‘Hello?’ Chel called out. Her beam couldn’t penetrate beyond the first few dark patches. ‘Is someone there?’
In theory the tower was safe, sealed behind shutters and coded gates, but strangers still got inside. The upper seven floors, which had been gutted by fire years ago, were overrun with vagrants. The block’s wardens stayed clear of the derelict floors, but they’d cut off power and lift access, sealing their status as a no-go zone. Lyle called the area The Warren – capitalised like The Balance, but the spiritual opposite of his beloved harmony. The disorder overhead symbolised everything he loathed.
‘I’m armed,’ Chel added, raising her jak pointedly. There was no reply. It was probably just a rat or one of the feral cats that hunted them. Both were getting bolder – and bigger – but they usually avoided residents, though they’d been known to attack young children. But it wasn’t vermin that worried her. Not that kind anyway.
The stairs to The Warren had been sealed off many times, but the barriers never held and the wardens eventually gave up repairing them. There’d been talk of starting up a resident’s watch, but nothing united the people of Barka Tower except misery, so it went nowhere. The squatters had been reported to the authorities, but the city’s law enforcers had bigger problems on their hands. It would probably take another fire to purge the infestation.
Infestation? Purge? Chel frowned, ashamed of using such terms. His terms. The intruders might be unsettling, but they were still people, many of them probably only a few bad choices along from her own position, if they’d ever had a choice at all. Since her dismissal from the municipal medicae service Chel had drifted between jobs, never lasting more than a year in one place. The trajectory in respect and pay had been relentlessly downward. That was why she’d stuck with Lyle. The Congregation would look after him if they split, but she’d probably end up in one of the periphery slums.
There’s no way back from that, she thought as her light played over the flaking, graffiti-covered walls. It illuminated declarations of love and hate, devotion and revolution, and more often than not, sheer nonsense, or something that would only make sense to its author. The many-coloured scrawls overlapped each other in a continuous skein, recent avowals smeared over the old, creating layers of desire and delirium. There were pictures too, caught amid the tangle like snared hallucinations. Most were obscene, but two – undoubtedly the work of the same hand – were striking.
You’re new, Chel gauged, certain she hadn’t seen them before. Her gaze lingered on each in turn. They sliced through their rivals in stark black lines, sometimes flowing, sometimes jagged, but always vicious. The nearest depicted a spiralling mandala that bristled with spines and sharp petals, like a malignant flower. A vertical eye nestled at its core, wide open and defiantly insane. The composition was disturbing, though not without beauty, but the other…
Chel shivered as she studied the second picture. Was that meant to be a person? The bipedal figure was about the height of a man, but it wasn’t remotely human. It looked like the thing’s body had been torn apart then strung back together at random, with the pieces connected by taut tendons. Spindly limbs sprouted from its torso, jointed in multiple, sometimes conflicting angles that forced the appendages into zigzagging contortions. The legs tapered into sharp points while the arms bloomed into sheaves of needle-like talons. But the head – if it could be called a head – was the worst part. That swirling ribbon of fanged eyes glared at her, alive with gleeful malice.
Who had painted these things? The prospect of the mind behind such visions wandering the corridors was frightening, yet also exhilarating. There was a mystery here and mysteries had no place in Barka Tower, let alone the limbo of Chel Jarrow’s life.
What do you mean? What are–
There was a chime beside her. The lift doors parted, releasing the pent-up stench of vomit and urine, laced with the tang of some narcotic. It was a foul mixture, but Chel had smelled worse. Sometimes there were more substantial deposits waiting inside. Predictably the lift’s light was out, leaving only faint rings of radiance from the buttons on the control panel. With practised wariness, she scanned the compartment’s floor before stepping inside. The enigma of the pictures would have to wait.
Don’t go away, she prayed to them. It was a peculiar wish, yet she couldn’t deny it.
As she reached for the panel the scraping sound came again, closer and more protracted this time, as though something sharp were being drawn along the wall towards her. Several sharp things. A glassy chittering accompanied the scraping – so delicate it might be subliminal. Chel froze, picturing the shredded man slithering along the wall, navigating its peeling canvas in a ripple of black lines.
The noise stopped just outside.
Waiting for me to choose…
Strangely Chel felt no fear, just an apprehension of disappointment. What if she looked and found only vermin, animal or otherwise? No, it was better not to know. Let the mystery endure. She pressed the button to the lobby.
There was a uniformed man standing on the street corner ahead, watching passers-by. His blue suit was armoured with flak-plates, boosting his already considerable bulk. The winged-sun icon of Carceri Hive shone from his breastplate and helmet. A tinted visor hid most of his face, but his vigilance was obvious.
Enforcer, Skreech thought sourly. He slowed his pace, but kept moving, wary of drawing suspicion. The lawmen were becoming more active on the streets these days, as if they knew something big was coming. There’d never been many of them – maybe a thousand covering the whole city – but even one of the bastards was bad news.
You’re looking for someone, Skreech guessed. Violent crime used to be rare in Carceri, but things were becoming edgier in the final days. There’d always been gangs working the slums, running vice in all its flavours or making trouble just for the hell of it, but nothing like the doomsday cults that had come crawling out of the shadows in recent years. Crazies like the Razers or the Darkscars killed because they liked it, even if they had a creed of sorts. Skreech reckoned they’d heard the call of the Night Below, but didn’t have the soul to listen the way he did. Unfortunately they’d carried their trouble beyond the slums, which upped the heat across the whole city. That made his crusade trickier.
Ain’t me you want, he guessed, eyeing the enforcer ahead. Oh, the authorities knew his work for sure, but they didn’t get its significance. And they sure didn’t know his old name or face either – the one he wore now – or they’d have taken him out long ago. To them his offerings were small fry beside the cults’ mayhem, but the herd knew better, in their blood if not with their heads. The newscasts proved that. Nothing scared them like the kiss of the Needleman!
Skreech realised he was smiling. Guiltily he bit his tongue, drawing blood as penance. This was serious. Maybe the law wasn’t after him specifically, but that enforcer wasn’t going to like the looks of him. The odds were good he’d be stopped and searched, which wouldn’t end well – not with the things he was carrying – but turning round was also risky. The crowd was pretty thin so the lawman might notice and come after him.
Make a move, Skreech urged himself, turning the options over. Both were bad.
As so often happened in a crisis, his saviour threw a miracle his way. This time it showed up as a rushing yellow wall. The tram rolled alongside him, heading away from the enforcer, going fast, but not so fast Skreech didn’t see the gaping doorway coming right up – jammed open, like they sometimes did. There wasn’t time to think things over. Now or never!
Skreech leapt.
A heavy thud cut through the soporific rhythm of the wheels. Startled from her dozing, Chel glanced along the carriage. There was a boy leaning against the wall opposite the faulty door, about ten paces away, his hands pressed against the glass. Clearly he’d jumped aboard and lost his balance. It was a reckless, stupid thing to do.
Idiot, Chel judged. As if hearing her s
corn, the newcomer turned and caught her gaze. His sallow face crawled with scars and tattoos, but his eyes were striking, like clear blue pools in a swamp. Black hair hung to his waist in a snarl of dreadlocks, braided with fragments of metal and glass. His leather coat was frayed, its gloss faded and spattered with paint. He didn’t look much past eighteen, but his spirit would be older, coarsened by violence and wounded pride. Chel had seen the type before – both men and women – especially since she’d started working nights. This boy would cut her open without a second thought.
He’s smiling, she realised. It wasn’t the arrogant smirk she’d expect from such a face, but something softer… Filled with wonder. She looked away quickly.
There were six other passengers in the carriage, all Delta-class labourers judging by their drab coveralls – probably cleaners heading for the industrial district. None of them paid any attention to the predator who’d leapt among them. Either they were lost in their dozing or fearful of drawing his interest, as she’d done. If the boy attacked her they’d just sit by and sink deeper into themselves, seeing and hearing nothing.
You’re all dead already, Chel thought, studying their placid faces. But too lazy to see it.
Cautiously she glanced at the newcomer again. The boy had sunk to the floor, back against the wall with his legs drawn up, evidently contemptuous of the seats. His fingers drummed skittishly against his knees, betraying the tension beneath his relaxed posture. He was staring at the blur of buildings through the doorway, but Chel sensed his focus was elsewhere.
On me…
For the second time that night she felt no fear at the prospect of danger. Indeed, she was energised by it. She didn’t trust the smile the boy had offered, but she trusted the desire it concealed – the urge to hit out and hurt. Trusted it because she felt an echo of that same compulsion in herself…
Come then, she urged, her fingers stroking the shok-jak in her pocket. Try me.
But the boy didn’t answer her unspoken challenge. The carriage emptied steadily with each passing station until they were the last on board, but even then the predator didn’t stir. Had she misjudged him? No, she’d never felt more certain of her instincts. Her sharpened dreams had sharpened her in turn. Somewhere beneath that razor-bright clarity her old self chimed a bell of warning. This wasn’t right. It was the VLG-01 talking, twisting her out of kilter. It had to be.
‘I don’t care,’ Chel whispered, stifling the alarm. ‘I like it.’
The tram ground to a halt again, signalling her stop. They were nearly at the line’s terminus, beyond which lay the periphery slums, where civilisation petered out. That’s where her fellow passenger – fellow predator – belonged.
Finally the boy moved, rising smoothly when Chel did. They stepped outside together, exiting by different doors in parallel. As the tram pulled away Chel turned to face him. They were alone on the platform. Surely the moment of danger was imminent. The jak felt alive in her grip, as eager as the syringe she’d used to murder Rozalia Temető.
Not murder, she corrected herself. It was an accident. But suddenly she wasn’t so sure. Hadn’t it felt good? So very–
Chel shook her head, trying to focus on the present. The boy’s face was in profile to her, his gaze locked on the wall ahead, as though it carried an invisible message.
‘What do you want?’ Chel demanded, thrilled by the steel in her voice. ‘Why are you following me?’
He didn’t answer – didn’t even look at her. Scowling, Chel stepped towards him, then caught herself. What was she thinking? This was madness. Her inner alarm was tolling again, louder than before.
This isn’t me!
Skreech exhaled slowly as his quarry’s footsteps receded. For a moment there he thought the woman might push it – maybe even attack him before he was ready. Sometimes the marked ones fought back, but most just froze up and let things play out. None had ever confronted him. That proved he’d chosen well. Sure, the woman was old and dried-up on the outside, but there was a spark inside her – something fierce and bitter looking to break out.
‘I’ll show you the way, sister,’ Skreech promised, pulling a bag from inside his coat. Reverently he withdrew his true face. To call the sacred artefact a mask was unthinkable. No, his mask was the ink-stained meat he currently wore, not the black iron visage in his hands. He’d forged it soon after starting on his path, taking inspiration from the stories that terrified him as a child – the ones that proved to be so much more than just stories…
Behold the Needleman, piercer of light and spinner of night!
The totem stared back at him, its ragged eye slits demanding to be filled. Fulfilled! Skreech was no craftsman, but that didn’t matter. His creation was pure in its ugliness and savage in its honesty. It was a long veil of metal that tapered to a jagged point, with uneven edges that were sharp to the touch, as his scarred fingers attested. The surface was mottled with dried blood and rust, symbolising the twin anathemas of violence and decay, through which revelation could be ripped then rotted away, cycling the seasons of riot and ruin over and over again until the world itself wound down.
Beware the Needleman, bearer of all things dark and spiteful!
Skreech closed his eyes and donned his secret face, binding it to his skull with a leather cord. He shivered as his mind opened up, flooded with impressions that didn’t belong to him, along with an eloquence of thought that was equally exotic. In that moment he became what he wore, anointed by the Night Below.
Hail the Needleman, reaper of lies and weaver of sharp truths!
The myth was as old as the hive itself, though its roots extended much further back, hooked deep into the human psyche, drawing sustenance from that most primal of aversions, the fear of the night. On a world without natural light, where absolute darkness was only a whisper away, that terror had taken ardent form.
Run, hide, weep or fight, it’ll all end the same way, for where’s there’s one, there’s always more, waiting right inside you and wanting out!
One of his family’s servants had told him the story when he turned nine, sharing it like a dread secret. There were cracks in the great dome that shielded them from the night, riddling it like a spider’s web across an eggshell. They were too fine for the naked eye to see, but if you stared hard enough then closed your eyes suddenly you’d glimpse them, snagged in the torn interval between sight and its absence. Master the trick and you might even see more, though you’d wish you hadn’t, for those black fissures weren’t empty.
Oh no, they were full of needles!
Not the kind of needles that mended things or made you better with a quick jab of pain. No, these were barbs of pure darkness that raged against the light that condemned them to their hairline trenches. But late at night, when the sunlights had dimmed, then the prisoners would come slithering out. Coalescing into seething, spiny shapes, they would crawl across the dome, searching for a way to extinguish the lights for good.
The Needlemen…
The night’s terrors were without number, for they were all figments of the same immaculate fever dream. Sometimes they swarmed in the thousands, like black bugs, each fragment no bigger than a human hand. More rarely, they melded into a vast, thorny blanket that oozed across the canopy as one, but most commonly they took forms that looked manlike, but only if you didn’t look too closely.
Of course, Skreech had looked closely, and often. Once he’d started he couldn’t stop. And, in time, the children of the fissures had looked back and recognised a fellow servant of the Night Below.
Opening its eyes, the Needleman removed the remainder of its vestments from the bag. The gloves were tipped with slender blades, no two the same length. The herald smiled as it slipped them on and flexed its fingers experimentally.
‘Will you, won’t you?’ it asked its blades, anticipating the divine terror they would wring from its sacrifice. There had been no need
to shadow the woman. Her jacket carried her company’s logo – a cartoon tin can with goggle eyes and a manic grin, its white-gloved hands raised to offer a double thumbs up. That same absurd figure crowned a building a few blocks from the station, rendered in plastek, its vast form glowing against the skyline.
‘Deceiver of fools,’ the Needleman challenged the false idol. Moving with a jerky grace, it set off in pursuit of its prey.
What was I thinking? Chel asked herself yet again. In the sterile sanctuary of her lab a measure of her composure had returned. Her encounter with the scarred boy felt unreal, like an episode from someone else’s life, yet its flavour lingered – a reckless abandon that was almost euphoric.
I wanted to fight, she admitted. Wanted to break him.
But none of that mattered right now. The anger was just another symptom of her disorder, like the nightmares. She needed to focus on the cause. The vector…
She returned her attention to the sample in her Petri dish. She couldn’t shake the sense that the black gruel was staring right back at her. That was ridiculous, of course. It was only a food additive, like countless others that had passed through her lab for testing and approval. She always approved them. The plant’s manager had made that requirement perfectly clear when she took the job. Quantity over quality! Potton Vitapax supplied the city’s Delta-class labourers with cheap synth-proteins, keeping millions just above the starvation line. That precarious swathe of humanity wasn’t picky about its food, only its absence.
‘We keep ’em topped up so they don’t start chowin’ down on each other.’ Her new boss had winked conspiratorially. ‘Or on us!’
Chel suspected even that crude mission statement wasn’t strictly true. It was rumoured that Potton’s base stock, the euphemistically named ‘Vita Ephemera’, wasn’t entirely synthetic in nature. The grey sludge was delivered via an underground pipeline and funnelled into the plant’s vast network of vats, where it was refined, flavoured, coloured then finally packaged for distribution. There were countless varieties under the company’s brand, but the essence was always the same. Chel sometimes wondered what a molecular analysis of that raw gloop would reveal, but that led to questions about what lay at the other end of the pipeline, which conjured possibilities she didn’t want to dwell upon.
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