What seemed like hours later, but in truth was only a matter of minutes, the sound of the choppers started to fade. Suzie pulled away from the hug and grabbed him by the left arm.
“I need to see,” she said, and dragged him back out onto the castle ramparts. He steeled himself for more choking, but the fumes had already started to dissipate. When he looked down at the carnage below he wished that the smoke still obscured the view.
The whole seafront was a smouldering ruin, the burnt kelp intermingled with stripped-clean remains of army vehicles and charred lumps of bone that could only be all that was left behind of dead soldiers. Those defenders who survived picked their way carefully through the burnt kelp, hoping against hope that they might yet find a comrade. But Noble could already see that the search would be hopeless.
Nothing is coming out of that alive.
He turned to Suzie. Her gaze was raised away from the promenade, towards the horizon. He saw why as he followed her line of sight. The kelp had retreated -- but it had not gone far. Just outside the harbour, and right at the limit of the floodlights, a black shadow sat on the sea.
“It’s still out there,” Suzie whispered. “This isn’t over.”
The Colonel walked up to stand beside them.
“Not by a long way,” he said.
“What about the chopper? Can’t you send them out with the napalm?” Noble asked.
The officer had gone completely pale. “I lost thirty men down there. I don’t intend to lose any more. Besides, we’re going to need all the juice we can get if that thing comes back ashore.”
Suzie was staring into the Colonel’s eyes.
“There’s something else, isn’t there?” she said, hardly above a whisper. “Something worse?”
What could be worse?
He didn’t want to hear the answer, and at first it seemed they were not going to get one. Finally, after a long cold stare out at the blackness beyond, the Colonel spoke.
“We were the lucky ones tonight. Penzance is gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?” Suzie asked, but the officer didn’t answer at first, merely stared down at the shore below. Noble could see in his eyes that it was bad.
Very bad.
“Ten thousand dead—at least,” the Colonel finally said, his voice barely above a whisper. “The top Brass are meeting right now to try to come up with a plan.” He turned to Suzie. “There’s a chopper on its way for you. You’re needed in London.”
Noble felt her hand tighten on his arm. She was looking up at him, a question in her eyes. He didn’t hesitate.
“I’m going with her,” Noble said.
“Whatever,” the Colonel said, but something seemed to have gone out of the man. He went back to staring down at the shore.
Looks like we’re dismissed.
Suzie dragged Noble away from the battlements.
“If it’s to be London, there’s some stuff I’ll need from the lab. Come on.”
Noble took a last look over the edge then allowed himself to be led off.
“We’ll need all the proof we can gather,” she said as they went back down the stairs. “You know what these pencil pushers are like. I’ll…”
Now that a decision of some kind had been made for her, Suzie was all efficiency. He realised it was mostly bluff hiding a bubbling fear, but to point any of that out to her at this point would do more harm than good. He let her keep talking and tuned her out… he was having enough trouble just limping down the stairs without falling over.
When they got to the lab he sat down hard in a chair, relieved to be off his feet and very much aware that he was far from being well. In the meantime, Suzie fluttered around the room collecting papers and downloading material onto a pin drive, a frenzy of activity that came to a sudden halt when her gaze fell on the sample jar. She stopped, and her jaw fell open in an amazed, very-unladylike, gape.
“What?” Noble asked, seeing her stunned expression. “What is it?”
She didn’t seem to hear him, her whole attention was on the contents of the jar. Noble pushed up out of the chair, wincing at a fresh flare of pain in his leg. It felt like someone was down there rooting about in the muscle with a red-hot poker. But the discomfort was quickly forgotten as he looked down at the jar.
When they’d left it had been full of thrashing kelp. Now there was only a mass of blackened tissue.
Suzie lifted the lid of the tall jar.
“Don’t…” Noble said, but as usual he was far too late. She had already poked it with a long ruler she lifted from the table. Where she tapped it, fell apart like dray ash.
Before she could investigate further, a young officer arrived in the doorway.
“The chopper’s here for you Miss.”
Five minutes later they were in the air.
July 23rd - In the Air
He tried to talk to Suzie in the chopper, but the noise, even through ear-mufflers was almost deafening. That, plus the fact that his leg started to throb in time with the chug of the rotors meant that this was not going to be a pleasant journey. But she needed him, and he was coming to a growing realisation that he also needed her.
And once this situation is over, I mean to tell her so.
He might even have tried to tell her there and then, but even as the chopper took to the air and banked over the smoking carnage in Weymouth Harbour, she already had the papers she’d brought opened in her lap.
She saw him looking.
“Try to get some rest,” she shouted. “I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a while before we get another chance.”
For the first half an hour he tried, but every time he closed his eyes his mind filled with pictures of flame and burning flesh and his head still echoed with the sound of screams and gunfire. After a time he came to believe he could taste burning flesh at the back of his throat. That, and the nausea building in his gut from the rocking and the vibration, made him wish he’d stayed back in the warm bed at the fort.
Then Suzie looked over at him and smiled, and all other thoughts slipped away.
I’ve fallen for her.
It came as a surprise. They’d been working together for a while now and always treated each other more as brother and sister than potential lovers. He’d always had a feeling of distance from her, as if she liked to keep not just him, but everybody at arm’s length. There had been more touching and hugging in the past few hours than there had been in the last few years.
Not that I’m complaining.
For a while he lost himself in fantasies of dinner and drinks and what might happen later. But even there the kelp intruded, forcing the screeching Tekeli Li wail into his skull in an ear-worm that couldn’t be stilled, couldn’t be turned down. Finally he gave up and sat up straight, reading along with Suzie as she perused some of her research notes. Once again he was quickly lost in the past, but this time, some way further back than World War Two.
After all my pondering, deliberations, and misgivings, the time has finally come. My new charge has arrived from the New World in the hold of the Santa Angelo and it has been brought to the castle. The Inquisitor General has tasked me with discovering the true nature of the abomination, to make a full and careful examination and ascertain what manner of Inquisition might be made of it. It is a great honour, and one I will fulfil with all the diligence the good Lord hands to me.