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Back The Double Save as PDF
Chapters (63)
  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. Acknowledgements

The station hall was empty. Not the safe harbour he’d hoped for, but he crouched in the corner away from the windows and held his breath. No sign of the golem. He breathed out. But the door creaked open, and the man stepped inside, blocking the only exit as his eyes, aglow with the flames of hell, raked Vidor from head to toe.

‘Stay where you are!’ Vidor backed against the wall. ‘Leave me alone.’

But the man advanced, his nailed boots ringing out as he crossed the stone floor. The sound was deafening, but Vidor refused to be cowed.

‘You’re supposed to be dead.’

But the man kept coming, his fiery gaze fixed to a point on Vidor’s chest, as if seeking the exact spot to rip out his heart.

‘Stay back.’ Terror gave strength to Vidor’s shaking limbs. The blood rushed to his face with the force of a volcano. With a cry, he leapt at the man’s throat and knocked him to the ground. ‘Monster. Traitor. Why aren’t you burning in hell?’

The dark-eyed man, fiendishly strong, flung Vidor off like a sack of turnips. Two men in uniform burst through the door and pinned Vidor to the ground. This is it, he thought, the violent death that had stalked him all his life. Crouched in the shadowy cupboard in his bedroom. Lurking in the empty stairwell. Haunting the corpses, stacked like firewood, under the great city. The intricate dance of predator and prey.

And having pursued him across the infinite distance of space and time, Death had found him at last.

39

He opened his eyes to the dark. His head ached, and when he tried to sit up he fell back with a groan. A door opened, and a woman in a white smock appeared at his side. It felt like he’d been out for days. Skimming high above a blackened forest, tracing a path through the trees, where far below, in a grove of dark pines, an ogre crouched and waited.

Lights flickered overhead. The sharp odour of antiseptic stung his nostrils. As awareness slowly returned, Vidor blinked and tried to focus. Where was he? Not at home in Cambridge, or his bedroom in the chalet. This room was smaller, with pale yellow walls and acoustic tiles on the ceiling.

‘Would you like to sit up?’

A sharp pain stabbed his temple. ‘Where am I?’ It came out as a croak.

The woman pressed a button on the wall to raise the bed. ‘You’re in the infirmary at Les Hirondelles. I hear you had quite an adventure yesterday.’

An adventure? What day was it? He closed his eyes. Sleep was all he wanted. A dreamless sleep. His brain stuttered with the effort of recalling the specifics of his life. Name, age, date of birth. What happened yesterday? What was today?