Sentinel (16 page)

Sam nodded. “He’s told me of dreams,” he said. “Though he doesn’t understand their significance. I remember one year, it was Anita’s birthday. Nicholas was three, I believe, and there was a party at the Hallows’ home. Whenever Anita’s friend Michael came near Nicholas, he started crying. He kept saying something. ‘Fire.’ The poor child was inconsolable. ‘Fire, fire,’ he kept saying.” Sam shook his head at the memory. “A week later, Michael was dead. His flat burned to the ground; some sort of electrical fault.”

“I remember,” Jessica said. “Anita was so shaken by it she sought my counsel.”

“Those incidents were rare, though, and he has grown up in as normal an environment as any of us could have hoped for,” Sam went on. “I think you are right; he has suspicions. No matter how efficiently we protected him, we cannot deny his difference.” Sam paused again, adding dismally: “He could not have asked for better parents. They loved him dearly.”

“The losses are being felt everywhere,” Jessica said. “Esus has been attending Sentinel calls all over the country – things are happening, so many lives are being brought to an untimely end. We can expect things to darken long before the dawn.”

“That is the reason I cannot linger here for much longer,” Sam said, draining his cup and setting it down on the table. “I have promised Lucy Walden that I will attempt to help her.”

“You won’t stay?” Jessica asked furtively.

Sam stood. “As always, you have been a most gracious host,” he bowed his head deferentially. “Perhaps one day we shall have a conversation that doesn’t involve death and disaster.”

Jessica nodded. “That sounds most civilised. I pray such a time is close at hand.”

“Give my regards to Nicholas when he wakes? I’ll see him again soon,” Sam said.

“I will be sure of it. Take care Samuel, don’t do anything too rash.”

Sam bowed and left the room.

*

Malika paused by a streetlamp, wary of the bright neon that the naked bulb cast in a circle at her feet. Hers was a difficult relationship with the urban wastelands that had taken slow, lecherous purchase of the Earth. On the one hand she abhorred the constant noise and fuss, the robotic crowds with their deplorable agendas, the stench of humanity and aimless life. Yet at the same time she respected the corruptive force of the ever-hungry metropolis, sensing here a wickedness that almost twinned that within her own corrupt heart.

Here, on Trumpington Street in an old part of Cambridge, there were few distractions from her task. The daylight hours had long since dissolved into night, and those with sense enough had drawn their curtains against whatever ill deeds might be taking place in the dim streets. The restaurants and cafes that lined Trumpington had all locked up for the night, though a salty tang from the fish grill was still perceptible in the night air.

The slices of black in Malika’s eyes trained upon the majestic building across the road. The Fitzwilliam Museum was an imposing place, its substantial nineteenth century structure a rebuff to the modern city that had grown up around it. Malika approached slowly, passing through the unlocked gates and mounting the stone steps. She skirted round the building to where two stone lions stood guard, raised on lofty platforms.

Smiling to herself, Malika drew near to the great beasts and touched the front paw of the nearest creature.

“Watch,” she murmured to the effigy. “Be my eyes in the night.”

With a swirl of her red cloak, the woman hurried away, finally reaching the entrance – a rotating door that was locked for the night. Through the glass, she saw an elderly man sitting at a half-moon desk. He was reading a newspaper by the feeble lamplight, the rest of the museum swathed in shadow.

Softly, Malika tapped at the glass.

The security guard raised his head and squinted at her. “We’re closed,” he barked with mild annoyance. “Come back tomorrow.”

Malika tapped again.

“What the devil–” the security guard huffed. He threw down the newspaper and approached the door. But all irritation drained from his face as he peered at the woman through the glass.

“Open the door?” Malika requested lightly, widening her eyes at the old man.

Without hesitation, the guard took up his keys and let the woman in. He stepped back, instantly under her spell, his mouth hanging open as Malika closed the door behind her.

“Thank you–” Malika began, quickly searching the guard’s person for a name tag. “Thank you, George,” she said, smiling demurely.

“Mm… gg…” the guard called George mumbled, unable to form anything more than clumsy sounds. Malika daintily extended a hand, and the guard took it, falling to one knee in front of her. He was mature in years, probably in his early sixties, so it took some effort, but he got there eventually.

“What a gentleman,” Malika teased, and her brittle laughter glanced off the marble pillars, echoing up into the foyer ceiling.

“Wh–what,” the guard began. He cleared his throat. “What can I do to be of service?”

Malika craned her head back to take in the full grandeur of the foyer. It was narrow but high, framed by sweeping symmetrical staircases. Gilded pillars bore the full weight of an elaborate ceiling. It resembled a chamber of the Gods.

“There’s something here that I need,” she began. “It’ll be old. Small. Easily mistaken for a European relic. Or perhaps African.”

“The Rome room,” grunted the guard, already staggering to his feet and shuffling over to a set of stairs.

Malika followed him, gliding over the marble floor, her pallid complexion giving her the appearance of one of the museum’s statues brought to life. Together, they descended the stone steps, passing under a sign that read Rome and Ancient Sudan, and walked down a bright white corridor that shimmered under the glow of numerous spotlights.

In the museum’s empty after hours, when the buzz of flocking tourists had long since fallen into a hush, every footstep rang out sharply. The collections huddled in their glass cases, peculiarly purposeless in these twilight hours when there was nobody to observe them or wonder at their links to an ancient world.

But Malika was looking. Eagerly and with purpose. She pored over every chipped bit of china, every rusted tool, every worn item of clothing. These were relics from a time long before she’d gasped her first breath. They were a novelty, objects older than even she, and they aroused her curiosity. The pages of man’s history were filled with barbaric deeds; the Romans had been particularly bloodthirsty. Malika would have liked to have lived then.

More than just momentary interest thrilled the Familiar’s senses, though. Somewhere here was the Rewe; that most prized artefact so integral to Diltraa’s designs. She wouldn’t fail him a second time.

The room was entirely white and Malika stood out like a pricked finger in the middle of it. Red and raw and out of place.

The guard stopped at the back of the Roman collection.

Malika sidled up next to him and gazed through the glass. It was a display crammed with unusual objects. And there it was.

Set amongst various pottery vessels, lamps and a Roman folding penknife was what she sought: an unremarkable, squat bowl. It had been wrongly attributed to the Romans thanks to its faded, almost illegible markings, not to mention its likeness to some Roman pottery, and placed here along with other ancient artefacts from that period.

Except Malika knew what it really was. She pressed her palms to the pane of glass and beamed.

“Yes,” she murmured, her breath steaming up the pane. “This is it. Open it.”

The guard took up his keys once more and opened a tiny lock in the bottom of the cabinet. He slid open the glass front and Malika reached in to extract the bowl.

“Your jacket,” she requested silkily.

Without blinking, the guard shrugged off his jacket and offered it to her, his face drawn tight with the desire to please. Malika took it and wrapped the bowl up.

“You’ve been most helpful, George,” she said, offering the man a coy smile.

George blushed and grinned sheepishly, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Malika moved in and pressed her lips to his, kissing him softly.

George sighed and his eyes rolled back in his head.

He was dead before he hit the floor.

Back out in the night air, Malika purred to herself and cradled the Rewe in the security guard’s jacket. She reached the top of the museum’s front steps and paused. A smirk teasing the corners of her lips, she returned to the plinths where the stone lions rested.

She hissed strange words rebelliously.

Quietly at first, the lions began to shudder and vibrate. In seconds, their unnatural juddering was making a thunderous din, almost like the sound of a train’s engine picking up speed.

Laughing with malevolent glee, Malika swept away from the statues and stepped out onto Trumpington Street.

When the woman had finally disappeared down the cobbled street and been swallowed by the night’s shadows, an almighty explosion rocked the museum and the twin lions erupted into clouds of alabaster dust.

*

The rail track stretched on for an eternity, making a point on the horizon. It was night, and blue fog spun eerily through the air.

He ran, but he didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Panic spurred him onwards, though from where that sickening sense of urgency had come he wasn’t sure. He felt sticky, heavy, hot. His heart hammered frantically in his chest, and he could barely see as he stumbled down the track.

All he knew was that he had to get away. Soft rustles crunched behind him, but he dared not look back. He didn’t want to know what it was. He ran. And ran. His limbs ached and he seemed to be going in slow motion.

It was as if he was running through air thick with syrup, and it took every ounce of his strength to press onward.

Something rattled.

He let out a muted whimper.

What was it? What did it want from him?

The rattling grew louder.

Confused and blinded by panic, his boot caught on one of the rungs of the track and he fell forward, crashing onto the hard metal with a grunt. Groaning, he rolled over.

The thing bore down on him with fangs and claws that flashed red.

He screamed.

“Mum!”

Nicholas jerked upright in bed. The dream lingered and he didn’t know where he was.

Next to him the cat raised its head, observing the panting, sweaty boy. And there was another watching him. As Nicholas’s eyes grew accustomed to the dark, and the nightmare drifted up through the ceiling, he made out the shape of a woman sitting at the end of his bed.

“M–mum?” he croaked.

“No,” a delicate voice replied. “It’s me Nicholas, your godmother.”

It all came flooding back. Nicholas sagged.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you. You looked like you were having a bad dream.”

“I was.”

Nicholas felt suddenly embarrassed. He pushed a hand through his knotted hair.

The cat stretched on the bed, flexing its claws. It got to its feet and lumbered over to the woman, rubbing its head against her leg.

“I see you brought a friend with you.”

“Yes,” Nicholas replied. As the haze of sleep lifted, his curiosity stirred.

He watched Jessica raise a hand above the cat’s head and hold it there. A judder travelled through the mattress, but as quickly as it had started, it was gone.

As if satisfied, Jessica scratched behind one of the cat’s ears. It purred appreciatively.

“So you are my godmother, then?” he asked.

“In a manner of speaking,” she confirmed mellifluously. “My old name was Jessica Bell, though I’ve been afforded many others since that one. It was your parents wish that, should anything ever happen to them, you be brought here to me.” She paused as the cat flopped stupidly onto the duvet, and then added: “I’m sorry for your loss, Nicholas. I lost my mother when I was young, too. There are still days I don’t remember; the hard ones when you almost feel like you’ve died yourself.”

Nicholas’s intrigue grew with every soft utterance that drifted up from the foot of the bed. Jessica wasn’t at all what he’d been expecting. He’d imagined his godmother to be older, sterner – an image that was fortified by the sight of the manor house. Then Jessica had answered the door and smashed his expectations to pieces.

“I hope you will be comfortable living here,” Jessica said, “though I admit there’s not much for a child to occupy himself with.”

“But… I don’t understand,” Nicholas said, ignoring the ‘child’ part of her sentence. “You’re barely older than me, how can you be my godmother?”

“There is much to explain,” Jessica replied.

She spoke as if she were older. Nicholas wasn’t sure if she was being pretentious, or if that was just her way. There was something about her, though. Something he couldn’t put his finger on.

“I understand that you have many questions,” the woman said, “and I will happily answer them for you. But first you must eat and replenish your strength. Come.”

She rose from the bed. Nicholas watched her go. Then, realising how hungry he was, he scrambled to his feet and followed her out of the room. The cat trotted after them.