dEaDINBURGH (6 page)

“So what? There are bad people everywhere. We’ve done a pretty good job of avoiding them or chasing them away so far. We’re a great team, Jock.”

Shaking his head, Jock continued. “We… you’ve never met people like these. I’m not taking you anywhere near them.
I
don’t want to be anywhere near them.”

Joey had never heard Jock speak this way before. The padre was confidence and practicality personified. This just wasn’t him.

Joey stayed quiet for a few long moments. “Where are they, Jock? You know you’ll have to tell me.”

Jock had made a point over the years of reinforcing Joey with the notion that he wouldn’t be there for much longer to teach him how to survive; that he had to absorb as much as possible and learn the territory well enough to allow him to make a life, a safe life, when Jock was gone. “I’m nearly seventy, Joseph,” he’d say. “That’s an old man in this new world ruled by the dead.” Joey would laugh to lighten the mood and tell him he had plenty years left, but they both knew that it was wishful thinking.

The scavenging, the constant travelling, the fighting and the presence of sickness all around were aging him. He was slower, clumsy at times; he was getting forgetful and making mistakes. He was a young man trapped in an old man’s body and that body was beginning to fail him.

Jock considered the man Joey was becoming and knew that the kid would go south on his own once he’d passed on. He couldn’t let him go there blind of the dangers. Jock let out a long sigh.

“He calls himself Somna, thinks that he’s some sort of messenger from God.”

Joey leaned in closer to the fire, giving Jock his full attention.

“He…” Jock searched for the word, “worships, I suppose. He worships one of The Ringed, a man that used to be a celebrity.”

Seeing a look of confusion flash across Joey’s face, Jock explained.

“Celebrities were people who’d gotten famous for something; like an achievement of some kind or a skill, or just by being on TV. You remember I told you about TV?”

Joey nodded.

“Well, he’s got this Ringed who used to be a famous footballer. It’s in a pretty advanced stage, like those ones out there.” Jock indicated John and Evie out in the hall. “So he has this footballer who was a big hero to him when he was a kid, one of the most famous. This footballer was global. His face was everywhere, advertising all sorts of products. He had soccer academies and what-not as well, as I recall. Well, Somna, he… talks to him. Receives commands from this rotted corpse of a once famous athlete who’d been unlucky enough to be attending a fashion show in Edinburgh when the plague broke.” Jock raised his eyebrows, acknowledging how crazy it sounded.

“So, he’s just like that nutter we came across in Pilton. Him with the panda,” Joey laughed.

Jock snapped at him “No. He’s not like that man.”

Embarrassed at his own outburst he sat himself back down.

“This man believes that it’s his mission to rid Edinburgh of the living. He thinks that the dead footballer has chosen him to do this. He and his men have killed dozens of people who are simply trying to survive this mess. Maybe hundreds”

“Okay,” said Joey, palms in a submissive gesture to calm the padre. “Where exactly is he?”

Jock eyed him suspiciously. “You’re never to go there, you understand?”

Joey nodded.

“This isn’t something we can change or can help with. He has hundreds, maybe a thousand, dedicated to his cause and he collects more followers from the communities he destroys in his king’s name. If we go south, we stay away from the fence-line. Somna and his people, they call themselves The Exalted. They think that anyone who survived in the city-centre is now dead as it was the epicentre of the outbreak. That’s the only reason that they haven’t made their way to the city-centre communities – that and the fact that they’ve been busy torturing, killing,
purifying
they call it, their way across the towns south of the city.”

Jock looked crushed as he relayed the story.

“You’ve met them.” It wasn’t a question.

Jock gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head.

“I tried to stop a small group of them from killing a young couple out in Liberton. Obviously I failed. They tortured those people, cut parts from them and took joy, actual joy, from doing so. They fed the body parts to their king and left those kids in pieces to rot. Just for being in their path, for being alive. I barely escaped. You must never go near them, you hear me, Joseph. I’m telling you where they are so that you can avoid it.”

“I promise, Jock.” Joey meant it.

The padre spent the next thirty minutes describing the location and layout of The Exalted tribe’s camp in Drum Woods. Then he added, “There have been rumours of a cure for the infection, you know. In the old Royal Infirmary out on Little France on the South Side.”

Joey nodded. Despite never having explored the south, Jock had insisted that he spend hours studying maps of Edinburgh they’d found in petrol stations and hotels over the years. They’d adapted a map of the city complete with all the fenced communities they’d learned of on their trips and some Jock had encountered in the south, fences and gates marked off in brightly fluorescent highlighter ink. They heard a lot of stories from other travellers.

“It’s bull,” Jock told him. “At least I believe that the rumour’s a lie, told by The Exalted and spread to lure more victims to the south.”

Joey walked around to where Jock sat. “If I go without you, I’ll be careful. No heroics.”

“No heroics,” Jock repeated. It was a phrase he’d drilled into Joey that’d become a symbol of their relationship. The secrets they’d shared, hopes for the future and lessons they’d learned from each other. It had become their motto.
All heroes die, son. Don’t be a hero, be a survivor.

As Jock opened his mouth to continue talking, a tinkling sound from outside the building brought their weapons to their hands and both men to their feet.

Silently, they took flanking positions in view of the only entrance. The door’s handle started to dip down.
It’s not one of The Ringed,
Joey thought.
They don’t open doors, or can’t.
Darting his eyes to Jock he acknowledged that Jock had seen the movement and that the padre would change strategy in response.

 
He put his blades away and pulled his bow up into the ready position, waiting for whoever came through. Jock disappeared completely from sight. Joey knew from experience that his mentor would reappear when the time was right.

“Just come through,” he shouted at the door. “I won’t shoot.”

A few beats of silence followed before a man’s voice with a clipped, upper-class English accent replied.

“You have a gun. That’s very unusual. Can I see it?”

Joey ignored the odd question.

“Step through slowly.”

“Thank you, I’d love to share dinner, very kind of you to ask.”

Great,
thought Joey,
another nutter. With any luck he won’t have dragged any animals out of the zoo along with him.

Stepping through the door, Joey noted that the man, despite his amused tone and breezy affectation, kept part of his body behind the door, giving himself a partial shield. This confirmed for Joey that despite his almost bizarre appearance and manner, he was not a fool.

Tall, maybe six-two, he had a lean, muscular build. Red hair fell long over his forehead and partly over his eyes, and a neatly-trimmed but longish beard framed his face. With all the slightly-greying red hair it was difficult to make out any of his features distinctly. Joey guessed that he might be in his mid-fifties or older.

What he’d dressed in couldn’t be more out of place in the dead city of Edinburgh; that was probably the point. The man wore the jacket, trousers, spiked shoes and hat of a golfer. Down to the single gloved hand holding a nine iron he was the perfect image of a man out playing a round. Looking around the dark interior as he poked half his body through, he spotted Joey, bow arm extended, string drawn, and greeted him like an old friend.

“Oh! It’s a bow. How perfectly wonderful.”

He immediately entered the room fully, leaving the cover he’d had behind the door. Arm extended, hand offered for a gentlemanly shake, he strode over to Joey who remained as still as rock and as friendly as one. When he reached within three feet of an immovable and unfazed Joey, Jock flashed out from a hidden alcove on the man’s right and pressed one of his knives to the man’s throat, the other to his genitals.

“That’s far enough,” Jock growled, in what he’d once told Joey was his ‘Batman voice’. The reference, as usual, was lost on Joey.

“Drop the club.” Jock motioned at the man’s hand.

“Oh, wonderful, simply wonderful luck. There are two of you,” exclaimed the man positively thrilled to be held at the end of Jock’s knives. “How lovely to meet y…”

Jock pressed his blade in against his throat, cutting him off, clearly not buying the man’s cheery demeanour.

“Drop the blade,” Jock whispered this time, “last warning.”

Joey took final aim and prepared to release if and when Jock dropped his shoulder, giving him the shot.

The stranger didn’t bother to talk or smile this time. He simply dropped his club as requested, waited for the infinitesimal withdrawal of Jock’s blade and then flashed his own very small, very pointed stiletto blade out from nowhere up to and into Jock’s carotid artery.

Spinning Jock around with his left arm hooked over the older man’s chest, he faced Jock toward Joey whilst keeping the blade lodged in Jock’s neck. Joey’s eyes never left the blade. It didn’t budge a centimetre despite him manhandling Jock. Instantly the man’s tone changed to pure reptile as he addressed Joey.

“Okay, young man. The situation is thus. I have your… father?” He stole a quick glance at Jock. “Whatever he is to you, I have him positioned just so.” He made an almost imperceptible little movement of his eyes, motioning to the dagger. “If I remove this blade, the old minister here will give this lovely public house a new coat of paint. A badly needed new coat of paint, if you don’t mind me saying. It’s terribly dreary in here.” He laughed at his own joke.

Still smiling his crocodilian smile, he continued. “I’m willing to gamble that you don’t have the skills to repair this wound before he bleeds out.”

Something Joey did, although he’d swear he hadn’t reacted, told the man that he was right.

“Ah, good,” he said. “I’m also willing to gamble that you’re nowhere near so effective with those blades on your waist as you clearly are with that bow. That rigid arm of yours tells me how much you practice with that lovely weapon.”

Joey stood completely still, focusing on his target but not daring to take the shot. Despite his stoic exterior, the man clearly received some subconscious reply in a small gesture from him.

“Excellent. Now, I want you to know that I’m not here to take anything from you.” He glanced at the knife at Jock’s artery in emphasis. “I simply knocked to see if there was any space at the table, so to speak.”

Joey remained in place, mind racing.

“Here’s how it can play out, young man. You can take that shot you have aimed at my right eye. I have no doubt that you’ll kill me instantly as I can see how talented you are. But my gamble, remember, is that you won’t do that, because then he’ll die, won’t he?”

Joey threw his bow to the carpet and pulled his blades free, taking his ready stance.

The man smiled. “We could do it that way, but you’ve already seen how fast I am, haven’t you. You already know how that will end.” The man spoke so gently; he’d slipped into the cheery English gent voice again.

“Let’s do it my way. Your role is to back all the way up to the bar over there. Keep your knives if you wish, it makes no difference. Once your back touches the bar, I’m going to take my dagger out of the minister’s neck. When that happens his blood will spray the wall over there.” He nodded at a mirrored wall to his right. “Probably ruin that nice white dog-collar.”