The Forever Man (W.A.R.P. 3)

Riley caught the blade, and in one fluid movement turned and flung forward his hand, dropping to one knee as he had been taught. But there was no thunk of blade on bone nor squelch of knife through organ – and Garrick reckoned himself safe for the moment.

‘Too slow again,’ he gloated. ‘You’ve forgotten your lessons, son.’

Not this one, Riley might have said, or: I remembered the knife palm you forced me to practise all those years.

But there was no time for banter, as the flames were rising and Chevie’s face was a mask of terror. Riley could not stand to watch the fire burn her feet and calves, so he simply threw Isles’s knife, which he had not previously thrown but simply concealed in his palm. This time his target was not on the balls of his feet ready for the dodge but leaned to one side and woefully off balance.

Blast, thought Garrick. I hate stabbings.

He had been stabbed many times in his long life and it seemed as though each one hurt more keenly than the last. Although they had healed in mere seconds, Garrick swore he felt the diverse pains whenever the night was cold.

Today, however, he had barely the time to grit his teeth before the blade buried itself deep in his shoulder. Garrick had to admit the boy’s aim was true – which was to his own credit, of course – before that particular sharp pain of a knife wound blasted like a white light through his brain and he could not hold in a yelp of pain, which he felt sure must have given Riley some satisfaction.

But still Garrick would not yield. He plucked the knife from his own shoulder, refusing through sheer willpower to sink to the ground. The pain was debilitating, certainly, but it would be brief and this game could still be played.

But the pain persisted and blood flowed from the wound. Garrick felt himself light-headed.

‘What?’ he said. ‘What is this?’

Riley moved left and right, searching for a way past. ‘Ain’t you figured it out, Garrick? Didn’t you feel that spirit inside you?’

Garrick knew that it must be true, for the wound was not healing. That spirit had stripped the wormhole right out of him.

‘But …’ he said. ‘But I am the Forever Man.’

‘Forever is over,’ said Riley, and readied himself to commence his run.

For he had formulated a desperate plan in those last few seconds: even if Garrick lay down like a lamb, there was still no earthly way to extinguish the fire and save Chevie in time. He could not snatch the book unless he could use Garrick’s old trick and magic the book away from where it was supposed to be.

But Garrick was not about to lie down and die, for, in fact, he was not mortally wounded and what he lacked in energy he made up for in hate.

‘No!’ he shouted, brandishing the blade. ‘None shall tell me when my time is over. Perhaps I ain’t immortal no more, but I am still Witchfinder here and I will burn who I please and none will dispute my orders. I would build a bonfire for every man, woman and child in Mandrake and they would trot into the flames on my orders. I am the master here and no parliament, king or god shall say any different.’

At those words, Riley despaired. Even now, with the blood pumping from his wound, Albert Garrick thwarted him.

I was wrong. Garrick cannot be killed. He is the Forever Man.

But then a small round hole appeared in Garrick’s forehead and it was followed by the report of a musket. In the middle of the thoroughfare stood Jeronimo Woulfe with his rifled musket. He lowered the smoking gun and spoke a single word: ‘Enough.’

Albert Garrick was dead.

Riley saw Garrick sink to his knees and he could not fathom what had happened or whether perhaps it was a ruse. At any rate he knew that it didn’t matter much, as he could feel the heat of the bonfire on his own face and could not even imagine the agony Chevie was feeling with the flames at her knees.

I must go now and there are no two ways about it. Life for us both or death for the two.

Of course he was afraid, as his plan was at best foolhardy and at worst a dolt’s errand, but Riley’s fear was that he would not be able to end Chevie’s suffering.

Garrick was now on his knees, slumped with his life’s blood pouring out of him, useless to man or beast.

Perhaps not quite useless, thought Riley, and he began to run directly towards the pyre.

From behind he heard someone, probably Fairbrother Isles, shout, ‘No, kid. It’s too late. There’s nothing you can do.’

The devil there isn’t, thought Riley. The wormhole is not yet open.

His expression grim, he used Garrick’s shoulder as a vaulting stool and launched himself through the flames directly towards Chevron Savano.

Chevie was going through changes, of this much she was certain. Something momentous was happening to her, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was.

And now I will be burned alive before I will ever know.

Her mind refused to settle on this notion and slid off it whenever possible, distracting her with the fantastic array of events that were unfolding all around her. With her feline vision she saw everything more clearly than a human ever could.

She saw the great boar fall from the sky and the huge humanoid grapple with it, and she knew somehow that the giant man was not of this earth.

She saw the cannon fire decimate the battling pair and she grieved for them both briefly, for they were but flies in the wormhole’s ointment, as she had been.

Then came Isles with his magnetic box, prodded into the square by Riley, and she knew it was him even by his walk and could not believe Garrick did not.

She saw Cryer, of course, as he had attempted to pour the molten metal down her throat, and she had seen him die, though she wished she had not.

Then there was the final showdown between Riley and Garrick, which had been coming for hundreds of years, and which was finished by another man’s hand.

And yet, although Garrick was surely dead now, the flames rose about her ankles, and she tried to no avail to activate the Timekey by pressing it against her bonds, and the pain was so great that it seemed to fill the entire world, and yet …

And yet something had changed.

And now Chevie knew what.

She regained something of her senses just in time to see Riley fly towards her through the smoke and flames, his eyes fixed on hers, and she wanted to tell him:

Oh, Riley. There isn’t any need.

Riley crashed into Chevie, knocking the breath from both of them, and the stake swayed but did not break, as Riley had expected.

They were face-to-face for one moment, eyes locked and feelings clear, and then Riley felt the seat of his pants go up in smoke and decided that he did not want to be broiled in Roundhead armour. So he kissed Chevie hard on the lips and with a press of his thumb activated the Timekey round her neck.

The pair was instantly surrounded by a swarm of orange sparks. As the sparks swirled around them, Riley and Chevie shrank but kept their proportions, until they were small enough to fit into the heart of the Timekey, which duly sucked them in, then dematerialized itself in a fizzle of orange bubbles.

When the fire burned itself out, there was nothing left but the charred stump of wood and some soot-coated chains. Of the so-called witch and her familiar there was no sign.

Dog Dog

As the sun rose over Mandrake the next day, the townsfolk drifted to the blackened pyre, skirting the massive crater where many had seen with their own eyes the titans do battle until Mandrake’s cannon crews had valiantly sent them back to wherever they had come from. People stood in small clusters, whispering their disbelief and confusion at the events of the previous evening. Eventually the reasoning spread that the Witchfinder had in some mysterious fashion succeeded in his efforts to banish his nemesis and her familiar but the struggle had driven him dangerously mad, and that Jeronimo Woulfe’s bullet had been a mercy for Albert Garrick and the entire town.

That same Jeronimo Woulfe found Fairbrother Isles away from public view. In his old haunt, the

jail hut, he was seated on the floor with his broad back to the wall, holding his elbow tight to his side on account of the Primly boy’s gunshot. He had a large hunting hound lying docilely in his lap while he bandaged the animal’s head, and Woulfe, who had always been a dog man, as they say, was mightily impressed that a man would tend to his hound’s wounds before his own.

‘Good Master Isles,’ said Woulfe. ‘How fares the hound?’

Isles looked up from his work and there were tears in his eyes. ‘He’s a dog. Just a dog dog. He said he was going but I didn’t get it till he woke up. Just a dog.’

This was puzzling talk, but the man had been wounded, so perhaps he was a little dazed.

‘Yes. Just a dog. And are the injuries serious, do you think?’

Isles secured the bandage with an unusual glue-backed paper. ‘No, a flesh wound is all. But the scalp is a bleeder, you know? And Pointer, he bleeds more than most anyway. He jabbed himself with a staple once. I swear it bled for three days.’