but the van is keeping pace with us.”

“Make a couple of turns. See if they follow us,” Sarah suggested. Her fingers closed around the hilt of the sword, drawing strength from the oxidized metal.

Without signaling, Owen immediately turned to the left. The car between them and the van stopped sharply, tires screeching, the stunned driver simultaneously hitting brake and horn. At the bottom of the street, Owen turned right, then right again. At the top of the road, he turned left, back onto Earls Court Road.

“We’ve lost them,” Sarah breathed.

As they pulled back out into traffic, the van slipped in two cars behind them.

“No, we haven’t,” Owen said.

“HE’S MADE
us!” Skinner snapped.

Elliot nodded. “Pull up next to him. Force them off the road.”

“In the middle of the city?”

“Do it.” Elliot was gambling that no one would want to get involved. With the cell phone revolution, there had developed a collective apathy that suggested people would get involved only to the extent of tapping in the numbers to call the police. They could boast guiltlessly about doing the right thing, while staying physically un-involved, safely cocooned in their own cars.

No one would dare take the risk.

Miller had taken the risk, and look what had happened to her.

They’d have a couple minutes before someone phoned the police and a few minutes more before the police actually reached the scene. Plenty of time in which to take care of business. And if any do-gooder wanted to take part, well, Elliot would encourage them to walk away. He tapped the hammer in his hand.

WHITE VANS
had disturbed Sarah ever since she saw
The Silence of the Lambs
. One could never trust the driver of a white van whose back contained unseen cargo. As the van pulled up beside them, Sarah wondered if it was now her destiny to be thrown into the back of the van.

To die in the dark.

She caught a glimpse of the profile of the passenger, and then the man turned and looked down into the small car. There was a single moment of recognition before the van door opened and the sharp-faced man leaned out, a hammer raised in his left hand. “Owen!” Sarah shouted.

The hammer smashed into the windscreen, spiderwebbing it, showering the front seats with tiny flecks of glass. Owen screamed, jerking on the wheel and sending the Civic into the heavier van, metal crumpling before the lighter car bounced off. He crashed into it again, showering sparks across Elliot, who was clinging to the door by the seat belt.

“Keep driving. Keep driving!” Sarah shouted as she smashed at the windscreen with the Broken Sword, punching a hole through the frosted window.

The white van smashed into the Civic, and Sarah watched as the older man who’d punched her in the chest with the pliers leaned out to slam the hammer onto the car roof, rupturing the metal. A third blow completely shattered the driver’s window, crystalline shards speckling Owen’s ashen face.

“Brake,” Sarah shouted, “brake!”

Owen slammed on the brakes, and the Civic screamed to a halt. There was a sudden crash as a car ran into the back of the Civic, followed by a lesser crash as another car stopped short. And another crash after that. A domino effect. The van shot past before the driver realized what had happened. It took him twenty yards before he slammed on the brakes, white smoke cascading from the van’s tires. Its reversing lights flared white.

Owen spun the wheel, cutting across the road, horns blaring, metal and glass crumpling and shattering, as drivers stood on their brakes, most of them too late.

“You’re good,” Sarah gasped.

“Far too many hours of Xbox with my nephews.” Owen grinned as he shot past the reversing Volkswagen and out onto Kensington High Street.

The white van attempted to follow them. It mounted the pavement, scattering late-night strollers, and bounced back onto the road again.

Twisting in her seat, Sarah watched as the van shot forward, but by the time they turned onto Kensington High Street, she’d lost sight of the van. “Dump the car,” Sarah said decisively.

Owen wiped the back of his face with his hand, blood from his nicked cheeks and forehead staining his hand. He could feel glass shards in his face. “Forget it. I’m not leaving this car. I saved for two whole years to buy it.”

Sarah caught a flicker of movement behind them. She twisted in the seat to look through the rear window, seeing the van dart through the light traffic behind them. “They’re back.”

“I can see that.”

“Then drive faster,” Sarah ordered.

“This is as fast as we can go.”

Moments later, the van roared up and slammed into the back of the Civic, crushing the bumper to shards.

Owen grunted, seat belt biting into his chest and stomach, feeling the long muscles at the back of his neck tighten, knowing he’d suffered a mild whiplash. He was gripping the steering wheel so tightly, he could feel his fingernails digging into the flesh of his palms.

Where were the police?

The van struck the car again, sending it careering across the road. The rear bumper struck a lamppost, and as the metal pole buckled, the fluorescent bulb exploded into a shower of sparks.

Owen quickly reversed the car and got back on the road. He drove through a red light with the van in close pursuit. A black Mercedes coming through the green light struck the van just above the rear wheel, the heavy car spinning the van ninety degrees. The middle-aged Mercedes driver looked on in shocked amazement as the van drove away, leaving a litter of broken metal and glass in the middle of the street. He had just enough presence of mind to note the license plate number before he phoned the police from the car.

“THERE IT
is!” Skinner pointed.

The Civic was parked at the entrance to Derry Street, lights on, right indicator flashing. Both doors were open.

Elliot leapt from the van even before it had stopped moving. He darted past the car, ducking to glance inside. It was empty.

No Miller.

No bag.

No sword.

Holding the hammer in both hands, he hurried down the narrow street. Skinner drove slowly past. The narrow street opened out into Kensington Square. Skinner stopped and climbed out of the van, the chain dangling from his fist. He waited while Elliot came running up. “They could have gone anywhere,” the skinhead mumbled.

Elliot raised the hammer, and for a single moment, Skinner thought he was going to hit him.

“What are we going to do?”

Elliot didn’t know. His employer was going to be livid.

“You can tell the boss we did our best. It’s not our fault they escaped.”

“Then whose fault is it?” Elliot snarled.

The skinhead looked at him blankly. Then he shrugged. “What are you going to tell him?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” Elliot flung the hammer into the van and climbed in. He had a large sum in used notes in his apartment and a variety of passports. If he left now, he could be far away before his icy-voiced employer even knew what had happened here tonight.

MOVING QUICKLY,
huddled together like any late-night lovebirds, Owen and Sarah tried to conceal their terror as they hurried down the steps into Kensington High Street tube station, catching one of the last trains of the evening.