be my friend. You, a wiseass I ain’t never even seen before. I open my goddamn heart to you. I’m bleeding across the floor for you here. And you say no? No. To me!” Three scars burned hot and bright on his cheek. Everyone else in the office had retreated into a daunted silence.
“Is that what you’re saying, Avvy? No?”
“You got it, shithead,” Avram Harwood shouted recklessly. Something wild was running free in his brain, a mad glee at confounding his adversary. “The answer is never. Never. Never.”
“Wrong.” Al flicked his cigar onto the thick carpet. “You got it way wrong, buddy. The answer is yes. It is always yes when you talk to me. It is yes fucking please Mr Capone Sir. And I’m going to fucking well hear you say it.” A fist thumped on his chest for emphasis. “Today is the day you say yes to me.”
Mayor Avram Harwood took one look at the stained baseball bat which had materialized in Al Capone’s hands, and knew it was going to be
• • •
Duke-dawn failed. There was no sign of the primary sun’s comforting white light brushing the short night before it as the bright disk rose above the wolds. Instead, a miscreant coral phosphorescence glided out over the horizon, staining the vegetation a lustreless claret.
For a harrowingly confused moment Louise thought that Duchess was returning, racing around the underside of the planet after it had set scant minutes ago to spring up ahead of the lumbering Romany caravan. But after a minute’s scrutiny she realized the effect was due to a high haze of reddish mist. It really was Duke which had risen.
“What is it?” Genevieve inquired querulously. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure.” Louise scanned the horizon, leaning around the corner of the caravan to check behind them. “It looks like a layer of fog really high up, but why is it that colour? I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“Well I don’t like it,” Genevieve announced, and folded her arms across her chest. She glared ahead.
“Do you know what’s doing that?” Carmitha asked Titreano.
“Not entirely, my lady,” he said, appearing troubled. “And yet, I sense there is a rightness to it. Do you not feel comforted by its presence?”
“No I bloody don’t,” Carmitha snapped. “It’s not natural, and you know it.”
“Yes, lady.”
His subdued acknowledgement did nothing to alleviate her nerves. Terror, uncertainty, lack of sleep, not having eaten since yesterday, remorse, it was all starting to add up.
The caravan trundled on for another half a mile under the brightening red light. Carmitha steered them along a well-worn track below a forest. Here, the land’s gentle undulations were gradually increasing to form deeper vales and rolling hills. Dried up streambeds crisscrossed the slopes, emptying into the deeper gullies which ran along the floor of each valley. There was more woodland than out on the open wolds, more cover from, and for, prying eyes. All they had to go on was Titreano’s strange sixth sense.
Nobody spoke, too tired or too fearful. Louise realized the birds were missing from the air. The characterless forest loomed up like a shaggy cliff face mere yards away, bleak and repellent.
“Here we are,” Carmitha said as they rounded a curve in the track. It had taken longer than she thought. Eight hours at least. Not good for poor old Olivier.
Ahead of them the slope dipped down to expose a broad valley with heavily forested sides. The alluvial floor was a chessboard of neat fields, all marked out by long dry-stone walls and geneered hawthorn hedges. A dozen streams bubbling out from the head of the valley funnelled into a small river which meandered off into the distance. Red sunlight glinted off a narrow sliver of water running along the centre of its baked clay banks.
Bytham was situated about three miles down the valley; a cluster of stone cottages split in half by the river. Over the centuries the community had grown outwards from a single humpbacked stone bridge. At the far end, a narrow church spire rose above the thatched roofs.
“It looks all right,” Louise said cautiously. “I can’t see any fires.”
“Quiet enough,” Carmitha agreed. She hardly dared consult Titreano. “Are your kind out there?” she asked.
His eyes were closed, yet his head was thrust forwards, as though he were sniffing the air ahead. “Some of them,” he said, regretfully. “But not all of the village has been turned. Not yet. People are wakening to the fact that great evil stalks this land.” He glanced at Louise. “Where is your aerial machine berthed?”
She blushed. “I don’t know. I’ve never been here before.” She didn’t like to admit that apart from accompanying Mother on a twice-yearly train trip to Boston for a clothes-buying spree she’d hardly ever ventured outside Cricklade’s sprawling boundaries.
Carmitha pointed to a circular meadow half a mile outside the town, with two modest hangars on the perimeter. “That’s the aerodrome. And thank God it’s on this side of the village.”
“I suggest we make haste, lady,” Titreano said.
Still not quite trusting him, Carmitha nodded reluctantly. “One minute.” She stood up and hurried back into the caravan. Inside, it was a complete mess. All her possessions had been slung about by her madcap dash from Colsterworth, clothes, pots and pans, food, books. She sighed at the shards of broken blue and white china lying underfoot. Her mother always claimed the crockery had come with the family from Earth.
The heavy chest under her bed was one article which hadn’t moved. Carmitha knelt down and spun the combination lock.
Louise gave the Romany woman an alarmed look when she emerged from the caravan. She was carrying a single-barrelled shotgun and a belt of cartridges.
“Pump action,” Carmitha said. “It holds ten rounds. I’ve already loaded it for you. Safety’s on. You hold it, get used to the weight.”
“Me?” Louise gulped in surprise.
“Yes, you. Who knows what’s waiting for us down there. You must have used a shotgun before?”
“Well, yes. Of course. But only on birds, and tree rats, and things. I’m not a very good shot, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t worry. Just point it in the general direction of any trouble, and shoot.” She gave Titreano a dry grin. “I’d give it to you, but it’s rather advanced compared to the kind of guns you had in your day. Better Louise carries it.”
“As you wish, my lady.”
Now that Duke was higher in the sky it was doing its best to burn away the red mist which hung over the land. Occasionally a beam of pure white sunlight would wash over the caravan, making all four of them blink from its glare. But for the most part, the veil remained unbroken.
The caravan reached the valley floor, and Carmitha urged the cob into a faster trot. Olivier did his best to oblige, but his reserves of strength were clearly ebbing.
As they drew nearer to the village they heard the church bell tolling. It was no glad peal calling the faithful to morning service, just a monotonous strike. A warning.
“The villagers know,” Titreano announced. “My kind are grouping together. They are stronger that way.”
“If you know what they’re doing, do they know about you?” Carmitha asked.
“Yes, lady, I would fear so.”
“Oh, just wonderful.” The road ahead was now angling away from the direction in which the aerodrome lay. Carmitha stood on the seat, and tried to work out where to turn off. The hedges and walls of the fields were spread out before her like a maze. “Bugger,” she muttered under her breath. Both of the aerodrome’s hangars were clearly visible about half a mile away, but you’d have to be a local to know how to get to them.
“Do they know we’re with you?” Carmitha asked.
“Probably not. Not over such a distance. But when we are closer to the village, they will know.”
Genevieve tugged anxiously at Titreano’s sleeve. “They won’t find us, will they? You won’t let them?”
“Of course not, little one. I gave my word I will not abandon you.”
“I don’t like this at all,” Carmitha said. “We’re too visible. And when they realize there’s four of us riding on it, your side is going to know you’re travelling with non-possessed,” she said accusingly to Titreano.
