The Unhappy Medium, page 28
‘Something? What do you mean?’ asked Gunter.
‘What the hell mun? Enough riddles,’ said one of the gunmen, backing behind an ornate 17th-century chair.
‘I was expecting this,’ said the old man, putting on his pale raincoat with agonising slowness. ‘Maybe not so soon, but it is not wholly unexpected. Gunter, are the cars packed and ready?’
‘Ya father, we await your command.’
Seemingly unruffled, Gunter’s father placed a small homberg hat on his head and wrapped a scarf around his neck. ‘Have your men back away from the windows,’ he said, looking around the room at the gathered henchmen, a mixed bunch of wannabe Special Forces, Serbian war criminals and Russian pay-as-you-go thugs. But Gunter Van Loop and his father were in a different league altogether, hardened believers interested in more than mere money. The Van Loops were cold and utterly ruthless. They harboured a multi-generational memory of a despicable master who bound them to kill, scheme and plot, ready to re-establish his brutal leadership on an unsuspecting earth. Father to son for generations, they had waited.
The men were grouped now in a black semicircle facing the windows and the brooding darkness beyond. They looked at each other apprehensively, then back towards the old man.
‘What is it?’ said one of the men anxiously. ‘What da fuck are we looking for?’
‘Hold yourselves, gentlemen,’ said the old man, cradling the figurine of La Senza in his liver-spotted hands. ‘He will be here soon enough.’
‘Don’t you ever get bored of being enigmatic?’ asked one of the more grounded hard men, sarcastically.
‘Mind your tongue!’ spat Gunter. ‘Show my father respect!’
As Van Loop’s men stared hard into the dark shadows of the garden, the Bonetaker, unseen, stealthily crept across the lawn between the pools of light.
‘He is near,’ said the old man, his eyes closed to increase his senses. ‘ You’d best get ready.’ The guns all raised a notch higher.
As if on cue, the Bonetaker triggered a security sensor. Abruptly his huge form stood bathed in the harsh blue light of floodlights, massive, terrifying and wholly unexpected.
‘Holy fff ...!’ said one of the men involuntarily as the shock of the Bonetaker’s size became apparent. Instinctively, they pulled their triggers.
The dimly lit room was suddenly vivid with muzzle flashes. Rounds tore through the glass towards the Bonetaker, splinters of wood from the shutters and tatters of ripped curtains erupting outwards as he reared up in the naked light. He roared in a loud primal agony as the slugs found their mark – painful maybe, but a very long way from fatal. Instinctively he rolled to the side and out of the line of fire before repositioning himself and lunging headlong through the last intact window. There was an explosion of glass and printed fabric. His spectacular arrival took the gunmen so by surprise that their fingers left the triggers. There was the Bonetaker, in all his horrifying fairy-tale splendour, crouching amongst the broken glass on the Persian carpet. Shocked and stunned into immobility, they stood glued to the spot as he picked up his vast bulk, glass tinkling to the floor. He rose up to his eight-foot height, his head knocking away the chandelier.
‘What the fuck is thaaaat?’ said one of the men.
‘Father, father, what is it?’ said Gunter, backing slowly away as he recharged the magazine on his machine gun.
‘Isn’t he magnificent,’ said the old man, strangely unfazed, as the Bonetaker sniffed the air for his unpleasant quarry. ‘He’s a troll, a giant – history has many names for him.’ To Gunter’s amazement, his father calmly walked towards the Bonetaker and stared into his bloodshot eyes. ‘Tell your men to lower their guns,’ he said.
‘What? Father, are you mad?’
‘Lower your guns I say. They will not help us, I doubt they can kill him anyway. He is here for something, and we can guess what, can’t we big fellow?’ He held up the wooden figure of La Senza. ‘Is this what you have come for?’ The Bonetaker’s eyes widened in programmed recognition, the relic reeking of vile intent and accumulated malice. ‘Yes, my old friend, this is what you have been seeking is it not? It has drawn you here from so far away.’
The monster, its senses working overtime, bellowed, the old man’s thin grey hair flip-flopping in the foul draft. The Bonetaker began to lift his gigantic filthy hand up to grab the relic. But Van Loop moved it away from the Bonetaker’s grasp, soliciting a loud grunt of aggravation. With his other hand, he indicated the door.
‘Gentlemen, the cars,’ he said calmly over the Bonetaker’s panting growls. ‘I will follow.’
‘Father?’
‘Now Gunter!’ he said sternly, and he raised the carving high until it was nearly level with the Bonetaker’s bloodshot eyes. The huge head began gradually to bare its yellowed teeth, huge canines emerging at each side like daggers. He growled like a wild dog; the men needed no more urging.
‘Go go go!’ yelled Gunter Van Loop, and the henchmen, with their guns trained on the monster dwarfing the old man before them, backed out from the room one by one, then dashed to the vehicles in the driveway. But the Bonetaker’s eyes never left the figure held up by Van Loop senior; oozing cruelty and terror, it crouched defiantly upon its box.
Taunting the giant, Van Loop waved the relic from side to side. The Bonetaker obediently swayed with the movement, clearly hypnotised by its pungent stimuli. Outside, the cars were revving urgently, steam rising in thick clouds from their exhausts. A horn sounded.
Catching the Bonetaker by surprise, Van Loop slung the reliquary violently across the room. It thudded hard upon the threadbare carpet and rolled away under the furniture. The Bonetaker roared in frustration. He lunged after the relic as Van Loop limped quickly in the opposite direction, pausing only to kick over a jerry can. It spilled its contents towards the raging fireplace and as the old man hobbled as fast as he could towards the front door, he heard the gratifying ‘whumpf’ as the fuel ignited. Instantly, the room was ablaze. The Bonetaker, however, was too busy tearing the room to pieces to notice, sofas, chairs and tables flying about him as he scrambled to find the remains of Cardinal La Senza.
Van Loop staggered to the cars as the flames behind him mushroomed. Gunter bundled him into the rear of the BMW before jumping into the passenger seat. Even as the car doors were slamming, the Bonetaker finally located the box. Without hesitation, he slammed it violently against the stone fireplace. As it fragmented, the deception was clear. Inside, where there should have been one of the Inquisitor’s five fingers, there was nothing. Van Loop had foreseen this moment. He had taken the age-blackened finger bones and their attendant ruby ring from the box, transferring them to his large anonymous necklace for safety.
‘Drive!’ he screamed. The two vehicles spun their wheels in the gravel, just in time to avoid the enraged Bonetaker as he thrust himself through a large flaming window and lunged out towards them.
‘Go, go, go!’ screamed Gunter, above the roaring engines. Behind them, the Bonetaker reared up and steadied himself, then began his pursuit.
At first it was nothing but a slow ambling run. But then he began to gather pace, his gait changing every few seconds as if he were a truck climbing steadily up through the gears on a motorway. In under a minute, he was pounding along like a rhino after a poacher.
Charging away down the high-hedged lanes, the Van Loops felt confident they’d evaded the bizarre threat, and they eased off to play it safe on the narrow, icy back roads. It was a mistake. The Bonetaker was now clocking up more than forty miles per hour, his massive feet pummelling him towards the vehicles.
He was closing in fast, suddenly rearing into view in their mirrors on a straight stretch, lit in all his glory by the moonlight, smouldering embers streaming behind him like smoke from a funnel.
‘My God Gunter, it’s following!’ came a scream from the back. ‘How is that possible? What is that thing?’
‘We’ll worry about the details later,’ yelled Gunter, as the driver slammed his foot back onto the accelerator, throwing the vehicle savagely around a corner. ‘Müller, make contact with the Antonov – tell them to be ready.’
The man fumbled with his radio handset as the car bounced along the icy tarmac. ‘Canary, Canary, come in, this is Pussycat, start the fucking engine for Christ’s sake, we are coming now!’
Behind them, the Bonetaker was virtually on top of the second car, taking wide swipes with his monstrous hands at the rear bumper. Their automatics cocked and ready, the occupants positioned themselves for a clear field of fire as both they and the Bonetaker rushed headlong along the narrow lane. Briefly, the Bonetaker came charging into view, clear for a second as they barrelled over a crossroads. Instantly, his huge form was greeted with a volley of automatic fire. He bellowed in pain, but did not slacken his pursuit in the slightest. Instead, he smashed through a gate and off across a small field that hugged a sudden tight bend. Crossing the field, he shaved away a few vital seconds, just enough to demolish the remaining distance to the second vehicle. In the car, the terrified gunmen craned their necks desperately in and out of the windows, alarmed by the Bonetaker’s sudden disappearance. They looked everywhere except ahead.
Seemingly out of nowhere, the Bonetaker tore directly into the side of the crowded car, sending it lurching into a banked hedgerow. It slewed sickeningly to a halt, damaged far beyond any help from the extended warranty. It lay there hissing and fizzing for a few seconds before finally a bent door creaked open. The Bonetaker stood stock still, panting and steaming like a small shunting engine, sniffing the oily, smoking car wreck for any trace of the La Senza relic. But he found none. He raised his head in annoyance and looked down the lane, watching the receding lights of Van Loop’s lead vehicle. Certain that the relic was inside it, he once again began to pound down the lane.
Ahead of him, Gunter was trying frantically to contact the rear vehicle. ‘Dammit, dammit! They’ve gone! You, give me that bag!’
‘My God! He’s back again!’ came a terrified shout. Gunter wound down the window to see the Bonetaker tearing down the road towards them like an armoured car. They were approaching a small village, its warm lights shimmering erratically through the leafless trees. From the holdall he grabbed a small cylinder.
‘What are you doing?’ asked his father.
‘Meeting force with force Popa,’ said Gunter, and he leant back out of the window to sling a grenade into the road. His timing was perfect; the grenade exploded just as the Bonetaker drew level, the thunderclap slinging him abruptly to the side so that he found himself unintentionally tearing like a bulldozer through a hedge into a small market garden. His speed unchecked, he smacked through a row of greenhouses in an eruption of glass and last year’s vegetable matter. It did nothing to slacken his momentum. Pounding forward, he pulled away the dead vines and aluminium framing, then lurched back violently onto the lane. Mere feet apart, they thundered into the village.
The dark car bounced off buildings as it careered frantically down the small high street, wing mirrors lazily cart-wheeling in its wake. The Bonetaker was close behind them, leaping over parked cars and a traffic island to close the gap. With chaos erupting in their wake, they burst out of the hamlet and back into the dark lanes leading to the airstrip.
The Bonetaker was closing fast. Gunter fumbled manically in the bag and retrieved another grenade; he allowed it to cook for a few seconds before slinging it viciously from the window. The heat and blast shook the rear of the car as much as it shook the Bonetaker, the rear wheels leaping upwards, causing the driver to fight for control. Blinded by the sudden flash and the searing shrapnel, the Bonetaker tore away into a plantation of young fir trees, the thrashing branches adding to his disorientation and forcing him to raise his filthy sleeves in front of his face. It was just enough to allow the car to charge out of danger and it screeched hard off the road, smashing through a closed gate onto the moonlit airstrip. An aircraft was running its engines in the freezing air.
They screeched up to the old Russian Antonov biplane, and skidded to halt in a cloud of ice and steam. Even before the car stopped, Gunter was out. He dragged his father towards the revving aircraft. Behind them, they could see the small plantation rustling as the Bonetaker, infuriated, fought his way through.
The old man was pushed unceremoniously up the small access ladder. Gunter threw the bags in behind his father then looked warily back at the threat tearing towards them through the plantation like a lawnmower.
‘You,’ Gunter motioned to one of the men. ‘Hold him off.’ With that he urged his last three gunmen into the impatiently roaring Antonov.
‘What?’ said the man in disbelief. ‘Why me?’ But there was no time left to debate the matter. Even as Gunter closed the door and the pilot slammed the throttle forward, the Bonetaker, in a very bad mood indeed, erupted from the trees. The solitary gunman began firing at the Neanderthal now pounding towards him across the frosted grass. Alarmingly, his constant gunfire had no obvious result, so he primed his launcher and began to pump grenades at the looming giant. But the Bonetaker wasn’t interested in the mercenary. He charged past him like a train through a station, the explosions erupting around him in lurid flashes of flame and frozen soil.
The escaping Antonov was accelerating frantically across the treacherous icy grass, yet the gap between it and the Bonetaker’s relentless bulk was narrowing by the second. Gunter had opened a small side window and looking back into the chilled slipstream, he could see the mayhem exploding around the Bonetaker, just yards from the fragile tail assembly. Desperate, Gunter locked onto a last grenade amongst the socks and aftershave. Wasting no time, he primed the device, waited three seconds then let it go.
The sudden flash and crack of the stun grenade hit the Bonetaker with agonising shock. Its million-candle brightness seared his ancient bloodshot eyes shut, rendering them useless. Simultaneously, his eardrums suffered a blast so loud that his head rang like a cathedral bell. Robbed of every sense but smell, he lost his footing and tumbled over and away from the fleeing aircraft. With its engine screaming, the Antonov slipped, slid and then finally leapt from the frosted grass, barely clearing the perimeter fence. Struggling for altitude, it clattered away across the low trees like a huge insect.
The lone gunman ceased fire and he stood still, his assault weapon smoking blue in the moonlight. Emboldened, he swaggered slowly up to the immobilised Bonetaker as he rocked backwards and forwards upon the grass strip, hands clasped over his ringing ears and eyes still sealed shut by the grenade’s flash. Disorientated and thoroughly disappointed in himself, the Bonetaker let out a long, low moan. Recharging his automatic with a fresh clip, the gunman walked forward to deliver the coup-de-grace.
‘Hey you,’ he mocked. ‘Not such a big boy now, eh? Gunter got you gud and pruper.’ He raised his gun execution-style to the head of the kneeling giant. ‘OK boy. Time to go.’
With one clean swipe the Bonetaker’s huge arm shot out.
The Antonov hedge-hopped noisily away to the north and was gone, the still of the cold night disturbed only now by the piteous screams of the gunman, drifting away across the grass on the frozen air.
CHAPTER 24 – Promotio n
The massive branch had fallen directly through the roof of Baxter’s Lexus like a fist through a cereal box. Glass from the windows hung limply on their plastic edging like empty pockets hanging out of trousers, while the savaged engine bled oil onto the gravel.
Christopher Baxter wasn’t going anywhere.
He’d hoped to spend Saturday speeding away from the surreal atmosphere of Hadlow Grange up the M3, making London by mid-day in time to preen himself, stop the persistent itching and chase down some old pals for a night out in the West End. Not now. As he looked at the punctured glory of the Baxter wagon, he had to fight hard to stop his bottom lip wobbling.
‘I’m so terribly sorry,’ said Ascot McCauley, resting his hand on Baxter’s shoulder. ‘What rotten bad luck. We’ll have to have someone from Dorchester come and look at it on Monday.’
‘But I was going to go to London,’ whimpered Baxter.
‘Oh dear, were you? How unfortunate,’ said Ascot. ‘Now you’ll be stuck here for the weekend. I’m so dreadfully sorry.’
‘What am I going to do here all weekend?’ Baxter said glumly.
‘Oh, I’m sure there will be something for you to do. Do you like walking? We are not very far from the coast here, not far at all. And the heaths are nearly all free from unexploded ordnance now. All I ask is that you please avoid the old asylum – the building is sadly in a state of some disrepair, it’s a little dangerous. I tell you what, Miss Dryer is at a loose end at the weekends. Maybe you could entertain each other in some way?’
Baxter looked back at the Grange. Miss Dryer was at a high window, brushing her greying hair slowly and methodically in her dressing gown, her crazy eyes fixed on Baxter.
‘Oh I’m sure I can keep busy,’ lied Baxter, feeling uneasy at record levels. ‘How did the branch come down like that? Isn’t that a new cut?’
‘Yes and no,’ said Ascot. ‘We had the tree surgeons in last month, I suspect it’s something to do with that.’
‘Just brilliant,’ said Baxter. ‘Do you think I can get it paid for? You know, compensation?’
‘Oh I’m not sure about that,’ said Ascot. ‘It’s an act of God is it not?’ With that he turned smartly on his heels and set off to the house leaving Baxter fuming by the wreck.
‘But, but ... I mean, it’s on your property ...’ he shouted after Ascot, but he was rewarded only with a dismissive flick of his employer’s cufflinks. ‘Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks!’ said Baxter, frustrated and angry. He’d half intended not to return from London; he could maybe take his chances again on the job market and put the McCauleys and their considerable weirdness behind him. He stomped past reception and up to his room, where he sat white-knuckled on the faded bedcover, seething.
By mid-day he was too hungry to avoid the lamentable dining room. Again, he had to tolerate the old chef’s grey and lifeless casserole, its dumplings looking for all the world like washed-up polystyrene on an industrial coastline. All through dinner, the doddering old cook could be seen through the serving hatch, dropping in and out of a service tunnel then re-appearing in the grounds beside the walled kitchen garden before abruptly returning to the kitchen with a sack of filthy vegetables, slung over his shoulder in a string bag.
