Number Seven hit the frigid water of the Thames and all the breath left his body. His lungs burned as he scrambled for the surface. His body demanded that he inhale but he fought it. His face broke through and he took a single mouthful of foul tasting air before sinking again. With the desperate urge to breathe eased he could let his own buoyancy take him back up.

When he broke the surface again he was downstream from Vauxhall bridge, near the south bank of the river and there was no sign of Sorrow. He realised that he had no idea if she’d even hit the water. Had she flown away? Had she been pulled under by the weight of waterlogged wings?

'Get under the bridge, you dick.' Sorrow shouting at him.

He turned, searching for her, half convinced he’d imagined her voice.Then he saw her in the shadow of Vauxhall bridge. 'I thought you’d gone under,' he said and swam towards her.

She was holding onto one of the bridge piles, keeping herself in place against the flow of the water with fingertips wedged into the cracks around the bricks. She pulled him close with her free hand. 'Worried about my wings in the water again?' she said.

'Ravens are not known for swimming,' he said.

'But the Morrigan is. She’s worshipped at river crossings. We can wait here for the tide to go out and SIS to decide that we’ve escaped.'

'You can wait. I have maybe 20 minutes before exposure kills me.'

'Not here you don’t. Like I said, worshipped at river crossings. You’ll be safe here as long as you’re with me.' Sorrow reached round him and grabbed at the bricks of the pile with her other hand pinning him to the bridge support. She braced herself with a foot either side of him and sheltered him from the wind with her wings. He wasn’t warm, exactly, but he was no longer feeling the same bone chilling cold.

He took his SIS issue phone from his pocket, dashed it against the bridge and hurled it as far downstream as he could. His personal phone was already dead from the water but he threw it away just in case. He tried to smash his yPhone against the bridge but it remained unblemished. The brick cracked.

'No!' said Sorrow. 'Don’t throw that one away.'

Why not?' he said, phone still in hand, still ready to throw it.

'If the Department isn’t getting a live signal from both phones they might send the Wild Hunt after me.' She didn’t sound scared, exactly, but there was an acute reluctance in her voice.

'Should I know what the Wild Hunt is?'

'It would be bad. Very bad.'

'Define bad,' said Seven.

'When I saw the crime scene pictures of Number One and his friend it reminded me of something and I couldn’t work out what it was at first. It looked like the Wild Hunt’s work. I know it wasn’t them. The Hunt isn’t that tidy, but the placement of human body parts for maximum impact was similar,' she said.

He wished he thought that she was lying but everything about her body language said that she wasn’t. He put the yPhone back in his pocket.

'Why did you shoot out the window?' she said.

'I’ll tell you if we get out of the river alive.'

'Fucking spies,' Sorrow muttered.

'So we’re here for a while?'

'You’re going to have to try out that patience thing that people keep telling you about.'

'I have a better idea.'

'Experience suggests that you probably don’t,' she said.

He kissed her.

'That is not a good idea,' she said.

'Give it a chance.' He kissed her again.

He couldn’t see her wings but he could see the water flowing around them. He reached behind her and buried his fingers between her feathers. She shivered.

'Bad idea.' She drew the ‘a’ sound out so the word was almost a moan.

'So tell me to stop,' he said.

'Stop.'

Seven released her wings and put his hands on her shoulders. 'What now?' he said, keeping the disappointment out of his voice.

'I don’t know. I don’t usually do running away,' said Sorrow. 'Swim for the north shore and steal a car?'

Before Seven could answer he was interrupted by the sound of an engine approaching. 'Have they found us?' he said.

'Nope. But I think we have a ride.' Sorrow craned her neck to see. 'It’s the water bus.'

He followed her gaze and saw that it was headed for the arch where they sheltered.

'When you hit, hold on,' said Sorrow.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

'What?' said Seven.

Sorrow grabbed him by the back of his shirt and threw him. It should have been impossible. She didn’t have enough leverage. But he still found himself flying towards the roof of the water bus. He landed just as it cleared the bridge. To anyone inside it would have looked like he’d fallen from the bridge.

He scrambled to the back of the boat. He couldn’t reach down far enough to take her hand so he grabbed the rail and hung from it like a human ladder. She scrambled over him and onto the boat.

Now that they were away from the bridge Seven could feel the cold again. He began to shiver. Sorrow pulled him close and tried to shield him from the wind with her wings but she was starting to shiver herself.

'As soon as we get off this boat we need to get indoors,' said Sorrow.

'Agreed.'

Seven cheered up as he looked at the crowd inside the water bus. Judging by the clothes, the hair and the make-up they were on their way to a party. The next stop was the Millbank Centre and there was clearly something happening there.

An event at the Millbank Centre meant plenty of people, hopefully plenty of cars, and better yet the people were London Media types. People so eccentric that walking in soaking wet wouldn’t draw much interest. Everyone would be trying hard not to acknowledge such blatant attention seeking.

The water bus docked. They waited, crouched on the edge of the roof, for the last passengers to get off the bus and then dropped down silently behind them. Number Seven smoothed down his sodden suit and straightened his tie. Sorrow ran her fingers through her hair and stood it up.

There was security at the door of the Centre but one look told Seven that it was there to keep the riff raff out, not to keep anyone safe. As they approached the door the guy checking the invitations stepped into their path. Sorrow flashed her Department Y ID and he stopped in his tracks, staring straight ahead with a glazed look on his face as they walked around him and into the building.

#

'There it is,' said the raven, 'Dunscaith Castle.'

Number Five stood in the shadow of the trees on the edge of the shore looking out across the bay and wished for binoculars. The castle stood on a rocky spire separated from the headland by a deep fissure and reached by a narrow rope bridge. 'The Fortress of Shadows,' he said.

'Dramatic much?' said Six from behind him.

'That’s what the name means,' said Five.

'I don’t like the look of that bridge,' said Six. 'Even if it’ll take our weight, it's the perfect site for an ambush. What do you think?'

'Forget about the bridge. I say we swim the bay and then climb the cliff and scale the outer wall.'

'Are you mad? The whole point of a castle is that you can’t get in that way,' said Six.

'No. The point is to make it difficult for an army to get in. They’re not that well defended against one determined man. Or two men and a raven.'

'Why don’t I just stay here to cover your exit?' said Six.

'Because then I’d have to distract the beautiful guard myself and I can’t do that while looking for the Cauldron. Think it through.'

'Beautiful guard?' said Six and if Five hadn’t known him so well he might have believed that Six was asking only out of politeness.

'The warrior, Uathach*. The daughter of, Sgàthach**, the mistress of the castle. The legend says that she guards the gate. Depending on the exact layout we might have to get by her.'

'How do you know all this?' said Six.

'When you were a kid who did you want to be when you grew up?'

'I am not discussing this right now,' said Six.

'I bet it was Han Solo.'

'I… yes, alright. When I was 12, it seemed like a good life. Fastest ship in the galaxy, his best friend is basically a giant shaggy dog. He gets to bang a princess and her cute farm boy twin brother.'

'I don’t remember that bit.'

'A boy can dream.'

'For me it was Indiana Jones. My uncle taped it off the TV and I watched till I wore out the tape. Then I bought the DVD. Took me months to save up for the DVD player. When someone told me that the Arc of the Covenant was a real thing, and it might really be out in the world somewhere, and it really was supposed to do that…'

'You didn’t know?' Six interrupted.

'The average Muslim household doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about ancient Jewish magic boxes,' said Five. 'After I found out it was real I started reading, looking for more things like the Arc and I found out there were loads of them. Tales from history about artifacts that might be real or at least inspired by real things.'

'Why didn’t you go into archaeology?' said Six.

'I’m not like you. If you’re working class and you lose your whole family to arson and nothing is insured then you’re not going to university. I joined the Marines to get out of the fucking hostel.' Five glared at Six, daring him to make something of it.

'So we’re swimming the bay then?' said Six.

#

'How we doing this?' said Sorrow as she looked around the crowded foyer.

'You get the coats I’ll get the car,' said Seven.

'We’re not splitting up. I don’t trust you not to get yourself killed,' said Sorrow.

'Then you can stand around not getting in my way.' He took a position just beside the glass door where he could watch people arriving without being seen. Sorrow draped herself against him, doing a passable impression of a failed model turned trophy girlfriend as long as nobody looked too close.

Outside the door a famous businessman, peer and TV personality got out of his chauffeur driven jaguar. The lone press photographer snapped a few pictures in case the great man did something foolish but he was out of luck. Seven lip-read the great man’s PA telling the chauffeur to wait in the car park until called.

'That’ll do,' said Seven. He led Sorrow through a side door marked STAFF ONLY. It led, as he’d hoped, to the staff cloak room. Seven grabbed a padded high visibility jacket from a hook and headed out of the side door toward the car park.

Seven put the padded jacket on and stepped into the car park just in time to see the chauffeur carefully backing the jaguar into a quiet parking space. He did his best ‘bored official’ walk over to the car.

The chauffeur’s shoulders sagged as soon as he spotted Seven. Clearly he’d succeeded in looking like yet another jobsworth setting out to make the little guy’s day difficult. Seven tapped on the side window and the driver rolled it down.

'Sorry to bother you, mate, but we’re checking all the drivers. Can you get out of the car and show me your licence?' said Seven.

'Aw fer fuck’s sake. Why?' said the driver.

'Someone got knocked down in the car park by an unlicensed driver and they sued the Millbank Centre. Now we have to prove that anyone who uses the car park has a valid licence. If you don’t have yours on you I’ll have to ask you to park on the street.'

To a casual viewer it would have looked like the driver half got out of the car and then had some sort of seizure and then the man in the high vis jacket helped the driver get to his feet and a woman bystander took the driver to the staff cloak room for a lie down.

What really happened was that as the driver pushed the car door wider, Seven stepped round it, as if to give him room, but actually to get behind him so he could get a forearm across the driver's neck interrupting the blood-flow to his brain just long enough for the driver to pass out. Then Seven passed the unconscious man to Sorrow who ‘walked’ him to the cloak room.

Less than a minute later Sorrow slipped into the back seat of the Jaguar and Seven drove the car out of the car park.