You say nothing more, determined not to put your foot in your mouth.

Pride leads you past the docks and around the foot of Tower Hill, on which the Tower of London resides. A few side streets later, you reach a graveyard beside a large church.

“It was bombed during World War Two,” Pride says. “There’s no roof anymore… it all looks so strange.” Pride glances around as if superimposing the modern sight he’s used to on top of the intact building. His voice drifts away as he says, “It’s been so long.”

His stride doesn’t falter once, despite the fact that everything must look different now. He knows exactly where he’s going, and it unnerves you.

You soon find yourself beneath the shadows of the many trees springing from the soil here, the sun completely blocked from view. It makes you feel strange and far away, like home is the abstract place now, and this mossy underworld in a lost part of London has more substance than you do.

You know it survives because Pride said so.

But what if Pride’s temporary fix on the portal doesn’t work?

The big man guides you to a bench, where you sit and wait as he crosses to a tree close to the outer railings. He just stands there, his head lowered, and for a moment, you think he might be peeing up the tree. Then you see the gravestone at his feet. It’s old and squat, the writing almost worn away, the grey stone tinged green. The low rumble of Pride’s voice reaches you, but you can’t make out what he’s saying, and you’re not nosey or insensitive enough to eavesdrop.

Pride looks so melancholy when he drops onto the bench beside you. “My mother,” he says, saving you from asking.

Your breath catches. “We’re in a Victorian graveyard, Pride.”

He shakes his head. “This place is much older than that. Try the middle ages.”

“But if your mother has been here since…” You can’t quite get your head around it.

He smiles wryly. “I’m not as young as I look.”

“But how old—”

“Let’s get back to the twenty-first century, shall we?”

You nod, then follow Pride beneath the darkest tree.

A minute later, the air is staler still, a cold rubbery scent pervading your surroundings and invading your nostrils.

You blink into the harsh, yellow light as Pride lands beside you. “It’s a tunnel.”

You only breathe again when you see a yellow sign painted on the floor: NO CYCLING. You must be back in the twenty-first century, right? Right? But which way are you meant to go?

Pride frowns. “Bloody hell. It’s a good job it spat us out down here and not in the river itself.”

“Where is here?”

He examines the tiled walls, though what he expects to find, you don’t know. “Woolwich foot tunnel.” He sniffs the air, then glances over his shoulder. “Balls! Don’t look back. This way.” He grabs your arm, tugging you along. “Open the bum-bag. The back zip too… so I can see it.”

You unzip the ugly bag at your waist, but you can’t resist a peek over your shoulder. There’s a dog at the other end of the tunnel, idly sniffing at the seam between the tiled wall and the concrete floor, and it doesn’t seem to have spotted you yet, despite having three times as many eyes as a normal dog.

And three times as many heads.

“Don’t draw attention to yourself,” says Pride. “Just walk fast. And lemme just…” He tugs something from the bum-bag.

“Tell me it’s a flute that’ll put that beast to sleep,” you say, as he tucks the mystery object into his sleeve.

He’s wearing a leather jacket now. Where did that come from? Kane didn’t put a spell on his clothes, did he?

You glance down at your own, which… what is wrong with that man? You’ll be having words with Thatcher Kane when you get back to his shop.

You shuffle hastily along the tunnel towards the exit, which isn’t too far now. “Why am I dressed like a scarecrow?”

“You’ve got a bandage over your ear,” he says. “I think you’re supposed to be Vincent Van Gogh.”

“Doesn't explain the why.” You tug the bandage off, stuffing it into the bum-bag because you don’t want to add to the litter down here. “Why is Kane like this?”

“It’s a mystery,” he says, his speed-walking taking on an ostentatious swing of the hips.

You struggle to keep up with his giant legs, chancing a peek over your shoulder. The beast has spotted you, and it’s lumbering along the tunnel, eating up the ground. “We need to run.”

Pride looks back, swearing under his breath as he takes your hand. You both run, soon zig-zagging through the cycle barriers at the end of the tunnel and reaching the spiral staircase that leads above ground. Even if you did have time to wait around for a lift that might never come, the stairs seem a safer bet.

Pride pushes you in front of him. “Go on. I’ll hold them off if I have to.”

You don’t have time to stop and complain, though you want to. How are you supposed to outrun a massive three-headed dog?

Your legs are burning by the time you scent cold, fresh air, and you make it up the last three steps and into rainy twenty-first century London just as the gnashing of several jaws sounds from the bottom of the stairwell.

Pride is right behind you. “Don’t worry,” he says, slumping against the red brick wall of the rotunda housing the spiral staircase. “It won’t come up here in broad daylight.”

It’s dusk, the street lamps glowing against the bruised sky and reflected in the rainy pavement. “I hate to break it to you, Pride, but it’s not broad daylight.”

He shrugs. “Even so… only complete darkness would tempt such a creature to the surface in its given state.”

You rest beside him, catching your breath. “What exactly is its given state?”

“Hellhound shifter,” he says. “From Cerberus House.”

Hellhounds?

In London?

“But we’re back?” you ask. “In the right time?”

It’s disorientating coming from early morning to early evening in the blink of an eye, more so than the idea of travelling over a hundred years into the future. If indeed you have.

Pride nods at a nearby block of flats. “They only went up last year.”

The sound of laughter replaces snapping jaws on the staircase, and barely a minute later, three men emerge from the rotunda.

One of them approaches you—tall, dark, and dangerous. “You dropped this.”

You’re too busy trying to blend into the brick wall… too mesmerised by his black eyes to notice what’s in his hand. And you don’t want to look away in case he pounces, but curiosity gets the better of you.

It’s the feather Violet gave you. It must’ve dropped out while Pride was ferreting around in the bum-bag.

You take it with shaking fingers. “Thanks.”

The black-eyed man leans in and grins. “Don’t worry. We don’t bite.” He snaps his jaw. “Much.”

You stop breathing as the man’s face lingers right in front of you.

Finally, the three men stalk away, their barks of laughter cutting through the noise of traffic as they disappear from view.

“Wow, he has a lot of teeth,” you say, when you start breathing again.

Before you’ve moved more than ten paces from the rotunda, Pride’s phone rings. That has to be a good sign.

He pulls the phone from his pocket, staring at it like he’s never seen it before, and accepts the call. “Pride.”

You hear a man jabbering at the other end, his excitable babble evidently making no more sense to Pride than it does to you.

“Calm down, Oz. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

This time you do hear. Something about the British Museum and a malevolent ghost.

“What’s it got to do with me?” Pride asks, his face paling at whatever Oz is telling him. “Oh, bugger. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

When he ends the call, you say, “The adventure continues?”

Episode 14: The Ash Army of Tarragoth

He sighs. “I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to go home at this point.”

“Sounds like there’s a ghost at the British Museum.”

“It’s not a ghost. It’s my mother. She’s looking for me.”

***

Another bonus page awaits, this one about the church where Pride's mother is buried. You can find it here.

Password: SAXON