25th Hour - Chapter 5
I knew I was dead. But at least I had tried.
Previously on 25th hour…
Kayne, a newly appointed warden, entered the 25th hour—a hidden time filled with monstrous creatures from Abhorrosen. His first major test came when he faced the fearsome Panthregal, a creature he had been trained to defeat. After failing to strike the creature with his fireball, a mysterious girl saved him and revealed a startling truth: wardens were not the heroes he believed them to be, but criminals serving sentences in this twisted world.
Shocked by the revelation, Kayne was forced to question everything he knew, especially about his mentor, Jackson. The girl, who seemed to know more than she let on, used him as bait when they later encountered a wounded Lumbledox and a monstrous Tyranamean.
Confused, humiliated, and angry, Kayne sought out Jackson for answers. But when he reached Jackson’s bookstore, he found it ransacked. Two menacing figures, Dillenger and Stokes, were already there, searching for Jackson on behalf of someone called the Judge. After they left, Kayne found Jackson hiding behind a broken wall. As they faced each other, Jackson, looking guilty, could only mutter, “It’s not what it looks like, Kayne.”
THREE MONTHS LATER…
A lot happened over the last three months. Everything changed, and then it changed again. Constant lies and constant hiding from the Judge, and I still don’t feel like the others are taking me seriously. But right now, all I could focus on were my thundering footsteps. All I could feel were my cramping legs. All I could hear was my wheezing breath. My vision was hazy with sweat. I was running. Fast. Driven by an instinct to survive, pausing to rest was not an option. There were three of them tracking me. They moved faster than any person, so I couldn’t outrun them, but I didn’t need to. The trap was set. All I had to do was lure them into the old warehouse on Albert Grove.
I turned left and stopped dead. Ahead, the street opened out into a row of shops, cafes, and bars. There was no one here, of course. It was the 25th hour. But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I’d walked this route five times today, and yet this was not the street I was meant to be on. I swore under my breath. I must have taken a wrong turn. But how? And when? A shrill howl sliced through me. The Mercia-Wolves were gaining. I spun to see if there was anything I could recognise. I checked the street sign: ‘Bromyard Avenue’. Wait. Bromyard. Where had I heard that before? The bus. Bus 207. That always stopped at Bromyard Avenue. And that was close to Albert Grove. I’d gone too far. It was a couple of streets back. I cursed my stupidity. The howling seemed to echo in that moment, only it wasn’t an echo. It was the three of them talking to each other. It seemed to come from every direction; they had me surrounded. Then I caught sight of the first one. It prowled into view at the end of the street, shrouded in a cloak of moonlit mist which hung steady in the stillness of the 25th hour but rolled out of the way as the wolf stepped through it. Mercia-Wolves were small, small but deadly. They were little larger than a fox, but their bite clamped like an alligator's and their claws were serrated blades, sharpened by death herself. I knew what to expect though. I had studied them. I knew it wanted me to run. They were pack hunters, used to chasing their prey into traps where others would be waiting. If this one was in front of me, then the other two were behind. That meant there was only one option: up.
I darted to my left and grabbed hold of a metal drainpipe which clung to the wall of the building. I pulled and flung myself upwards, wishing now I had gone to the local climbing wall more as a kid. I had no technique, just pure desperation. The wolves were at the bottom of the pipe before I’d made it halfway, but despite their sharp claws, they too were useless climbers. Realising I was safe, I took my time, knowing that one wrong slip and I was wolf food. I clambered to the top and rolled myself over the edge of the building. Once upright, I got my bearings. There it was. As expected. Two streets away. The warehouse on Albert Grove.
“What you gonna do?” I cried down to the wolves, baiting them into following me as I walked across the roof, leaning slightly over the side so they could see me. They yapped and yelped, circling each other, jumping up at the wall and howling from time to time. Their wild yellow eyes glowed even more fiercely in their anger. Right now, they were beaming suns. The largest one snapped at one of the smaller ones, and, as if on command, it shot off down the street and into the darkness of the night. That wasn’t good. Still, I had my eyes on two of them. I taunted and teased them, making sure they followed me all the way over the rooftops and right up to the warehouse. Now I just needed it to go inside where the trap had been laid. But, with me up here, that was never going to happen. For a moment, I searched for alternatives, but I knew it was useless. There was only one option. I needed to get back down on the ground.
Without a drainpipe, I had to clamber down the window frames, which was far more dangerous. I lowered myself one at a time. I had a plan though. When I was one storey from the bottom, I’d conjure up a fireball and shoot it at the wolves. It would miss, of course. Mercia-Wolves were too quick for that, but it would distract them long enough for me to drop to the floor and run into the warehouse. Finally, I reached the window frame on the first floor. I looked down at the wolves, who had now steadied and were sitting there licking their lips. But why so calm? I anchored myself as close to the wall as possible and clasped my hands together, building the fireball slowly. As the light began to glow, the wolves stayed still. No panic, no hurry, just patiently licking their lips. And then I saw a flash of movement from inside the window. I tried to peer through the glass, but the glare from my fireball made it hard to see anything on the dark insides. I pressed my face to the window pane as the Mercia-Wolf leapt at the me. The one which ran away must have found a way into the building and tracked me here. It smashed through the glass, knocking me backward and causing my fireball to shoot up and strike the top of the building, where it clattered through some of the brickwork.
Thump!
I hit the ground hard, the wolf landing just as hard next to me. I was slow to my feet, and by the time I stood, the other two wolves had me surrounded, and the one that had jumped out of the window was limping but also circling me. The entrance to the warehouse was less than ten metres away. I had come so close.
Maybe it was exhaustion or simply the pain that ran through my back, but it that moment, I didn’t really care that I’d been bested. I knew I was dead. But at least I had tried. I accepted my fate. But when the wolves crept closer, I heard a crumbling sound from above. I looked up and saw the ledge of the building, where my fireball had accidentally hit, come crashing down. It took out the two smaller wolves, and the dust that erupted smothered the atmosphere and hid me for a second or two. It was enough time to turn and run for the warehouse. I didn’t dare look back. I knew it would be chasing me, and I just ran. I felt the wolf closing in. It was gaining.
Through the entrance. Across the concrete floor. Over a collapsed steel girder, and—slam! Against the far wall, I stopped. I turned. The wolf ran fast, zipping toward me like lightning. I held my breath and…
It worked. As the wolf sprung forward, the net on the floor whipped up, snatching it in its grasp and lifting it towards the ceiling where it hung, helpless and howling. It thrashed around, but I knew it couldn’t escape.
“Where’s the other two?” Jackson called from his hiding place.
I gave myself a chance to catch my breath before replying. “Dead. You can come out now.” I looked up to the rusted scaffold walkways above where Jackson emerged from behind a large old lump of machinery. He was clasping tightly onto his two crutches and hopping with his one leg and a clank, clank, clank over to the stairs. The wounds on his face still glinted with fresh flesh in the moonlight as they were a little way off healing yet. Eventually they would, but he’d never get his leg back, and those scars on the inside, the inner wounds of torture, would also never heal. That pain would hold strong for a lifetime.
“How did you kill them?” he croaked, as he struggled slowly down the staircase.
“Luck,” I replied.
“I guess we were due a bit of that.”
His voice was weak, and I could only just about make out what he said. He was right though. Luck had hardly been on our side recently, but now we had caught a living Mercia-Wolf, we might have just turned a corner. Surely, this gave us an advantage.
“You want to do the honours?” Jackson asked, handing me the tranquiliser gun.
I snatched it from him and shot the beast quickly, not wanting to waste any more time. It only took a few seconds for it to fall asleep, and then, carefully, we tied its legs together, wrapped a chain around its jaw, and carried it out on my back. We burned the carcasses of the other Mercia-Wolves as we left.
“You think this will work?” Jackson asked as I checked my chronowatch, noting that we had exactly twenty-eight minutes until the end of tonight’s 25th hour.
The question annoyed me. It was my plan, and it wasn’t the best, but he hadn’t offered anything as an alternative. “It’s our only shot at getting the girl on our side. If we can use the Mercia-Wolf to help her get her brother back, then we might just stand a chance against the Judge and her cronies."
To be continued…