“It’s more than that,” Drake interrupted, turning to Will. “You remember that last time we were in Highfield with your father? When he wanted to catch a glimpse of Celia from the rooftop?”
“Sure, I remember,” Will said. “In Martineau Square.”
“Well, I rather glibly made a comparison between the Styx and viruses then. I had absolutely no idea how close I was.” Drake turned to Eddie. “At a guess, when the spawn grows in the host, it assimilates not just its proteins but also some of the host DNA into its genome, doesn’t it? And isn’t that the reason why current Styx physiology mirrors our own?”
Eddie nodded. “Our scholars believe that there was a Phase in prehistoric times, which brought about the extinction of the dinosaurs. And we most certainly weren’t humanoid in those days. The scholars tell us that the human resemblance came later, after a second Phase during Neanderthal times.”
Will uttered a barely audible “Wow.”
“Wait . . . this is all getting a little too fantastic,” Drake said, holding up his hands. “Where’s the proof for all this, Eddie? How do I know what you’ve just told us is true?” he challenged, although not aggressively, as he tried to deal with what he’d just heard. “We’ve only got your word f —”
Eddie made a move to reach inside his jacket. In a heartbeat, Drake had drawn his gun and was aiming it straight at the Styx.
“You know I’m not armed,” Eddie said, holding completely still. “I want to show you something.”
“Go on,” Drake said, his gun still on the Styx.
From an inside pocket Eddie slowly eased out a book, its cover creased and worn.
“The Book of Catastrophes?” Will asked, as he regarded the battered volume in Eddie’s hands, which was bound in some type of ivory-colored parchment.
“No, this is from long before that,” Eddie replied. “Only a handful of copies of this book survived from the fifteenth century. No Colonist has ever laid eyes on it, and it’s unlikely there’ll be another above grass. I had this particular copy smuggled out of the Citadel for me.”
Putting his handgun away, Drake shrugged. “So what is it?”
“Well . . .” Eddie thought for a second. “The Styx title for it means ‘from one comes many,’ There isn’t an exact match in the English language, but I suppose the best word for it would be ‘Propagation,’ or better, perhaps, ‘Proliferation.’ ” With a finger, he traced the three sides of the inverted triangle tooled into its front cover. “Yes, the Book of Proliferation,” he decided, then held it up to Will and Drake. “And this isn’t leather. It’s bound in skin. Human skin.”
“Okaaay,” Drake exhaled. “I suppose that about sets the tone.”
Eddie opened the book and was carefully turning the pages, which rustled like old leaves. “Ah, here it is,” he said, rotating the book so Will and Drake could see the illustration, a crude woodblock print.
It depicted a man lying on the ground, his body bloated and misshapen, as a woman’s thin face hung over him. The rest of her body was partially concealed by the shadows and difficult to make out.
Will was squinting at the picture. “It sort of looks like she’s got wings on her back . . . but those must be the insect limbs you talked about,” he said.
“Correct.” Eddie swiveled the book around again and glanced at the page of meticulously written text. “This is a record of our last Phase. It documents what took place in the mid-fifteenth century in Romania,” he told Will and Drake. “It was during the reign of the Prince of Wallachia, who achieved notoriety for his wholesale slaughter of p —”
Will couldn’t stop himself from jumping in. “Vlad . . . Dad told me about him. You’re talking about Vlad the Impaler, aren’t you?”
“I am,” Eddie confirmed. “And the folklore surrounding him has given rise to the improbable vampire stories and films that seem to be so in vogue at the moment. But the reality is somewhat different. . . . The reality is that our Phase started the myth. You see, the prince offered us protection on the understanding that in return we’d wipe out the boyars, his archenemies, for him. His part of the bargain was to provide somewhere secure for the Phase to take place . . . and an ample supply of human bodies.”
“I bet he gave you that, all right. My dad said he killed thousands, after roasting and skinning them and hacking off their arms and legs,” Will remembered. “And he liked to stick their heads on stakes.”
“That was just window dressing to divert attention from what we were up to,” Eddie said. “The prince was actually a very cultured and gentle man.”
Drake was frowning. “Let me get this straight. If there was a Phase back in the fifteenth century . . . then . . . what happened? We’re not all dead or in servitude, so what went wrong?”
“The prince reneged on us,” Eddie said. “He was persuaded by his bishops that we were ungodly, and that we had to be stopped. So he ordered his knights to storm the catacombs in the palace where the Phase was under way. Our newly spawned Warrior Class was still either in the larval or pupation stage, so the knights met no opposition, cutting them to shreds and burning their remains. In fact the only resistance was from our womenfolk, but the knights eventually corralled them down one end of the catacombs, where they put them to death.” Eddie almost smiled as he added, “So rather than portraying him as a cruel despot, history should instead recognize Vlad — the so-called Impaler — as one of its greatest saviors. The irony is that he saved all humanity.”
Drake steepled his fingers as he absorbed this. “So what you’re saying is that conventional forces — armed only with rudimentary weapons — stopped the Phase? So with modern equipment, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“If — and only if — you can find where the new Phase is taking place, and destroy the Warrior Class before they spread,” Eddie answered. “Before or during pupation.”
“Why?” Drake cut in.
“Because the Warrior Class can reproduce, too. When they get out, their numbers become —”
“Exponential,” Drake interjected. “So they’re male and yet they can reproduce.” He was suddenly struck by a question. “But why is this new Phase taking place right now?”
“As I told you, a number of factors have to be present before a Phase is triggered, and even our scholars don’t know exactly what they are. Perhaps one of the factors is simply our biological clock. The time was” — Eddie stopped, correcting himself — “is right. And I know it is because I can feel it, and so can all those Limiters who’ve come over to me.”
WITH CAPTAIN FRANZ standing like a shop dummy behind them, the Rebecca twins had been watching on a security monitor as Alex and the other Styx women worked their way through the humans, impregnating them with egg sacs.
Rebecca Two spotted activity at the factory gates on another monitor. “The food drop’s arrived,” she observed.
“It’s about time. I bet the sisters are famished. Let’s see if I can override this thing,” Rebecca One said, pressing the function keys on the keyboard until she found the view she was looking for. “Here we are.” The tractor-trailer was backing up in the loading bay. As soon as it stopped, the trailer was opened and a squad of New Germanians began to hurriedly empty its contents onto a series of barrows. “Meals on wheels,” the twin joked. “You are my sunshine,” she began to sing quietly to herself as she switched back to the camera inside the steamy factory space. Using the swivel stick on the desktop controls, she zoomed in on the connecting doors from the loading area. Less than a minute later, the doors swung open and in came two New Germanians with a laden barrow. Behind them, a Limiter stood guard in the entrance.
Smelling the food, a horde of Styx women had been lurking just inside the doors.
Rebecca One laughed maliciously. “This is going to be good.”
Vane rushed one of the New Germanians, clawing him to the ground with amazing speed. The rest of the women immediately swarmed on both him and the other soldier, tearing at their bodies. They were
so Darklit, the two soldiers did nothing to fight back.
“I suppose we promised our sisters fresh meat,” Rebecca Two reflected as she watched the carnage. “You can’t get fresher than that.”
Even the Limiter didn’t escape the women’s attention.
“Wild!” Rebecca Two exhaled.
Like an attacking spider, Vane had moved with such phenomenal speed that the trace she left on the security monitor wasn’t much more than a blur.
In a single leap, she’d reached the Limiter, and before he knew what was happening, her insectoid legs had lashed his eyes. Staggering blindly, he tried to use his rifle to fend her off, but Alex was already on his back, her teeth in his neck.
“The female of the species is always the deadliest,” Rebecca One said under her breath.
“Ha! Those two!” Rebecca Two chortled as she watched. Vane and Alex were ripping the Styx soldier apart, limb from limb, while another panicked Limiter quickly sealed the doors to the factory floor behind them. “They’re so picky about what they eat.”
As the Bedford trundled along the path of the river, the water level receded so at least their feet weren’t being swamped. Then the truck’s tires spun as they climbed the bank and were back on some sort of track.
After a while Chester felt a pressure on his upper arm. Stephanie had drifted off, her head against him. Careful not to disturb her, he took out his flashlight, shielding it as he tried to make out the time on his watch. Before he turned the light off, its stray beam flicked over Elliott, who was sitting directly opposite him. She was wide awake and staring at him and Stephanie. It might have been due to the angle of the flashlight beam, but her expression was grim and unamused.
Despite the fact that he was protected by the darkness, Chester felt himself color up, as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t.
It was true that he wasn’t sure how to respond to Stephanie’s interest in him, particularly as he assumed that it was mainly due to the false picture Will had painted of his prowess as a skiing champion.
And Chester felt awkward about the pace at which everything was moving, as if he was being swept along by an actual river. What it came down to was that he didn’t know how Elliott really felt about him, or how he really felt about her. There had been times when they seemed to be close, but more recently, during their stay at Parry’s house, she’d distanced herself from him, and everybody else.
Chester was just confused.
And he was very relieved when the Bedford eventually came to a grinding halt, which roused Stephanie.
“Where are we?” She yawned, sitting up.
“Don’t know,” Chester grunted, aware that he was probably still under scrutiny from Elliott.
With a crash, Parry opened the tailgate. “Everyone out,” he said.
Following behind Colonel Bismarck, Chester jumped from the truck, and found that they were under a shelter made of rusty corrugated sheets. He wandered a few paces into the open, squinting at the sky, where the dawn light was beginning to streak its way between the clouds. “What a surprise — it’s raining,” he complained, blinking as the drizzle fell in his eyes.
“That’s a Morris Minor!” Mr. Rawls announced, and Chester turned to look at the old car hidden behind the truck. It resembled an overripe and very large grape, not just because of its globular shape but because of the dull patina on its paint.
“It’s Danforth’s,” Parry informed them. “At least he arrived without mishap.”
Once everyone had gathered up their equipment, they followed Parry along a path surrounded on both sides by thick undergrowth. Chester noticed that Elliott had come to a stop and that she was grimacing and rubbing her shoulder under the strap of the Bergen. Concerned for her, he retraced his steps back to where she was. “Are you all right?” he asked, and placed a hand on her arm.
She jumped, drawing away from him, then met his eyes. “Stephanie’s very pretty. You never mentioned that you’d met someone on the estate,” she said.
“I . . . er . . . I didn’t think it mattered,” Chester gabbled. “And I really don’t know her at all.”
“I do,” Elliott replied. “She’s everything I wanted to be. And everything I hate about myself.”
Chester had no idea how to respond to this, but Parry had noticed they weren’t keeping up. “Hurry it along, you two,” he called, then continued to strike out along the path. Within a few minutes Chester caught sight of some open land before them.
“Move quickly along here,” Parry urged.
They’d emerged in a gulley at the foot of a mountain, much of which was covered with grass and sheep-cropped vegetation. However, toward its upper reaches, the soil had been scoured away by the elements, and large slabs of striated rock stood proud like the remains of ancient fortifications. Chester saw that the gulley was taking them toward a line of electricity pylons.
Parry called everyone around him on the side of the gulley. “Once we’re over the top, we’ll be in an exposed position. It’s very unlikely there’ll be anyone in the valley below, but just in case, Wilkie’s going to send you across one at a time. Understood?”
Everyone nodded, then Parry climbed out of sight. When it was Chester’s turn, Wilkie gave him a pat on the back and the boy clambered up the side. With the wind and rain in his face, he began to jog the forty feet across to where Parry was crouched down beside one of a pair of structures at the base of the nearest pylon. As Chester came nearer, he could see that these were two squat, gray-painted transformers approximately twenty feet square and covered in cooling fins. On top of them were what appeared to be elongated goalposts, from which cables extended to the pylon above.
The transformers were both encircled by a chain-link fence with razor wire strung along the top. Parry ushered Chester through a gate in the fence so he could join his father and a very fed-up Stephanie.
“This is so not cool anymore,” she said, water dripping from the end of her nose.
Finally, as Old Wilkie joined them inside the fence, Parry moved toward the nearest of the transformers, from which a steady hum was emanating. On the transformer a sign warned DANGER OF DEATH. KEEP AWAY. HIGH VOLTAGE WILL KILL, with lightning strikes on either side of a red skull and crossbones.
“Danger indeed,” Parry said, placing a hand on the structure. There was a whiplash crack as electricity discharged. Despite the fact that Parry’s hair was damp, it stood on end. His appearance would have been rather comical if everyone hadn’t thought he was being electrocuted.
But he was completely unharmed. “Nothing to be worried about,” he said, laughing. “An electrostatic charge to see off the overcurious.” He selected one of the fins on the side of the transformer and pressed a catch on it, then slid open a small hatch.
They all ducked in though the hatch, entering a claustrophobic chamber on the other side. Parry used his flashlight to see as he pressed a series of digits into a small key panel. The moment he’d finished, a red light blinked on above a grille beside the key panel. From it a man’s voice issued the demand “The prime sequence.”
“You know precisely who I am. Do we really have to go through this charade every time?” Parry replied tetchily.
“Of course we do,” the grille snapped, adding “sir” as an afterthought.
Parry blew through his lips, then recited, “The beast deep within the mountain slumbers until the kingdom calls, and then it shall arise to do the king’s bidding.”
“Affirmed,” the panel said. “Now sequence fourteen, if you please, sir.”
Parry thought for a moment. “There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, there is a rapture on the lonely shore, there is society, where none intrudes —”
“And sequence eight, please,” the grille interrupted.
“We’re all frozen to the marrow, bloody hungry, and bloody knackered. If you don’t open up, Finch, I’m going to blast my way into the Complex,” Parry threatened.
There was a pause, then something cl
icked at the side of the panel, and a crack of light appeared.
“Finally!” Parry exclaimed, heaving the door open so they could make their way down a ramp with rusted iron handrails on either side. They descended into a low-ceilinged room.
“This is the only way in or out of the Complex,” Parry told them, tipping his head at the substantial-looking door that appeared through the dim flashlight beam. “That’s armor plate,” he said. “It would take a ton of explosive to even make a dent in it.” Then he pointed at the gun-sized slits in panels of gray metal set into the concrete walls flanking the door. “And behind those are the twin guard rooms where the sentries would be stationed,” he continued.
“What exactly is this place?” Mr. Rawls ventured.
“The Complex was the base for Operation Guardian,” Parry answered. “It’s so hush-hush that them upstairs have probably forgotten that they’re meant to have forgotten it ever existed.”
“So it’s like that fallout shelter Will found?” Chester asked.
“No, it’s more than that,” Parry said. “Back in the years before the Great War, the aristocrats running the country decided that they needed a safe haven. Somewhere to put their families and portable valuables in the event of invasion. So they built the Complex with their own money — I suppose you could regard it as an underground castle for the very rich. Later on, when things were getting sticky for us in the Second World War, the War Cabinet commandeered it, expanding its role to include a command center for the Resistance.”
“Operation Guardian?” Mr. Rawls guessed.
“Precisely. Every town in the southeast and every major region throughout the British Isles had its own pre-recruited Resistance team waiting in the wings. The historians will tell you that the moment the Germans crossed the Channel, each team was to open their sealed orders and follow them to the letter.”