Slippery Creatures

by KJ Charles

  It was an exceedingly long day. He didn’t ask for a book, or a newspaper. That would be fatal: they’d do him a favour and he’d think more kindly of them, or they’d ask for a concession, any concession, and if Will agreed, that would be a second crack in his defences. This was trench warfare, and the only way through was to hunker down and sit out the discomfort. So he did, entertaining and frustrating himself by dredging up fragments of poems he’d had to learn at school, and ones men had read aloud in the trenches. If he’d had any sense he’d have memorised the whole ‘Ballad of the White Horse’ when he had all that free time, or at least ‘Lepanto’.

  Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,

  Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,

  Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,

  The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall.

  He really wished he could remember more than that.

  Another long night passed, and another day. He listened to the birds, the occasional sounds of movement downstairs, the motor-car that drove away and returned a few hours later. He did two thousand and seventeen sit-ups, and a mere five hundred and twelve push-ups because his shoulders were feeling yesterday’s exertions. At least the pain in his head had gone.

  He tried hard not to think about how long he could keep this up, or how long he might have to. Zodiac were in no hurry. They could wait for a year while he sat here slowly fading into a wasted madman with a matted beard, until he begged to give them the information if only to see the sky again.

  Steady on, Darling, you’ve only been here three days, he told himself. It sounded a bit hollow.

  Half way through the fourth day, footsteps approached the door, and Libra came in. Will felt a flood of relief for which he could have kicked himself.

  “Hello, Mr. Darling.” Libra looked down at him, nose wrinkled. Will was well aware he was unwashed. His beard was growing and though he’d taken off his shirt and vest to exercise, he couldn’t wash off the sweat, and still had to sleep in them. He was starting to smell. He’d been used to filth in the War, of course; it was funny how fast you forgot.

  “Afternoon,” he said. “What’s the weather like?”

  “Very pleasant for the time of year. I understand you’re keeping yourself busy. Plenty of exercise.”

  “Fills the time.”

  “That lasts for a few days,” Libra said. “You’ll lose the drive soon enough. This isn’t a way for an active man to live.”

  “Are you letting me go?”

  “I’d be happy to.” Libra smiled. It gave Will the impression he’d sent off a postal order for a booklet on Smiling for Beginners. “You’re a determined man, Mr. Darling. Remarkably so. We could use someone like you in our organisation.”

  Flattery, plus an offer of companionship. Will had recent and first-hand experience of the powerful lure of togetherness when you were alone. He didn’t intend to fall for that again. “You’ve got a funny way of recruiting people. Have you tried an application form? Might be easier.”

  Libra smiled again. It was perfunctory. “You’re a very determined man, but a foolish one. Sitting here is a waste of your time, not mine.”

  Will shrugged, for lack of useful response. Libra shook his head. “You can’t be defiant forever and if you are, what will it achieve? Draven wasn’t the only scientist working on these ideas. Someone else will discover the same thing eventually, or something similar, and do you know what that man will do? He’ll give it or sell it to his government—which may not be ours, it could be the Americans or the Russians, even the Germans. His government will develop it. Other governments will spy, and hear, and copy, or come up with still worse weapons in the name of deterrence. And sooner or later men of power will use it on cities, on London or New York or Berlin, but do you know what they’ll do first?”

  “Build themselves bunkers, I expect.”

  Libra seemed genuinely pleased by that. “I knew you had potential. Exactly so. No matter which city, or nation, or political system, the leaders will make sure they and their families and their wealth are protected long before the first gas-cylinder explodes over a city.”

  “Right. So?”

  “So Zodiac pits itself against the corruption of wealth, and the structures of entrenched power.” Libra’s eyes lit as he spoke. “We want to bring it down, Mr. Darling, all of it. The palaces, whether Westminster or Buckingham. Whitehall and the White House, the Champs-Elysées and Wall Street. The whole sordid structure of capital and empire, built on lies and designed to oppress the common man. Men like you, sent to war as cannon fodder for a squabble between royal cousins, then brought back and flung on the scrapheap because the country that demanded you should bleed won’t pay for your bandages. We want to sweep it all away, destroy the systems and begin again, this time with all men equal.”

  “Sounds good,” Will said. “And that starts with spreading plague?”

  “It starts with destruction. There’s no choice. When the French Revolution beheaded a king, they merely created the space for an emperor. The Germans made themselves a republic and cried out for socialism, yet their new national assembly is still filled with the upper classes, the same faces as before. If Mr. MacDonald’s Labour Party should be elected, how long do you think it will take before Labour members of parliament emerge from the ranks of the titled and wealthy? Power clings to power: that is the universal truth, and tinkering at the edges of the great structures of power will not change anything. We must raze them to the ground.”

  Will nodded slowly. The light in Libra’s eyes was a flame now, the sort of flame that lit bonfires under people. He unquestionably believed what he said, and he had a good point, at that. “All right. But how many ordinary people will suffer when you raze everything to the ground?”

  “How many suffer now?” Libra demanded. “How many millions died in the war? How many are dying down mines and in factories and on the streets because they can’t afford the rent of a room? Why do we count the cost of change, but not the cost of the world staying the same?”

  Will opened his mouth, stopped, considered. “Fair. Powerful, even. One question, though: When we sweep away all the structures of power and start off with a blank slate, what’s to stop the same thing happening again? People want a leader. Say you knock everything down. What I’d expect next is a strong man to come out on top, pull an army together, give himself a nice big house and a fancy hat, and off we go, just like before. Well, just take Russia. Who’s going to prevent that?”

  “And that is why we need Zodiac!” Libra said, as if Will was agreeing with him. “This isn’t destruction for its own sake, the childishness of the mere anarchist. Zodiac will bring a new order into being, guided by principles of justice and equality.”

  “There’s my answer. The people setting the principles and enforcing them will be the ones on top, won’t they? So who’s going to be the first-among-equals of your new paradise?” Kim had mentioned one of them. Will searched his memory. “Your mate Capricorn?”

  Libra’s face darkened instantly, a thundercloud of anger sweeping across it. He took a step forward and Will stood up fast. He mightn’t be able to defend himself that well with a chain on his foot, but he intended to stay off the floor as long as possible.

  Libra visibly struggled to regain control. “You’re a fool,” he said. “Worse than a fool, because you could understand, but you choose to act in subservience to your puppetmasters. First you were a soldier, nothing more than a trained dog, now you’re putting yourself through misery for the sake of a nation that won’t note your death, far less care. Your sort are an obstacle to progress. You don’t deserve the chance I’ve given you. Where is the information?”

  Will met his eyes and said, clearly, “I burned it.”

  Libra swooped down and snatched the blanket. Will grabbed the corner, and there was a brief tug of war that ended with it ripping in two. Libra held up his part triumphantly. “I�
��m sure your loyalty to the system of oppression will keep you warm at night.”

  “Oh, fuck off,” Will said. “You’re a whining child, fantasising about destroying the world because it’s too much work to make it better. Talking about oppression like you’ve done a day’s work in your life. Piss off to Russia with it and see how long you last there, you tosspot!” He had to shout the last bit because Libra had left the room. It relieved his feelings, at least.

  They brought him water that evening but no food. The night was very long, hungry, and very cold indeed. He huddled the half-blanket round himself and spent the wakeful hours recreating the evening and morning with Kim in his head. It passed the time more pleasantly than anything else.

  There was only bread the next morning. Will wondered if he should ration it, but ate it all anyway. He was still hungry afterwards, and decided it would be a bad idea to exercise, but he also knew Libra was right about his will being sapped by time. He didn’t want to do a thousand press-ups. He wanted a bath, and the sky, and not to be in this fucking room any more.

  They started cooking downstairs. Will could smell meat roasting. Gammon, he thought, and couldn’t stop salivating. Libra came in sometime in the middle of the day. “Hungry?” he enquired.

  Will shrugged. Libra shook his head pseudo-sympathetically. “I dare say you were cold last night. I think we should begin again, don’t you? I admit I lost my temper. Perhaps I was unreasonable expecting you to understand all at once. It’s a hard thing to overturn one’s view of the world. It takes a great deal of courage to face up to where we’ve been wrong, or blind, but it can be done. I believe you can do it. And, in fact, I liked that you challenged me.”

  “Didn’t seem that way to me.”

  “Oh, not what you said about a great and noble man. But the fact that you wanted to know how we prevent a new king—that was right-thinking. What do you say, Mr. Darling? Shall we start again?”

  “Absolutely,” Will said. “Take this thing off my foot and we can have a lovely chat.”

  “I shan’t do that. But I will give you a blanket—a thicker one, it’s getting cold—and have you brought something more sustaining. A plate of ham, eggs, and potatoes? We have an excellent butcher in the village. Everything is brighter after a hot meal. A drink, even. A pint of ale to wash it down.” He paused enticingly. “Just ask.”

  “Just what?”

  “Ask,” Libra said. “Ask me, ‘Please may I have a blanket, and some food?’”

  “If you want to give me something, why don’t you?”

  Libra’s lips stretched. “Because I’d like a little courtesy, Mr. Darling. A little respect, an acknowledgement of your position, a give and take between the two of us. I make a concession, you make a concession. Is that really an unreasonable request?”

  The roasting ham smelled glorious. The endless, freezing night stretched out in front of him. Will called Maisie’s face to mind, and said, “Go fuck yourself.”

  They took away the rest of the blanket then. He couldn’t sleep at all that night because his feet were so cold.

  There was nothing but water the next morning. Will knew giving in to despair would be the worst thing he could do, but he did spend some time with his face in his hands. That was pretty awful in itself because his hands were dirty and his face rough with itchy beard. His mouth was furry and vile and he had a hunger headache. He really hated those.

  They didn’t bring him anything at all at lunchtime, either to eat or drink. The water-jug was empty now. He’d have shouted, despite the inevitability of that making things worse, except he suspected there was nobody in the house. He’d heard the car go earlier, and he recognised the silence that came from absence, rather than people not making noise.

  They would come back. They’d bring him food. They would. Or maybe they’d just decided to cut their losses and go, and he’d die here alone.

  It was so quiet, and he was so hungry, that he sat up straight when he heard a faint noise from below, a tinkling crash, like some silly sod had dropped a plate.

  There was someone here. Will started to stamp on the floor. “Hey! Hey, you bastards!” This wasn’t good behaviour, it was exactly what they’d punish him for—no, he reminded himself, it was the excuse they wanted to make their cruelty his fault. They wanted him to blame himself for what was being done to him, to make him feel he deserved to starve because he didn’t beg for bread.

  Well, they could stick it. “Hoi! I know you’re there! Are you all deaf as well as stupid, you Bolshevik wankers?”

  Feet, on the stairs, very light and in no hurry. “Are you just going to stand around?” he yelled. “If you’re going to leave me to starve, come in and say so to my face! I fucking dare you!”

  The door creaked open wide, letting in enough light to make Will blink. A man stood silhouetted in the doorway, a slimmer shape than Libra.

  “Will,” he said.

  It was Kim.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It was a dream. It had to be. He’d had a few of those about people coming to help—Maisie, his old CO, even Alfie Greenaway, still splattered with his own blood. Those were bad dreams to wake up from, and Will told himself fiercely to be ready for this new disappointment even as Kim sprinted across the room, skidded to his knees, grabbed his face, and recoiled.

  “Jesus Christ. What the devil?”

  “Kim? It is you. Kim.” Will grabbed his hands. He could feel the slender wrists hard under his fingers, and the tension in Kim’s muscles.

  “What have they done to you?”

  “Get me out,” Will said, voice breaking with desperation. “Please. You have to get me out.”

  Kim stared at him, eyes wide, then visibly snapped himself back to efficiency. “Yes. First things f...uck, is this a chain?” He tugged experimentally at the hasp. “Hell’s teeth.”

  “I’ve tried breaking it. I can’t. You’ll need a crowbar.”

  “Let me see.” He bent to squint at Will’s ankle, and made a face. “No offence, but—”

  “I stink. I know. They haven’t let me wash.”

  “Have they fed you?”

  “Not enough. And it’s been bloody cold at night.”

  “Libra?”

  “Yes.”

  Kim nodded slowly. “I’ll have his balls,” he remarked, as calm as if he were discussing the weather. “I will put his balls on a plate, and I will make him eat them.” He sat back on his heels. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone in the house.”

  “They go out. It’s not as if I can get away.”

  “When do they come back?”

  “Varies. Usually before dark.”

  “How many?”

  “I’ve seen three, including Libra.”

  “Mph. Do I have time to call for help? If the police find you like this, there’s a solid kidnapping case to be made.”

  Will grabbed his arm, too tightly from Kim’s wince. “But if they come back—you can’t leave me like this!”

  “I won’t.” Kim scowled in thought. “We can’t have them return before the police get here, and Lord knows where the nearest station is, so I agree, I need to get you out. The question is how.”

  “Get a crowbar.”

  “If there’s one lying around.” Kim prodded the hasp. “This won’t be easy. I wonder if I can pick the lock.”

  “Can you do that?”

  He made a face. “I’ve opened various jewellery cases for Phoebe over the years. She, of course, has the courtesy to carry hairpins on her person, which I don’t suppose you do. I’ll go and look for something.”

  Will didn’t want him to go. He knew exactly what would happen if Kim left the room: he’d wake up and realise his rescuer never been here at all, and he didn’t know how he’d get over that. “I’ve a pin,” he said rather desperately, indicating the crumpled wreck of the silk peony.

  Kim started to speak, blinked, then grabbed the flower. “You bloody fool, you’ve got a wire! Oh, now we’re talking.” He started
to pull off the silk wrapping round the flower stalk, muttered an oath, and went over to where light spilled from the door. “Just give me a moment and we’ll see what we can do. Anything else I need to know in the meantime? Are you hurt?”

  “Just hungry. They didn’t need to hurt me: they were going to keep me here with nothing to read, nobody to talk to, rotting away, and with blankets and food dependent on good behaviour. They were waiting for me to break.”

  Kim didn’t respond to that for a few seconds. He knelt in the doorway, entirely still, and when he turned, his smile seemed like it took an effort. “How optimistic of them,” he said with forced lightness. “If it was a matter of cooperation in return for food, I’m amazed you haven’t starved.” He came back over, stuffing the remnants of red and green silk into his pocket. “I’m bitterly sorry, Will. This should never have happened, have been allowed to happen. I don’t know what I should have done differently, but ‘everything’ probably covers it.”

  “Get me out and we’re quits.” Kim bent over the ankle cuff with wire and pin. Will watched his dark head, telling himself It won’t work, he can’t do it. He didn’t think he could bear hope now. “How did you get here?”

  “It would be easier if you talk to me.” Kim’s voice was tense with concentration. “Distract me. Is the information safe?”

  “I didn’t give them anything. I couldn’t: I don’t know where it is. I had a friend hide it.”

  “Risky.”

  “The plan was I’d be able to get it back without involving anyone else. Didn’t work. I made a mess of it.”