Down: Trilogy Box Set (101 page)

The top of the caravan scraped loudly on the portcullis spikes.

A mass of soldiers was swarming toward the rolling wagon. Emily lifted her head up from Sam’s squirming body and glanced out the back.

Andreas appeared running toward the wagon, just in front of the closest soldiers.

“Andreas is coming,” she shouted. “Slow down!”

“We can’t,” Brian shouted, trying to get an arrow off around the hulking man’s frame. “For Christ’s sake, keep going!”

Brian saw an arrow sail past the wagon and he swore. Then another one whizzed overhead. Then the pursuing archers went for an easier target.

Andreas suddenly stopped running.

Arrows pierced his back.

He turned around and more pierced his chest. He tried to run toward the wagon but he couldn’t. He dropped to his knees.

“No!” Emily cried.

Andreas’s eyes locked with hers.

The wagon was accelerating and the distance between them was increasing.

Andreas managed one last shout to her, “Please remember Andreas!” and then he fell forward and was trampled by the swarm.

“I will,” Emily whispered, her eyes glistening.

John had no choice but to let the horses do a full gallop on the winding road spiraling down the mountainside.

Inside the wagon everyone thrashed from side to side and Belle began to cry.

“Are they coming?” John asked Trevor.

Trevor cocked his pistol and partially stood to see over the top of the wagon. Dawn was breaking and he had a clear view uphill. The coast was clear. They’d left the soldiers behind. “We’re okay.” Then he saw a horse and rider, then another. “We’re not okay.”

He fired his pistol and the nearest rider fell.

“Take mine,” John shouted, passing his pistol up.

Trevor fired again. The second horse reared and threw its man.

Trevor sat back down.

In the gunmetal gray of dawn John saw the Rhine’s murky waters and in the distance the wooden bridge that led to the Italian camp on the west bank.

Horse hooves dug into the packed-down dirt road. A sharp turn was coming and he shouted for everyone to brace. The wagon swayed so hard he was afraid they were going to tip but they kept going, cheating gravity.

The road straightened and Trevor had another look behind but Brian who was also monitoring the rear beat him to the punch.

“They’ve mobilized the cavalry,” he shouted. “They’re coming!”

John snapped the reins again and exhorted the horses to go flat out.

They were down at sea level now, running parallel to the river. The bridge was looming.

Brian kept up the spotter chatter from the rear. “They’re gaining on us!” Then, “There’s something going on up on the ramparts. It’s a bloody cannon.”

John had to slow the horses to take the turn onto the bridge and when he’d made it he drove them back to a gallop. The wagon wheels whirred loudly on the rough wooden planks.

“Tell Brian to fire his pistol into the air,” John shouted. “I want to let the Italians know we’re coming.”

Trevor rapped on the front of the wagon and in a shout passed the order along.

“I left the bloody thing back at the gatehouse!” Brian yelled.

Boom.

The percussion was followed by a whistling sound that John knew all too well.

His cursing was drowned out by a shell from the Russian singing cannon exploding hundreds of yards in front of them to the west of the Rhine.

Arabel screamed and threw herself over Belle.

Brian saw the barrel of the cannon disappear with recoil. Then it came back into view. “They’re reloading!” he shouted.

The only one who seemed unafraid was Sam who cheerfully parroted the boom and whistle.

“They’ll hold their range and wait for us to drive into it!” John shouted to Trevor.

“Take us into the fields when we’re across,” Trevor said. “We’ve got to avoid straight lines.”

Once across the bridge the verges were too steep and wooded to get off the road. The horses galloped closer and closer to the point of impact of the last round.

“I can’t get off the road!” John shouted.

He saw a tree on fire fifty yards on.

The impact point.

A second round well timed would blow them to pieces. He thought about pulling up and stopping the wagon but Brian shouted that the Russian cavalry was approaching the bridge.

If John were up on the ramparts, he’d be touching the fire hole of the cannon in about five seconds.

Boom.

John saw a flash coming from a thicket ahead followed by an unmistakable whistle.

Garibaldi
.

The cannonball impacted the pale castle walls midway between the ground and the ramparts but it was enough to send the Russian artillerymen into a defensive posture.

The wagon sped past the impact point.

Ahead was a sight almost as wonderful as the cannon flash. A cavalry division composed of Italians, French, and Italians were galloping toward them and when they were nose-to-nose, they parted and streamed in single file to the right and the left of the wagon, galloping to engage the Russians.

Trevor let out some joyous shouts as they passed the soldiers who raised their swords and whooped back.

“Beautiful!” Trevor shouted. “Fucking beautiful!”

“Are we going to be all right?” Emily shouted.

“For now we are,” John shouted back, then more quietly, “For now.”

The main concentration of German troops and the remaining divisions of the Russian army were bivouacked in a vast encampment to the east of Castle Marksburg. Stalin had been awoken and told of the escape. In a fury he sent a rider to mobilize the combined army and that army was now breaking camp.

“Get my boots!” Stalin commanded Nikita. “And where is Yagoda?”

“He has been summoned.”

Yagoda arrived, tucking the last of his shirt into his pants, looking dazed from his rude awakening and the after-effects of too much wine.

“How did this happen?” Stalin growled.

The rat faced colonel said he didn’t know but would find out and destroy the responsible men.

“Let us start with the man who was ultimately responsible,” Stalin said, drawing his fancy pistol and without hesitation shooting Yagoda between his closely spaced eyes.

Stalin pulled his high boots over his trousers.

“Let’s go, little Nikita,” he said. “We are going to have a war, a very big war.”

“How’re you doing this fine morning?” Christine asked.

She had just removed the blonde woman’s ropes that tethered her to the toilet during the nights. Christine brandished a kitchen knife to discourage an escape attempt.

They had made things as comfortable as possible considering the tight space. There were duvets and pillows on the floor. There was water from the sink. There was a toilet, of course. She was provided with three meals a day and snacks if she kept her mouth shut and didn’t raise Cain. But they didn’t let her have any booze, not a drop, and predictably, she’d spent most of the week in withdrawal—not body-writhing, skin-crawling withdrawal, but it hadn’t been pretty or easy.

The fight had gone out of her. She was calm and collected this morning and asked an appropriate question. “I’ve lost track. Is Roger back at school?”

“He goes back Monday. This is Saturday,” Christine said, laying down a plate of eggs and toast.

“Can I see him today?”

“I don’t think he should see his mother tied to a toilet.”

“He knows I’m in here.”

“How could he not? All the ranting and raving you went through.”

“I was sick.”

“Tell me about it.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That his mum was sick with a tummy problem and needed to use the loo a lot. We told him we were nurses.”

“He believed you?”

“I think so. He’s a lovely boy.”

“I know that.”

“He doesn’t deserve the way you treat him.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Do you even remember how you treat him when you’re drunk?” Christine asked, her arms sternly folded.

She teared up. “I’ve had a hard time.”

“I know hard times. Molly knows hard times. You don’t know hard times.”

“Ted doesn’t …”

“I don’t want to hear it again. Ted doesn’t pay his child support. He left you for a chippy. The council’s cutting your benefits. Shut up. You’ve got a lovely son, a nice house, you’re safe, well fed, able bodied. You don’t know what bad is.”

She rolled her eyes. “In Hell?”

Christine hadn’t been keen to tell her but Molly, in a fit of pique responded to her “poor me” blubbering by telling her everything. The woman hadn’t believed a thing and Christine had left it at that.

“Yeah, in Hell. I don’t give a toss whether you believe me. But here’s the thing. I don’t know if you’ve ever crossed the line enough to punch your ticket there, luv, but child abusers, child molesters and the like, well in Hell they get treated much like child abusers in prison if they’re stupid enough to talk about it. But in Hell it’s forever. We’ve got you sobered up. Stay that way and take care of that lovely little boy. If you don’t we’ll be waiting for you on the other side.”

“You sound like you’re leaving.”

“We’re going today.”

“Thank God. Will you leave me untied?”

“No, but I’ll leave the knots loose enough that you’ll be able to get out in a few hours. And don’t call out to Roger to do it for you. It’ll traumatize him. You’re sober and sensible enough to understand that.”

“Where are you going?”

“So you can tell the police?”

“I’m just curious.”

“We’re going to see my mum. I never got to say goodbye to her.”

In the lounge, Roger was doing a jigsaw puzzle. Molly was on the sofa eating biscuits.

Christine got down on the floor. “I made you sandwiches,” she said.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Not for now, for later. You’ll find them on the kitchen table under foil.”

“You’ll get them for me later?” he asked.

“I would, my love, but Auntie Molly and I have to leave now.”

The boy looked up sharply. “But I don’t want you to go.”

“I know. We don’t want to go either, but it’s time.”

“Is mummy still in the loo?”

“She is but she’s almost all better. She’ll come out to see you before you know it.”

“But don’t go in there,” Molly said. “Even if she asks you. Remember what I said about ladies and their privacy?”

Roger nodded. “Will you come back?”

“No, we won’t be coming back, sweetheart,” Christine said, “but I hope you remember the lovely week we had together.”

His lower lip quivered.

“Now don’t cry,” Christine said. “You’re a big boy and big boys don’t cry. Now give me a big goodbye hug.”

With the small body in her grasp, Christine choked back tears. She peeled his arms off her and Molly moved in for hers.

Closing the door behind them, Molly started to speak but Christine was fighting her emotions and just said, “Please don’t say anything, all right?”

The cottage in Stoke Newington resembled a garbage tip. The rovers had sucked the house dry of food and drink, discarding everything that couldn’t be eaten. In the lounge, kitchen, and bedrooms they had tipped over most of the furnishings in varying states of drunkenness and combativeness. And like locusts that had consumed all a piece of land had to offer, it was time to move on. Christine’s sister had the good fortune of not yet returning from her holiday in Cornwall but when she did she probably was not going to be overjoyed.

In Hell, Talley was unquestionably their leader. On Earth, Hathaway had progressively co-opted his authority. His knowledge of modernity placed him in a position that even Talley’s reptilian brain could recognize was essential for their survival. Yet that didn’t prevent Talley from asserting his dominance, especially when loaded with alcohol. One particularly ugly physical confrontation had left both men bloody and chairs destroyed.

That morning, Hathaway had awoken first and unable to find anything to eat beyond a packet of frozen piecrust dough, he righted an overturned wing chair and stewed.

Hate was his friend. It had kept him company every day in Hell and every day back on Earth. Revenge was aspirational. He put it on a higher plane than satisfying his basic biological needs. Rix, Murphy, and their wives were his raison d’etre. He had hated them enough to kill them but that wasn’t enough. When he found them in Hell they were sitting pretty, at least by the standards of most Heller bastards. Rix had Christine. Murphy had Molly. Forever. They needed a good crashing. They needed to be in rotting rooms. He realized he would have a yawning void in his desperate existence once he’d destroyed them but destroy them he would.

It hadn’t been easy. Their village of Ockendon had enough fit men to be capable of defending itself from rovers. Other villages were easier pickings. What a rush it had been finding the women alone in the woods that day. After a day of raping, at night he would have rolled their heads into the village like bowling balls. Now he regretted not crashing them as soon as they got to Earth. But the whole experience had been too jumbled and confusing. He wouldn’t make the mistake again.

His hate lived somewhere on the border of rational thought. The logic went something like this: he’d been forced to kill the four of them because they were going to turn themselves into the police. Mellors had ordered the hit. Clean up the mess, Lucas, Mellors had said. Clean it up or we’ll all be in the soup. He was in Hell because he had killed them. Yes, the kidnapped girl had died but he hadn’t been there when it happened, had he? No one knew what kind of celestial judge condemned you to Hell but maybe he wouldn’t have gotten tagged with her death. How did he know? So it was them, Rix and Murphy, Christine and Molly, who were responsible for landing him in Hell.

Talley shuffled in looking bilious. “Give me something to drink.”

“There’s nothing left.”

“Fuck there isn’t.”

“Have a look if you don’t believe me.”

Talley opened the liquor cabinet and found one bottle. “What’s this then?” he said triumphantly.

“It’s Margarita mix. No liquor in there.”