by Damien Love
The blow sent him stumbling toward the river, legs buckling. He pitched forward. All the lights of Paris came rushing upward in the water to meet him as the rest of the world grew slow and silent.
His grandfather caught him before he fell in, held him by the shoulders, gazing urgently into his eyes. “Alex. Can you hear me?”
Alex shook his head to try and clear it. His ear was ringing, a hot, stinging ache. “I’m okay. What happened? What hit me?”
His grandfather grunted, stepped back, looking warily around, looking up. “Flier,” he said.
“What—?” Alex began, when he heard the whirr again.
“Head down.” The old man pushed Alex roughly behind him, swinging his cane at the dim air. The noise went streaking past, close. “Nasty little blighters,” the old man grunted. “Try and get you with their propeller blades. Go for your eyes. Now, come on. Keep your head down.”
He drew Alex under his arm, and they set off at a crouching run for the stairs ahead.
The noise came shooting at them again. His grandfather threw Alex to the side, spun wildly, swiping his stick blindly at the night.
Hunkered down where he had been flung against the wall, Alex heard the high sound shudder, saw the old man’s head whip back from an unseen blow. Blood spouted from a deep cut on his forehead, just above his eye. The buzzing noise moved off.
“Grandad!”
“I’m okay.” His grandfather held a handkerchief to his head. “Stay down.”
The old man crouched alert on the walkway, studying the empty night. He hurriedly peeled off his coat. Alex heard the high whine coming again, somewhere over the river.
“Stand up, Alex,” his grandfather said, still squatting. “But don’t move.”
Alex stood, hearing the noise grow louder.
“Grandad?”
“Shhhh.”
The angry whine screamed closer.
Alex squinted desperately toward the river. The tourist boat bobbed smoothly along out there.
“Just stand still, now, Alex.”
He could see people moving on the boat’s open deck. They seemed happy. A grand church floated above them on the opposite bank, lit by spotlights, looking like a stately white slice of cake. The whirring intensified to a livid new pitch.
He felt it coming, like an arrow between the eyes. Something was rippling in the dark now. A tiny, orangey glow.
“Grandad?”
He somehow forced himself to stay standing. He felt the leading tip of an air current brush his forehead. A gray blur filled his vision. Then there was only the silent river, the happy boat floating on by.
His grandfather knelt before him, strands of white hair stuck to the blood on his forehead. He was wrestling oddly with his coat. Alex thought he could smell burning.
“Caught it,” the old man grunted. “Give me a hand. Hold that side down.”
Alex dived at his grandfather’s coat, helping him pin it to the paving stones. The fabric bulged and started to tear as something struggled under it.
“Pocket nearest you,” his grandfather said.
“Huh?” Alex gasped. He could definitely smell burning.
“Salt.”
Alex grabbed inside, pulling out a bundle of the salt packets his grandfather had picked up on the train. The old man ripped them open with his teeth, fed his hand inside the empty coat sleeve, pulled it quickly back, sucking at his fingertips.
“Ow.”
Between them, the coat was bucking so violently that Alex could hardly hold it. Gradually, though, he felt the vibrating force ebb until, finally, whatever was in there seemed only to be rolling around in a gentle little circle.
“Okay,” his grandfather said. He sat back on his heels but still held the coat tightly down. “That should have done it. Let go your end, Alex, then stand back.”
Alex did as he was told. His grandfather waited and watched, then took his hands from the coat and scratched at his neck. The little lump continued rolling this way and that.
“Right.” He whipped the coat away like a magician pulling a cloth from a table. Before him on the walkway, a small, dark gray toy robot was walking in tiny, aimless circles.
Two metal wings, in a shape akin to those of a housefly but honed to a razor-sharp edge, hung dejectedly from its back. Four similarly sharpened propeller blades sagged limply from its head, like a hat made of leaves that had blown apart in a storm. One hand was a vicious hook, the other a scalpel blade. Its eyes were two tiny, dim orange lamps.
“Look at that.” His grandfather was inspecting his coat. Alex could see a ripped scorch mark inside, where the thing had tried cutting its way out. “Lining’s ruined.”
“What’ll we do with . . . that?” Alex said, pointing at the robot, now teetering drunkenly toward the river’s edge.
“Hmmm? Oh, whoops.” His grandfather hurried across, picked the robot carefully up by its head and set it gently back down, stumbling safely toward the wall.
“Well, we’ll just leave him. I told you, I don’t like to kill them. He’ll wander off somewhere.”
“Won’t it just come after us again?”
“Oh, he won’t be much use for a couple of days. Fliers are hard to catch hold of, but if you can manage it, they really don’t like salt.”
“But how do they work? How do they control them?”
“Just reverse engineering on your basic voodoo, really—” The old man stopped, wincing. He considered Alex’s baffled frown, then shrugged. “Ever hear stories about people making wax dolls to control others? Jabbing them with pins and all that? Same thing. More or less. Only in reverse. But with modifications. Now,” he continued, pulling on his coat and nodding off behind Alex’s head, “time to go.”
Alex turned. High behind, the shadowy figure of the girl stood at the top of the stairs they had come down. She whipped her arm in a pointing gesture. A small piece of darkness dislodged itself from the night at her shoulder and came shooting toward them.
The tall man and the bald men were already halfway down the steps. As Alex watched, the tall man curled in his curious crouch. The creaking noise carried on the freezing air as he sprang into another high, uncanny flying jump.
“Who is—” Alex managed as his grandfather hauled him into a sprint for the steps ahead. Alex took them two at a time. His grandfather managed three. As they reached the top, the old man already had his cane high, hailing a taxi, sending more oblivious passersby stumbling.
A cab flashed its headlights as they darted into the road. Bundling in behind the old man, Alex heard the high whine coming. He slammed the door. Something thumped off the side. His grandfather waved a fistful of notes at the driver and told him to drive fast.
Twisting to the back window, Alex flinched as he saw the tall man complete a leap that landed him at the top of the steps behind them. He stood staring after them through the snow as the car sped into traffic.
Alex pulled out his phone. He snorted a bleak laugh at the message.
Your DEAD.
He turned it off, checking twice before he put it back in his pocket.
VII.
A MUCH OLDER STORY
AS THEY WENT charging through the hotel lobby, the desk clerk called out to them, waving a small blue envelope.
Alex’s grandfather ripped it open in the elevator, unfolded a sheet of the hotel’s stationery, and frowned. Then he grinned, flourishing the page.
“Message from Harry! He’s okay!”
He handed the note to Alex, rubbing his hands together:
He’s here.
Managed to get out. Not hanging around.
Gone to my country place. Come when you can.
If you can.
—H.
“Excellent. Harry has a lovely little place just outside Fontainebleau. Not too far. Good
cook, is Harry. Has an arrangement with the woman who runs the farm down the road. Free eggs. Makes the most wonderful soufflés.”
He hummed happily as he unlocked their door.
“Do you think you should get someone to look at that?” Alex asked.
“How’s that?”
Alex rubbed a finger across his own forehead.
“Oh. Ah.” The old man stepped into the bathroom, clicked the light above the sink, and pressed gingerly at the cut on his head. “Not too bad. Deep, but the bleeding’s stopped. Looks clean enough. Could you fetch me my bag, old chap?”
When Alex came back, his grandfather had his coat and jacket off, and stood with one bloody shirtsleeve rolled up, holding his arm under the running tap. There was another large gash across his forearm.
“Our friend with the knife. Just a scratch.”
Rooting through his Gladstone, he came out with several handkerchiefs, a bottle of aftershave, and a small white tube. He held up his haul.
“Something else your generation has forgotten: chap can never have too many handkerchiefs.” Dousing one with aftershave, he set to cleaning and dressing his arm, wincing and hissing. After dabbing at his forehead, he squeezed a line of puttylike cream from the tube and smeared it over the wound.
“Plastic skin.” He smiled. “Of course, everything you’ve just seen me do, you should never do it. If you have a cut like that, you get it treated properly. And never run into traffic either, the way we did back there. That’s just stupid. Now”—the old man drummed the sink with his fingertips, then walked past Alex to the table bearing the remains of their lunch—“we should get going. Tonight. Right away.”
He slathered pâté onto a biscuit.
“Are you packed?”
“I hardly unpacked.” Alex gestured at the pile of clothes he’d dumped on the camp bed.
“Good chap,” his grandfather mumbled through a mouthful of crumbs. “Be prepared. And that reminds me.” Pulling out a fistful of bills and coins, he handed it to Alex.
“What’s this for?”
“Oh, just to have. Spending money. Save you bothering me if you see something you want to buy. I don’t know, a comic. Postcards, perhaps. Now, I just need to change my shirt.”
He strode into the bathroom and rummaged through his bag, producing a crisp white shirt, still in its wrapper.
“You said you’d tell me what was going on,” Alex said, stuffing money into his pockets. His mind was racing. “Who are those people? That little man, the girl, they were on the train. And that tall—”
“Look at this. Suit’s almost ruined,” the old man muttered, dusting the knees of his trousers. He straightened to inspect his jacket, hanging on the bathroom door. Tutting, he turned to the mirror, unknotting his tie. “But I left some clothes at Harry’s last time I stayed, said he was going to have them cleaned for me.”
“Grandad.”
The old man sighed. He gazed down into the sink, shoulders slumping, then straightened and turned.
“Okay, Alex. What’s going on. Well, let me see.” He rubbed a hand over his face, clearly reluctant to go on. “Okay: have you noticed anything odd happening?”
“Have I noticed anything odd happening? Is that supposed to be a joke?”
“What? No, no— I mean, before I showed up. Have you noticed anything odd happening?”
“Uh, no. I mean . . . how do you mean?”
“With the robot, man, with the robot. Look, remember, when I met you, you had it in your schoolbag? But you said you hadn’t put it there? Anything else like that?”
Alex frowned.
“Well . . .”
“Yes?”
“There was a moment.” He thought back, amazed to realize it had only been two nights before. “I was in my room; I was looking at it and . . .”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know. I started to feel funny.”
“Feel funny?”
“I was looking at it . . . into its eyes, and I started feeling weird. Kind of sick.”
“Okay.” His grandfather had come out of the bathroom, stood retying his tie, listening intently. “What else?”
Alex’s frown deepened as he thought back. So much strangeness had occurred since that night he’d almost forgotten. “Well, I was trying to write an essay, for my English homework, right? But I wasn’t getting anywhere with it? I had it started, but I couldn’t finish it . . . I didn’t finish it.”
“Fascinating insight into your life as a writer, Alex.” His grandfather scowled as he buttoned his waistcoat. “But if you could get to the point?”
“That’s rich.”
The old man raised his eyebrows at him as he pulled on his jacket. “We’ll ignore that. Look at this.” He held out the sleeve the knife had slit. “Barbarians. And so, there you were, struggling with your essay?”
“Nothing. It’s stupid.”
“No.” His grandfather came over and put a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry, Alex. Believe me, whatever you tell me, I won’t think it’s stupid. Go on. Please.”
“Well, next day . . . it was finished.”
“It was finished?”
“My essay. Someone had finished it. I thought maybe I had done it during the night and not remembered. But I know I didn’t. At least, I think . . .”
“Ah.”
His grandfather turned away, stood gazing out the balcony doors. The dark city pulsed in shades of blue.
“Now, that’s interesting.” He spun again, pointing at Alex. “That’s very interesting.” The old man’s eyes glittered. He seemed to be trying to hide a smile. Then all traces of a smile disappeared.
“Yes, interesting,” he repeated gravely. “And more than a little worrying. Get your bag packed, Alex.”
“Grandad, you need to tell me what’s going on!”
“I will. You can pack and listen at the same time, can’t you? We have to get a move on.”
Alex stomped to his bed, took the robot in its boxes out of his rucksack, and started shoving clothes back in. His grandfather approached, arm outstretched, as if to pick up the toy, then snatched his hand away. He stood watching Alex pack.
“What’s that?”
Alex paused. The old photo of his mum and dad. He handed it over.
“Oh. Yes,” the old man said softly. He stood looking at the picture, momentarily lost. “Sorry I never had a better photograph of him to give you myself, Alex. He never liked having his picture taken. Got that from me. I’m the same way.”
He gazed at the fuzzy image another few seconds, then handed it back. Wandering to the table by the window, the old man shook the empty champagne bottle as though hoping it might make more appear, then started unpeeling a banana.
“So. Where were we? I told you about Rossum’s Universal Robots, the play. Remember?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, there’s another story from Prague, you see. A much older story. It’s maybe where Čapek got his idea in the first place, actually, because it’s also about people who made . . . well, artificial creatures to work for them.”
“Uh-huh?” Alex kept working at his bag, keeping his answers short in the hope his grandfather might get to the point.
“Yes. Now, Alex, tell me: have you ever heard of a golem?”
Alex frowned, turning. “Like in Lord of the Rings?”
“Hmm? No, no, no. That’s G-O-L-L-U-M. Golem. G-O-L-E-M.”
“Oh. No. Oh, wait, there used to be a Pokémon called Golem. I used to have the card when I was a kid.”
“A what?”
“You know, from the video game?”
His grandfather scowled. “Really, Alex, I’m trying to teach you something here. Listen. Golem. Word comes from the Bible, Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible. It means . . . an unfinished creature. A creature made of
clay. There used to be stories, you see, that very wise men, or very holy men, could create these things, rough men of clay, and bring them to life, as their servants.”
“Like magic?” A sudden image of the little flying robot popped into Alex’s mind, blades outstretched.
“Well, that depends on your definition of magic,” his grandfather said. “And your definition of holiness. The idea, basically, was that these were people who had studied so hard to get close to God they had picked up some of his wisdom and power, and so they could create a kind of life. But, yes, let’s say magic. That’ll do as well as anything. The legend goes that sometime in the 1500s, there was a holy man in Prague. Rabbi Loew. This was a time when the Jewish people of Prague were under a great deal of threat. There were attacks, and there was worse coming. And so, Rabbi Loew went to the river, and he used the clay from the banks to make a great and mighty golem who would protect his people. The Golem of Prague. And he did defend the ghetto, at least at first—”
“Hang on,” Alex said. “Did this really happen?”
His grandfather took a deep breath. “All I’m telling you, Alex, is that this is the story. It’s a story. Stories all come from somewhere, and sometimes they get bent out of shape over the years. But this is the story.”
“Okay. But what’s all that got to do with this?” He held up the toy robot’s box and shook it, before stuffing it into his rucksack. “And that . . . tall man.”
“Well, if you’d let me, I was getting to that. Now—”
There came a knock at the door.
They looked at each other. The old man raised a finger to his lips, tiptoed quickly across the room, and lifted Alex’s rucksack, shoving the robot deep inside before zipping it shut. Opening the balcony door, he stepped out of sight, returned empty-handed, closing the door quietly behind him.
“Who’s there?” he called.
There was another knock.
“What do we do?” Alex whispered.
His grandfather pulled on his coat and took up his cane. “Why, we answer it,” he said brightly.
VIII.
A MODEST PROPOSAL
THE LITTLE MAN stood in the hallway, large eyes swimming almost invisibly behind thick glasses lenses. The shabbiness of his coat made the vividness of his scarf all the more incongruous. Alex’s eyes were drawn helplessly to it. As he stared, he noticed wounds on his neck showing beneath the bright yellow material, some looking raw. A sweet smell came off of him.