The Nephilim (24 page)

Someone was creeping around down there!

Curious about who it was she kept studying the darkness below, hoping that he would emerge from the shadows. It was probably one of the boys. The academy was divided into two parts, and the boys’ dormitory was on the other side of the courtyard. There wasn't supposed to be any fraternising after hours. But she knew that some of the older students did. The teachers couldn't keep them apart all the time. Of course, it could also be someone out for a secret smoke. There were a few students even in her class who smoked. And Mark had said that it wasn't just tobacco either. That there were some smoking pot. She wondered how many detentions that would get them.

Then the man emerged from the shadows for a couple of seconds and she knew it wasn't one of the students. He was too big. And he was dressed from head to foot in black. That was why she hadn't been able to see him in the shadows. He was also fast, flitting silently from one shadow to the next.

A thief? He was dressed like a cat burglar. But what was there to steal in this place? It was a school after all, not a bank.

Or could he be here for her?

Sudden hope filled her. Her grandfather could have hired someone to rescue her. Because it definitely wasn't him. Whoever it was, he was far too quick on his feet to be her grandfather. But he could have hired a professional. He knew a lot of people like that and it was the only thing she could think of. He must have hired someone. He had promised her that he would get her out after all.

Desperate to be rescued from this place Katz watched as the shadow man moved across the courtyard in fits and starts, wondering if she should call to him. But maybe not – that might attract attention from other people. And she couldn't turn her light on either – that would earn her a demand to shut it off from the guard outside her door. In the end she just had to hope that he knew where to find her.

Yet he didn't seem to. As he darted from one side of the courtyard to the other she realised he wasn't heading to the front door of her dorm. He was heading to the other dorm on the other side. And that frightened her. She wanted out of this place and if he couldn't find her that wasn't going to happen. It was then that she decided she had to risk it, and so she turned to the lamp on the desk beside her and flicked the switch.

Instantly she was bathed in light, so much so that for a brief moment she was blinded. But she didn't need to see to attract her rescuer's attention, and so she stood there in window and waved frantically at the shadow man. Of course, he wasn't the only one who noticed the light.

“
Lights off!” The call came from Master Atkins who was standing watch outside her room. He'd obviously noticed the light spilling out underneath the door.

“Sorry!” She called to him hoping that he wouldn't come in, and turned to the desk and flicked the switch again. As she did so she heard a sound. The sound of a pebble hitting the brick wall outside her window. Could it be him?

Hurriedly she poked her head out of the window and looked down, hoping to see someone standing there throwing stones at her window. But there was no one there. She didn't understand that. She'd heard the stone hit but she couldn't see the man who'd thrown it.

The sound came again and she flinched. It was much louder this time and only just above her head. But still there was no one below her. No one had thrown a stone at her window. Stranger still, when she looked up, she realised that someone had thrown that stone hard. It had taken a chunk out of the brick lintel. A surprisingly deep chunk.

Then she felt the rush of wind, heard the sound of something breaking into her room behind her and realised the shocking truth. Someone was shooting at her!

Katz screamed and then in a tangle of confused limbs dropped to the floor, wondering if the world was going mad. Or if she was. It couldn't be. This was a school! People didn't shoot people in schools! She couldn't hear the sounds of gun fire or see the flash of gun fire in the night either. But that hadn't been a stone blasting past her. It had been a bullet!

“Katz!” Master Atkins called her name, alarmed, and a moment later she watched as the door swung open, the light came on and he came hurrying into the room. A heartbeat later she felt the rush of wind again and saw a sudden spot of red appear on his chest. Then, as if it was all some movie being played in slow motion, she watched as he looked down in surprise at his chest, at the red stain slowly growing on his white shirt, and slowly collapsed. His knees buckled beneath him and he started sinking to the floor, almost like a skyscraper in a controlled demolition. And when he hit it he didn't move.

Katz screamed. She screamed as she had never screamed before.  And she didn't stop.

Meanwhile more bullets kept streaking over her head, flying through the room and smashing into the far wall. More smashed into the bricks outside and she could hear them crumbling away under the fire. So many of them! Surely that couldn't be just one man with a gun? As the gun fire increased she became certain it had to be an army outside. More people had started screaming – a lot more. She didn't look – she didn't dare get up off the ground – but she knew the screams of other students and her teachers as they came under fire.

Then there were new sounds. Strange ones. Sounds she didn't recognise. And there was light coming in through the window – brilliant light that filled the room and made the light coming from the open doorway seem as nothing. And with that light came the sound of men screaming. Big men, angry men – men she didn't know.

An explosion tore through the night, shaking her room and rattling the windows. And then a second explosion, even louder. She peered up at the window from the floor, terrified of what she would see and saw flames. A sky of yellow flames and smoke outside her room. As bad as things had seemed they had apparently just got worse. Someone was trying to blow up the school.

A bell started ringing in the middle of everything else and Katz immediately recognised it as the fire alarm. They'd done the fire drill only the day before. On top of everything else they apparently had a fire inside the building. She wondered what she was supposed to do. The drill called for them to go outside and assemble in the courtyard but there was no way she was going outside into whatever was out there. But she couldn't stay where she was either – not if the building was burning down. And what was she supposed to do about her teacher?

Belatedly, and feeling guilty for having left it for so long, Katz crawled across the floor to where he lay and then tried to work out if he was alive or dead. But she couldn't tell. She tried to find a pulse but with all the noise outside and the shaking she couldn't tell. And when she tried to roll him over he was too heavy. In the end all she knew was that he wasn't moving and that there was a lot of blood soaking into the carpet. A dark red stain against the brown.

“Master Atkins!” She tried calling his name, slapping his cheek as best she could reach, and hoping that he would answer her. But he didn't. He just lay there, bleeding. No matter how many times she tried. Then she tried screaming some more, hoping someone would come. Someone who could help. But no one came. Quite probably no one heard her over the noise of the explosions.

Then someone did. At first she didn't know that he had. She couldn't hear or see anything except her  school master. Then someone grabbed her arm.

“Help he's ...”

The words died on her lips as she looked up and realised the man was dressed from head to foot in black. He was one of the attackers. And he was strong. He pulled her roughly to her feet, his hand crushing her upper arm like a vice and then started dragging her to the door. And it was only then that she realised that she didn't want to go with him.

Katz pulled back hurriedly, trying to get away, but it did no good. He was far stronger than her. He was angrier too. When she tried again he punched her, his fist striking out so quickly that she saw nothing more than a blur before she felt the pain as it connected with her cheek. Unable to stop herself she screamed and he hit her again. This time she tasted blood in her mouth. Her vision was going too. It wasn't just the strange flashes of light coming from the battle outside that were making things weird. There were sparks and fireflies dancing inside her eyes and she felt faint.

But she didn’t want to go with the black clad man, and she tried to pull back again. This time he hit her hard. He knocked her back as though she was barely a punching bag and sent her crashing into a wall. After that things became strange.

There was more pulling, a man yelling at the top of his lungs, and more hitting, but for some reason she didn't really understand any of it. All she understood was that the room had started spinning in all directions and her legs weren't working properly. She sat down or fell down, she had no idea which. All she really knew was that suddenly she was staring at the ceiling.

Then the man hoisted her up in a fireman's lift and she was treated to the strange sight of the back of his legs as he raced down the hallway. A sight that for some reason made no sense to her at all. By the time they'd reached the stairs she couldn't even see it. She couldn't see anything at all as the world had gone black.

Light exploded. Brilliant light that burnt at her eyes. It was everywhere. And then she heard a voice. A voice that she knew well. It was Mark's voice. He was yelling at the man to put her down. But he didn't. Instead she heard the man carrying her scream with rage. Then she heard gun fire, shockingly loud. She heard Mark scream in pain. And then she felt herself falling off the man’s shoulder.

She screamed. Partly in terror at falling into the unknown. Partly in fear that her friend had been shot. But it was a short scream. It had to be. When she crashed into something hard and cold, the breath was driven from her and she couldn't make a sound. She couldn't even breathe. All she could do was panic.

But even that wasn't for long. Soon after the rest of the world slipped away into the darkness.

Chapter Thirteen

New York was quiet for once, and Garrick liked it that way. He actually liked New York at three in the morning, even when he was close to exhausted. But he liked it more that he had his quarry's scent so strongly in his nose. He hadn’t worked out exactly where Benedict was – not yet. That would take days or weeks, especially since Armando had apparently criss-crossed the entire city hundreds of times as he prepared for his robbery. The trail was confused, a complex tangle of scents going back and forth across one another until they became a knot. However while he couldn't readily untangle the knot, he still had enough of his prey’s scent to know where he'd been. Where in the city he'd spent a lot of his time recently. And each of those places was another spot where Garrick knew Armando Benedict's plans were currently being carried out. They were another place where his plans could be undone.

Garrick was doing his best to undo them. One by one.

“You sure this is the place?”

Maricia had doubts about some of the places he took her. This one was no exception. And he could understand why. The derelict fish packing house didn't look like much, and in truth it wasn't much. It could be described as a warehouse at best, but that would have been flattering it. And of course she wasn't getting out of the car to look around. He didn't need to to see Benedict's plans all around, which was fortunate as they had a lot of places to go and not much time.

“Yeah.”

As if to prove it Garrick reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out his burner phone. It had been getting a lot of use in the last twenty four hours as he’d used it to call in his tips. In fact it was probably one of the best used phones in the city. Not bad for twenty bucks plus a card. Garrick slotted in the battery and strapped on the black market voice modulator he'd bought and dialled the police tip line.

“Tip Line, how can I help?”

The operator's voice came from the speaker on the very first ring, and Garrick was certain a part of that alertness the police had was due to him. They'd never had so many useful tips before. And while their caller ID might not tell them who he was, it still gave them the number. They would know that number by heart by now. Chances were it was at the top of their priority list.

“Just to let you know, the Dolen Brothers fish pack warehouse is being used as a front by Armando Benedict. Several armoured cars are being stripped back and prepared for a robbery there.”