Our advisors suggest this energy may be intelligent in some way, that these champions appear where or when they’re most needed. Take that as you will. Sounds like a load of bunkum to me, but it doesn’t have any impact on the mission at hand. All you need to know is that a new group of Five is being formed. Two have so far been identified.’
‘How dangerous are they?’ the acne man asked. ‘The Five who fought at the Battle of London sound like nutters.’
‘Dangerous is a good word for them, Grieg. Particularly so in the case of these two,’ the General replied. ‘The first one goes by the name of Mallory, Christian name unknown. He’s a mercenary. Most recently, he sold himself to the Church.’
A sneering murmur ran through the assembled men except Hunter and Hal, who listened intently.
‘Don’t make assumptions or you’ll pay the price,’ the General warned. The Church — what remains of it — is based in Salisbury Cathedral, where they’re training up a new bunch of Knights Templar. Forget your history. These are fighting men. Hard. Well suited to the times we live in. Well trained in swordplay, archery, survival techniques. And they had a good teacher: Blaine.’
‘ The Blaine?’ Grieg asked.
The General nodded. ‘Indeed. Bloody Blaine of Belfast. So don’t underestimate Mallory. If you don’t have your wits about you, you’ll be dead before you’re within three feet of him.’
‘Is he travelling with the other one?’ Hunter asked.
‘Yes. A woman.’ The General checked his notes. ‘Sophie Tallent. Special abilities: she can manipulate that subtle energy in some way, has certain supernatural powers…’
Hal found himself wondering what chance they had if the military couldn’t accept the profound changes that had taken place across the world. The supernatural was a fact of life: strange creatures, bizarre powers, hidden rules. Everyone knew it; they’d all seen the signs — much of the evidence lay in the cells of the high-security wing below Brasenose College, not far from the lab where Glenning had died.
‘Are they lying low?’ Hunter’s face had a strange expression that Hal couldn’t quite read.
‘They don’t realise that we’re aware of them,’ the General replied, ‘let alone searching for them. They should be relatively easy to locate. Our last reconnaissance placed them somewhere in the vicinity of Sparkford in Somerset. It appears they’re searching for something, though without much luck so far.’
‘Can we use the chopper?’
Hal flinched at Hunter’s request. With no new fuel being produced, vehicle use was rarely sanctioned, but the General acceded without hesitation. Hunter winked at Hal.
‘Get them back here as quickly as you can. Get them back in a state we can use,’ the General said firmly. ‘And don’t come back empty-handed.’
Outside Magdalen’s main college buildings, Hal waited for Hunter in St John’s Quadrangle, in the shadow of the porter’s lodge. Hunter had stayed behind after the General’s departure to brief his men, which Hal knew usually meant threatening them with genital removal in the event of failure. Hunter called it motivational therapy; Hal wasn’t wholly sure it was a joke.
‘I’ve got a funny feeling about the way things are going at the moment,’ Hal said when Hunter emerged.
For once, Hunter’s response wasn’t glib. ‘We’re at a turning point, no mistaking.’ He forced a grin. ‘Let’s hope the leadership are up to what’s expected of them.’
‘You don’t have much time for anyone, do you?’
‘Not really. That way you never feel let down.’ He cracked his knuckles uneasily. ‘I can’t get this damned REM song out of my head.’
‘The one about the end of the world?’
‘You’d think, wouldn’t you? No, another one, an older one.’
Hunter paused as Samantha emerged from the buildings that housed the staff living quarters. She’d showered after her run and her hair was still damp. Her face lit up with an open smile when she saw Hal, but became instantly guarded when her eyes fell on Hunter.
‘Hmm. Fresh and squeaky clean,’ he said as she approached.
Samantha’s eyes flashed. ‘I gather you’re about to depart on an extremely dangerous, possibly lethal mission. Don’t hang around here on my behalf.’
‘Samantha, you’re the reason I’ll be back. You give my life meaning.’ He winked at Hal. ‘See you, mate. Put the champagne on ice.’
Samantha watched until Hunter had disappeared from view, and then turned to Hal and said, ‘He gives sleazy a bad name.’
‘You know you like him really,’ Hal joked and was surprised by Samantha’s indignation.
‘How can you say that?’ Her tone was unduly sharp.
‘I was just-’
‘Well, don’t.’ She softened. ‘Listen, have you heard the latest gossip?’ Hal allowed himself to be dragged conspiratorially into an alcove. ‘The security forces have captured a god.’
‘What?’ Hal said, suddenly uneasy, although he didn’t quite know why. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘It’s true. They used some super-secret weapon, apparently. Anyway, he’s been brought in for interrogation-’
‘Brought here? Is that wise?’
Samantha looked at him, puzzled.
‘I know we’ve got secure cells-’
‘They’re already holding some powerful things down there,’ Samantha said.
‘I know. But not a god. How can they contain a power like that?’
‘He’s not a real god-’
‘You know what they did to London. Besides, even if we could hold it, that’s got to attract the attention of all its kind. Do we really want all that coming down on our heads?’
A flicker of disappointment crossed Samantha’s face. It stung Hal harder than he would have expected. ‘We’re at war, Hal,’ she said gently. ‘We have to take risks, for the sake of everyone.’ She gave his arm a reassuring squeeze, as if he was scared for his own safety. ‘Don’t worry. If I hear any more I’ll let you know.’ She flashed him a smile and headed towards the refectory for a late-night meal.
Hal stood in the silent quadrangle for a long moment, turning over what she had said. He wished Hunter was still around; he needed to discuss it with someone. It was too big to deal with himself. But there was no one else and, with a mounting sense of disquiet, he headed out into the night.
After everything that had happened that evening, Hal felt distinctly out of sorts. Glenning’s death had shaken him profoundly, and the random numerical manifestations of five minus one still haunted him. He tried to pretend that his mind had only noticed the similar numbers because it was already troubled, but he couldn’t shake an overwhelming feeling that it meant something, although he couldn’t begin to divine what.
Yet he found no ease in the moon-shadows of the Deer Park. The night was too hot and appeared to be growing warmer by the minute; his sweat-sodden shirt clung to his back. But it wasn’t the temperature that continued to turn the screw on his psyche. With mounting disorientation, he looked around at the cityscape visible beyond the ancient rooftops. It was like looking at the city through a heat haze: a transparent curtain of shimmering sapphire light rippled back and forth, and through it Oxford appeared transformed. The medieval buildings and their modern counterparts merged and flowed into more fantastic structures: towers reached up into the night, some constructed from gleaming blue-white stone, others seemingly of brass and gold; lofty-roofed halls and gargoyle- riven battlements; arching bridges; steeples and spires and domes.
The illusion came and went with every eye-blink, fantasy and reality, reality and fantasy, so that in the end he couldn’t tell on which side of the line he stood. With it came a tingling in his fingers and toes, energy drawn from the ground itself, curling up his spine like the snake that slithered across Hunter’s back. Hal’s breath was taken away with wonder, while his rational mind ran wild in search of understanding.
Yet he was distracted after only a few seconds by a figure emerging from the haze as if it was slowly gaining solidity from a phantom existence. It was a giant of a man at least eight feet tall. His long black hair and beard and the dark coals of his eyes reminded Hal oddly of the disfigured tramp he had seen earlier that evening. Though his height was daunting, it was the man’s clothes that instantly set him apart. He wore a rough brown shift fastened at the waist by a broad belt. His left forearm was bound with a thong, from which several malicious-looking hooks
