Timekeepers: Number 2 in Series (7 page)

‘But I —’

‘Thank you,’ he said firmly, holding the door open.

‘I’ll come back in five minutes.’

The door closed behind her, and Sam looked down at Hindsonn, then up at Marc.

‘Cuffs,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Don’t be obtuse, please. Give me the cuffs.’

Marc tossed them over, worry showing on his formerly empty face. Sam cuffed him to the radiator and said, ‘Look, I’m not going to hurt anyone, okay?’

‘I wish I could believe it.’

‘Have I hit anyone, have I killed anyone? Give me a chance, copper.’

Sam edged away from Marc, aware of the policeman’s eyes on him, and lay the gun in the jumper on the floor at Hindsonn’s bedside. He leant over the sleeping figure and carefully put his hands over the man’s face, fingers spread to get as much physical contact as he could. Closing his eyes, he let his mind sink into Hindsonn’s.

He’d been tempted to try and heal, but that ran the risk not only of draining him to the core but of the woken Hindsonn calling on War again. Sam knew better than fighting that fight once more, only minus his own regenerative powers. So he chose the more subtle solution.

By degrees he could feel Hindsonn’s sleeping mind. Gently he eased his own thoughts into it, saw as Hindsonn saw, felt as he felt, heard…

The sound of wind over an empty landscape. Sam looked around. Never had he seen such desolation. Huge craters full of mist and trapped pools of yellow gas, trees blown to pieces, barbed wire hanging limp around deserted trenches, shattered guns pointing skywards, sandbags blasted open, spilling their contents in a sodden landscape of torn-up mud.

Sam turned, searching through this landscape for Hindsonn. Heard a sound, other than the wind. A man in a helmet and army uniform was peering at him from the edge of a trench. He held a gun, aimed at Sam. Sam stared at him, refusing to feel fear. This wasn’t real, it was just part of Hindsonn’s mind.

‘Hindsonn,’ he said quietly, ‘none of this is real, none of this is you, you do know that, don’t you?’ The hands holding the gun were shaking, terror was on the man’s face.

‘You’ve sold yourself to War. I don’t know why, but it’s been done before. You feed your blood to a Greater Power, and receive some of their strength. Unfortunately they also gain a certain control over you. If the Powers fought directly, their battles would probably tear worlds apart. So if they can fight through mortal agents it’s more convenient, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘She… she… she…’

‘She killed you. Well, tried. You called on her to protect you, and she possessed you, and so that you wouldn’t tell me anything, she killed you.’

‘I… I…’

‘You’ll live. This’ – Sam waved a hand at the ruined landscape – ‘is just a part of her power in you, the power of War. But Greater Powers can’t actively possess mortals for long, it leaves them exposed, weakened. So she’s probably not coming back for a while.’ He edged closer to Hindsonn, but the gun went up again, pointing straight at Sam’s face. Sam slowed, letting Hindsonn see his empty hands. ‘You’re in an intensive care unit. There’s nothing to fear.’

‘You… you attacked…’

‘Do you know me?’

Hindsonn shook his head.

‘I’m the man who tried to stop War from killing you. But War was strong, I couldn’t keep her back. You’ll never be free of her, Hindsonn. If you wake up and I’m here, she’ll kill you rather than let you talk. And if she discovers that I’m talking to you here, in your dreams, she’ll try to kill you again.

‘But the thing is, I’m not going to leave you alone. Not ever. So you can either tell me now, while there’s very little chance of War possessing and destroying you. Or you can wait until both you and she are strong enough to get up and fight, and we can go through the entire sword-knife-gun business and I’ll win, and you’ll get stabbed again but this time I don’t think you’ll live.

‘So save yourself from yourself, and tell me what I want to know. Who’s the link? Who do you report to?’

‘There’s… a phone box. Grunfrau Strasse… at five thirty.’

‘The Ashen’ia – have they all sold their souls to War, or are you the only one?’

‘No, no, they… they give to everyone. Fire, Water, War, Chaos… but not Time, never Time, we’re too scared of Time.’

‘Why do you want the Bearer of Light?’

He looked up at Sam with a frown on his face. ‘Because… he can destroy any one of them at will. He can hold the universe to hostage.’

It sounded so obvious, so simple.

Sam stood there, rigid.
He can hold the universe to hostage.
‘Why now?’ he asked quietly. ‘Why move on him now?’

‘He’s alone, he’s exposed. Before he had an army. Now, thanks to Seth, he has nothing. Soon he’ll have to stop running. Soon we’ll have him, and it’ll all be over, it’ll all be ours…’

Tinkerbell is instructed to keep me alive. But if I learn too much, such as, say, what the Ashen’ia are and what they’re planning, he’s instructed to ‘bring me in’. The Bearer of Light can hold the universe to hostage
…
 

‘Who are the master and mistress?’

Hindsonn opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out except a high-pitched scream that seemed to go on for ever.

In the real world, Sam opened his eyes. The scream was still there, but it wasn’t coming from Hindsonn’s tranquil face. It came from behind him.

Sam pulled his hands away from Hindsonn’s cold skin and turned. The nurse had opened the door, seen him with Hindsonn, seen Marc handcuffed to the radiator, and screamed and screamed and screamed.

Sam scooped up his gun for all to see.

‘No!’ yelled Marc, as Sam pointed it at the nurse, who went on screaming. Sam glanced at him, and saw the realisation spread across Marc’s face. The policeman knew Sam wasn’t going to pull the trigger.

Hissing annoyance, Sam scooped up his things, turned and ran, knocking the nurse out of his way as he sprinted down the corridor. First left, first right, don’t stop running…

Coming in sight of the exit, Sam slowed. There were four security guards on the door, looking very large and very imposing. He turned and fled, the way he’d come; they followed, breaking into a run. Reaching some stairs, he took them two at a time.

Behind, people were yelling for him to stop, to little effect. That syllable had never been a great word of power. Sam reached the first floor and ran down a corridor at random. There was a sash window at the far end, and the light beyond looked so wonderfully bright, and the window itself just so open, that he saw no choice but to head that way. He pelted down the corridor, knocking into a janitor. The man’s mop and bucket went flying, spilling soapy grey water everywhere. Behind him Sam heard someone yell that they’d shoot. He got one leg out of the window as the bullet shattered the glass above his head. Jagged shards rained down all around him, tearing through his shirt and skin. He looked down, judged the drop to be about ten feet on to grass, and jumped.

As he landed he rolled, cushioning the fall with magic. The impact still sent stars spinning through his head, and pain through his side. He’d landed badly, one leg bent under the other. Staggering up, he struggled to limp away at a run, blood singing in his ears, body screaming for a regenerative trance. His hands stung, from leaving muddy skid marks on the grass.

Sam’s eyes fell on an ambulance. The driver was sitting in the front, but Sam had had enough of mortals. He clambered up to the man, surprised him with a punch in the stomach and, as he crumpled, dragged him bodily from the ambulance and on to the tarmac. The keys were in the ignition. Sam climbed into the driving seat, slammed the door, turned the keys and put his foot down, feeling his skinned hands burn on touching the cold steering wheel.

The ambulance swerved out of the hospital car park and into the nearby traffic. Sam looked around until he found a promising-looking switch, and turned on the ambulance siren and lights. Traffic scattered to get out of his way as he careened at high speed down the main road, and away.

Things, he decided, could have gone a lot worse.

Grunfrau Strasse was a leafy byway off a small park in east Berlin. Its houses had once been grand. Large abodes with trees in front and gardens behind that had housed one family and its half-dozen servants now sheltered at least four or five families. Their ornate rooflines were dominated by a nearby industrial centre with a cluster line of dull metal chimneys pumping out invisible and highly toxic gases. The gardens were full of litter and disused kitchen appliances; at the kerbside the cars were small and many of them looked like they hadn’t been used in months. On the corner a pleasant little church had been replaced by a large concrete warehouse that no one used any more, in whose dark recesses bored kids experimented with illegal substances.

Sam locked the ambulance doors, and lay on the stretcher in the back. His arms had been quite seriously hacked by the shattered glass, his ankle throbbed, his body ached all over. He let his eyes close, and drifted in the warmth of a regenerative trance, giving way to dull, voiceless thoughts.

There had once been a Waywalker who’d sold his soul to a Greater Power. It had been before Sam’s time, when Balder was still alive. But Sam knew about it nonetheless. He’d asked questions.

He’d asked Freya.

He couldn’t remember how they’d got on to the subject. It was in South Africa, in 1944. They were sitting on the veranda of a small house in the middle of nowhere, watching the sun go down on a seemingly endless horizon. Drinking inventive cocktails, as far away as they could get from the wars in Heaven, Earth and Hell.

Prohibited love. Freya could never love Sam, it was forbidden. He was the bastard Son of Magic, and an exile who more often than not had fought his own Heavenly brothers. She was a Daughter of Love and dutiful servant of the House of Valhalla. To love each other was unforgivable.

That evening, both were prepared to forget such a thing. Sam especially was ready to shrug off any guilt. Guilt that he had defied Heaven, guilt that because of his defiance he and Freya could never love properly. His fault, not hers. Always his fault.

‘Did you ever meet Loki?’ Sam had asked.

She slurped her cocktail. ‘Yes.’

‘What was he like?’

‘Before or after he gave blood to Cronus, sold his soul?’

‘Both.’

She sighed, and put her glass down. ‘Before, he was nice.’

‘Nice?’

‘Well, a joker. A prankster, but devoted to the House of Valhalla. He always had a dark sense of humour, but he could also be the perfect gentleman.’

‘What happened?’

She shrugged. ‘He had views that… the House disagreed with. He said that Time was a harsh king, that any Prince of Heaven could step into Time’s shoes, become King of Heaven and redefine the universe. No more death, no more suffering, no more pain. We all thought he was joking, even his wife.’

‘Was he a good husband?’

‘And a loving father. But his sons, they spent a lot of time in Earth and Hell, and often he went with them. He saw things, I think, that upset him. He wanted to know why Time didn’t put a stop to it all, why he let the bad things happen. Time replied that if Loki just waited another ten thousand years, he’d understand it all. Loki said people never changed. That some things were timeless, things like hate and anger and jealousy – that’s why they’d last for ever, and Time would have no power to destroy them. He grew angrier the more he saw, and as he grew more reactionary the House pulled further away from him. And that just made him more angry. He thought the House was too cowardly to try and change things. He remained a gentleman to the last, though. Passionate, but never violent, never rude, just very, very stubborn.’

‘He thought Cronus was a way out.’

‘Yes. He gave his blood to Cronus; he thought Cronus would give him power against Time, the power to fight back. He thought that if he let Cronus out, Cronus and Time would destroy each other and the universe would be free for him to step in and create his paradise.’

‘He was wrong, I take it?’

‘Yes. Cronus was afraid of Balder; he thought Time had persuaded Balder to use the Light against him.’

‘Had he? Was Balder really prepared to die for Time?’

‘I think so. At first he’d refused to use the Light on any terms – said it was an evil weapon. Then, when he realised exactly what Cronus was, he said he might use it if Cronus was ever freed. And Cronus heard these words, and he feared them. If he was going to be freed, he wanted to be sure the Bearer of Light wouldn’t be a threat.’

‘What was Loki like, after he’d sold out to Cronus?’

‘We didn’t know what he’d done.’

‘But you must have noticed changes.’

‘He was… arrogant. Also he was stronger, so much so that he didn’t notice what he did. He’d open a door and end up pulling the thing off its hinges. And he suddenly began to hate. He’d never hated in the past, but now when he looked at the Children of Time he did it with fire in his eyes. And when he saw suffering and pain he would yell, “This is not necessary, why do we let this happen?”, but no one really listened. Time summoned him once, told him he had the taint of Cronus inside his soul. But Loki just laughed and said, “Then destroy me!”’

‘And Time didn’t. Why?’

‘Some say Time
wanted
Loki to free Cronus. He’d looked into the future and seen a thousand destinies in which Loki opened the doors to Cronus, and Cronus, believing himself freed by an ally, escaped into the universe – only to be destroyed by the Bearer of Light. There were few futures, few indeed, where Loki actually killed Balder.’

‘But one of those futures came to pass.’

‘Yes. Loki didn’t start by freeing Cronus, as Time had expected. Instead, Loki killed the Bearer of Light. Time must have been terrified, as future after future faded and died, possibility after possibility shutting down around him. Leaving just Balder’s death everywhere he looked, filling his eyes. It’s said that Balder was the only child Time ever truly loved.

‘When people found out what Loki had done they hunted him down. They didn’t want Cronus to be freed if the Bearer of Light was dead. There were whispers that Time had been weak, that he’d let his love for Balder blind him to the fact that his own son wasn’t strong enough to use the Light against Loki. When they found Loki, they locked him away.