Pax Britannia: Human Nature (35 page)

His vision swimming into focus again, Ulysses saw the rocky defile ahead of them as Nimrod half-dragged him towards a tight crevice between the sandstone walls. The exposed cleft ran a good ten yards into the feature which towered above them to a height of twenty feet or more. Once they were in there, there would be no way the creature would be able to prise them out again. Then it would simply be a matter of waiting for Allardyce's back-up to reach them.

The scream cut through Ulysses like Seziermesser's scalpel, finally bringing him fully to his senses. There could be no mistaking that cry; it was Jennifer. He pulled free of Nimrod, his feet slipping on the mud and stones, already scrambling back out of the defile towards Jenny.

Jacob lay sprawled on the ground, moaning in pain. And there was Jenny, suspended in mid-air, her feet high off the ground, her body held tight in the clutches of the monster's claw. Her cry was cut short as the chimera squeezed her in its pincer grip, leaving her gasping for air as she struggled.

"Jennifer! Jenny!" he screamed in impotent rage as the Umbridge-chimera, having got what it wanted, turned and began to ascend the slope again, turning back to the road.

And then she was gone, swallowed by the darkness as the creature carried her way into the bitter night.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The Abbey

Jennifer Haniver opened her eyes. The world swung past her in dull greys and purples in the pre-dawn twilight. She felt dizzy, her senses reeling from the galloping motion of the beast. She closed her eyes again.

Her chest felt tight. She tried to breathe, but when her lungs were only half-full, she felt the crushing pressure of the claw across her midriff again and let her breath out in a gasp.

Her head felt thick. She half-opened her eyes and craned her whiplash-sore neck, trying to focus on one point on the swaying horizon. Somewhere, far off, she thought she saw stars, until she realised that the yellow-orange pinpricks were lights coming on in the wakening town below the cliff tops.

She blinked, forcing wakefulness upon herself. And as awareness came to her, so did a plethora of other sensations. There was the salt-smell of the wind blowing in off the sea; the cold, damp touch of the wind on her face; the breath of the breeze rippling the long grass of the moors; the colours of pre-dawn painting the landscape in a wash of purple blues and greys; the looming shadows of a building ahead of her; the stomach-turning mammalian musk and fish-stink of the creature filling her nose; the grunt and snort of the thing, as it galloped on, loud in her ears.

They appeared to be heading towards a dark structure on the horizon, shot through with arch-holes of sky, two pinnacles and a pointed triangular pediment, thrusting up towards heaven. Even from the curious angle from which Jennifer was viewing it, it looked familiar.

With a tremendous splashing, the vivisect galloped through the boggy waters of a reed-edged pool. The water splashed up into her face, drenching her hair. And then they were through, the beast clearing the shallow bank on the other side and entering the shadowy sanctuary of the ruined Abbey.

"Come on!" Ulysses urged, maintaining his stumbling run through the wind-blown grass.

They had been in pursuit of the beast for the last hour, ever since it had run the police car off the road and made its escape with Jenny in its clutches. The thought that any harm might come to her cut Ulysses to the quick. He had not known her for long, but in the short, dramatic time they had spent together he had come to feel hugely responsible for her, as if, with her father's death, her welfare had become his concern.

So, ignoring the cuts and bruises he had sustained in the car crash Ulysses kept up his dogged pursuit of the Umbridge-chimera and Jenny Haniver.

"And where are we heading, exactly?" Inspector Allardyce puffed.

Ulysses glanced at the ground. It was not hard to follow the chimera's path, the flattened grass, the stab marks in the mud from its arthropod legs, the occasional gouged area of turf. He looked from the ground and the trail across the heath towards the crest of the cliff, beneath which lay the fishing port of Whitby.

"There!" he panted, pointing.

"It's heading towards the town?" Allardyce exclaimed.

"Not the town, you idiot.
There
."

Ulysses pointed again, towards the remnants of walls and buttresses that was all that was left of the Benedictine monastery of St Peter and St Hilda.

"That old ruin? But what good's that?"

Ulysses paused, considering his answer carefully for a moment.

"Perhaps the creature is seeking sanctuary." Nimrod suggested, coming alongside his master.

"Or absolution."

All turned. It was the freak that had spoken.

"Who knows what the bugger wants. But if that's where it's hiding out, then we have it," Allardyce said with conviction. He was a man who liked to deal in hard facts - not metaphysical musings on man's state of original sin.

Ulysses could see the lights of torch-beams piercing the early morning gloom now as well. The Yorkshire constabulary had arrived.

"Our back-up's here."

The policemen were approaching the ruins from the other side of the East Cliff, a line of ten men.

"It's not going to be enough," Jacob said in a worried tone.

Ulysses looked at him, although it made his skin crawl to do so. But nonetheless, the boy's eyes were human, windows to a troubled soul.

And perhaps the boy was right, Ulysses thought, as he set his eyes on the ruins ahead of them. They had all witnessed what the chimera had done to the policemen back at the house, without even batting an eyelid. Then there had been the resilience it had demonstrated in running a police car off the road. Ulysses doubted that anything the Whitby police could throw at it would do the beast much harm. For a start, they probably weren't even armed.

"You could be right," Ulysses said as he jogged on. He turned back to the boy, only to see him haring away over the grass, back the way they had come.

"I don't bloody believe it!" Allardyce swore. "The coward! I should have him arrested for dereliction of duty!"

"Leave him," Ulysses said coldly. "We don't have the time."

"And to think I thought he had a soft spot for the girl," Nimrod mused behind Ulysses. "After all that he's been through already, I would not have expected this."

Umbridge's pursuers - now numbering only three - helped each other scale the boundary wall of the Abbey's grounds.

The trail left by the beast, more clearly visible as the sky lightened in expectation of the coming dawn, led directly into the abbey's ancient fishpond and then cleared the bank on the other side.

Skirting the pond, lungs aching now - every breath like fire in his throat - Ulysses led Nimrod and the inspector over the undulating mounds of the grassy field in which the ruins stood.

There was no point trying to be subtle now. Time was of the essence and, besides, there wasn't anywhere to hide. Until they reached the sanctuary of the Abbey itself, they remained totally exposed. And besides, Ulysses pondered, God alone knew what other senses Umbridge had acquired since becoming a part of the chimera. It wouldn't surprise him to learn that the thing had heightened hearing, or that it could see by the heat-trace left by their bodies in the infra-red spectrum.

Ahead of them and a little to the left stood the black oblong of Cholmley House. To the right stood the silhouette of the Abbey. The policemen, more than just sweeping spots of light in the darkness now, were moving towards them on an intercept course between the two structures, having caught sight of the inspector from Scotland Yard and his dishevelled companions.

And then they were standing in the shadows of the once-great Abbey, all dark pillars and empty archways. As Allardyce got his second wind and strode off to make contact with the approaching policemen, Ulysses hung back, keeping one eye firmly on the ruined edifice rising up beside him.

The chimera was here; he was sure of it. Such conviction came from the nagging voice of his subconscious, like an itch at the back of his brain.

He stared up at the ruins - his chest heaving as he lungs dragged air into his body - desperately trying to penetrate the shadow of the Abbey, hoping to see anything - anything at all - that might reveal to him where the creature was lurking.

A little way away from Ulysses and Nimrod now, Allardyce and the policemen were entering the nave of the Abbey through a gaping rift in a ruined wall.

Ulysses followed, Nimrod at his heel, like some faithful hound.

"How many of you are armed?" he heard Allardyce hiss in annoyance.

Ulysses couldn't make out the policeman's reply but he heard the inspector's heartfelt, angry response.

"I don't bloody believe it! And you came on foot?"

"Yes, sir," a bleary-voiced sergeant replied. "Up St Mary's steps."

"You're more out of breath than I am," Ulysses heard Allardyce chide the officer, "and I feel like I've just run halfway across Yorkshire,
and
having just walked away from a car crash, I'll have you know!"

Part of him, annoyed at their lack of professionalism, he supposed, wanted to tell them to be quiet. But there seemed little point. He was sure Umbridge - or whatever passed for Umbridge now - was already well aware of their arrival.

They were standing amidst the grass-covered mounds of rubble that had once been the Choir of the church. In front of them stood what remained of the north transept, one of the more intact parts of the ruin.

"What are we looking for, sir?" a constable asked, looking up at the jagged spurs of broken walls above them.

"You'll know when you see it," Allardyce said, his eyes on the surrounding walls.

Awareness crackled through Ulysses like a bolt of electricity and he ducked, shooting darting glances upwards at the looming columns.

A split second later, there was movement in the darkness, a scraping sound - as of hardened carapace grating against stone - and the whip-crack of a snapping pincer. The curious constable knew what they were looking for now, as the chimera's claw closed around his neck and shoulders and the vivisect pulled him violently off his feet.

All eyes followed the policeman's struggling form as he was dragged into the air, feet kicking uselessly. As horrified eyes caught sight of the vivisect-chimera the constable's struggles became nerveless spasms and a shower of hot, viscous rain fell on those assembled below.

The chimera was peering down at them from its perch, halfway up one of the thick pillars that rose like petrified tree trunks from the earth.

Gasps of horror and revulsion added to the sense of panic, but the bloody shower was as nothing compared to what came thudding down around the party next. The constable's head thudded to the ground only a few feet away from Ulysses, his dismembered torso and legs landing in two entirely different places altogether, but the dandy couldn't have cared less. He had only one thing on his mind and nothing was going to distract him from that over-arching purpose now.

Ulysses peered into the darkness as excited voices began shouting around him, taking a chance to scan the walls nearby. There was the glint of light on a trailing tress of wet hair, and he saw what he was looking for. He had found Jennifer.

She was lying within the crook of an archway above the Choir. The monster must have put her there for safe keeping. Ulysses was certain she was still alive, but also unconscious - thankfully, for her sake!

A shot rang out, the echo of its retort as loud as the crack of doom itself, within the confines of the church.

A bellow of pain or rage - Ulysses wasn't sure which - shook the crumbling structure to its foundations and the crab-claw came sweeping down out of the darkness.

Ulysses followed the sound of the gun shot to its source: Allardyce had been the one to fire on the chimera. His shot had obviously had little impact - if the inspector had hit the thing at all - but now he had made himself the creature's prime target.

Ulysses was already running towards the inspector before his conscious mind had realised that he had decided to move. The rapier-blade slid from the sheath of the black wood cane with a zinging hum of reverberating metal.

He and the chimera landed their blows at the same time. Allardyce was sent flying as the heavy pincer smacked into him, and Ulysses' trusty blade made contact with boneless flesh.

With all his weight behind it, the tempered blade sliced cleanly through the cephalopod limb. The full weight of the unnaturally large claw landed on top of Allardyce, knocking the wind from his lungs, the pincer twitching as lifeless muscles relaxed.

Howling in agony, black inky fluid dripping from the severed limb, the chimera scuttled backwards further up the pillar and out of harm's way. Ulysses could just make out the old man's face snarling and spitting at him from the darkness.

Umbridge was definitely becoming more feral, the bestial body-memory of the vivisect corrupting what was left of his barely human mind.

Another figure was moving among the ruins now, but this one appeared to be scampering up the corner of the north transept, as if it were a monkey climbing a tree. It was a young woman, he could see that much, and the silhouette bore the suggestion of damask and lacy skirts. And she wasn't the only one; there were other figures like her, all bizarrely dressed, scaling the walls of the north transept as if it was the sort of thing they did every day.