Druids Sword Read Online Free Page A

September 1939
    S ilvius pulled the car to a stop half on the pavement, half on the road, just outside the quire at the eastern end of St Paul’s Cathedral. Jack didn’t believe this was quite legal, but the last thing he wanted to do right now was argue parking etiquette with his father. His heart was thumping and his breath felt tight in his chest.
    He wasn’t sure he wanted to get this close, this quickly.
    “What are we doing here, Silvius?” His cigarette suddenly burned at his fingers, and Jack gave a exclamation and stubbed it out in the car’s ashtray.
    Silvius glanced at his son. “I told you. We’re here to pick someone up. Who do you think, Jack?”
    Catling? No, not her. Neither Silvius, nor anyone associated with him or the Lord of the Faerie, would want Catling. The land, as represented by the Faerie, loathed the Troy Game, believing it more likely to destroy the land than protect it.
    Jack glared at his father, then wrenched open the car door and climbed out, slamming the door behind him.
    Silvius had the sense to stay where he was.
    Jack looked over the roof of the car in the direction of Cheapside as it branched off to run eastward towards the Tower. Traffic was heavyaround St Paul’s, both vehicular and pedestrian, and Jack wondered that no one complained about Silvius’ big saloon parked partway on the pavement.
    But both people and vehicles flowed around the car without a second glance, and Jack supposed Silvius must be using a little of the Faerie to smooth out whatever blockage he caused to traffic.
    Jack took a deep breath, and turned around.
    St Paul’s loomed above him. Gods, it was massive. He’d seen photos of Wren’s masterpiece, but nothing prepared him for the sheer enormity of the structure.
    Cornelia’s stone hall. This was it. The last battlefield. Finally.
    Jack thrust his hands inside the deep pockets of his greatcoat, then clenched them. He thought of all the times he had met Cornelia—and later, Caela, as she had been reborn, and now Noah—inside her visionary stone hall. All that rancour and bitterness and misunderstanding they had shared within it. The vision of her lying with Asterion. His murdering her.
    Asterion had torn her to pieces, but he hadn’t quite murdered Noah, had he? And she still loved him? After all the agony he’d put her through?
    Jack fought down the anger which, after so many hundreds of years, still threatened to overwhelm him. Did he still love and want her? He didn’t know.
    He was terrified of meeting her.
    A movement caught his eye. There were a score of people moving through St Paul’s churchyard at that particular moment, all bustling into or from the cathedral, or taking a short cut through the gardens, but this one movement grabbed at Jack’s attention.
    A man, disguised by the gloom. Coming slowly towards Jack and the car.
    Moving slowly, dragging a leg.
    Jack let his breath out on a ragged sigh. Walter Herne. Loth-reborn.
    Walter had walked under the low light of a nearby lamp now, and Jack could see him clearly. A short and neat man, fair-haired with a chubby-cheeked face. He was in what Jack called “civvies”: a white shirt under a faded Fair Isle hand-knitted pullover, topped with a tweed jacket. Somewhat threadbare trousers. A dog collar. He was using a walking stick, putting his left foot gingerly to the ground.
    “Not permanently crippled, Jack,” Walter said as he came close and held out a hand. “Fell off the damn bicycle on the weekend and sprained my ankle. Be right as rain in a couple of days.”
    Jack hesitated, then took Walter’s hand. “You preach here? ” He flicked a glance at the cathedral.
    Walter stared at him a long moment, a small amused smile on his face. “I’m not that brave, Jack. I’ve just been spending the afternoon in the cathedral library. I don’t have a regular parish. Just fill in when and where needed. Now…well, at the moment I appear to be on sick leave. I’m sure I’ll find enough to