Meat

by Joseph D'lacey

  ‘My girls. What about my girls?’

  ‘Ah. Now they’re a very different story of course. A real revelation to me. I’ve never had the pleasure of twins before, though I’ve seen plenty their age. And much younger. Let’s just say that I’ve been very gently introducing them to the duties of womanhood.’

  Nausea and rage rose up inside Shanti. He felt what little control he had slipping away.

  ‘Please. Let me see them.’

  ‘No. But I’ll tell you what. If you and my men come back with John Collins before the Parsons get him, I give you my word I won’t touch any of your family again. But you must both return or I’ll do whatever I want with them. And it won’t take days or weeks, it’ll be years. Pleasure for me and whatever they can salvage from it. Understand, Shanti? You bring him back. You bring John Collins back to me alive. Then and only then will your family be safe.’ His erection had subsided. He adjusted the dressing gown around his shoulders and smoothed it over his paunch. ‘I have to say, I’m a little disappointed to have been interrupted but,’ he spread his palms wide, ‘business before pleasure, eh? That’s what sorts the winners from the losers in this world.’

  Magnus walked to the study door and shouted downstairs.

  ‘Bruno! Take everyone you can spare and get down to the Derelict Quarter. Shanti here is going to take you to see our old friend. Make sure they both come back alive. If you run into the Parsons out there,’ he considered for a moment,‘take them down. All of them.’

  He turned back into the study.

  ‘I believe you mentioned something about running out of time, Shanti.’

  And then Shanti was sprinting again. Behind him came Magnus’s burly guards, black coattails snapping at their heels.

  After what felt like far too long but what could only have been a few seconds, Parson James Jessup ran into the fray. His brothers were struggling to recover from the shock of the attack. They had no cohesion or formation. They needed a centre.

  ‘On me!’ he shouted.

  The other Parsons seemed to awaken at his call and realise the extent of their jeopardy. They fell towards him; their ranks thickened and gained strength. Their training surfaced and they timed their blows as a unit. The Godless attackers – Parson James Jessup could only assume that these were Collins’s followers and that Collins was among them – pursued them.

  The onslaught did not falter but it slowed. The Parsons ceased to fall as often but Parson James Jessup gauged that they had already lost thirty men. That left seventy against the thirty in opposition. It should still have been easy odds but it was not. He moved to the edge of their circle and took the place of a fallen comrade. It was not obvious what had brought the man down. No dark patch on his robes suggested a wound beneath them. No marks on his head or face showed the landing of a blow. But Parson James Jessup had seen men fall many times and he was certain his brother was dead. Most certain.

  He found himself facing the Godless tramp that had felled him.

  He swung his club in anger, a curve that was swift and heavy. It would stave in the woman’s head when it made contact. But when the bone reached its target, the woman was no longer in its path. He couldn’t see how she had managed to move. Thinking he’d misjudged the distance, he swung back in the natural opposite direction calculating for his mistake. This time he saw that she moved not when she saw the blow coming but somehow just before, almost at the moment he thought of it. Any moment now her attack would come and he was wasting energy on roundhouse swings that made him look like a brawler in Dino’s at the end of a Saturday night.

  He feinted. She dodged, and, knowing exactly where she would go, he used the club in a thrusting motion. It made contact with her solar plexus – exactly as he’d planned. She was already moving away from the blow, though, and it connected without the weight he’d hoped. As he recovered his balance she was back in his face again and he could see the calm exultation in her expression. The certainty of purpose and utter absence of fear. And this, more than any speed she’d shown, was what shook his belief.

  Behind him he heard the cries of shock and frustration as the other Parsons faced the same agility, the same self-assuredness and he knew that they would die.

  All of them.

  Swiftly.

  Without mercy.

  And yet, without malice.

  It made him think of the Chosen.

  Twenty-three

  He had to slow down so that Magnus’s men could keep up with him.

  The stamping of dozens of pairs of boots echoed off the cracked pavements of Abyrne’s streets as the black-coated army passed through. All the men loped, beefy and bulky. Shanti ran at the front of them like a whippet before a pack of wolves. Townsfolk shrank into doorways, peeped from windows and pressed themselves back against damp brick walls as the mobsters ran by. Magnus’s men, upholding their pride, pretended the running wasn’t affecting them as they clattered through the streets, but when they reached the fringe of the Derelict Quarter they let their faces show the pain. None of them was as fit as Shanti. Not by miles.

  In the shattered, abandoned districts of the Derelict Quarter, while Shanti still ran lightly over every obstacle, the others stumbled and lumbered.

  ‘…Wait,’ shouted Bruno. ‘Stop…a moment…damn you.’

  Shanti glanced over his shoulder and slowed a little.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Take a look…we’re exhausted.’

  Behind Bruno the Magnus contingent, allegedly among his best men, were strung out like a caravan of refugees. Even Shanti could see they were easy prey.

  He stopped and Bruno caught up to him. The big man couldn’t regain his breath. By ones and twos the others joined them. It took several minutes for the last man, shorter and fatter than all the others, to arrive. All around him the Meat Baron’s men sat or lay down on the churned debris.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Shanti.

  There were ill-tempered shouts of protest.

  ‘Let them rest,’ said Bruno.

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘As long as it takes for them to be ready for a scrap. We can’t lead them into battle in this state.’

  ‘No. They’ve rested enough. We have to move now.’

  ‘Who the fuck put him in charge?’ someone shouted.

  ‘Here,’ said the last man in, still struggling to breathe. ‘Let’s tie his ankles together so he can’t run. Use my tie.’

  ‘Let’s just go back and say we couldn’t find anything. Magnus’ll off this one and his family and it’ll be business as usual.’

  The grumbling increased in volume.

  ‘Shut up, all of you,’ shouted Bruno. ‘You’ve got five more minutes to rest and then we move on. Save your breath.’

  Shanti was aghast.

  ‘Five minutes? It’s too long.’

  ‘It’s what I’m giving them.’

  ‘Bruno, I’m begging you. You know what he’s doing to my family. To my girls. Please.’

  Bruno sat down on a tilted slab of concrete and ran his hands through the oily mess of his hair.

  ‘You brought all this on yourself, you know, Shanti. Acting weird with the Chosen, this running crap you do every day, not eating the flesh. Torrance told me all about you. If it wasn’t for your usefulness in the plant, your status would have been revoked a long time ago.’ Bruno rummaged in his coat pockets and brought out tobacco and papers. He proceeded to roll a ragged cigarette. ‘I’ll tell you something about my boss, Shanti. When he gets an idea into his head, he can’t get it out until he’s made it happen. The moment he thought about taking your family, they died. Right in that instant. He’s not going to keep any promise he’s made to you. He’s going to use you, use your wife and daughters, and then he’ll kill you. All of you.’ He lit the cigarette and took a long pull. It seemed to calm his breathing instantly but Shanti noticed that his fingers trembled as he smoked. ‘I’ll tell you something else. I’m going to make sure he sees his plan through to t
he end. I can’t wait to see you gone. You don’t belong in this town.’

  Shanti turned away and looked out into the Derelict Quarter. Ruination stretched to the horizon. Perhaps it extended far beyond. He was one man against many and he was leading his worst enemies to the hideout of Abyrne’s saviour. Not only was John Collins his ally, he had also become a friend. They believed in the same things, held the same dreams dear. Was he really going to sacrifice the man to save his children from Magnus? How many more children, hundreds of thousands more, had been killed already in the pursuit of meat and the assuaging of the town’s deep hunger? Collins’s death would be a far worse sacrifice to make than his daughters’. Collins’s end would signal an end to hope. Shanti knew it, could not deny it. But things were in motion now that he could not stop. Without his guidance, Bruno might be too slow. He might not even find Collins. It was his girls who needed him.

  When he skipped away from Bruno, leapt a few chunks of broken concrete and tore off back towards the town, none of the men stood up to chase him.

  ‘Fuck it,’ said Bruno.

  ‘What do we do?’ asked the fat straggler.

  Bruno checked his watch.

  ‘We finish our break and then we go find Collins.’

  ‘What about him?’

  Shanti was already a small figure against the backdrop of rubble.

  ‘There’s more people at the mansion. Enough to take care of him.’

  ‘Magnus is going to be raging.’

  ‘True. But he’ll be even worse if we don’t finish what we came out here to do.’ Bruno stood up with a grunt. ‘Come on you lot, on your feet. Let’s get this job done.’

  ‘How will we know where to find Collins now?’

  ‘I’ve got a feeling about where he is. Just a hunch really, but I think there’s a good chance he’ll be there. At the back of the arena, where they train the fighting bulls, there’s a breach in the wall that leads to a lot more caverns and tunnels. If I’m right and we keep heading out this way, the way Shanti’s been leading us, I think we’ll find the place where those tunnels come out. If we don’t, we’ll go to the bullring and do it the other way round. Can’t go wrong.’

  He slapped the shorter man on the shoulder and led them all deeper into the ruins.

  Magnus grunted and sweated and shook in his frustrated desire for them. He didn’t need to use force with these little ones. That was too easy. With children it was always words that were his weapons. He sat on the wooden coffer at the end of his huge bed, his dressing gown open to reveal his hairy, plump gut and the tumescence below it.

  By the window, as far from the bed as they could get, Hema and Harsha held onto each other, their small fingers clenched painfully over each other’s skin. The first part of his game had gone well. Cajoling and chastising them he had persuaded them to remove their dresses and under-things. It had taken only a few minutes. Now his captives trembled in misery like sallow, cornered prey.

  ‘Good little girls love lollies. Are you good little girls?’

  Confused, they neither nodded nor shook their heads. Perhaps their tears flowed a little more freely, and the clear mucus from their snivelling noses. Lubricant!

  How he ached for the game to progress.

  ‘Lovely, lolly-loving, luscious little girls. My lolly-licking lovelies. Doesn’t it look tasty?’

  This time both girls shook their heads.

  Magnus roared out delighted laughter.

  ‘Well, now,’ he said. ‘You must both be bad girls in that case.’ He paused to light a cheroot. There was plenty of time. ‘And you know what happens to bad girls in this house, don’t you?’

  They didn’t move. They didn’t want to know.

  They were right not to. He loved each moment of their terror.

  The cheroot twitched between his fingers but he didn’t even notice any more. His head vibrated as though he was repeatedly shaking it – ‘no’ – in the tiniest movements.

  Their little solar plexuses quivered as they tried not to let out their sobs. Their lips were sucked in and out by their hitched breathing.

  ‘In this house,’ he said. ‘I eat bad girls. I chop them up while they’re still begging me to stop and then I eat them. Raw. By the handful.’ He made the motions of chopping and picking up and chewing and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. ‘Mmm. Delicious. Lovely, luscious, tender little girls. My … FAVOURITE!’

  At his shout they started back against the glass of the window. It rattled in its old frame. And then the sobs came out loud and long and he pressed home the advantage.

  ‘SHUT UP THE PAIR OF YOU. Shut your nasty little gobs or I’ll cut you up and eat you right now.’

  They clasped their hands over each other’s mouths to stifle the sobs.

  ‘Now then, who wants a lolly?’

  Like wan Siamese twins they approached him. Like calves.

  He licked his lips.

  Luck, or rather misfortune, brought them to the opening Shanti had told them about. Reluctantly, they’d pressed on past the tower blocks and out further than any of them had been before. In the distance they saw the giant outline of structures built into the air. All of them, even Bruno, were belittled by the vastness of the ruination. They could see no end to it. By comparison the town behind them seemed small.

  They reached a place where the rubble sloped down away from them. Fanning out along the ridge, they picked careful steps downward. Several of the men lost their footing and slid despite the extra care. One of them fell a lot further than the rest.

  Someone shouted, ‘Shit!’

  Bruno looked in the man’s direction.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Andrews disappeared.’

  Bruno clambered across the slope towards him. The hysterical outburst annoyed him. It was a sign the men were on edge. Not thinking right.

  ‘He hasn’t disappeared, you idiot. He’s probably fallen down.’ Bruno neared the spot. ‘Where was he?’

  The man pointed.

  ‘Just over there. He –’

  At that moment Bruno found the place. The rubble was so uniform it hid the contours from casual glances. Even scanning the ground, he’d missed it. And there it was: a dirty great hole in the slope the size of five doorways. He missed his footing and slid towards it. A piece of rusted steel reinforcement saved him from following Andrews down. He grasped it and pulled himself to a safer position.

  ‘Take me as your marker,’ he shouted. ‘And get to the bottom of the slope. There’s a way in right here.’

  Once the men were moving he called out to Andrews several times. Andrews didn’t answer. Losing a man before the action began was bad but he was glad that they weren’t going to have to go in via the bullring. This way would lead them straight to their objective.

  At the bottom of the slope he joined his men; all of them dustier than ever and many with torn coats and trouser legs. The landscape did not yield. Before them was the entrance to the tunnels. Steps led down into darkness but they’d come prepared. Several of the men carried gas lanterns, items soon to be a thing of the past.

  He split his men into seven groups of ten, each with three lanterns. Every man let a short-bladed machete slip down from inside his sleeve. Thongs kept the knives attached to their wrists in case a handle slipped in a sweaty palm. Each knife was a foot in length and ended flat, as though cleanly snapped. This was the Meat Baron’s enforcers’ weapon, a blade for slashing, cutting and chopping.

  Two or three groups at a time, they descended into the darkness.

  The first thing they found was Andrews. His eyes were still open but it was no wonder he hadn’t called back. He’d fallen headlong and landed on his neck. The impact had snapped it and he lay like a discarded toy, legs and arms at ridiculous angles.

  ‘Straighten him up, will you?’

  Bruno said a few words over Andrews and they all continued downward.

  The spaces below the earth were enormous. The bullring was nothing by comparison. Light
from their lanterns didn’t penetrate to the highest ceilings. Then they’d find themselves in long tunnels with the tubed ceilings only a few feet overhead. Similar tunnels with shiny metal steps led them down at steep angles further into the ground.

  Bruno sensed panic in some of them. He could smell their sweat and its soured edge of fear. Without looking he could sense the tightness in the tendons of their machete-holding wrists. Down here in the bowels of an unknown part of Abyrne, a blade was all they had for comfort and for strength. He knew because his own tendons were just as taut.

  The air was stale but not as still as it should have been. Someone had been down there before them or was still there. The air was stirred up somehow – there was dust in it. What should have been undisturbed was not.

  On descending to the third level, with some of the men beginning to reach their limit, Bruno began to see signs of habitation; blankets arranged into seats and bedding; symbols drawn on to walls in charcoal; footsteps in the dust. He wanted to give the men more orders now that they were there. At least give them encouragement, tell them to keep their nerve just a little longer because they almost had their man. He dared not raise his voice to speak though – the less they did to give away their approach the better.

  How long had Collins and his people lived down here? What had they eaten and how had they survived? There was no sign of anything other than their drawings and makeshift cots.

  In the whole place they found only one gas lantern. It was in a dead-ended room where many blankets had been arranged as seats in rows. At the far end there was a space and then room for a single floor-level seat. A preacher and his followers. This was where they had been. This really was Collins’s hideout.

  Bruno turned swiftly and exited the chapel-like room expecting an attack from behind them. Nothing came. There was no one else down there with them.