The Chronicles of Jonathon Postlethwaite: The Seed of Corruption (32 page)

“No, not all bad, much good is here." before he slipped into a deep sleep. The beast stared at Rislo and spoke  again. “All! " he hissed. " All bad. !"

After a few hours Jonathan awoke suddenly from dreams that  involved  Flax  and  himself,  Milly  –  in  fact a  maelstrom   of   events   past   and   future,   fact   and fantasy.

                            Immediately Rislo rose to his feet and leaned over Jonathon as he awoke and stretched.

“We must act now, you must come and look at a the dimension  door  –  from  this  side  it  leads  to  a perfect  escape!” Slowly and painfully Jonathin arose, not sure what the giant talked of, but focussed on the word 'escape' and the excited tone of Rislo's voice.

                            After a few moments of paced walking they emerged into a small cave that Rislo had visited earlier. It was secluded and the night was dark. A tell tale neon haze lit the sky. Slowly the truth about this dimension dawned on Jonathon. This was linked to the dimension door Flax had left by, as the Turkanschoner had said  – same place, different exits. Flax was here. He coudl almost smell him, his presence hung heavy like acrid smoke that stuck to the mind. Jonathon shivered. Flax was here. He pondered anxiously, he had to do something now, had to confront him here, perhaps stop him here? Then there was Milly, he should find her. He felt a pang inside his heart.

                            Slowly he walked up the  grassy  bank  opposite the cave and climbed over the fence into a dark graveyard. His companions followed behind, the Turkanschoner first and Rislo at  a  safe  distance  form the beat, behind.

                            The church’s tall spire pierced the night sky, moving engine sounds came closer. Whilst Jonathon agonised over this priorities, the Turkanschoner noticed a young couple enter the graveyard and run giggling into its midst. Then he noticed the shadow that followed them, slipping from gravestone to gravestone, getting closer to them.

                            The couple had laid down behind a tall stone and the shadow crept closer. The Turkanschoner’s nostrils flared. In the darkness he saw the glint of steel blades.

In a instant, and to the surprise of his companions, he   hurtled   across   the   graveyard    and    attacked the shadowy assailant. Jonathon sprinted after him. By the time he arrived all he witnessed was the sickening crack of a neck being broken and the screams of the two young people who fled the hellish apparition who had emerged out of the darkness.

                            Jonathon was in shock – had the Turkanschoner reverted back to his training? Then he saw his victim. It was one of Flax’s men. He picked up the two  stiletto knives and put them in his belt.

“Bad” the beast growled. Jonathon nodded. Rislo arrived and stared at the corpse and then accusingly at the Turkanschoner. Jonathan put his hands to his head.

“We need to do something. I need to find Milly. Flax is  here. I must stop him, he may not return to Dubh and all  will be in vain!” He was approaching despair, torn in  half. Milly or Flax?  They need to complete their plans in Dubh too. His mind raced – one thing they must do was to get the final parts for the machine. Rislo could do that. He paced in circles, staring at the corpse.  He looked at Rislo.

“Rislo go back and collect the machine. I need to find Milly, but I can’t leave Flax here. The time has come for our paths to cross again, for a final time. I can’t chance him staying here. It has to end.” he stuttered. Then the Turkanschoner spoke.

“I find girl.” He grunted. “You find Shadow Man.” Jonathan stared at him.

“How will you find her?” he stuttered.

“I smell her scent on you, I can find, trained to find”! He pointed at Rislo. Rislo shied away from his taloned finger.” Already I  smell  scent  before.”  he  added.  The beast nodded  his  horned  head  affirmatively,  he needed  no  further instruction he knew her importance to his master; he whirled around and disappeared into the darkness. He didn’t add that he also smelled her scent on the Tallman. He saw no need. He would find her as he had promised. He owed this to Jonathon.

                            Rislo was disturbed by events now. He could not understand why Jonathon trusted the beast to find the most important person in the world to him. How could he trust it? He nodded at Jonathon.

“I will get the machine from where we left it before we fled the Turkanschoner and meet you where we just left, and then we finish this.

Jonathon sighed deeply.

“Rislo, if I am not back in a four hours do as we planned” he said. Rislo’s eyes met his. “Take Milly with you the Turkanschoner he finds her.”

Rislo could not understand why Jonathon had to do this task  ...  to confront  Flax.  As  far  as  he  was concerned they              should               flee              the              world              now.              But obediently he nodded and left, making sure he did not have to walk with the beast back to the dimension door.

                            Jonathon was left alone amongst the old and newly dead. He wondered if he was due to join them soon. He looked at Scoggins whose death mask was set wide eyed in astonishment. Then he shivered,  and  jogged towards the neon light of the town centre…and Silus Flax.

Chapter Twenty Two

Ben Santiago's trip on a British airway's economy flight to London had been uneventful. He had forgone the luxuries afforded by his wealth in an effort to unravel the mystery of his recurring dream. His personal jet had therefore been left in his hangar along with his normal entourage of advisers and bodyguards.

                            He glided through customs almost as if he was half invisible and completely uninteresting to the officer who stamped the passport of David Lopez, a diamond dealer from Bolivia. His alias was half true, he had emigrated from South America in the late nineteen forties after the disappearance his Mother and Father in a light plane over the Andes. No wreckage had ever been found, but after a month the search was called off and Ben pronounced an orphan and a distant relative transported him to New York.

                            There he grew up and lived on an allowance from the estate of his deceased Father. It was never quite enough to allow him to be comfortable, to fulfil his yearning for the type of lifestyle he glimpsed in the Big Apple's restaurants and hotels, but it was enough to survive on as a youth who quickly parted company with his benevolent relatives and hit the streets.

                            He began life dealing in anything which brought a profit. Slowly he advanced from the world of the legal business to drugs and guns. Quickly his business grew and he found a world desperate  to  use  his  services and   his   complete   impartiality   which,   as   he moved   into   international  arms  dealing  he  found  the to be of particular use.

                            As he now exited customs he felt a tingle of excitement whip down spine. It was almost  like  a drug related flashback. For a minute, a myriad of memories tripped through his mind, the places the faces of those he had done his  early deals with  in far  flung corners of the earth.

                            He had dealt with them all. With provincial tyrants and national dictators, with military governments and desperate rebels. All their causes were his profits, their politics and the outcome of his involvement irrelevant. The catastrophe and misery he fuelled meant little to  him, death and destruction gave him the opportunity for profit. He turned no one down.

Now on this visit to England it all came back. He felt the thrills and exhilaration he had done then and it made him feel twenty years younger as the adrenalin pumped through his fifty-five year old veins. He smiled broadly and walked with a bouncing stride as he made his way to the car hire desks.

At the Hertz desk he hired a vehicle from an attentive female clerk. She found his bronzed complexion and cold blue eyes, a result of his German Father and Bolivian Mother sent a quiver through her body. The man smiled at her and his vaguely accented English added to his appeal.

Suddenly she wanted him.

                            Although she was very attractive, Ben  Santiago was not interested in her at all today. He had seen and experienced this reaction many times before, he knew the effect he had upon the opposite sex. Normally, detecting the signs, he would have asked her to dinner followed by an invitation to his hotel room, which they never refused; then left them bruised and exhausted in the morning without a word or a parting kiss.

                            But today he had deep, more urgent desires and he ignored her as she brushed provocatively past him as she explained the controls of the hire car. He thanked her and smiled knowingly as he slipped into the driving seat and drove off without a second glance.

                            Dismayed  the  woman  returned  to  her   desk and dreamed unknowingly of what might  have  been that evening, curious to  know  why  her  seductive charms had unusually failed her. She shook her  head and smiled. It was his loss, she  muttered  to  herself. And after all, he  would  return  the  car  and  she  would be there. Perhaps, when he had concluded his business, he would be in a more receptive mood, prepared  to  celebrate  a  little,  she'd  enjoy  that,  she thought.

                            Consulting his map, Santiago picked  his  route out of Londons annoyingly chaotic road system and eventually slipped onto the relative openness of the motorway and sped North.

                            The car, which was small by his standards, sat easily in the fast lane and ate up  the  miles  as  he  mused over the meaning of his dreams and his willingness to respond to their call by travelling half way across  the globe  to  some  god  forsaken  town  in  the  midst  of rural England.

                            Two hours later he had left the motorway and found himself amongst the rolling Staffordshire countryside. He calculated that in half hour he would be in the town he had glimpsed in his dreams and whose existence in reality had been revealed in the monochrome of ten year old photographs. There he would find the reasons for his unconventional and sometimes, unbelievable summons.

                            He drove almost by instinct now as day turned to the crisp dusk of a winter’s evening. The cars headlamps lit up the narrow  country  roads  which  were  bordered by squat hawthorn hedges and ivy clad oaks. Santiago had never been in such countryside before, although during his life he had seen much of the world. He now felt strangely relaxed as the compelling call of his summoner quietened in his mind as he responded to its urgency.

                            Quaint   local   road   signs,   stamped   in   wrought iron and painted black on white, now guided him and counted down the miles to his  destination.  The  town he sought was indicated on every one and soon, some way into the distance, its presence was  given away by the glow of an orange aura  infused  into  the pitch of the night sky.

                            Minutes later he crested the top of a hill and there before him  the necklaces  of  neon  and white  light  told him that Bramston sprawled in the wide, but shallow valley below. He slowed and coasted down the gently twisting road which led down to the town centre.

                            Beneath the hazy street lights he cruised slowly. It was late and there were few people out on the streets. He decided to find a service station and  ask  for directions when he filled up his fuel tank.

                            As he entered the market square beneath a great floodlit church spire that brought his dream into a sharp reality, he was forced to brake sharply as two teenagers leapt the churchyard wall and dashed across the square. He cursed them as his heart pounded heavily. He didn't need this sort of excitement at his age. He was well into the age when a left handed gift from the gods was all too common.

                            He shook his head at the couple rapidly disappeared into a side street and then moved off in search of fuel and directions. His circling of the small town was in vain and ten minutes later he found himself back in the town square. He noticed a lone figure standing by the church wall staring out across the cobbles.

                            Santiago drove slowly until he was level with the youth and then wound down his window warily. The youth

stepped back and stared at him, his eyes wide in shock. "Hey, you." Santiago shouted. "Do you know of the Cross Keys Public House?" The youth just stared at him dumbly. Santiago was frustrated and tired. He gritted his teeth.

"It's a simple enough question boy. Nod your head for yes and shake it for no." he said. The youth still said nothing, but his eyed studied Santiago intently.

                            The arms dealer returned the stare and felt as if his mind was being invaded, the hairs on his neck stood on end. He shook his head and cursed the youth, putting his foot to the floor and sending the car, tyres squealing, into the square. Ben trembled and looked in his mirror, the youth still stared at him and he still felt something inside his head.

                            The geek gave him the creeps and he needed to be as far away from him as possible. Then he laughed out loud. He had no need to be frightened of some dumb country yokel in a small town lost in the middle of England. What on earth had got into him?