Sarah shielded her eyes as they gradually adjusted to the brilliant glow from outside. The roar of noise had died away and she could make out the silhouette of the man reaching into the display cabinet, pulling out the stone axe-head.
Sumner struggled to his feet. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he demanded. ‘Who are you?’
The man didn’t answer. He turned from the cabinet, cradling the axe-head in his hands.
The photographer skidded to a halt a few feet away. ‘Wiles – Davy!’
The man didn’t answer. Just stared.
‘Put it back. Look,’ the photographer went on, turning to Sumner, ‘I’m sorry – this is my fault. I brought him here, but I didn’t know—’
The photographer’s words were cut off abruptly as the waiter shoved him aside. Sarah stared in surprise as he pulled a revolver from inside his white jacket, levelling it at the man holding the stone axe-head. It was only when he spoke that she realised who it was.
‘Put that down, or I fire.’
‘Sergeant Green?’ Sarah gasped.
For a moment it looked like the thief might obey. But then he stepped forward, swinging the axe-head in one hand like the weapon it had once been. Green leaped back, and the axe-head smashed through the air just in front of him. Sarah’s father pulled her away as Green fired.
The shot slammed into the man’s chest, hurling him back into the shattered front of the display case. But no blood oozed from the hole ripped in his suit. Instead, tiny orange tendrils licked out, exploring the wound.
‘Ubermensch!’ Sarah realised.
Green fired again. This time at the man’s head. But he pushed himself upright again, the tiniest trickle of blood running from the hole in his forehead down his face. The axe-head fell to the floor as his hands went instinctively to his face.
‘Get behind me,’ Green ordered. ‘Maybe we can hold it back. At least it’s wounded.’
He was right, Sarah thought. Before, bullets had barely wounded an Ubermensch. Perhaps this one was newly infected – still largely human. How long did the conversion process take? Was it human enough to feel pain? Human enough to be stopped?
Without thinking, she pulled away from her father and ran to where the Ubermensch was straightening up, hands lowering. Before it could recover fully, she grabbed the stone axe-head – amazed at how heavy it was for its size. She staggered back, regaining her balance in time to dodge a clumsy blow from the creature as it started after her.
Green stepped in front of her, firing again. The Ubermensch lurched backwards. But it seemed to recover quicker this time.
‘Davy?’ the photographer was saying. ‘Davy? What the hell?’
‘What is that thing?’ Sumner gasped. ‘Cause it sure ain’t human.’
‘Explanations later,’ Green insisted.
‘And you’re not with the caterers,’ Sumner added.
‘You noticed,’ Green said, pushing Sarah behind him. Her father was close beside her again. He said nothing, but his expression was full of questions.
They were all backing slowly along the gallery, towards the broken window and the lights outside. The Ubermensch stalked slowly towards them.
‘If that’s a UDT outside and there are Vril,’ Green said quietly, ‘then we’re caught between a rock and a hard place.’
Holding the heavy, cold stone close to her, Sarah turned to see if there was movement outside.
‘Someone will have heard the shots,’ Sarah’s father said. ‘Help must be on its way.’
‘How do we stop that thing?’ the photographer asked, voice trembling.
Sarah’s scream cut off any reply.
Intent on the lights outside, she hadn’t seen the movement closer to them until it was too late. The cat launched itself at her, paws extended, claws out, A bundle of snarling, spitting, scratching fur hit Sarah full in the face. She dropped the axe-head and flailed at the animal, trying to get a grip on its fur and pull it away.
More hands tore at the cat as Sumner and Diamond struggled to help. But the animal clung on – scratching and biting, raking its claws down Sarah’s face, hissing and spitting. Finally, they dragged it off her, and hurled it to the floor. Green fired – the shot tearing through animal’s fur. But with no effect.
Orange fingers quivered in the wound, knitting together, binding it shut. The cat leaped again, but the photographer somehow managed to knock it away. As it fell, he kicked it hard – sending the cat flying into a display case against the wall.
Anthony Diamond immediately grabbed the top of the case, dragging it away from the wall. The whole thing crashed down in an explosion of glass and splintering wood. The snarling screech of the cat was cut off as the heavy case slammed down on top of it.
At the same moment, the Ubermensch attacked again. Green fired twice more, barely slowing it. Then the gun clicked on an empty chamber. The Ubermensch shouldered him aside, sending the bulky sergeant staggering away. With one hand, it scooped up the stone axe-head. The other grabbed the photographer by his jacket collar, pulling him along towards the windows at the end of the gallery.
‘Leave him,’ Sumner yelled. ‘It’s the axe you want – just take it. But leave that man alone!’
The photographer stared back at them, his face pale as ice and his eyes wide with fear. ‘Davy,’ he stammered. ‘Davy – just let me go. Please let me go.’
Sarah made to follow, but her father held her back. ‘You really think you can stop that thing?’
‘We’ve stopped them before,’ she said, shaking off his grip.
But now Green was between her and the Ubermensch. ‘Not like this,’ he said. ‘We need fire or something. There’s nothing we can do. Just hope he lets that fellow go when he’s away and safe.’
The Ubermensch had reached the window. He let go of the photographer, and the man’s relief was clear in his face. As clear as the renewed terror as the Ubermensch lifted him with his free hand, and hurled him through the remains of the broken glass into the grounds outside.
* * *
The force of the impact jolted all the air from Jed’s lungs. He landed on paving slabs – a path round the building – and rolled across the hard ground. He could taste blood. He could feel it on his face weeping out of tiny cuts where he’d hit the shattered remains of the glass hanging in the broken window frame.
He struggled to his feet, rasping for breath. Trying to make sense of what the hell was going on. A robbery? Or something more than that?
The light had dimmed from its initial brilliance to a pulsing luminance. A figure loomed out of the glow, reaching out to Jed. To help him? Thank God. But it was Davy Wiles, or whatever Davy Wiles had become. He grabbed Jed by the back of the neck, turning him away from the building and towards the glow.
The shape was masked by the light coming from it. But Jed could see that whatever had come down on the lawn was huge. A great disc, surrounded by a halo of light. He could make out the gleaming metal between the lights, a dark opening. A hum of suppressed power and a metallic, bitter taste at the back of his throat.
There were shapes in the light. Dark shadows emerging from the even darker opening. Angular, skeletal silhouettes coagulated out of the darkness and scuttled towards him.
‘What is it?’ Jed gasped. The pain in his neck was increasing as Wiles tightened his grip.
‘You wanted to see what was hidden on my land,’ Wiles said. His tone was exactly as it had always been – level, uninflected. Bored. ‘I said I’d show you. That was the deal. Well, here it is. Seen enough?’
Jed tried to nod. Tried to twist away from the man’s superhuman grip. ‘Yes,’ he managed to splutter. ‘Yes, I’ve seen enough. Now – let me go!’
‘Of course.’
The Ubermensch tightened its grip on the man’s neck, a sudden searingly painful clench of his hand. Then he let go, allowing the body to crumple to the ground. Jed’s eyes stared sightlessly at the craft he’d been so desperate to see.
Dark shapes scuttled out to surround the man who had been Davy Wiles, escorting him and the precious stone axe-head into the craft. Then the dark opening in its hull sealed over. The engines roared back into life, the lights blazed out again, and it lifted majestically into the night sky.
* * *
Sarah shielded her eyes from the glare. For several moments the UDT hovered above the grounds, lights pulsing and engines throbbing. Then it was a smudge of light blurred across the heavens. The noise faded, and the sky was empty.
Sarah’s father hurried over to the body lying on the grass. Sumner continued to stare in disbelief at the sky.
‘What the hell was that?’
‘To be honest, sir,’ Green told him, ‘we don’t really know.’
People were running from the front of the house to see what the noise and lights signified. Sarah had no idea what they could tell them. ‘Nothing happened here tonight’ would hardly cover it, especially as a man was dead. A robbery was a far more plausible explanation. Maybe it was best to let them all make up their own minds and hope the resulting rumours and stories would somehow counter each other out.
* * *
Another man who had a passing interest in how events might be interpreted watched from the shattered remains of the gallery window. Well, it was someone else’s problem now. He had more important things to do.
He turned and walked slowly back down the gallery, his dark suit seeming to soak up the light as he passed. He paused in front of a fallen display cabinet, set down the large metal briefcase he was carrying, and straightened his light blue tie. Then he bent down and heaved the cabinet aside.
Beneath it lay the body of a black cat. Incredibly, the cat moved, stretching, turning its head to look up at the man weakly.
The man drew a gun from a holster inside his jacket. He stared back at the cat for a moment, through watery pale blue eyes.
Then he gripped the gun by the barrel and hammered the heavy handle down on the cat’s head. There was no anger or emotion in the action, just a ruthless efficiency. Soon the head was nothing more than a bloodied pulp, orange tendrils sprouting from the mess like the first shoots of spring grass.
He lay the metal briefcase on its side, sliding the catches and opening it to reveal an empty plain metal interior. The man carefully picked up the cat by its tail, dropping its twitching body into the briefcase. The orange filaments swayed and danced, as if trying to feel what was happening. But the man snapped shut the briefcase.
He pulled a plain, spotlessly white handkerchief from his top pocket and wiped first his fingers, and then the bloodied handle of his gun. Then he replaced handkerchief and gun, picked up the briefcase, and walked away.
* * *
They had moved Number Seventeen to a desk in the cloister room down near the Vault. Her last picture was an image of a woman’s face – her mouth open as if screaming. In extreme close-up.
The nurse supervising lifted the sheet of paper away, numbered it and placed it on the pile. Number Seventeen was already drawing again. Shading black across almost the whole sheet.
She stopped abruptly. The pencil fell from her fingers and clattered down on the stone table before rolling off and falling to the floor. The girl’s eyes widened, as if she was seeing the nurse for the first time. Her hands bunched into claws. She gave a hiss of anger, saliva spattering across the paper. Then her eyes rolled upwards until only the whites showed, and she pitched backwards, falling after the pencil.