The Severed Man Page 14

  The boy opened its mouth, and the whole street was suddenly flooded in light. Honoré watched as the child’s head simply folded back on itself, unwrapping the creature inside like the peeling of an banana skin or the shedding of a rubber sleeve. The light shone out against the darkness and the rain, seemingly burning away the tempestuous night.

  Honoré marvelled at the entity once again. He could see the strange shapes swirling about inside it, and could hear, now, the bizarre tinkling music that he supposed was its voice. He allowed his eyes to focus, to unveil the spinning time streams that encased the alien thing, enabling him to look deeper into its history. None of it made any sense. It was entirely other. This was an entity so alien to him, so outside his experience, that he could hardly comprehend its existence. Yet he needed to find some way to communicate with it.

  He closed his eyes, trying to visualise his thoughts, trying to give shape and form to the abstract concepts in his mind. The entity seemed to respond, alternating the patterns in its musical voice, pulsating as if it were trying to say something back. Lechasseur continued to try to broadcast his message.

  Images began to flow through his mind once again, pushing everything else out of the way. It was like attempting to comprehend a whole universe of different spacial dimensions all at once. None of the images made any real sense. Occasionally, he would catch a glimpse of a human-like shape, or a shadowy figure in the background, but most of it slipped by him unchecked. The pain was all too real, however, and he felt as if his brain was burning inside his skull, roiling like a storm cloud about to heave its heavy load.

  He forced himself to relax, and focused, drawing out the images of the murdered corpses, the devil worshippers, the enthralled village people, and the fractured remains of Barnaby Tewkes.

  Something changed.

  Honoré opened his eyes. The light was gone. He glanced around, trying to see in the dark, spots of light dancing in front of his vision where the intense light had been just a moment before.

  The boy was gone too. There was no sign of the creature anywhere.

  He didn’t know what to make of it. Lechasseur glanced down at Barnaby, who was still lying on the ground by the side of the road, a sorry mess. He would have to think of something he could do to help the poor man. Perhaps he could get him admitted to some sort of asylum or care home. He rubbed at his eyes and turned about, only just realising that Emily had appeared behind him. She still had his coat wrapped around her shoulders, sheltering slightly from the heavy rain. She smiled. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but I think it’s going to be okay.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess time will tell. The entity seems to have gone, for now. But we’ve other things to deal with. All that business with the Devil. We’ll have to sort that out, too.’ He bowed his head slightly, trying to catch her eye. He looked tired.

  ‘But not now... HONORÉ!’ She screamed as she grabbed hold of him, trying to spin him around. He almost fell to the ground as he turned to see Barnaby launching himself towards them, a wicked grin on his face, his hands outstretched as if he planned to rake at them with his ragged nails.

  Honoré staggered backwards, Emily clutching onto him, trying not to fall.

  There was a flash of blue light, and suddenly they were gone.

  The Tower

  The landscape was desolate, a metropolis of concrete and glass. Honoré scanned the horizon. He had no idea what had happened. Emily was standing beside him.

  ‘What was that?’ he asked.

  ‘We time jumped.’

  ‘But how?’ He was still dripping with rainwater, rivulets of it running down his face, stinging his eyes. He wiped ineffectually at his face.

  ‘I have no idea. But it must have had something to do with Barnaby.’ She looked at him and shrugged. ‘Any idea where the hell we are?’

  ‘No. But I don’t like the look of that at all.’ He nodded toward the large tower block in front of them, an immense shard of glass and metal that stabbed at the night sky like it was trying to puncture the underside of the clouds.

  ‘Well, we can’t stand here in these wet clothes. Let’s go and check it out. We need to find somewhere to rest, so we can try to make sense of what’s been going on, and figure out where the hell we are.’

  ‘Okay, let’s go.’

  As they walked, they realised it was snowing gently. Their feet crunched through the white powder, and both tugged their clothes around them as they started to shiver.

  The two travellers, walking closely side-by-side, slowly approached the large building, both of them tired and nervous after all that had gone on, both of them unsure how they were even going to start the process of unravelling and making sense of all of the events that had occurred over the last few days.

  As Honoré had said, Emily mused, only time would tell.

  In the meantime, the tower waited for them like a dark obelisk, a bleak temptation of the future.

  THE STORY CONTINUES IN TIME HUNTER: ECHOES

  [1] See The Cabinet of Light.

  [2] See The Tunnel at the End of the Light.

  [3] See The Cabinet of Light.

  About The Author

  George Mann was born in Darlington, County Durham, in 1978. He has been reading science fiction since he first managed to lay his hands on a copy of The War of the Worlds on his eleventh birthday.

  The Human Abstract for Telos Publishing was his first work of fiction, and The Severed Man his second. More recent novels include The Affinity Bridge, The Osiris Ritual and Ghosts of Manhattan, as well as numerous short stories, novellas and an original Doctor Who audiobook. He has edited a number of anthologies including The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, The Solaris Book of New Fantasy and a retrospective collection of Sexton Blake stores, Sexton Blake, Detective.

  The Time Hunter Series