by Andy Graham
“I’ll have you,” Seth yelled, red faced and sweating.
“Ha!” Stann retorted. “Come in here and say that. I’ll let you bring your knife if you want. It’ll make it a fair fight.”
“One more fucking word, Taille! And you’re dead.” The tortuous vessels in Seth’s neck hammered under the skin.
“Seth, stop,” Ray called.
Stann stood, spread his arms in front of him and extended the middle finger on both hands. “Bring it, rookie. I’ll knock you the fuck out, you pig-fucking lump of lard.”
Seth, face purple, unclipped the key off the ring on the wall. Hands shaking, he forced it into the padlock. The screech as it twisted set Ray’s hair on end.
“You’re so screwed, old man,” Seth said, his teeth bared.
Stann shuffled back. “Are you gonna be long? I’m an old man, I gotta take a piss.”
“I’ll rip your head off and piss in your skull.”
Seth yanked the padlock out of the chain and hurled it down the corridor. The chain rattled to the floor like a steel anaconda. Seth kicked the iron gate open and jumped through, tossing his knife from hand to hand.
“Seth, no!” Ray yelled.
“It’s smack time, Seth.”
“You’re fucked, old man.”
Stann settled into the boxer’s crouch he wore like a second skin. With his half-left hand he beckoned the larger man on. His right hand he kept closed, touching the side of his jaw.
Ray stretched his arms though the bars, desperate to reach Seth.
“Boxing?” Seth sneered, as he reached for Stann. “How quaint”.”
“Not boxing, you lummox. Thinking.”
“What?”
Seth’s foot disappeared into a small hole under the straw. He stumbled. Stann’s back hand shot forwards. Dust and stones showered into Seth’s face. He blinked. Stann stamped his prosthesis on the ground. An old metal bar he’d laid across a block of wood sprang into the air. He grabbed it with both hands, pivoted on his heel and slammed it into the side of Seth’s head. Red splattered across the straw. A tooth went flying.
“That’s for threatening my family.”
Stann stepped to one side and brought the iron bar whistling down on the side of Seth’s knee. He yelled, clutching his leg as he bent double.
“That’s for threatening me.”
The bar whistled through the air. It thudded into the back of Seth’s head. The Unsung collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
“That’s for making me swear.”
Stann threw the bar down and clutched at his side. “I think I cracked a rib. It’s the most exercise I’ve had in years.” He turned to Ray, a mischievous grin dancing across his face. “Brains and balls will beat brawn every time. Just like boxing. Remember that, Ray.”
Ray stared at Seth’s limp body. His chest was heaving as if he had been the one fighting Seth.
“I don’t believe it.”
“That’s the problem with you kids, no faith.”
Stann picked up Seth’s knife, a look of distaste smeared across his face, and limped out of the cell. Moments later, he unclipped the key to Ray’s padlock, freed his grandson and chained Seth’s cell door shut with both padlocks.
“That’ll slow him down,” Stann said and stuffed the keys into his pocket.
Seth moaned, a hand twitching.
Ray glanced down the corridor. Someone would have heard the commotion. “He’s going to come after us, you know that. And you won’t be able to trick him like that again.”
“No, but maybe he’ll be so embarrassed by being beaten by a wrinkled old loser I won’t need to. I’ll deal with that when I have to.” Stann shrugged. “I’ve got no choice. Can’t kill someone while they’re out cold, can you?” Stann passed Seth’s jagged knife to Ray. “Here, take it. It feels filthy to me, too heavy.”
The blade was immaculate, sharpened and oiled. The light shimmering off it in a bright rainbow of colours. It made Ray feel sick just thinking what the knife had been used for. He jammed the blade in a crack low in the wall, said, “Cover your eyes,” and stamped on the hilt.
Stann grinned at the broken blade. “Nice touch, son. You surprise me, occasionally. Move out.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Two unarmed men with only two good legs between them in a devil-forsaken maze teeming with rats — both human and real. Our odds are worse than bad,” Stann said.
“Try some faith.”
“Don’t get cocky, son.”
The two men limped to the exit. Ray peered round the corner, shielding his eyes against the light, when a thought hit him. What was it Nascimento said? I can’t be seen to be helping you. And those odd gestures of his.
“Where are you going?” Stann called after him as Ray hurried back down the corridor. “You gonna give Seth a kiss goodbye?”
Ray stopped at the cell full of old furniture. Stann’s voice hissed from the entrance, his hunched silhouette like a skeletal bird feeding its young. Seth groaned, one hand going to his face. Ray pushed past the table, pulled the cupboard door open. His breath caught in his throat.
“What is it?” Stann asked.
“I think Nascimento just evened up our odds.”
“Well, would you look at that.”
Stacked in one corner was the bag Ray had stashed the flares and tracking device in. Next to it, the heavy black plastic and steel gleaming, was a rifle, revolver and utility belt.
“10th Legion issue,” Ray said. “Welcome home.”
40
They Shoot Dogs Here
A violent gust of wind snapped through the air. Stella grabbed hold of the lamp post. Strands of tinsel clung to it, tossed around by the gusting air. Way above, behind the faceless Clock Tower that watched over Tye, a cloud reared across one of the moons in a horned dragon’s head. She pulled her coat tight and checked her watch for the second time that minute: 2.13. Rose was late. “Where is that bloody woman?” she muttered.
The wind howled down the street in answer. It whipped litter and dust into frantic circles that made Stella dizzy to look at.
“Ow!” A thin streak of blood ran up from her nail bed along the back of her thumb. When had she started biting her nails? In the sea towers? A clattering noise behind her. The nails were forgotten. Hairs stood up on end.
“Who’s there?”
An old tin skittered across the road, pushed by the wind. Pineapple chunks — she saw on the front.
She let out a long breath and giggled. “Cause of death: cardiac arrest brought on by a tin of fruit. Not so good for you after all.” Something creaked on the other side of the street. Stella’s head whipped round. Just another tin, surely? She wiped her clammy hands on her coat. It could be the serial killer. He preyed on women from the Ward. The thought slid across her mind like fingernails down a blackboard.
“The streets aren’t safe, Stella! There’s been another one. Shaved from head to toe like the last. Dead. Dead. Dead.” The endless arguments with her husband flashed like a lightning storm in her ears.
Her breath came in short gasps. She moved into the limp puddle of light from the street light. No. Not there, too visible. Hide in the shadows. What if he’s already in the shadows?
Dead. Dead. Dead.
Had that bin moved? The one by the Ward entrance? Someone was watching her. She could feel eyes picking their way across her skin like a plaster being pulled off in slow motion.
“Shut up!” she snapped. “This is a fine time for your internal critic to wake up.”
The pineapple tin rolled into the gutter, clinked. Stella’s heart rate spiked.
She’d walked this street at night countless times, alone and unafraid. Now it was as if she was seeing it for the first time. Every shadow held an army of darkness. Each sound hid sinister whispers.
Something slammed to the ground. A low cloud of dust hovered over the trap door that led down to the Ward. The street lights winked out.
“No, not a power cut no
w,” she said, flattening herself against the lamp post.
A grinding of dust.
“Who’s there?” she shouted. “Show yourself!”
Or what? You’re a medic, a doctor, a researcher. Your speciality is keeping people out of pain, not killing them.
“I’m armed! I mean it.”
Something thumped on the ground. She gasped. A million tiny dots of darkness coalesced into something solid. It hurled itself at her. Red-eyed. Slobbering and panting. Stella screamed and was bowled to the ground, the wind driven from her ribcage. She rolled to her knees, clawing manically, screaming at the world. She was not going to die before her family. Something grabbed her sleeve.
DEAD! DEAD! DEAD!
“You bastard. I’ll kill you. You’re not taking me.” Stella whipped her arm free. Lashed out. Felt her knuckles connect with something soft. She heard a yelp.
“I’ll kill you! I’ll—”
“Dr Swann!”
A woman’s voice cut through the terror fogging Stella’s brain. The red mist lifted. Every muscle in her body was rigid and shaking.
“You!” Stella said, her breath coming in frantic gasps.
“Yes, Dr Swann, me.” The Famulus stood, rubbing her jaw. “I was downstairs prepping for tomorrow. I heard a noise. I came to investigate. I must have startled you.”
“I saw. A thing. Black with red eyes. Fangs and hot breath. It tried to kill me. Vampire.”
“Not a vampire, a dog, Dr Swann. They get in through the tunnels under the walls. They avoid city folk, which is why you don’t see them over the river in Effrea. Here in Tye, the police use them for target practice.”
“An urban dog?”
The Famulus nodded. Her wispy hair waving gently. Stella had never noticed how thin it was before, nor how gaunt the woman was. She always seemed larger than life during the ceremonies she led. Now she seemed . . . well . . . skinny. She rubbed her arm where the Famulus had grabbed her. Skinny but with fingers like claws.
“Thank you. You must have scared the dog off. And the vampire.” Stella laughed. It sounded like a cackle to her ears but it was better than crying.
The Famulus’s lips twitched into a smile. “Would you like to come downstairs? I can make you some honeyed tea. It’s probably what you need at the moment.”
A vision flashed in front of Stella. The Famulus venerating the seven elements, the earthly four and the other three: space, time and consciousness. The riot of tattooed flesh in bronzes, silvers and golds running up her arms. The fervent passion that infected the congregation. The drums. The sweet smell of fresh sweat. And a teapot?
“You drink tea? With honey?” Stella coughed. “It’s silly, I know. Like when you realise your teachers at school have a life outside the classroom. I thought Ms Edney lived in a cupboard. You know, like a didactic vampire.” She clamped her mouth shut. The other woman’s implacable stare was polite but tolerant. “Rambling. Sorry. Bit nervous. I took you for an ascetic,” Stella said, “depriving yourself of all pleasures in pursuit of the inner truth of the Old Lady, Mother Nature.” You also thought the woman silly, bordering on pretentious, at certain moments of her ceremonies.
“I assure you, Dr Swann, I am human. As susceptible to the urges and needs of the flesh as you. More so in some ways. Would you like that tea?”
Stella tucked her hair behind her ears. Her hands were still shaking, though the gut-wrenching panic had lessened. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to hold a mug but I’d love some.” After the last five minutes, the idea of getting out of this street and waiting for Rose downstairs was irresistible.
She winced as the Famulus’s icy grip closed over her hand to pull her up. I must have hurt my knuckles when I punched the woman, Stella thought. Or the Famulus has a grip like a mangle.
“I’ll have to learn how to punch properly.”
“Use your elbow,” the Famulus suggested. “Here.” She tapped her jaw. “That’s the off switch.”
“How would you know?”
The Famulus’s answer was a raised eyebrow. As she adjusted her cloak, Stella saw something long and black resting on the other woman’s thigh. “What’s that?”
The Famulus twitched her cloak around her body.
“It looks like a baton.”
“It’s from my other life.”
“Your real job?”
“No, Dr Swann. Preaching is my real job. Everything else is a means to an end.”
Stella twitching at every sound, the women crossed to the trapdoor that led down to the Ward.
Tendons popped out along the Famulus’s scrawny arms as she tugged the trapdoor open. Stella had half been expecting light, noise, smoke, laughter or even the thump of drums. She had always been late to the meetings; she wasn’t used to this place being silent. She stared at the hole in the ground in front of her. The mist on the street crawled into the entrance. Was this what a grave looked like?
“Maybe we should stay up here,” she said, shivers running up her spine. “I’m meeting someone.”
“Nonsense,” the Famulus replied. “It’ll be safer downstairs. I promise. All sorts of people stalk the streets of Tye at night.” She gathered up her long cloak and disappeared into the shadows under the street.
Stella waited until she couldn’t hear the Famulus’s footsteps. A gust of wind rattled the pineapple can down the street. Somewhere, not so far away, a dog’s howl was cut off by a single gunshot.
Dead! Dead! Dead!
“Don’t be silly. You’ve been here untold times,” she told herself. “You know this woman. Sort of. At least you’ll be warmer.”
With her stomach feeling like it was being ripped in two, Stella followed the Famulus down the stairs.
41
The First Deceiver
The undercroft was deserted. Gate-legged tables and wooden trestle benches were spread across the floor in random patterns, as if they’d been caught dancing and were trying to look innocent. Stella, her heart thumping
(Dead! Dead! Dead!),
sat at the long bar that ran along one wall of the rectangular room. Sitting amongst half-full bottles and dirty glasses were stubs of old candles with trails of rainbow-coloured wax down their sides, an ash tray and stained rags.
She hung her coat through a thick iron ring set into the bar and popped the cork off a bottle. As the smell of alcohol hit her, her stomach lurched. She didn’t drink much. Having children had put paid to the wilder (at least by her standards) days of her early twenties, mainly because her kids seemed to have a sixth sense: for every drink more than she and Dan should have had, the kids were up an hour earlier. But now, with the sense that even her own shadow was hiding, she needed something stronger than honeyed tea.
The wind howled down the street above them. The trapdoor, closed and bolted from the inside — “To keep out the unwanted,” the Famulus had said. — rattled. The spirits hit the back of Stella’s throat, taking her breath away.
Apart from the Veiled Carnival, where rationing and inhibitions (and occasionally relationships) were put on hold for a day, alcohol was strictly regulated by the government of Ailan. Down here, in the crypt of the old Brahamite church, which had become a temple to the Old Lady, Mother Nature, the Famulus openly encouraged it.
“It is only through freeing the inner child that we will achieve true consciousness,” she had intoned on several occasions.
Stella wondered if the Famulus had spent much time with children. It was all well and good freeing your inner child until that child discovered knives and plug sockets.
The thought of her kids and her husband brought tears to her eyes. She wiped the streaks off her cheeks with a knuckle. For a supposedly intelligent woman, she’d made some stupid mistakes. Going to the Kickshaw without her wedding ring on was one of the biggest; coming to this place was a close second. The Ward was supposed to have been fun, escapism from the daily dredge through city life. Now, the promise of a better future was revealed for what it was: a grimy bar tha
t stank of hangovers, guilt and broken promises.
She filled her glass, half the liquid spilling over her fingers. The Famulus stood at a table near Stella. The woman pulled a pair of scissors and secateurs out of her bag and laid them within a diamond of candles.
“Seven,” Stella counted under her breath. “One for each element.” Whatever rite the woman was preparing for, she was predictable, to say the least. Maybe she—
The thought stopped dead. (Dead! Dead!)
The woman’s eyes were backlit by a hungry gleam that made Stella feel queasy. She pushed the glass away. The alcohol that had burned its way down her throat sat in her stomach like ice. “I should be going.” Her voice cracked. “Upstairs. I’ll wait upstairs.”
“It’s cold up there. You should stay.” The Famulus tied her hair back in a tight bun. Her face was an arrowhead of bones and shadows. A match appeared out of her sleeve and the seven candles were lit before Stella could reply. Streams of oily black smoke twisted up through the air, creating rippling pools on the ceiling.
The Famulus tested the scissor blades. “Did you know that you need a licence for scissors in Ailan?”
“Yes, my mother wanted to be a hairdresser. What are you doing?”
“Replacement pairs are very hard to come by. They’re not built to last these days, either, not much is. All businesses are set up to make a quick profit. I don’t know if that’s purely for the bragging rights of how good you are, or because business owners know their business could be the next one to be outlawed. Secateurs on the other hand” — she switched tools — “don’t need a licence. I’m not sure why. Maybe because most people in the Gates don’t do any gardening anymore. Most factory farms are automated. It’s only a handful of specialist areas, muse berries for example, where the crops still need to be harvested by hand.” She pouted, stuck a hand on a hip and pretended to toss her hair over a shoulder. “Muse berry lipstick, full of antioxidants for you and the one you love. Idiots.”