The Iscariot Sanction by Mark Latham

Author:Mark Latham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan

THIRTEEN

Lillian pulled the stitch tight, wincing as Arthur struggled not to scream. Blood flowed down her arms, making her hands slick and the work she did even more difficult. The tiny back room of the post office smelled of rubbing alcohol, which was all she had been able to find to disinfect the wound.

Arthur bit down hard on the wooden handle of a postmaster’s stamp. His pain was writ large across his face. He grunted and wheezed. When at last she tied off the final strand of waxen thread, Arthur’s head thudded back to the tabletop with relief.

‘Is it… done?’ he asked, his voice very thin. The pain of Lillian’s somewhat amateurish surgical skills had at least brought him from his delirium and restored some lucidity, though now he was weaker still.

‘It is,’ she said. ‘Hush now. Thankfully the bullet passed straight through, and the wound is closed, but you need to stay as still as possible. You need a real surgeon.’

‘That should not be a problem,’ he said, forcing a smile upon his ghastly pale features. ‘I feel as though I have been kicked by a mule. No… an elephant.’

Lillian smiled back, trying to ignore her own throbbing ribs. ‘Rest easy, Arthur. I must attend to other matters.’

‘Lillian… I cannot let you carry all the burden. What can I do?’

‘There is nothing you can do, unless you feel able to build a barricade. I must send a telegram to the Order, and inform them of what has transpired.’

‘Let me do that, at least. I have always been better at writing code.’ He winked. She appreciated it took him a great effort to appear light-hearted. The Other had invaded his mind, if only for a moment, and had clawed its way into the real world because of him. That would scar him, perhaps for life, if what she knew of Majestics was correct.

‘If you insist. It will have to be done from memory… Are you sure you are in the right frame of mind?’

‘Lillian, I am fine, I assure you. The… episode… has passed. I can no longer feel the presence of the Riftborn, and must assume that the Knights Iscariot have banished them.’

‘At least they weren’t lying when they said they had that power. But it means they shall be after us sooner rather than later,’ Lillian said. ‘Here, take these, and hurry.’ She handed him a copybook and pencil, and helped him to sit up against the wall, before beginning the important work of barricading them in the little post office for the night.

No one had answered their pounding on the door, and they had broken in to find the building deserted. There were four rooms downstairs—the shop itself, an office, a large kitchen that appeared to double as a storeroom for medicines, and a tiny, unkempt lounge by the back door. Stairs led off that room to an attic bedroom and wardrobe. Lillian assumed that the accommodation was not often used; perhaps the postmaster lived elsewhere, and did not often stay overnight.

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