Border Princes Read online

  ‘This is what they told me. You can’t stay any more. The spell’s broken. They sent a guy here with you, a minder to look after you, to watch your back. You’re the heir to the throne, after all. It’s the minder’s job to keep you safe, and pull you right out if things go wrong. If you’re hurt, or you get sick, he’s there to take you home.’

  ‘And you got hurt,’ said Gwen.

  James stared at them.

  ‘In the event of injury or damage, there are supposed to be dormant protocols that wake up inside the Principal – that’s what they call it – protocols that cut in and help the Principal to understand what he is so he can prepare for extraction. These include all kinds of physiological upgrades, combat skills, super powers.’

  James looked down at his hands. They were shaking.

  ‘All that kind of got screwed up this time,’ said Jack. ‘They didn’t cut in properly. That’s why this all seems like a heap of crap to you.’

  ‘No kidding,’ said James.

  ‘So, that’s how it is,’ said Jack.

  ‘And what?’ asked James. ‘I just leave? Or do they take me?’

  ‘I think it’s best if you go willingly,’ said Jack. ‘They don’t want to hurt you.’

  ‘And you’d let them?’ asked James, bitterly. ‘I thought we were friends?’

  ‘We are,’ said Jack. ‘Sometimes, this is what friends do for each other.’

  ‘No,’ said James, shaking his head. ‘I can’t accept this.’

  ‘I know it’s hard.’

  ‘I don’t believe any of this.’

  ‘Of course. That’s how it works, but what you believe in is the false part, the part that isn’t real.’

  ‘This is real,’ James insisted. ‘This is... my world. This is what I know and all I want—’

  ‘The world’s not quite what we think it is,’ said Jack.

  ‘No,’ James repeated.

  ‘James—’

  ‘No!’ he snarled. He was on his feet again. Gwen flinched. Jack rose quietly.

  ‘James...’

  ‘You may be able to just sell me out,’ James said, ‘but I don’t have to go along with it. Even if I’m the only bloody person who can see what’s really true here—’

  ‘James, please,’ said Gwen.

  James gazed at her. ‘I adore you, Gwen. We were going to... How can you betray me too?’

  ‘I’m not,’ she said. Tears welled in her eyes. ‘It’s not like that. Nothing’s the way we thought it was.’

  James blinked his mismatched eyes. The door of the Boardroom swung on its hinges.

  ‘Shit!’ Jack cried. ‘He’s running! Tosh! Close the perimeter!’

  They ran out of the Boardroom and down the stairs towards the work stations. Toshiko was at her keyboard.

  ‘Did you see him?’ Jack yelled.

  ‘Not a thing!’ Owen yelled back.

  ‘We’re too late!’ Toshiko declared. ‘Hub breach. He’s already out. He’s on the Quay. I’ve got him on monitor.’

  Jack headed for the exit, Gwen right behind him.

  ‘Try and keep him fixed,’ Jack yelled over his shoulder.

  THIRTY

  It was getting dark outside. Rain was setting in from the west. The lights in the bars and restaurants were glowing along the Quay.

  Jack and Gwen ran through the rain along the boarded walk.

  ‘Tosh?’ Jack called.

  ‘I’ve lost him... hang on...’

  ‘Tosh!’

  ‘OK! I’ve got him again. He’s doubled back. He’s heading around towards Harry Ramsden’s.’

  Gwen had already switched that way. Jack followed her. The boards were wet and skiddy under their soles.

  James got as far as the Graving Docks, running out into the sleeting wind. The sky was a black cliff, an empty gulf of night rushing down.

  The shades were there, whispers of smoke on the dockside, flanking him.

  ‘James!’ Jack yelled as he ran up.

  ‘Don’t touch him! Don’t hurt him!’ Gwen shouted. She could see the grey shapes quite clearly.

  One rushed at James.

  ‘You bastards! No!’ Gwen howled.

  James saw it coming.

  Frantic, he turned in towards it. There was a crack, and the shade hurtled away, flopping and writhing convulsively on the dock walk. Thorny limbs thrashed.

  Mr Dine saw Mr Lowe go down. He knew the First Senior would be on his feet again in a moment. Mr Lowe would be angry and keen to accomplish his duty without hesitation. His pride had been dented. He would be ruthless, perhaps even teach the Principal a lesson in respect.

  Mr Dine would not allow that. He stepped forwards. His investment blew off him like steam. He walked up to the Principal.

  Jack and Gwen were ten yards away, sprinting to reach James.

  James looked at the lean, blond man in the black suit standing before him in the evening rain. The man had the tiny trace of a sympathetic smile on his face.

  ‘Time to go,’ he said.

  ‘This is where I live,’ said James. ‘This is the world I know. Please.’

  ‘It is time to go,’ said Mr Dine.

  He held up his hand. Just a slight gesture.

  There was a crack of bone, sharp above the sound of the wind and rain.

  James folded up and fell.

  Gwen screamed. Jack held onto her.

  She sank to her knees, sobbing wildly.

  Jack approached Mr Dine. He looked down at James’s crumpled body. Mr Lowe melted into view behind Mr Dine.

  ‘Are you taking him now?’ Jack asked.

  ‘We have taken him,’ said Mr Dine. He glanced at the body. ‘The Principal has no further use for this,’ he said.

  ‘What will I—’ Jack began to say, but when he looked up, Mr Dine and Mr Lowe had disappeared.

  Jack knelt down, and gathered James’s body up in his arms.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Jack Harkness sat at his desk. His fingers played with the black tile on the glass desktop in front of him.

  ‘The Lord of the Border had friends here once,’ Jack said, ‘friends he trusted. He gave them a way to look after his son, something that would warn them if the son was at risk.’

  Jack tapped the tile. It was no longer flashing, no longer lit up. It was just a dead black square.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ asked Gwen softly. She rubbed her nose with a screwed-up tissue.

  ‘Do?’

  ‘How are we going to cope?’ she asked.

  Jack shrugged. ‘The way we usually cope. There’s a chance that everything will gradually fade out. All the artifice, all the make-believe.’

  ‘All the lies,’ she said.

  ‘It’ll all go, I think,’ said Jack. ‘It’ll all melt away and we won’t remember a thing.’

  ‘How long will that take?’ she asked, ‘A day? A week? A year? My God, Jack, how many times might this have happened to us before?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  She sniffed, and blinked tears. ‘I don’t know what scares me more – the fact that it might take a year, or the fact that we might forget him completely.’

  Jack didn’t answer. He got up. ‘Come on, let’s go and find Tosh and Owen. We need to be in one place for a while and just talk.’

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll be there in a moment. I’ve got to phone Rhys first.’

  ‘Sure. I understand.’

  He rested a hand on her shoulder. ‘It will be OK, Gwen. Trust me. It will be OK.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, Jack. It’s the End of the World,’ she said.

  Also available from BBC Books:

  TORCHWOOD

  ANOTHER LIFE

  Peter Anghelides

  ISBN 978 0 563 48653 4

  UK £6.99 US$11.99/$14.99 CDN

  Thick black clouds are blotting out the skies over Cardiff. As twenty-four inches of rain fall in twenty-four hours, the city centre’s drainage system collapses. The capital’s homeless are b
eing murdered, their mutilated bodies left lying in the soaked streets around the Blaidd Drwg nuclear facility.

  Tracked down by Torchwood, the killer calmly drops eight storeys to his death. But the killings don’t stop. Their investigations lead Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper and Toshiko Sato to a monster in a bathroom, a mystery at an army base and a hunt for stolen nuclear fuel rods. Meanwhile, Owen Harper goes missing from the Hub, when a game in Second Reality leads him to an old girlfriend...

  Something is coming, forcing its way through the Rift, straight into Cardiff Bay.

  Featuring Captain Jack Harkness as played by John Barrowman, with Gwen Cooper, Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato and Ianto Jones as played by Eve Myles, Burn Gorman, Naoki Mori and Gareth David-Lloyd, in the hit series created by Russell T Davies for BBC Television.

  TORCHWOOD

  SLOW DECAY

  Andy Lane

  ISBN 978 0 563 48655 8

  UK £6.99 US$11.99/$14.99 CDN

  When Torchwood track an energy surge to a Cardiff nightclub, the team finds the police are already at the scene. Five teenagers have died in a fight, and lying among the bodies is an unfamiliar device. Next morning, they discover the corpse of a Weevil, its face and neck eaten away, seemingly by human teeth. And on the streets of Cardiff, an ordinary woman with an extraordinary hunger is attacking people and eating her victims.

  The job of a lifetime it might be, but working for Torchwood is putting big strains on Gwen’s relationship with Rhys. While she decides to spice up their love life with the help of alien technology, Rhys decides it’s time to sort himself out – better music, healthier food, lose some weight. Luckily, a friend has mentioned Doctor Scotus’s weight-loss clinic...

  Featuring Captain Jack Harkness as played by John Barrowman, with Gwen Cooper, Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato and Ianto Jones as played by Eve Myles, Burn Gorman, Naoki Mori and Gareth David-Lloyd, in the hit series created by Russell T Davies for BBC Television.