Kamiyo rubbed his jaw again and flexed it left and right. He winced. “I’d imagine they need someone like you more. You saved my life earlier, you know? A demon was about to eat my face, and you took its head off with that rifle of yours.”
Hannah smiled and patted her weapon. “Don’t get too used to it. She’s running out of food.”
“What happened to the rest of the Army—if you don’t mind me asking?”
“She’s it,” said Ted morosely.
Hannah rolled her eyes at him before looking back at Kamiyo. “My regiment and others, we… we lost a big battle a couple of weeks ago. No one got out except for me.”
Kamiyo appeared crestfallen but nodded his head as if he’d known the truth all along. “Well, I’m sure these people will be glad to have you. One soldier is better than none.”
“I hope so,” she said. “This place is amazing. What d’you reckon, Ted? Will they let us stay?”
Ted shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care. I’m leaving in the morning. If these people want to give me supplies in thanks for pulling their arseholes off the stove, they’re welcome, but last thing I plan on doing is sticking around with a bunch of lambs waiting to be slaughtered.”
Kamiyo grimaced as if the notion of anyone leaving this place was sickening to him. “What? Where else would you go?”
“North,” said Hannah, knowing what Ted’s answer would be before he gave it.
“Yeah,” said Ted, side-eying her. “North.”
Kamiyo frowned. “Why North?”
“My business. All I know is that these people are living on borrowed time. The only way to survive in this world is to keep on moving.”
Hannah couldn’t have disagreed more, and she told him so. “The best way to survive when you’re outnumbered is to bed-in. History is filled with small, entrenched armies repelling three-times their number. Sparta was more than a movie, mate, it happened. Huh, you know, if these people had any sense at all, they’d make camp inside the castle up on that hill, not down here in the open.”
Kamiyo chuckled. “It’s quite a place up there. I passed through it when I stumbled out of the forest. The walls are in good shape and the gate house is still standing. I almost expected Lord Stark to come down and meet me. Suppose these people made camp down by the lake to fish and live inside the cabin.”
Something appeared to run through Ted’s mind, so Hannah waited to let him speak. Eventually, he said, “You know, that might not be the stupidest idea in the world. They built castles to keep enemies out. Modern weaponry made them obsolete, but this isn’t a modern world anymore. The demons ain’t stupid, but I can’t see them rolling up in tanks. The castle is protected by a steep drop on at least two sides that I see. If the walls are standing on the other two, then maybe these people could defend themselves.”
“The walls are standing,” said Kamiyo. “All of them. The original gate is still in place too. It’s clamped open, but with some tools someone could get it down.”
“Someone like you, Ted!” Hannah grinned at him and gained a small amount of pleasure from his obvious discomfort of the idea. “You’re a builder.”
“Was a builder.”
Hannah sighed. The guy never got any easier to talk to, but at least he’d lost that look of wanting to kill someone. “My point,” she said, eyeballing him, “is that you can help these people, Ted. We can all help each other. These people haven’t seen the enemy like we have. They don’t understand what they’re up against. We can organise this place to defend itself, move everyone up the hill and help make it as hard as possible for anything nasty to get at them. And the canny doctor here can patch up anyone who needs it.”
Ted threw a twig onto the fire. “These people ain’t my problem. I was only thinking out loud.”
“Come on!” said Kamiyo, as incredulous at Ted’s attitude as Hannah had been upon meeting the stubborn mule of a man. “This camp might be all that’s left. We have to-”
“Dr Kamiyo?” A woman came hurrying down the cabin’s steps. “Doctor?”
Kamiyo turned from the fire. “Jackie? What is it?”
“It’s the young man you pulled from the lake. He’s awake.”
Kamiyo got up and hurried after the woman, leaving Hannah and Ted sat beside the fire. Hannah frowned at Ted and asked, “What young man?”
Ted just shrugged.
17
DR KAMIYO
Kamiyo followed Jackie into the stuffy cabin which was now littered with exhausted teenagers and shell-shocked children. Dozens of long candles lit the interior as well as a small log-fire at the rear. Several younger children were asleep on sofas. Shock had switched off their little minds.
A man Kamiyo thought was called Steven stood over by the reception desk and gave Jackie a reassuring look. He said, “He’s still in there, Jac. Hasn’t caused any fuss, but do we have reason to be worried?”
“I don’t know, Steven. We should all be very careful whatever transpires.”
Kamiyo nodded hello to the man but received only a suspicious frown in return. He could barely blame the man.
Jackie showed Kamiyo to a small room behind the reception desk, and when he entered, he found the young man from the lake sat up on a wood-framed couch. He appeared confused and ill, dark-skin ashen and his coarse hair somehow singed as if he’d been pulled from a fire and not a lake.
Kamiyo approached the young man. “I’m glad you’re awake! My name is Dr Kamiyo, and I was the one who pulled you from the water. May I ask your name?”
The young man palmed his forehead for a moment, seeming in pain, but gradually his hands fell back into his lap. His bleary eyes settled on Kamiyo. “Name’s Vamps. Not my real name, just a street name, innit? Only thing left now is the streets.”
“Oh
