charing
Charing Cross to Hyde Park
My God. I have just seen a man die. And the stench of it all, my God. The absolute squalor. Bloody horror. The colour brown is everywhere: on us, on the walls, in the dried blood of our hands. The longer it surrounds you, the worse it gets.
"What do we do with him?" asks Katie. She's sporting a bandage on her forehead, the gift of one of the cursed Hunters.
"Take his gun and his ammo, and keep moving," I tell her. "Does he have anything else?"
"A canteen," she tells me. "We lost our pack in the last scuffle, so we need to get a new... you know."
"Go for it," I tell her. Katie's good at the especially gruesome bits. She's got the stomach for it. Me, I was a pacifist three years ago, and couldn't even stand a horror flick. How far I've come. "We'll be able to buy some more supplies when we get to Hyde's Topside."
"I can't wait," she breathes as she makes a sharp cut with her knife. "Haven't had a meal in three days. Iasu alone knows when I had a hot meal last. Okay, I got it now, but he was a guy. So that means..."
"Wonderful. Let's go, then." The dead Hunter was male. Which means that the Terrabank Identification Mark on his right hand will identify him as male. Which means that I'm gonna have to use it. I hate the thought, but it's that or don't buy anything.
We walk on, staring at the rusted rails of the Lonytn Underground. We pass a decrepit shell of a subway train, ages ago scrapped of anything useful. A rat pokes his beady eyes over a moulded foam seat. I stare back as we walk by.
"There's three rails on this track," Katie says. "I thought that trains only needed two."
"Overworld trains do, Kat," I inform. "But the Underground didn't have room for steam cars. They used electricity, and the third rail gave the trains electricity to move."
"Do you think...?"
"No," I bemoan. I had thought the same thought a long time ago. But the electricity was long gone. There was no power in the Underground. "No, no electricity anymore. We can't recharge anything."
"Oh well. Just a thought. Hey, here's some more clothes." I look. Clothes were found everywhere the day International Emergency was declared. Clothes for about one-third of the world's population, but no one-third of the world's population. The disappearance was explained by the governments as either a secret alien weapon or an international Communist conspiracy or something sufficiently paranoid and strange like that. Nobody would believe the truth, though. In fact, after the Coalition was formed, they started banning and burning the truth.
"Take them. We'll change clothes in Hyde after we bathe."
"A shower? Really?"
"Yes," I promise. I've been wanting a shower, too. I haven't had one since the flight from Kyngston-en-Tymh."
We keep walking. Always we are walking. Several times, we hug the walls as Hunters pass by. Always after they pass, we will shoot them from behind. We can't let them live to kill our brothers.
"So where's the next haven?" she asked. "It won't be smart to keep walking in the daylight hours. The Hunters come in swarms at daybreak."
I look at the map. "The next haven is half a kilometre away. We'll make it," I swear.
And we do. The haven is Charing Cross, a long-forgotten station of the Underground. The street above it has been paved over, and it, as well as many others like it, now serves as a haven for Xristions travelling in the Underground. The entrance is bricked off, with little holes large enough to shoot through and a narrow doorframe.
"Deo veni com tu," I call out.
"Et com tu," the password is completed. "Enter."
Katie and I enter, and see ten cots and five men gathered around a radio set.
"You're just in time, brethren. Freedom Radio is coming on!"
We sit down. Freedom Radio is an international Resistance program that sends news and orders world-wide. Most people think it's based out of either Zhongua, Nippon, or Emeriqua: they're the only decent nations that are still fighting the Global Defence Coalition. I suppose that FR could be operating out of Mikhail Gagh's Rhuska, but I would doubt it. But nobody knows for sure except that the name is based loosely on Emeriquan history.
"Do not attempt to adjust your radio sets. This is KRUX Freedom Radio, broadcasting live out of hell on earth. In news on the war front, Autawa has fallen to the Coalition. The Queen of Angleterre has appointed a new Kannatian government, now loyal to the Coalition. The Emeriquan President has removed the Provisional Government to Aumaja. In Zhongua, the gains made by the Zhonguan Ninth Army near Chungking have been lost, and the Allied Oriental Command has moved from Zhanghai to Tochyo due to bombing raids. The word from Rhoma and Stanbul is that nuclear strikes are being deliberated if the Allies do not submit to the Global Defence Coalition by May."
"That's not good," Katie whispers. The men mutter amongst themselves.
"In Esrayl, the Coalition is pressing Prime Minister Yetzel to accept the Uniform Religious Code ever more harshly. The word on the streets of Ierusalim is that he might accede to their demands this time.
"Now, the instructions. Pay attention now, these cannot and will not be repeated. For Group Aleph: Napollyon is living in exile. To get hole-in-ones, you must practice. For Group Beth: Across the park is the water fountain. This isn't for the jackals, but the hidden. For Group Gimel: Enthrone brightness triumphant. The light is only in death. For Group Daleth:..."
"Across the park is the water fountain? Jackals? Hidden?" ponders Katie. For the two of us are Group Beth.
Um... I think water fountain refers to... water is Iasu is the Wyrd, so that must be talking about the package of Wyrdikauds from Nytesbrij. Jackals and hidden... jackal... hide? Jekyll? Hyde? Hyde Park?
So the Lontyner Xristions must have taken the package from Nytsebrij already. That's good. Nytsebrij is notorious for pro-Globalist sympathies. I think they rooted out the last kyriakos there three months ago. I wouldn't want to go there, but if they've got it at Hyde Park now, then that makes it a whole lot easier.
The radio rattled off instructions. I started tuning it out as I pulled out my most prised possession, favoured even ahead of my Kreisler semiautomatic.
It's the last part of the book of Zalms. I actually own part of the Wyrdikaud. I still remember when I got it.
We were in Invyhrness, in a dark and musty warehouse at night. A lone lightbulb was burning overhead, and we had just received a shipment of three Wyrdikauds smuggled from Emeriqua. We cheerfully ripped them up by book (so that everyone would have something, rather than three people have everything) and gave them away to the believers. I got the last part of the book of Zalms, and Katie got Revlaishan. I was so happy that I finally had a bit of the Wyrdikaud, however small.
So tonight, with a forbidden broadcast playing in the background, I study the forbidden words of a forbidden God. A Zalm of Dafyd. Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teaches my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.
How relevant this is. This stuff was written five thousand years ago, and it still makes perfect sense. Who could have done this but the same that made the universe?
Spirita Sancta, inhabit me. Breathe life into this dead corpse. Send the army of heaven to fight for us. Let me lay down this burden at the throne of the Xristos.
Power comes upon me. A presence deeper and purer than anything the persecutors could dream of. And I am slain.
It isn't like any time before, though. I am taken to another place. A being with four wings stands before me.
"Lord Iasu?" I inquire.
"I am only His servant, and my name is Aureus," he replies. "I have been dispatched to aid you. We will meet where there is no light."
"No light?" I ask. "But where-"
"But where what?" asks Katie. They're all staring down at me with concern. "Are you okay, Lloyd? You've been out for twenty hours. We were supposed to leave for Hyde Park two hours ago. We would've been there by now. Are you okay?"
"What?" I stand up, shakily at first, but snap out of it. "Yeah, I just had a weird vis-"
Gunfire sounds far away, and approaching footsteps. A voice cries out "Meus fraters! Pro Xristos venite!"
"That's our cue," one of the men grunts. "Remember: One bullet, one Hunter. Waste nothing." We jump out of Charing Cross station, guns ready.
Six Hunters are pursuing a lone Xristion, shooting randomly into the darkness ahead. I crouch and take a shot, managing to fleshwound one. A Hunter bullet strikes one of the Charing Cross guys in the leg, and he collapses.
After another of ours is shot down, the rest of us manage to form a human wall of sorts across the tunnel, crouching to make a smaller target.
There's six Hunters, and they're all wearing black kevlar and nightvision goggles. There's four of us, and we're wearing normal clothing. The runner is wearing normal clothing but his eyes are shining bright gold, even at this distance. We can't see them, they can see us, and there's more of them.
So when every Xristion but the runner, Katie and I are dead, I start thinking to flee.
"Benedicitur Senior meus roboris est, quod instructit meus manii bellare, et meus digii lucare!" shouts the runner.
Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teaches my hands to war, and my fingers to fight, I shout in my head. I fire round after round. One of them falls. We will fight on to the death.
The runner meets up with us. He looks strangely familiar, and he grabs the gun of one of my fallen brethren. Smiling at me, he shoots at the Hunters. They all fall down, as if they never even had kevlar.
"Your comrades are alive, just wounded," he tells me. "And I was told to give the leader of Group Beth this." He hands me a set of stapled, worn paper. Squinting in the dark, I read the words "The Ipistle To The Ebreuwes" on the top. "I was also told to tell you this message: Non oblivite divertere peregrinum, pro in est vestrum diverent seraphim. Now then, I must be off. God go with you."
"And with you," I nod. He walks off. When I turn around, I hear and see nothing. Must be a highly-trained Xristion operative.
I go back to Charing Cross station and use the two-way radio to signal Hyde about the delay.
"Charing Cross to Hyde Park. Charing Cross to Hyde Park. Hello? Is anyone there?"
I hear a muffled shriek and an explosion, then gunfire and foul-mouthed cheering. Then nothing.
If not for the dream and the gunfight here, Katie and I would have been there right now. We would have died.
I take a look at the new book, Ebreuwes. I flip through it, skimming it. Except for the wear and tear throughout the ages, it's pristine. Except for chapter thirteen verse two, which is circled in pencil: Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Thinking back, the stranger had bright golden eyes. Nobody I know has gold eyes.
Wait a minute. Golden in Lhadin (which the man spoke so well) is aureus.
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