Angel City

by Mike Ripley

  They creamed him. Working together, they rained blows down on him until he staggered back into the arms of the Grand Vizier, amidst a howling of protest, obscenities and spells from our side. One of the Zombies, a big, thickset guy, made a triumphant gesture with his fist. He reminded me of one of the stewards I knew at the last Guns ‘N’ Roses concert.

  ‘A plan! We need a plan!’ went up the cry from the gallant mercenaries.

  As they got into a huddle to decide tactics, I stepped forward to get a better look at the Zombies, but both were too big for Tigger.

  A torch came on in my face.

  ‘Excuse me, old chap,’ said the Game Guide drily. ‘It’s BBW, isn’t it? Yes, I thought so. Don’t want to worry you, but you’ve just stepped into a mile-deep chasm at the bottom of which are the Quicksands of the Grey Worm.’

  I looked down at the tunnel floor and then realised that everyone else was treating the three planks as a bridge. I hopped back on and whispered, ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Do try and keep up,’ said the Game Guide before flicking off his torch and disappearing into the gloom again.

  There followed a good half-hour’s debate about whether we should rush the bridge or blind the Zombies and free the bird with magic. I was told to drag the fatally wounded Ug out of the action and to heal him. As I did so, trying to remember the spell, he said, ‘Take your time, mate, I’ve done my bit,’ and produced half a cigarette from somewhere inside his furs.

  ‘Got a light, mate?’ he whispered.

  ‘As a matter of fact, yes,’ I said, peeling off my stocking mask and fumbling out the Zippo.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, drawing deeply. ‘Want a pull?’

  I could tell from the smell it was the sharing sort of cigarette.

  ‘Don’t they mind?’ I asked.

  ‘Nah. Most of ‘em are reconstructed hippies round here and the punters are either civil servants or kids who think it’s magical, herbal tobacco.’

  I passed back the joint and asked him if he came here often.

  ‘Only to keep my daughter amused. She’s the one called Canticle. It keeps her off the streets.’

  I marvelled at the fact that he was old enough to have a daughter as big as Canticle. It must be a sign of getting older when even the cavemen appear younger.

  Eventually the Grand Vizier spell-gunned the chained-up woman and got her to reveal she was in fact a Vampire luring us into the red glow. This by all accounts was as potentially damaging as the red glow Ug and I were getting. Anyway, then the Zombies rushed the bridge and there was an almighty punch-up, which the Game Guide had to halt by calling Time Out.

  Once again we were lined up against the wall while he checked off our wounds, use of spells and all that other stuff.

  When he got to me, he paused.

  ‘BBW? Wait, I have to ask, though I know I’ll regret it. What the fuck does BBW stand for?’

  ‘Bishop of Bath and Wells,’ I said honestly.

  ‘This is the labyrinth of Kraal,’ said the Game Guide.

  No it wasn’t. It was half a dozen tea-chests with their bottoms knocked out stacked to look like a honeycomb. But I didn’t say anything.

  ‘Only one of these tunnels is unguarded by the Vampire of Kraal, whose single glance is enough to blind a mortal. You will need volunteers to establish which is the safe tunnel.’

  That sparked off another committee meeting, and although Skullsplitter had been acting like he was our leader for most of the Quest, he wasn’t too keen to go first. I whispered to Canticle that I couldn’t see the problem. So they got blinded; I could heal them. If I remembered the spell.

  ‘Only a magician at the level of the Grand Vizier can heal blindness,’ she said in her don’t-you-know-anything voice. ‘And he is using up his magic too quickly. He will not have the strength to carry on if he has to heal five cases of blindness.’

  ‘Bit like the National Health Service, really, isn’t it?’ I tried jovially, but she was taking it far too seriously. Why couldn’t some kids be more like their parents?

  Then someone volunteered to be first; Doric or Pan, I was past caring which. They advanced cautiously towards the honeycomb, chose a box and began to crawl in. There was an instantaneous blood-curdling scream, and whoever it was came out fast with all engines on reverse warp drive, staggering about and screaming quite realistically.

  At first I thought something dreadful had happened, then I realised that the green jelly dripping from Pan’s or Doric’s face was nothing more than that: green joke-shop gunk.

  ‘Let me risk the Vampire!’ yelled Simeon, charging forward.

  ‘Brave Simeon!’ they all shouted, not giving a toss about poor Pan/Doric who really was blundering into the wall trying to get the green jelly out of his eyes.

  Simeon got the same treatment with the box he chose and, from the sound of things, a couple of whacks with a plastic sword. This time the scream was one of triumph and it came from behind the boxes. If I could have put money on it, I would have bet this was the one Vampire I knew socially.

  I pulled the torch out of the back of my jeans and held it at my side, transferring my sword to my left hand.

  ‘Let me take up the challenge!’ I shouted, partly to drown out Simeon, who was wiping his face with both hands and asking if anyone had a Kleenex.

  ‘Let ... B ... B ... BBW ... take up the challenge!’ they all yelled after an initial hesitation.

  A hand came down on my shoulder. It was the Grand Vizier.

  ‘Angel, are you sure you know what you’re doing?’

  ‘Are frogs waterproof, Grand Vizier? Can’t stop, got a meet with a Vampire.’

  I selected one column of the boxes where three were piled on top of each other and ran towards it. About ten feet away, I turned the torch on and held it out in front of me, aiming at the top box. I caught a glimpse of a white face before I threw the torch into the top box, ducked and started to crawl through the bottom one.

  ‘Put that fucking light out!’ I heard someone curse, and there was more than one cry of ‘That’s cheating’ from behind me.

  I got my shoulders through the bottom box and as the torch was still bouncing light all around, I could quite clearly see a pair of legs wearing black tracksuit trousers in front of me. I put my arms around them and the Vampire of Kraal went arse over tip back against the wall.

  I crawled out and recovered my torch and shone it down. The Vampire was holding his head and moaning. He had dropped a large plastic catapult with an enlarged sling designed to fire great blobs of jelly gunk, and at his side was a bucket of the stuff.

  ‘Hello, Tigger,’ I said. ‘Fancy knocking off early for a pint? I wanted a word, as it happens.’

  When he heard my voice, it clicked. With the stocking over my head, he’d had no idea who had whipped his legs from under him.

  ‘Angel? Is that you? Shit, I might have known.’

  I offered him a hand to help pull him to his feet, not knowing that the real monsters were waiting for us in the outside world.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘The Vampire of Kraal accepts your sacrifice!’ yelled Tigger, switching off my torch and handing it down to me. Then, under his breath, he said: ‘Come on, we can piss off the back way.’

  Behind us, at the entrance to the Vampire’s cave, the jolly questors sounded to be turning on each other.

  ‘A sacrifice! BBW has been sacrificed!’

  ‘Bollocks. That’s not in the rule book.’

  ‘Of all the Undead, the Vampire can transcend the mortal laws.’

  ‘Not at Level Four it naffin’ can’t. Who’s got the Guide to Nether World?’

  ‘Will the Vampire take ransom so we can buy BBW back?’

  ‘This isn’t the fucking Crystal Maze you know.’

  ‘Time Out! Time Out!’ The Game Guide brought them to order
.

  By then Tigger and I were round a corner, him leading, me following blindly. But not totally blindly. There was some light here, and it took me a minute or two to work out that it was coming from Tigger himself. The rugby shirt or whatever it was he was wearing had been decorated with luminous paint, mostly with stars and pentangles to match those on his cheeks in some sort of luminous make-up. He would probably have registered on a Geiger counter.

  ‘How did you find me down here?’ Tigger asked, keeping his voice down.

  ‘Lee sort of indicated you used the Underground but I thought he meant the Circle Line, not this.’

  He was still walking just ahead of me, far surer of his footing than I was on the uneven surface of the cave.

  ‘Usually, he can’t remember what day it is, but I don’t tell him much, for his own good. He’ll blab to anyone. Was he flashing any cash about?’

  ‘Not when I saw him,’ I said truthfully.

  He shot a look at me that I had to take seriously, despite his make-up.

  ‘You didn’t hurt him did you?’

  That threw me for a minute.

  ‘Of course not. Why should I? He’d no idea where you were. He mentioned that you went monstering and I just happened to run into someone who knew the scene down here. That’s the way it happened.’

  He put his head down and walked on. The rock floor inclined upwards now, and there was a cool breeze in our faces. There was also much more light here, though I kept my torch on and pointed at the ground just in front of us.

  ‘You haven’t asked me why I came to find you,’ I said. ‘Or did you have me down for a weekend Vampire hunter all along?’

  He snorted a sort of half-laugh.

  ‘I was always worried about Lee. Like I said, he’s a blabber. That’s why I kept him out of it as much as I could. He never even asked where the money was coming from. Probably wouldn’t have been able to handle it anyway, not all the others. He’s quite loyal in his own little way.’

  Out of it? Out of what? What money?

  ‘But I didn’t think they’d send you, Angel. Good move, though, with us on the same wavelength, so to speak.’

  ‘Tigger, what are you droning on about?’ I snapped. ‘All I’m doing is delivering a message for Bert Bassotti.’

  ‘Oh yeah? That’s all, is it? What, it’s my birthday suddenly?’

  I took a deep breath. Negotiating with the Vampire of Kraal had made sense compared to this. ‘Look, Bert just wants his van back. Tell me where it is and give me the keys and I’ll deliver it. No more hassle. Okay?’

  ‘And you think ...’ He paused. ‘Listen.’

  ‘I can’t hear anything.’

  Then I did. Someone shouting: ‘Begone from our path vile spirits …’ Or similar.

  ‘It’s the next Quest. They’re ahead of schedule,’ hissed Tigger. ‘Come on, your chance to be a monster.’

  Before I could say anything, he grabbed the plastic sword I had been carrying and disappeared. I fumbled the torch to catch a glimpse of his trainers rounding the corner up ahead. I followed, keeping the beam of the torch pointed down at my feet.

  ‘Surprise attack!’ someone yelled. ‘Warriors to the fore! Zombies!’ I realised it was Tigger’s voice.

  Around the corner, the tunnel seemed packed with heaving, screaming bodies. A couple of gamesters had torches, thin pencil-beam ones, and they were waving erratically like the special effects for a Darth Vader sword fight.

  I flicked my torch off so I could follow Tigger by his luminous shirt. He seemed to be laying about him with gusto, swinging the sword and carving a path through the unwitting role players, who were trying to respond as if this had been what they had paid for all along. Once he got through them he’d be away on his toes and I’d never find him. I was pretty sure I couldn’t find the exit without him. What I really needed was a pair of those infra-red goggles that are standard issue to serial killers these days. I did the next best thing and put my head down and charged.

  I was doing quite well getting through the ruck when I was jumped by a caveman. I knew it was a caveman because he had a big plastic club and he shouted ‘Ug!’ a lot. Constantly, in fact.

  He got quite excited when his first blow sent me staggering into the cave wall, and then I guess I must have tripped over my own feet because suddenly I was on my knees and he was standing in front of me, raining blows down on my back.

  I think it wasn’t so much his obvious pleasure in taking his frustrations out on the Undead (a much maligned minority group) as his constant ‘Ug! Ug! Ug!’ chant of victory that finally made me lose my temper. I mean, the guy’s conversation was minimal, bogus and probably sad. So I brought the torch up between his legs, and I was up and running before his plastic club hit the ground.

  A very confused Game Guide was shouting ‘Time Out!’ to calm things down, but I was through them and round another corner. I turned the torch on. The tunnel stretched 20 yards in front of me, but there was no sign of Tigger. There was his shirt though, which he’d abandoned, along with the plastic sword.

  I jogged on, reasoning that the new group must have come in this way so maybe the entrance wasn’t far. Fifty yards further and I risked turning off the torch. There was enough light for me to realise I was in the area where we had first assembled, pretending to be mercenaries drinking at the Last Chance Saloon. I wondered if the bar was still open.

  There were figures up ahead in the tunnel who looked as if they’d already had a few drinks from the way they were bouncing off the walls. Then I realised that only one of them was bouncing – or rather, being bounced.

  I flattened myself against the right-hand wall of the tunnel.

  As I got nearer I could hear what they were saying almost as clearly as I could hear the fleshy thumps as Tigger was slammed repeatedly into the rock.

  ‘... right nice of you to run straight into our arms, that was. Bleedin’ ‘ell, we could’ve spent a month down ‘ere looking for you.’

  There was another thump and a cry as Tigger ricocheted off the wall and into a fist. He doubled up, but managed a ‘Go fuck yourself’ before sinking to his knees.

  Even in the gloom I could sense that the one who was laying into Tigger was enjoying his work. The other, bigger one stood a step away.

  ‘No marks, Sammy,’ he said. ‘Mr Hubbard told us not to mark ‘im.’

  ‘Then let’s get ‘im up and out of this rat hole. These weirdos give me the creeps.’

  The big one stooped over Tigger and pulled him upright, by the hair judging from Tigger’s squealing. I was so close now I could have banged their heads together, but these didn’t strike me as off-duty civil servants playing at cavemen. These were the genuine article.

  ‘Excuse me, are you part of Quest Four?’ I said loudly to curb the tremble in my voice as I switched the torch on them. ‘You have to keep up with the others or you’ll lose points from your game card.’

  Almost instantly I knew it wasn’t going to work.

  The bigger one said ‘Shit!’ and flung up an arm to shield his eyes. The smaller one squinted and looked down, but I saw enough of his weasel profile to know I’d seen him before. He was the Sammy who had been driving the JCB in Bassotti’s yard.

  ‘Do ‘im,’ said Sammy, and I realised he was talking about me.

  But realising it didn’t help avoid it.

  Something swished through the air and I can’t say I remembered feeling it hit me in the side of the face so much as wondering why my head had apparently left my body. Then I wasn’t thinking much about anything. I was just rolling on the ground; ground that I knew to be solid rock but that suddenly felt like the North Atlantic. My whole universe was swelling and rolling like I was bouncing on a giant, cold water bed. I was going to throw up. I was going to try to throw up through a nylon stocking. But I must have done so already because my mouth and ch
in were wet and sticky.

  And I could hear voices; shouting, receding into the distance. No, just one voice. Someone I knew. Tigger.

  Find Tigger. That’s what I was here for. I tried to stand up, but the world was made of mercury and it slip-slided away before I could get a hold on it. And I had lost the torch, but it didn’t seem as dark as it had suddenly.

  The mask. I was still wearing the stocking mask. That was why I couldn’t see properly. I tried to peel it off, but my hands came away wet and slippery. I ran them over the side of my face and it didn’t seem to hurt, but then it didn’t seem to be my face either. Nothing felt familiar.

  Then there was more light. I could see my feet, and that was good because it meant I was upright and moving. And then there were figures coming at me out of the light. More monsters. And that I couldn’t handle. I collapsed and hit my head, and this time it really did hurt.

  ‘Angel? Angel, are you all right?’

  It was Mr Goodson, leaning over me so far that his pointed wizard’s hat seemed almost at right-angles to his head.

  ‘You took your time,’ I said quite clearly.

  ‘What? I can’t understand what you’re saying. Oh, good grief! What have they done to your teeth?’

  The people of the local village were really rather cool about a black Austin taxi being driven through their midst by a guy in full wizard regalia. If they’d got a good look at me flopping about in the back like one of those nodding dogs with the strings cut, they would have called out the Neighbourhood Watch.

  I had caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as Mr Goodson had bundled me in, and that had persuaded me not to try to take the stocking mask off. There was enough blood running down my throat already to convince me that something nasty had happened to the side of my face, and I wasn’t keen to have my suspicions confirmed.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ I said, but it must have come out as something different.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Mr Goodson, mishearing me. ‘I can drive perfectly well. Once did the advanced drivers’ challenge course in the Civil Service Motorists’ Association.’