The Comeback of the King Read online

  A pair of booted feet were in front of him, one aimed right at his head and drawing back, and he couldn’t move. But two more boots suddenly landed in front of his eyes, polished and police regulation, and then the four boots were scuffling around him. Their owners were well matched. Gordon was bigger and stronger; Inspector Stewart had the training.

  “Do something!” Ted gasped inside himself.

  I am doing something. You have a ruptured spleen and a tear in your diaphragm. Give me another few seconds …

  The pain was giving way to a warm glow below his ribs. But Ted still couldn’t quite move and he winced as the grappling boots came near his face. From down on the ground, Inspector Stewart and Gordon loomed above him like giants dancing a drunken jig. The inspector had a can of pepper spray in one hand but a grinning Gordon was slowly twisting it towards her own face.

  Okay, this has gone far enough.

  Ted heard a distinct snap like a bunch of sticks being broken together. Gordon screamed and crumpled. He hit the ground and thrashed like a dying, howling fish, clutching at his ankles, curled up into a foetal ball. The inspector still stood, caught out, not quite sure what had happened. Ted clambered to his feet.

  I’ve broken his ankle bones for you and you’re all better. Now finish this. From left to right: Andy, Gary, Brian, Ivor, Ambrose – really? Blimey – Ian, Mick …

  Like he was machine gunning the King’s circle of guards, Ted recited the names of Gordon’s coterie as quickly as he could, all in one breath before the King could stop him. And like a machine gun, each name seemed to thud into the King like a bullet, weakening him, hurting him.

  “Get him,” Ted gasped, and the inspector lunged at the King while the Knowledge turned its attention to the crowd.

  John, Shirley, Jennie, Steve, Neil, John again, Jim, Mark, Rob Russell, Nathan, Rachel, Sue, Becky, Edward, Heather (hi Mum), Robert …

  The inspector moved too quickly for the King. In one practiced move his arms were pinioned, cuffs slapped onto his wrists and she was frog-marching him towards the car.

  “Protect your King!” he bellowed. “Protect your King!”

  But the rows of people nearest him were suddenly moaning, gasping in wonder, staring at each other as if seeing clearly for the first time as the Knowledge struck. Further away, the crowd were still royal subjects – though the number was falling by the second – but they were kept from their King by an expanding barrier of people who were suddenly back to normal again and wondering what the hell they had been doing. Their sheer inertia protected the inspector as she wrestled with the cause of it all.

  The Queen’s screech scraped at Ted’s soul like breaking glass.

  “Husband!”

  She threw off her coat and Ted had just a moment to savour the sight of a gorgeous naked woman before her form dissolved in front of his eyes and a ball of water flung itself at the inspector. The aim was obvious: cover her head, block her mouth and nose, let her drown.

  With barely a thought Ted stripped the energy from the water molecules so that they crystallised into ice that smashed to the ground and shattered into fragments. Immediately, like in a movie, the fragments began to run back together again and the Queen’s head and torso emerged from the ground. She glared hatred at Ted and suddenly he was skewered by a spear of cold so harsh that it burned.

  Trying to freeze you from inside …

  The Knowledge took over before Ted could do anything. A simple flip threw the spell back at her, turning it around so that it did quite the opposite of freezing. The Queen vanished into a cloud of steam, so violently that the paving cracked and Ted flinched as the blast washed against his face. He stared in horror at the small hole where she had been.

  “You killed her!”

  She’s a spirit that manifests itself in water. She’ll be back. Help the inspector.

  The King was half in, half out of the car, braced with strong arms against the side of the door – almost comical, like a small child announcing “shan’t!” The inspector was braced against him as she tried to push him in, without backup or support, when suddenly she slumped and let go. Ted couldn’t see what had changed. The King shrugged her off and she made no attempt to hold onto him, rather leaning against the car, eyes squeezed shut, teeth clamped together.

  The King began to climb out of the car again, and Ted yelled and flung himself at the man in a way he hadn’t done since getting into a fight in Year 6: no strategy, no skill, just a desire to use as much force as possible. He all but bounced off, which he would have done even if the King had just been a normal man.

  “Oh no, Your Majesty, you’re going down–”

  They came one from either side, catching the King unawares: two large, burly men, their anger untempered by any form of mercy or compassion. Ian? Gary? Two of that lot, anyway: the King’s former guards, Gordon’s former lieutenants. Ted just had a glimpse of the King’s mask of surprise before he was forced into the back of the car and the door was slammed shut in his face.

  “Blimey, what’s wrong with her?” Gary looked at the inspector with interest. Her fists were balled together at her temples and her whole body was hunched as she muttered, “no, no, no–”

  The Knowledge diagnosed the problem.

  The King dug deep into her memories. She’s remembering everything she ever did that she is ashamed of.

  “What, like snogging me?”

  I don’t think she’s got that far yet. In fact I don’t think she’s got past her own teens.

  The inspector was muttering through her teeth: “I’m not a bad girl, I’m not–”

  “You’re a good cop,” Ted said loudly.

  Well done. Just what I was going to tell you to say.

  “Yeah, well–”

  The inspector’s eyes flew open and for a moment her features were composed in peace as if she had just received Enlightenment. But then her eyes narrowed and her face hardened.

  “Damn right.” She registered that the King was in the car and that the two men hovering nearby had had something to do with it. “Thank you.” She looked around at the crowd. “Coming, Ted?”

  Ted became aware that the crowd was still there, restless, dangerous. Many had been converted, most had not, though the work still went on: the Knowledge had implanted suggestions in the people it touched that they should talk to the people they knew and continue the good work. But it was a dangerous place to be. The outskirts of the crowd were still the King’s followers and many of the inner circle were actively angry and looking for something to vent it on.

  The plan was ninety percent complete but there was still the final stage to go through.

  Ted swallowed. “Yeah.”

  He heard his mother calling: “Ted! Sweetheart!” and deliberately pretended he couldn’t hear, as he got into the police car’s passenger side. The inspector gripped the wheel with both hands and looked at the crowd ahead.

  “A little help?”

  No problem …

  The Knowledge wasn’t as gentle this time and the crowd ahead of the car cleared like the Red Sea. With a surge of acceleration and a whoop of the siren the car leaped into the gap.

  Chapter 20

  “What are you doing? Where are you taking me? I order you to release me–”

  The car hurtled down Brown Street, its lights and siren giving it an automatic pass through the police barricade which had blocked off the top of the one-way street. Thanks to the same barricade the way ahead was cleared of traffic. The car accelerated and just seemed to keep accelerating. Ted glanced at the speedometer: Inspector Stewart was nudging 80 again, which, a small part of his mind worked out as walls and shops and parked cars blurred past, meant he was travelling down this stretch of road about four times faster than he had ever done before in his life.

  Columns of dirty water erupted from the drains on either side of the road and the King shouted with laughter.

  “My dear wife will not let me go that easily–”

  The car
simply smashed its way through the spray and the wipers removed the residue of the Queen from the front window. Ted fought back a grin.

  But almost as soon as she had got up to that speed, the inspector had to brake hard to get the car round the right hand bend into St Ann Street. Ted felt the seatbelt tighten around him and he clung onto the door handle for support. In the back, the King hadn’t got the hang of seatbelts and he had to brace hard against the force of the turn.

  But the car had slowed, and that made it vulnerable. More columns of water erupted, further ahead this time – the Queen was learning strategy. The two sprays reached across the road like hands, fingers interlinking to form a solid wall. Again the car could just drive through it but the inspector was frowning.

  “Too easy, too easy–”

  The car shuddered and the engine spluttered.

  “What the–”

  “You have another passenger!” the King shouted happily.

  Lights on the dashboard were turning red and steam leaked out from under the bonnet. The inspector peered down at the display.

  “The bitch is overheating us!”

  She is in the radiator fluid, the Knowledge reported. With its eyes, Ted looked down into the engine. It was a tangle of pipes and tubes and moving parts, and the radiator blazed with heat, filled with roiling steam. He tore the thin metal walls open with a thought and steam erupted out in a cloud.

  There’s a sensor telling the car’s computer about coolant pressure, and I’ve overridden it. Just drive – let the air cool the engine.

  “Just drive,” Ted said. “Let the air cool–”

  “I know how an engine works,” the inspector said through her teeth. She dropped a gear and the car surged forward again, immediately whipping sharp left into Exeter Street. “But an engine like this, we can’t keep that up for long. How far do we have to go?”

  As far as it takes.

  “As far as it takes.”

  “Right.”

  The end of Exeter Street was upon them and she took a hard left that threw the car onto the ring road. Ted had expected her to keep going in a straight line, out of Salisbury.

  “Why this way?”

  “Don’t want to cross the river,” she said tersely.

  The Avon looped south of the city: easy to miss if you weren’t paying attention.

  “Oh. Right–”

  “Plus this way is dual carriageway, mostly.” The car gunned up the ring road towards the college, ducking between a pair of vans that had moved over to let it through, one on either side.

  “You can’t run from water forever,” the King chortled. “My wife will find you.”

  “Ted, explain to the gentleman what pepper spray does and tell him he’ll get a taste if he doesn’t shut up.”

  Ted wasn’t sure how rhetorical the instruction was and he half turned towards the King, but the King just smiled and theatrically pressed his lips together.

  They were at the roundabout with the college and they whipped around the right hand turn onto Southampton Road. Then they were onto the A36 and accelerating away from his realm, and suddenly the smile vanished from the King’s face.

  “No!” For the first time, Ted heard a note of uncertainty. “No! Turn around now!”

  The inspector shifted down to get them past a lorry.

  “I command you! I am your King!”

  Just past the college, a sheet of water leapt at them from the side of the road, enough to buffet the car. A channel cut from the main course of the Avon came right up to the road at that point, but only at that point. Immediately after it the dual carriageway moved away from the channel to drive between industrial estates, and the water couldn’t bridge that barrier.

  “But–” The King faltered. He had no other argument, no fallback position. “I am – your – King!”

  Jets of dirty water erupted from the drains. Flying iron gratings clanged against the car’s sides. The Queen was no longer trying to get on board the car, just to stop it with sheer force. But the jets were growing weaker even as Ted watched.

  “You’re a mini-deity that my ancestors conjured up when they first arrived in Salisbury,” Ted said wearily. “They came to this fertile valley with rivers and forests full of fish and food and they thought, wow, someone’s behind all this, and in their minds they created an image of you and the power that’s buried beneath Salisbury Plain seeped into their heads and it gave you a form.”

  That was the gist of what the Knowledge had explained to him on the journey back from Blandford. The inspector shot him a look but kept driving.

  The King was sweating.

  “And did I not give them what they wanted? Did I not take care of them, cherish them, love them?”

  Inspector Stewart spoke, unexpectedly.

  “Not if your notion of love is what you were doing back there in the market place.”

  “How long did your kingdom actually last?” Ted asked. “A few years? Maybe a generation or two, max. They worked out that the rivers would be full of fish and the forests would be full of deer even without you. Just because they didn’t have a modern education didn’t make them stupid. Or maybe – just stabbing in the dark here – maybe you acted then like you do now and you just outwore your welcome.”

  The King was pale, his face clammy, as if he had eaten a dodgy curry the night before. He slumped back into his seat.

  “Turn this car around. It is possible I still have to learn about your modern world. Please–”

  “You’re not needed, you’re not wanted and you’re certainly not trusted,” the inspector snapped.

  “You are killing me!”

  Ted winced and struggled to get words out of a suddenly dry throat.

  “We’re uninstalling you,” he whispered.

  You didn’t uninstall a program just by deleting it from the drive, but in this case he didn’t know a better way of doing it. The King drew his power from Salisbury Plain: so, removing him from Salisbury Plain – which was currently receding behind them at around eighty miles per hour – should remove him. Salisbury was right on the edge of the Plain and any journey south or east would increase the distance.

  Water barely bubbled from a ditch as the car shot past. The Queen’s power was also limited to her husband’s kingdom.

  The King stared at Ted with dark eyes and Ted fought the urge to look away.

  “You have taken life before,” the King murmured. Ted swallowed.

  “Yes.”

  This time the inspector glanced at him for a second before switching her attention back to the road. Hah! he thought, something you didn’t know about me.

  “Does it get easier?”

  “Ted, don’t engage,” the inspector warned. “Just keep quiet.”

  “And I saved thousands of lives in the process,” Ted added, more loudly. He had made the decision very early on, back in the summer. He would not feel guilty. It had not been murder. It had been self-defence and, anyway, thousands of others would have died too, all at once, as the thief eliminated the ancient bloodlines once and for all.

  But the thief had died in a moment, made inevitable by gravity taking over. It hadn’t been drawn out like this. The King seemed to melt into his seat. His face was white and shiny with sweat. His eyes were closed, his breath came in short, sharp pants and his lips moved soundlessly. Ted stared in horrified fascination. It was one thing to loathe the man, to hate him, to want him gone. It was quite another to … to … Ted couldn’t quite bring himself to say the word.

  “He’s right,” he blurted suddenly, “we’re killing him, we’re–” He whispered the word he didn’t want to say. “We’re murdering–”

  The inspector was pale but determined.

  “What do you suggest, Ted? We take him back but lock him up? Make sure only the right people get to talk to him because anyone else will just let him out again?”

  She’s right, Ted. The man can’t be contained within Salisbury and he can’t exist outside it.

/>   Ted twisted round in his seat with tears pricking in his eyes. He wanted to apologise, to explain to the living being he was trying hard to extinguish just why it had to be like this.

  “Why do you hate me, boy? I never killed anyone.”

  “You were going to! What about what you were doing back there? Those sacrifices?”

  The King’s eyes were closed and his voice was barely audible.

  “I was going to take my people into a new kingdom. I would have removed them. Not far. Half a second away–”

  “Eh?” There was only one ‘away’ that Ted could think someone like the King would mean. “You were taking them to meta-Salisbury?”

  No, not meta-Salisbury, the Knowledge corrected. Same place as us, same time, just half a second out of phase. Yes, that would have worked. They could have breathed the same air, drunk the same water – but would have been totally unable to interact with the rest of us. And vice versa.

  Ted briefly imagined the thousands of people gathered in the market place – including his own mother and brother – stuck forever in the King’s personal Hell, wanting to be free but unable to stop wanting what the King wanted too.

  His heart hardened.

  The King was almost completely still now. Only his chest moved a little to show that he was still breathing, when suddenly his eyes flew open. He sat bolt upright and screamed loud enough to make the inspector swerve.

  “HUNTER-R-R-R-R!”

  The second syllable seemed to last forever, bypassing the ears and vibrating the very soul.

  And then the King collapsed back into his seat, utterly still, maybe even dead.

  “What the hell was that about?” the inspector demanded.

  Ted stared at the King.

  “He … I think he’s–”

  The King stirred suddenly, lifting his head and cocking one eye at Ted. His smile was weak and triumphant.

  “He’s coming,” the King whispered, and his head lolled.

  “Who’s coming?” the inspector asked.

  “Just keep driving,” Ted said. A sudden premonition made him duck his head to peer out of the rear window.

  “Oh, don’t worry, I will … what are you looking at?”