We’d hardly breached the stairs when the kitchen intercom squawked. Bea’s voice punctured the space.
“Winsome. Vegas. You are due in the sparring room. We have been waiting for half an hour.”
“How does she always know?” I groaned.
Smithy gave a dejected sigh and pressed the intercom. “We’ll be down in a tick, Aunt Bea.” He gazed at me with regret. “So much for a moment alone.”
“And lunch.” We trundled to the lift with a shared lack of enthusiasm.
The doors slid apart onto a long, gloomy corridor with a low warren of pipes overhead leading us past doors at intervals. We’d been taken aback the first time we’d made it down here.
This was the level above the temple, where preparations to meet our fate were in full swing. The area was compartmentalised into a soundproofed firing range, Fortescue’s metalworking forge, a well-equipped gymnasium and fight studio, Mrs Paget’s chemistry lab and a pantry the size of a supermarket stocked with emergency supplies to last a siege of years. A number of bedrooms and storage led off from the doors opposite the Ritual temple on the bottom floor. This basement and the sub-basement were a double-storey fully self-contained bunker. I did not like to dwell on the type of disaster necessitating its use.
We rounded a bend opening out onto a large, cleared space with a springy floor and a wall of mirrors at one end. Professional exercise equipment, punching bags and weights were arrayed in a large square nook formed by the corner boxing stage. Fluorescent lights on the ceiling were meshed protectively and the walls bore the unmistakable brunt of multiple collisions with varied weapons.
Bea re-emerged behind us dressed the same as Fortescue, who danced the centre with Hugo in a black body suit and caged helmet. Our arrival didn’t break their concentration as they launched at each other, coming together in a lightning flash of whirling limbs and the knitting-needle clack of impacting sticks. Daniel, stripped to the waist in a tight pair of leggings, sat observing from the edge of the raised platform. Did the man never wear clothes?
“Too slow,” he said. “You are too easy on him, Hugo. And Jerome, you must not stay close to your adversary between hits or tusks will savage you. Please, permit me to demonstrate.”
He moved to crouch at the ready before Hugo, brandishing a long training rod and not bothering to don protective gear. They grinned ferociously at each other.
“Allow me,” Bea snapped. “I need to exercise some aggravation.” She nimbly stepped to take Hugo’s position.
He came to stand by us at the entrance. “Afternoon, Dumpling. You and I shall have a little talk about wandering. Soon, very soon.” He winked a humourless promise. As Smithy would say, “Outstanding.” Hugo’s expression frosted at the sight of Smithy, who ignored him completely.
Fortescue looked glad of the rest as he squatted nearby, chest heaving and florid welts up his arms. “Are you certain this is advisable, Beatrice?” he wheezed.
Bea inhaled steadily in mental preparation. “Nonsense, Jerome. Our adversaries shall not line up cordially in respect of our abilities.”
With a terse nod, Daniel sprung at her. She parried his blitz as best she could, but he moved like the wings of a hummingbird, too fast to see. He came at her repeatedly, twirling and whacking flesh with his stick. She spun and dodged and managed to hold him off for several minutes, failing to make return contact and tiring noticeably.
Suddenly, there was a loud crack and Bea’s torso bulged. She clutched her back in both hands and cried out in pain, falling to her knees as the stick clattered to the floor with her. Smithy and I reacted at the same instant, sprinting to her and kneeling either side. My heart pounded crazily.
“Aunt Bea! Are you okay?”
“A moment.” Her words chafed with effort, her face pale.
Fortescue rushed over with a capful of syrupy green liquid that exuded menthol and peppermint. “Make room, please.” He gently clasped her chin and tipped the salve into her mouth.
“Thank you, Jerome. That’s much better.” The colour returned to Bea’s cheeks and she was able to get to her feet with our aid. “I cannot overcome our accelerated aging. My energy is too low and skills depleted.”
“They will return fully on completion of the Ritual,” Fortescue reassured her. “I feel the decline also.”
“We are in trouble, otherwise.”
Smithy began shouting at Daniel the instant Bea seemed better, getting up close to punctuate each phrase with a prod. “Are you …” He clamped his mouth shut until the urge to let fly with expletives passed. “Crazy? The woman’s the vintage of Atlantis and you’re going at her as though she’s an Amazon.”
“The witch’s soldiers make no allowances,” Daniel replied, puzzlement clear on his face. “Did Beatrice not make that clear? Are we not training for battle?”
“Well, she won’t be able to fight in a wheelchair! Why don’t you have a go at me? Then we’ll see who requires allowances.” Smithy scowled murderously.
“Certainly. That is an excellent suggestion.”
Hugo snickered with glee at Smithy’s impending downfall. “Quit it, Hugo. We’re all on the same team,” I said.
“Do you wish to change into training attire?”
“The witch’s minions are hardly going to wait until I’m fashionable.” Shrugging off his t-shirt, Smith snatched Bea’s rod and stomped in boardies across the room to a suitably empty space.
Fortescue and I helped Bea over to the stage, where she sat sandwiched between us with her back braced against its frame, sipping another thimble of medicine. She recovered rapidly.
“If I may be so bold,” Fortescue called. “I suspect wooden fighting sticks will not suffice.”
My butler swept his hand towards a lethal arsenal hanging from brackets along the wall. Daniel was closest and selected two plain metal specimens, ranked the same way as pool cues, testing their weight and proportions. Satisfied, he swung both in savage arcs, so fast I lost track and could only be sure of their motion by the whoosh of blades slicing air. Qualms regarding the merits of this contest competed with my anxiety over Bea.
Smithy rolled his eyes, losing patience. “Bloody poseur.” Daniel spun and pitched the bar with force, aiming to catch Smith off guard, but Smithy’s arm flung out the moment it was airborne to snatch it neatly from its arc.
“Bravo,” applauded Daniel.
“Get to the point,” Smithy snarled.
“With pleasure.”
Instantaneously, they slammed together with a resounding clang. It was a clash of Titans so evenly matched their weapons rang with unbroken sound. I got brief flashes of colour and the occasional grunt, but they were too swift for my sluggish perception. The room vibrated with their ceaseless pounding, the atmosphere wavering indistinctly where they fought. The word ‘anticlimax’ came to mind.
“Winsome, you will be better able to observe if you embrace Stealth,” Bea advised, her voice much stronger.
I enjoyed Stealth. It was the easiest of the three Keeper’s Protections to slide into and out of without the need to shirk my body. My senses heightened, so I could easily anticipate where those I wanted to evade would be. I applied this skill now to steady the action. And regretted it. This was a brawn-measuring competition – intelligence optional – if ever I’d seen one. Daniel was mistaken if he thought Smithy required combat instruction, and a swollen black eye and bloodied lip broadcast this error.
“That’s for Aunt Bea,” Smithy crowed.
He darted in to land barely dodged blows, skipping away before a very frustrated Daniel could retaliate. They twisted and swirled together, a spinning top of perfectly choreographed strikes and counter strikes. Suspended fighting equipment plummeted to the floor, as the walls shook with their increasingly violent collisions. An odd trembling travelled my skin and my consciousness flickered.
“You can quit any time.” Smith clearly enjoyed himself, face smug.
“After you.” Daniel unleashed a furious barrage.
I blinked and wobbled my head, vision obscured by a film of deep crimson. Dread unfolded in my gut. It was that movie-intense sensation when the killer-alien slithers up behind the unsuspecting heroine, its flesh-ripping fangs slowly protruding millimetres from her neck. I screamed a silent unheeded warning.
Bea grasped me by the shoulders and stared into my face. “Winsome! What is it?”
Smithy was in the process of stealing Daniel’s rod. He wedged it between his own angled stick and the floor, exploiting the horizontal leverage to pirouette and kick his opponent double-footed in the chest. Daniel staggered backwards, his weapon forcibly wrenched from him. Just as he finished his somersault and landed facing me, Smith’s momentary look of triumph plunged to worry.
“Bear,” he whispered fearfully.
Intent on winning, Daniel righted himself and declared, “Never leave an enemy alive. And don’t forget. They cheat.”
He became a column of smoke, oblivious of Smith’s desertion, retrieving a fighting stick to rematerialise with the rod wedged across Smithy’s neck. I lurched onto all fours, acid scorching my throat to retch loudly. The stink of rotting meat overwhelmed, a putrid inescapable infection in my nostrils. I plucked at the sticky wetness of my shirt, wafting an odour of rust.
“Aceldama.” More Aramaic. Great slaughter field of blood.
Bits of shattered tile embedded my palms, splintered porcelain crunching beneath as I struggled to rise. White heat sheared my brain, forcing me to the ground. The agony blinded and made me throw up again. I slumped back on Aunt Bea, my head reeling, my breath in shallow gasps.
Events protracted, but could be counted in seconds. Daniel stood dumbstruck; the rod slipped from his fingers to the floor, as he belatedly grasped the reason for his success. The sparring room echoed with a tinkling laugh – wind chimes on a summer breeze.
‘This world resembles a cadaver,
And you around it bark!’
I would recognise that deceptively childish voice in a coma. Finesse. “I am so sorry, Benji,” I moaned.
We were too far away to help and he would surely die. Smithy ran to my side.
“Winnie?” he asked, fraught with tension. “Tell us what is happening!”
I reached out and touched his cheek, to let him see what I saw. Then the earth caved in as the black abyss gaped and threatened to swallow us whole.
“Finesse is back. Our time is up.”
