The Queen of sinister da-2 Read online

  Desperately, her gaze darted around. She could attempt to run through the thick trees that would preclude the mounts pursuing her, but sooner or later she would have to cross open fields.

  Just as she prepared to launch herself into the undergrowth, wild activity erupted further along the lane. It was difficult for Caitlin to comprehend what was occurring: a blood-chilling screaming tore through the night, rapid movement flashed in shadow form, only partially glimpsed through the hedgerow. The Whisperers paused in their advance. It was the crow, Caitlin guessed.

  For an agonising moment, Caitlin remained frozen. Then, when she thought she couldn't bear it any longer, the Whisperers guided their grotesque mounts away from the hedgerow into the centre of the lane, and advanced towards the source of the disruption.

  Caitlin crouched there shivering for fifteen more minutes before she finally dared move. Keeping low, she followed the hedge for as long as she could and then headed across the dark fields towards the house.

  There was no sign of the Whisperers, or of the strange hooded crow. Caitlin burst through the door as if the Devil were at her heels, locking and bolting it in one fluid movement before hurrying to peer through the curtains into the fading storm. A distant flash of lightning half-illuminated what appeared to be a figure standing amongst the trees just beyond the drive. She had the odd impression that it was a man, yet also that there was something bestial about the figure; in her fleeting glimpse she had seen something that reminded her of a boar's head. Yet as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark after the lightning she could see only a gnarled yew on the spot. An illusion?

  'What's going on?' Grant emerged from the kitchen, clutching a tea towel and a dinner plate. He looked tired, the hardship of life since the Fall making him seem older than his thirty years.

  She blurted out what she had seen in the lane without taking her eyes off the dark countryside.

  'There are nuts all over the place,' Grant said with a dismissive weariness before returning to the kitchen. In the midst of her fear, his reaction irritated her, but she understood it: there was only so much energy to go round. What with learning a new trade as a carpenter so that he could contribute to the local economy and earn them food, preparing defences in response to the increasing lawlessness in the countryside and trying to bring up Liam, Grant was almost drained.

  Caitlin waited for another couple of minutes and then convinced herself that whatever she had seen out there had moved on. She trailed after Grant, feeling washed out in the come-down from the adrenalin surge. The flickering lanterns gave a dreamlike feeling to the warm kitchen.

  'How are things?' Grant replaced the crockery without waiting to hear her response. 'I kept some stew for you on the Aga. You know, just in case you ever came home.' The bitterness in his voice sparked a dull flame of anger. Did he think she wanted to be away from her family? Risking her life, under massive stress, getting no rest for days on end? She bit her tongue, knowing nothing good would come from responding.

  'This is lovely,' she said, dipping into the saucepan with a wooden spoon to taste the stew. 'Thanks for making it. I'll get to it once I've seen Liam. He's still up, isn't he?'

  'He's in his room.' Grant continued putting the crockery away until a restrained thought slipped its leash. 'He's missing having you around, you know.'

  On the surface, it appeared to be such a throwaway comment, but it brought tears to her eyes and a burning to the back of her throat. 'I'll see to him.' She hurried away before any more turbulent emotions tipped out. Liam lay in bed in his SK8board pyjamas, flicking through an old Digimon annual. With popular culture effectively dead, at least in the short term, old favourites had taken on a new resonance. They'd attempted to keep his bedroom as normal as it had been before things had gone so spectacularly wrong: posters on the wall, PS2 on the side, now dormant like some antique radio set.

  He jumped up with an energy that made her feel old and weary. 'Mummy!' With the overstated passion of the young, he threw his arms around her, and she held him tight, feeling his hair against her cheek, and his warmth and smallness and hardness, blinking back tears, desperately trying to hold in all the things she needed to do to remain a grown-up.

  'You're working too hard!' he said. 'Daddy says you're going to wear yourself out.' He moved over so she could get in bed next to him. 'Under the quilt, Mummy. It's all snuggly then.' He burrowed in beside her.

  'There are a lot of people who need me to help them,' she began. 'It's Mummy's job and they'd be very sad if she wasn't there to make them better.' The hollowness of her words rang in her ears.

  'But we need you too, Mummy — Daddy and me.'

  'I know you do. And I'm here for you, too. Look, I'm here now.' She gave him a mock-crushing hug and then let him fight his way free. 'Do you want me to read to you?' She picked up the dog-eared copy of The Hobbit they'd slowly been making their way through. Caitlin thought she enjoyed it more than Liam; the escapism was even more poignant compared to the world beyond their home.

  'No, not tonight,' he said, to her disappointment. 'Tell me a story.'

  The rain had started again, pattering insistently against the window. It gave her a false sense of security as she huddled in the warmth beneath the quilt with Liam pressed close beside her, his innocence heady and hopeful. She closed her eyes and dreamed.

  'OK,' she began, 'once upon a time, there was a great and powerful kingdom, where people worked hard and enjoyed themselves when they weren't working, and believed they were the masters of everything. They had great scientists who could see deep into the universe and right down to the smallest atom, and businessmen who could make millions of pounds for the kingdom's coffers, and soldiers with terrible weapons that could destroy any enemy. Or so they thought. And the people were sure that things would keep getting better and better.'

  'But they didn't, did they?'

  'No. One day they woke up and found everything had changed. They weren't the masters of everything any more. More powerful people had turned up in the night and changed all the rules. The scientists weren't important any more because suddenly there were things they couldn't explain. And the soldiers discovered that their weapons weren't so powerful after all.'

  'Who were they? Aliens?' Liam's voice was growing sleepy. 'I suppose you could call them that. Nobody knew what they were really, but they'd been around for a long, long time. They'd been to this… this kingdom… before, many hundreds… thousands… of years ago… and then everyone thought they were gods. You know, like in Hercules.'

  'Uh huh.'

  'And they brought with them all the magical creatures that children heard about in fairy-tales. Everyone had thought those things were made up, but they weren't, they were real… only they weren't quite like the stories said. The simple folk of the kingdom had written stories and told tales to try to understand these creatures all those years ago, but the stories had got changed in the telling, with made-up stuff and real stuff getting all mixed up.'

  Liam's breathing was regular, but Caitlin could feel the faint movement of his facial muscles against her arm as his eyes flickered in response to her words. 'It looked as if the kingdom was going to be destroyed. The Government fell apart, and the soldiers were beaten in battle after battle, and nobody knew what to do at all, and nobody even knew how things worked any more because there was all this… magic… flying around that they didn't understand. But in times like that — you know, disasters, crises…' She was talking to herself now, lost to the images that flashed like jarring lightning strikes across her mind. '… it's not the big, important people who save the day — the kings and queens and politicians and generals — it's the normal people. The people who believe in themselves, who believe in good things so much that they'll fight against any danger. And so, five men and women came from nowhere to attack the… the… gods. Their names were…' She struggled to recall the details of the wild story that had been told to her by those superstitious villagers she used to tease. '… Church and Ruth
and Laura and Ryan and Shavi. And some say they won. At least, the kingdom wasn't destroyed completely and those gods went off into hiding, but the heroes… no one knows what happened to them.

  'But things could never be the same again. People still hadn't learned all the new rules, and everything they believed in had been thrown up in the air. They had to start from the beginning once more, trying to make a new… a better kingdom for themselves. But it was very, very hard and many hoped — and prayed — that those five heroes… if they really existed… would come back from wherever they had gone to help again.'

  A gust of wind against the panes shook her out of her reverie. 'That's how the story goes, anyway. Some of it might be true, some of it might be made up, but that's the way with stories.' She looked down at Liam and saw that he was fast asleep. Stories to make the world better, she thought. To make us understand the truth behind what's going on.

  Suddenly her thoughts rushed back to the moment of his birth, in St James's Hospital in Leeds, with Grant there and the sun streaming through the windows. It had been the last time, she recalled truly living in the moment, when the experience of what was happening wiped out all conscious thought. The concentrated hope of those few hours, the unshakeable belief that things could only get better, was still so profoundly affecting that she could feel the burn of nascent tears. Liam had come at a difficult time. She had barely started out on her medical studies, the long road of late nights, dull books and no spare time stretching out ahead of her. The soul-searching and intense debate had overwhelmed them from the moment the home pregnancy test kit had dropped into the waste bin: should Grant's studies as an architect take precedence over her ambitions? Who would give up their dreams to look after Liam? The thought that Liam wouldn't be there was not an option. The length of studies for both their chosen careers meant there would be no going back on the decision; it was a once-only life-defining choice, a sacrifice and a commitment that would have to be for ever or lead to a shattering bitterness in later years.

  Caitlin had already decided that she was going to give up her path when Grant had called her on her mobile and asked her to meet him in Roundhay Park, where they had gone for their first date, away from the stink of Leeds city centre and the incestuous gossip of the university campus. She had found him sitting in the summery morning sun on the same blanket he had brought to that first picnic, with a basket of bread, cheese, cold meat and mineral water.

  There was something about that moment — the quality of light, the smell of warm vegetation, the enigmatic turn of his smile and the openness in his eyes — that had crystallised her feelings, and she knew that she loved him and there would be no need for anyone else, ever. It would be just the two of them, just the three of them, and it wasn't frightening at all; it felt right.

  'I'm doing the baby stuff,' he had said before she could sit down.

  'No.' She had tried to wave him silent. 'I've already decided-'

  'I knew you'd try to talk me out of it, which is why I've already sold all my books and drawing equipment and officially quit. No going back.'

  'Grant!' she had said, horrified.

  'Let's face it, Caitlin, the most I'll ever be is average. You're brilliant. It has to be me.'

  She had looked him in the eyes, dumbfounded. 'You wanted it more than me. You know you did.' 'Then you owe me big time.' He had smiled, opening the mineral water, which fizzed loudly, sparkling in the sun. She'd shed a few tears, which she'd hidden away from him to avoid his merciless teasing, but for the first time she had been convinced that everything was going to be just right. When Caitlin slipped out of Liam's bedroom, Grant was sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of homemade beer, looking exhausted. She felt drained herself, but after the brief respite with Liam, the harsh reality of the plague crowded her thoughts once more. Since the Fall, the local community had come to rely on her more than she had ever dreamed when she was a simple GP. In a world suddenly chaotic, she was a symbol of stability, a wise woman who could offer advice while curing all their ills. They demanded more of her than she could possibly give — as the only doctor working the area she was on call 24/7 — but her sense of responsibility overrode every desire she had to escape from the position.

  In the lounge, she plucked a pile of medical textbooks from the bookshelf and took them to the table where the lantern flickered. Over the last few months she'd amassed quite a library to fill the gaps in her education, but nowhere had she managed to find any reference to an illness that resembled the symptoms of the plague. Some aspects reminded her of what she had read about the bubonic plague, yet the speed and the black discoloration were more reminiscent of the septicaemic plague, which had been much rarer during the Middle Ages but was transmitted by the same Yersinia pestis bacterium. Like the current outbreak, it had a near one hundred per cent fatality rate and, worryingly, no treatment had ever been found.

  Yet the septicaemic plague's discoloration, which gave the Black Death its name, was caused by disseminated intravascular coagulation, visible over wide areas of the skin and certainly not in the remarkably regular lines of this disease. Caitlin could find no evidence for the cause of that symptom in any of her autopsies.

  She wondered if it was some obscure tropical illness — certainly, the ferocity of its assault on the human system matched that of the Ebola virus — but even if she could identify it, there was little she could do without access to a lab or scientific expertise and the minimal medication she had to hand.

  It had appeared in the village as if from nowhere. She had been called out in the early hours of one morning to treat a farmer who had gone down with the warning-sign black dots and raging fever. The farmer had been away at a market in Fordingbridge trying to organise another branch of the food-distribution system, but had not mentioned anything to his family about illness on his return.

  Within a day, incidences of the disease cropped up rapidly throughout the village. Caitlin had attempted to track the spread, but it was soon apparent that it was striking down people who had had no contact. The only explanation was that it was airborne — a worst-case scenario that was devastating in its implications. With no national communication system available since the Fall, outside information was thin, but by that time she was knee-deep in the dead and the dying and she had no time for anything but disposal. 'What are you doing?'

  She started. Grant was at the door, holding his glass of beer. She couldn't see his face in the shadows. 'Just some research. If I could pin down the genotype of the plague it might point-'

  'We haven't seen you in days. Can't you give it a rest just for tonight?'

  She recognised the tone in his voice and knew what was to come. 'Grant-'

  'No. Don't give me all the excuses again. You're barely a part of this family-' 'I've got responsibilities!' Her voice snapped and tears of frustration sprang to her eyes. She'd told herself she'd remain calm and she'd barely lasted a few seconds; the unbearable stress she was under forced everything up against her skin, trying to break out of her.

  'You've got responsibilities to us.' Grant was cold and distant, but anger bubbled just beneath the surface.

  Caitlin stared at the textbook illustration of a virus, something so deadly stripped down to a cartoon. She'd heard the argument so many times recently in so many different tones, from despairing to furious, that she really didn't have the energy for such a futile exercise.

  'Yes, people need their doctor,' Grant continued. 'But we need you, too. You're never here any more. You never even think about us when you're out-'

  'How do you know what I think?' She winced; too combative — it would only notch the argument up to another level.

  'I know. I can see it in every part of you… in everything you do. We're just here in the background. You don't give us any time, you don't give us any thought. We're not important. Why can't you forget about your job for a while?'

  'Because people are dying out there!'

  'People are dying in here… getting
older… time running away…' Resentment rose up in him, old arguments running round and round in a Moebius strip, never answered or explained.

  'You know what I mean,' she replied sullenly.

  'We never even have sex any more-'

  'Oh, God, if I hear that one more time-'

  'I'm not just talking about the sex! It's symptomatic of everything else. It's about intimacy, being close to someone you love…' He slammed the glass down on a table, slopping beer everywhere.

  'I'm too tired to have sex!' The emotion burst out in a tidal wave. 'I'm worn out by everything… too frightened… too… oh, it doesn't matter!'

  The brief silence that followed her outburst was filled with her guilt, and then anger that she'd given in to her emotions.

  'What's happened to us, Caitlin?' Grant's voice was like glass. 'We never celebrate what we've got… we just exist. Before, we used to celebrate all the time-'

  'Before, before, before, that's all you ever talk about!'

  'Listen to me!' he snapped. 'We've got to do something to put this right, or-'

  'Or what?' She slammed out of her chair and stormed across the room. 'Or what? You'll leave me? Go on, then!'

  She pushed past him, snatched up her coat and marched out into the night. Distant flashes of lightning burst intermittently across the sky. There was no rain, but the wild wind still made the trees around the barns sway and moan as if they were alive. Caitlin threw herself into the gale, lost to emotions that felt as if they were tearing her apart. She didn't even think about what she had glimpsed in the lane earlier, or the plague and the suffering.

  Ten minutes later she realised where her subconscious was driving her. The windows of Mary Holden's house were aglow with the ruddy light of a fire. The white cottage stood on the edge of the village, camouflaged by several years' growth of clematis and surrounded by a garden so wild it clamoured on every side as if it was trying to break into the warmth.

  Caitlin felt bad about calling at so late an hour, but Mary had proved a good friend throughout the difficult months since the Fall and would understand. Mary answered Caitlin's knock quickly and ushered her in. 'What are you doing out in weather like this?' she said. Mary was in her early sixties but looked much younger: her long grey hair had a lustre and was tied into a ponytail with a black ribbon; she wore faded blue jeans and a too- large white T-shirt that looked as if it had been in the wash with the colours. 'Have you run out of supplies?' she continued. 'I've got a new batch of herbs in. Haven't had a chance to dry them yet, though.'